I brought our joined hands to my lips and kissed his knuckles. “Maybe not an excuse, but that kind of fear rarely brings out the best in people. You’re a good man, Bowen. The last words you said to her were not the only words you said to her. If I know you at all, there were at least a million other words that conveyed to her how you truly felt. Don’t focus on the few that she probably wouldn’t even remember anyway.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he let out a low hum. “That’s a good theory.”
“Facts, Bowen. Straight facts.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, his shoulders sagging.
I nodded, not sure what else to say on the Sally subject. I felt like I was always walking a narrow line of being there for him but doing my best not to overstep. So I went for a quasi-subject change. “Physically?”
“Punctured lung, broken arm.”
“Just one arm?” I scoffed. “Amateur. I broke both of mine from wrist to shoulder. I have tons of random little scars too.” I hooked my finger under his watch band, pulling it back to reveal a similar jagged vertical scar to the ones I had on both of my wrists. “I noticed we have a matching set.”
He jerked his arm away so fast it startled me.
With that, he shot to his feet, the muscles in his neck straining. “I’m going to run to the bathroom and grab another beer. You want one?”
I blinked up at him.
What the hell had just happened?
Like, literally. I was clueless.
He’d been able to carry on a full conversation about his dead fiancée, but a scar had been too much?
“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.
“No.” He bent at the hip and touched his lips to mine. “Not at all.”
I eyed him skeptically. “You sure? ’Cause it kinda feels that way.”
“Positive. Now, another drink or are you good?”
I sat there for a minute, an odd feeling making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, but short of pinning him down and demanding an answer, there wasn’t much I could do.
I plastered on a smile. “Bowen, we’re second row behind home plate at a freaking Braves game. I need another beer, a hot dog, nachos, maybe a bag of peanuts.” I paused. “Wait, no. Scratch the peanuts. That reminds me: Did you bring your EpiPen?”
He was in jeans and a T-shirt with no place to hide anything. It was safe to say he had not, but in an effort to avoid my question, he repeated back to me, “Beer, hot dog, and nachos coming right up.”
As he walked away, the knot in my stomach loosened a bit, but it didn’t completely go away. Something was off. Call it a feeling or a gut instinct, whatever. But the way he’d snatched his arm away without offering the first explanation didn’t sit right with me.
I took the moment to inspect the scars on my own wrists.
I hadn’t had them before the plane crash—at least not that I knew of. If I looked closely, there were several little lines of varying colors and thicknesses. That was nothing new though. I also had burn scars on my back, an L-shaped one on my shin, and a gnarly line of raised flesh on the back of my head, which my hair had thankfully grown out enough to hide. I didn’t question how I’d gotten them because I didn’t figure anyone would know.
Suddenly, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe I should ask.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and snapped a picture of my wrist. Then I sent it to my group thread with Aaron and Mark.
Me: Where did I get this scar?
A response came almost immediately.
Aaron: Where are you?
Me: At a Braves game with Bowen.
Aaron: Are you good? Everything okay?
I crinkled my nose. What kind of question was that? Throw a few plants in the stadium and I would have been at my own personal Mecca. He knew how much I loved baseball—and Bowen.
Me: Last I checked. Why?
Aaron: No reason. Baseball game just seems like a strange place to be inspecting scars.
Me: Bowen has one too and it got me thinking. I have no idea where it came from.
I expected another instant reply, but it must have been at least five full minutes before my phone pinged with a response. And it wasn’t from Aaron.
Mark: You got it from the crash. Not sure how exactly, but they were on both wrists when your casts came off.
Aaron: Did Bowen say how he got his?
Me: No. He was really weird about it actually. Hence my text.
Mark: It was a plane crash. I’m sure there are a lot of unexplained injuries floating around.
Me: Yeah. You’re probably right.
That should have been the end of it. Question and answer. Case closed.
