AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ash rolls her eyes. “And you believed him?”
“I was scared not to.”
Ash doesn’t have a response for that, and we both sit quietly for a few minutes, watching the river roll by. “Bishop must love you a lot,” Ash says finally. “Coming out here to find you.”
“Yes.” It takes me a second to continue. “I think he did.”
Ash shakes her head. “Not did, Ivy. Does.”
“I don’t know why he would,” I say, voice quiet. “I’ve hurt him. Over and over again.”
Ash’s face softens, her eyes warm. “That’s what love is, though, isn’t it? You don’t stop loving someone just because they disappoint you.”
I’ve always thought of myself as older than Ash, though her years probably outnumber mine. With her quick smile and easy laugh, her steadfast belief in the good left in this world, she’s always seemed more innocent and hopeful than I’ll ever be again, even after that day in the woods with those dead men at our feet. But now for the first time I feel like the younger one, tongue-tied in the face of her superior knowledge.
“I don’t know,” I say finally. “I don’t know if I understand what it means to love someone. Not really.”
Ash gives me a tender smile, so different from her usual broad grins. “Caleb told me about what happened to you in Westfall. About your family.”
“They weren’t the best teachers.” Probably the biggest understatement of my life.
“No.” Ash tucks an errant strand of hair back behind my ear. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t still learn. It’s not an excuse for not trying.”
The sun is out, but it has the weak, watery quality of autumn, clear a
nd bright in the sky, but not carrying much warmth by the time it hits your skin. I sit up straight and pull the sleeves of my sweater down, tuck my river-pruned fingers inside.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “that I wasn’t honest with you from the beginning.”
“I forgive you. I know you must’ve been afraid. But no more secrets, okay?” She lays her hand over my forearm and squeezes.
“I’ll try,” I say. “It’s something else I have to learn. How to trust people. How to stop lying to them.” I wonder if it’s even possible for me; maybe deceit is something I carry in my blood, passed down from my father without my consent.
“It’s probably none of my business, but you seem mad at him,” Ash says after we’ve watched the water flow for a while.
I shake my head, and Ash makes a clucking noise with her tongue. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. But you just promised not to lie anymore.”
I sigh. She’s right. I’m so, so angry. When I close my eyes and breathe, it flows through me like acid, making my stomach boil and my fingers ache to clench, rip into something too hard and leave damage behind. “I’m angry,” I admit, voice low. “Not with Bishop, not really, but…”
“But he’s here? And they’re not?” There’s no judgment in Ash’s voice, none in her eyes when they meet mine. “I get it,” she says. “When my dad died, I was furious. At the whole world, I guess. I mean, I’d never had a mom, and then I lost my dad, too? The only person I had left?” She breathes out a tiny, bitter laugh. “I took it out on Caleb. For longer than I should have.”
“He probably didn’t mind,” I say, thinking of the way Caleb protects her, worries over her like a mother hen.
“Oh, he minded,” Ash says, with a roll of her eyes. “He’s not the most patient guy in the world. He got sick of it pretty quick. But I worked it out eventually.” She smiles at me. “You will, too.”
But it’s not just anger that’s keeping me away from Bishop. There’s the snapping, snarling fear that’s even stronger. A fear I don’t understand or really want to examine, not sure what it will tell me about myself. About us.
Ash stands up. “You heading back?”
“No, I think I’ll stay here a little longer.”
“Okay.” Ash takes a few steps before stopping to glance back at me. “Your eyes are still sad,” she tells me. “But your whole face lights up when you look at him.”
I manage to keep away from the tent for most of the day. Ash takes Bishop lunch, and from a distance, I watch Carol enter the tent midafternoon, bringing Bishop more medicine for the pain. At dinnertime, I ask Caleb to take Bishop a plate, and he does after only a slight hesitation. I linger outside the tent when he goes in, expecting him to come right back out and give me a report. Instead, I hear the low murmur of their voices and after a while, a laugh from Caleb. So unexpected it makes me jerk a little where I stand. Less than twenty-four hours and Bishop’s gotten a genuine laugh out of Caleb, something I have yet to accomplish in more than two months. It makes me smile to imagine the two of them, Caleb squatting on the floor, Bishop leaning back against the tent pole, although I can’t come up with any idea of what they might be talking about. But they both need a friend, someone they can count on but don’t feel responsible for; maybe they will be good for each other.
After Caleb finally emerges from the tent, I trail behind him to the bonfire. He gives me a questioning look when I sit down next to him, but doesn’t ask why I’m out here instead of in my tent with Bishop. There are times Caleb’s silences can be oppressive, but the flip side is he always knows when to leave well enough alone.
I stay outside after Ash and Caleb have left for his tent. After most of the other people have melted away. After the last of the glowing fire has been covered and extinguished. Only then do I rise and make my slow way toward my tent. I take a deep breath before I duck inside, but the tent is dark, the only sound Bishop’s slow, even breathing.
