Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Except my personal life had brought Waylon to his door. And I couldn’t be sure how long Waylon would be in town. If he’d follow me while I was watching Clara. If he’d scare her, endanger her.
I didn’t think Waylon would ever hurt a child, but I wasn’t going to risk that theory. Not with Clara.
I’d clumsily put together what I’d say to Beau in my mind. But right then, sinking into the couch with a mug of hot cocoa, watching Beau sit at the other end, eyes on me, I blurted out everything.
Well, obviously not everything. I didn’t need to set the stage with my terrible childhood—though that did serve to help explain why I’d married Waylon in the first place, why I’d let him treat me so poorly.
But Beau didn’t need to know that, he didn’t need to know me. He didn’t need to think the best of me. He didn’t need to pity me. I didn’t trust Beau enough to expose all those soft, vulnerable parts of myself.
Aside from Cole, no one knew about my upbringing. Lori knew pieces. I held that close to my chest, as if I were trying to staunch a wound.
I only let that out if I could trust the person in front of me to see the blood and not run away or look at me differently.
I didn’t trust Beau, not entirely. Even if I liked him too much. If I gave him all these parts of me, it would hurt more when I left. When it became apparent exactly what this relationship wasn’t.
“We got married young,” I dove in. “Before my prefrontal cortex was fully formed. Not something I’d recommend.” I smiled weakly.
Beau’s mouth was a flat, grim line. He obviously didn’t find it funny.
“I was in nursing school, working, trying to get my degree,” I continued. “He kept losing jobs, drinking our money away. It was … not a good situation.” That was putting it lightly.
I opened my mouth to skirt over the rest, skip to the end. But Beau wouldn’t let me.
“What do you mean?” he asked, quietly, softly. He was all but shaking with rage, but he was forcing himself to speak gently. For me. Because somehow, he could see beyond my fake smile, maybe heard the shake in my voice.
“Did he hit you?”
Even spoken in the most benevolent of tones, the words were jarring, confronting.
“Only once.” I sipped my cocoa. “Before that, it was a lot of breaking things. Yelling. Name-calling. Locking me out of the house. Slashing my tires after a fight.”
I listed all of those things mechanically, trying to sound lackadaisical, healed.
Beau’s hands were fists on his thighs. “Only once,” he repeated, tone strange, empty and flat but his eyes were pools of fury. He took a visible breath, looked down, then took another. He looked up at me, his hands relaxing.
“It is not only anything when a man lays hands on you, Hannah.” He uttered the words slowly, forcibly, his body unnaturally still. “It isn’t only anything when he scares you, insults you. And it sure as fuck isn’t your fault for getting married young, for not leaving sooner, or whatever the fuck you tell yourself.”
I opened my mouth to argue with him, to tell him I didn’t think it was my fault. That I was an evolved feminist who recognized that the actions of men were not caused by any failings in women. But it would’ve been a lie. Because I did, blame myself. For not being stronger. For forgiving him time after time. For loving him in the first place. For not being financially solvent enough to get a divorce.
And Beau saw that in me.
Shame coated my tongue.
But also, the firmness of his words, the intensity of his look made me almost believe him. Beau wasn’t someone to shower me in false platitudes.
Instead of speaking, I nodded slowly, my nose tingling with the threat of tears.
I took another sip of cocoa to steady myself, but Beau’s eyes didn’t allow me a respite from his attention. Not for a moment. He stared at me the entire time.
“I left him when he, you know…”
“When he hit you,” Beau said flatly.
I didn’t flinch when he spoke, but I sank my teeth into the inside of my lip, the coppery taste of blood chasing away the rich aroma of chocolate.
I hadn’t let myself think about that night, hadn’t let myself say it out loud, even to Cole. I didn’t want to be an abused woman. I didn’t want to be a victim.
“A man hurting you makes him less of a person, Hannah, not you.” Although his body was nearly shaking with rage, Beau spoke clearly, evenly.
His kindness served only to loosen more tears from the dam I was trying so hard to hold steady. If he was cold, cruel, I might’ve been able to get through the story without so much as a sniffle.