Chapter Thirty-Three - Hannah
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hannah
“HANNAH…”
She didn’t want to hear her name in his mouth.
Not like that. Not soft. Not reverent.
Not like he still had the right to say it with love.
She stared at the floor instead of his face. Because she couldn’t take it. Not the voice. Not the way he looked at her. Like she was still his.
Had he whispered her name? Sienna’s name.
Had he spoken soft words into another woman’s neck? Had he groaned them against someone else’s skin?
She didn’t want to know.
But wanting had never stopped pain before.
Daniel let out a broken sound. He dragged a hand over his face like he could claw himself out of his own skin.
“It wasn’t the same,” he said. His voice cracked open on the last word. “I love you.”
Something in her splintered. Not in a fiery, dramatic way.
A small, cold crack.
A quiet fracture through something she didn’t know was still whole.
But she didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. She kept her arms crossed tightly across her chest and forced herself to look at him. Even as everything inside her screamed to run.
“You didn’t have to love her,” she said. Her voice was quieter than she meant it to be. Unsteady. Thin. “You just had to want her enough.”
And he had.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it—the want.
That Daniel had wanted someone else. Had chosen someone else with his hands, his body, his time.
That he’d reached for someone who wasn’t her.
Her throat tightened, but she met his eyes anyway.
He looked like he was being crushed from the inside. Like if she breathed wrong, he might fall apart.
She wanted him to. She wanted to see it hurt.
“Did you think about her,” she asked, “when you were with me?”
He blinked, startled.
She saw it hit him—the shame, the regret—but he shook his head. Slowly. Painfully.
“Never.”
She nodded once. A hollow, mechanical motion.
And then, more softly, she said, “Did you think about me when you were with her?”
The question hovered. Hung between them like a storm cloud.
Daniel didn’t answer.
He didn’t even try.
He just dropped his eyes.
And that silence—God, it cut deeper than any word ever could.
Her breath hitched.Her chest ached like something inside had been ripped clean open.
“I don’t think you’ll like my answer,” he said, barely above a whisper.
She laughed. Once.
It sounded wrong coming out of her mouth—empty, unfamiliar. A sound made of disbelief.
“Of course.”
She turned away from him. Her arms tightened around herself, and it wasn’t for comfort. It was to stay standing.
To not fall apart in front of him.
“I would lose out in that comparison,” she murmured. More to herself than him.
“What?” he said quickly, lifting his head.
“You thought she was better.” Her voice was sharper now, but still laced with something fragile underneath. Like every word hurt to say. “You thought she was better than me.”
“No,” he said immediately. Desperate. “Hannah—”
“Younger. Prettier. Easier. That’s what you wanted, right?”
“Stop.” His voice cracked. It wasn’t a command. It was a plea.
“Why?” she snapped, her breath catching. Her voice was trembling now, no matter how tightly she gripped herself. “You got to say every detail. But I can’t say the truth out loud?”
He looked wrecked.
It wasn’t enough. She wanted him more wrecked.
“That’s not what it was,” he said, stepping forward. Hands open. “That’s not what I meant—”
“Then what the fuck did you mean, Daniel?” Her voice cracked on his name. Her hands were shaking now. She didn’t care if he saw.
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
She could see him scrambling for something that wouldn’t sound like an excuse.
Then, finally—
“I wan’t comparing you.”
Her breath caught.
He swallowed hard, his throat working like he was trying not to choke on his own words.
“Not because I was loyal,” he continued, voice brittle and low. “Not because I wanted to protect what we had.”
His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. Just pain.
“Because I thought I didn’t have to.”
He wasn’t being cruel. He was just telling the truth.
And it hurt more than cruelty ever could.
“You were separate,” he said. “You were... untouchable. Our marriage felt like this fixed thing. Something I couldn’t break, even if I tried.”
Hannah stared at him, her heart thundering in her chest.
She wasn’t angry.
She was shattered .
“You thought we were permanent.”
Daniel nodded slowly. Miserable. “Yeah. I really fucking did.”
Tears burned behind her eyes.
But she couldn’t let them fall. Not yet.
“So it’s not that you didn’t think she was better than me,” she said, her voice small. Barely more than a thought aloud. “It’s that you didn’t think I mattered at all.”
His face crumpled. He looked gutted. Sick.
“No. No, that’s not—”
But she was already backing away.
Already shaking her head.
Already breaking.
“That’s so much fucking worse, Daniel.”
He didn’t try to argue.
He just stood there, shoulders hunched, like he wanted to rip himself out of his skin. The shame rolling off him in waves.
But it didn’t matter.
Because no matter how much it hurt him now—
It had already destroyed her.
══════════════════
The guest room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of the bedside lamp and the light bleeding in from the hallway.
Mia and James were at their cooking class—the one with wine and mess and music, the kind Hannah had once suggested to Daniel, back when she still believed in that kind of together.
She sat on the edge of the narrow bed, suitcase still zipped at her feet. Her hands were clasped in her lap, but her fingers wouldn’t stop moving—pressing against each other, curling, uncurling.
The silence wasn’t peaceful.
It was heavy. Stretched thin.
Daniel’s voice still echoed in her head, like a ghost that didn’t know it was dead.
Seven.
Back office.
Showers.
Hair.
Her mouth.
His hands.
Hannah pressed her knuckles against her sternum like she could dig the memories out.
The room around her smelled faintly like lavender. Mia had left out a fresh towel. A small vase of wildflowers sat on the dresser. Everything here was soft. Safe. Kind.
And none of it belonged to her.
Her breath caught.
She hadn’t want to cry in front of Daniel.
But now, alone in someone else’s guest room—someone else’s life—her vision swam.
She blinked hard.
The images were too clear. The way Daniel had touched Sienna. The way he used to touch her .
She’d once been the only person who knew those parts of him.
Now they were just... shared. Worn.
Her fists clenched in her lap.
He had worshipped her. Had learned her body like a language.
And then he’d given it away.
Not with love.
Just with want.
Thoughtless. Empty.
She breathed in sharply through her nose.
This had to be the last time. The last time she curled up in the aftershocks of him. The last time she let herself feel this—this ache, this hollow, this version of grief that felt more like humiliation.
This was who she was now.
Not a wife. Not someone’s forever.
Just a woman sitting in a guest room with her heart in shreds and a suitcase full of clean clothes and old ghosts.
She glanced at her phone on the nightstand. It was still where she’d dropped it after coming in. The screen dark. No new notifications.
She stared at it for a long moment before picking it up.
She opened Contacts. Scrolled down.
Gym Guy .
She tapped the name. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard.
She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know if it would make anything better.
But she needed to stop letting Daniel be the only story she ever told.
She typed:
You up? I think I’m ready for uncomplicated.