Chapter Forty Three
Doubt
Rachel Williams
I surface slowly.
Like swimming up through thick, warm fog. Like my body weighs too much. Like the world is too bright.
A soft beeping, a steady hiss of oxygen. The faint antiseptic smell of a hospital.
ICU.
I blink, vision blurry, and the first thing I see is him.
Bishop.
Sitting in a chair pulled so close to the bed his knees touch the frame. His elbows rest on his thighs, his hands clasped, his head bowed like he’s praying or breaking or both.
He’s still in the same clothes from the woods. Dirt on his boots. Blood dried on his shirt. Hair wild, jaw shadowed, eyes hollow with exhaustion.
He looks like a wild mountain man who fought his way out of hell.
And, God help me, I’m kind of into it.
I try to shift, and pain detonates in my chest. A sharp, radiating burn that steals my breath.
I gasp.
His head snaps up.
“Rachel.” His voice cracks. “Rachel…hey, hey, I’m here.”
He’s out of the chair in a heartbeat, leaning over me, one hand hovering near my shoulder like he wants to touch me but is afraid he’ll hurt me.
“You’re awake,” he whispers, relief flooding his face so intensely it almost hurts to look at.
I try to speak, but the pain spikes again. He immediately calls for the nurses, his voice sharp, urgent.
“She’s in pain. She’s awake, can someone, please-”
He sounds wrecked.
The nurses rush in, adjusting meds, checking vitals, asking me questions I can barely answer. Bishop steps back, giving them space, but he never takes his eyes off me.
And through the haze, through the pain, through the fog of sedation, I remember.
I remember him carrying me. I remember, he loved me, saying it back.
My heart stutters.
Did he mean it? Was it just adrenaline? Fear? Shock? A heat-of-the-moment confession he regrets now?
What if I imagined it? What if I said it and he didn’t? What if I’m lying here thinking we’re something we’re not?
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to ask. I don’t know how to breathe around the fear.
The nurses finish and leave.
Gemma arrives.
She slips into the room quietly, eyes red, face tight with worry. She goes straight to my bedside, brushing my hair back gently.
“Hey, Rach,” she whispers. “You look like hell.”
I try to smile, but it hurts.
Bishop steps back even farther, watching me, watching us, with something shuttered in his eyes. Something scared. Something wounded.
Gemma notices my discomfort. Bishop notices Gemma noticing.
And something in him changes.
His shoulders tense. His jaw tightens. His eyes drop.
He thinks I’m uncomfortable because of him.
He thinks I don’t want him here.
He thinks I don’t love him back.
He thinks he ruined everything.
“Uh…I’ll give you two a minute,” he says quietly, voice rough. “You… you should rest.”
My heart lurches.
“Bishop-” I try, but the word is barely a whisper.
He doesn’t hear it.
Or he thinks I don’t mean it.
He steps away from the bed, from me, from the room, from everything we said in the woods. His shoulders are rigid, his movements stiff, like he’s bracing for impact.
Like he’s already hurting.
He reaches the door.
Pauses.
But he doesn’t look back.
He leaves.
And the moment the door closes, pain floods my chest again worse than the knife, worse than the surgery, worse than anything Beth ever did.
Because he thinks I don’t want him.
And I don’t know how to fix it.