Page 95 of Forever in the Country

Marlee lets out a watery laugh and squeezes me tighter.

“She was an angel.”

“She still is, Marlee Girl.” I can’t help the way my eyes tear up at the thought. A breeze moves through the orchard, and I could swear it feels like a hug as it swirls around us.

“They’re really awful, aren’t they? Even after all these years trying to use you—manipulate you. I’m so sorry, Sorren.”

“I’d do it all again for you.”

Seeing Michael and Vivian had fueled the rage that I’d buried for so long. They’d had the audacity to come to my town—my home—and think I owed them for letting us go.

“Thank you.” Her voice is quiet but firm as she picks her head up and meets my gaze.

“For what?”

“I don’t think I ever thanked you. Really thanked you for saving us. For doing more than any teenager should ever do. You sacrificed your childhood to give me mine, and I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

“There’s nothin’ to thank me for, Marlee Girl. I would have died before I let them take you from me.”

“I’m really glad it didn’t come to that,” she says honestly.

“Me too,” I say, returning her expression even if it’s not as bright.

“You know,” Marlee starts, “I feel better.” Standing, she walks down into the grass and tilts her face to the sky before looking back at me.

“You feel better?”

She nods. “We have a family here and they’re all I need. You’re all I need and now,”—she spins in a circle, her blonde hair flying out around her—“I don’t have to wonder.”

“Is it really that easy?” I ask, half teasing and half disbelieving.

“Yeah.” Her smile is wide and bright and everything I’d ever wanted for her. “You gave me this.” She motions around us. “All of this and it wasn’t always perfect but that’s what I love about it—every wild and crazy thing about this town.”

“We did all right, didn’t we?”

“We did.” She agrees with a nod. “But I need you to do something.” I raise an eyebrow and she does the same. “I need you to let it go and finally let yourself be happy.”

“I am happy.”

“All the way happy,” Marlee says with a whole lot of sass. “Rhea deserves it and so do you.”

Standing, I wrap my arms around my sister and hold her tight. She’d been begging me to lean on her since I’d come back here, but I hadn’t been ready. I hadn’t been prepared to see Michael and Vivian, but when I’d finally pulled my head out of my ass, it was easy to see I wasn’t alone.

My family and the whole damn town had taken great joy in fucking with the people who had given me life. They’d rallied around my sister and me almost twenty years ago and in that time absolutely nothing had changed.

Otto had said over and overwe always show up for familybut I hadn’t been listening—I didn’t realize it applied to me too.

I thought they’d done enough for me—that I’d be forever in their debt.

But I’d never made peace with the boy who’d only been offered a half-life at the expense of his sister’s. Because being without her would be no life at all. I’d carried the guilt of Michael and Vivian’s actions and internalized it—a chain to the past that would never let me go.

We’d been offered more than sanctuary here. We’d been given a home—a real one filled with all the things we’d never had before.

We’d found our family.

And it was time to let them in.

“I love you, Marlee Girl.”

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