Chapter 30
thirty
HANNAH
I couldn’t stay in that house. I’d survived it when Beau was borderline intolerable. When he was cruel. Dismissive. I’d survived it with tension constantly simmering between us, unable to act on it.
But I hadn’t merely survived once we finally gave in. I’d thrived. I’d lived a kind of life that I hadn’t thought I’d ever experience. I’d tentatively believed I was part of a family. At first, I’d pushed those thoughts away, careful to protect myself.
But it had been impossible to live as we had with my shields up. Beau tore them down. Clara tore them down.
And it obliterated my soul, now that it was being taken away.
Robotically, I packed my bags. Beau didn’t come into the room. His room. Which was what it was now. Not mine. It had never been mine. That had been a dream. A fool’s hope.
It was a weird irony that I had more baggage leaving this place than I did when I arrived.
I had to use canvas grocery bags to shove my extra clothes in—bought with Lori and given to me by Calliope. Gifts from Clara. All of it was more than I could ask for, and I refused to let Beau ruin it.
Living there, meeting the people in Jupiter had made my life so much fuller. There would be a big, yawning hole in my chest forever once I left. Yet I had to leave. Plugging that hole was a task for later. Right then, I was focused on placing one foot in front of the other.
Arms full of bags, boots on, I walked down the hall. There was no choice but to go through the living room.
And Beau was still there, standing exactly where I’d left him, as if he were unable to move. His head was hanging down, looking at the rug, his hand at the back of his neck. He looked like a ruined man. Broken.
I felt nothing, seeing him like that. Or so I told myself.
His head snapped up on my approach, his eyes narrowing as he saw me with bags.
“You’re l-leaving now?” he stuttered, as if he’d expected me to stay. “You’re not going to say goodbye to Clara?” Accusation filled his tone.
My blood boiled. “No.” I wished the single word could’ve been fashioned into a weapon. Suddenly so angry, I wanted to use that word to bludgeon Beau.
But not really.
Because even then, as I bled internally from the emotional wounds he’d inflicted, I could not stomach causing Beau pain.
“No. I’m not going to say goodbye to Clara because I’m not leaving Clara.” I forced my eyes to meet Beau’s. I would not be downtrodden, pathetic, weak. I would not let him see how he broke me.
“You may want me out of your life, but you’re not pushing me out of Clara’s.” There was iron in my tone. Instead of sobbing as I packed, I’d made decisions. About my future. I’d made plans. Desperate for control and agency, I’d made lists.
“I don’t want you…” Beau sighed, running fingers through his hair. “I would never take Clara from you,” he whispered. He said it like Clara was mine. Like I had some kind of claim over her.
I felt it. In my soul, I felt that Clara was mine. I felt that I’d be connected to that girl my entire life. But I’d been ashamed of those feelings, that I wasn’t entitled to them. She felt like mine, but she wasn’t. I didn’t carry her. Didn’t share her blood.
Yet she was my heart, nonetheless.
How remarkably sweet and equally evil of Beau to say, then, of all times, that I had a claim over Clara. When he was tearing us all apart.
“She’ll be starting kindergarten soon.” I summoned the strength to keep my voice even.
It still trembled a little, despite all my effort.
“I’ll take care of her until then. I’ve already been approved to transfer to the nursing school thirty minutes away, so I can still see Clara, take care of her on the nights you’re at the restaurant. ”
Beau’s eyes widened in surprise then his face softened, gentled. He stepped forward, to do what, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t have him too close. No way I could survive that, not without falling to my knees and begging him to take me back.
Even though that’s what I wanted. To break down. Plea. But if I had to beg for a man then he didn’t deserve me in the first place. I repeated that like a mantra.
“I don’t need anything from you,” I told him firmly. “Aside from telling me that you understand me, I don’t want you to say anything else.”
I was proud of my tone. I was channeling my inner Calliope.
Beau’s jaw clenched and his hands fisted at his sides. I knew he wanted to argue. Fight back. Say … what, I didn’t know. Couldn’t care. He’d said everything that mattered. I didn’t want to hear more from him. Couldn’t.
“We will be cordial, for Clara’s sake,” I continued. “It is up to you if you would like to tell her why I’m gone, or I can.”
Beau continued to stare at me. “I’ll tell her. But won’t you stay—”
“No,” I cut him off. “I’m not staying here another minute.”
“Clara will want to see you when she wakes up. She’s used to seeing you in the morning.”
As my gaze tinged red with fury, I forced myself to take steadying breaths.
The prospect of not seeing Clara, in PJs, hair mussed, swinging her legs on the barstool made me want to double over.
The realization that I wouldn’t get to cuddle in her bed and read her stories.
That she wouldn’t come into bed with me and Beau first thing in the morning… .
I cut those thoughts off, preventing a pained whimper from leaving my mouth. Tilting my head up, I regarded Beau.
“She was used to a lot of things that are going to change,” I told him icily. “Things that were your choice in changing. Don’t lay them at my feet. Whatever pain Clara feels comes from you.”
Beau flinched. Rightly so. Let him bathe in the acid of that truth.
“Bring Clara to the park tomorrow.” I hefted my bags onto my shoulders. “We’ll make snowmen, and I’ll … I’ll talk to her there.”
Beau pursed his lips and stepped forward. “You’re not carrying all those bags on the icy sidewalk.”
“You lost the privilege to try to decide what I will and won’t carry.” I clutched on to the bags for dear life.
Would it be a bitch getting them to the car? Yes.
Was I in danger of slipping and cracking my head open on the concrete? Also yes.
But I preferred to bleed out in the snow than have Beau closer to me. Helping me. Playing the gentleman after he’d wrecked me completely.
I wanted to be the one who had a parting line, either one that was utterly petty and biting or wistful, like your girl is lovely, Hubble. But I didn’t have either of those things in me.
The ending to relationships, to great loves wasn’t something beautiful or cinematic. It was immensely painful, never doing justice to how long it took to create. Fracturing it was much easier.
My boots made a low thump as I walked past him into the entryway.
“You need to take the coat.”
His words were harsh, cold, stopping me in my tracks.
I turned around to where Beau’s eyes were zeroed in on the coats hanging by the door. I didn’t need to look to see them. Clara’s tiny one, mine, then Beau’s.
As if we were a family.
I stared at Beau. Then the coat. “You bought that.”
“For you,” he ground out. “I bought that coat for you, Hannah. There are no strings. I bought that coat for you to be warm. I’m not letting you walk out that door into the fucking freezing weather without it.”
I choked out a sound that was a mix between a laugh and a sob.
“You won’t let me walk out the door?” The spite in my words was ugly and tasted wrong, yet I spat them all the same.
“You are the reason I’m walking out this door, Beau.
You and your emotional wounds and your misplaced sense of nobility.
That’s why I’m walking out this door. At your request. You don’t get to dictate what I’m wearing or what I take when I do it. ”
I was proud of that speech, at the fact that I didn’t fall to my knees while I said it. My throat, while feeling dangerously narrow, did not close up until the end. Only one tear fell which I angrily swiped away.
The words had been hurled at Beau. Full of rage, resentment, and most of all, hurt. But you couldn’t see the hurt when it was layered underneath all the anger.
Beau taught me that.
He looked utterly defeated. But he leaned forward and opened the door. It might’ve been one of the most painful gestures he’d ever made.
I didn’t let it show as I walked out. Didn’t let myself look at him.
Don’t trip, don’t trip, I chanted as I tentatively walked to my car. I knew Beau was still watching my every move, poised and waiting to come catch me if I fell.
I’d thought the late snow was some kind of gift, one last opportunity to make snowmen with Clara. Huddle inside and drink hot chocolate together before we welcomed spring.
Now it only served to ensure that the outside temperature matched my insides. Cold. Frozen. Lifeless.
There was no triumph in making it to my car without falling. None while putting all the bags in the trunk without help.
There were no winners here.
I’d lost everything that was never truly mine to begin with.
BEAU
I fucked up.
I knew it the second I saw her face when she walked out of Clara’s room. The pain that had spread across every one of her features. It had speared me to the core.
Fuck, it had damned me to hell.
And what was worse? I’d stuck to my guns. Because I thought I was… what? Giving her the opportunity to live her life, make her own decisions. She was right. I was belittling her choices, her intelligence.
But fuck, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Her childhood. Jumping from that to a marriage to a much older man who treated her like shit.
Then to a house with me where I also treated her like shit. I’d been able to look past my own bad behavior because I believed I was justified. I fucking wasn’t. I was just being a version of what her ex had been.
Even though it hurt me more than anything, I thought I was doing the right thing.
And I wasn’t.
I had made a terrible fucking decision.
One I wasn’t sure I had the power to fix.
So I called the most powerful person I knew.