Written in the Scars (17 page)

ELIN

The door groans as my husband walks out. I hold my breath, half hoping he bursts back in, half hoping I hear his truck start.

In a few moments, the latter happens and I exhale. It’s shaky, wobbly, and I try to stay as quiet as possible as I listen to him back down the driveway and take off down the street.

Glancing around the room, his energy is still here. Although I told him to go, although he needed to go because him staying here would only make things harder in the long run, I miss him immediately.

My skin still sings from his touch. His cologne lingers on my shirt, the air kissed by his presence. This is going to be much, much harder than I even thought.

My phone chirps beside me and I pick it up.

“Hey,” I say, clearing my throat.

“Hey, Elin. It’s Cord.”

I smile at the sound of my friend’s voice. “What’s up?”

“I was with Ty when he heard what Pettis had to say. I figured I’d drive by and see if he was there. You know, make sure he’s not going to get arrested tonight or anything,” he says as lightly as he can. “I saw him just pull out of your driveway but he won’t answer his cell.”

Gulping back a sob, I don’t know what to say. “Ty’s fine.”

“How are
you
?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

“I’m in front of your house. Do you want me to stop?”

His headlights shine through the living room window and instant relief washes over me. “Yeah, why don’t you?”

The call ends and within a few seconds, he raps on the front door. I venture to the living room and let him in.

Cord steps inside, wearing a pair of dark denim jeans, a white t-shirt, and a brown fleece jacket. He looks like the requisite boy-next-door with his clean cut good looks and simple, easy nature. “How are you?” he asks, shrugging off his flannel jacket. “Damn, it’s hot in here.”

“I keep it warm,” I say, glancing at the thermostat. “Ty always kept it cooler . . .”

My eyes wet at the sound of his name. I remember all the arguments we’d have over the thermostat, how one of us would change it and the other would change it right back. It was really one of the only things we just couldn’t agree on.

Cord watches me carefully. “Did you really file for divorce today?”

I slump on the sofa. “No. I just went to see how to do it.”

“That’s pretty big,” he comments, sitting in the chair across the room. “Did you mean it?”

“I did it, didn’t I?”

“That doesn’t mean you wanted to.”

My head in my hands, I feel a bone-crushing exhaustion settle in.

“I’m going to be honest,” Cord says, interrupting my thoughts. “You don’t look like a woman that just did something she believes in.”

“I did what I had to do, Cord.”

“Nah, I don’t think so.”

“What in the world do you know about my marriage? How do you know what I did or didn’t have to do?” I ask, annoyed.

“Because no one has a gun pointed to your head telling you to talk to an attorney or they’re pulling the trigger,” he says, completely unaffected by the look I’m shooting him. “You saw someone about a divorce. That’s no small thing.”

“No shit,” I mock, shaking my head.

Cord sighs and sits back in the chair. “I hate this.”

“Yeah, well, join the crowd.”

His brows shoot to the ceiling.

“Of course I hate this,” I whisper, flopping back against the cushions. “Do you think this was the way I saw my life going?”

“Then let’s hold up here and figure out a way around it.”

“There is no way around it, Cord,” I snip.

The corner of his lip turns up and he narrows his eyes. “Then you aren’t the lady I thought you were.”

“Excuse me?”

He shrugs. “I gave you way too much credit, Elin.”

“What?” I lean up, flabbergasted. “You gave me too much credit? Fuck you, Cord.”

He laughs and that only makes me madder.

“So I’m the bad guy in this?” I fire. “Somehow I’m the asshole because I want to know my options? Ty can take the liberty to do whatever the hell he wants while I’m here losing our b—”

I clamp my mouth shut right before spilling my secret. A storm rolls across his features as his eyes draw to my hands on my stomach and then back up to me.

“Don’t,” I war, my voice teetering as I await his response.

He exhales, the breath whistling between his teeth. “Things are starting to get a little clearer.”

“I’m happy for you. Now you can go and take all that extra credit you threw my way with you. And keep your mouth shut about . . . whatever it is you think you’ve figured out,” I warn as angrily as I can, shoving my hands in my pockets and away from my stomach.

He doesn’t move, just watches me. “I still think I gave you too much credit,” he says finally.

My arms fly in the air. “Cord, I’m about two seconds from punching you in the face.”

“Thank you,” he snickers. “You just proved my point.”

“And how’s that?”

“You
are
a fighter,” he says, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Always have been. Do you remember the time Gabrielle Donaldson got suspended for fighting back when that new girl jumped her in the hallway? And then three days later, the center for the basketball team got into a fight and didn’t get shit because it was Sectional week?”

“Yeah,” I laugh. “I went to the office and called bullshit. I about got myself suspended over that. Principal Mackey is an idiot. It’s why I give him hell now with the boys. Payback.”

“Exactly. You’ve always been the person to go to bat for someone when you feel something’s not right. You do it for the kids in the school, you went to Mackey this year when James got in trouble, remember that?”

I nod, not seeing where this is heading. “Cut to the chase.”

“Look, you fight for everyone and everything. Why aren’t you fighting for your marriage?”

“Don’t even come at me with that!” I shout, rising up off the couch.

“I’m coming at you with this because it’s what you need to hear, darlin’.”

“You have no idea what I need to hear!” My blood soars past my ears, my jaw clenching so hard it hurts. “You can’t come in here and tell me what I should do or how I should feel. You don’t know what I’ve been through!”

I can’t look him in the eye and see the pity. The weight of his stare is enough to let me know that he does know, or has a very good idea, of what I’ve been through.

Cord is standing in front of me, drawing me to his chest before I know it. His hug is simple, a platonic act that I need more than I even realized. When he pulls back and smiles at me, I’m a little steadier.

“I’m not judging you,” he says, his rich voice soft. “I’m just telling you that you should’ve trusted your gut.”

“How do you know what my gut says?”

“Will you stop answering me with questions?” he chuckles. “Elin . . .”

He walks in a circle before stopping by the entertainment center. He lifts a framed photograph of all of us—me, him, Ty, Jiggs, and Lindsay—a couple of weeks after graduation. We are at the lake, huge smiles and peace signs flipped up for the camera.

“I know how easy it is to get drawn into your head,” he says. “It’s easy as hell to sit around and think about everything that’s wrong and think of a way out because you’re desperate for the pain to end.”

He looks at me again, his eyes somber. “Graduation was hard on me. Everyone was so happy, planning their lives, you know?” He forces a swallow, his hand holding the photograph dropping to his side. He twists it back and forth and back again. “I just kept thinking how I was officially on my own.”

“Cord, that wasn’t true,” I say hurriedly.

“No, it was. My foster parents made it clear they were taking on another kid and I needed to find a place to go. They didn’t get the check from the state after that and they needed that income. I get it, I mean, that was their job, but I had a week to find a way to take care of myself.”

“Fostering a child shouldn’t be a job,” I say, my heart rate spiking. “You should take a child in because you love them. Not for a paycheck.”

His shoulders rise and drop. “It was what it was. I don’t know why I thought they’d be there after that. I guess because I was with them the longest out of all the foster homes I was in. It was my mistake.”

“Cord—”

He cuts me off with the wave of his hand. “So we were at the lake that day, all of us, and you were all going on about your plans and all that, and I just kept thinking how fucked I was. I didn’t know where I was gonna sleep in a few days. You all were having these huge parties thrown for you by your families, and I had a week to get out of my family’s house.”

“Oh, Cord,” I say, reaching for his hand.

He smiles, but doesn’t take it.

“That night,” he says, his voice gruff, “I went out to Dugger Lake. The same place I had sat with my mom when she visited me the only time in my life. I sat on the old railroad tracks that go over the water and thought about what options I had. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt.”

“Rightfully so,” I say, taking his hand in mine, even though he tries to pull it back. “Cord, you couldn’t help what your parents or what your foster family did to you. You had every right to feel bad about that! You were eighteen years old.”

“Did you know Jiggs and Ty found me that night?”

I look deep into his eyes, darker than I’ve ever seen them. A cold chill rips through me.

“No,” I say. “I don’t remember them saying anything.”

He slips his hand out of mine and sets the picture back on the shelf. “Well, they did. To this day, I don’t know if it was happenstance or if they were looking for me, but they caught me about thirty seconds from jumping off those tracks.”

“You would’ve died!”

“That was the point.”

“Cord!” I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth.

“I know,” he says simply. “Crazy, right? But at that moment in my life, everything looked hopeless and I was on the brink of making an
insane decision
. I just wanted the hurt to stop. I wanted the decisions made. I wanted to stop being different. If they hadn’t come when they did . . .” He turns and touches me on the nose. “I wouldn’t be here.”

Stunned, I walk backwards until the backs of my legs hit the sofa and I fall onto the cushions.

“That man of yours and your brother saved my life, Elin.”

A plethora of memories overtakes me and everything falls into place. “That’s why you stayed with us right after that.”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “And why your dad got me on at the mine, because Jiggs begged him to help me.”

“How did I never know this?”

“It’s not something you want broadcast,” he laughs. “You and Lindsay have always been so sweet to me. Good girls, the both of you. You have no clue how many times in my life you’ve made me smile, and it was the only time I felt happy some days.”

Words fail me. There’s no way to respond to that.

“You guys have been the only consistent thing in my life. Y’all have never turned your backs on me.”

“We’re your friends, Cord,” I choke out.

“Fuck that. You’re my family. The only family I have.”

His words are crisp and clear and they fall hard on my heart.

“That’s why I’m here. Because I can’t sit back and watch you make this mistake. You all have pulled me up many times in my life, and I have to try to pull you up now.”

“Whoa,” I say, still trying to come to terms with Cord’s story. “My marriage and what happened to you are two different things.”

“Not really,” he says easily. “You and I both got sunk by a set of circumstances and made decisions in the throes of the moment. Neither of which were good, clear-headed decisions.”

“What do you want me to do, Cord?” I sigh. “Everything is broken. I can’t trust him. I can’t tell him . . . things,” I gulp, “that a woman should want to tell her husband.”

“You should tell him about . . . that.”

“Why? Help him feel better about his decision? That I have some fatal flaw and can never give him what he wants?”

Both hands on his hips, he shakes his head. “You know there isn’t a lot of difference between what you say Ty did to you and what you did to him.”

Flabbergasted, my jaw drops to the floor. “
Ty left me
, Cord. He. Left. Me. He took off out of here, on fucking drugs from what I hear, and left everyone that loved him. I can’t just brush that under the rug.”

“He was trying to deal with things. He made a decision in the middle of a bunch of shit, just like I did, and just like you are doing. See how stupid that is?”

I start to talk, but he waves me off.

“And as far as you not doing anything to him . . .”

He looks at my stomach for a long moment. I flinch under his scrutiny, his observation piercing me to the point it almost hurts.

Covering my belly with my hand, to somehow protect my secret and my pride, I can’t respond to his insinuations. I’m terrified to go there.

He nods, tearing his eyes away from mine. “I’m sorry, Elin.”

A single tear drips down my cheek, the simple words the first time anyone has had the chance to comfort me since the loss besides Lindsay. The words are almost a warm blanket over my torn soul, soothing the ragged, lonely edges from losing something so precious.