Where Ivy Dares to Grow

WHERE IVY DARES TO GROW MARIELLE THOMPSON www.kensingtonbooks.com Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Epigraph Contents Warning Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Author’s Note Acknowledgments Discussion Questions KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018 Copyright © 2023 by Marielle Thompson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book. The K with book logo Reg US Pat. & TM Off. ISBN: 978-1-4967-4263-6 (ebook) ISBN: 978-1-4967-4262-9 First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: July 2023 For Beau, in every timeline The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality. —Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Contents Warning This book contains instances of infidelity, vivid dissociative episodes and mental health struggles, gaslighting (particularly in regard to mental health), consensual sexual content, emotional manipulation, grief, terminal illnesses, and extensive discussions of off-page parental death and childhood neglect. Chapter 1 I feel like I might disappear, and I almost wish that were the truth. There is nothing but gray up here at the top of the world, bleeding the road and the sky into one. Damp grass expands on either side of us, a steady spread before the land drops off into the black pit of the ocean below, only air and the jagged rocks of the cliff between them. The knuckles of Jack’s left hand have blossomed white where they grip my thigh. I shift, my legs pressing farther into the sleek tan interior of the passenger side door and his hand falls away, mindlessly drifting back to mirror its partner’s grip on the steering wheel. We cut through clouds of fog hovering just above the road as we speed through the fading afternoon light, our disjointed breathing and the thrum of the engine the only sounds. The car envelopes us in a warm bubble of protection from the raging of January beyond the glass and metal. I reach across to run a hand through the light coif of Jack’s hair, my knees still pressed away, my body facing the door, the window, beyond. There is no light to glint off of the diamond wrapped around my fourth finger, but it still draws my eye, catching my breath as it dances between the golden strands of hair. He doesn’t lean into my touch, doesn’t even seem to notice the spiritless play of my fingers across his scalp. “It’ll be all right,” I say, and I wish I could mean it. He says nothing because there are no words, not really, and I wonder if he even hears me, even knows I’m here. But then his eyes dart from the road, landing on my face for just a moment. “Yeah. Thanks, love.” His tone is flat, but it’s enough. It’s the best that could be expected of him, all things considered. We’d known that his mother’s health had been deteriorating for far too long. She’d been fighting her battle for years now. Even back when Jack and I were still building the foundations of our life together, she’d been on the cliff’s edge of health. But now not even the best medicine that Britain had to offer was enough to pull Alice back. It had tipped us all over the edge with her. So it was no surprise when, the night before last, Jack had come through the door of our flat, tie hanging askew, a heavy weight pulling down on his gaze. These days, it could have been anything, but I knew what it was immediately. I wasn’t sure that he’d ask me to join him and his parents as they retreated to their family estate up north to hibernate together for his mother’s final months, weeks, days. But he had. I could’ve said no—I thought about it as I sat there on the stiff leather of our couch, in our flat whose rent I couldn’t afford, our television that I had not really been watching droning listlessly behind his words. Ours, ours, ours. But I had looked into Jack’s eyes across the space that we shared, that we had built together, and I knew that saying no to this would be saying no to much more, and so the word could not make its way off my coward’s tongue. I had nodded, said, “Of course.” I had kept reciting my script the way I was meant to. He hadn’t hugged me, hadn’t laid his head across my lap and let me stroke my hands gently across his hair, his skin, his lips, like he did when our relationship was still in blossom. And I hadn’t let my eyes attack every inch of his appearance, looking for a stray golden hair of the work colleague whose smile opened too wide for him, or a distant gaze that meant his mind was somewhere else, on someone else. I had stopped looking for a reason, stopped caring