Page 123 of Now to Forever

When I look at my face, I scream; she cackles. “The hell, Joo?”

“Sorry,” she says, rocking with laughter as tears roll down her face. “I let the boys use permanent marker because I was pissed.”

I look back at the screen, the word fart is written about forty-three times around a single curlicue mustache above my upper lip.Little shits.

“You’re the worst,” I say before she forces us to huddle together and snaps a picture.

We stand, her still laughing as I grab a napkin and start to scrub my face over the sink.

“Why haven’t you let me see your house?” she asks, mom tone back in full force.

“Because I didn’t want you to tell me how perfect it was,” I confess, turning off the sink. “Pump my tires full of stories of how I belong there. How I should keep it.”

I wipe my face with the napkin.

“You remember what you told me when I wanted to leave Camp?” she finally asks.

I cut my eyes to her. “Stop listening to podcasts.”

Her nostrils flare.

“That I can be more than one thing. You told me I could be a mom and everything else.”

“Solid advice. Your point?”

“My point is,” she says with a huff, “you can too.”

I scoff. “Unhingedand?”

She grins. “Sure. Why not? You don’t need permission to be happy, you know? Why can’t you be what you’ve been through and who you are? Be youandhave Ford? Wren? The house on the lake?”

I don’t bother reminding her Wren doesn’t want me and, soon enough, Ford won’t either. She’ll just argue, make it sound so easy in her leggings and chambray shirt, so beautifullyher in the house she’s made a home with toy clutter and dinged-up kitchen cabinets.

Wait.

I drop the paper towel. “Why is your kitchen old?”

“Oh.” She looks at the very unrenovated kitchen and then back to me with a shrug. “I lied.”

“Youwhat?”

“You were acting crazy, and I needed to buy time before you went and did something stupid.”

Bitch.

“I hate you.”

She looks at me, knowing I don’t, and I’m suddenly overwhelmed with emotion toward her. Less an A-frame house she conned me into and the fact my face looks like a bathroom stall door, her friendship has always been free. I wrap my arms around her.

“How long did you practice that speech?” I ask into her hair.

“All night while I listened to you snore.”

I chuckle. “It was good.”

She snorts, rocking our hug side to side.

“Does Ford know about last night?”

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