Written in the Scars(9)

Rising, I grab a pillow and a blanket out of another bag and toss them on the futon. It’s going to kill my back to sleep here, but I have no inclination to get a bed. Buying furniture seems like planting roots somewhere, admitting that my marriage is over, and while I know it just might be, I can’t see physical proof of that.

I might sleep on a futon for the rest of my life.

Getting as comfortable as possible, I try to block out Elin and focus on what I need to do. Yet her face slips across my mind as my eyes drift closed.

“Remember the good that used to be in me, Elin,” I whisper, the words skirting past the lump in my throat.

Not the failure.

Not the weakness.

Not the man sitting on the couch popping pain pills with no job.

I swallow, forcing the lump down, and try to remember every line in her face. “I’m sorry, baby,” I whisper again. “I’m so f*cking sorry.”





ELIN


“When do you start at Ashby Farms?” I ask Jiggs, watching him take a marshmallow out of a bowl on the middle of his kitchen counter and pop it in his mouth.

“Monday. It’s harvest time, so it’ll be solid work for a while. Hopefully long enough for me to figure something else out.”

“I wish someone else would start hiring permanently,” I sigh. “I hate that the mine is basically your only hope for a consistent job.”

“Even it’s not consistent now.” Jiggs shrugs, swiping another marshmallow. “It’s good money though. I’ll be glad to go back.”

I watch him toss the candy in the air and try to catch it in his mouth. “Mom didn’t want you working there.”

“No, but she would’ve understood. It’s Jackson, Elin. It’s what we do here. Grandpa did it. Dad did it. It’s our life. You know that.” He tosses it up again. When it hits the floor, he looks at me and smiles. “May as well get used to it.”

He leans over the island and presses his lips together, holding steady until Lindsay gives in and kisses him.

Laughing, he swipes another pillow of sugar. “I gotta figure something out, right?” He catches Lindsay’s eye and they exchange a look that piques my interest.

“What am I missing?” I ask, furrowing my brow. Before I can continue on and prod my brother and best friend, I hear a man’s voice.

“Where y’all at?”

“In the kitchen,” Lindsay shouts. She grabs bags of chips and tosses them into a picnic basket just as Cord comes into the kitchen with his trademark wide smile.

Cord McCurry has hung out with us since high school. We have a special friendship, one that’s hard to explain. Maybe it’s because he stayed with my family for a year or so after high school when my father got him a job at the mine. I don’t know. All I do know is that Cord and I don’t see each other daily, sometimes not weekly, even, but we always seem to be there for each other. It’s almost a brother-sister relationship, although not quite. Cord would never allow someone that close to him.

“Hey,” he says, patting me on the shoulder as he walks by. “Smells good in here, Lindsay. Whaddya got I can sample? I’m starving.”

“You can wait like the rest of us,” Jiggs says, reaching for another marshmallow.

“Oh, whatever, Jiggs,” I laugh. “You’ve been into every dish we’ve made today. You probably still have brownies on your fingers.”

He looks at his hands with a smirk before glancing up at his wife. “That’s not all that’s on these fingers.”

“Jiggs!” Lindsay blushes and tosses a towel at him, making us laugh.

“Are you denying it?” Jiggs teases.

“Do you guys want to take everything out back?” Lindsay says in an attempt to change the subject. She glances out the window towards the fire that’s starting to glow as the afternoon sun sets behind it. Upwards of thirty people are already here, lingering around the fire. “I think it’s time to get this party started.”

“Sure thing,” Cord says, grabbing the cooler of snacks Lindsay and I put together earlier. Jiggs balances the picnic basket on another cooler and they head out the back door.

Once they’re gone, Lindsay leans against the counter and watches me. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, straightening out my red and grey flannel shirt, my fingers only slightly fidgety. “Why?”

“You’ve not quite been here mentally all day. Just wondering if everything is okay.”

I snort, turning my back to her. I don’t want to dampen the party by bringing up the fact that I feel like crawling in a hole and sleeping away my life. That I don’t even want to be here. That seeing Ty has brought back, in vivid technicolor, the moment that forever changed the way I’ll feel about him.

Dr. Walker sits down on the stool in front of the examining table and looks up at me through his black wire-rimmed glasses. He takes a deep breath as he sits my chart on the little table behind him. My hands find the edge of the white paper hanging off the sides and crumple it in my fists.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice trembling. I’m on the cusp of breaking down, my heart beating so fast in my chest that I can barely sneak in a breath. It’s been this way since he left and I can’t take it anymore. I feel like I’m going to die, like the world is starting to crush me with its weight. It’s why I’m here. To fix it. To get something to help regain control of my emotions. But something’s wrong. I can see it in his eyes, a benefit of seeing the same doctor since I was fourteen.