Page 38 of Forever is Now

We kept having arguments. I kept telling her it wasn’t good for the baby.

She kept telling me that none of this was good for her.

I was sure she was going to leave me. Several times, I even wondered if that was best. If maybe I should never have been with her, because apparently me and Summer Taylor-Braddon had an amazing love story. I read her book, you know.The Saga of Me and Him. I felt the characters’ love for each other. And I read all these interviews that Summer had done, where she said she’d been writing our love story, what we should’ve had.

I felt sick after reading them, the interviews—and also that first book in her series.

But I also felt... I don’t know. This sense of excitement. Of freedom.

I found myself Googling Summer a lot. I’d have little JoJo on my lap, bouncing her on my knee, and I’d be scrolling through Summer’s website. I’d be searching for her on Facebook, trying to make sense of my life.

Of course, she wasn’t on social media anymore.

I read a lot of the posts people were making about her. The names they were calling her.

Her life seemed like a living hell.

And yet, mine and Mia’s, ours was heading that way too.

I don’t know what really made me decide to go to Okehampton. But I knew one morning that I had to.

It wasn’t just that I wanted to find Summer. I wanted to find myself.

Mia wasn’t happy when I told her. Not happy at all. But she said she was coming with me. Maybe she was scared I’d see Summer and remember being in love with her. Or maybe she was scared because Summer was still my legal wife.

I’d spoken to a few lawyers about the legal stuff. And although Mia had been pushing me to get a divorce from Summer, I hadn’t made any of the official steps to doing so yet. I guess a part of me thought that it wouldn’t just be a divorce from Summer. It would be a divorce from who I was. Who I am.

We traveled down to Okehampton on a Sunday. A couple of hours in the car. We left Alex and JoJo with my dad. I’m still not sure that was a good idea—an ex-con and all that—but that’s what we did. And really, he did seem to be a good grandad. Better than he had been a dad, anyway.

It was raining when we arrived in Okehampton. Mia parked in Simmons Park. She was exhausted, but I hadn’t been cleared by the DVLA for driving in this country. Not since I’d declared my amnesia. And it wasn’t like it was something I could hide.

I found it weird though. I knew all the rules of the road, and I knew that I had learned to drive on the streets of Okehampton and the wider area, yet I couldn’t remember those lessons. Couldn’t remember the places.

Mia and I walked around for a bit. I think it was one of the first times when we’d had no reporters tailing us. No one following us. No one taking photos.

It felt like freedom.

And I didn’t recognize anything in Okehampton.

We stood looking up the driveway at the school. Okehampton Community College. There are photos of me in their uniform—a uniform that had changed a few times since I’d left, so all the kids we saw milling outside weren’t wearing that uniform that I’d worn—but I just didn’t have any ounce of recognition.

Mia was tired, grumpy.

I was getting annoyed.

We hadn’t told anyone we were coming here, and I wondered if that was a bad idea. If maybe I wasn’t giving myself as much of a chance as I should’ve, as I deserved. I knew the names of my friends I’d had here—friends who still lived here. I mean, you, Dante, but also Ashley Kincade. Julia Rivers and Hana Burton. And Summer Taylor-Braddon.

Of course, I knew Summer’s face. But not any of the others.

I wondered if I’d just walk right past them, if maybe they wouldn’t recognize me either. I had changed a lot. Not just seven years older, but the scars on my face had distorted my features.

Still, I assumed they would’ve recognized me, had they seen me. My photos were all over the papers, the news, social media platforms.

They would’ve said something. They’d been wanting to see me. Ashley, especially.

But I didn’t see anyone I knew. And no one seemed to see me.

I just felt like a ghost, wandering that town.

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