Phone Calls, Part 15b: Movin' On (LAST CHAPTER)
Title: Phone Calls, Part 15b
Author: fizzerbass
Rating: NC-17 for rough, but consensual, sex
Word Count: 7,465 - so it's in three parts
Notes: Yes, you read right, I finally finished Phone Calls. Believe it? Longer note inside...
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Annie Proulx. I only own the angst and the mistakes.
Ennis was gone for two weeks and Jack didn’t see him again ‘til he came back to bring him home from the hospital. Two weeks they’ve never talked about and most likely never will. Jack knows Ennis stayed with Steve the whole time and he’s pretty sure they slept together while he was doing it. Doesn’t matter if Steve is married with kids, because Jack knows better than anyone that particular fact doesn’t count for shit sometimes and he’s seen the way Steve looks at Ennis when no one else is looking. Jack’s not going to ask or accuse because that would be some serious pot calling the kettle black shit and, really, there’s no need to talk about it. He knows what it’s like to try and get someone out of your heart by fucking them out or getting them fucked out of you in return. He figures Ennis found out for himself what Jack already knew…that you can’t kick somebody out of your head when they live in your heart.
Besides, Jack had enough trouble just dealing with being home again, living in a house full of memories made by absent ghosts, to worry about what Ennis did while he was gone. The depression he’d been flirting with before his hospital stay became a full-time lover once he got back and it was so damn easy to let the sadness pull him under and shut himself away from the world. Days became nights as he slept his way around the clock, never knowing if Ennis was getting up to go to work or if the tired cowboy was just coming home when they met in the kitchen over coffee. Somewhere deep in his brain, Jack knew he should care about this, should want to be better, should want to be there for Ennis but, honestly, it was just too hard. Too tiring. Way too much like fucking work just to make sure he showered every other day and ate something once in a while when Ennis was watching. Sleep was all he wanted. Sleep was all he needed. He felt no pain when sleeping.
Ennis knew it’d been a bad day as soon as he walked in the door. All the lights were off and the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun heating the room. Jack wasn’t in the kitchen, the den or the dining room and Ennis finally found him still in bed, covers pulled up tight around him like he was freezing. No whiskey bottles laying ‘round, so Jack might be willing to talk if Ennis could make him.
“C’mon, Jack. Out of bed. Let’s get some supper, huh? I’ll buy.”
Jack doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink, so Ennis crosses to the bed. “Want to go ridin’? Can probably still rent a mare today if ya hurry.”
Jack draws a deep breath and lets it out slow, rolling onto his back. “I wasn’t any kind of Daddy, Ennis.”
Not this again. Jack’s been on a self-destructive streak lately, not remembering any of the good times he shared with Bobby, only letting bad, sad memories seep in. Ennis has been letting him go on about it, hoping it would die a natural death like the other things Jack’s gotten hung up on as he goes through whatever it is he’s going through, but this one’s sticking around like shit on a shoe. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the fact he’s been working all day while Jack’s been sleeping, maybe it’s just the fact Ennis is tired of Sad Jack and wants his Jack back in his life, but whatever it is, it makes his words come out angry.
“Bullshit, Jack. That ain’t true and you know it.”
Jack picks something up off the covers - Bobby’s yearbook - and runs his hand over the raised words. “Yeah, it is. I wasn’t anything like he needed, like a good Daddy should be.”
Ennis hears the remorse and regret filling Jack’s voice and feels something snap in his mind. This has got to end and it’s got to end now. He ain’t no kind of doctor but he knows getting stuck in sadness like this, like a dumbass cow stuck in briars and brambles, ain’t healthy. He reaches down suddenly and yanks the covers off Jack’s huddled form, all but pulling the other man out of bed and dragging him down the hall.
“Tired of this shit, Jack. Gonna show you once and for all you were a good Daddy to Bobby…a good husband to Lureen.” He stops at the little table by the front door where the mail’s piling up. He picks up a picture of Jack and Bobby at some school function, Jack’s arm around Bobby’s shoulders and both wearing identical mile-wide Twist smiles He shoves it in Jack’s unresponsive hands and raises it to Jack’s face.
“Look, Jack. Look at this picture. Look at the two a you smilin’.”
Jack starts to cry, shaking his head side to side as he clenches the picture close to his chest, and Ennis pulls him over to the shelves by the fireplace where more framed pictures are tucked among the books. “Here. Look at this one. You and Lureen at some dance. She’s smilin’, ain’t she Jack?”
Jack tries to pull away, dropping the picture of Bobby, his fingers picking frantically at Ennis’s hold on his arm. “Doesn’t mean nothing. Lureen always smiled for pictures.”
Frustrated, Ennis slams the picture back on the shelf and grabs the next one, not loosening his grip on Jack. “Well, this one a Bobby looks happy. Him holdin’ that ribbon and lookin’ at you.” He all but shoves it against Jack’s chest, adding another one as soon as he can get his fingers on it. “And this one here. Christmastime. The three of you happy as clams. This one at the beach and the sandcastle you made. ‘Member you tellin’ me ‘bout that one when we met up that year.”
Jack finally tears his arm away from Ennis, letting all the frames slide to the floor as he collapses in a heap, his hands covering his face and muffling his words. “Not true, Ennis. It’s not true. We weren’t happy.” He rocks forward and back as he sobs. “Was just pretend.”
Ennis closes his eyes and tries to slow his breathing, feeling his heart knocking around in his chest. He squats down slowly in front of Jack, picking up a picture of Bobby and holding it in his hands. He runs a thumb over the smiling boy in the picture, his own face smiling softly in return.
“Kids can’t pretend, Jack. Least not at this age.” He reaches out and grabs Jack’s shoulder, stilling the other man’s rocking. “You and Lureen may have been putting on a show for all the neighbors and town folk, but Bobby didn’t know from shit about that kind of stuff. He was happy, Jack. Any fool looking at these pictures can see he was a happy kid.”
Jack takes the picture from Ennis, his tears dripping off his chin to plop on the glass. “Don’t know, Ennis. Maybe all kids look this way.”
Ennis reaches around and grabs his wallet out of his back pocket, sitting down cross-legged and scootching close so his knees touch Jack’s. “Nuh-uh, Jack. Not all kids look like Bobby.”
He pulls out a picture, carefully wrapped in plastic, of him, Junior and Jenny taken one Thanksgiving. Even though he’s got his hands on each of their shoulders, they all look stiff and posed, the girls with their hands folded in front of them and the barest trace of a smile on their faces. “Sometimes they look like this.”
Jack reaches for the picture, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He stares at it a long time, his chin trembling as he bites his lip the way he does when he doesn’t want to cry any more. Ennis shifts around so he’s sitting next to Jack, both of them looking at the quiet family in the picture for a minute before Ennis picks up one of the pictures of Bobby and places it on top.
“My girls are happy, Jack…but I don’t make them happy. Not the way you did Bobby.”
“Then why are you here, Ennis?” Jack’s voice is quiet. “Why aren’t you with them, trying to fix things?”
Ennis shrugs, putting the picture back in his wallet. “M’here with you. Trying to fix things with you. My girls don’t need me no more.”
Jack shoots up off the floor, scrambling away as if touched by fire. “No! I will not be the cause of you losing them! Not like the way you were the cause-” Jack cuts his words off as Ennis raises his head quick and sharp.
“The way I was the cause of you losing Bobby? S’that what you think, Jack?”
Jack stumbles back against the wall, confusion clearly evident on his face. “Yes! No! I don’t know!” He jams his hands through his hair, standing it up on edge before slamming his fists into the wall behind him. “I’m so damn mad at you, Ennis!”
“Mad at me?” Ennis stands, pointing a finger at his own chest. Rosie had told him anger was a stage in the grieving process and looks like Jack’s getting his money’s worth.
“Yes, you. If you hadn’t called me, if we hadn’t started up again, none of this would a happened. I wouldn’t a been thinkin’ on you instead of getting’ my truck fixed and Bobby and Lureen would still be here.”
They’ve had this conversation before, but only on the phone and never in person. Ennis had held quiet then, not wanting to upset Jack any further but enough is enough. “What difference does it make if they were still here? You still wouldn’t be happy!”
Jack snorts, throwing his arms wide. “Who gives a fuck? It don’t matter if I’m happy or not, not when I’m the one that got them killed!”
Ennis takes a step forward, grabbing Jack’s shoulders hard. “This isn’t your fault, Jack. This is somethin’ that happened to you, not ‘cause a you.”
Jack bucks Ennis’s arms off, storming away towards the windows before pivoting around and striding right back. “So, what? You’re my consolation prize? My kid’s dead and now I get to spend the rest a my life with you as some sort of comfort?”
Jack’s nearly vibrating with anger, his hands trembling where he’s got them cocked on his hips, ready to shot at will. Ennis looks at his face, his jaw set, his mouth hard, his eyes crackling with intensity. But for the first time, Ennis sees something else hidden in their burdened blue depths and he thinks he might know what Jack’s really aiming at here.
“No, Jack. Ain’t like that. S’not an either-or kind of thing. Shit happens. Bad shit happens and it seems like the worst kind of shit’s happened to you and I’m sorry, Jack. My god, I ain’t never been sorrier about anythin’ in my life.” He reaches out a lays his hand on Jack’s heart. “But I can’t change what happened and I can’t fix what went wrong. I can only be here to go forward…to help you go forward…’cause I don’t know what else to do. 'Cause there ain’t nothing else I can do. I just…I just want to be with you, Jack...and I hate it took you losin’ Bobby to make that clear to me.”
Jack takes a step back, letting Ennis’s hand slide off his chest, still angry. “Yeah, well, I don’t know if I want to be with you. How can I? How can I even think about being happy with you when Bobby ain’t never gonna get the chance to be happy with anyone?”
Ennis puts his hands in his back pockets, shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t know Jack.” He sucks his bottom lip in over his teeth, biting down hard to stop the fear from bubbling up inside. What if Jack couldn’t get past this? What if Jack doesn’t want him around any more? “You want me to go, Jack?”
“Hell yes, I want you to go. Leave me the fuck alone.” Jack crosses his arms over his chest, defiantly daring Ennis to take him seriously.
Ennis shakes his head. “Can’t do that, Jack. Know you. Know you’ll just hole up in that bed and stay there for days on end, not eatin’ or nothin’.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?” Jack snorts. “Won’t hurt anyone that way.”
Ennis hates Jack talking like this, like his life ain’t worth nothing. “It’ll hurt me, Jack. Bad.”
“Well, then welcome to my world, Ennis del Mar. Might be nice havin’ someone else ‘round here feeling as bad as me.”
Ennis looks down at his boots, remembering what Rosie told him survivor’s guilt. “You don’t feel bad, Jack, you feel guilty. Guilty for still bein’ alive and havin’ somethin’ you’ve always wanted ‘cause Bobby and Lureen are gone.”
He looks up to find Jack staring at him wide-eyed, his anger radiating off him in waves. “Of course I feel guilty! It’s all my fault! All my fuckin’ fault…” He crumples forward suddenly, grabbing Ennis’s shirt desperately. “I made this happen! I wanted to be with you so bad and I wished they were gone, I wished…oh my god, Ennis what did I do? What did I do?”
Ennis pulls him close, cradling Jack’s head in the crook of his neck as the other man starts to sobs, his shoulders shaking violently. “Ssh, Jack…s’alright…s’alright.” He holds him tightly, squeezing hard enough make his arms ache. “Ain’t your fault, Jack. Was an accident. You didn’t cause this.”
They stay locked together until Jack’s tears stop and his breathing evens out. Ennis pushes Jack gently away from him, trying to see his eyes because Jack needs to really hear what he has to say, needs to see the truth of Ennis’s words. “What you’re goin’ through is normal, Jack. Natural. It’s supposed to happen this way.”
Jack blinks slowly, his lashes wet and clumped together. “Natural?”
Ennis palms the wetness off Jack’s stubble, nodding. “Yep. Rosie told me…told me to expect a lot of anger…”
“Ohhh, I got that Ennis. Got it in spades.” Jack takes a shaky breath, letting his forehead fall to Ennis’s shoulder. “M’so angry all the time, so fuckin’ full of rage…when I’m not cryin’ like a dumbass, anyway.”
Ennis ruffles the hair at the back of Jack’s head, chuckling softly. “Nothin’ dumb ‘bout what you’re goin’ through. Just different stages.” He shrugs his shoulder to lift Jack’s head. “But, Bud? I think you’re stuck in this stage and it ain’t doin’ you no good.”
Jack drops his head, looking down at the floor. “Don’t know how not to be, Ennis. Don’t know what to do to stop feelin’ this way…or even if I want to stop feelin’ this way.” He looks up, his eyes haunted, his voice a ghostly whisper. “I don’t want to get over losin’ Bobby and Lureen.”
Ennis thinks back to losing his own parents when he was younger. “You aren’t goin’ to, Jack, not by a longshot. But…you can learn to live with it, learn to get by without them here.” Learn to get by with me here instead, he thinks to himself.
Jack stares at him, clearly not believing Ennis in the least, but, maybe for the first time, wanting to.
Part three: http://fizzerbass.livejournal.com/56147.html
Author: fizzerbass
Rating: NC-17 for rough, but consensual, sex
Word Count: 7,465 - so it's in three parts
Notes: Yes, you read right, I finally finished Phone Calls. Believe it? Longer note inside...
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Annie Proulx. I only own the angst and the mistakes.
Ennis was gone for two weeks and Jack didn’t see him again ‘til he came back to bring him home from the hospital. Two weeks they’ve never talked about and most likely never will. Jack knows Ennis stayed with Steve the whole time and he’s pretty sure they slept together while he was doing it. Doesn’t matter if Steve is married with kids, because Jack knows better than anyone that particular fact doesn’t count for shit sometimes and he’s seen the way Steve looks at Ennis when no one else is looking. Jack’s not going to ask or accuse because that would be some serious pot calling the kettle black shit and, really, there’s no need to talk about it. He knows what it’s like to try and get someone out of your heart by fucking them out or getting them fucked out of you in return. He figures Ennis found out for himself what Jack already knew…that you can’t kick somebody out of your head when they live in your heart.
Besides, Jack had enough trouble just dealing with being home again, living in a house full of memories made by absent ghosts, to worry about what Ennis did while he was gone. The depression he’d been flirting with before his hospital stay became a full-time lover once he got back and it was so damn easy to let the sadness pull him under and shut himself away from the world. Days became nights as he slept his way around the clock, never knowing if Ennis was getting up to go to work or if the tired cowboy was just coming home when they met in the kitchen over coffee. Somewhere deep in his brain, Jack knew he should care about this, should want to be better, should want to be there for Ennis but, honestly, it was just too hard. Too tiring. Way too much like fucking work just to make sure he showered every other day and ate something once in a while when Ennis was watching. Sleep was all he wanted. Sleep was all he needed. He felt no pain when sleeping.
Ennis knew it’d been a bad day as soon as he walked in the door. All the lights were off and the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun heating the room. Jack wasn’t in the kitchen, the den or the dining room and Ennis finally found him still in bed, covers pulled up tight around him like he was freezing. No whiskey bottles laying ‘round, so Jack might be willing to talk if Ennis could make him.
“C’mon, Jack. Out of bed. Let’s get some supper, huh? I’ll buy.”
Jack doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink, so Ennis crosses to the bed. “Want to go ridin’? Can probably still rent a mare today if ya hurry.”
Jack draws a deep breath and lets it out slow, rolling onto his back. “I wasn’t any kind of Daddy, Ennis.”
Not this again. Jack’s been on a self-destructive streak lately, not remembering any of the good times he shared with Bobby, only letting bad, sad memories seep in. Ennis has been letting him go on about it, hoping it would die a natural death like the other things Jack’s gotten hung up on as he goes through whatever it is he’s going through, but this one’s sticking around like shit on a shoe. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the fact he’s been working all day while Jack’s been sleeping, maybe it’s just the fact Ennis is tired of Sad Jack and wants his Jack back in his life, but whatever it is, it makes his words come out angry.
“Bullshit, Jack. That ain’t true and you know it.”
Jack picks something up off the covers - Bobby’s yearbook - and runs his hand over the raised words. “Yeah, it is. I wasn’t anything like he needed, like a good Daddy should be.”
Ennis hears the remorse and regret filling Jack’s voice and feels something snap in his mind. This has got to end and it’s got to end now. He ain’t no kind of doctor but he knows getting stuck in sadness like this, like a dumbass cow stuck in briars and brambles, ain’t healthy. He reaches down suddenly and yanks the covers off Jack’s huddled form, all but pulling the other man out of bed and dragging him down the hall.
“Tired of this shit, Jack. Gonna show you once and for all you were a good Daddy to Bobby…a good husband to Lureen.” He stops at the little table by the front door where the mail’s piling up. He picks up a picture of Jack and Bobby at some school function, Jack’s arm around Bobby’s shoulders and both wearing identical mile-wide Twist smiles He shoves it in Jack’s unresponsive hands and raises it to Jack’s face.
“Look, Jack. Look at this picture. Look at the two a you smilin’.”
Jack starts to cry, shaking his head side to side as he clenches the picture close to his chest, and Ennis pulls him over to the shelves by the fireplace where more framed pictures are tucked among the books. “Here. Look at this one. You and Lureen at some dance. She’s smilin’, ain’t she Jack?”
Jack tries to pull away, dropping the picture of Bobby, his fingers picking frantically at Ennis’s hold on his arm. “Doesn’t mean nothing. Lureen always smiled for pictures.”
Frustrated, Ennis slams the picture back on the shelf and grabs the next one, not loosening his grip on Jack. “Well, this one a Bobby looks happy. Him holdin’ that ribbon and lookin’ at you.” He all but shoves it against Jack’s chest, adding another one as soon as he can get his fingers on it. “And this one here. Christmastime. The three of you happy as clams. This one at the beach and the sandcastle you made. ‘Member you tellin’ me ‘bout that one when we met up that year.”
Jack finally tears his arm away from Ennis, letting all the frames slide to the floor as he collapses in a heap, his hands covering his face and muffling his words. “Not true, Ennis. It’s not true. We weren’t happy.” He rocks forward and back as he sobs. “Was just pretend.”
Ennis closes his eyes and tries to slow his breathing, feeling his heart knocking around in his chest. He squats down slowly in front of Jack, picking up a picture of Bobby and holding it in his hands. He runs a thumb over the smiling boy in the picture, his own face smiling softly in return.
“Kids can’t pretend, Jack. Least not at this age.” He reaches out and grabs Jack’s shoulder, stilling the other man’s rocking. “You and Lureen may have been putting on a show for all the neighbors and town folk, but Bobby didn’t know from shit about that kind of stuff. He was happy, Jack. Any fool looking at these pictures can see he was a happy kid.”
Jack takes the picture from Ennis, his tears dripping off his chin to plop on the glass. “Don’t know, Ennis. Maybe all kids look this way.”
Ennis reaches around and grabs his wallet out of his back pocket, sitting down cross-legged and scootching close so his knees touch Jack’s. “Nuh-uh, Jack. Not all kids look like Bobby.”
He pulls out a picture, carefully wrapped in plastic, of him, Junior and Jenny taken one Thanksgiving. Even though he’s got his hands on each of their shoulders, they all look stiff and posed, the girls with their hands folded in front of them and the barest trace of a smile on their faces. “Sometimes they look like this.”
Jack reaches for the picture, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He stares at it a long time, his chin trembling as he bites his lip the way he does when he doesn’t want to cry any more. Ennis shifts around so he’s sitting next to Jack, both of them looking at the quiet family in the picture for a minute before Ennis picks up one of the pictures of Bobby and places it on top.
“My girls are happy, Jack…but I don’t make them happy. Not the way you did Bobby.”
“Then why are you here, Ennis?” Jack’s voice is quiet. “Why aren’t you with them, trying to fix things?”
Ennis shrugs, putting the picture back in his wallet. “M’here with you. Trying to fix things with you. My girls don’t need me no more.”
Jack shoots up off the floor, scrambling away as if touched by fire. “No! I will not be the cause of you losing them! Not like the way you were the cause-” Jack cuts his words off as Ennis raises his head quick and sharp.
“The way I was the cause of you losing Bobby? S’that what you think, Jack?”
Jack stumbles back against the wall, confusion clearly evident on his face. “Yes! No! I don’t know!” He jams his hands through his hair, standing it up on edge before slamming his fists into the wall behind him. “I’m so damn mad at you, Ennis!”
“Mad at me?” Ennis stands, pointing a finger at his own chest. Rosie had told him anger was a stage in the grieving process and looks like Jack’s getting his money’s worth.
“Yes, you. If you hadn’t called me, if we hadn’t started up again, none of this would a happened. I wouldn’t a been thinkin’ on you instead of getting’ my truck fixed and Bobby and Lureen would still be here.”
They’ve had this conversation before, but only on the phone and never in person. Ennis had held quiet then, not wanting to upset Jack any further but enough is enough. “What difference does it make if they were still here? You still wouldn’t be happy!”
Jack snorts, throwing his arms wide. “Who gives a fuck? It don’t matter if I’m happy or not, not when I’m the one that got them killed!”
Ennis takes a step forward, grabbing Jack’s shoulders hard. “This isn’t your fault, Jack. This is somethin’ that happened to you, not ‘cause a you.”
Jack bucks Ennis’s arms off, storming away towards the windows before pivoting around and striding right back. “So, what? You’re my consolation prize? My kid’s dead and now I get to spend the rest a my life with you as some sort of comfort?”
Jack’s nearly vibrating with anger, his hands trembling where he’s got them cocked on his hips, ready to shot at will. Ennis looks at his face, his jaw set, his mouth hard, his eyes crackling with intensity. But for the first time, Ennis sees something else hidden in their burdened blue depths and he thinks he might know what Jack’s really aiming at here.
“No, Jack. Ain’t like that. S’not an either-or kind of thing. Shit happens. Bad shit happens and it seems like the worst kind of shit’s happened to you and I’m sorry, Jack. My god, I ain’t never been sorrier about anythin’ in my life.” He reaches out a lays his hand on Jack’s heart. “But I can’t change what happened and I can’t fix what went wrong. I can only be here to go forward…to help you go forward…’cause I don’t know what else to do. 'Cause there ain’t nothing else I can do. I just…I just want to be with you, Jack...and I hate it took you losin’ Bobby to make that clear to me.”
Jack takes a step back, letting Ennis’s hand slide off his chest, still angry. “Yeah, well, I don’t know if I want to be with you. How can I? How can I even think about being happy with you when Bobby ain’t never gonna get the chance to be happy with anyone?”
Ennis puts his hands in his back pockets, shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t know Jack.” He sucks his bottom lip in over his teeth, biting down hard to stop the fear from bubbling up inside. What if Jack couldn’t get past this? What if Jack doesn’t want him around any more? “You want me to go, Jack?”
“Hell yes, I want you to go. Leave me the fuck alone.” Jack crosses his arms over his chest, defiantly daring Ennis to take him seriously.
Ennis shakes his head. “Can’t do that, Jack. Know you. Know you’ll just hole up in that bed and stay there for days on end, not eatin’ or nothin’.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?” Jack snorts. “Won’t hurt anyone that way.”
Ennis hates Jack talking like this, like his life ain’t worth nothing. “It’ll hurt me, Jack. Bad.”
“Well, then welcome to my world, Ennis del Mar. Might be nice havin’ someone else ‘round here feeling as bad as me.”
Ennis looks down at his boots, remembering what Rosie told him survivor’s guilt. “You don’t feel bad, Jack, you feel guilty. Guilty for still bein’ alive and havin’ somethin’ you’ve always wanted ‘cause Bobby and Lureen are gone.”
He looks up to find Jack staring at him wide-eyed, his anger radiating off him in waves. “Of course I feel guilty! It’s all my fault! All my fuckin’ fault…” He crumples forward suddenly, grabbing Ennis’s shirt desperately. “I made this happen! I wanted to be with you so bad and I wished they were gone, I wished…oh my god, Ennis what did I do? What did I do?”
Ennis pulls him close, cradling Jack’s head in the crook of his neck as the other man starts to sobs, his shoulders shaking violently. “Ssh, Jack…s’alright…s’alright.” He holds him tightly, squeezing hard enough make his arms ache. “Ain’t your fault, Jack. Was an accident. You didn’t cause this.”
They stay locked together until Jack’s tears stop and his breathing evens out. Ennis pushes Jack gently away from him, trying to see his eyes because Jack needs to really hear what he has to say, needs to see the truth of Ennis’s words. “What you’re goin’ through is normal, Jack. Natural. It’s supposed to happen this way.”
Jack blinks slowly, his lashes wet and clumped together. “Natural?”
Ennis palms the wetness off Jack’s stubble, nodding. “Yep. Rosie told me…told me to expect a lot of anger…”
“Ohhh, I got that Ennis. Got it in spades.” Jack takes a shaky breath, letting his forehead fall to Ennis’s shoulder. “M’so angry all the time, so fuckin’ full of rage…when I’m not cryin’ like a dumbass, anyway.”
Ennis ruffles the hair at the back of Jack’s head, chuckling softly. “Nothin’ dumb ‘bout what you’re goin’ through. Just different stages.” He shrugs his shoulder to lift Jack’s head. “But, Bud? I think you’re stuck in this stage and it ain’t doin’ you no good.”
Jack drops his head, looking down at the floor. “Don’t know how not to be, Ennis. Don’t know what to do to stop feelin’ this way…or even if I want to stop feelin’ this way.” He looks up, his eyes haunted, his voice a ghostly whisper. “I don’t want to get over losin’ Bobby and Lureen.”
Ennis thinks back to losing his own parents when he was younger. “You aren’t goin’ to, Jack, not by a longshot. But…you can learn to live with it, learn to get by without them here.” Learn to get by with me here instead, he thinks to himself.
Jack stares at him, clearly not believing Ennis in the least, but, maybe for the first time, wanting to.
Part three: http://fizzerbass.livejournal.com/56147.html