Hannah

I watched Charlie walk away through a sheet of tears, my heart split and spilling.

He’d cut me open. The pain and shame of what Quinton had done wasn’t enough; Charlie had had to accuse me of the very thing I’d tried so hard to escape.

I couldn’t follow him. I couldn’t go home because home wasn’t home anymore.

So I turned on feet that didn’t feel like my own, unable to find the will to stop myself from crying, my face streaked with heavy, fast tears, sobs caught in my throat.

I didn’t stop until I was at Lysanne’s door. I wasn’t embarrassed when her employer answered the door and ushered me in. I wasn’t relieved when Lysanne rushed into the room and took me into her arms. Because there was nothing to be done, no way to go back.

She took me into her room and sat me on her bed, coaxing the story out of me. And once I started speaking, I couldn’t stop, not until it was over, the words pouring out of me like my tears.

All the while, I pictured Charlie’s face, the hard glint in his eyes and the set of his jaw. The betrayal and anger, his disappointment and disgust. After being hurt by Mary and then Quinton, I never thought he would hurt me too.

And that cut had been the deepest of all, the one that had emptied the reserve of my will, the pain so deep, I could barely breathe. I pressed my palms to my chest as if I could stop the bleeding, but it was no use.

Lysanne pulled me into her, smoothed my hair, whispered,Shh, offering me no words of comfort because there were none.

And so I cried until I was empty, until my breath evened and my temples ached.

“What will you do?” she asked quietly as she rocked me.

“I … I don’t know. I have nothing with me, none of my things. I … I can’t go over there.” My panic rose again, filling the empty space in my chest. “I can’t. I can’t see him right now. How am I supposed to see him? I can’t … I can’t—” I choked on a sob.

“Shh, it’s all right. You don’t have to see him. I’ll go get your things, okay?”

I took a shuddering breath and nodded.

“And what will you do after?”

I pulled away and looked down at the tissue in my hands. “I want to go home.”

She sighed, her hand on my back and her face sad. “I thought you might.”

“I never should have come here. I never should have left home. Because I don’t belong here, and I never did, no matter how I felt for a moment that I might. I just … I can’t believe …”

“I know,” she offered. And I knew she did. “I think … I think maybe you should file for a restraining order against Quinton.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving.”

“Maybe it doesn’t matter for you, but what about the next girl?”

I met her eyes, pleading, “Please, I can’t talk about this right now.”

She swallowed, nodded, bowed her head. “I’m so sorry, Hannah.”

But I couldn’t speak. Because I was sorry too, sorry for things I could never change, sorry for things I’d lost, knowing I would never get them back.

* * *

Charlie

Two hours passed.

Hannah didn’t come home.

I didn’t want her to.

The betrayal ran deep, too deep to measure, the pain of being lied to—especially about this—overwhelming and final.

It was a cardinal sin, the ultimate breach of faith and trust. And I couldn’t see her. Not yet.

Calm resolve wound itself through me, a resoluteness I knew wouldn’t be relieved without some amount of time, if ever. And I had no idea how we would face each other or what either of us would say.

I wasn’t ready to find out.

I’d come home with the kids and turned on the television, sitting with them on the couch—Sammy tucked into my side and Maven in my lap. The fact that my children had been present for all of that was salt in the wound. They were both shaken and subdued. Sammy was silent and still, which in itself was a testament to how he’d been affected.

I stared through the television, my mind turned inward and my nerves shot. She felt like a stranger to me, and I was a stranger to myself.

When the doorbell rang, we all jumped.

Hannah, was my first thought. My second was that it couldn’t be her—she had a key—followed by a conflicting wave of relief and disappointment.

I left the kids in the living room, not expecting who I found when I opened the door.

It was a girl, a tall girl with long chestnut hair and impatient, accusing hazel eyes.

“I’m here for Hannah’s things,” she said curtly with a Dutch accent.

My heart stopped. “Lysanne?”

She nodded once, her eyes cutting through me.

I stepped out of the way to let her in, and she rushed past, heading for the stairs.

“Let me show you down,” I offered.

“I’ll manage,” she shot.

I followed her anyway. “Is she … is she all right?”

Lysanne wheeled around, her face full of wrath and fury. “I’ll not speak of her. Will you please leave me to do this alone?”

I took a step back, straightening up. “Of course.”

“Thank you,” she spat and hurried down the stairs.

I watched her go and ran a hand over my mouth.

It was then that I realized it was probably over. If you’d told me yesterday that I wouldn’t be completely beside myself at the prospect of losing her, I would have said you were insane. But now, after she’d lied to me, after that man had said what he said, I found myself too full of doubt to fight the feeling.

So I walked back into the living room and sat with my children until I heard Lysanne struggling up the stairs with Hannah’s suitcases.

I made my way over to help, but she shot me a look that would have been enough without her telling me that she had it.

And as she wheeled them toward the door, I found myself asking the one thing I needed to know.

“Is she coming back?”

Lysanne turned to pin me with her hazel eyes and said, “No, Charlie, she’s not.”

And then she was gone, and so was my future.