Chapter 16 #3
“Only once.” I sipped my cocoa. “Before that, it was a lot of breaking things. Yelling. Name-calling. Locking me out of the house. Slashing my tires after a fight.”
I listed all of those things mechanically, trying to sound lackadaisical, healed.
Beau’s hands were fists on his thighs. “Only once,” he repeated, tone strange, empty and flat but his eyes were pools of fury. He took a visible breath, looked down, then took another. He looked up at me, his hands relaxing.
“It is not only anything when a man lays hands on you, Hannah.” He uttered the words slowly, forcibly, his body unnaturally still.
“It isn’t only anything when he scares you, insults you.
And it sure as fuck isn’t your fault for getting married young, for not leaving sooner, or whatever the fuck you tell yourself. ”
I opened my mouth to argue with him, to tell him I didn’t think it was my fault.
That I was an evolved feminist who recognized that the actions of men were not caused by any failings in women.
But it would’ve been a lie. Because I did, blame myself.
For not being stronger. For forgiving him time after time.
For loving him in the first place. For not being financially solvent enough to get a divorce.
And Beau saw that in me.
Shame coated my tongue.
But also, the firmness of his words, the intensity of his look made me almost believe him. Beau wasn’t someone to shower me in false platitudes.
Instead of speaking, I nodded slowly, my nose tingling with the threat of tears.
I took another sip of cocoa to steady myself, but Beau’s eyes didn’t allow me a respite from his attention. Not for a moment. He stared at me the entire time.
“I left him when he, you know…”
“When he hit you,” Beau said flatly.
I didn’t flinch when he spoke, but I sank my teeth into the inside of my lip, the coppery taste of blood chasing away the rich aroma of chocolate.
I hadn’t let myself think about that night, hadn’t let myself say it out loud, even to Cole. I didn’t want to be an abused woman. I didn’t want to be a victim.
“A man hurting you makes him less of a person, Hannah, not you.” Although his body was nearly shaking with rage, Beau spoke clearly, evenly.
His kindness served only to loosen more tears from the dam I was trying so hard to hold steady. If he was cold, cruel, I might’ve been able to get through the story without so much as a sniffle.
“I know that.” I wiped my eyes.
“You should know that,” Beau corrected. “But you haven’t told yourself that.”
Again, his perception blew me away. I didn’t know why it surprised me so much. Hadn’t I noticed Beau watching me intently? Hadn’t I been doing the same to him? We were like two anthropologists, studying each other’s behavior, trying to write stories about the other’s life.
“You’re not divorced?” Beau guessed.
I shook my head. “Not for lack of trying. It’s been years since I left him, but he hasn’t signed the papers.”
Brackets formed around Beau’s eyes. “Why hasn’t your lawyer pursued it further?” He asked a perfectly sensible question. One aimed at a perfectly sensible grown-up with funds and access to lawyers.
That wasn’t me.
I took my own deep breath. “He cleaned me out. There was only just enough money to start school. I had to choose between educating myself, pursuing my future, or chasing him down. I chose the former.” I thought about my remaining credits, the failure I felt not being able to make enough money to completely finish.
But sitting here, knowing Clara, Beau, I couldn’t consider that a failure.
Beau’s expression softened. “It was the right choice.”
My midsection warmed with the approval in his voice, the respect.
“I thought it was.” I placed my empty mug down on the coffee table. “I didn’t think he’d be able to find me, let alone drive ten hours to come here. I’m so sorry—”
“That’s where we’re gonna stop,” Beau interrupted harshly. “You’re not going to apologize for shit, especially not on behalf of him.” At the mention of Waylon, Beau’s mouth curled into a scowl.
I didn’t expect my apology to garner such ire. Then again, it was Beau.
“I know what it is to marry someone thinking you know them.” His muted voice was at odds with his previous expression of anger. “I know what it’s like to be wrong about that.”
I stifled a gasp. I’d known that Beau was divorced—his ex-wife was responsible for Clara’s life-saving bone marrow transplant.
But I’d never met her. She’d never checked on Clara. Not once. I knew she was a horrible mother, a horrible person, so it stood to reason that she was a horrible wife too.
I’d spent time I shouldn’t have thinking about her. About what Beau saw in her. Although Beau wasn’t the most pleasant man in the world, he was noble and an excellent father. He had values. How he could marry someone who could abandon their sick daughter was certainly something I’d pondered.
Beau’s eyes never left mine. I wondered what my expression was saying.
I’d always struggled to school it. Always wore my heart on my sleeve.
And my anger. That’s what had gotten me into trouble with Waylon so often.
I’d looked at him wrong, wearing my frustration, my resentment, and eventually my dislike on my face.
He may have been self-centered and just plain stupid, but even he was astute enough to discern my expressions. And he punished me for them. That’s why I’d gotten better at hiding my anger. That’s why most women were good at hiding their anger towards men. It kept them employed, unharmed, and alive.
Not that I was angry at that moment. Well, I was. At Waylon. But mostly I was sad, confused, scared. So I didn’t know what Beau read on my face. Whatever he saw was enough to offer me compassion by sharing his own story.
“It’s not our fault for loving people capable of the worst of things,” he murmured quietly.
“My mother taught me that love is never something to regret.” His eyes touched the hallway that led to Clara’s room.
“And I’ve got no reason to regret my horrible marriage.
It gave me Clara.” He paused, driving a hand through his hair.
I felt like I could fall into that pause, relishing in the way it wrapped around me with the pleasant pressure of a strong embrace.
His gaze was unwavering. “And yours … brought you here. To us.”
If I wore a cocktail of emotions on my face previously, I couldn’t fathom what expression I had after he uttered those words.
Maybe just … nothing. Because that’s what it felt like inside my head.
Like his words, his expression, had sucked every coherent thought right out, leaving nothing but plain white space, a hushed hum in my ears.
I was a chronic over-analyzer; never in my recorded memory had anyone ever done or said anything to rid me of all thoughts. And people had done and said some pretty horrible things to me.
Don’t overthink it, I ordered myself once I regained the ability to mentally form complete sentences.
I couldn’t hold on to whatever energy was forming between us right then.
It was intangible. It was like smoke. Beau was an alpha male, a protector.
Some switch had flipped in his brain. To him, I’d turned into a woman in need of saving.
And an ingrained part of him responded to that, maybe it even turned him on.
Maybe it made me more desirable. Who knew?
All I knew was that it would not be a lasting dynamic.
Me being in trouble, bringing an unpredictable, estranged husband into a household that was only just healing was not going to be my legacy with Clara.
I sat up straighter. “I should probably give you my resignation.” The words tasted toxic as I said them.
Beau’s eyebrows didn’t so much as twitch, his face staying still, calm. “No way in fuck you’re doing that.”
I raised my own brows. Beau had been brusque, curt, and straight-up rude to me before, but he hadn’t ever cursed at me as much as he had tonight. Though it didn’t sound harsh or hurtful… not toward me, at least. “Excuse me?”
His expression stayed blank. “You’re not resigning.”
“Beau…” Despite the current situation, uttering his name felt like a thrill.
“I can’t predict what Waylon will do. But he knows where you live.
And I don’t want him anywhere near Clara.
” My stomach roiled at the mere thought.
Although it would be indescribably painful to leave Clara, her safety would always trump my selfish wants.
Beau’s expression darkened, a muscle working in his cheek. “He won’t be getting anywhere near Clara. Or you.”
I sighed. Oh, to be a man who could utter such sentences with a surety that wasn’t affected by a lifetime of tiptoeing around the opposite sex.
“We can’t know that. The only way to ensure Clara doesn’t get wrapped up in this is to take myself out of the equation.
” It was realistic, if not heartbreaking.
“Do you want to resign?” Beau tilted his head to regard me.
If he’d asked me that at the peak of his disdain toward me, my answer might not have been so immediate. But so much had changed. “Of course, I don’t—”
“Then go to bed,” Beau ordered.
I settled back into the warm cushion of the couch, folding my arms over my chest. “Beau, this conversation isn’t over. You’re a practical man. You know that my resignation is the most sensible option.”
“It’s not,” Beau stated matter-of-factly, as if he were informing me of the weather report. “I’ll take care of it. You go to bed.”
Fire crept up my throat. Slowly building because my nervous system was shot, and I was unsettled by the change in dynamic between Beau and me. But female rage was not to be dulled, especially not when a man was trying to steamroll your life choices, trivializing them.
“It’s not yours to take care of,” I argued tightly, straightening my spine. What I really meant was I’m not yours to take care of.