Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
BECK
Finally. Fucking finally.
I stalk out of the main store shed, putting distance between me and the crew loading deliveries. I don’t want to be overheard, and I’m not sure I can keep from shouting.
The restraint it’s taken the last five days not to text Hattie back—not to call her and demand that she trust me—has nearly shredded my sanity.
But it’s one truth that’s kept me from caving.
You can’t demand someone’s trust. They have to give it to you.
That’s the biggest issue in front of us and the main reason I haven’t responded to her after-hours text dumps.
But the other reason is how angry I am that she ghosted me for so long.
Angry in a way that I’ve had to cling to it. Because it’s not really anger at all.
It’s pain.
It’s heartbreak.
It’s devastation that the woman I’ve fallen for could shut me out so completely.
And I’m about to make her swear never to do it again when I hear her rapid, ragged breath.
“Beck—”
She’s panting. Breathless. Like she’s fleeing an attacker.
In a flash my anger jackknifes to worry.
“Hattie? What’s wrong? Are you—”
“I-I’m fine…” She huffs and puffs. “I… was running… to… call you.”
“You… were running?”
But she hates running.
“Y-yes…” She answers, still panting. “I… couldn’t… be a chicken-shit anymore.”
Despite the anger that’s still churning in my gut—and the heartache that’s still threatening to choke me—my mouth twitches.
Because it’s her.
This breathless, blurted declaration is all Hattie.
It’s been twenty-five days since I’ve seen her or heard her voice. And I’ve missed her so fucking much.
My throat aches and I clench my teeth. “You—” I swallow hard and try to keep my voice even. “You disappeared on me.”
She’s catching her breath. I can hear it settling.
“Yeah. I know… I’d… I’d like to explain that.”
My brow touches the sky. “Oh, you would? After ghosting me for nearly a month?” I can’t help the sarcasm, even though the hope of her explanation is basically all I’ve been clinging to since the day I reached out to Margaret.
Then Hattie does something I’ve never witnessed. Her voice gets small. “Yeah. I know that was wrong. I fucked up.”
Honestly, the fact that she doesn’t try to defend or excuse the move takes some of the fight out of me.
But not all.
“I’m listening,” I bite out.
“Okay…” She takes a deep breath and blows it out. “I’m in San Diego.”
I wait in vain for more.
“I know that. Where in San Diego? Why San Diego?” My jaw is so tight it aches.
Pause.
“You sound mad,” Hattie says, so fucking innocently I want to explode.
I clamp my teeth together and squeeze my eyes shut, praying for self-control.
I suck in a breath. “Hattie, honey,” I say in the calmest voice I can manage. “I’ve never been so mad in my life.”
I swear, I hear her gulp.
“Oh,” she squeaks. I hear rustling on the other end of the phone, like Hattie’s moving around. Maybe sitting down. “Are you… are you breaking up with me?”
And that question hits the tripwire.
“AM I brEAKING UP WITH YOU?!” The roar startles blackbirds from the pecan trees. “You mean you didn’t break up with me when you left the state without a word a month ago?”
“No-o.” Her voice breaks on the words, sobs following.
And I feel like utter shit. My shoulders slump. I grip the back of my neck.
“Hattie.” Her name drags from my throat like a casualty of war.
“I-I didn’t break up with you,” she sobs. “I-I wouldn’t. N-not ever.”
And, damn.
Damn.
I believe her.
After weeks of agonizing. Of cursing my own heart. Of holding onto my ridiculous hope.
I know she’s telling me the truth.
She wouldn’t leave me. Even though she left me.
She is still the girl I fell in love with. I can hear it in her voice. As far as she’s concerned, nothing’s changed between us.
“Christ. Okay… Okay.” I drag a hand down my face. “Let me get this straight. You didn’t break up with me. We are still together.” It’s not a question, but I still need to hear her confirm it.
I hear her breath blow out a shaky breath. “Yes, we are still together.”
I nod, processing this and then pluck the first one from the mountain of questions I’ve collected for her.
“Where exactly have you been, Hattie?”
She clears her throat. “Um… I’m at Summit House.”
Summit House?
She says this like I’m supposed to know what it means.
“What’s Summit House?”
Hattie draws in a long breath and lets out a watery sigh.
“It’s… a residential program for…” She trails off.
I frown. “For what?”
I swear to God, if she says weight loss or some bullshit like that, I will lose my fucking mind. Hillary and Randall Mercier won’t know what hit them.
“For people… like me,” she says.
I growl the words. “What do you mean, like you?”
She scoffs. “You know.”
“I do not know.”
She sighs again. “Neurospicy people. People who have—you know—trouble getting their shit together.”
My brows collide. “Wait. What?”
“People with ASD or hypersensitivity or obsessive-compulsive disorder—” she rattles off. “Or their own specific neurodivergent cocktail who need help functioning. In the real world.”
It’s the emphasis she places on the last four words that jars me.
As if Hattie doesn’t fit into the world I inhabit.
My world.
I scowl. “Who told you you needed that?”
A short laugh escapes her, popping like a champagne cork. And then her laughter bubbles over.
“Beck. Only everyone.”
I’m personally offended. “Everyone?”
“Well—” She sobers. “Not you. But everyone else.”
Those fuckers.
“So, what? Your parents sent you away to—what? Have you reprogrammed or some shit?”
Flames blaze up my chest, anger burning through me.
“I-It’s not—Beck, Summit House isn’t like that. I’m in a good place.” She sounds defensive, yet certain, but I’m too pissed to take that at face value.
“What are they doing to you there? Do you need me to come get you?”
Because I fucking will.
Even if I have to drive for twenty-four hours straight. I’ll show up at their doorstep and beat down the walls if I have to.
“No. No. It’s not like that,” she insists. “I chose this.”
Margaret said as much. How come I can’t believe it?
Is it because I don’t want to?
Because that means she left me? Willingly? Without a word?
“Why?” I grind out the question.
Hattie sighs again. When she hesitates, my hackles rise.
“Why, Hattie?”
“I’ll be honest. At first, it was because my parents gave me an ultimatum—”
“They fucking what?!”
“I had to choose. I…” The line goes quiet for too long. Then the words fly out in a rush. “I could complete the Summit House program and get the townhouse in my name—be independent… be free… or…”
Be free… or…
My stomach drops a good ten stories. Nothing good can follow those words.
“Or?”
When she inhales, it’s shaky.
Fuck, she’s terrified.
“Hattie? It’s okay. You can tell me.”
I hear her swallow. “Or have th-the townhouse held in trust and my—my affairs overseen by—” Her voice twists, choked off in the grip of outrage. And shame. “By a l-legal guardian.”
Her words land, and—
I.
See.
Red.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” The words are low and lethal. It’s a good thing her parents aren’t within a five-mile radius. “They threatened to do that to you?”
Before she can answer, another thought slams me. “Did they give you this ultimatum when they took you to see the townhouse?”
She’d been giddy that day. And that night—after I picked her up from the bachelorette party—she would have spilled this ugly secret if she’d been carrying it.
Wouldn’t she?
She snorts. “No. There was no ultimatum until the day after Margaret’s wedding.”
The day after Margaret’s wedding.
The day Hillary Mercier knocked on the cottage door and found me wearing nothing but a bathrobe behind it.
What a coincidence.
“Right,” I growl.
“Whatever you’re thinking about my parents right now, Beck, you’re right,” Hattie says. “It was shitty. I’ve told them that. So has Margaret. They haven’t apologized, and I don’t think they ever will.”
I don’t hear the soft yield of acceptance in Hattie’s voice. It’s just the flat tone of resignation.
I’ve been angry with the Merciers for weeks now. Mere anger has nothing on this feeling. And those assholes were worried about me manipulating her?
“That’s fucked up. That’s so wron—”
“Beck—” She interrupts me, a desperate edge in her voice. “I know. But what I really care about is what you think.”
A punch to the throat would surprise me less. I struggle for a moment to find the right words. Gentle words. Because I know she’s upset.
But so am I.
“Hattie, honey, you care what I think? Even though you kept me in the dark for weeks?”
Hattie laughs over the line, but it holds zero joy. “Beck, I kept you in the dark because I was afraid of what you’d think.”
“What I’d think about what your parents did to you?” They basically extorted her to do what they wanted. They took her across the country to this place without a word of notice to anyone else—not even Margaret.
They left her at this… this… home.
And is she telling me this place changed her?
“What did they do to you at this Summit House?” I don’t just sound distrustful. I sound pissed.
“Whoa-whoa-whoa. Beck. Summit House is not a cult, okay?’ Her sigh sounds exasperated. “My parents did a shitty thing, and Summit House has been good for me. Two things can be true. Just ask Gwen.”
I blink. “Who’s Gwen?”
“My DBT counselor.”
Silence.
“What’s… DBT?”
“Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It’s a big part of what we do at Summit House.” Hattie says it in a rush. Like if she gets out the words fast enough, everything will be okay.
Which means…
She’s nervous to explain this to me.
And I need to take a breath.
She’s right. Her parents did a shitty thing. But she’s okay. She sounds okay. And I need to listen. Because she might be trying to tell me something important.
And it might not be easy.
“Go on,” I tell her after the silence stretches.
Hattie clears her throat. “I’m learning some things.”
“Like?” I ask gently.
“Like… ways to handle difficult or uncomfortable situations… and experience and express my emotions differently. Practice acceptance… And how I can communicate my needs and boundaries… And… other hard things.”
I want to be snarky and ask her just how recently her program covered interpersonal communication. Yesterday? This morning?
I swallow the urge instead. “Yeah?”
“The… um… the ultimate goal of being here—at Summit House—is…”
I swear, I can almost hear her summoning courage.
Hattie, my girl, I want to tell her, you can do this.
“To, um… launch.”
I frown. “To launch?”
Not what I was expecting.
“Yeah.” Hattie laughs nervously. “To… to live independently.”
I blink. “And you couldn’t tell me this before?”
She scoffs. “No. Of course not.”
“Why not?” I seriously don’t understand why this is the thing that could break us. “Why is going away to learn some life skills something you can’t trust me with?”
Hattie gasps.
“Beck… i-it’s not that I don’t trust you—”
“It sure as hell is,” I blurt.
Silence.
“No. No-no-no—” she insists. “It’s—it’s not that I don’t trust you. I do trust you. It’s… that… I…”
Her voice sounds tight, almost strangled.
“You what?”
“Need too much.” The defeat in her tone is so heavy the words almost knock me back on my boots.
“Need too much?” What the hell is she talking about? “That’s bullshit. You don’t need too much.”
Hattie snorts. “My parents disagree.”
The brakes fail. I’m careening over the edge. “Fuck your parents. In all the time we’ve spent together, I’ve never once thought you were needy, Hattie.”
“Maybe not,” she concedes, “but you don’t have to support me.”
“Well, I would if you let me.” The words are instinct. Knee-jerk. And one hundred percent true.
Silence again.
It stretches so long my heart charges into a sprint. The last thing I want her to do is pull away again.
“I’m serious, Hattie. I want to take care of you.”
“Beck—ugh!” she groans. “There’s nothing sexy about someone who can’t take care of themselves.”
Frustration and condemnation pour from her tone.
And those words are directed at herself.
“Hattie…” All of my hard edges fall away.
“I mean, why do you think I hate being called baby? I don’t want you to have to take care of me. I don’t want anyone to treat me like I’m a child or that I need to be managed—”
“That’s not what I meant,” I interrupt gently. “I don’t want to manage you. I just want to be there for you. And—if I’m being honest—share what I have with you.”
When she goes silent, my nerves crowd in.
“It’s not much, I know, but—”
“I want that too. But I want that to go both ways,” she says, emotion clogging the words. “One day.”
Before I can argue that she already is everything I want, she blows out a long breath.
“That’s something else Summit House has helped me with. Figuring out what I want to do. For a career, I mean.”
I want to hear more. I want to hear everything. But I can’t move on. Not yet.
“Hattie, that’s great. Really… But you’re still not hearing me.”
Pause.
“I-I’m not?” her voice is a squeak. I think I’ve shocked her.
I swallow hard. “I missed you so much. I thought you’d left me. And to learn you kept me in the dark because you were—what? Too embarrassed to tell me what was going on?” I huff out a breath. “It’s not how you treat your boyfriend. It’s—it’s not how you treat someone important in your life.”
Someone you love.
Someone you’ve given your heart to.
I can’t make myself say these words because, even though I mean them, they make us sound hopeless.
And I don’t want to lose hope for us.
“Beck… I didn’t tell you because… I couldn’t.”
I shake my head, disappointed.
“You couldn’t? Or you wouldn’t?” When she doesn’t answer, frustration goads me. “Hattie, did you even try?”