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“We lived with her, too, Bishop,” my father says. “For a lot longer than you. No one knows her better than we do. ”
“Then how could you let her marry our son?” Erin demands. “Knowing that she’s unstable?”
“That wasn’t our decision, if you’ll recall,” my father says. “He was supposed to marry Callie. But he chose otherwise. It wasn’t up to us. ” So smug, so confident, even with his plan falling to pieces around him. There’s no way he can kill Bishop now, or at least not in the near future. After what I’ve been accused of almost doing, my father can’t risk the finger of suspicion pointing back at our family so soon.
“Regardless, you had an obligation—”
“Be quiet. ” Bishop’s voice whips out of the intercom and everyone falls silent. “Just be quiet. ” There is a pause, and I hear a chair scrape back. When he speaks again, his voice is louder. Closer to Victoria? “I want to see Ivy. ”
“No,” I say before I can stop myself. I spring out of my seat, clawing at the intercom, but they can’t hear me. “No!”
“I want to see her,” Bishop repeats. “Now. ”
“Give me a minute,” Victoria says. “And you can’t go inside the cell. ”
“Thank you,” Bishop says. More rustling and the murmur of voices. The intercom goes dead.
I’m curled into a ball, facing the wall, when he arrives. Victoria never came back to get me, but David escorted me to my cell. I tried to tell him I didn’t want visitors, but he said that wasn’t up to him. The late afternoon light coming from the tiny window gives the cell an autumn glow, even though we’re still in the last hazy days of summer. I close my eyes against the burnt orange light when I hear his voice.
“Hey,” Bishop says softly. “We need to get you out of here. There’s definitely not room on that cot for both of us. ”
It takes me a long time to turn over, push myself to sitting. His is the last face I want to see. The one face that will undo me, that has been undoing me from the very first moment we met.
I finally look up, and his familiar, beautiful face looks back at me. “Bishop…” My voice is hoarse, like I haven’t spoken in weeks. “You shouldn’t have come. ”
He wraps his hands around the iron bars separating us. “Of course I was going to come. Where else would I be?”
I choke out a laugh. “Anywhere?”
“Come here,” he says. “Closer to me. ”
I shake my head, keep my hands white-knuckled around the metal edge of the cot, like he might somehow find a way to drag me toward him if I’m not careful. I am scared his touch will make me weak when I need so desperately to remain strong.
“What’s going on, Ivy?” he asks. “I know you weren’t going to poison me. So why are you taking the blame?” He pauses. “Was it your dad? Did he put you up to it?”
“Why would he do that?” I ask, my eyes on the floor. “He may not like your father’s policies, but they’ve managed to get along for decades. ”
Bishop lets that sink in, studying me. “I saw him upstairs a few minutes ago. With your sister. He said you’re unstable. Callie said they weren’t all that shocked you’d do something like this. ”
So, as I suspected, he didn’t know the intercom was on. A little gift from Victoria. She probably hoped that hearing what my family said would make me spill my guts. And now Bishop is here, trying to provoke a reaction from me that I can’t let him have. My throat works, but I don’t respond.
“Why would they say that? We both know it’s not true. I’ve lived with you, talked to you every day. You’re the least unstable person I know. ”
“They lived with me longer,” I point out, the same thing my father said.
“I don’t care!” he practically yells and I can hear how hard he’s working to keep himself under control. “I would know. ” He lowers his voice. “I know you. ”
He is right. He knows me better than anyone ever has. Than anyone ever will again. I would have stopped it if I could have. But I’ve learned the hard way, we can’t choose who we love. Love chooses us. Love doesn’t care about what’s convenient or easy or planned. Love has its own agenda and all we can do is get out of its way.
“Where’d you get the poison?” he demands. “If this was your plan, who gave it to you?”
I shake my head. “The person who gave it to me didn’t know what I wanted it for. It doesn’t matter where it came from. ”
“Oh,” Bishop says, “well, that’s convenient. Was the person who gave you the poison the same person who just happened to leave an anonymous note on Victoria’s desk? Amazing how that worked. ”
“Stop trying to figure it out, Bishop,” I say. “Just let it go. ”
“Are you serious?” he demands. “There’s no way I’m letting it go. This isn’t some stupid argument about whose turn it is to clean the bathroom. This is your life, Ivy!” His voice is getting louder with each word. “You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? If you plead guilty?”
I keep my head down, my mouth closed.
“Goddamn it!” Bishop explodes. “Look at me! My father will put you out. Beyond the fence. Do you understand that?”
“I know,” I say, voice quiet.
“You know? You know?”
I paste on a pained smile, try to look at his face without my heart splintering in my chest. “Maybe I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll make it to the ocean. ”
He gapes at me. “Maybe you’ll be okay?” he repeats finally. “Maybe you’ll…” His voice trails off, and he rests his forehead against the bars. “Will you please talk to me,” he says in a defeated voice. “Tell me the truth so we can figure out what to do. What the hell is going on?”
I stare at his bent head, remembering the feel of his hair sliding between my fingers. “I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t want to marry you. And your father wouldn’t listen. He doesn’t care about all the girls forced to have babies before they’re ready or marry boys they don’t know. We don’t have any freedom, not even to decide who we love. ” I take a deep breath. “I wanted him to know what it felt like to lose something. The way we’ve lost all of our choices. ”
He doesn’t move for a long time, and I think maybe I’ve done it, convinced him of my guilt by repeating the same reasons Callie gave him upstairs. And they’re true, up to the point they become a total lie. He lifts his head, and his eyes lock onto mine. “I don’t believe you,” he says.
Why does he have to make this so difficult? Why can’t he accept the worst about me, the way so many other people do? Why doesn’t he just give up on me and walk away like my family has already?
“Are you honestly telling me it was all a lie? You faked everything between us?” He shakes his head. “You’re not that good an actress. You’re no good at hiding your feelings, even when you try. It’s one of the things I like best about you. ”
I turn my face away, and the tears I’ve been holding back begin to fall. Slowly at first, then floods of tears, gushing out of me. I don’t even attempt to wipe them away, letting them drip off my cheeks and chin where they spatter on the concrete floor like a tiny rain shower.