Page 38 of Chains and Vows

So everything outside of that is a special kind of winnin'. Somethin' surplus and extraordinary—like findin' a twenty in the pocket of jeans you forgot you owned, except bigger than that, heavier than that, the kind of thing you hold in both hands 'cause you're afraid to drop it.

And the fact that I am, right now, lyin' in a bed inside a legit covered wagon, naked and warm, with an angel beside me—that's the proof. That's the evidence. That right there is my entire defense against every bad thing I ever believed about myself, and I'm holdin' it close, and I'm not lettin' it go.

Even takin' into account the killin'. Even with all those bodies in the pit out back of Badlands, all that weight I carry that don't ever leave, not even when I sleep.

Even with the prison time and the betrayal, the brand burned over my heart, three years of a concrete ceiling and a light that never went out.

Even with the shattered family, and the trailer-trash upbringing, and a mother in the ground too young, and a sister I couldn't save, and a kid sister who learned to pick locks 'cause nobody was comin' to let her out.

Even with all that—I'm lucky.

I'm genuinely, undeservedly, inexplicably lucky.

And the thing about luck is it always runs out.

It's not pessimism, it's arithmetic.

The ledger knows.

Luck is borrowed against somethin' and eventually the note comes due.

That's why ya can't plan a future. Not in concrete, ever. Shit, not even in pencil, not even on the back of a bar napkin you'll lose by mornin'. It never comes out the way you think it will. You aim at a fixed point and the wind moves and suddenly you're standin' somewhere else entirely, lookin' back at where you meant to be.

It can get worse, it can get better, it can get boring and repetitive and bleed all the color out till the days look the same gray as a prison wall.

The future don't owe you nothin'. It's not your friend and it's not your enemy.

It's just the road ahead of you, and you can't see past the next bend, and that's the whole truth of it.

All you can do is treat it like a road. Point yourself somewhere. Walk like you mean it. Maybe you reach the place on the map, maybe you don't—but you keep movin', keep walkin', Demon, 'cause the alternative is just standin' still in the dark.

"You're awfully quiet," Savannah murmurs. She's clearly ready to sleep, voice already driftin' toward that warm edge, that soft place she gets when she’s not performin' for nobody.

"Ah, I dunno," I say. "Just thinkin' about us, I guess."

She turns over, placin' her chin on my chest, blue eyes sparklin' at me in the dim golden light. Lookin' up at me like that, she don't look like four-point-two million followers or a dead woman's inheritance or a contract with the state of Montana. She just looks like mine. "I told you I'd take care of it," she says. "And I will."

"Not that," I say. "Not the will." I let my hand find the back of her neck, thumb restin' against the knob of her spine, and I feel her breathe. "I'm not worried about marryin' you, Savannah. Marriage is a contract with the state. I don't need a fuckin' contract with the state to know you're mine. I knew that before I ever had a patch, before I ever had a number, before three years of gray walls and concrete floors. None of that changed it."

"Hm," she says, and her mouth curves just barely. "So you're sayin' you don't wanna marry me?"

I smile, because she's baitin' me. Not mean. Just playful.

"Of course I do," I say. "And that will happen." I pause here and flash her a confident smile, and it's the real kind—not the kind you wear like a cut when you're expectin' trouble, but the kind that comes up from somewhere deeper, somewhere that didn't get burned out in the Pit or on the road or in any of the twenty-two hundred days I spent figurin' out how to get back here.

Because while the future prefers that you do not mark up your life in a day planner, it often does respond to a vision board.

The future likes to be pointed in a direction. It likes to know the shape of your desires. In fact, if you don't point it somewhere, it goes nowhere at all.

"We're gonna have that weddin'," I tell her. "Legal or not, it will happen. And it will be everything you ever dreamed of. Instagram worthy, even if that's not your thing anymore. I'm just sorta wonderin’ how I get from this to that, ya know?"

She giggles a little. "This to that? Explain."

"You know. Badlands pres to… a man who lives here."

"Do you live here now?"

"I go where you go, Savannah. I live where you live, whether I'm there in person, or not, doesn't matter. I'm still with you."