Page 44 of Single Mom's Firemen

Despite that, however, my face burns from embarrassment and shame, having been caught lying and keeping secrets. It’s not something I am used to doing, not something I’m comfortable with. My parents may not have been the best parents in the world, especially my mother, but they did raise me with a strong ethical sense.

I was stupidly honest with Colby. I was honest at times when I would’ve been better off lying, if only to avoid a violent outburst or an emotionally abusive tantrum. But once I left him, once I ran away, I knew I couldn’t tell the truth to just anyone. In fact, I decided it best to keep the whole truth to myself.

It was easier if I just invented this new persona altogether—a single mom with two kids. Halle Harrison isn’t exactly a lie, but she isn’t the whole truth, either. She’s somewhere in between, a version of me that keeps to herself and focuses on becoming a better person while pretending that her children’s father is completely out of the picture.

Looking back, I should have known that it wouldn’t last.

“How are you feeling?” Chase asks, his grip on the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles have turned white.

“My throat feels scratchy,” I say. As soon as the words come out, I cough lightly and rub my neck in a bid to soothe some of the discomfort.

“He almost choked you out,” he replies. “A minute longer, and he would’ve stuffed you in the trunk of his car, Halle. He had you.”

“I would’ve fought him hard, with everything I had.”

“And we both know it wouldn’t have been enough.”

Chase seems to have calmed down a bit, like he’s in better control of his impulses since Colby is no longer an immediate threat.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You keep apologizing and it is starting to get on my nerves.”

I almost say it again. It’s a terrible habit I picked up from my relationship with Colby. He ingrained that so deeply into my head from early on that I was literally apologizing while he was the one abusing me. I was conditioned into being this mindless and meek person that isn’t at all who I truly am. Yet another reminder that my marriage left deeper scars than I originally thought. It will take years to heal from the hell that I endured, provided Colby leaves us alone.

Fat chance of that happening.

Once we reach the house, Chase drives us around the block a couple of times before pulling into the driveway. He checks the neighborhood and every side street for signs of anything suspicious.

When he’s sure we haven’t been followed, he pulls the truck into the garage. Instinctively, I hit the garage door button, waiting for it to go back down while Chase gets out and grabs his things from the backseat.

He nods at the door leading into the house and I think about Sammy and Luna. I’ll Facetime them later. It’ll be rough but it’s better for them if they stay away from Dallas, at least for a couple of days.

I go into the house first, feeling him close behind me. Upon entering the living room, a different kind of exhaustion takes over. The emotional kind that I’ve been keeping at bay since I left Eric here not that long ago.

Both Eric and Wyatt are inside waiting.

“We’re not mad,” Wyatt says softly, the tension in his voice palpable. “We just wanna talk.”

“Are you okay, Halle?” Eric asks, concern all over his face.

“As okay as I can be in these circumstances.”

My knees tremble, and I take a seat in the armchair farthest away from them while Chase sits on the sofa next to his brothers. “Alright, Halle. From the top, then,” he says.

“From the top of what?” I ask, increasingly confused.

“From the beginning of your relationship with Colby Nash. We deserve that much from you,” Chase replies.

I take a deep breath. Then another. My throat burns, but it is nothing compared to the weight of all these secrets. It’s time to let everything out. Chase saved my life tonight. The three of them saved my life before in more than one way. They do deserve the truth.

“I met Colby in college in San Antonio,” I start, digging through my soul for the Cliff’s Notes of what has been my life so far. “I didn’t know his family was part of the Nash mafia. I wasn’t up to speed with the Who’s Who of San Antonio. I’d earned a full scholarship for a major in fashion design. I was finally on my own, independent and happy for the first time in what felt like forever. You already know about my dad, about him passing away in that fire, and how my mother took me in.”

“Yeah, we remember,” Eric says.

“Colby was sweet and charming. Determined, ambitious. He talked a big game, and I believed him because he seemed to have the financial prowess to back up his claims. Nice car. Cool clothes. All the spending money that he needed to live a comfortable life as a college student focusing on his studies in business. He presented himself in a way that made me believe he could be the one.”

I go on to tell them about the first few dates, about how he love bombed me and I thought that was normal, that it was supposed to be like that. Intense from the very beginning. Constantly imagining a future together. I don’t leave anything out, tapping into my true self so they get the full and honest picture of how I saw that relationship evolving in a positive light, never seeing the burning and crashing ahead.

---