Chapter 40 #2
“Un-fucking-believable. She pretended to be her friend and the entire time she was sleeping with her husband. She consoled and comforted her after he died. Fuck, she was completely immersed in our lives for months after he was gone. I trusted her with everything, Logan. Everything!” she shouts as she enunciates the word.
“With my mom’s fragile mental health, with the business, estate details, all the stuff with the lawyers that I didn’t understand; she took care of everything.
We needed her, and the entire time we were being lied to. ”
As tears begin to stream down her face, I go to her in a couple of quick strides and pull her into my embrace. She melts into me as I hold her close.Swaying us back and forth, I close my eyes as I breathe in her pomegranate scent while she silently cries.
“I’m sorry, baby. So, fucking sorry. What can I do?” I whisper into her hair.
“I need to know the rest.” She exhales deeply as she leans back and meets my eyes.
Cupping her face in my hands, I use my thumbs to gently wipe the tears from her cheeks.
I would rather have her anger than her despair.
It breaks my heart to hurt her like this.
“Is that why you broke up with me?” she whispers as she pulls away and steps back.
Looking down at the floor, I nod before meeting her eyes again. “It was a mistake.”
“A mistake? That’s what you are going with? A mistake.” Biting her lip, she nods her head slowly with resignation as she turns away from me and walks towards the kitchen.
“Wait, what are you doing? Where are you going?” I ask desperately, following her.
Stopping in the middle of the kitchen, she turns to me and says, “You know I spent years trying to understand why you stopped loving me? I thought you found someone new. I convinced myself that you wanted more than I could give you. But this, this is so much worse. You didn’t trust me with the truth. ”
“Hannah, no. I love you, you have always been enough. And I would never cheat. You know me better than that.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t know anything anymore,” she shouts, tapping her chest with both hands. “My Logan would have never kept this from me. He would have decided that I was strong enough to know the truth.”
“It had nothing to do with your strength and everything to do with my weakness. I couldn’t be here and look in your eyes every day and know that my family caused you so much pain.
I knew you would see me differently, but we would stay together anyway.
I took that burden away from you because I thought it was the right thing to do. ”
“The right thing?” she repeats. “For whom, Logan? Because it wasn’t me. I needed you.”
“I was 21 years old, Hannah. I just found out my mother was having an affair with a married man. I found out my brother publicly outed them. I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to deal with it.”
“And you were protecting them,” she shouts.
“No, I wasn’t! I wanted to protect you. If people in Emerley found out the depth of this scandal it would have been so much worse.
” Taking a deep breath, I try to remain calm as I continue, “I was so angry at them that I cut them from my life. I pushed both my parents to leave Emerley and get Jackson the help he so obviously needed because I didn’t know what he was capable of.
He resented your “perfect” family, he resented our relationship, he resented you.
If he was willing to stalk his own mother, who knows what he could have done to you.
I honestly believed that if I put distance between the two of us, he would move on.
You just witnessed how volatile he is, I couldn’t risk his attention being solely on you.
I am convinced if I hadn’t walked into my dad’s house that day, my mother would have just swept it under the rug and pretended nothing happened.
She was obviously grieving but wanted to protect Jackson beyond anything else. She put him first.”
“Let me tell you how little I care about your mother’s grief, Logan.” She holds up her tiny hand and holds her fingers in a circle. “Zero. Not one bit. I almost lost my mother to her grief. So, fuck your mom and fuck her sadness.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, I swear. Just that she continued to put Jackson above everyone else, every single time.” Fuck, I can’t say anything right.
Walking over to the sink, she places her hands on the counter, peers into the night sky, and says quietly, “After we broke up it was easier to focus on losing you than losing my dad. It was easier to be angry at you than being angry at my mom for being sick or at my dad for betraying us. If I stopped thinking about you, then I would have to face my grief, and I wasn’t prepared to do that.
But the truth is I wasn’t really given any choice; you took it away. ”
“I’m so sorry, Hannah. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have never left you alone.”
“I almost believe you, but it doesn’t matter now.” She turns to look at me. There is no fight left in her eyes, just quiet resignation. “Does anyone else know?”
“I only told Riot.”
“You told Riot but not me?” Exhaling deeply, she closes her eyes and tips her head towards the ceiling.
“I was losing my mind. I didn’t know what to do or who to talk to.” Walking to her, I take her hand in mine.
“Me, Logan, you were supposed to talk to me.” Her sad eyes meet mine as she pulls her hand free and walks towards the mudroom.
“I know, I was just so angry,” I call after her.
“I need to leave; I need some time to think. This has been a lot, and I’m exhausted.”
“Please stay. I can sleep in the guest room if you need space.”
“No, I can’t,” she says firmly.
“You don’t have your Jeep here, I can drive you home,” I plead, if nothing other than getting a few more minutes with her. I don’t want to leave things like this.
“No.” She holds her palm up and shakes her head as she sits down on the bench to slip on her fuzzy boots. “I don’t want to be near you right now. Listen to me…I need to think.”
“I would give you the truck, but I don’t think you should drive right now.” I follow her out the door onto the step.
“Shocking, of course you think you know what’s best for me,” she grumbles. “It’s fine. I’m just going to walk to my mom’s and stay there tonight. I need some space, and I can’t think when I’m near you.”
“At least let me walk you. Or take Morgan.” I’m not above begging at this point. This cannot be the end after we fought so hard to be together again.
“Logan, please stop; I just need some time. I promise I will talk to you when I’m ready.”
“I’ll take you home.” Both of us look down in surprise to see Riot sitting on the stairs. Rising to his feet, he smiles softly at Hannah. “Come on, I’ll drive you back to the lake. Your girls are already there waiting for you.”
“I’m mad at you,” she whispers to my giant friend before taking his outstretched hand. “You should have told me.”
“I know, I’m mad at me too.” He looks up and meets my eyes briefly before leading her down the stairs. He doesn’t have to say anything for me to know how disappointed and angry he is at me. He has been telling me for weeks that something like this would happen and he was right.
I trail after them around the side of the house in just my socks, watching as Riot helps Hannah into his truck. She neither says goodbye nor looks back as they drive off into the night.
Reluctantly, I force myself to go back inside and walk straight to the high cupboard I store alcohol in.
Taking down a glass, I pour myself a generous serving of whisky and shoot it back.
Sinking to the floor with the bottle, I leave the glass behind on the counter.
Resting my head back on the cupboard door, I close my eyes.
My knuckles throb, my ribs ache, and I feel like my heart may split in two.
I don’t know how much time has passed when Morgan finds me sitting there and comes and lies down beside me, placing his head on my lap. My hand rests on him so I can scratch behind his ears.
“I fucked up, buddy,” I tell him. “It would be easy to blame Jackson for everything, but it’s my stupid choices that brought Hannah and me to this moment, and I don’t know if there is anything I can do to fix it.”