I shrug, but I can feel the tightness in my shoulders. “We’re not married anymore.”
“I know that,” he says. He glances at my bare finger. “Where’s yours?”
“I threw it away,” I say, voice sharp. “It didn’t mean anything. Not out here.” I reach over and grab the jerky. “It didn’t really mean anything in Westfall, either.” Not because I didn’t love him by the end, but because every vow I made to him was based on a lie. But I can’t find the words to make the distinction clear.
Bishop doesn’t move, even as I begin wrapping the jerky. “It meant something to me,” he says. “It still does.”
I keep my eyes on my hands, Bishop’s gaze heavy on the side of my face. “The guard they had watching me after you were put out carried a gun,” Bishop says. I glance at him, startled, unsure where this revelation is going. “I tried to get away from him constantly. Took off every time he turned his back. God, he hated me. I made it as far as the fence once. I got halfway up before he caught me.”
“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.