Written in the Scars(8)
“Thanks for letting me stay here.”
“You’ve let me bunk with you a time or two. Glad to repay the favor. You can stay here for as long as you need to,” he says, a slight slant to his grin.
It’s one I return readily, an understanding between two men that met as a couple of rowdy boys in high school. Cord was a handful when he moved to Jackson, getting suspended for fighting on his very first day in school. I jumped in, not being able to stand watching the new kid from foster care—a fact I learned from my mother the night before—getting mauled by Shane Pettis, resident *, and got myself three free days to boot.
From that day on, Cord has had my back and I’ve had his. He’s the most dependable human being I know, which is why I called him when it became apparent I wouldn’t be going home tonight.
“Let’s hope to f*ck I won’t be here long,” I mumble.
His chin dips just a touch. “It was probably just a shock to her to see you out of nowhere. Just give her a minute to adjust.”
“Do you know how bad I want to f*cking go home and be with my wife? How I miss her? How I want to just forget all this bullshit and go back to the way things were before the f*cking accident?”
He chuckles, his eyes sparkling. “I can imagine. She basically wipes your ass for you. I don’t know how you’re surviving.”
A small laugh escapes me too. “That’s true. But it’s not even about that. I just . . . I don’t even know what to do with myself, Cord.”
“Follow your gut. Always trust your gut.” He winks and shoves off the door. “I’m taking Yogi for a swim at the lake. Want anything while I’m gone?”
“You and that f*cking dog,” I mutter, falling back on the stiff pillow again.
“Laugh all you want. She doesn’t put me through this shit,” he teases before pulling the door closed behind him.
The futon springs rip into my back. They scrape against the scars etched there from the accident, the same ones Elin used to feather her fingers across at night while I slept.
Oh, how far we’ve fallen.
Loving her is so damn easy. It’s as natural as breathing or the beating of a heart. Even when we were hurling insults at the very moment my rope was being frayed, a couple of seconds before she asked me to leave and I bolted—I loved her. That’s never been a question. It’s making life work around the love that’s hard.
Life doesn’t care about feelings. It couldn’t give a shit about who you love and want to be with. It keeps tossing crap your way, trying to break you until all you know is the chaos of it all.
“What happened to your back?” Mrs. Kruger asks as I enter the farmhouse, her silver hair like a halo in the early evening sun.
I place my sweaty shirt over my shoulders. Drops of sweat roll down my jaw and drip onto my chest from a long, hot day working for her husband in the fields. “It was from an accident in the mine.”
She stops stirring a pot on the stove and turns to me. Her apron hangs over her round belly and she grabs the hem and dries her hands. “You know, it’s better to have a scar than a bruise.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“Bruises go away, Tyler. Scars stick around to prove you showed up for life. That you lived. That you fought. That you loved.” She peers at me over the top of her glasses. “I knew it the night you came here, asking to talk to my husband, that your heart was broken. I’ve seen a lovesick man a time or two in my years. But can I give you some advice?”
I nod, my body breaking out in a cold sweat under her scrutiny.
“What would you say about your heart? Would you say your heart is bruised or scarred, Tyler?”
“Scarred in every direction possible,” I whisper without hesitation.
She starts to smile, but catches herself. “When did you know you loved her?”
“From the moment I saw her.”
“I see,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. She thinks for a long moment before taking a deep breath. “You can’t expect a relationship to succeed based on the love you felt at the beginning. It succeeds because you continue to build on it until the end.” She removes her glasses and smiles. “Your heart will be more scarred than your back by the end of your lifetime. That is, if you live the right way.”
A warmth builds in my core, my feet shuffling beneath me.
“Go home, Tyler,” she whispers. “Go build on the beginning.”
Her words ring through my mind as I try to find a comfortable spot on this godforsaken futon. It sounds simple, to build on what we had at the beginning. So simple, in fact, that I’d raced back to town, sure as shit that I would find Elin, we’d see each other, she’d break into a tight smile, I’d smile back, and we’d figure this out.
Never did I expect the coldness in her posture, the disdain that filled her beautiful green irises. Anger? Yeah. Sadness? Sure. But hatred? It stopped me in my tracks.
Swinging my legs to the side, my footsteps create a circle in the room as I attempt to block out the idea that has me more worried than any other: she doesn’t want to fix this.
The itch of frustration working its way up my spine has my skin on fire. This is my fault, this entire f*ckup is my mistake in so many ways.
Taking a deep breath, I glance around the room. It feels empty, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the lack of furniture.