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Tears track down my face, mixing with the water from the shower. I don’t know where we go from here, if there’s a road we take together or if this is it. Is this the culmination of what we’re able to be to one another? Two people who love each other deeply, but can’t seem to get over the pain from the past?
When I’m done soaking under the water, I dry off and get ready for bed, unable to let go of the nerves I feel about the fact that Bishop has yet to return. When we were younger, I was the one who would storm off, angry and upset. Bishop was always the calm one, the one who came after me, helped calm me down, leveled me out, showed me that whatever had upset me wasn’t nearly as bad as I assumed it was.
Now, being on the other end of it and knowing Bishop needed some time to himself because he was upset…I don’t like how it feels.
I turn the TV on, looking for anything to fill the silence, and I blindly watch some kind of reality show Nicole would surely love, though I don’t remember a single thing that happens.
When the door beeps and then swings open about thirty minutes later, I’m relieved to see Bishop walk through, and I let out an exhale when I see the look on his face. Gone are the sad eyes and the furrowed brow and the clenched jaw. Instead, he looks like the Bishop I know and love, the man who can take any shitty moment and find a way to maintain an uplifted soul.
He toes off his shoes then crawls right onto the bed next to me, bringing me in tight against his chest. He feels cold from his walk outside, but I’m still warmed by his closeness.
“I’m sorry for being jealous of Garrett,” he says, pressing a kiss against the crown of my head. “I’ve lived with what happened between us for so long, and it feels like we’re finally starting to figure things out. And then I have to meet this…guy. Someone who was there for you when I wasn’t. Someone who gave you what I didn’t.” His throat gets tight. “Someone who loved you when I let you go.”
I can hear the pain in his voice, the truth in his words.
“We didn’t love each other,” I say, shaking my head. “We were…a distraction. That’s all.”
Bishop leans back and looks at me. “A distraction from what?”
I don’t have to say anything for us to both know the answer. He gives me a sad smile then brings me back in again so I’m snug against him.
“Do you think we’ll ever move on from the past?” I ask, finally voicing the question that’s been plaguing me for the past few weeks.
I feel Bishop nod before he says anything. “I do,” he tells me, his voice firm and sincere. He draws back again and takes my hand in his, holding it against his chest. “We were…like a broken bone, and when you reset it, there’s going to be some hurt. It hurts and it’s complicated and it isn’t always pretty. There’s work that goes into getting things set right, but it happens.” Bishop rests his forehead against mine and closes his eyes. “It happens, and I know what we have is worth it.”
He sounds so sure, and everything inside me wants to believe him. Things with Bishop are so good. So good and so right in so many ways. I can’t help that I get scared, that the pain from my past sometimes dictates what I fear now, but I’m not the same person I was back then. I’m not the girl who pulls away anymore, and Bishop isn’t the guy who gives up.
So we might not be able to control the fact that our old wounds will resurface—but we can help what we do when it happens.
We hold each other all night long, cocooned together in a big fancy bed with way too many pillows. We hold hands for almost the entire drive as we head home the following morning, but for some reason there’s still an ache I feel in my chest when Bishop comes to a stop in front of my house and helps me unload all my stuff.
Our trip has left me unsettled. Even though we had a long, vulnerable chat, I can’t help but feel like the honeymoon period we were in has finally ended. We were in a blissed-out state, just enjoying each other’s company and trying to ignore the past. Now, we’ve reminded ourselves of the hard stuff, the big stuff, the emotional bullshit that comes along with relationships.
It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t think, but it still feels like we’re standing at a precipice, on the verge of taking things a lot more seriously or completely falling apart.
The hard part is knowing which way it’s gonna go.
chapter twenty-three
Bishop
I love Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday, mostly because of the food. Sure, it’s important to take time to be thankful, spend time with family, togetherness and whatnot. I get that.
But really? It’s about the food. Turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy. Mac n cheese and homemade rolls and stuffing. Green bean casserole and butternut squash ravioli and of course, my favorite, pumpkin pie.
Every year I was away at college, I’d get invites from friends on the team, letting me know if I didn’t have somewhere to go for the holidays, I could eat with them and their family. But I’ve never even considered going somewhere other than my parents’ house for Turkey Day.
My dad starts cooking early and my mom runs around putting finishing touches on the decorations for her dinner table, which seems to get longer and longer every year because we’re almost always hosting friends or other people around town. The house always smells incredible all day.
Before all the madness begins, bright and early on Thanksgiving morning, I meet up with a bunch of guys who used to play for the Cedar Point Pirates for a little game of baseball. It has been one of my favorite parts of coming home for the holidays each year and something I’m usually looking forward to.
Except for this year, because of my stupid fucking wrist.
“I can’t believe you’re not allowed to hit one ball,” Rush says, his arm resting on a stack of black exercise mats tucked against the wall of the weight room. “That seems…almost criminal.”
I snort. “It feels that way.”
“I guess you’ll just have to sit on the bench and watch me light everyone up,” he jokes before hitting an imaginary ball then bringing one hand up to his forehead as if to shade his eyes from the sun so he can see how far that ball has gone.
