Chapter Two
EPOV
It's always the same dream, each and every night, always starting the same way.
But it's not so much a dream as it is a memory.
I wake up early one morning, grab a granola bar, and kiss my wife, Kate, on the cheek. She smiles up at me, her crystal blue eyes crinkling at the edges. I make a routine of watching her leave the house before me in the morning, shaking my head as she absently grabs an apple from the decorative bowl situated on the bar as she leaves for work.
She never eats those damn apples.
I always find them in her car: under her seat, tossed in the back floorboard, even in the glove-box and console sometimes. After six months of marriage I've learned to check her car every day, unless I wanted to smell the inevitable smell of fruit rotting in her car.
Kate was funny like that, silly with her little quirks, like the way she'd only stop at one specific gas station to fill her tank up. I can count on two hands the number of times I had to bring gas to her as she sat stranded on the side of the road, her sheepish, me enraged.
If I could turn back the hands of time, I'd do anything to bring my wife a red plastic jug full of gas once more. I'd pick her upevery day from the side of the road, grinning at her with a teasing smile if God would give me the chance.
In the dream Kate leaves for the day, grabbing her bag as she leaves for her job as a teacher's assistant. I glance up in surprise a few minutes later as she returns with a frown on her face, murmuring that she, yet again, forgot to fill up the car before work.
I toss her the keys to my truck and give her an exasperated stare. She says nothing as she easily catches the keys and disappears through the door, head down low. I sigh before taking her car to the local gas station to fill it up, the station right down the fucking road, the one she refuses to use.
In the dream my boss calls my cell as I pump the gas into her car. He's barking in my ear that I need to hurry the hell up and get to work. Apparently one of the other guys hadn't shown up at the job site, leaving them one man short, and it was about to fucking rain, so I needed to get on the ball.
I end the call, shoving the cell in my pocket and ripping the receipt from the pump. I'm in a rush now. Jobs are scarce and I've only worked for that construction company a couple of months. Just as I cap off the tank a clap of thunder cracks across the sky and the mist begins to swirl around me.
I gun it down the road, the worn tires slinging up rainwater. I speed up as I hit the east part of town, my boss's words ringing in my ears. The east side is the more upscale part of town, the side of town where the nicest parks and best schools are located. Perky little trees and fat scrubs line different areas running along the road, the greenery so massive that it obscures people's view of things from time to time.
My cell rings once again, and I know, I just fucking know that it's my dickhead boss calling once more. I fumble around in my jeans, glancing down as I do so. That's when the dream changes vastly. That's when I hear it all: a horn blowing, tires skidding, glass shattering, metal crunching, children screaming. And then nothing.
Nothing but silence.
"E, man. Wake up," a worried voice demands.
My eyes snap open, my vision slightly fuzzy with sleep. The panic lingers, that insurmountable pressure of gripping pain, wrapping around my sternum, creeping up my neck, and choking my throat.
I hurriedly rise from where I lay, and groan as I smack my head on something hard. Rubbing the rising bump to the top of my head, I hunch my upper body, glance up, and remember exactly where I'm at: the county jail in Forks, Kentucky, bottom bunk, directly situated beneath the bed of one Mike Newton.
"You sounded like you were dying, man," said bunk-mate proclaims from where he crouches nearby.
"Bad dream," I gasp, rubbing at my chest, attempting to will away the agonizing tightness.
"You want me to call the guard? He can get the nurse for ya."
"No, I'm fine," I choke out, closing my eyes, repeatedly breathing in through my nose, and out through pursed lips. "I'll be fine."
"You wanna talk about it?
I shake my head, refusing to acknowledge the new-found terror uprooted by his simple request to share my thoughts.
Mike gives me a contemplative look as he nods. Then he walks over to the water-spot stained metal toilet, and proceeds to take a piss. I avert my eyes, the familiar unsettled feelings creeping in.
One thing I miss the most about the outside world, other than my wife...er, ex-wife, is privacy. There is no privacy in jail. I'm watched when I take a piss. I'm watched as I take a shit. I'm watched while I eat my stale-ass bologna sandwich for supper. Fifteen minute visitation with my mother? Watched as though any second I'll jump over the press-wood table and snap her neck. And when I'm not being watched? I'm watching others as they do these things. Why? Because there's nothing else to fucking do in this joint.
"You know what my mamma always said?" Mike asks, at least having the decency to wash his hands in the metal sink that's attached to the nasty-as-fuck metal toilet before drying them on his standard issued black and whites. "God gives you dreams to tell you things. He's passing a message to you, dude."
"Message read loud and clear," I grumble, sliding my legs from the bed and into a sitting position, ducking my head below the top bunk. "He's punishing me for what I did by making me relive it every night."
"No, not punishment," Mike argues, plopping down on the dirty floor and grinning up at me. "He's trying to tell you something. He's sending you a message."
"What sort of message?"
"Hmm…"
Mike thinks this over, lightly tapping his stubby fingers against his pale chin. The kid just turned eighteen, but he looks about sixteen. His skin's so pasty and sweaty that he could pass for a tuberculosis patient. There's a childlike innocence about him that sends shivers racing up my spine, especially since learning that messing with children is the very reason he's currently residing in the county jail.
"Forgiveness," he blurts, so sudden, and with such innocent joy, that it causes me to jump.
"Forgiveness? Whose forgiveness?"
"Your own," he replies, daintily plucking at his limp blonde hair, grinning at me behind watery blues eyes. "That's why you should sign up for the ministry service. If you won't talk to me about your past, maybe you'll talk to one of those Christian ladies who visit …"
"No offense, Lester," I laugh, the sound a stranglehold in my chest. "But I doubt I'll be taking advice from you anytime soon."
Mike halts the plucking at the mention of his nickname, but instead of growing angry he simply shrugs, stands, and climbs up on the top bunk. I feel no stab of guilt or sliver of regret from my slip of my tongue. The truth is, the guy makes me sick. But I'm the only inmate the guards feel safe enough placing him with, so here we are, sharing a life together, at least… for now.
Oh, what a life.
As I lay back down on the bed and stare up at Mike's stained mattress sagging against the metal mesh, I mull over his words. I've lived with anger and regret for so fucking long. I've never given much thought about forgiveness, doubting that the infliction I caused against an innocent woman would ever be forgiven, but as I lay here I can't help but ponder it. That's all there is to do here, really. Lay and think. Eat and think. Piss and think. Read and think.
Breathe.
Think.
The longer I think about the ministry service, the better it sounds. Anything has to be better than sitting in this tiny cell thinking.
"I'll do it," I tell Mike, the words falling from my mouth with an escaping breath. "But not because I'm expecting anything to come out of it. I'm just fucking bored."
Mike let's out an amused chuckle from his bunk above. I can imagine his upturned grin as he says, "Whatever you say, my dear Edward. Whatever you say."
The cold room I sit in bathed in a dim-gray color, but it seems like everything around here is gray.
The bunk bed I toss and turn in at night is gray, the sink and toilet attached to one another in my jail cell is a steely gray, the folding chair I'm sitting in at this very moment is a chipped gray.
Sometimes I wonder if the constant flow of gray is a type of state-issued psychological torture for us inmates. We've already fucked up our lives, wound up in incarcerated, forced to surround ourselves with other broken men, and a now never-ending blur of dismal colors as well.
I'm slouched in a chipped-gray chair in a small room awaiting the 'Christian lady' that Mike has so fondly referred to, although I'm unsure if 'Legs' or 'Brown Eyes' will be ministering to me today. Those are the nicknames Mike has given the ladies, and I doubt the women are very appreciative of his terms of endearment.
Seth, the officer assigned to the thrilling duty of sitting in during these lessons, sits slouched in his chair as well. He scrubs his hands over his face, then catches me watching him. He shoots me a toothy grin that stands out against his dark, Native American skin.
"You ready for a little religion, Cullen?" he cracks with a grin.
I shake my head and chuckle. Seth is a good kid … a little wet behind the ears, but still a good kid. He has an uncanny ability to connect with the inmates, yet still hold the authority assigned to him. Not many can say the same.
"Anything's better than sitting in a cell all day listening to Mike," I reply, snickering when he cringes.
Set leans forward, elbows on knees, glancing at the open doorway before dropping his voice in a conspiring manner.
"Once you see these girls … I promise you won't regret accepting the Lord into your life."
He leans back, wagging his thick, black eyebrows suggestively. I chuckle, shaking my head once more, but the sound of clicking heels against concrete causes my laughter to die away. Uneasiness creeps over me. I watch the open doorway with a mixture of interest and tribulation.
Billy, a tall, burly guard comes into view, his normally solemn face soft with an open smile as he speaks to his companion. I study the young woman at his side intently, starting at her expensive shoes, my eyes drifting up her toned, tan legs, over the bright, floral dress she wears.
My assessment pauses once I reach her breasts. They're full and perky, perfectly round and unintentionally emphasized by the clothing she wears. No, the sad kindness on her face as she whispers to Billy proves she's not the type of person to purposely draw attention to herself.
Dark waves of honey and chocolate colored hair spills past her shoulders. Those curved up lips … they're full and a delicious pink, with straight, white teeth appearing behind them occasionally. The woman's eyes are so dark they're almost black, and morose. Those eyes are so sad behind her timid smile as she converses with the guard. And when she looks at me...like she's looking at me now…all the air is sucked from the room ... from my lungs.
The Bible and workbooks in her hands slip from her fingers, spilling across the cold, gray floor. The pink blush of her cheeks languidly falls away, giving her skin a ghastly glow. She grows rigid, as do I. The two of us stare at one another for an undetermined amount of time before Seth clears his throat, effectively breaking the spell.
"Cullen, don't you know how to treat a lady?" he ask from where he sits.
Seth crosses his arms over his chest, glances down at the book and papers she's dropped, and then shoots me a wink.
I'm on the floor in an instant, picking up the loose pieces of paper, the workbooks, the Bible. Kneeling on one knee, I gaze up at her, at those pouty lips, slack with stunned disbelief, those dead eyes, more alive in those few minutes that I've ever seen over the past few years.
Yes, the past few years. I've seen this woman before. I've seen her face on the news, her photos splashed across the front of the newspaper. I've secretly watched her give speeches at the city council meetings, begging for wider streets, slower speed limits, and caution lights outside of schools and daycare facilities, but this is the first time the two of us have met since the accident. This is the first time we've met since the wreck I was involved in that took everything from her...the wreck that killed her husband and only child.
I offer the pamphlets, Bible, and loose papers to her as I kneel, the items shaking in my trembling hands. The dream rushes back to me at that moment: the shattering glass, the sound of children screaming, the blackness that follows.
Beads of sweat form on my forehead. Office Black watches me with concern, well aware of the panic attacks that can strike me at any given moment.
But why now?
This is God punishing me … punishing me even more for the unintentional hurt I've caused this woman. I'm now gasping for breath as I crouch at her feet, my arms trembling, my skin cold and damp.
I press my eyes shut and hear the scuffle of feet, the sound of hard soles against the even harder ground. My breathing slows as I imagine she's gone. She's gone and she's taking my anxiety with her.
Now I feel a smooth, warm hand delicately touch my arm. She's not gone. No, she's not gone. She's right by my side, comforting me. Comforting a killer.
Through flared nostrils I breath in her scent, the smell of honey and sugar filling my lungs. My eyes open to their own accord as I meet her timid stare, and a sweet, sweet voice, speaking to me.
"Everything will be okay."
My chest is caught in a live wire, wrapping and twisting around my sternum. Why is this woman comforting me? She obviously knows who I am. That's the only explanation for her reaction once she saw me. My name couldn't be kept out of the papers, but my face never made its way there. I was in the hospital for months after the wreck … that and the fact that the police report eventually deemed the wreck an 'accident,' recanting their initial claim that I was speeding.
Speeding.
I remember flying down the wet road that morning, but I honestly have no recollection of the speed I was traveling. I was too anxious to make it to work on time, too worried I'd lose my job to concern myself with the rain-spattered roads. Fingers were pointed my way, but they were also pointed in Eric Yorkie's way as well.
Eric Yorkie, husband of Isabella, and father of Ben, the child whose life I also took that fateful day.
"Maybe you should get the nurse," I hear her sweet voice murmur.
"No, I'm fine," I mutter. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."
The light touch of her hand stiffens, as though she knows exactly what I'm sorry for, and it's not for the anxiety take that's taken over my body.
"Ms. Swan, there's no touching the inmates. That was one of the rules you agreed to on the paperwork you signed."
Ms. Swan? When did she change her name? And why?
"But he's … hurt."
The sympathy she shows for me is astounding. I can't take the mixture of emotions flowing from her tiny little hand, through my arm, and swirling in my blood. I try to stand, and do so, dropping my gaze from her petite frame as I stagger back to my chair.
I continue to feel her stare as I drop my head, once slouched in my chair. I'm ashamed of my own weakness. The air flows more freely now. I'm no longer gasping for life, for the breath that previously refused to comply. The rush of my racing heart subsides, and I glance up to meet her concerned stare.
"If this is going to be a problem," Officer Black begins, his eyes dancing between mine, Isabella's, and a contemplative Seth's, "we can always assign you to a different inmate."
"No, I want Edward."
The conflicting emotions waging inside me increases with her words. My body has formed a riot, my heart and soul are the evil minions to the guilt that constantly consumes me. Shock joins in as well as Officer Black nods and disappears into the hallway, leaving the three of us alone.
Isabella stands near the door for a moment, her eyes never leaving mine. There's a strange shift in the air, that's no longer awkward or weak, but something else. Something I can put my finger on. She cautiously approaches me, dropping down on a gray chair of her own, sitting across the table from me as she opens her Bible and workbook.
"The first lesson," she whispers, the words caught in her throat.
"The first lesson," I murmur in encouragement, meeting her meek gaze.
"The first lesson," she continues, her slender face burning with a bashful blush, "is about forgiveness."
"Forgiveness?"
She nods, smiling a weak smile. It's weak, but beautiful, and I feel alive for the first time in so very long.
"Forgiveness."
I force myself not to look at her as she reads from the Bible. I force myself not to get lost in the light trill of her voice, the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she speaks, the sweet smell of her skin as she edges her chair closer to the table, or the thick waves of honey and chocolate pouring over her shoulders.
I'm not only a monster for taking her family, I'm a monster for the things running through my mind. It's been weeks since I've been in the presence of a woman, other than the occasional female Officer with their hair tightly pulled away from their dead faces.
But no amount of time away from females should encourage the thoughts running through my head.
"Edward," her delicately spoken voice says, dragging me from my thoughts. "Did you hear what I asked?"
"No," I whisper, my eyes trained on my hands. "I'm sorry. Can you repeat that?"
"I asked to come up with a few questions you have about forgiveness? I'll call out the book, chapter, and verse, and you can read it aloud? Do you have your books of the Bible memorized? If not, you can find them listed in the front."
"I have them memorized," I tell her quietly.
I feel her surprise, all the way across the table, as she slides a worn Bible in my direction. Her fingers linger on the leather, mine brushing against them as I feebly attempt to take the book from her.
Our eyes meet at that moment, at that innocent touch. She draws her bottom lip between her teeth, her fingers never moving away. Mine refuse to move as well, frozen by something, by this girl, rendered immobile by this beautiful woman. The two of us remain still, until Seth clears his throat and shoots me a knowing glance.
We breakaway, effectively shattering whatever strange spell we are also under. Pinkness creeps up her graceful neck, swooping over the apples of her cheeks.
I run a hand nervously through my mussed rust-colored hair, wishing like hell I'd taken the time this morning to look more presentable. Why? Hell if I know, but one thing that I do know … she no longer wears her diamond wedding ring.
"Question?"
"Oh, uh. Yeah. What if … what if I don't want to forgive?"
Isabella stares at me for a long moment, a strange sense of recognition on her face. My eyes dart between her and the Bible cover, her name, her name that is no longer 'Yorkie' etched in gold on the faded leather.
Isabella Swan
"Edward, who do you not want to forgive? And why?"
I've never felt so vulnerable in my entire life as I have since sharing a room with this woman, breathing the same air. I'm willing myself not to break into a cold sweat, or worse; panic attack.
"Myself."
The room is silent. It's as dead as a tomb. Her ivory complexion pales even more as she leans back in her chair; dumbfounded. My elbows are planted on my knees, my legs jiggling back and forth, the Bible in my hands. Finally she speaks.
"Edward, why are you in here?"
The question she asks is not one I expect to hear. She's finally got my attention, my full attention, as I answer her question.
"Public drunk," I shrug, dropping my head in shame. "Disorderly conduct. Resisting arrest."
"And this is one of many offenses you've had?"
"No, this is the first time I've been arrested and incarcerated."
"Then… why don't you bail out? Call a bail bondsman?"
"What does this have to do with forgiveness?" I ask, a slight irritation flowing through my veins.
"Nothing," she whispers, sounding hesitant with her words. "I just don't understand why you haven't called someone to bail you out."
"Because this is where I belong," I groan, dropping the Bible on the table and scrubbing my face with one hand.
I know I can bail myself out. Hell, the bail's not but a few hundred bucks, but I don't want to leave. I want to stay here and endure the punishment I should have received so long ago. Why can't she see this? Why can't she see that I deserve to rot away for eternity?
"Edward," she whispers. "You're not a monster."
I glance up to catch her wetting her lips, and fuck me if the action doesn't do something to me.
"Really? Because in the short amount of time we've sit here, all I've done is watched you, studied you, breathed you in," I confess in a hushed tone, soaking in her widened, dark eyes. "All I've thought about is touching you. That doesn't make me a monster?"
My breathed confession sits in the air, the intensity of the words trapped, trapped in the room with me, with her, and with an officer I've long forgotten.
The blunt confession nudges her back, the words draining her into a stunned silences as she sharply inhales, then falls back against her chair.
My solemn face conveys the truth of my words, but after the initial shock, she quickly regains her composure: shoulders squared, her body perched upright, deep, dark eyes narrowed on mine. Then she leans forward.
"You're trying to scare me away," she accuses in a warm whisper. "But it won't work."
The quietly spoken words falling from her lips are bathed in Tennessee whiskey. Remorse floods me as I stare at this woman, at this beautiful woman with sadness etched around her eyes. I imagine her drinking her sorrows away while at home, then volunteering her time at the county jail, helping others find comfort within themselves. I wonder if she desires comfort as well, if she's moved on since her husband and son passed away, like so many others moved on, including my ex-wife.
"This isn't good for you," I tell her, watching her dark eyes cloud over. "Being in this room with me, conversing with me. This isn't good for you."
"What if it is?" she asks, nervously running her fingers through her long hair. "What if this is what I need? What you need?"
"You don't blame me," I whisper.
It's a statement, not a question. Realization so obviously washes over her as the corners of her lips turn into a slight frown.
"At first. I blamed you at first," she confesses, her cheeks reddening a bit before she continues. "When the police initially claimed you were speeding, I blamed you, but then things changed. The investigation intensified. All the other factors, Edward ... with all the other factors involved, I couldn't blame you then. I can't blame you now."
I shift uncomfortably in my chair. Seth's lingering stare burns my back. The air is thick and hard to breath, the weight of our words entirely suffocating us in this gray room where we sit.
"Blaming you for their death," she continues, her distant eyes welling with tears, "is like blaming you for the rain falling that day, or for the shrubbery that was overgrown and blocked Eric's view of the road, or for the fact that he pulled into oncoming traffic … in front of you."
"How do you know who I am?" I question, leaning toward her as well, our fingers merely inches from one another. "When you walked into this room you dropped your things. You knew who I was immediately. How did you know it was me? I didn't grow up around here. My picture wasn't in the paper …."
"I visited you in the hospital."
My eyes widen with her words, as do hers. Her confession is just as startling to me, and to herself, as my earlier confession was to us both.
"You had a broken leg," she says in a sorrowful tone, "a broken arm, and broken ribs. There were cuts and gashes. You had a concussion. I thought you would die."
"I don't rememb-"
"And I wanted you to," she interrupts in a faraway tone, her eyes clouding over with her words. "I wanted you to die, just like they did. I wanted you dead. I wanted to finish you myself."
Those tears, those tears that are welling in her eyes … they spill over, breaking this invisible line between us which previously pulled us together. She leans back in her chair, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand, before gazing at me sheepishly, awaiting my response.
And what can I say? What can I tell her besides the truth.
"I wish you had."
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