Ford by Hope Ford

Author:Hope Ford [Ford, Hope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-15T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Ali

I watch him through the window as he jogs to his truck. I touch my finger to my lips thinking about his lips on my own. I don’t know what we’re doing. I leave on Sunday and my future is so unsure. All the thoughts start to fill my head. I’m worried about Ford, about selling Gran’s house, school, my future. I can feel my heart racing thinking about it all. Once Ford’s truck pulls away, I step back and follow the noises to the kitchen.

Looking around, every space on the counter is taken up with either already fixed pies or soon to be fixed desserts. “What can I do to help?”

Mrs. Tate hands me a bag of apples. “Do you mind starting on the apple pies, Ali?”

“Sure.” Everything seems to be in the same place as it was growing up. I open a drawer and find a knife and start peeling apples.

“So, Mrs. Tate, I, uh, never got to thank you for coming to Gran’s funeral. I really appreciate you being there.”

She stops what she’s doing and turns toward me. “You don’t have to thank me. I wanted to be there. And call me Janice.”

I nod my head at her and pick up another apple.

“So, how is school going?” She pours some milk into a bowl and then adds some butter, then stirs it all together.

“Good. I’ll graduate in December,” I tell her proudly.

“Oh honey, that’s great. Then you’ll get to come home.” She adds some dry ingredients and then keeps stirring.

“Yeah,” I mutter to her. I don’t want to get into the fact that I won’t have a home to come home to.

“So, how long have you and Ford been dating?” I look up at her, shocked, but she just smiles knowingly.

“Oh, we’re not. I mean we’re just friends,” I stutter and concentrate even harder on cutting up the peeled apples.

She laughs and when I look at her out the side of my eye, she says, “Oh, my boy’s smitten with you. If you’re not dating already, it’s not because he doesn’t want to.”

I feel the heat flush across my face, but luckily she drops the subject. We spend the rest of the day working side by side in her kitchen. And it’s probably the best day I’ve had in a long time. Even though I’m worried about Ford, his mom assures me that he knows how to take care of himself. However, in the late afternoon, when I hear the front door open, I don’t even try to stop myself from racing to the door to see if it’s him.

When I see it’s him coming through the door, the urge to cry hits me like a ton of bricks. My first inclination was to jump into his arms and wrap myself around him, but I don’t. I come to a halt before I reach him. He has that soft smile on his face, the one that I love that reminds me of when we were in school and he would catch me watching him.

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