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“Tara?Tara?You could’ve called me. You could’ve talked to Locke.” He stormed forward. “But no.Tara. And Tara said what? Tell people about your pain? And you thought, ‘okay, that’s so stupid, but why not?’ Tara said, ‘sure, your life’s in danger, but let’s give it a whirl.’ Yeah, why don’t you call and do whatever that loony-tunes woman with ratings-for-brains thinks.”
“Stop with the name-calling.” Ella buried her head in her hands. “I know you’re upset. It made me feel better.”
“Really? You know it now, or maybe you thought I’d lose my shit like I’m doing and did it anyway?”
She sniffled into her hands.
“Yeah, you knew it and still did it anyway. Awesome, El. Because I was hoping that maybe you were just being irresponsible and forgetful.”
“Really, Bishop.” She lifted her tear-streaked face. “You don’t have to be so serious all the time. It was a live stream. Simple.”
“For the purposes of ratings and likes and drama and whatever else that you and Tara can orchestrate.”
“Seriously, it’s one video. One time. That’s all it was.”
“In here! In your sanctuary. In this safe zone. The DMZ. Your green zone. The place where I shouldn’t have to worry about you, and you do something as stupid as my sister did.”
Ella’s head snapped back, and her eyes went as wide as her mouth. “Screw you.”
He hadn’t even expected to say those words, but it was the God’s honest truth. “She didn’t have to pick up the phone, and neither did you.”
“Everything is one impending disaster after another. And this room can’t save me from lunatics—”
“Impending disaster?” he snarled, hurling her words back at her as though he finally had the grenade launcher he’d been searching for. “Onlyone video. Just like it wasone text. You’ve simplified it, thinking that we’re in some sacred space of your bedroom where no harm can be done. Same as with Brie, driving sober, when there were no other cars on the road. She still flipped that car. Brie stilldied, and it’s like you’re trying to find the same path.”
“Bastard.”
“Whose only fault is trying to keep you from the same fate.”
“Go to hell, Bishop.”
“Not until you understand the full effect of your actions, then I’m on my way there.”
Her eyes bugged. “I just wanted to feel better. I wanted some semblance of my old normality before we head to New York, and Tara agreed—”
“Goddamn Tara.” His head throbbed. Ella didn’t get it, no matter what he said or how he explained it. “She’s just like Jay. Do you hear yourself? She’s the misconception of everything. She’s using you like he does.” Bishop threw his arms out. “Screw it. This is the same conversation.Recycled!”
“Cute. How long have you been waiting to use that?” Ella pushed her lips into a thin line and bunched her hands in her skirt. Then she dropped her head, letting her hair fall down, hiding her behind a curtain of strands. “I thought you’d catch me when I fell for you again. You said you would. How stupid was I?”
He stared at the woman that he wanted so desperately to care for, who wouldn’t let him. This argument was the epitome of everything that he disagreed with. His throat burned because what he wanted most kept pushing him away.
“Ella, you have towantme to catch you. You have to fall when I have a chance to catch you. Hell, you have to fall near me, and we are not in the same universe. We’re not orbiting in the same galaxy when you pull shit like this.”
“I’m falling.” She ran her hands over her face, threading her fingers into her hair, pulling at the locks before she released them. Her pained expression killed. “No, I fell for you, and it shouldn’t matter where or how. Why don’t you see that?”
“Jay was there today. Why don’tyou see that?”
“I do,” she whispered. “More than anyone on earth.”
“Then goddamn it! Why are you baiting him?” His eyes fell to a picture of Brie on her shelf. It was so small, he’d missed it last time he was in there. “I’m telling you. This is like watching Brie pick up the phone in slow motion. But you keep doing it over and over, and one of these days, it’s going to kill you.”
“Stop,” Ella whispered, her voice shaking.
Each vibration struck him like the reverb from a mortar strike that, at this second, he almost missed. Anything was better than this pain. “I’m out.”
“You’re leaving the job? Or… me?”
A surge of bile stole his throat and his breath. “If it’s not Jay today, then there’s a half dozen psychos tomorrow, and you keep giving them the roadmap.”