Page 44 of Until Forever

“Life was so simple then,” I sighed.

“It seems pretty simple to me still,” she argued, rolling her shoulders.

My eyes darted over to her, lingering over her wheelchair and the framed wedding pictures on the mantle over her shoulder.

“Really?” I questioned in an accusing tone.

“Remember when we were younger, and every looming math quiz or embarrassing thing that happened to us felt like the end of the world? What’s so different now? Everything feels like a disaster, but we haven’t died yet.”

I darkened my eyes. “One of us came awfully close to it.”

“But I didn’t,” she defended. “I’m still here. We keep waking up every morning, and whether it’s here or in LA, with a job or without, or whatever we have going on…we keep going. And we always have each other.”

I sighed, smiling for her sake. But inside, my stomach was all tied up in knots, and not just because of the greasy fried chicken. She was more right than she realized. Thirteen years ago, I laid on the floor in the same state I was in now—enjoying my best friend’s company, wishing I had eaten a little less, and worrying over some problem or another that was waiting for me the next day.

But thirteen years ago, my problems usually had something to do with Keith Mullins. Here I was at age twenty-eight, back in Silver Point, and he was still consuming my thoughts and emotions. What did it mean? That he was trouble and I should have never come back home to stay for any longer than I originally promised to? It seemed like this town was determined to drag me down with him.

Or maybe…I could try the thing I never did before. Maybe if I gave him a chance, things wouldn’t blow up in my face the way I was so certain they would. That seemed like a ridiculous false hope, but…what other choice did I have? Trying to pretend I didn’t want him wasn’t working. Not by a long shot. And fighting him at every turn was proving to be more exhausting than I could handle.

Yet every time I tried to entertain the idea that things could be different, I really felt like I was fifteen years old again. Only instead of camping out with Claire in a food coma, I was standing in the middle of the high school gym…watching Keith make out with Tanya Cane as if I didn’t exist, feeling like my heart was in a puddle somewhere underneath their feet.

“I didn’t mean to bum you out,” Claire said suddenly.

“No, it’s not you,” I huffed, waving her off. “You’re right. We’re going to be okay, aren’t we?”

“And even if we’re not…what can we really do to change it?”

“I don’t know if I like this deep, philosophical side to you,” I teased.

“A brush with death and potentially permanent disability brings that out in you, I guess,” she smirked.

“I’m trying to keep up with you, but I don’t know if that’s ever going to start being funny in any way.”

“If we can’t change any of it, and we know whatever is going to happen will happen regardless of what we do…what else is there to do but laugh? Even at the tragic things.”

I couldn’t help but do just that. A deep, rolling laugh shot through me, and Claire was quick to join in. She just didn’t realize we weren’t exactly laughing at the same things. I was laughing at a different tragedy entirely. The tragedy of being chained to Keith and his hopeless womanizing ways no matter what I did. Nothing…not even over a decade’s worth of time and moving across the country had changed that.

I was starting to think of this thing with him as if it were a rip current. If I didn’t want to get dragged out into the middle of the sea, I couldn’t waste my time trying to paddle against it. If I kept doing that, I’d either go nowhere or get washed away to all the depths I was trying to avoid. If I stood any chance at finally finding my way out of it, I was going to have to stay calm, stop fighting, and wait until it spat me out.

19

KEITH

The Silver Point Town Fair was one of the biggest events of the summer. It attracted the perfect mix of locals and tourists, and it was usually a great place for me to pick up chicks. I was all too happy to take my niece, Em, around on all the rides and games. Women were suckers for a guy who was good with kids, and it was even better when they found out she wasn’t mine.

We avoided the packed parking lot and took a long walk to get there. The closer we got, the smells of fried food, salty popcorn, and funnel cakes grew heavy in the air.

Em licked her lips and said, “Mmmmm.”

Then, there was the odd mixture of motor oil from the rides and trucks, along with the scent of manure from the pigs and ponies. It always baffled me how the combination of it all resulted in something nostalgic and pleasant rather than being as disgusting as it sounded.

There were big tents set up to cover everything you could think of, from competitions for the local high school students to petting zoos. But we had other business to attend to first. Em and I had a tradition of filling up on as many foods as we could. She claimed our territory with Melody at one of the picnic tables while Derek and I split up to stand in the various lines and accumulate our feast. Maybe the idea was just to pick one or two things, but we preferred to get one of each. It was better that way.

By the time we were ready to dig in, we had an assortment of corn dogs, salted pretzels, funnel cakes, candy apples, and just about anything that could possibly be deep fried, including butter, cookies, candy bars, and even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I went ahead and took an acid reducer in preparation.

After we had stuffed our faces, we went for the light stuff first to avoid getting sick on the rides. Em got her face painted, played games, and melted over the lambs and baby goats in the petting zoo.

While everything with the fair was the same as it had always been, things were changing now that Melody was in our lives. Not in a bad way. But Derek didn’t need to lean on me as much to help out with Em. For the first time, I was starting to feel like a fourth wheel around them. The three of them were a happy little family, and I was just the uncle hanging around because I didn’t have a family of my own.

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