Dance With Me
-Why Should I Be Afraid to Die? I Belong To You-
Forrest sat scowling in a wheelchair, robe wrapped around him and a cigar between his teeth. The nurses assigned to him thought some fresh air might do him good. They wheeled him out to the porch and left him to sit in the cold. Wouldn't be all that surprised if they'd forgotten about him. He couldn't bring himself to care too much if they did.
It'd been two days since they cut him out of his prison, but it hadn't made much of a difference. His legs were jelly. He could bend his elbows but raising an arm felt like lifting a pallet of bricks, and striking a match was the most difficult thing he'd done in months. The winter chill nipped against his skin, which had turned an unpleasant shade of white and flaked in the aftermath of all that plaster. Inactivity had eaten away his muscle mass and placed an awful swelling in his joints, from his fingers to his toes. Sitting upright made him light-headed, and his back ached with the effort to hold himself up, but he endured. All of it was better than getting back into that goddamn bed.
Whit Boitnott was a dim-witted little bug, with a temper worse than Howard's and the slow competency of a stunted man who'd never set foot inside a church or a schoolhouse a day in his life. But Forrest did have to acknowledge and appreciate that Whit had been quick to see an opportunity and seize it as a means to right his personal wrongs. He'd fired Whit years back because he was lazy and his work was sloppy, and wasn't any training going to improve the work of a man who showed no interest in learning. In fact, he'd forgotten who the man was at all, and it took him a long while of stressing his memory to put a face to the name of the person so intent on killing him. When he did remember, well it was just a matter of deciding how to go about the situation next.
He'd had a long time to mull that over. Three months is a long time. He kept track of the days in his head, in a mental tally on a chalkboard in his imagination. He'd gaze at the ceiling and imagine little black dashes, crossing every five days, circling significant days, or weeks. A birthday. A scheduled run. When the bills were due. September 3rd had a big old star next to it. That was the day Edna left.
He remembered everything up until that first log – pretty, it was, twenty feet of magnificent, sturdy, healthy oak – tumbled on down with a trembling bounce and struck him in the knees. He was sent to the ground instantly, and by the mercy of God taken into darkness and oblivion. He was a little surprised when he woke. Part of him thought that the bastard had really done him in, but damned if he died by another man's hand.
He was certain he'd find Whit Boitnott and break him. There wasn't any way around that; the man had sealed his fate the second he cut those binds. He would shatter his arms and his legs, beat his chest and face until the man choked on his own blood. He had thorough punishment planned for him, and was genuinely pleased to hear that Carter Lee ordered Boitnott's sentence to be reduced to three weeks with good behavior for reckless endangerment. He'd be out, and they'd find him. Forrest could deliver his punishment and the world could return to a necessary balance.
But Edna left. And when she did, the world spun off its axis and drifted aimlessly in outer space. He couldn't right that with a good dose of retribution. No fist was going to fix that. Every inch of him burned as bones reattached themselves and new layers of skin grew. When his bruised lungs stretched with every breath, it was like tearing flesh. The constant itch was maddening in the tight sweat-soaked confines, and he'd have taken a cut throat a hundred times over that hell. But he would've spent years in that plaster suit if it would've kept him from having to watch her leave. That was a pain all in its own. Incomparable. Unbearable. She was gone.
Sometimes, if he lay real still and stared at the ceiling, he couldn't feel anything. No ache. No burn. No pulse of white-hot pain that made him want to kick and writhe his way out of the prison. And that frustrated him because he needed to feel something. Something in the skin. Something in the bones. Something to distract him from the unrelenting sink of his heart and that face which had carved itself into his brain.
It always hurt less when she was there. When she was nagging him for moving ways that he shouldn't. When she was telling him he was stupid, dumb, an impatient child. When he fell on his head and was brought into her care a second time, he remembered waking to her voice. How his neck ached and he wished he could twist and stretch the knots from his shoulders. But her hands and her voice kept his eyes closed and his body still. She wondered how he always managed to hurt himself. She wondered why he wasn't dead yet. She was a funny thing. He stayed slack when she turned him on his side as she complained about the rising price of beef in town. She lifted his arm and she squeezed his shoulders a few times, rubbing along his neck like it was a part of her routine. It was like she knew he'd been hurting. He didn't hurt anymore after that.
Edna wanted him to talk. The day she left, she wanted him to say something to her. But he couldn't. He'd withdrawn deep inside himself to focus on the pain. To focus on healing. He spent all his energy day after day on these efforts, and words were far from forming on his tongue. He listened to her though, and he watched her. He memorized her eyes, her hair, her mouth. The length of her fingers, her legs, the circumference of her waist, the curve of her hips. He counted the number of teeth in her smile and burned it into his memory so he'd never forget it. He wouldn't stop looking at her when she wanted him to sleep, and she tried singing him a lullaby.
It was so awful he had to smile. Her voice was song enough; conversation greater than any melody on the radio.
But he knew she was leaving, and on that day he couldn't talk to her. He thought if he opened his mouth, if he formed words and felt the vibrations of his own voice, his heart would burst.
Forrest's scowl deepened as he flicked the stump of his cigar off the porch into the dirt. He looked out over the empty road and wondered if this was it for him. He'd heal. He'd go back to the station, he'd tidy up at the sawmill. He'd continue running his business, looking out for Jack, looking out for Howard. He'd sell the plot along the lake because there wasn't any sense in keeping it. No woman to build a house for. Wasn't any other woman for him.
Anxiousness thumped somewhere in the tight confines of his chest, but he swallowed it down. He had a long life to live. No use in making it harder on himself than it already was.
He rolled his shoulders back and tried to sit a little straighter, watching as a shining new Ford rolled up the hill. "You all right out here, Forrest?" He didn't know whose voice that belonged to and he didn't turn to look. He kept his mouth shut as he followed the path of the vehicle, and he heard when whoever had come to check up on him tutted their tongue and turned to retreat inside once more.
The Ford slowed and turned off the road, crawling into the hospital lot. It braked to a stop in a clearing between two vehicles, and the engine shuttered and died. Forrest looked on because there wasn't anywhere else to focus his attention. A stumpy man emerged from between the cars, tightening a scarf around his neck and shoved the ends inside his long coat. Forrest scoffed a little as the man began to waddle his way up to the hospital, and he removed his gaze, looking out over the road once more.
"Mr. Bondurant? Are you Forrest Bondurant?" Forrest scowled down at the little man, who had somehow come to stand in front of him. He breathed from his mouth, puffs of vapor streaming from him, and as he removed his hat in a gesture of greeting, it revealed a severely balding head. Forrest didn't have to confirm his identity; the man already knew. He stepped forward and held his hand out as he said, "How are you sir?"
Forrest sat a head higher than this stranger because of the porch, and didn't hesitate to make the man feel inferior. He glanced down at his outstretched hand and deliberately turned his head, focusing on a cluster of spruces off to the right. "Maybe I should introduce myself," the man said with careful enunciation, like he was nervous and trying hard to hide it behind professionalism. Edna did that sometimes, though her act fell short quickly. "My name is Clarence Acril. I'm the prosecuting attorney on behalf of Virginia for the bootlegging conspiracy round these parts."
This garnered Forrest's attention, and he cursed his immobility because he would've strangled the man right there if he could. This small, weak lump of a man was the cause of Edna's suffering. He somehow possessed the power to tear two worlds apart, and that's exactly what he did. Forrest grimaced as Acril rubbed his hands over his arms and shuddered, huffing out a shaky breath. "It's cold as hell out here. Do you want to go inside?"
"Nope."
It was a moment before there was a response. "All right," Acril said. "Listen, Mr. Bondurant. I've been meaning to come out here and meet you myself for the past few months, but I've been buried in work for this trial. It seems your little accident was a gateway to a whole lot more than I could've ever expected."
"My accident," Forrest mumbled to himself quietly.
"Listen," Acril said, his tone forceful, like he was hurrying to make a point. "I was hoping to keep this trial small. The state brings forth a couple few key witnesses, we make our case, and we convict the commonwealth attorney and the deputies involved in the racket. But the situation has altered quite a bit with Mr. Carter Lee deliberately lowering the charge on your assaulter. I can't use you anymore. Well, I can –" he corrected himself, shifting his weight as he quickly strung his sentences together. "Just not how I planned before. I gotta say, I was trying to make this as easy as possible on myself, but I went ahead and reached out to the surrounding counties, just to see what I could find. Floyd and Roanoke and such. I have a growing list of about two hundred names willing to speak against the law enforcement of this area."
Forrest's gaze shifted down to the attorney, brow furrowing a little further. Somewhere inside him he knew what this toad was trying to get at, but it hadn't registered with him yet, and it wore his patience thin. "Make your point, Mister," he said.
"My point is your legitimacy is no longer in question." Acril paused a moment to withdraw an envelope from his coat pocket, holding it delicately between gloved fingers. "I've been working closely with Agent Lehman – I know you've spoke with him before. It seems the issue of your legitimacy has come by as a bit of a personal problem for you. I was hoping a more intimate trial would make for a greater case, but I suppose strength in numbers is the more appropriate approach here. I want to apologize for my previous indiscretion, and I'd like to make it right."
Forrest didn't say anything. He looked out over the road as a car passed, but his attention was drawn back to the attorney. He wasn't done speaking, and that was a shame. The man liked to talk, but Forrest hated listening. He bet the man could've said his piece in five words or less, but all he heard was rabble. Fluff. Bullshit. That's all a lawyer knew how to spew.
"Look, it sounds like Miss Ellsworth was a sweet woman, and I'm sorry to have caused her any pain." Forrest's muscles burned with the urge to strike him for speaking her name, but he watched as Acril held up the envelope. "This is a letter relieving her from her obligation to testify, and informing her that the bureau has ceased funding of her education. I can mail this to her myself, or I can leave it for you to deliver when you can."
He hated ultimatums. Picking and choosing between options he didn't lay out for himself. He wouldn't say a word to this man. He wouldn't allow him the satisfaction of his forgiveness for tearing his world apart for no goddamn reason. Because it came as a convenience to him, the lazy son of a bitch. The solution to the problem that felt unsolvable lay with the words of those across county lines all this time, and it only took a lawyer's proactivity to find that out.
Months of Edna's tears. Feeling like her world was shattered, and he, wanting so hard to hold her up when his knees had already bent and crippled. They really thought she had to go, and stay gone. She really did go. But she could come back.
Forrest tried moving his legs, but only his feet twitched. He suppressed a growl, and kept his gaze away from the man who had overstayed his welcome. He'd never felt so impatient to heal in his life. To move, and stand, and walk. To get to Edna, and bring her home.
"I'll leave this with a nurse," Acril said. Forrest fixed his eyes on the small man, and held his stare. He hoped that one day he suffered the way Edna had. He hoped he saw the consequences of his lack of attention and care to the cases he organized. And he hoped that he would be the one to bring that great justice to him. Acril blinked and Forrest grimaced, turning his head with a small grunt to face the road as the attorney collected himself and preceded up the steps and through the door. When he was gone, Forrest's breath shallowed, and he tried shifting his legs again.
He wouldn't have to sell that lot, after all. His girl was coming home.
"Love is doing something you don't want to do for someone you don't particularly like at that moment." -Tom Hardy
Ayayay, a bit late, but not to bad, I think. I put some hard labor into this one. It did not come easy. I'm going to warn you now, I don't know if I'll have any new chapters next week. I've got some ugly Finals that are fast approaching, between that and work I'm pretty sure the life will be sucked right out of me. But I promise, and here is my promise now: the next time I post a chapter, it will be THREE chapters, one new for each of my stories. Kay thank you. That is my promise, my goal, and my motivation. Motivate me, lovely readers!
Tell me what you think about this! I know you'll have some words. And I'm so sorry if I made you cry (no I'm not), it wasn't my intention (yes it was). Your kind words absolutely brighten my world. I'm so happy to see so many enjoying this story, and having it resonate with you. Thank you, thank you for your support. I can't wait to see what you'll say :)
