I have just enough time to catch the familiar orange bakery box that’s held out to me then let go in midair before it drops to the ground, as my friend and neighbor, Callie, storms right through my front door without knocking, quickly passing me on her way over to my coffee pot on the counter.
No one says a word while we watch her grab one of my Halloween mugs from the holder in my coffee nook, wearing a pair of cotton pajama pants, a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over her mess of red hair that’s spilling out of it, and what looks to be her husband’s five-sizes-too-big boots on her feet as she thumps around my kitchen. Callie fills her mug to the brim with black coffee and then has to lean over and slurp a little out of it before she can pick it up.
“Okay, you may now speak.” Callie nods, slowly turning around to face everyone as she takes a careful sip of coffee, her eyelids no longer as droopy as they were when she first entered. “What are we discussing?”
Callie is one of the people I care about who managed to find love without being screwed over, and I’m very happy for her. Even if she often tries to push her happily-ever-after agenda on me. My friend married her childhood sweetheart, Marcus. Callie and Marcus are the only reason I still believe in love. Not for myself, obviously, but the two of them have proven it can work for other people. Since we live across the street from each other, knocking has become a thing of the past.
“That right there,” Penny mutters in answer to Callie’s question, pointing a finger in my direction as I stare down into the bakery box I just opened, unable to wipe the huge smile off my face. “That’s why we’re having an intervention. Because it’s only October 1st, and she already has fucking hearts in her eyes!”
I roll my eyes that are in no way filled with hearts. Even though I’m looking down at a box filled to the brim with pumpkin funnel cakes that Ford must have convinced the Harvest Grove bakery, Boo Bites, to make and deliver to me after he left his house while I was still sleeping. It makes my annoyance with him for disappearing this morning quickly vanish.
“He ruins everything. Year after year, he comes to Harvest Grove, tries to put a stop to all our fun, and you start ignoring us. Then you get hearts in your eyes, staying out doing God knows what with him all night long and not here to make us breakfast at your own intervention,” Ginger complains, while everyone else nods in agreement, including Kenny.
“Seriously?” I mutter to him as I set the bakery box down on the counter, which just makes Kenny shrug and then smile up at Aunt Dawn when she gets up to top off his coffee mug.
“Ford doesn’t ruin anything. We celebrated his homecoming eating Chinese food, watching Mostly Ghostly, and putting together my severed heads, just like every year,” I inform them, my arm sweeping out toward my entry table and the box I brought home with me.
“And then you watched him sleep and doodled Sidney Prescott in a notebook the rest of the night,” Callie leans over and whispers in my ear with a snort, which earns her an elbow jab to the ribs.
That particular frivolity happened one time the first year Ford was in town. The doodling, not the sleep-watching. That’s creepy even for me. Callie caught me by sneaking up behind me during a lull in customers at the bar and looking over my shoulder to see what I was doing, and she will never let me live it down. It is not a big deal that I thought the universe was trying to tell me something when this broody, hot guy came to town, and his last name was Prescott. It’s no big thing that for like, a tiny blip in time in the grand scheme of things, I was downright giddy that if we got married, my name would be Sidney Prescott. Just like the greatest heroine of all Halloween movies in Scream. The woman who always manages to defy death, while literally everyone around her runs right into it. Kind of like me.
The knowledge that I thought about marriage for any amount of time, no matter how small, would send this family right into a tailspin that would most likely result in bloodshed, third degree burns, and/or dismemberment. This is something I will take to my grave, and if Callie knows what’s good for her, she will also take it to hers, like a good friend.
“Can we speed up this intervention? I’d like to take a nap before my shift at the bar starts.” I make a hurry-up motion with my hand before crossing my arms in front of me.
“Quit your job,” my mother starts the intervention. “You can’t continue working for a man who ruins October.”
I cover up a yawn with one of my hands instead of arguing. I’ve worked at Wicked Pub and Grub, the only bar in town, since I was in high school. Long before Ford took over running it. Since it’s the only thing that keeps Ford coming back year after year, it will continue getting my support and hard work.
“No more sleeping at his place!” Ginger orders next.
All I do is blink at her. I stayed at Ford’s last night because we didn’t get finished with the movie and succulents until three in the morning. Technically, I only really slept there for a few hours, and that’s only because Ford threatened to tie me to a chair if I tried to walk home alone in the middle of the night, when he was too exhausted from traveling to accompany me. Just like he always does when I find myself at his place late and start nodding off. It’s easier to curl up on his couch than argue with him.
“No more accepting bribes from the enemy!” Penny demands.
I answer her by grabbing a pumpkin funnel cake out of the box and letting out a loud moan of happiness when I take a big bite. Ford doesn’t use bribery to get what he wants; he would never stoop to that level. He only got me pumpkin funnel cakes because he knows I might have wound up in jail again, this time for murdering my family if I didn’t get any. Which is evident by the note that’s taped to the top of the box that reads, Don’t kill anyone.—Ford.
“No more getting your damn hopes up, just for him to drop you like a bad habit at the end of the month to disappear back to his fancy life that you’re not good enough to be a part of the rest of the year.”
Ginger’s words are a direct hit to the black, rotting organ that sits in my chest, almost delivering it that final blow. Thankfully, Callie is the only one who knows it. She gives me a wincing smile over the top of her coffee mug, and I console myself by grabbing another funnel cake out of the box and double-fisting them as I take a bite out of each one. My happiness about my favorite month and the joy of being able to spend time with Ford again fade away, while the sugary dough in my mouth suddenly becomes hard to swallow.
There’s nothing like having your own insecurities thrown in your face first thing in the morning by your family. I stopped dreaming about any kind of romantic future with Ford a long time ago, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting any less every time he leaves and every time he cuts me out of his “fancy life” for eleven months. The reminder that I’m only good enough for him in October, in Harvest Grove, is not something I needed right now, when I was still floating on the high of having my friend back in town again.
Year after year, I let my guard down, and I let him steamroll my life. I let him make decisions, clean up messes, tell me what to do, give me a shoulder to cry on, and just generally take care of me. Which all sound like things I really shouldn’t complain about. Hearing my cousin voice the thoughts that have plagued me for six years just makes me feel like a fool for always getting so excited about Ford’s return. I’m tired of spending thirty-one days getting used to having someone take care of me for once, only to have it all taken away in the blink of an eye. For the first time in six years, I’m suddenly pissed off about it. He put me under his spell just like always last night, but that’s it. I’m putting my foot down.