48. Will
CHAPTER 48
WILL
I freeze at her words, half expecting her to laugh and tell me she’s joking. Opening my eyes from where I was savoring the feeling of having her in my arms, I look around for the source of her words, confused when I come up empty.
“Hannah, what’s wrong?” I ask, recognizing the look of panic that’s suddenly on her face, but she appears like she’s lost in her own world. “Hannah, I swear to God, just talk to me.”
I can feel my panic rising the longer she’s silent, and I try to block out the fear that I’m losing her again.
After a minute, Hannah blinks, and I can tell she’s about to try to feed me a load of shit. Before she can start, I interrupt her, fighting to keep my cool. “Hannah, if you even think about telling me that nothing’s wrong, I won’t be held accountable for my actions.”
“You just need to go,” she says, already getting up and grabbing for her clothes that I’d thrown across the room when I undressed her.
“What? No. I need to stay, and you need to tell me what the hell just happened,” I growl, feeling my frustration rise at the thought of her leaving like this after what we just shared.
“Why do you care, Will? Just please go,” she says, grabbing her panties and throwing them on, already heading for the door. “Get dressed,” she demands, but instead I stand and grab her arm, trying to keep her from leaving.
“Would you please just stop for a second? I don’t want leave like this,” I tell her honestly.
“Will, I swear to God, if you don’t get out of my way… We’re just fucking, right? Well, we’ve already checked that off the list for the day, and I don’t feel like doing this shit right now. So let go of my arm, and get dressed so you can go home,” she snaps, and I blink at her harsh words.
“What the hell, Han? I don’t understand what’s going on. And I don’t care what we are, but you don’t get to walk out like this again. And you sure don’t get to force me to walk away without an explanation,” I argue, feeling both my fear of losing her and the anger at the way she’s talking to me come to a head.
“Oh, that’s fucking rich coming from you. Sure, act like I’m the only one who walked away from us,” she snarls. “Where the hell is my damn shirt?”
“Um, yeah, you were. You walked in that day and it didn’t matter what the hell I said. You decided you were done—right when I needed you. I was trying to hold my family together and planning on forever with you, and out of nowhere you’re gone. Just like you’re doing now. And then for the last seven years, I’ve wondered what the hell I did that was so bad that you would run and act like I’m the worst man in the world. What is it, Hannah? Please tell me because I’m getting fucking whiplash. You scared that someone might realize you aren’t the coldhearted brat that you pretend to be?”
“Fuck you, Will,” she screams, still looking for her shirt. “What the hell were we thinking? This shit isn’t ever gonna work. I just need my damn shirt, and if you won’t leave then I’m getting the hell out of here.”
“Hannah, listen.” I breathe, desperate to keep her in the room.
Okay, yelling probably wasn’t the best way to keep her here, dickhead, my subconscious reminds me, and I growl, knowing that I need to calm down. If I’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that Hannah will put her defenses up and block me out when she feels too much, and I can’t let her leave until she talks to me.
I reach out and pull her into my arms. She fights and claws at my arms, but I ignore her tantrum and hold her to me, wrestling my own temper under control. “We’re not doing this shit again. We’re gonna sit right here until you decide to stop throwing whatever the hell that tantrum was. And then we’re gonna talk through whatever the fuck it is because we’re both adults. Do you understand?”
She continues thrashing in my arms for a few minutes before the fight leaves her, and she collapses against me. I wait for her to say something before I realize that she’s sobbing silently to herself.
The sight catches me off guard because I’ve never seen her look this upset or vulnerable. “Whoa, whoa, Hannah, please, tell me what the hell’s going on.”
“Just please let me go, Will,” she sobs.
“Don’t think I can do that, sweetheart,” I tell her, all of my previous anger deflating out of me as quickly as it came. “I’ll give you a few minutes but then I need to know how we went from having what I thought was a pretty perfect night, to whatever the hell that just was.”
“I—I—I can’t,” she cries, and I hold her as she shakes with the sobs still tearing out of her throat. “I can’t do this with you, Will. It’s too much. This whole damn thing is messing with my head, and I can’t think straight.”
“I need a little more of an explanation,” I say, reminding myself to keep my voice even.
“I just…” she starts, but she trails off after a few seconds, crying to herself until she whispers, “damn it. I’m getting too deep in this, Will. And I need to go and remind myself what the fuck this is. Okay? Are you happy?”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “But why is that such a bad thing, Han? What’s so wrong with wanting to be with me? What was so wrong with it then? I’m sorry, Han, but I’m just really damn confused.”
“Because there’s no future with me,” she cries. “And I can’t do that to you, Will. I know we’ve been horrible to each other the last few years, but that’s what I needed to remind myself that I don’t get to love you. And for the most part, it’s worked. But then we started this, and now I don’t know what’s what anymore. So I need you to go home so I can pull myself together, and maybe we can try this again later. But until then, I need for you to get out of here.”
“Hannah, what the hell are you talking about? Why would you say you don’t get to love me? I was desperate for you that summer. What aren’t you telling me?” I ask, continuing to hold her while she cries.
“I can’t give you what you want, Will, okay? I’m broken, and you deserve somebody who can give you the life you deserve,” she continues, and I feel like she punched me in the gut.
“Han, please, stop talking like that. This isn’t like you. What am I missing?” I ask, desperate for her to make me understand.
“Do you remember what you told me that summer? That night I snuck out, and we spent most of the night talking beside the creek. You told me about the future you wanted. Do you remember what you said?” she asks, and the heartbreak on her face catches me off guard.
“Umm, there’s nothing about that summer that I don’t remember, to be honest. I remember we talked about the future and how we wanted to take over the farm, raise a house full of kids, and spend the rest of our lives together right here. But what does that have to do with this?” I question, pulling her closer to me.
“Do you remember the day we broke up?” she asks quietly.
“Yeah. Like I said, I remember all of it. What about it?” I say, hoping the pieces of this puzzle will start to click soon because I hate seeing her like this.
“Do you remember where I went before I came to see you?”
I think back to that day, remembering she’d mentioned some sort of an appointment, but I don’t remember the specifics. “Didn’t you have a doctor’s appointment or something?”
She smiles sadly at me and nods. “Yeah, I went in for what was supposed to be a simple checkup and a prescription for birth control. But they found something when I was there, and not to mention the doctor was the biggest asshole I’ve ever met.”
“But you’re healthy. What did they find? This doesn’t make any sense to me, Han,” I tell her, brushing her hair out of her face.
“I look healthy,” she whispers. “But I went to that appointment that day, and the doctor told me that I have something called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome or PCOS. Which, honestly, probably would have been okay if he sat down and explained it to me. But he didn’t. Instead, he told me I was the worst case he’d ever seen. And then he told me I’d never be a momma, Will. He even laughed like the idea was so freaking ridiculous. I left and cried in my car because as soon as he told me that, I knew the future you had for us was broken. That I was broken.”
Her body is shaking with sobs as she chokes out her last few words, and I feel my heart break at the realization that she’s carried all this by herself the last few years.
“Come here, baby, it’s okay. You’re not broken. I can’t believe you never told me this. You didn’t need that asshole doctor anyway. You can get a second opinion, and—” I start, but she interrupts me.
“I did. I got a second opinion—and a third actually—when I went back to college. I did some research and I do have PCOS, but since the doctor didn’t explain anything, I didn’t realize how common PCOS was or any of the possible treatments that were out there. Eventually, I found a doctor I liked, and I realized I probably overreacted, but it was just too much at the time you know?”
I nod at her, and before I can say anything, she continues. “I took some time to myself, and I convinced myself that we needed to talk. That I needed to lay everything out for you and give you the chance to make a decision for yourself. Honestly, I was just starting to have hope again. But that’s not the end of the story.”
My heart sinks at the thought that there’s more she kept from me. “Go on,” I tell her, holding her closer to me and preparing for whatever’s next.
“Do you remember the surgery I had a couple years ago?” she says miserably.
“The appendectomy?” I ask, vaguely remembering Caroline telling me that she was in the hospital for a day or two a few years ago. It was a summer or two after I graduated, and since Hannah and I weren’t talking at that point, I didn’t get many details.
“Yeah, I guess you could call it that. But they didn’t just take my appendix. On top of the PCOS, I have something called endometriosis. Basically, these cells grow where they aren’t supposed to—usually on the ovaries. Anyway, they can’t identify it without surgery, so the doctor went in for the appendectomy and had no idea I had some rare case of endometriosis on my appendix. The bad tissue was everywhere. From what they told me, it was a mess. The endometriosis had fused several of my organs together, and it had basically killed my ovaries too. They had to perform an emergency hysterectomy when I was twenty-three,” she explains through her tears, and I fight to keep up with what she’s telling me. I feel like I’ve been punched in the damn chest just listening to her talk.
“Oh my God, Hannah. And no one else knows about this?” I ask, my brain still struggling to catch up.
“No. I was in Tuscaloosa for the week finishing up my Master’s finals, and Caroline was already done, so we weren’t together. I didn’t even list my gramps on my emergency contacts because I thought it would be a routine surgery and I didn’t want him to worry.”
“Hannah,” I whisper, pulling her to my chest. “Why in the world didn’t you tell me? Or hell, forget me—you didn’t tell Caroline? You’ve walked around shouldering this by yourself for years. Did you honestly think that none of us would want to be there for you?”
She doesn’t reply for a while, continuing to cry in my arms, before sobbing out, “I couldn’t do it, Will. I’m sorry. And plus, I overheard you telling Seth how much you couldn’t stand me, So I didn’t figure you wanted anything to do with me.”
“What? When?” I ask, the confusion clear in my voice as I try to remember what she’s talking about.
“At Maracas. I’d just gotten hired at the school, and I heard you telling him that I got on your nerves. You sounded like you hated me, so I just told myself I’d give you the same energy,” she says sadly.
I vaguely remember making an off-handed comment about not wanting her to work at the school, and I feel swarmed with regret. “Hannah, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. All I could think about was seeing you every day, and never being able to have you, and I just snapped. But I still shouldn’t have said it.”
“It’s okay. I wasn’t exactly open with you about any of this,” she says, nuzzling closer to me as she cries.
I hold her, and I realize I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life. After a while she pulls back, wiping her tear-stained face, as she whispers, “Listen, Will, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said yes to starting anything with you again. I spent some time in therapy right after it happened, and I’ve done what I can to come to terms with all of this on my end. But I can’t force you to shoulder this too. I’m never gonna be able to give you the future we both wanted. And I can’t be the reason you look back in twenty years and wish everything was different. I’m broken, and there’s no fixing me.”
I kiss the top of her head and open my mouth to argue with her, but before I can get a word out, she holds up her hand. “Will, I’m serious. We can’t do this. Please just let me go,” she sobs, trying to pull out of my arms. Instead of letting her go, I pull her closer, refusing to let her walk away this time.
“Baby, you’re not going anywhere. Just stop so we can talk about this. And while we’re at it, let’s get one thing straight right now. You’re not broken. There’s a difference between breaking down and being broken. You’ve held it together for everyone in the damn world over the last few years, all the while you were letting this shit eat away at you from the inside out. But, Hannah, you don’t have to hold it together all the damn time. Breaking down and letting other people in doesn’t mean we’re weak; it means we’re human. Sometimes life is just too fucking much, and that’s okay. But pretending to not need anybody doesn’t get us anywhere,” I continue, holding her close to me and trying to force her to listen to me.
“Maybe you’re right,” she mutters, reaching up to dry her eyes again. “I should have told you sooner. And I should have given you a choice.”
“Yeah, maybe, but I understand why you didn’t. That was so much for you to take in, and I was so distracted with trying to hold my own family’s shit together, I didn’t fight for you the way I should have. I was so scared of admitting that I’d completely fallen for you, and I fucked it all up. But I love you, Hannah. And I’m not letting you go again.”
She freezes at my words, and I see the mix of panic and hope in her words at my confession. Fuck, that’s not how I planned to do this but whatever.
“Damn, that probably wasn't the right time for all that, but it’s true. I gave you my heart seven years ago, Hannah, and I don’t want it back. As much as I’ve tried to convince myself I didn’t need you, I was wrong. I loved you then, and I love you now.” She opens her mouth to say something, but I hold up my hand, stopping her. “You don’t have to say anything tonight. This has already been a whole lot, and I don’t want you to say something you regret later.”
She just nods, nuzzling closer to me in my arms, and I wipe one of the stray tears from her eyes. “Just let me hold you tonight, okay? We’ll figure all this shit out later, but right now I just need to know you want to be mine.”
“More than anything,” she whispers. “But I’m terrified of what that’ll look like, Will. What if you wake up tomorrow and decide this is all too much?”
“I can promise you that’ll never happen, Han. You’re all I want. But I do think you need to talk to Caroline and Margaret before we take this any further. I know why you’ve kept it from everyone, but they’d want to be there for you, baby. I’m not going to pressure you, but just think about it. Once you’ve told them, then we can figure out how we want to handle the rest of the town.”
“But what about our jobs?” she asks, looking nervous. “What if they tell us we have to break up? You know there’s a rule about staff members dating, and we both really love those kids.”
“Hannah, I’ve already told you, none of that matters. Yes, I love my job, but I’m done living without you—if this is what you want,” I tell her, my tone leaving no room for argument as I pull her body closer to mine.
“Okay, fine,” she mutters, and I lean down to press a light kiss to her mouth. “I’ll talk to the girls, and we’ll figure out the rest of this shit later. But I want it to go on record that I tried to change your mind.”
“Whatever, Han. One day you’ll realize that there’s nothing that could keep me away from you this time. I don’t know how, but we’re gonna get everything we want. Now, go to sleep. We’ll figure the rest out later.”