"Get it, Jacob, Bi-shop," I said, looking at the name. I pointed. "Bi, like two wheels, and shop, like the shop where you buy them."
Jacob studied the sign before letting out a good-natured chuckle.
Michael met us at the door. I wasn't expecting him to be there, so I gasped when I saw him. "Hey," I said with a smile.
I thought he might lean in and give me a kiss on the cheek, which (in recent weeks) had become our standard greeting.
He didn't kiss me on the cheek.
He didn't even lean in.
He gave me a smile, but it was forced.
"Are you okay?" I asked, thinking maybe he wasn't feeling well.
He nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. I'm just tired." He pointed to his car key like he wanted me to hand it to him. "I'll go ahead and give you guys a ride home. I know you're probably ready to get back."
My heart sank at the way he stared through me as if he wasn't even seeing me.
Disconnected.
Distant.
For whatever reason, my ears began ringing. It was as if my body new something had changed between Michael and me, and it physically wanted to shutdown. I felt light-headed as I handed him the key. We walked to the car and sat in it, and the whole thing seemed like a dream.
Michael continued to talk to Jacob and me, but something was different. Something had changed. His sudden shift made me feel desperate and hopeless. I knew something was wrong, and it almost felt as if I was swimming through the whole encounter. I felt a yearning, drowning feeling in my chest and an ache in my jaw.
Michael came to a stop in the driveway, and he turned off his engine. "Night, Jacob," he said, shifting in his seat to regard my brother. "We'll see you later."
Jacob had good social skills, and even though he would have wanted to hang out with Michael all night, he smiled and got to the edge of the back seat so that I could let him out.
Within a few seconds, my brother had climbed out of the car, thanking Michael again for letting us use the Chevy. I adjusted in my seat and closed the door. We watched Jacob run in front of the car toward the house.
"What's the matter?" I asked, trying to look him in the eye. "Michael," I said.
If there was one thing I knew about Michael Bishop, it was that he was real. He had never been afraid to look me in the eyes, and now I could hardly get him to do it. He made eye contact with me and it made him wince as if it literally caused him pain.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Michael."
"I think we should break up," he said, looking straight ahead.
I stared at the side of his face. "Michael, look at me and repeat what you just said." I knew in my heart that he wouldn't be able to do it. Hope rose up inside me and I held my breath as I waited for him to say he was kidding.
He looked me straight in the eye and said, "Ivy, we need to break up. I'm breaking up with you."
I stared at him in stunned silence.
My ears began to ring, and my eyes burned. I blinked, feeling physically hurt from the heartache.
"Michael, really?" I asked.
Hot tears filled my eyes, and as soon as I blinked, a drop rolled down my cheek.
Michael saw it happen, and he looked away with a pained expression. "I'm sorry, Ivy." It was as if he had to force the words to come out of his mouth—choke them out. "It's just how it has to be."
"So this is it, Michael?" I was trying my best not to cry, but it was impossible to make my voice come out properly. It was warbled and weak, and I barely got the words out. I thought my pitiful delivery might cause Michael to glance at me, but it didn't. He stared straight ahead, wearing a stone-faced expression.
I wanted him to soften.
I wanted him to turn and look at me that way he'd been doing for the last two months.
I wanted him to be that same guy.
But he wasn't.
The Michael I had gotten to know all summer was not in the car with me.
"This is it, Ivy." He answered my question in a slow, measured tone.
"I'm going to get out of the car," I said. I reached for the door handle, but I did it slowly because I wanted desperately for him to stop me. "Michael, look at me. Are you seriously saying you don't want to see me again?"
He turned to stare at me. "Yes," he said. "That's what I'm saying. We can't see each other anymore."
"Why are you saying we can't see each other? Why are you putting it that way? Did something happen?"
"Would you rather me say I don't want to see you, Ivy? Fine. I don't want to see you anymore. It's been fun, but you're going back to school, and we both need to move on."
"Fun?" I asked. I moved in front of him to try to get him to look at me. I had never seen him look so cold and disconnected. He was like a robot—one that could turn on and off his feelings. There was emptiness in his eyes. He had nothing for me anymore. The realization made that desperate feeling in my chest well up so uncontrollably that I cried. My face contorted with tears so violently that I had to cover my face with my hands. I let out a wheezing sob as a rush of emotion took over. I took one deep breath, feeling angrier than I had ever felt in my whole life. My head was buried in my hands, and I hunched over where Michael couldn’t see my face. I took a deep breath and composed myself.
"Michael, I hate you for doing this."
"Don't worry, I hate me enough for both of us," he said.
"But you're still doing it?"
"Ivy, please don't make this harder than it already is. Just go."
I turned to face him when he said that, shaking my head at him when I realized he could hardly bear to look me in the eye.
That was the last thing we said.
Without another word, I opened the door and got out of the car. I had a big bag with me from our trip to the swimming hole, and I was fully clothed, but even still, I felt naked as I closed his car door and walked in front of the car and across the driveway.
It was a nightmare.
I felt a distinct crushing sensation in my chest that made it difficult for me to get a breath of air into my lungs.
My parents were in the kitchen, but I went past them without saying a word. "Hello Ivy," Dad called as I went down the long hallway toward my room.
"Hey," I called back.
I didn't feel like talking, but I knew if I didn't answer, one or both of them would come check on me. I saw Jacob in the hall, and he smiled at me. I tried to smile back but I just couldn't do it.
His face instantly shifted to one of the concern and he tilted his head at me. "Are you okay?" he whispered.
I shook my head as a silent tear fell onto my cheek.
"Is it Michael?"
I nodded.
"What happened?"
I shrugged because I couldn't make the words come out of my mouth.
"Did he break up with you or something?" Jacob asked, still whispering.
I tried to nod, but I couldn't. More tears fell onto my cheeks, and my little brother got the idea that the answer was 'yes'.
"Why?" he asked. "Why would he do that?"
I shrugged.
Jacob craned his neck, looking into his room as if maybe he could still see Michael's car in the driveway, but I knew he was long gone. Jacob put his hands over his face and sighed, shaking his head like he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
"It's impossible," he said. "He liked you so much."
"He didn't like me very much in the car just now," I said.
"I could tell something was bothering him, but I had no idea…" Jacob trailed off, not knowing what to say.
I turned and went into my room.
I felt as though the weight of the whole world had come crashing down on top of me. Without Michael, there was a big, gaping hole in the rest of my life. It was as if I had just stepped off the edge of a cliff into a bottomless chasm, and I would just have to free-fall forever.
Chapter 15
Michael
Nearly a year later
Michael Bishop had
grown his motorcycle business exponentially during the past year.
He was brokenhearted, and he threw himself into his work as a distraction and release. He now had three full-time employees and would soon hire one or two more.
From the outside, it seemed as if Michael Bishop had it all figured out. He had silenced the skeptics who said he would never make it in Memphis. He was well on his way to doing exactly what he predicted and becoming as big as Harley. He was good at it. He smiled, talked to customers, and conducted business like a true professional, but on a personal level, he had changed.
Michael hadn't been the same since he ended things with Ivy Lewis. He switched off some part of himself when he told her to leave, and he hadn't been able to switch it on since.
The sad part was that he was in a pretty good position with the ladies. He had a successful rebel thing going on. He went to church and was extremely successful, and yet still somehow maintained a bad boy image because of his motorcycles.
In the past year, he had gone from Memphis's most misunderstood to Memphis's most eligible. The funny thing was that he had no idea he was so desirable, and even if he had known, he wouldn't have cared.
He couldn't care less about his own romantic marketability because, as far as he was concerned, he was done with love.
Losing Ivy had hurt him too much.
It had been ten months since he saw her, and thinking about her still made his heart hurt. He had heard enough gossip to know that she was having success in Nashville, and that helped him grin and bear it through the pain of not having her.
Ivy had been on his mind nonstop for the past hour or so, ever since her brother called to ask if he could come by the shop. Michael knew Jacob had turned seventeen, so he thought maybe he was interested in buying a motorcycle.
It was just after noon, and Michael's employees were all at the shop working when Jacob came by, driving his mom's car. It was a beautiful day in early summer, so they had the garage door open. Michael had been expecting Jacob's visit, and he was waiting for him when he arrived. He met him at the entrance.
"Hey, Jacob, it's good to see you," Michael said as they shook hands. "You went and became a man since the last time I saw you."
Jacob smiled shyly.
"Did you come to look at a motorcycle?" Michael asked.
Jacob's smile faded as he shook his head. "I just came to talk to you about something personal, if you don't mind."
Michael's heart dropped. "No, not at all," he said. He pointed to the shop. "Do you want to go inside? Or I have a table out here under those trees. We could go sit over there."
"That's fine. The table's fine." Jacob said.
The two gentlemen made their way toward the shady area near the side of the building. There was a wooden picnic table under a group of small trees, and Michael and Jacob walked to it.
"It's been a while," Jacob said.
"Yes it has," Michael replied.
"You don't come to our church anymore," Jacob said.
Michael sat on the closest bench, and Jacob sat next to him.
"Nope," Michael said.
"Why'd you quit coming?"
"Because I didn’t want to anymore."
"Do you go somewhere else?"
"Yes, I do go somewhere else," Michael said, wondering if that's what the boy had come to talk about.
Jacob was quiet for a few seconds. He stared at the ground beneath his feet, absentmindedly shifting the dirt and working up the nerve to say what he came there to say.
"Why'd you break up with my sister?" he asked.
Now it was Michael's turn to have to work up the nerve to say something.
The mention of Ivy made the blood rush from Michael's head, and he rubbed his eyebrows as he tried to figure out how to answer Jacob's question.
"Because she really liked you, and I thought you really liked her," Jacob added when Michael didn't answer right away.
"I did like her. I loved her."
"Then why did you break up with her?"
"It's complicated, Jacob."
"Yeah, well, so is Ivy's life right now, but you wouldn't know that."
Michael felt a stabbing sensation in his chest when Jacob said her name.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.
"She's sick," Jacob said. "And not just sick as in ill. That's not what I'm talking about."
"What are you talking about?" Michael asked, getting to the edge of his seat and feeling frustrated.
"Ivy," Jacob said. "She hasn't been the same since… well, since last summer. She quit school right when she got back to Nashville. She called home, saying life was too short and she was quitting school to pursue a career in music."
"I heard she was doing well with that," Michael said. "I'm happy for her."
Jacob just looked at Michael and shook his head as if to say he shouldn't be happy.
"My parents cut her off, but she didn't care. She makes tons of money playing and singing." Jacob paused, but Michael didn't say anything, so he continued. "She says she's doing great, but she's not. I can tell. She hadn't spoken to my parents in months before she called the other night. She didn't come home for Christmas, and she has never done that. And she's got all these friends who party all the time."
"Why hasn't she spoken to your parents?"
Jacob regarded Michael with a serious expression. "Honestly, I think it's because she thinks my dad had something to do with what happened with you. That's why I came to see you. I was hoping if that was the reason, then we could try to make things right. Maybe I could talk to my dad." Jacob shrugged. "I don't know. I felt like I needed to come to you and say something. The other night, Ivy called in the middle of the night, crying and panicking, and thinking she was dying, and then an hour later, when we were just about to leave for Nashville to help her, she called again and said she was fine." Jacob shook his head and stared blankly as he remembered. "We went to see her the next day anyway, and she wasn't well, Michael."
"What's that mean?"
Jacob shrugged. "I mean, I think she thinks she's well. She's making money, and she has lots of success and lots of friends and everything, but she's just not the same. She's hurting. She's my sister, and I can just see it."
Michael's chest hurt at the thought of Ivy being in pain. He wanted to be next to her instantly, and he had to fight the urge to get in his car and take off for Nashville without even knowing where she lived.
Jacob took Michael's silence as disinterest.
"It's probably stupid that I came over here," he said. "I didn't mean to bother you. I know if you liked her you would've stayed with her or whatever. I was just kind of hoping against hope that my dad had something to do with it, that way it would be something I could try to fix."
Michael was so full of thoughts emotions that he didn't even know where to begin. He had never felt so overwhelmed.
"I'm glad she has you for a brother, Jacob," Michael said, after a few seconds. "And it's not the least bit stupid that you came over here. I don't know what to say. I haven't been the same since things ended with Ivy, either."
"She said you were the one who did it. She said you broke up with her."
"I did, but not because I wanted to," Michael said.
"Did my dad make you?" Jacob asked, sitting up a little straighter as if reluctantly contemplating confronting his father.
Michael shook his head and put his hand on Jacobs shoulder to make him settle down.
"Then why did you break up with her?" Jacob asked.
He was so determined to find the truth that Michael felt he had no other choice but to tell him.
"Three men came into the shop that day that I ended things with her. They came to me and threatened your family. They didn't threaten me, they threatened you—Ivy's family."
"Who was it? What did they say?" Jacob asked incredulously. "That they would kill us?"
"No, they didn't say they kill you."
"Then what did they say? What did they
threaten you with? Who was it?"
"They said your dad would lose his job. They also said that Ivy's family would never talk to her again if she married someone like me."
"Why didn't you just ask us if we liked you?" Jacob asked as if it were that simple.
"How about your dad losing his job? What was I supposed to do?"
"Why would you be worried about something like that?" Jacob asked with a completely confused expression.
"Because a job is important, Jacob."
"Yeah, but if my dad lost his job because of who my sister chose to date, then he was meant to lose it, anyway." Jacob gestured with his palms up as if indicating the area around them. "We serve the living God. The one who created everything. The one who gives breath and life. There's no threat against my dad's job that God doesn't know about or can't take care of. He could just smite those guys if He wants to."
Michael smiled. "I guess He could," he agreed.
"He can. If there is one thing I've learned growing up a preacher's kid, it's that God defends us. God's got it handled way better than we can. God doesn't need you to go break my sister's heart over something like that."
"You're probably right."
"I know I am," Jacob said. "And who was it?"
"Stephen Meyers."
Jacob made a dismissive sound. "That guy's getting married to someone else, anyway."
Michael's heart was pounding uncontrollably by the time they finished the conversation. He knew he would be leaving for Nashville that same day. He felt so compelled to go there that he stood up and began pacing in front of the table.
Jacob was right.
Michael thought about all the kid had just said and wondered how a seventeen-year-old could be so reasonable and smart. He looked Jacob in the eyes, knowing he wouldn't be able to express his gratitude. He could see how concerned the boy was for his sister, and he loved him for that.
"I love her," Michael said, regarding Jacob with a man-to-man expression. "I love your sister, Jacob. I was only trying to protect her. It's the only reason I did what I did."
Jacob let out a relieved sigh. "I hate to tell you this, but your plan might have backfired a little bit. I think she really liked you. I'm glad you feel the same way."
Summer of '65 (Bishop Family Book 1) Page 10
