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Did he need to meditate?A loud yes sounded inside his head. Ford wondered how Mr. Goldhirsh had read all he had just by looking in his eyes.
“Don’t overthink it, man. Chances are if Mr. Goldhirsh thinks you need meditation, you likely do,” Fin added. “Just roll with it.”
“Roll with it,” Ford muttered, moving to grab some timber. “Can’t be too hard I guess.”
Fin’s bark of laughter told him otherwise.
Chapter6
They unpacked the pickup with Ford fielding insults from his brother and brother-in-law about being at one with himself and finding inner peace.
“Can you go behind that classroom and get the supplies that were dropped there this morning,” Nash asked him. “We need them to get started.”
“Since it takes me away from you two, I can do that.”
“And while you’re walking, focus on subduing the negative mind and dawning awareness,” Fin added.
He raised a middle finger and walked away.
The school was nice. Trees, plenty of grass. The classrooms were pretty standard for a school, not that he’d set foot on school grounds for years. Walking the path behind the building, he saw the supplies and a kid at the same time. A young boy was sitting beside a classroom, arms around his knees, kind of hunched in on himself.Defeated, he thought.
There wasn’t anyone close to him, so Ford made himself stomp loudly on the path, alerting the kid to his approach. The head shot up, and he saw tears.
Most people hated tears, and Ford was no different, especially when it was a child shedding them.
“Hey, buddy.”
The boy just watched him approach.
“You okay there?”
The boy nodded. Ford dropped to his haunches before him. He was small with messy brown hair and deep green eyes.
“What’s your name?”
“Ritchie.”
There had to be more than one Ritchie who was a boy and at school in Ryker Falls, surely?
“I’m Ford, Ritchie. Pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand, and the boy looked at it then held out his own. Ford shook it gently.
“Something upset you, bud?”
He nodded.
“Want to tell me about it?”Talking and not holding things inside us helps us move forward.Mr. Goldhirsh’s words filtered through his head.
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” He had a lisp, likely due to a missing front tooth.
“We’re not strangers because we’ve just been introduced.”
Ritchie gave him a steady look. He had his mother’s eyes, and Ford could no longer deny who Ritchie belonged to.
“Maybe I can help?”
“I’m okay.”
“You don’t sound okay.”
