Page 80 of Whenever You Call

“Come on, slugger. You’ve got this.” He winked, bracing himself for the attack. “Use that anger you woke up with this morning.”

“This anger?” I challenged, throwing an uppercut to the pad opposite to the one he expected me to go to. His hand recoiled farther back than usual, and his eyes lit up with mischief.

“There she is.”

“Yeah?” I smacked the pad again, my frustration rising up from the very depths of my belly. “What about that anger?” I said, smacking the second pad with even more effort than I thought I was capable of.

“Good.” He nodded, his face turning serious as he studied me, readying his feet for my next move. “Give me more.”

“What if I don’t have more?” I grunted, throwing another punch that landed, followed by another. “What if I’m tired? What if I’m worn out?”

Smack, smack, smack. My hands flew everywhere, and I wasn’t sure what was more impressive. The way Logan moved, taking it all in his slick stride, or the way I now followed him, the clumsy woman of moments ago long gone.

“What if it isn’t about what you want, but what I want for a change?” I challenged.

“I wouldn’t believe you,” he said with a huff of air escaping him when my glove connected with him again.

“Why not?”

“Because there’s too much fire in your eyes. There’s too much rage in your voice. There’s stuff in there you need to set free. You either do it now and leave it in this room, or you throw the gloves down and take it home with you. Spoiler alert: I’m not letting you leave here until you give it everything you’ve got.”

“Who made you the boss?”

“I did.”

“Well, screw you, Logan,” I said.Smack.“And screw…”Smack.

“Finish that sentence.”

“Screw the whole world.”

Smack, smack.

“Tell them, Hannah. Get it out.”

“Screw the public. Screw the press,” I raged on, my sole focus those pads on Logan’s hands now as the venom I’d tried so hard to push down rose and rose and rose until it took over my veins, rushing through my body, turning everything black. “Screw the band, the management, the publicists.”

“Keep going.”

“Screw everybody who thinks my family is their business.”

Heat rose into my face, and my breaths came heavy and hard, the sound of them echoing off the walls around us.

That was the problem when the anger rose.

So did the tears.

“Screw the family I never had,” I lashed out. “Screw my lying, cheating, dead husband who left me.” My fists flew, my arms growing weaker while my emotions grew wilder. “Screw him for saying those vows he never meant. Screw him for tricking me into loving him, then leaving me to hate him once he’d had enough.”

Smack. Hard.

“Because I do hate him now. I hate him because he left me, and he tookallmy choices away when he went.”

I pushed forward, wiping at a stray tear that fell down one cheek, and I sniffed up to swallow back the aching lump in my throat. I pictured Cole’s face on either pad, and whether it made me a bad person or not, I launched my fists at them, over and over, words falling out of my mouth about what he’d done to me—what he’d done to our daughter. I lost track of every curse word I set free. I forgot Logan could hear them. I didn’t care about the sweat now dripping down my forehead, my chest, my arms, or my back. I didn’t care about anything but fighting and crying and shaming the man I’d once loved with nothing less than my whole heart.

“Everybody leaves,” I croaked, my voice strangled. “Everybody makes the choices for me.”

I drove on and on and on, every secret dark thought I’d ever had about my late husband and parents pouring free until I had no more secrets left to hide, and I pushed Logan back against the wall, leaving him with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do other than to stare at me with a blank expression.

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