33. Ivy
thirty-three
Ivy
Everything happens at once. Mom's crying, which she'll deny later.
Dad hugs me twice. Russ tells me he always knew I'd get here, and Annie's already talking about where we should all go for dinner like the outcome of today was never in doubt.
Two of my committee members stop to shake my hand on their way out, one of them telling me my discussion section was the strongest he's read from a student in years. Reid picks me up off the ground, which although unnecessary, doesn’t surprise me.
Years of fieldwork. Years of data collection and writing and rewriting, of crying over a chapter at two in the morning and then fixing it the next day, of doubting whether any of it mattered to anyone but me.
And now I have an M.S. in Wildlife Biology. I did it.
Through all of it, I keep finding Beck with my eyes.
I still can't quite believe he's here. I'd made my peace with him not being able to make it, told myself it was fine, that trying meant something even if trying wasn't enough this time.
And then I walked into that room and there he was, standing next to Reid, and every carefully constructed piece of that peace fell apart in about half a second.
We hugged during the committee's deliberation. But we haven't had a single moment alone, and after almost two months, I intend to fix that as soon as possible.
“I understood some of it,” Reid announces, mid-celebration, like this is a genuine accomplishment.
“How much?”
“Twenty percent. Maybe twenty-five.”
“That's generous of you to admit.”
Beck's quieter about it, but when he gets a moment near me, he mentions the fireweed slide, tells me it reminded him of the burn we hiked in July, the one where he learned more about post-fire vegetation than he probably ever wanted to know.
Hearing him connect it back, unprompted, months after that hike, means more to me than every compliment I've gotten today combined.
I catch him with my dad at one point, shaking his hand.
Beck's been around my parents a few times over the years, always through Reid, always as Reid's friend passing through during some visit or another.
I was usually off at Blackpine when it happened.
This is different, and I think Beck knows it too, something faintly self-conscious in how carefully he's holding himself, like my father's grip might carry more weight than it used to.
My dad, for his part, is being as normal as he always is, completely unaware he's making Beck nervous. I find that more amusing than I probably should.
Eventually the group starts dispersing, everyone making plans for dinner later, my parents heading back to their hotel to freshen up. Russ and Annie wander off to find coffee, and Reid disappears to make a phone call.
Which leaves me finally, blessedly, alone with Beck. We walk across campus together and find a quiet bench under a tree that's mostly gone orange. I don't even get a full sentence out before he's kissing me.
I kiss him back like I've been waiting two months for this, because I have.
This isn't a quick hello kiss or a goodbye kiss with somewhere to be right after.
Phone calls weren't this. Texts weren't this.
Knowing he loved me from three hundred miles away wasn't the same as having him here, solid and warm and real, his hands in my hair, nowhere either of us needs to be.
When we finally pull back, I press my forehead against his.
“I missed you,” I say.
“Missed you too.”
Neither of us needs to say more than that.
“So,” I say eventually, still not quite ready to let go of him. “Fire season's actually over?”
“It’s over. Officially. No emergency callbacks.”
“When do you leave for Colorado?”
He looks at me, something in his expression I can't quite read yet. “I'm not going to Colorado.”
I go still. Whatever I expected him to say, that wasn't it. “What?”
“I accepted a permanent position,” he says. “With the Forest Service. At Blackpine. Fire management and fuels work, mostly. Year-round.”
I stare at him. Permanent. Blackpine. Year-round. Not another seasonal assignment, not a temporary reassignment while another crew figures out staffing. He's talking about staying.
“You're staying?” I ask, still working through it.
“Yeah.”
I throw my arms around him, laughing, in disbelief. “You're really staying?”
“I'm really staying.”
I pull back to look at him, and something else occurs to me, underneath the joy. “But a permanent job. That's a huge change for you.”
“I know.”
“What made you want that?”
He takes a deep breath, in and out. “I got tired of living like I was always leaving.”
His whole childhood was moving, base to base, never staying long enough for one place to feel unquestionably his.
Then adulthood built on the exact same pattern by choice, fire season into ski season into fire season, temporary housing, seasonal friends.
Always a departure waiting somewhere on the calendar.
I've known those facts about him for months.
I understand something deeper now. He's tired of that way of living. “Was it Timber Creek?” I ask.
“All of it,” he says, and he's looking right at me when he says it, which tells me all of it includes me without him needing to spell it out.
“When did you decide?”
He tells me something I didn't know. Back in August, when he and Reid got that brief break after the Timber Creek fire, they didn't drive straight to the crew house.
“I stopped to see Russ first.”
“You did?”
“I wanted to ask him about permanent openings in the district. He pointed me toward this one. Told me who to talk to, how the process worked. I did the rest myself. Application, interview, the whole thing.”
I think back to that August weekend, remember it clearly, the reunion, the walk through town, the porch that night, both of us finally saying the words we'd been circling. I told him I love him. He said it back.
But he'd stopped to talk to Russ before he even came to see me.
He hadn't chased this because I told him I love him. I hadn't asked him to stay. He didn't hear my confession and then rearrange his life to match it. He'd already decided, on his own, before any of that happened, that he wanted something permanent.
And he wanted it here.
“I never accepted the Colorado offer,” he adds. “Kept putting it off. Once Blackpine turned into a real possibility, there wasn't really a decision left to make.”
“Does Reid know?”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
His mouth twitches. “Long enough.”
“And he never said anything?”
“Wasn't his news to tell.”
I know that's how Reid would see it too, but I'm planning to give him a hard time about keeping something this enormous from me anyway.
I feel my own smile shift into something Beck clearly notices, because he tilts his head, studying me.
“What?”
“There's something I haven't told you either.”
Now it's his turn to wait, watching me with obvious curiosity.
“I've got a few offers. Different places. One of them is with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks as a Wildlife Habitat Biologist.”
“That's incredible, Ivy—”
“It's based in Silver Creek.”
He goes still, the same way I did a few minutes ago, working through what it means.
“Did you take it?”
“Not yet. I've got until next week to decide.” I look at him. “I wanted to know where you'd be before I picked.”
His eyebrows go up, and he doesn't say anything, like he hadn't considered I might have been waiting on him.
“I applied broadly,” I tell him. “All over the state, a couple positions outside it too. I didn’t think I should limit myself to one region.
But Silver Creek's one of the best fits I found.
Wildlife and habitat monitoring, post-wildfire recovery, restoration.
It's the kind of fieldwork I've wanted to build a career around. I know this landscape. I love this ecosystem.”
“So if I wasn’t staying in Montana—”
“I had other options. One in Colorado.”
“So Silver Creek,” he says finally.
“Silver Creek.” I feel my whole face doing something I can't control. “Now that I know you're staying at Blackpine, there's really no contest.”
“When were you going to tell me you had offers?”
I raise an eyebrow. “When were you going to tell me about Blackpine?”
He laughs, and there's nothing either of us can say to that, because we've both been holding enormous news, waiting to share it in person.
Beck: permanent Forest Service position, Blackpine, year-round.
Me: about to accept Montana FWP, Wildlife Habitat Biologist, Silver Creek, the town where we had our official first date.
Different jobs. Different employers. Related work, same region. No Colorado. No cross-country move. No countdown ticking toward another inevitable separation waiting somewhere on the calendar.
For the first time since our relationship started, we know where we're both going to be.
I think about what he told me that night on the porch before he left.
I don't need to know where we'll be in October to know I don't want us to end.
Back then, what would happen in October was a question we couldn't answer, no matter how much we love each other.
Where he would go. Where I would end up.
Whether any of this could survive past a Montana summer.
I kiss him again. This time there's no clock running underneath it. No deployment tomorrow. No unknown winter assignment waiting somewhere else. No job offer that might have taken me states away.
October is here now.
And we can finally see past it.