Written in the Scars(32)

For every decision we made, inside joke only we understand, every minute we’ve spent loving each other.

For the two babies we lost, one he doesn’t even know about, I cry.

This is this most peace I’ve had since he walked out the door. A bottomless pit of sadness, sure, but there’s a stillness in this moment that allows me the opportunity to just mourn everything I’ve been up until this moment. Because when I pull back, I will never be this person again.

Even though I haven’t done it, even though I’m not sure I could’ve done it if I had the money, it’s inevitable. My heart knows it. My fears feed it. My soul loathes it.

Never again will I know the feel of his arms around me, the warmth of his breath on my cheek. Never again will I hear his heartbeat in his chest or feel the roughness of the palms of his hands on the small of my back.

I love him. Damn it, I love this man so f*cking much.

His shirt stains with my tears, my body shaking like a leaf in his arms. I don’t bother trying to control it because this isn’t something that can be reined in for any reason.

Ty holds me, occasionally shushing me like he would when I heard a story about a disadvantaged child at school and would come home in tears or like he does when I cry at the end of Steel Magnolias. He strokes my back with such tenderness that even though he’s the enemy, he still feels like my best friend. And that little fact is going to be the hardest to get over, if I ever can.

My phone rings in my pocket, breaking the tranquility of possibly the last good moment of my life. I press one final kiss into the center of Ty’s chest and don’t look him in the eye as I pull back and answer the call.

“Hey, Linds,” I try to say. It comes out as a fuzzled blurb. “Ty’s here.”

“Oh, shit,” she murmurs. “Do you want me to come over? Do you want me to send Jiggs by?”

Taking a deep breath, I look up. He’s watching me, a need in his eye that I can’t deny. I know we are going to have to have this conversation. We owe it to the life we’ve shared.

“No, I’m good,” I lie.

She sighs into the line. “If you’re sure . . .”

“I’m not sure about anything,” I laugh, sniffling back tears. “But I’m okay. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you later.”

“Make sure you do that,” she says as I end the call.

Wincing as my temples begin to ache, I rub the sides of my head. Without looking or acknowledging Ty, I head down the hall and enter the bedroom. I pop a couple of pain relievers without even a drink, sucking them down dry.

I’ve never felt this way in my life. It’s a mixture of terror and anxiety, yet in the midst of the chaos, there’s a smidgen of calm.

Inhaling a deep breath, the air is filled with his cologne. The scent takes me back to another time, and as I sense his proximity to me, knowing he’s standing at the door watching me, I would give virtually anything to open my eyes and have this entire part of my life erased. I would go back to the day he signed up at Blackwater Coal and forbid him from working there.

That’s what caused this. His injury. Things were never the same after that.

“Elin?”

His voice brings me back to the bedroom and the current situation. I don’t answer because I don’t trust my voice. I also don’t respond because I don’t know how to deal with the emotion in his. It’s not anger and it’s not fury, it’s something else. Something so much more real that I don’t have a default answer for.

“Did you file for divorce today?” he asks.

“I found out what I have to do and how much it’s going to cost,” I whisper.

“What the hell, Elin?”

There’s a drip of franticness in his tone now too that stirs up the same feeling inside me.

“Aren’t ya going to say anything?” he asks. He moves closer behind me, within touching distance, but he doesn’t reach out, and I’m glad for that.

“What is there to say?” I reply simply, looking at the picture of a landscape over the bed.

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe . . . why? Why you thought you should end our marriage and not even say something to me first? I was here last night and you didn’t say anything. Hell, Elin. We were together last night.”

Shrugging, I turn slowly to face him. His eyes are wild, his hands laced together at the back of his neck—maybe to keep from reaching out for me, I don’t know. But it’s a good idea, so I stick mine in the pockets of my jeans for the same reason.

“I just got it over with,” I say. “It was inevitable.”

He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You’re f*cking crazy.”

“I’m f*cking crazy? I’ve been right here, Tyler. Where have you been?”

“Damn it, Elin,” he groans, pacing a circle in the middle of the bedroom floor.

“Damn it, Elin?” I repeat. His words stoke some life back into me, diffuse some of the numbness I’d begun to feel.

“I never said I wanted a divorce from you!” he booms.

“Sometimes actions speak louder than words.”

“Yeah, you’re right—they f*cking do! What was last night? Was that my way of asking you to see about a divorce? You think I came over here and held you in my arms so you’d get the picture I didn’t want to be with you anymore? Don’t lie to yourself, Elin, and don’t lie to me either.”