Written in the Scars(25)
“I figured as much. Even if you had managed to try to say something to her, she would’ve been too out of it to remember.”
“Come to think of it, that was the perfect time to talk to her about everything. Shit.”
“Missed opportunity,” he grins. “Things will work out. I feel it in my bones.”
“Nobody wants to hear about your bones, McCurry.”
He hops out of his truck and stands next to me. Pulling his Arrows hat down as the wind gust rips through the parking lot, he winces. “Damn, that’s cold.”
“They were talking about it in there,” I say, flinching as the cold goes right through me. “Said it’s gonna be a helluva storm coming through here in a bit.”
“Guess that means no fishin’. Better grab what I need and get home.”
“Got someone waiting on you?” I ask, even though I know the answer. Cord doesn’t get close to people. He’s friendly with Jiggs and I and our wives, but that’s the closest he’s ever gotten with anyone. He’s dated here and there, but never anything meaningful. The few girls he’s brought around us over the past few years he intentionally keeps some barrier between them. You can almost see it.
He’s cool about it. All the girls he dates, if you call it that, remain his friends afterwards. Everyone loves Cord McCurry. Cord just doesn’t necessarily love them back by design.
“Nah,” he grins as Yogi licks his face. “This is my girl. My one and only.”
“That’s sad, Cord,” I laugh.
“Sad but true,” he says, locking his truck. “I’m not built like you. I don’t have some part of me that women can relate to.”
“Bullshit.”
He shrugs, a faint frown tickling across his lips. “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, we’re gonna get blown away if we stand here much longer.” He claps me on the shoulder and heads inside. “I’ll pick up some frozen pizzas and cold beer. How’s that sound for dinner?”
“Good as anything.” I climb in my truck and back out of the parking lot. The wind shoves me all over the road, the sun now hidden behind a steely set of clouds that move so quickly across the sky it’s like they’re on fast forward. “Shit,” I say, dodging a tree limb that flies in front of me as rain begins to pelt my windshield.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to see a severe weather warning encouraging everyone to take shelter. As my truck is pushed into the other lane by a crazy gust of wind, I make a quick right and head towards Cord’s.
ELIN
Alcohol helps you make bad decisions.
Nearly twenty-four hours after my little drinking party, I’m still making them hand-over-fist.
Curled up on my bed, e-reader to my right, phone to my left, I have blankets tucked around me. A candle flickers on my nightstand just in case the power, which is blinking like a disco ball because of the storm, goes out. And on my body, all soft and wrinkled, is Ty’s old Tennessee Arrows t-shirt.
Not once since he left have I done this. There hasn’t been a single instance where I’ve become that girl, the one that wraps herself in his clothes and tries to find the scent of his cologne buried somewhere in the fibers of the fabric. I’ve managed to maintain my dignity, never stooping to that level. Until tonight.
I blame it on the alcohol.
I’m hungover, both on the beer and on the emotions of the day. Time had granted me the small luxury of choice and I chose anger. It was the easiest to handle. But after seeing him three times in as many days and having to deal with him seeing me and touching me and God knows what else, things I still can’t remember, it’s like a hurricane came in and whipped all my feelings together, spilling them into one giant, confusing heap.
His shirt helps. I don’t know why, but it does, and even more disturbing is that I don’t feel weak because of it. Maybe it’s because I made the choice to put it on. I wasn’t crying when I did it. I wasn’t grieving or praying for some kind of direction from the man upstairs. It was a very calm moment after my shower and I saw it hanging in the back of the closet.
My biggest fear is letting my feelings get so mixed up by remembering who we used to be together and not who we are now. The thought of living with him and fighting like we did is unbearable. It’s not us and not the way either of us should want to live, and I’m afraid if I don’t stop this, once and for all, we’ll find ourselves in that very same place. And I can’t handle going through this again.
Thunder cracks outside my bedroom window, making me jump. I snuggle deeper into the pillows and clutch my phone for good measure, wondering why the worst storms happen after midnight.