Why Now? Read Online Free Page A

easily in those days—friends, girls, and people just begging to have a chance to kiss my ass. This place would have seemed like a dump to me back then.
    Shaking my head I reply, “This place hasn’t felt like home in years.”
    My head turns back to him in time to catch his look of confusion before he schools his expression. “You don’t think of that rig as home do you?”
    He waits while I take another pull from my beer. “Nope, it’s not home which makes me homeless, I suppose.”
    “Hell, man, I don’t know how you do it. Don’t you go crazy out there?” He asks.
    My first year out there, I didn’t have time to think about myself. It was a whole new world and the work was so intense I crashed every night and didn’t budge until my next shift. Money was the only thing I thought about and the oilrig was the only legal way I could make what I needed.
    The isolation of living on the oilrig didn’t hit me until my first Christmas there. It was more than being hundreds of miles away from home; it was my first Christmas without Gram and Gramps, without the man and woman who raised me. No matter how big my ego got, my Gramps had no problem reminding me my shit still stunk just like everybody else’s.
    I didn’t only want to be home, I wanted them to be there too. Sure, I have a jacked up semblance of a family on the rig, but it isn’t the same. A few of the guys knew I played ball and was destined for the NFL but they could give a rat’s ass about it. As far as they were concerned, I was no better than any of them and turns out they were right.
    I wasn’t only homesick for a place, but for the people who made that place a home. Once I got it through my thick skull there was no going back, I stopped dwelling on the shit I couldn’t change. Time is a strange thing living as isolated as we do. Each time I’m off the rig I feel like Rip Van Winkle and a hundred years have passed by, and all I did was take a nap.
    My baby sister is twenty-eight years old. Fuck, I’m thirty-four. When the hell did that happen?
    “You can get used to anything after a while,” I mutter.
    He makes no response so I finish my beer.
    “I’m going to meet up with Reils for dinner. Want to come with?” I ask, tossing my bottle into his bin for recycling.
    He frowns. “You sure? I don’t want to intrude.”
    Smirking, I reply, “Don’t be a dumbass. Besides, I think your fiancée is coming.” He makes no argument to this and finishes his beer.
    He looks away, his cheeks getting red. “You heard.”
    “I talked to Reilly while I was on the train. You can tell me all about it while we walk over to the pizza place.”
    Over the past twenty years, the pizza place in town has changed hands no fewer than six times, maybe seven. I’ve lost count. The whole town got sick of remembering a new name every couple of years that we, as a whole, all gave up and started calling it the pizza place.
    “How much did Reilly tell you?” He asks once we’re on the sidewalk.
    “She said things aren’t looking good for your mom so you asked Kacey to marry you so she could see you settled before . . .” I trail off.
    He gulps and does it for me, “Before she dies.”
    “Are you sure it’s that bad?” I ask.
    Glumly, he nods. “My dad contacted hospice this week. Before that . . . before that, I never thought, I didn’t think. Fuck, man.”
    I pat his back, a tightness filling my chest. I don’t know what’s worse. When Gram passed, it was a shock. One minute she was there, and then she had an aneurysm and was gone. Gramps couldn’t deal. We were still reeling from her death when his heart went. Mrs. Mackey has been sick for years.
    Before she got sick, I had a massive crush on her when we were in middle school and our freshman year of high school. I’ve always made a point to visit her on my trips here. It’s been awful watching her waste away. Sure, Heath gets to spend time with her and they all get to cherish their last moments