Page 86 of Now to Forever

“Scotty Armstrong, you asking me to be your boyfriend?”

“I’m asking,” I say, biting back a smile, “for you to be my sure thing, Ford Callahan.”

He looks at me, whole face as bright as his eyes as he sits upright. “Guess that means we’ll have to make the announcement at Orchard Fest.”

I groan; he laughs, grimacing slightly and clutching his ribs. “And the desert?”

As much as I knew this would come up, every fiber of every muscle within me goes wooden.

Less than three months away from escaping Ledger and everything that’s ever been wrong and ugly, and yet looking at him, it’s like there’s not a place far enough away to escape whatever this is between us. It will follow me. It will stick to me like a shadow like it has for the last twenty years.

He wants me to stay; it’s underscored by every word he does and doesn’t say. All over his face. His scruff-covered, salty-haired, smiling-eyed face. This perfect man wants me to stay.

For the first time since all of this started: I want to.

His eyebrows lift. “Scotty?”

I want to stay.

I rub my palm against my chest; it aches.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t think.

Ford goes blurry.

Stay.

Stay.

Stay.

“Um.” I blow out a shaky breath as my brain screams at me.

Stay with Ford, leave Glory.

Stay with Ford, leave the ghosts.

Stay with Ford, leave the trailer park.

Stay, leave.

Stay, leave.

Stay leave.

“I don’t—"

The door flies open and Wren bursts into the room with a shouted “Dad?!”

She looks at me, wide-eyed as she rushes across the room. At Ford, she does the same frantic search for wounds I did. “You got shot?” she asks, horrified. “Are you okay? Are you-you-you bleeding?”

He laughs as I step aside, giving him space to hug her and let the rhythms of my body return to normal.

“I’m fine, kiddo,” he tells her. “Sore. No broken ribs, just some bruising. Grandma bring you?”

When she nods, my stomach drops straight to the floor.Charlene.I need to get out of here. Since Ford left, I’ve seen her once, five months after Zeb died, standing in the bread aisle at the grocery store. She looked at me and knew everything I didn’t say; there was no hiding it. When enough time passed and I never heard from Ford, I always wondered if she knew telling him would drag him back here and ruin his life.

---