When a tragic accident at work leaves Ford Langford permanently disabled, medically retiring him from his job as a paramedic, he is forced to consider what comes next. He has no idea how the world expects him to move on. Months after his injury, he struggles with chronic pain and depression, and eventually turns to video games, pouring hours into an open world fantasy game.
At first he plays only with his coworker but eventually starts to play with others online. That leads him to Andy Fischer, a single dad from Oregon. Soon they’re chatting almost daily on Discord and playing on voice chat multiple times a week. What starts as friendship slowly develops into something more as both Ford and Andy work to figure out what’s next.
When Andy moves for a job and to be closer to family, he is mysteriously quiet about what the job is or where he is moving, asking Ford only for time to get settled. He promises Ford is important to him, and when everything is stable, he wants more from their relationship. But what happens when it turns out Andy’s new life is much, much closer to home than Ford could have expected?
“So, Oregon,” Ford says. “I’ve never been, but I want to. I grew up on the east coast, but I'm a convert. West really is best.”
“I was stationed up in Washington for a while, but otherwise, I've always lived in Oregon, and I love it. Where did you grow up?”
Ford sighs. “Vermont, and even after almost ten years away, I still have no desire to go back. LA is perfect.” And he knows he opened the door for Andy to ask why, what sent him packing from Vermont, but he doesn't really want to admit to his new friend that he is his parents’ biggest disappointment.
But Andy must understand because instead he asks, “LA, huh? So we’re in the same time zone. Do you work swings or something?” Which, in hindsight, isn't much better.
“Oh, uh, nah. I don’t work right now,” Ford replies. This is pretty much the last thing he wants to talk about. “I got hurt about nine months ago on the job.”
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry to hear that.”
Ford shrugs his shoulders a few times. “It’s whatever. I’m just doing PT and trying to figure out what’s next.” It’s a little bit of a lie. He’s doing PT, but he isn’t trying to figure out what he’s doing. “What about you? You keep very similar hours to me, it seems.”
“I got off an hour ago,” Andy says.
“And you’re not sleeping?”
“I’ve got to be up in a few hours to get my kid ready for school. I can’t ever sleep right after work, so I just play for a few hours, then get him off to school. I sleep, and then I go to work at two.”
Ford frowns while doing the math. “You work, what, twelves?”
“Kinda. Two to ten at the gas station, then eleven to three stocking at a grocery store,” Andy replies.
“Two jobs?”
“Three. Overnight security on the weekends at a storage unit.”
Ford sits back. “Holy shit, dude.”
“It’s just us, Henry and me,” Andy says.
Ford breaks through to the surface again and pauses once he’s above ground. “Well, that’s fucking intense, but wow. I’m a little in awe of you. Especially since I’m doing nothing.”
“You’re healing, right? You said you were doing PT. That’s hard. It’s mentally exhausting to be hurt and to have to recover from it, especially if it also means the end of your career. I uh ...” Andy pauses and Ford can hear the way he draws in a breath, holds it, then forces it out. “I got hurt in Iraq on my last tour. Medically discharged, and I came home hurt and unemployed. It really fucking sucks.”
Ford takes a second to let that sink in. Nobody has said that to him. And he hates to say it to anybody in his life too because they are all trying to be unfailingly positive. But it does suck. “Yeah,” he says after a second. “It really does. And everybody else just seems to be so positive all the time. But I hurt every day. My leg gave out in the shower yesterday, and I slammed my elbow against the edge of the tub. I was lucky it wasn’t my fucking skull. I need less positive and some fucking acknowledgment that this all fucking sucks.”
“It fucking sucks, Ford,” Andy says. “I’m sorry you’re going through it. There’s going to be the other side eventually, but it does suck.”
Tears sting at the corner of Ford’s eyes, and his throat feels tight. “Thanks, man,” he manages after a second.
“Any time,” Andy says.
