Chapter 32
thirty-two
HANNAH
There was something down my throat. It was choking me. I clawed at it, coughed. Someone had stopped me.
No one had taken it out. I eventually got used to it, as much as someone could get used to having something in their throat.
I had a lot of bizarre dreams. Beau was in all of them.
Sometimes Calliope. Elliot. Cole. Jack. Nora.
Fiona. Rowan. Beau’s Dad. Lori. Finn. Kip.
Tina. Tiffany. All of the Jupiter Tides crew.
Sometimes speaking softly, pressure at my hands.
Beau had yelled in a few of my dreams. He’d yelled in reality too. At the park.
With Waylon. Waylon and a gun.
Clara. Clara.
I’d been content to stay in that strange dream state, the concept of waking up too difficult. It was as if I were trapped in a well; I could see people at the top but with no way to climb out.
I was so tired.
But the thought of Clara, the gunshots, the blood, and the panic had me clawing my way up and out.
There were smells, strong and antiseptic, mingled with juniper and him. Beeping. A lot of it. I clawed at the thing in my throat again, this time not giving up. Beau was yelling.
“Someone get the fuck in here!”
Rough hands were smoothing my hair. Familiar hands. “It’s okay, baby,” he murmured. “The tube in your throat is to help you breathe, but we’re getting it out right now. Right fucking now!” The last part of the sentence was not intended for me, I didn’t think.
Then there were more unfamiliar voices, calming tones, calling Beau “Sir”, polite yet firm.
Nurses, I deduced.
I was in a hospital. Because there had been a gunshot. There had been blood. There had been Waylon.
“Clara,” I croaked the second the tube was out of my throat.
The single word was immensely painful to utter, my throat scraped raw, my body feeling heavy and useless.
I held Beau’s gaze. It was angry. Pained.
But it wasn’t empty, wasn’t completely destroyed as I knew it would’ve been if something had happened to Clara.
But I needed to hear him say it. Out loud.
“She’s fine, baby,” he replied immediately, clasping my hand. “She’s fine.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, exhausted.
I could rest now.
“Baby,” Beau pleaded. “Stay here.”
Clara was okay.
I would rest now.
Though I was glad I was doing it, breathing hurt.
A lot. I was doing it on my own now, a good thing, but it took extraordinary effort just to inhale and exhale.
My lungs felt shallow, as if they were unable to hold enough air.
And, when my painkillers were wearing off, the sharp, stabbing pain in my chest was almost unbearable every time I inhaled.
I was thankful for the painkillers but they made my mouth feel full of cotton, my lips were perpetually chapped.
My chest ached with every heartbeat. Because my heart was literally bruised. My left lung had collapsed after the bullet tore through it. I’d learned all this information in bits and pieces.
I woke in fits and starts. Consciousness was hard to hold on to for too long.
I tired easily. All was normal for the magnitude of my injury, but it was frustrating.
I wanted to be better for Clara, so her little face wasn’t so strained with worry she tried to hide from me.
I wanted to be strong for her. Take care of her.
But I could only manage to hold her hand, cuddle with her in bed, murmur a few sentences.
She had her father. I trusted he was doing everything in his power to ensure that she was protected. But he couldn’t protect her from her memories. What she’d had to live through. This was going to follow her her whole life.
I was sick with guilt.
I knew Beau was too.
We had rarely been alone since I’d woken up. The short instances of consciousness were infuriating because I wanted more time with Clara, but it helped ensure that I didn’t have to have any one-on-one conversations with Beau.
Unfortunately, it had to happen eventually.
Elliot had taken Clara on a pastry run. Cole was back in New York for the night. Everyone else had various other things to do.
It was just me and Beau, our breakup the tangible elephant in the room. His grief. Guilt.
“I almost lost you, Hannah,” Beau whispered from where he sat beside my bed. His eyes were red, bloodshot. There were dark circles under them. His clothes were rumpled. It was clear he had been sleeping at the hospital. Or at least spending all his time here.
“You did lose me. Doesn’t it count as losing someone when you break up with them?” My voice was not sharp or cruel—I didn’t have the energy for that.
Beau flinched. He visibly flinched as if I had struck him.
I didn’t pretend it didn’t hurt me. It did. I hated seeing Beau like that. But he did this. To himself. To both of us.
“Hannah.” He leaned forward, taking my hand.
Though the grip was comforting, like coming home, I gently pulled back. I didn’t have much strength yet—it unnerved me how weak I was—but I didn’t need it. Beau noted my need, and he instantly released it, although it looked like it pained him to do so.
It pained me too. I wanted his touch. I wanted to curl into his embrace and feel safe and protected.
“You broke up with me, remember? I appreciate you being here, but now I’m just your nanny again.” I considered what I’d just said. “Well, given my current situation, I’ll be unable to do my job, so you’ll have to find someone else.”
The words were said in a flat tone. I was on heavy painkillers to dull the physical ache of my wounds. Too bad they didn’t help with the agonizing emotional wounds.
Beau’s eyes were intent on me, hurt but determined. “You’re not just anything, Hannah,” he growled. “You’re mine. You’re Clara’s. There is no one else. You’re our family.”
The words hurt about as much as the gunshot wound to the chest. And that hurt fucking bad.
“I was,” I corrected him. “Or I could’ve been. But you made sure I wasn’t.”
“I was wrong,” Beau huffed out.
“You were,” I agreed. “But if it takes me almost dying for you to realize that, we were never going to survive.”
The words left a rancid taste in my mouth, whether they were true or not.
Beau clenched his jaw and cracked his knuckles. He wanted to argue. I could see that clear as day. Beau was not a person to lay down and admit defeat.
But Beau was also observant. He was a caretaker of those he loved. He was protective. And he’d noted the hitch in my breath as I spoke, the weakness in my arm as I tried to pull away from him.
I’d recently woken up from a medically induced coma after being shot in the chest. I barely had the energy to lift a glass of water to my mouth—not that Beau had let me do so—let alone fight with him.
So he backed down.
“You need rest,” he spoke through gritted teeth, leaning forward to fluff my pillow. He then grasped the water at my bedside, lifting it to my mouth.
Though I didn’t want him to be my caretaker—oh, but I secretly wanted to be taken care of by him—I was thirsty and tired. So I drank the water, let him fluff my pillow.
I didn’t recoil from him when he gently brushed the hair from my face or when he delicately cupped my cheek. I told myself it was because I was too tired. Not because I desperately wanted Beau’s touch. Because even then, I ached for him to save me.
There were no more conversations about where Beau and I stood romantically. I didn’t have the energy. I didn’t have the heart.
It was much too broken.
Not just because a bullet literally grazed it.
But that sucked too.
The recovery was painful. I hated the painkillers, the bed, the hospital room. I would’ve hated the food if there was an occasion for me to eat it.
There was not.
I got deliveries daily. From Nora. From Avery.
It was either those women who delivered it or Tiffany. Tina. Fiona. A lot of the times, it was Lori. Equally often it was Calliope, either with Elliot or without. Beau’s father was also a constant visitor.
Clara, of course, was there as often as possible. Although I hated it. I didn’t hate seeing Clara, I loved seeing her. I wished I could see her every moment. We had, up until I was shot, spent almost every single day together for almost a year.
It felt like part of me was missing without her.
But she’d spent too much of her young life in a hospital, and she had trauma related to those memories. Not to mention the trauma of me being shot in front of her.
She was coping as well as a five-year-old who witnessed that could. She was Clara. Resilient. Happy. But I noticed the dull in her sparkle. The tentative way she moved around the room, the way she clung to her father and me.
I saw it all. And I knew Beau did too.
And Beau, above everything, was an excellent father. So he put Clara first. As he should have.
He brought her to the hospital every day.
She colored with me. Did crafts. Snuggled and watched movies.
Ate brownies from Nora’s bakery. When it was time for her to go home, Clara displayed what was the closest I’d ever seen her come to throwing a tantrum.
Technically, what she did couldn’t be described as a proper tantrum.
But there were tears, harsh words to Beau.
It killed me. Every time.
And I knew it hurt Beau too.
I knew Beau was struggling.
I hated that I was worried about Beau’s feelings after the way he’d hurt me. But it was impossible not to. Beau did nothing but take care of Clara and me. He didn’t ask me for a single thing. He just took care of me.
He came back alone, some nights. I knew Clara was having trouble sleeping. Every night, she asked in a small voice if she could stay with me. She promised she wouldn’t take up much room, that she’d go straight to sleep.
It had been physically painful to say no, to promise it wouldn’t be long until I was out.