Written in the Scars (10 page)

I take a hefty breath, only to have it halt in my throat. A flurry of shadowy images whips through my memory, a muddy slideshow . . . except for Ty’s face.

He was with me.

Oh my God.

I try to remember something, anything, that tells me what happened. There’s a blur of memories, of voices, of familiarity, yet nothing concrete.

A nervous energy courses through my body, my skin tingling with the possibility that Ty might still be here.

Dear God, please don’t let him be here. Please don’t let me have done something stupid.

I don’t even know how I will process it if I walk into the kitchen and see him.
Did I sleep with him? Did I tell him about the baby? Oh, God . . .

I open my eyes, hesitating before they flutter awake. Glancing around the room, everything looks completely normal. Nothing moved, nothing out of place. No sign of an argument. No sign of him.

Giving myself a second to adjust to the light, I ignore the throbbing in my head and pull back the covers. My feet on the floor, I stand, wobbling for a second as the alcohol settles in my stomach.

With a sense of anticipation mixed with a heavy dose of dread, I start down the hallway. I listen for the television, for his voice. It’s quiet.

The couch comes into view and I grip the wall for support with one hand, the other covering my mouth. The pillow and blanket from the trunk are in a messy bundle. It’s Ty’s handiwork, the pillow lying length-wise and not horizontally like normal people use it. He always lies with his pillow under his head, neck, and top of his back long-ways.

He stayed with me.

My eyes sting as they fill with hot tears, my headache now blocked by a surge of emotion. With more urgency than I care to acknowledge, I make my way into the kitchen. I’m across the room in half the normal time.

Dashing to the window, only my car is in the driveway. A million questions fight for attention, a thousand possibilities and scenarios race through my mind. I struggle to piece together the events of last night.

I have no idea what happened. Fear hits me hard when I realize that regardless of what occurred—he’s not here. Yet, through it all, a little bubble of happiness sits squarely on my shoulders because
he was here.

It infuriates me that him being here makes me happy. I don’t want to want him. I don’t want to be happy that he gave me a piece of his time, like he can walk back in my life and decide he’ll bestow some attention on me.

God knows what he was doing all day yesterday, or last week, or the month before.

My purse sits on the table. I go to it and rummage around until I find my phone. My finger hovers over Lindsay’s name when I hear tires hitting gravel.

With a lump in my throat, I look out the window. Jiggs waves as he makes his way to the front door. Dropping my phone back in my purse, I head to the front and let my brother in.

“You look like shit,” he laughs, ruffling my hair as he walks inside. “Feel like it too?”

“Pretty much,” I mumble, following him into the living room. He picks up the pillow and blanket, and I automatically open my mouth to object, but shut it quickly. I don’t know what he knows, and I don’t want to muddy the waters.

Jiggs gets comfortable, kicking his feet up on the coffee table and watches me smugly.

“What?” I ask. I plop down in the recliner, my stomach roiling.

He shrugs. “Anything you wanna tell me?”

“No, but I know you know what happened last night, and I’d love to know too.”

“You don’t know?”

He seems surprised, uncrossing him arms. He peers at me through his thick lashes, a gift from our grandma.

“Jiggs,” I ask, my voice unnaturally even, “Did he stay?”

“Yeah. He brought you home from Thoroughbreds.”

My world spins in a mad dose of uncertainty. “Why? Why did he do that?”

Jiggs laughs. “Well, it was him bring you home or let you go home with Pettis.”

“Pettis? I’d never go home with that son of a bitch.”

“You almost did last night,” he cracks.

“Oh my God.” I cover my eyes with my hands, unable to look at him. Unable to look at myself. That’s not like me. If I would’ve been willing to go home with Pettis . . . what else was I capable of doing? Or saying?

My cheeks flush, my stomach rolling again, sloshing with the alcohol that caused this big mess.

No, I caused this big mess. This one is on me. I chose to go to Thoroughbreds with the explicit purpose of getting wasted.

“It worked out well,” my brother says. “Ty walked in and saw it and flipped his lid.”

My chest swells, and I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. “He did?”

There’s no denying that this little tidbit of information feels good. That I was able to get under his skin, even if I didn’t mean to. Score one for the alcohol because I never would’ve attempted such a thing sober.

“He actually carried you out of the pub. I was going to bring you home, but he didn’t really leave it open for debate.”

My gaze falls on the pillow at the other end of the sofa.

“He left around five this morning. He called me when you went to sleep, and I talked to him again this morning. I know you’re thinking a million things, but nothing happened last night. He just put you to bed and slept on the couch.”

Giving that a second to soak in, I imagine what last night must’ve looked like from his perspective—me, drunk, stumbling, and altogether foolish. And he comes in like some kind of savior and brings me home, watches me in my inebriated state.

So not the image I want him to have of me, and Jiggs knows that.

“Damn it, Jiggs.”

“Listen to me. He—”

“No,” I cut him off. “I can’t think about this right now.” I rise off the chair, my stomach all acidy again. “He can’t just waltz back in here and bring me home and see me like that. It’s not okay. And to hell with you for letting him! I’m your sister, James!”

“And he’s your husband.”

I whip around to face him. “Is he? Or did he just see something last night that contested his manhood? Did him seeing me get hit on by Pettis make him go all alpha? Like I was some kind of fire hydrant in a pissing match?”

“Don’t do this.”

“Why? Because he should be allowed to just come and go in my life when he feels like it? Because that’s not happening.”

He sinks back into the sofa and sighs.

My eyes narrow. “You have no idea what he’s put me through.” I’m sure it’s the alcohol that’s still pumping through my body that makes those words sound choppier than I’d like. He doesn’t know I was pregnant. Only Lindsay does, and I swore her to secrecy. The coupling of losing my husband and our baby in the matter of a few short days was just too much humiliation to admit to. I wanted no pity, no casseroles, no cards. I just wanted to be sad. Then bitter. All of it alone if it wasn’t with Ty. I deserved that reprieve and it’s the only secret I’ve kept from my brother.

“I know he’s broken your heart. I get it.”

“No, you don’t,” I laugh angrily. “You don’t have any clue how deep my scars go.”

Jiggs scans my face, trying to see what I mean. He quirks a brow. “I’ll listen if you want to tell me.”

“I don’t.”

Rolling his eyes, his jaw pulls tight. “The two of you are going to be the death of me.”

My heart breaks, but I say the words anyway. “I’m not sure there is a ‘two of us’ anymore.”

We watch each other, a sadness in the room that’s almost as thick as it was the day our parents passed away.

“Jiggs, I’m just . . . I’m really, really tired of this,” I say through the strangle in my throat. “I’m tired of being sad and I’m tired of hoping he’ll come back. Him bringing me home wasn’t him coming back. That was him being jealous and while it’s entertaining and I might even enjoy that a little bit, it’s not us being together,” I sniffle.

Jiggs rises from the couch but doesn’t come towards me. He just stands, shoulders slumped, almost as saddened by this as I am. “When did it get this bad between you two?”

Walking to the mantle, I pick up the picture of us. I trace his jawline with my finger. “I can’t even remember. He was fine after the accident. At first, anyway. Then everything folded on top of itself. I think he got depressed. I know I felt pressure to take care of it all. He received unemployment, but no insurance payout and no overtime. Things got so tight. So I had the infertility money we’d been putting back . . .”

“Ah, Sis.”

“It just started feeling like this black hole, Jiggs. Like everything was shit and we both felt that. There was nothing to look forward to anymore.”

My brother lets out a sigh, his hands clasping in front of him. “I knew he’d withdrawn some. When he put in his resignation from the team, I came over. Asked what was up and he just said he couldn’t do it anymore. I knew that was bullshit because those kids were his everything. But the harder I pushed, the more he refused to talk.”

“Dustin would come by,” I say, my throat tight. “It didn’t help. I didn’t know what to do. I just kept thinking if we could have a baby, that would shine some light on this. Give us something to come together about. Instead, it caused even more stress, and then I had to use the money to live and then I found out he was taking some of it too . . .”

“The perfect storm.”

“Yeah.” Shaking my head, the fatigue of the situation drops hard. I sit the picture on the mantle. “Maybe we grew apart. That happens.”

My voice breaks and as my eyes fill, my entire body begins to shake. Jiggs crosses the room and brings me into a hug just as my heart starts to splinter.

“I feel like I’ve just waited on a day when I would wake up and this would all be some joke, some nightmare. But it’s not, Jiggs. This is real. And it’s time I accept that. It’s time I accept that so much has happened between us that can’t be repaired.”

I shake as I admit out loud, for the first time, what I know is the truth. My marriage is over.

TY

“I haven’t seen you around here in a while,” Melissa, the girl that works at Sullivan’s most afternoons drawls, giving me a flirty smile as she takes my money. “Where’ve you been, handsome?”

“Around.”

“I’ve missed that smile of yours.”

I place a candy bar on the counter.

“No chew today?” she asks, obviously proud of herself for remembering what I usually get every afternoon.

“Nah, I quit.” I don’t go into the explanation that I really don’t chew it anyway, that it’s some kind of habit that I’ve had since I was a teenager—buying the can, sticking it in my pocket, then giving it to some poor bastard that asks if he can borrow some.

“You coaching again?” she asks, not missing a beat. “We need you. The newspapers from Indianapolis say we have a chance at a state title this year.”

I shrug, ignoring the little bud of pride that unfolds in my stomach. “They’re a good group of boys,” I concede. “They can do big things this year. Reynolds will have them ready.”

“I guess. We’ll miss you on the court.” She hands me my receipt. “Don’t be a stranger, Ty.”

I take my change and ignore her invitation that didn’t have to be spoken. Swiping my candy off the counter, I walk out. The sun is bright, despite the ominous clouds rolling in from the west. Squinting, I take a sip of my drink and make my way to my truck. I look up when I hear the distinct roar of Cord’s diesel.

He bursts through the parking lot of Sullivan’s and slides his truck in beside mine, the tires squealing as they lock in place. Flicking off the ignition, he grins. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I stop at the bed to give Yogi a scratch behind his ears. “What are you doin’?”

“Not much. Was taking Yogi out to Busseron Creek before this storm hits, maybe do a little fishing. I thought I’d swing in and see if you wanna go?”

I shrug. “Nah, thanks for the offer though.”

“You got something better to do?”

“Not really.” I look at my friend and laugh. “Wanna tell me what you said to Pettis last night?”

He smirks, trying to stifle a laugh. “I just properly advised him of his rights.”

“His rights?”

“Yeah, his rights.” He pulls off his hat and roughs his hand through his hair. “His rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I explained those were his Constitutional rights. However, those don’t apply to dead men and if he is seen anywhere near Elin Whitt again, I’m afraid his rights would be terminated.”