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It takes less than a minute for it to get swallowed by the current.

A wave of relief washes over me.

And then, I cry.

Forty-Six

“I’mScotty,andI’maddicted to being a pain in the ass.”

I laugh softly as I face the sea of Ledger’s Ledgers, a few of them chuckling, subpar coffee in hand. Mel raises her eyebrows as she stands next to me at the podium.

“Right,” I continue. “The truth is, I didn’t know why I started showing up to these meetings. Mel told me once I’m addicted to being unhappy. She probably wasn’t wrong.” A few more chuckles, Mel’s included. I clear my throat. “My parents weren’t around much when I was growing up, which was for the best, but I had my brother. He was an idiot.” I laugh softly, thinking about all the stunts we pulled in that trailer park as kids. Him as a teenager getting into trouble, Ford laughing from the sidelines. “He knew how to make the best sugar toast for breakfast when we were kids. He’d drop two slices of Wonder Bread into the toaster—he had to hold the button down because the toaster was broken. It would start to burn—that’s how we’d know it was done—then he’d coatit with enough butter and sugar to give a healthy man diabetes just by looking at it. We could eat a whole loaf of that damn stuff.” I smile at the memory; I can almost smell it. Almost taste it on my tongue like candy. “Zeb was his name. He died of a drug overdose twenty years ago. Twenty years and seven months ago, really.”

I pause to let the wave of emotion come and go.

“When he died, I blamed myself for it. And the world. And God. Grief is confusing like that. The targets change depending on the day. Who you hate and what you fight for. And then somewhere along the way I just became that one part of my life. That one horrible event of my brother dying became my whole identity. My job. My house. The music I listened to and the car I drove.” I chuckle softly and think of Wren pointing that out. “There was who I was and what I wanted before he died, and what I became after. But”—my voice cracks—“I accidentally fell in love with someone. Someone good. Someone so good it makes me wish I would’ve been born someone different just to get to love him right, you know?”

A few people nod and my heart aches. They get it, of course they do. We might be on opposite sides of the story, but the pages between are filled with the same ugly words.

“He has a kid, a teenager who might hate me, but it’s like she can see me clearer than anyone else. Like she was born with some kind of annoying bullshit detector.” A few people chuckle. “She’s not mine—I wasn’t carved from the right material for that job—but God I see myself in her. Her hurts and mine are different, but not really . . .” The second Wren said she wondered if she couldhave changed what her mom did, she became my twin flame. She’s smarter than me, she’ll heal faster and do better things with her life, but I see it when I least expect it. How startled she is when I ask her opinion on things. How uncomfortable she is with my rare displays of affection. And it goes both ways. Her reaction is mine, mine is hers. Even if she hates me—even if I run to the ends of the earth to save her from me—I’ll never shake our likeness.

Mel clears her throat, making me realize I’ve gone silent.

“Sorry.” I shift my weight between my feet. “Anyway, I guess what I’m up here to say is thank you. For sharing. For putting up with me. For letting me ask questions that really have nothing to do with you and everything to do with me.” I look around at all the vulnerable faces staring back at me. All of us marred with different-shaped bruises. “I wish my mom would’ve come to the classroom parties. I wish she would’ve cheered in the bleachers when I graduated high school or helped me with homework. I wish my dad would have drunk less and asked about my day more. I wish my brother . . . I wish.” I swallow around the prickly pear–sized lump in my throat. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think it’s good you’re here. I think Mel”—I look at her, a slight smile lifting my lips and hers—“is a pain in the ass but is also helping.” A few people laugh. “And I think even if you stumble—even if you watch the video of the nude maid when you don’t want to”—I do not look at Gary—“or fall victim to whatever thing you don’t want to do, the people around you will appreciate it if you keep trying. People around you want you. Even if you’re broken.” At the back row, there’s an empty seat; I wish Zeb would have sat in it justonce. All these people are doing it because they want to change; he never did. At least not enough to still be flesh and bones. I could have dragged him into this room, but he wouldn’t have stayed. He would have blown me off. Blown the problem off. I cared more than he did—so did Ford. And even Archie for bailing him out. We never could have fixed him.Inever could have. Accepting that truth causes my next breath to feel like the first full one I’ve taken in twenty years. “Maybe even if it never gets easier for you, being here will let people you love live lives that aren’t filled with ghosts.”

Someone coughs, a phone dings, a chair slides.

In the awkward silence, I add, “The end.”

As a hushed applause washes over the crowd, I look at Mel, grinning as I whisper, “And I didn’t even tell anyone to fuck off.”

She gives a reluctant chuckle before she turns to the room and says, “Thank you, Scotty. Who would like to share next?”

Instead of June’s minivan parked next to my Bronco, it’s Ford’s truck, him leaning against the bumper with a cup of coffee in hand and one ankle crossed over the other. The sight of him in worn blue jeans and a Ledger sweatshirt makes me stop right in the middle of the parking lot before walking the rest of the way to him.

He’s a sight for my weary eyes.

“Where’s June?”

He hands me the coffee.

“Said she had to go.”

I take a sip, less out of wanting coffee and more to keep myself busy. Being so close to him for the first time since the fight with Wren, I’m buzzing. Want. Dread. Confusion. Sadness. Hope. I can’t decide if I should lean into him or build a nine-mile-high wall between us. If I should stay in Ledger and figure out a new way of life in this town or hightail it across the country. I was hellbent on leaving right up until the second Glory told me about Archie. His name on that house formed a sentimental tether I never expected. One I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to sever. Everwantto sever.

But even if I stay, Ford doesn’t fit. Wren doesn’t want me to fit. And I can’t blame either of them. She’s his priority, as she should be, and I won’t be the reckless thing to ruin what they’ve worked hard to build. I’ll tell him everything and let him cut me loose. Whether I stay or go, I need to figure out what comes next without his intoxicating influence.

“And,” he says, “she wanted me to tell you that your speech needed work.”

I chuckle softly around another sip of coffee. “You listen?”

He shrugs.

He did.

Damn him.

“You know I was a Watkins?”