Page 69 of The Forever After Bet

“I know. Is it bad that I don’t care? I love Beth, but things are not working for us right now. I keep treading lightly, hoping things will improve, but they don’t.”

“I wish I knew what was going on with her.”

“Me too. Maybe it’s a midlife crisis or something.”

“It could be, and that’s why she’s been so hard on you, because she doesn’t want you to have regrets like she did.”

“I can understand that, but why is she only taking it out on me? It makes me feel like she doesn’t love me as much as she does you. Of course, I think she should love you more. You’re her biological son, and she’s only been my mom for the last seven years.”

Jack pulls into my parking spot next to the garage, but he doesn’t turn the car off. “Hannah, she loves you so much. Don’t ever think you deserve less than me because you don’t. Our mom is having a rough time with life these days, but she’ll figure it out.”

“I hope so. I don’t know how much longer I can handle keeping my relationship with Ford a secret. I feel like it’s already putting a strain on us, and I refuse to jeopardize it again. Those two and a half weeks without him were unbearable. I only survived because I have amazing friends and an great brother.

“Life was miserable for everyone when you and Ford weren’t together.” I open my mouth to speak, but Jack holds up a hand. “That wasn’t your fault. It affected all of us because we have such close relationships with all our friends.”

“It was still hard to see everyone hurting,” I say.

“I know. If mom doesn’t support you and Ford, it’s her problem, and she’ll have to figure out how to deal with it because you’re right. Eventually, you will have to tell our parents.”

Beth is waiting for us—well—me when we get home. She’s surprised to see Jack walk in the door. “Hey Bud, what are you doing home?”

“It made sense to come home with Hannah, so Ty didn’t have to drop me off. I didn’t tell you I was leaving Leah’s and going to Ford’s house, either. If you’re punishing Hannah for that, you should punish me, too.” Jack shrugs. “I’m going to bed. I have to work in the morning.” He walks over to Beth, kisses her cheek, and heads downstairs. I don’t say anything to her and head upstairs.

“Hannah,” she says, walking to the base of the stairs.

I glance over my shoulder. “Yeah?”

“I overreacted. I’m sorry,” Beth says.

I turn around on the stairs. “I’ll make more of an effort to tell you where I am and what I’m doing.”

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Mom.”

During history on Monday, I get a note from Mrs. Landry asking to see me. As I walk out of class, Ford slips me a note. It says, Love you, Sweet Cheeks, yours truly, Hot Cross Buns.

It makes me laugh. I smile all the way to the office until I knock on Mrs. Landry’s door and see Bree sitting in the office with her.

“Hannah, please come in and sit down.” Mrs. Landry points to the empty chair next to Bree.

I glance at Bree; she seems tense. She keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs and playing with the bracelets on her wrist.

“I wanted to say congratulations on the success of the craft fair on Saturday. We’ve already raised more money than in the past two years combined. I stopped by yesterday morning when Landon Phillips and Chanel Bywater were at the booth. They were standing in front of the booth, handing out flyers, and talking to people. That was an ingenious idea to set up a QR code for the donation site. I’m very proud of you girls. It goes to show that if you put your differences aside and work together, you can accomplish a lot.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Landry. We owe a huge thank you to our classmates who volunteered. We couldn’t have done it without them,” I say.

“I’ll make sure everyone who volunteered is added to thank you list.” She beams.

“We all had a lot of fun at the craft fair. Can we still send an email to parents on Thursday with the flyer and donation information? I made an addendum at the bottom saying they can bring their donations into the office until Wednesday if they can’t make it on Saturday. Mrs. Winters, Cameron Winters’ mom, was going to come this afternoon and set up a giving tree in the front entryway. I already spoke to Mrs. Waverly. She was okay with people dropping donations off, and she will keep the giving tree presents for us. We didn’t think having people leave them under the tree was a good idea. There’s always someone around who wants something that doesn’t belong to them.”

Bree whips her head around, glaring at me. Uh, yeah, that last bit was for you, Bree.

“Was there something you wanted to add, Miss Chandler?” Mrs. Landry asks.

She turns to the counselor, smiling. “Just that we can also send out a school-wide text message on Friday reminding students to tell their parents about the fundraiser or if they want to donate.”

“That would be great. We can put the QR code in the text message so parents can go to the website to donate from their phones. Who do we need to see about sending out that text message?” I ask Mrs. Landry, excited about the prospect of getting the word out to more people and getting more donations for the families we’re helping.

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