22. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

M onday afternoon, Lucy finished her work at precisely 4:59, shut down her computer, and headed across campus. She was eager to sit with Edith and learn more about the new job prospect. She’d spent the weekend working on her resume and cover letter, both tasks she had not done since applying for the English Department position ten years before.

The campus was buzzing with energy, everyone anticipating the upcoming Thanksgiving break. While playing in the yard with Billy, Luke, and Clark Sunday afternoon, Porter asked Lucy her Thanksgiving plans. She’d conveyed that as of yet, she had none. He told her to plan on spending lunch with them. Or dinner. Then he said he would talk to Charlotte about whether lunch or dinner would be best, which Lucy assumed was code for I'll-see-which-Forrest-is-coming-to-and-you-can-do-the-other. He had then broken into a sweat. It was forty-five degrees outside.

Lucy was wearing a green shirt-dress that cinched at the waist with black tights and knee-high boots for warmth. She was not wearing the green dress because she was going to Hart Building and possibly going to run into Forrest for the first time in two weeks. She was not wearing the green dress because he had once mentioned how a certain green shirt complemented her green eyes. The green dress had absolutely nothing to do with green eyes or some guy noticing green eyes.

Lucy jogged the last few steps to the portico at the entrance of Hart Building. Sure enough, the door was still monstrously heavy, requiring she lean completely into its bulk. As it gave way, the heat immediately hugged her, fogging up her glasses. She had not been so warm in days.

The old, worn handrail leading up the stairs felt smooth as Lucy's hand glided over the surface. The edge of each granite stair was rounded, eroded away by a century of college students rushing to class after over-sleeping. Lucy passed students and professors leaving for the day, all of whom she knew and was happy to see. Apparently, university presidents were not unlike grade-school principals; people generally avoided their office.

Finally, she made it to the door for office suite 3A. Her door. Even the metal of the doorknob was smoothed from decades of hands turning it. Lucy rested her forehead on the frosted-glass window pane on the upper half of the door, letting the light of the office illuminate her shut eyes for just a moment.

Turning the knob, Lucy opened the door slowly, and there, standing in her spot looking down at the empty landscape of her old desk and with a hand resting on the corner, was Forrest. For the brief second she saw him before he looked up to her, she was struck by how peaceful he seemed, so different from their last encounter.

At the telltale creak of the door, Forrest's eyes rose to her. As his gaze met her own, their eyes locked on one another, linking them in an iron grip. Lucy froze, mesmerized that she had managed to block out just how beautiful his eyes were, how their dark, chocolate brown was complemented by the light brown of his hair and beard. It was as if God had decided to give this one a perfect, fall-inspired color theme. The ache that followed this thought reminded her why she had likely banned such thoughts. Thankfully for her dignity's sake, he seemed frozen, too.

Then, breaking the stillness, a vague, sad smile touched Forrest's mouth, his dimples only hinting at their existence. Lucy pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

Like the sound of gravel paving a road leading home, Lucy heard Dr. Hubert say, "Lucy O'Shields is among us again. That is the best thing I've seen this week."

His words broke the spell, allowing Lucy to turn her eyes elsewhere. Looking to his familiar, towering presence, Lucy said, "Hello, Dr. Hubert. To say it's good to see you would be a grievous understatement."

All of the doors around her desk were ajar, and one by one the professors appeared. Their greetings brought normalcy into the space, releasing a tension valve between Forrest and Lucy.

Forrest backed up several steps towards his office, placing Porter between himself and Lucy.

Porter said, "Lucy, it's dangerous you coming here. We might hold you hostage."

Lucy laughed. "I might let you. I sure miss all of you."

"Perhaps," Edith said, "if you get the editing job, we could work out something where you work from here, at least some of the time. It’s remote. You just need a computer, right?"

Porter placed a hand over his chest, "As English educators, we want to do all we can to support the editors of America."

"Naturally," Lucy said, winking at him. "I'll definitely think about it." As the words were spoken, her gaze roamed involuntarily to Forrest. Could they be together under the same roof again? Could they go back to before?

Forrest cleared his throat. Then, as if answering in the negative, he said, "I guess I'd better head on out."

Immediately, Edith and Porter walked over to Forrest, Porter not-too-subtly pushing Forrest through the doorway into his office. Edith said, "Excuse me, Lucy. We have to talk to Forrest really quickly about a little student-issue we're having. I'll be right with you. Okay? Okay."

Forrest's door slammed behind Edith.

Lucy looked to Dr. Hubert. He did not need to shake his head and say, "Kids these days," for his message to be clearly conveyed by the pattern of wrinkles gathering on one side of his mouth. She smiled in return.

"Lucy, shall we have a sip of Kentucky's finest?"

"Can you make it a double, Dr. Hubert?"

"Absolutely, dear."

***

As the door slammed behind Edith, Forrest backed up until he was sitting on the edge of his desk. "What are you two doing?" he whispered in exasperation.

"What are we doing?" Porter said, taking Forrest's exasperation, and raising him several more exasperations.

"What are we doing?" Edith echoed, reaching a fever pitch.

"Yes, what are you two doing?" Forrest barely managed to maintain a whisper.

"Forrest Graham," Edith began, articulating each word with a clarity that would make any student pick up a pencil and prepare for serious note-taking. "The two of us and Dr. Hubert spent the entire weekend in this office reading books about relationships, Forrest. Relationships."

"Yes?"

"And now she’s here, and you’re going to, and I quote, 'head on out'?" On each of the last three words, Edith stepped forward until she was a foot in front of him and jabbing a finger into his chest.

"I'm not ready yet. I've only had a few days to prepare."

Porter gingerly placed a hand between Edith and Forrest, getting her to back up a few steps so that he could take on the fight for a round. "Forrest, you aren't preparing to defend your dissertation here. You've already done that. Ten years ago. You just need to tell her how you feel. Everything else, all the stuff you researched, the stuff we all researched, over the past few days, that will all fall into place later. But it's time to tell her how you feel. It's time to give her a chance to decide if she wants to read a few relationship books, too."

Looking at them, Forrest paused on each of their faces. They'd spent hours around his desk reading, writing notes, and only occasionally mocking the titles of the books. Since his father's death, Forrest had felt as though his life was burning around him. This weekend with Edith, Porter, and Dr. Hubert by his side, Forrest had laid a new and solid foundation.

Forrest tilted a nod of his head to Edith and Porter.

Edith, looking to Porter, said, "Let's do this."

She opened the door, and the three headed out single-file with Forrest the last to walk into their central office. Dr. Hubert and Lucy were sitting at the chairs in front of the secretary's desk, each nursing a glass of amber liquid.

"Lucy," Edith said as she walked straight through Lucy's area to her own office, grabbing her coat and briefcase as she spoke. "I am so sorry, but I just got a text message from the chair of the faculty union, and they have called an emergency meeting. Let's do lunch tomorrow. Sound good? See you then."

"Okay?" Lucy's forehead creased in confusion as she watched Edith button her trench coat and tie a belt around the waist, cinching tightly. Forrest had seen this exact expression on her face many times, usually as she was contemplating how to fix some problem one of the four of them had created.

"Yes, me too," Porter said, also going into his office to gather his things to leave. "If I'm not home in the next half-hour, Charlotte is going to kill me. She has a deadline tonight. Dr. Hubert, would you like a ride?"

"Uh, yes, just as soon as I finish this glass."

"Dr. Hubert." Edith reverted to her note-taking voice. Forrest smirked. She was terrifying when she was executing a plan.

"Actually, come to think of it, Mrs. Hubert was expecting me rather early tonight." He turned to Lucy and patted her hand. "It was lovely having you back, dear."

Within a short whirlwind of activity in which Forrest's view of Lucy was intermittently blocked by one of the professors running back or forth to grab something they had forgotten (they were all leaving in a rush after all), the door finally slammed, catching the arm of the coat Porter was carrying out with him. He opened the door again, mumbled a sheepish, "Sorry about that," and was gone.

Lucy's torso was twisted towards the door, looking as though she was processing a show that had clearly been canceled before the plot was finished developing. Forrest, on the other hand, did not stare at the door. He was staring at the reddish curls that he knew had slowly worked their way out of her bun throughout the work day and now lay against the rich green dress she was wearing. Green was now Forrest's favorite color. He hadn't had a favorite color since he was ten.

She slowly turned to Forrest, her freckles faded against the deep flush of her cheeks. Forrest said, "Well, that could’ve gone smoother."

***

Lucy rewound in her head the past few minutes, trying to decipher how a meeting with Edith had turned into her and Forrest together, alone, in 3a of Hart Building. It wasn't computing.

"Forrest, why am I here?"

Awareness suddenly dawned on Forrest's face. "Oh no. Did you think I engineered this? I promise I wouldn't force you to talk with me, Lucy. This was all them." He waved his hand toward the shut door and the silence left behind by their colleagues.

Lucy's eyebrows rose. "We've been parent-trapped."

Suddenly, the urgency to vacate the premises by three people who she knew good and well were typically just fine staying a few minutes late to talk with one another, suddenly it all made sense. Lucy stood up, grabbing the purse she had slid under her chair.

"Forrest, I'm going to head on out. Neither of us asked for this. Don't worry, I'm not angry at you. At least not for this. If I'm being completely honest, I'm probably angry at you for a few other things, but really, that’s beside the..."

"Lucy?"

The stream of words that had been gushing from her instantly stopped at her name. Part of her wanted to thank him for halting her ramblings. There was no telling where it would’ve gone from there. But instead, sighing tiredly, she said, "Yes?"

"Can I show you something?"

Lucy thought of the pain she had felt on an almost constant basis for the past two weeks. If she stayed in his presence, even just long enough for him to show her one thing, was she putting herself in danger of even greater heartache? Would the pain be worth it for just a few more minutes with him in this, their place?

"Okay. Show me."

Forrest walked back to his office door, opened it wide with one arm leaving his hand on the door knob, as if opening the curtain on a play he hoped would impress. "It's in here."

Lucy walked by him. The narrow doorway meant there was only an inch of space between them as she passed. She ached to lean into his chest, but kept walking.

As she entered, she looked around for what he might be showing her. Nothing had changed. The space still smelled like leather and book dust and the mild pine-y scent of his beard oil. Over the years, it had become in her mind simply his scent, as if his love of puns had led him to ensure that with a name like Forrest, he would smell of pine. There was an extra chair in the space, bringing the total to four, which was unusual but not shockingly so. The whiteboards still encircled the space, each filled to capacity with notes, likely on some 19 th -century poet or essayist or a writing by Twain or Whitman so obscure only a handful of scholars would know of its existence.

Lucy looked back over her shoulder. Forrest's eyes were focused strictly on her, as if he’d been watching her for years.

"What did you want to show me?"

Forrest tilted his head towards the direction of the whiteboards. Lucy turned, taking a closer look at their contents.

On each board, there was a menagerie of handwritings. On closer inspection, she realized they were the exact handwritings that had left countless sticky notes of "Be back soon" or "Save me a donut" or "I've lost my phone. Ideas?" on her desk over the years. Each was achingly familiar.

On the first board, the one to her left, Lucy saw in Edith's bold, jagged cursive the words, "Get Lucy Back." Beneath it was a bullet-point list, each with a precise MLA citation.

Lucy read one of the bulleted items: "Dealing with anxiety and commitment (Dale 142)."

"Oh, yes. That was from Commitment Is for Lovers . I thought it was one of the stronger source materials we used. Fuller notes are in a document on my computer. Obviously."

On the next board, she saw Dr. Hubert's handwriting with the quote, "Honest communication is the cornerstone to a successful relationship (Frederick 252)." Next to the quote, Porter had written "Really???," and Edith had jotted, "Shut-up, Porter." Laughter bubbled up within Lucy, surprising her. What were these people doing without her?

Shaking her head, Lucy turned to Forrest. "What is this? When did you all do this? And most importantly, what the hell does it mean?"

"It means, Luce, that I want to try. I want to stop being afraid of living in my parents’ shadow, and I want to build a life with you."

"So you did research?"

Forrest looked down, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. Shocked, Lucy realized he was embarrassed. He was vulnerable. He wanted to stop being afraid, but at this particular moment, he was afraid.

"Lucy, I did the only thing I know how to do well. I checked out a bunch of books on relationships..."

"So I heard."

"Huh?"

"It's PSU, Forrest. You venturing outside of 19 th -century literature in the library was all the rage."

"Yes, well, even I had to admit 19 th -century views on relationships weren't going to serve me well."

"So you checked out some 21 st -century self-help books?"

He unbuttoned the cuffs on his sleeves and started rolling them up. It was getting a little warm, come to think of it.

"Exactly. And Dr. Hubert and Porter and Edith all agreed to help me. So we spent the weekend here at the office reading, and they let me know when there was something I should check out in one of their books. Dr. Hubert and Porter, being successfully married and all, were actually pretty good resources."

"And Edith?"

Forrest grinned. "She's hoping the endeavor might make her nicer."

Lucy shrugged. "That would sort of be a shame."

"That's exactly what we all said."

Lucy strolled to the last of the four boards. It had only Forrest's handwriting, and it was limited to a single quote. Lucy whispered the words as she read: "Wheresoever she was, there was Eden (Twain 104)." It was the final line from Eve's Diary . Lucy had underlined it in her own copy she’d read at home before...well, before.

Forrest walked up behind her, looking over her shoulders at the words. "To be completely honest, I didn't totally abandon the 19th century."

Lucy turned around, raising her eyes to his.

He lowered his gaze again, running a hand through his hair, unsettling the ends. Lucy reached out and smoothed them back into place, bringing his eyes back to hers.

"Lucy, you've never been to my apartment, but if you were to walk into it, you would come away with one word: gray. Or whatever that word is that means both gray and beige?"

"Greige?"

"Exactly. It's nothing. It's bland and cold and just a place I go to when I need to sleep. And that has worked just fine for me. For ten years, I've been fine living in a gray box because I knew that when I walked into this office, I was home. I had a home. And it was warm and inviting and clean and there's always someone to talk to and it always smelled nice."

"Does your place even smell gray?"

He smiled, "Yes, actually. It does.

"But, Lucy, what I'm trying to say in, admittedly, a less than concise way is that I thought this office was my home, but now I'm realizing that it’s not the office. It's you. You are home. Where you are is home."

Lucy did not want to cry. Fair-skinned almost-red-heads get very blotchy when they cry. She bit the inside of her cheek. "Self-help books must be getting better since the last time I tried them out if you learned all of that."

"Actually, that was the part I figured out all by myself." He was no longer looking to his feet, but instead, raising his gaze directly at her.

"Oh yeah? Well, what did you learn from the books?"

"I learned that they should probably work on coming up with titles that are less cringe-worthy."

"And?"

"And I learned that all the things that lead to long-term, strong marriages, all those things, we already have. We've spent ten years cultivating trust and honesty and friendship and similar interests and..."

Lucy cut in, "As you're making this list, the works cited list is running through your head, isn't it?"

He squinted his eyes as he sheepishly said, "Maybe."

"How about attraction? Sexual compatibility? I didn't hear those on the list. Did the books mention those?"

"Yes."

"And do you think we have them?"

He pulled on his tie until it was loose enough to remove over his head. "I have zero doubt that we are well-equipped in those areas."

Lucy wanted to fall into him, let the past two weeks float into distant memories, and begin a life-time with Forrest right then and there. But the last two weeks had happened.

"Forrest, after we slept together, you just let me go. You acted as though we had made a mistake. It hurt so bad, Forrest. I've never been hurt like that before."

He reached up to her, cupping her cheek in the palm of his hand, brushing away moisture before his hand fell again.

"Lucy, I don't know words that can convey just how sorry I am about the days that followed that night in my room. It was so much, so much to process. And I completely failed you."

"Forrest, you’d just lost your dad. This isn't a matter of some failure."

"Perhaps, but I still wish I could rewind. I wish we could have a do-over." He clenched his jaw, frustration tensing his muscles. "Lucy, if you'll indulge me for just a moment, can I tell you what I’d do if I could rewind?"

Forrest had never been one to speak in romantic terms about anything, especially not his previous relationships. Lucy was mesmerized, both by his sudden effusiveness and by the fact that she was the subject. "Go on."

"If I could rewind, I would go back to that night after the basketball game, the one where you painted a paw print on Dr. Hubert's bald head and we read to Billy."

A whisper of laughter escaped. "Yes, I remember that night."

"I would go to that night and we would go back to your apartment because I love it so much. It is you through and through. It feels like you’re surrounding me when I'm there. It’s nothing like my place. So we’d go back there, to the exact moment when Clark knocked you into me. Do you remember that moment?"

She nodded.

"Except, in this alternative reality, I wouldn’t let you go."

He stepped even closer, leaning towards her ear, whispering so close his beard grazed against her cheek.

"I would’ve kept you pressed against me, reveling in the way your body feels against mine, and I would’ve kissed you. And you would’ve led us back to your room. I bet your room is cozy and beautiful."

"It is."

"And I would’ve made love to you there. And this is the one part of the story that wouldn't change. The sex would’ve been exactly how it was in my old room..."

"But without the Gandalf poster?"

She couldn't see him smile with his face so close, but she could feel it.

"It would be the same, because, I swear to you, Lucy, there is not a single thing I would change about that night. It was perfect. You are perfect. But, the next morning would be different. We would wake up and spend the whole day barely dressed on your sofa, binging on Netflix..."

"Ken Burn's Civil War ?"

"Naturally, but with intermittent breaks so that I could make love to you again and again. And we wouldn't leave the apartment for days because I would need to make up for years, and I mean years, Lucy, of suppressing feelings and attractions and desire when it comes to you."

"I like that version of our story."

Forrest leaned back just enough to look into her eyes. "It has taken me an interminably long time to figure out I'm in love with you, but I'm going to try so hard Lucy. You have no idea how hard I'm going to try to make it up to you. I..."

Lucy placed a finger gently over his lips, and they stilled beneath the pressure. "That's enough, Forrest. That is everything. I don't need a list of promises. Your love is enough. Our love is enough. I love you, too."

Apparently, it was all that Forrest needed to hear. Their lips collided with a hunger and a need built over two weeks of knowing exactly what they were missing and years of suspecting. Lucy's body immediately reacted to his touch, yearning striking every place he had touched before, every inch that still held memories of how he felt.

Once again, a forwardness erupted within her that she’d never experienced with anyone else. She became the curious teenager she had never been, the young woman new to her own sexuality she’d never been, the seductress she’d never been. Only with Forrest.

As she pulled Forrest towards his desk, he continued running kisses down her neck while huskily whispering Luce and I love you and I want you. She responded with "Forrest" over and over and over again. It was so much better than Dr. Graham. Maybe she hadn’t said it all those years because she’d sensed that she was meant to whisper it in moments of passion and yearning.

Lucy sat on the edge of his desk and untied the belt around the waist of her dress, all while being ravished. Her neck would be red from his whiskers tomorrow. There were worse reasons to wear a turtleneck. She unbuttoned the buttons from her neck to her waist and allowed the silky fabric to pool around her waist.

As her breasts came into view, barely concealed within the black, lacy bra she wore (she may have bought a few undergarments on that trip to Memphis), Forrest stopped. She wondered if he was second-guessing what they were doing, and she knew that if that was the case, she would be bereft. Backing away a few inches, he stared at her chest, running a finger down the edge of the bra and hooking it where the cups met. Smiling, he raised his eyes to her and said, "First, in my teenage bedroom and now on the desk over which I've spent years staring at and lusting for you. It's like you're seeing how many of my sexual bucket-list items you can knock out in a month."

"You can give me the complete list later."