Page 143 of Muddy Messy Love

“I’m sorry, but I just…couldn’t.”

She reaches out to cover my hand with hers. “Did Cole hurt you…I mean physically?”

“What?” I stiffen. “No. Of course not.”

She blows out a breath. “I had to ask. You have no idea what nutso scenarios have been playing through my head.”

I can imagine. It must have been awful.

“Did he cheat on you?”

The very thought makes me shudder. “Not that I know of.”

She nods once, as if she knew that already. “And he didn’t abuse you in any way?”

“No, nothing like that,” I say, deflated, but the urge to spill my guts and defend myself itches like crazy. Abuse or not, what Cole did was totally fucked.

“Well, in that case, I need you to hear me out,” she says. My molars clench. “Please.”

This time, I nod once, but my heart pounds and pain throbs around it. I don’t usually have to deal with this shit during the day. Daylight is my safe place, goddamn it. Not to mention I thought I was through the worst of this, but obviously fucking not.

Hannah folds her arms on the bench, tilting her chin. “How much do you know about my family?”

I hitch a shoulder and think back. “I know your mum passed away and that she was beautiful.” I say the words tenderly, and Hannah’s lips twitch up in one corner. “Cole said little else, but I know he was close to your uncle.”

God, nowI’msaying his name out loud.

Hannah huffs. “That’s an understatement.” Then she wriggles on her stool, making herself comfortable. We could be here a while, it seems. “I know you might not believe it to look at him, but Cole hasn’t had it easy.Wehaven’t had it easy,” she corrects. “And I think you deserve the full picture before you let him go.”

“I’ve already let him go,” I whisper.

Hannah’s brows jump behind her fringe. “Have you?”

No. Who am I kidding? But I’m trying, goddamn it, and I don’t need a sob story derailing my mission. But once upon a time, the full picture is what I wanted. I wanted to climb into Cole’s past and be by his side. I wanted to experience his plights and joys—understand the rich layers that made him and who he is beneath them all. I wanted toknowhim. How can you trust someone you don’t? Now’s my chance to finish the puzzle even if I’ll never admire it again. Closure.

I drag in a deep breath. “Okay. Spill.”

Hannah seems relieved. She eyes Ella, who’s in her own little world of clay, happily making the strangest fairy I’ve ever seen, then with a faint smile, looks away from her daughter and gathers her hands together in a prayer-like ball on the bench. She stares at them for a quiet moment as if rallying strength. Despite forging this path, evidently Hannah won’t find this tale easy to tell, and that makes me nervous.

“My mum’s death destroyed our world,” she starts, and I stay quiet, knowing that flavour of destruction all too well. “My father—” She pauses, shuts her eyes, then swallows. “He took it the worst. He started drinking. Got angry. Cole was fifteen at the time. I was nine.”

“Tough ages,” I say. Not that there’s ever a good time to lose a beloved parent. A not so beloved one? Who knows?

“Yeah, for Cole especially. He was impressionable. Combative like most teens. It wasn’t long before he was our father’s first victim.”

Victim. I stiffen as icy dread melts over my skin.

“He resented Cole. Cole took care of Mum in her final months. He nursed her, read to her, and was there when she took her last breath. We both were. Father, on the other hand, dived into his work to escape and missed it all. He simply wouldn’t accept reality.”

Hannah’s nail beds whiten as she presses them into her knuckles. “The first time Father hit Cole, he scored a black eye. The second, broken ribs. The third time put him in hospital for two days, and after that, Cole spiralled. He was sixteen by then.”

Oh God.

I picture Cole as a sweet, sensitive, and lanky sixteen-year-old boy wrestling with his mother’s death and catch a sob in my hand, feeling physically ill. How could anyone hurt him like that, let alone his own dad? “And you had to witness all that?” I ask.

“I only heard it,” she says. “Cole would order me to my room, and I’d hide under my bed.”

But she still would have seen the damage. “Oh, Hannah.” An avalanche of sadness crushes me, and I bury my face in my palms, not wanting Ella to see or hear me cry. That precious girl’s world should remain magical and pure for as long as possible. “I’m so sorry you both went through that. It’s beyond awful.”

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