Written in the Scars (3 page)

“Uh—” Lindsay starts, but I cut her off.

“That’s my husband,” I growl, sliding off the plastic chair and letting it twirl round and round as I barrel my way out the back door.

TY

The leaves managed to turn colors and dry up to nothing while I was gone. They blow in the breeze and rattle as they bounce down the path that leads to the detached barn on Jiggs’ property.

I wonder if Elin has brought out an old pair of jeans and sweatshirt and filled them with leaves. It’s one of her favorite things to do this time of year, and I get roped into it without fail. I’ve wondered about it a handful of times, but I haven’t driven past the house to see if the scarecrow is there. I’ve been in town long enough to see her car behind Blown and pull in.

That wasn’t the plan. Sure, seeing her was the ultimate objective, but I was going to sort it out once I got here. Talk to Jiggs. See where things stand. But I saw her car at Blown—the truck pulled in on its own.

The sound of Jiggs banging on metal rings down the path. I have half a notion to get back into my pick-up and leave. Even though he’s my best friend, he’s Elin’s twin brother, and their relationship is much more than your normal sibling banter. Their parents died in a boating accident six years ago, not long after our wedding, and that brought the two of them, although already close, even closer.

Seeing Jiggs should be interesting. We haven’t talked since I left town either. I’m a jackass for just dropping by, springing this on him, but he’s my best friend—the status of my marriage notwithstanding. At least, I hope so.

“What’s up?” Jiggs asks, bringing me out of my reverie as I approach the barn door. “It’s about time you show up. I need help getting this thing running.”

“You’re a shit mechanic.” Relief washes over me at his easy, nonviolent, greeting.

He nods and leans against the doorframe of the rusty truck, the paint peeling off the antiquated structure. “Truth. But that’s why we’re friends. You’re not.”

“Asshole,” I laugh, grasping his shoulder as I pass deeper into the barn.

“What made you decide to bless us with your presence?” The caution is there, the yellow flag warning me to proceed carefully. That he’s Elin’s brother before he’s my friend.

I knew coming back to town would mean answering for things. Looking into the eyes of the people I care about and seeing fury or annoyance . . . or a broken heart. Imagining how to handle the judgement was easier in the farmhouse, fifty miles away.

“You gonna answer me, Whitt?” His work gloves come off and go hurling across the barn. “I’m glad to see that ugly mug of yours, but you have some explaining to do.”

“I know.” Cringing and gathering whatever pride I can find lying around, I suck in a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Not good enough.”

“What do you want to know?” I ask, unsure where to even start. Everything is so scrambled, I don’t know which way to go.

“Where the hell you been?”

“North of Terre Haute. Cecil Kruger’s farm. He was a friend of my dad’s back in the day.”

“You didn’t think to call? To answer any of our thousands of fucking calls?”

My head drops, my gaze landing on a discarded pop tab in the dirt floor. “I smashed my phone and didn’t replace it. I was going to . . .” My chin lifts. “I’ll be honest with ya, Jiggs. The quiet was nice. No fighting. No reminder of how fucked up I am or how fucked up everything is.”

“So you just fucked it up worse?” he laughs angrily.

“I figured it might do Elin and I both some good to take a break. To, you know, have some time to think about things.”

Dust covers my boot as I kick the ground, waiting on him to reply. I’m at his mercy. Whatever he doles out, I deserve.

“Why did you come back? Why now?” he asks finally.

“Because it’s time.”

Our eyes meet over the hood of the truck. He searches mine, looking for the meaning of my words. Together, our heads begin to nod in understanding.

“You can’t expect things to go back to the way they were,” he says, picking up a wrench.

“I don’t.”

“Then what do you expect?”

It’s a simple question. One I can’t answer. I don’t even know what I have to come home to. My wife hates me. My best friend is skeptical of me. I even resigned from coaching the high school basketball team before I left, the one true passion of my life. What’s left?

“Why didn’t you come talk to me? Or to Cord, if you didn’t want to talk to me about things with my sister? Why let it get like this, Ty?”

“I wish I knew,” I mutter.

Jiggs sighs, resting his forearms on the truck’s frame. “We worried about you. No one could get ahold of you. Elin was a fucking disaster, Ty, and I honestly thought she was going to have a breakdown. The only person to see you was Pettis—”

“Woah, wait. Pettis?”

“Yeah. Said he saw you in Rockville a couple weeks ago.”

Racking my brain for where Pettis would’ve seen me, I come up blank. I didn’t see him. I wasn’t anywhere to see him to begin with. Before I can think it through, Jiggs speaks.

“Part of me wants to kill you and toss you in the lake back there,” he says, jutting his thumb over his shoulder.

“Might be easier.”

“Oh, it would. Which is exactly why I won’t do it.”

“Pussy,” I tease.

Jiggs laughs, shoving away from the truck. “Why did you leave?” Before I can answer, his gaze narrows. “The real reason, Ty. Cut the shit. Give it to me straight.”

“You know what it was?” I ask, a burn igniting in my chest. “It was like getting smashed by the timber at work destroyed my entire life.”

The pain in my core smolders, taking the loneliness of not having Elin, the loss of my team, the fury of losing everything I’ve ever wanted and worked for, and stokes the flames until it’s scalding.

“You can’t go through all that, Ty, and not come out affected. Your leg was snapped in half a couple of hundred yards below the surface of the earth. We carried you out on a stretcher.” His tone is somber. “We thought you were going to fucking die. That’ll mess with you.”

I nod. “Yeah, but I could’ve stayed sane. I could’ve managed everything better, but I didn’t. I let my marriage go to shit. I walked away from the team.”

They should’ve started practice this week. I looked at my watch at exactly five-o’clock on Monday and imagined them lined up at half-court, wondering why Reynolds was in front of them and not me.

I wonder what they thought, what they were told. How many voice messages were left in my inbox by them—Dustin, in particular. He’d have taken my leaving the hardest of them all and I should’ve reached out. But I didn’t. I failed them all too.

“It was the right choice,” I say aloud, maybe more for myself than for Jiggs.

“Maybe. But you aren’t just their coach. You’re their friend, their go-to. You can’t just say fuck it.”

“I already did.”

He looks at me and waits.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” I admit. “Elin hates me.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

“I wish I could hate her.”

Throwing me another cautionary glance, he strolls across the barn and gathers his gloves. “What are you gonna do? What’s the plan, Sir Fuck Up? I know you went to Blown. Lindsay called, said Elin left right after you.”

“I’ll put it to you like this—my first move didn’t go as expected.”

“You couldn’t have expected her to run to you. Cord calls her Pit Bull for a reason.”

I can’t fight the grin that spreads across my lips. Her fire and her fight are my favorite things about her. “I didn’t,” I admit. “But I didn’t expect such a coldness from her. Like she despises me.”

“Can you blame her?”

“No,” I gulp. “But she told me to leave—”

“I don’t give a fuck what Lindsay tells me,” Jiggs barks, his eyes lighting up, “I’m not leaving her. I don’t give a damn if she throws my shit in the yard and kicks my ass out the door, I’ll sit on the stoop until she lets me back in. Get my drift?”

“I was at fucking rock bottom,” I toss back, offended that he thinks I just took a vacation from my life. “Don’t you get that? The accident, the pain, the bills adding up because there’s no overtime. Watching E have to kill herself to keep us both going when that’s my fucking job! Having to get into the savings fund we’d been putting aside for years to get in-vitro. I couldn’t even fuck my wife without it being on some motherfucking calendar! Then, month after month, she takes the goddamn test and it’s negative and I have to look at her face and realize it’s me that failed her!” I shout, my face hot to the touch. “Damn it, Jiggs! I didn’t leave her because it sounded easier! There was no other choice!”

“I had no idea,” he whispers, his face paler than I’ve ever seen it.

Turning away from him, I drag lungful after lungful of air into my body and focus on calming down. When I turn back around minutes later, Jiggs is sitting on a cooler watching me.

“I just wanted to make things better,” I say. “I couldn’t stand fighting with her. There’s nothing worse than looking in the face of the person you love and seeing . . . disgust. Indifference. Wondering if she thinks you’re lazy or worthless or feels like you can’t even do your job and give her the baby you’ve both talked about since before you were even married.”

“Ty, man, I really didn’t know.”

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE? DO YOU KNOW HOW EMASCULATING IT IS TO NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY FUCK YOUR WIFE?” I PAUSE, LETTING THAT SINK IN. “THE ONE TIME SHE GOT PREGNANT, SHE MISCARRIED. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT A FEW YEARS AGO? YEAH, WELL, SHE NEVER GOT OVER THAT. MAYBE IT WOULD’VE EASED UP IF I COULD’VE MADE IT HAPPEN AGAIN, BUT
I FUCKING CAN’T
!” I SCREAM. “I SWEAR TO GOD, IT’S JUST TOO MUCH PRESSURE. THAT’S THE PROBLEM.”

“It all came to a head the day I left,” I say, a hollowness to my voice that even I hear. “We lashed out. I think the hurt we both were feeling just hid behind so much anger. It’s easier to be pissed off than to feel pissed on all the time.”

Shaking my head, I lean against a work table. Saying this aloud to someone else feels good. Feels manageable. Jiggs offers nothing in response, so I keep going. “She told me to leave, and I left. I figured it couldn’t get any worse if I left, and it sure as shit wasn’t going to get any better if I stayed.”

“I miss her,” I sigh. “No matter what I try to think about, it’s related to her. High school. The mine. The lake.” My jaw clenches as I look at him. “Our lives are one and the same, you know? Everything we’ve been through in our lives we’ve done together. I held her hand at your parent’s funeral, remember your mom’s lemon pie every time I go through the produce section. I know she hates storms and love being there for her when she reaches out.”

“So fix it.” Jiggs raises his brows. “Go to her. Talk it out.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” he laughs. “You’re just a pussy.”

“Maybe I am,” I chuckle. “But I’m afraid I’ll make it worse.”

Jiggs rustles through a red cooler and pulls out a beer. “Want one?” he asks, extending a bottle.

“No. Thanks anyway.”

The top flies off and hits the dirt floor. He takes a long swallow, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “You coming by the bonfire tomorrow night?”

“I’ll pass.”

“You can’t pass, asshole. We do it every year.”

Grabbing a wrench, I start to work on the truck’s alternator. “Yeah, we always have. But some things have changed.”

“Maybe in your life, but your issues aren’t fucking up mine. You better show up or I might have to kick your ass.” He waits for me to respond. “Elin’s not coming, if that helps.”

“Where’s she going?” I ask too quickly.

“Some teaching thing or something,” he says, his voice on the bridge of a laugh. “So be here.”

“We’ll see.”

He leans under the hood with me, holding a wire out of my way. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye.

“By the way,” I say, smirking. “You can’t whip my ass. Let’s not get it twisted.”

He laughs, smacking my shoulder. Walking out of the barn, he leaves me with his broken truck and my thoughts of the woman I love too much to even love at all.