“But the razor wire…” I say, not wanting to imagine the damage it would have done to him if he’d gone over the top.
Bishop shakes his head. “I didn’t care. But he said he’d shoot me if I tried it. My mom had given him permission to shoot me in the leg, if it came down to that.” He cuts into a piece of jerky, knuckles tense around the knife. “I almost did it anyway. I was desperate, Ivy. Desperate to get to you.” He pauses. “I thought you’d be desperate, too.”
Almost against my will, I look at him. His face is drawn, hurt and anger swirling in his eyes. “I couldn’t afford to be desperate,” I whisper. “I was trying to survive.” I remember how hard I fought not to remember him during those first weeks beyond the fence. How every time he entered my mind it felt like a weakness that had the power to kill me, my still-beating heart ripped right out of my chest.
“What about now?” Bishop demands. “You seem to be surviving just fine.” His laugh is dry and humorless. “Maybe you can teach me your trick. How you manage to move on like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like nothing that happened before even matters.” I hate the bitterness threading through his voice, especially because I know I’m the one who put it there.
“Of course it matters. And it’s not easy.” I have to force the words out through a tight throat. “None of this has been easy.”
Bishop blows out a breath. “That’s not how it looks from where I’m standing.”
I open my mouth, not even sure what I’m going to say. Probably something that will drive him further away, but he doesn’t give me a chance. The knife falls from his hand, clatters to the counter. He crowds me back against the wall with his body, pressing against me, shoulders to hips. He’s already breathing hard, but I can barely hear him over the whoosh of blood roaring in my ears. One of his hands tightens in my hair, the other pushing up under the hem of my shirt. I close my eyes as his mouth lowers to mine, loop my arms around his neck even as every survival instinct I have is shouting at me to shove him away.
We have not kissed in all these weeks beyond the fence. We touch in the dark, hold each other close, but our mouths never meet. I was so sure I’d never have this again—his lips on mine, the scratch of his stubble and the slide of his tongue—that I’ve barely allowed myself to imagine it, to remember how good it is. The weight of his body pins me against the wall. His calloused fingers glide over the hollow of my waist, my ribs, move higher to cup my breast, his thumb fanning across the bare skin above my bra. I am all sensation, bolts of energy running between every point of contact.
I can’t focus, my body lit up in a dozen different spots, so it takes me longer than it should to realize these kisses are different from any we’ve shared before. I can still feel his love for me, his desire, but now also his pain. And it breaks my heart. I turn my head, pulling my mouth from his, but he doesn’t move back. He has one hand wrapped behind my neck and he uses his thumb to tilt my jaw upward, his lips falling to my throat, trailing wet, hot kisses against my skin. My stomach knots and rolls, fire licking through my veins.
“Bishop,” I breathe. “Stop. This doesn’t fix anything.” I clutch his wrist, his pulse hammering against my fingertips. “Stop.”
He does, instantly. He drops his forehead against the wall beside my head, his chest heaving. I close my eyes and fight to get my own breathing back under control. Slowly, he pushes away from me. He grabs my left hand, his fingers sliding over the empty patch of skin where my wedding ring once was.
“I can’t believe you threw it away,” he says, voice husky. I open my eyes, and we stare at each other.
I pull my hand back. “It hurt too much to look at it,” I say, because I owe him this, at least, this little bit of truth. “It was a reminder of what wasn’t mine anymore.”
The anger in his eyes fades. “Ivy…”
The front door bangs open, Caleb’s voice booming into the silence. I slip out from between Bishop’s body and the wall, move away from his grasp, ignoring his hand still reaching out for me.
We feast on fresh venison for dinner after Caleb and Bishop return home with a buck strung between them. We’re going to have to spend the next week turning it into jerky to help us make it through the winter, but Caleb cuts four fat steaks for dinner. One last hurrah before months of dried meat and mealy potatoes.
After, Ash and Bishop sit on the couch playing a game of cards while Caleb works on making more bolts for his crossbow. It’s my turn to clean the dishes and I’m taking my time rinsing our plates in the sink, using a bucket of water Caleb brought in earlier. I’ve avoided the kitchen since Bishop and I kissed here last week. My eyes keep skipping to where he pressed me against the wall, my body remembering the warm weight of his.
I can hear Ash’s laughter rising from the living room, the low murmur of Bishop’s voice. Usually it’s comforting listening to them, reminding me that I’m not alone, but tonight it scrapes against my nerves, setting up a sharp thrum under my skin. Everything has been irritating me the last few days, as if the routines of my new life are a splinter I can’t dig out, ever-present and always aggravating.
Caleb looks up when I enter the living room, gives me a small smile. Ash and Bishop barely glance at me. Ash is digging her toes into Bishop’s leg as she accuses him of cheating at their card game.
I set the empty bucket down with a too-loud clatter and reach for my sweater hanging on the back of a dining room chair. “I’m going to get some more water,” I announce.
“I can get it,” Bishop offers, but I shake my head without looking at him.
“I’ve got it,” I say, shoving my arms into my sweater. None of them speak as I cross the room, but I feel their eyes on my back. I put too much force into opening the front door, barely catching it before it bangs into the wall. I’m slightly more careful when I close it behind me, but only slightly, the wood shaking against the frame. Not quite a slam.
The night air is cold, the stars like tiny ice chips in the black velvet of the sky. I smell smoke from dozens of fireplaces, see warm lantern light glowing from behind cracks in curtains and shutters. But the only sound is the faint rush of the river, the rustle of wind-tossed branches, everyone else already hunkered down for the night. I gather my sweater more securely around me and step off the porch, headed toward the river. My eyes sting, and a hot, bitter ache has settled underneath my ribs.
When I reach the river, the water is running fast and black, only the surface turned a shimmery silver in the moonlight. My fingers are numb in seconds, the water icy cold. Already it’s hard for me to imagine how frigid it will be once winter arrives in earnest, cobwebs of ice greeting each dawn. I should head back to the house now that I’ve filled the bucket. My hands are frozen, and my breath puffs out of me in steamy clouds.
But I sink to my knees instead, not caring that the ground isn’t much warmer than the water. I suddenly don’t have the energy to face Bishop, to watch him smile at Ash and make easy jokes with Caleb. I know it’s unfair of me to be jealous when I’m the one creating the distance between us, my silence a wedge I force into the space where our words used to be. But recognizing the ridiculousness of an emotion and being able to master it are two very different things, I’m finding.
A branch breaks behind me, and I scramble to my feet, almost overturning the bucket in my haste. I’m already reaching for my knife when Bishop appears; I know even his silhouette so well I can pick him out of the near-darkness.
“I said I didn’t need any help,” I tell him, my hand falling away from my knife.
“I figured I’d give you a hand anyway,” he says, reaching for the bucket. I swing it away from him and turn back toward the house.
“I’m surprised you were willing to leave your card game,” I say. Even as I’m speaking, I’m telling myself to shut up, but my mouth is one step ahead of my brain. Apparently that hasn’t changed. “You and Ash seemed to be having a great time. Very cozy.” Just hearing the words makes me cringe. I never wanted to be t
his kind of girl. I never thought I was.
Bishop’s hand snakes forward and grabs the handle of the bucket, forcing me to stop. “Are you done?” he asks. He sounds utterly exhausted, worn beyond the point of endurance.
I shrug, keeping my back to him.
“You honestly believe I’m falling for Ash?” he asks me. “That we would ever look at each other that way?”
“No,” I say on a whisper. I know that’s not how they feel about each other, just as I know neither one of them would ever hurt me intentionally.
“Then say what you mean,” he demands, giving the bucket a slight shake. “Or just”—he blows out a breath—“shut up.”
I whirl on him, forcing him to loosen his grip on the bucket. Water sloshes over the side and down my leg, soaking my pants. “Shut up? Shut up?”
He stares at me, his eyes a cool, glowing green in the moonlight. “We can’t keep doing this, Ivy,” he says. “I can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?” I ask and feel an immediate flush of shame. I’m the one playing games now, no better than Callie.
“Don’t do that,” he says. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Then maybe you should leave,” I say, even as my heart protests the words. “Go back to Westfall. I know you probably want to.” Just the thought of waking up tomorrow and not seeing his face makes panic rise up in my chest, squeezing my heart like a cold fist.
“Why would you say that?” His eyes bore into mine, his jaw tight. He is teetering right on the edge of losing his temper; one hard nudge from me and he’ll fall.
“I know you’re angry with me, Bishop. When are you going to admit it?”
“Of course I’m angry,” he says, taking a step toward me. I take a step back to compensate. “I’ve never denied it. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Maybe.” My heart knocks against my ribs. I’m terrified suddenly of where this is leading, whether I’m brave enough to make my own admissions in return. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut, gone back to the house and crawled into bed. But how many more nights can we do that before he turns away instead of holding me, before I wake up one morning and he really is gone?
“Okay, then,” Bishop says, voice rising, “I’m angry that the entire time I was falling in love with you, you were figuring out ways to kill me!”
My mouth drops open. “I didn’t…that’s not…”
“I’m angry that when you had the chance to tell me the truth, you lied instead!” He has closed the distance between us faster than I can move backward so we’re standing almost chest to chest. “And I’m angry because now that we have a second chance, you still won’t be honest with me!”
“Were you planning to say any of this?” I ask, heat flooding my cheeks.
Bishop lifts his dark eyebrows. “I would have, if you ever stayed in one spot long enough for us to have an actual conversation.”
The fear is rising in me, the same desperation I’ve felt every time he’s near me since we found each other again. I start to turn away from him, and he grabs the bucket, holds it tight in his hand so I can’t leave.
“Let go,” I say through clenched teeth, my suddenly sweaty fingers slipping against the bucket handle. And the moment might be funny if I weren’t on the verge of tears, if I weren’t petrified of where this will end.
“No,” he says, voice hard. “Neither one of us is leaving until we figure this out…one way or the other.”
I tilt my head up to his, take in the tension in his jaw, the determined crease of his brow. Bishop’s capacity for patience, at least where I’m concerned, has always seemed almost infinite. All those days and nights we spent together in Westfall when he never forced me to give more than I was ready to offer, never demanded emotions from me that I wasn’t yet able to admit feeling. But along with his patience, there is also an underlying firmness, a wall that marks a point at which he will no longer bend. I witnessed it firsthand when he shoved Dylan off the roof. Have the evidence right in front of me now—the very fact that he came beyond the fence to find me.
Once Bishop has reached the limit of his patience, he is done holding back. And I think that tonight, on this dark riverbank, I have pushed him as far as he’s willing to go. I know he would never put his hands on me in violence. But he’s not above forcing me to confront what I’ve been running from, face the distance I’ve created between us. And maybe that’s what I’ve been waiting for all along, for Bishop to corner me into admitting things my mind tells me are better left unexamined.
“I know you’re scared, Ivy,” he says. “But if we don’t talk about this, it’s going to ruin us.”
I drop my hold on the bucket and lurch away from him. “Stop telling me how I feel!” I practically shout.
“Then you tell me!” Bishop yells back, startling me. He tosses the bucket away, river water gushing out into the grass. “Tell me why you crawl into bed with me every night and then act like I don’t exist once the sun rises! Tell me why you say you want me here, but can barely bring yourself to be in the same room with me!”
“I thought you liked me complicated,” I throw back at him. “I thought that’s what fascinated you in the first place.”
Bishop looks away, takes a deep breath. “Really? You’re going to use that against me now?” When he looks back at me, I have to drop my gaze from the hurt in his eyes. “You say you’re not angry. You deny being scared. So what is it then? Tell me why you’re acting this way.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I shake my head. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How about the truth,” Bishop suggests, voice icy. “Can you manage that for once?”
And in an instant all my fear boils over into rage. Every dark, ugly thought I’ve had since the day I was put out comes writhing to the surface. “I lost everything!” I scream, so loud and shrill my throat aches. I wish I still had the bucket so I could throw it at him. “My family! My home! My best friend! The person I loved most in the world!” My chest feels like it’s going to explode, too much emotion confined in too small a space. My hands are curled into fists so tight my fingernails threaten to burst through my palms. “I had everything ripped away from me! Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
Bishop’s whole face is clenched, like he’s fighting his own battle beneath his skin. “Yeah,” he says, voice low. “I have a pretty good idea what that’s like.”
And that’s so typical of Bishop, to remind me I’m not the only one to suffer. Only right now I don’t want to hear it. My anger is like a balm, soothing over all the tender spots I don’t want to examine too closely. “You didn’t have to come after me. You had a choice.”
“You think I had a choice?” Bishop demands. “What choice? I’m not like your father or Callie, Ivy. I was never going to just let you go. I love you. There was never any choice.”
His words stop me cold. For the first time it really hits me, what it means that Bishop is here, that he came to find me. He’s the only person in my entire life who hasn’t failed me. As quickly as it descended, the anger swirls out of me, like a black cloud lifting up and away. But it leaves all my open wounds exposed with no way to protect them. I cross my arms and dig my fingers into my elbows. I feel like if I don’t hold on to something, I will disappear.
“Talk to me,” Bishop says, quieter. “We used to be so good at that. Please…just talk to me.”
It’s like we’re back in the basement of the courthouse, separated by the iron bars of a cell. That time, I chose to lie in hopes that it would spare him. This time, if I lie it will be out of pure cowardice. And he is right; it will ruin us. There’s a limit to how many lies I can tell him before he stops caring about the truth.
My father, Callie, President Lattimer—they have already taken so much from me. Am I going to let them take Bishop, too? I want to reach for him, pull him close and whisper my secrets against his skin. In so many ways I am stronger than when I was put out
. But my heart has grown timid, constantly trying to protect itself from a fatal blow. I know now that I can survive out here. The question is whether I have the strength to really live.
The silence looms between us. Even the wind in the trees has fallen silent as if it, too, is waiting to see what will happen next. “I’m scared,” I manage to get out, my voice a thin wire. “You’re right. I’m so scared.”
Bishop takes a step toward me, stops when I hold up a hand. If he touches me now, I will break apart. “Okay,” he says, careful, like finally we’re getting somewhere. “Scared of what?”
“Of you!” I choke out. “I’m scared of losing you again,” I whisper, tears stinging against the backs of my eyes.
“Ivy…”
“I can’t…” I breathe in slowly, try to calm my heart so that I can speak without my voice shaking. “I couldn’t stand that again. I had to lock you away. Pretend you never existed. I tried so hard to forget you.” Despite my best effort my voice breaks, my words turn watery. “That’s the only way I could make it out here. And then you were back, right in front of me. And it was almost worse than not having you. The thought that I might have to suffer it all over again.”
Bishop’s eyes never leave me as I speak. That same look in them I remember so well, like he’s seeing right to the heart of me. “I can’t promise that I’ll never hurt you, Ivy. Or that I’ll always be here. Every day is a risk. There are no guarantees. Especially not in this life.”
“I know that,” I whisper. I give him a wobbly smile. “That’s kind of the problem.”
He closes the distance between us, not touching me, but right there in front of me. Solid and warm and strong and everything I told myself I could never have again. “I’m here now.” He takes the final step and hooks a hand around my waist, pulling me in tight. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”