Page 18 of Now to Forever

I stare at him, debating. He looks so nice and normal; it’s hard to believe he’s an emotional terrorist under that uniform. I eye his belt. They even give this menace a gun.

“Everything okay, honey?” Wanda calls, wedged heels clicking behind me.

When I catch her gaze over my shoulder she halts, eyes wide, before adjusting her chest with her hands and smiling something sinister, tone shifting to pure lust. “Well, hello there, Officer Callahan.”

I snort, looking back to Ford who dips his chin toward her. “Wanda, good to see you. Scotty asked me to stop by. Just fulfilling my duties to the fine citizens of Ledger.”

I roll my eyes; he winks.

I can’t wait to get out of here.

“Fine,” I grit out.

Without another word, I step out into the sun and let the door close with a heavy slam behind me. Ford looks at me, long and wordless, making my entire body burn like feet on summer concrete.

“Any day now,” I say, bored.

“It’s about Zeb.”

I groan, turning to walk back into the building. He wraps his hand around my arm, stopping me with his strength.

“I’m not doing this, Ford, let me go. I said all I needed to say about my brother.”

I tug at the handle, remembering it’s locked from outside and groan again in frustration as Ford keeps a grip on my arm with one hand and something makes a clanking noise.

“Sorry, Scotty”—metal clicks as he twists me around and presses me belly-first against his cruiser parked behind the building, keeping my arm bent and pinched to my back—“I knew you were going to be a stubborn pain in the ass about this, and I need you to listen.”

“Handcuffs?” I shout furiously as I try to pull my arms apart. The metal digs into my wrists as I wriggle my torso against his car with a grunt. “Are you fucking kidding me, Ford?”

He turns me around to face him and I spit in his face; he wipes it, as unfazed as if it were a raindrop.

“Let me go, you bastard,” I demand, more arm pulling and more getting nowhere.

“You going to listen or keep hissin’ like a damn viper?”

“This is illegal,” I snap.

He chuckles. “Call the cops.”

Heart pounding in my throat, I feel trapped. Iamtrapped.

“You knew as well as I did Zeb had gotten deep into drugs,” he begins, voice calm as he leans against the cruiser while I struggle to break free with grunts and swears. “You and I talked about it, but with both of us gone at school, I don’t think we knew how bad it was.”

I look away from him as he talks, focusing on the cuffs and not the searing pain in my chest the memories bring. Because yes, I knew Zeb was in deep. His calls had gotten erratic, talking in circles and barely making sense. He’d ask for money—which was laughable since I was a poor college kid at a nothing school on scholarship. Every single night I’d lie in bed, feeling the anxiety like a vise around my chest and throat, convinced the next call I got about him was going to be the worst. He’d be in jail or dead. Little did I know how accurate all my late-night worst-case scenarios would become. Little did I know how much more I should have been doing to help.

“I tried talking to him about it, but we were just kids,” he continues. “Twenty-one. And I’d been off at college—we’d drifted a little—but every time I came home it was like more and more of him was gone. He was playing music at the local bars—” He pauses, eyes toward the sky as he chuckles softly, dragging a hand down the side of his face. “He loved that guitar, didn’t he?”

I look at him but don’t say anything. I don’t need to. We both know how much Zeb loved music. From the guitar that was always with him, to the music notes tattooed down his spine, to the late nights he spent in dive bars playing songs he wrote. I have two things from my brother: his Bronco and his records he played constantly. When Ford realizes I’m not going to say any of this aloud, he keeps talking. “I drank, smoked a little pot, but the things he was into . . .” His voice trails off as the vessels of poison fill my skull like they filled my brother’s body. Pipes. Needles. Pills. Powder.

Every destructive thing I couldn’t stop him from doing.

Ford steps toward me, lifting a hand to hold my chin so I’m forced to look at him. “The day he got arrested, I was home for the weekend, helping my parents on the orchard. The tractor broke down on the last row of trees—stupid detail to remember, but I do. I picked him up at his apartment to go grab a beer, and he asked if we could make a stop. I never—I didn’t know.”

My chin held in place by his thumb and forefinger, we stare at each other, and I see in his eyes the same hurt that lives in me. I hate him more for it. Hate myself more for it.

“And what?” I demand. “You just stop at a random house and let him out? No questions asked?” I scoff. “Was he high?”

He drops my chin, blows out a breath, and closes his eyes. “I didn’t know what he was doing until I watched him walk up to the house, and instead of knocking on the door, he broke a window. And . . .” He looks at me again, a battle in his eyes. Like he’s at war with himself.

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