Written in the Scars(27)

I hate this. Lindsay should be asking me to throw a baby shower, having me help pick out names. Instead, she’s not discussing it with me and I’m not bringing it up and it’s just wrong on every level.

It has to stop.

I gulp.

It’s going to stop.

Ruby picks up on the awkwardness and clears her throat, backing away. “I understand. And like I told you earlier, no matter how much you try, I won’t serve you caffeine. It’ll be milkshakes for a while. Or juice. But the acid won’t do you any favors.” She goes back to the sink and Lindsay looks at me out of the corner of her eye.

“How are you feeling?” I ask her.

“Good.”

“When are we going shopping and buying all the things?”

A wide, genuine smile splits her cheeks. “I want to. Now,” she giggles. “I just don’t want to make you feel awkward in any way.”

“Stop worrying about me! You are having a baby,” I grin. “I am so ridiculously happy for you, and I want in on everything. And I mean everything. The only weirdness is you avoiding me.”

She blinks back tears and laughs at herself. “I’m so hormonal. Jiggs is afraid to say anything because I just start crying. Poor guy,” she says, wiping her eyes with a napkin.

“I think it’s going to get worse,” I tease.

“I don’t know how,” she says, laughing at herself. “I’m worried about everything from the health of the baby to the best kind of crib to if I can nurse to if we should move to Florida.”

I toss her a pointed glare. “We’re still talking about Florida? Why?”

“I’m scared, Elin. What if we can’t support a baby here? It’s not just about us now.”

“No, it’s not. But . . . have you talked to Jiggs about it?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes and it goes nowhere.”

I find a little satisfaction in that, that my brother wouldn’t just up and leave me.

She digs around in her purse and places her money next to mine. “So, what are you doing in here at two-thirty in the afternoon?”

“I took a half day today,” I say, fiddling with my keys. “I had some errands I needed to run.”

“Things you can’t take care of after school?” she asks, picking holes in my obvious excuse.

“Yup.”

“Okay,” she says, drawing out the last syllable. She drinks the rest of her milkshake, slurping the last few inches from the glass like a little kid. “There. I’ve given you a few seconds. Now you can start all over.”

Glancing at the clock, I settle my purse on my shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t take half days, Elin. What’s wrong?”

The somberness in her voice is enough to break me, but I don’t want to do that in front of Ruby. I don’t even want to do it at all in public because the first breakdown—because I’m sure there will be more than one—should be somewhere private so I can just ugly snot down my face. That can get disgusting. I know because it looked exactly like that last night when I looked in the mirror.

I watched myself cry. It’s not the first time I’ve done that. But it is the first time I felt calm instead of being frantic. Quite possibly, it was closure settling over me.

For a brief moment in the hallway of the home we once shared, we were us. The old us. The people that promised so many things to one another. But once we pulled back, that moment was over.

I didn’t want to see the secrets in his eyes. The questions on my tongue were so dirty, so insane to consider that it felt like a slap in the face. The sting of abandonment was so piercing that I just couldn’t imagine it ever completely going away.

The foundation of a marriage is love. The walls of a shared life are built with trust, loyalty, and respect. Once those are torn down, there’s nothing left standing.

I love him, but that’s clearly not enough.

It took everything I had to make the call this morning, including vomiting my breakfast in the toilet first. But it had to be done. I need to see what options there are and what I can afford.

Lindsay watches my hand tremble as I pick up my drink and refuse to look her in the eye.

“Elin?”

“I have an appointment.”

“With?”

“Eric Parker.”

Her hand flies to her mouth and she pulls me to her with the other. I push away because hugging my best friend before I do the deed will inevitably have me walking in the attorney’s office with wet cheeks.

“Why, Elin? Did something happen?”

“I’m just going in to see what my options are. I probably can’t afford to file anything anyway.”

“Jiggs said—”

“I don’t care what my brother said,” I say, turning towards the door. She follows behind me, her hand on my shoulder. “Do you know how mentally f*cked up this is making me?”

“I can’t imagine,” she whispers.

“It’s like a special form of torture and the longer I let it go, the murkier it’s going to get.”

“I get that, but . . .”

A sob roots itself at the base of my throat. When I look at her, the tears blur her face. “He’s going to break my heart. I know it,” I sniffle, trying desperately to compose myself. I shake my head, warning her not to try to hug me. “We can have sex, but we can’t talk. He tried to talk, but I don’t want to hear what he has to say.”