Page 61 of Secrets

The moment Rocky steps inside the house, he regrets coming home. Sitting at the kitchen table is Hannah. With a suitcase. Bigger than the one she left with when she said she needed a breather.

"What's going on?" he asks, and he doesn't try to hide the crack in his voice.

"I don't think I can do this, Rocky," Hannah says. "I've had some time away, but I still need more time to get perspective. It wasn't enough, but I felt better being gone. Better than I have in a long time."

His heart pounds in his chest. For some reason, all he can think about is whether he'll induce a heart attack if it lasts too long. Maybe it would make her stay. If he just collapsed here on the floor, clutching his left arm as he struggled to breathe. But he can't help but feel the fear that she wouldn't care.

He knew it was a possibility that she'd want to leave, but he never let himself believe it was probable. He always thought he’d be the one to say it needed to be over even though it’s the last thing he wants. "Can't do what?"

"Pretend that things are okay when they're clearly not. That I'm not."

"Okay," he says. "I planned to talk to you about the same thing. Please, Hannah, talk to me. We can figure out how to do this if you just let me in. All the way in, not just the parts you think I can understand."

"Rocky-"

"I want to know it all. I want to understand. I want to find a way to help us both here because it's not good for either of us. It's killing me to see you so unhappy."

Hannah sighs. "I'm just so angry."

"About what?"

"About everything!" she shouts and pushes a vase of dead flowers he bought her last week off the table.

The glass crashes, and the moldy water and dead stems hit the wall, but Rocky doesn't care. Not right now. "Explain what everything means. Hannah, please."

"I went to prison for the club. And I don't regret saving Mac. I don't. But I regret the consequences of the actions."

Moving, he sits down on the seat next to her, careful to see no glass sitting on it. "Okay..."

"My best friend died when I was in jail. I was in prison when the funeral happened, and everyone got to say goodbye but me. I didn't. Because I was a good old lady, I never got the chance. I didn't get to put a rose on her casket. There was no crying with my family as I mourned the loss of one of the best people I've ever known. And it's all because I was a good woman of this fucking club."

Tears stream down her face, and Rocky knows it's a mixture of anger and pain. Pain he knows he can't help her with or do anything about. "Hannah-"

"And then you're out here fucking club bunnies while I tried to figure out my new life wearing orange and showering with a group of women. I got shanked because a Kingsmen woman figured out that I not only was part of the Hellraisers but killed one of her men. Eating the worst food imaginable, and you're fucking other women."

"Baby, I hear you, okay? And I understand why you're angry with me. If I knew being with Dove would be such an issue-"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" she screams and stands. "I was agood old lady! I made a sacrifice for the club, and you didn't think taking someone else to bed while I looked at twenty years would bother me? What the hell am I even doing with my life when the man I vowed to stand beside didn't think this would be a problem?"

The tears continue streaming down her face, and he wants to reach out and pull her close. Hold her tightly and tell her howsorry he is. Find a way to console her, but he knows it won't do any good. "What can I do?"

"Let me go." She deflates with the words, and the resolve in her eyes breaks his heart even more than it already was.

"Where are you going?"

Sniffling, she wipes her eyes and shrugs. "I just need to get away from here. I need space to figure things out, and I need that space without you hovering, expecting me to just snap back into the life we had before."

"That's not-"

"Yes, it is. From the moment I stepped back into that clubhouse, you expected me to want to jump your bones. To be appreciative to be out and worship at your feet. Get on my knees and suck your cock because I'd always been that way. But you don't seem to understand that I'm a different person. I've lost things you can never give me back."

Tears sting at his own eyes. "That's not what I expected. It's what I wanted because I love you. And I missed you so much it was driving me crazy. I didn't make the best decisions, but I don't want you to leave me."

"Nothing feels right anymore, Rocky. It's all... it's like trying to look through a dirty window. You know what it should look like, but it's not sparkly and happy. It's grimy and blurry. And everyone expects me to look through it like it's clean and shiny, and be happy, but it's not. It’s hard to see through."

"You don't have to leave," he says and wipes his eyes. "You can stay here. I'll figure out where to go and stay, and you stay in the house. I'll give you space-"

"No, you won't. I need to be somewhere not under your thumb. I'm so angry that I can't see past it anymore. I'm going through the motions, and I'm trying to be a good woman still, but I don't know if I even want to be one anymore. If I want that title. That's where I'm at, Rocky. That's why I need to leaveand get perspective because right now, the club has taken much more than it's given me."

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