Chapter 1
Hannah
I sat there on the couch crying, gripping my stomach, trying to ease the pain that was radiating from my center. My heart was shattering into a thousand million pieces. I couldn’t breathe, I started to hyperventilate. Four years with this man. Four long happy years. We talked about our future, marriage, children, buying a house, everything we could possibly want and we were supposed to do it together, but here he was, breaking my heart, shattering my soul, destroying my future.
“Hannah...” he whispered as he took my hand into his. He was trying to be gentle, knowing he was already hurting me, he didn’t want to be too rough. I could feel it in his touch, but at the moment, the soft touch didn't mean much to me. I know subconsciously, hurting me was never his intention. In fact, I knew it was the last thing he ever wanted to do. I knew he loved me, well he says he does. But how much can you really love someone when you hold onto a secret such as this during the entire time you're together? I couldn’t help the shattering feeling. “I just...I don’t really know what to say.” He tried to calm me down the best he could. He tried to ease the pain. But how could he try to ease the pain when he was the sole cause of it? The secrets, the lies, all coming out at once.
“Just don’t Austin. I don’t understand why you’re doing this. We’ve been together for four years. I love you! We were supposed to be in this together and because your daddy decided to drop back into your life with some sort of big news that I am not allowed to know, you’re just going to up and leave me?” I stood up and started to scream at him. Tears were flowing down my face but I didn’t care. I didn’t care how I looked. Crazy, emotional, hurt, all were being portrayed all at the same time.
“That’s not what I’m saying at all!” he started to come towards me, but I pushed past him and went to our room in the apartment that we shared. Since we were both seniors in college and would be graduating soon, we decided to save our money to try and save for a house once we both found our careers. I guess that wasn’t going to happen. We built a small life together, creating a place we could call home. Austin and I talked about everything. Everything from kids to a puppy and how to make our life the way we want it to be, but that was all tossed out the window. I couldn’t think straight, I needed to get out of here, out of the apartment, out of this building, out of this city. I went right to the closet and pulled out my suitcase and started to pack my clothes, not bothering to fold anything and throwing in everything I owned and nothing that would remind me of Austin.
“Would you just listen to me?” He grabbed my suitcase from my hands and tossed it to the other side of the room. Austin grabbed my hands and forced me to sit down next to him. My head shot over and if looks could kill, he would be 6 feet under right now. His eyes were pleading and a part of me wanted to give him more time to explain, but how do you make someone understand this?
“I’ve been trying to listen, Austin. I have been trying my hardest but you aren’t giving me anything to go by!” I argued. A part of me was thinking about myself, not realizing what he must be going through, but how could I understand when he wasn’t telling me the full truth? During the whole argument, Austin was very vague regarding the events that led to this whole debacle. All I wanted was the truth.
“Damn it! This is not how this was supposed to happen.” He gripped his hair and started to pace back and forth. “It was supposed to be you, not her.”
My eyes went wide, making sure I heard him correctly. Her? There is ‘a her’? I couldn’t believe what I just heard. Had he been cheating on me? How long has this been going on? “Excuse me...say that again? Did you just say her?” A sudden wave of anger flushed throughout my body.
He sat on the edge of the bed, hands in his hair, elbows on his knees and shook his head. He was breathing harshly, trying to regain his composure. “Hannah, please sit down and I will tell you everything.” I didn’t have much of a choice so I sat down and waited for him to break my heart even more. “First, I need you to believe me when I say that I love you so damn much and I wish I could change what I am about to say to you.” He took another deep breath in before he continued to speak, “My dad signed this agreement with a friend of his when me and his daughter were young, saying that if we marry by the time we turn 30 and our companies merge, one of us would be able to run both companies. I know it doesn’t make sense, but running my dad’s business is what I have always dreamt of doing. It was always in the cards for me to take over.”
I cut him off. I only heard one part of his story. “What’s her name?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Amber. We’ve been friends since we were little.” A piece of me broke at the mention of his soon-to-be wife.
“Is she pretty? Do you like her?” my voice suddenly went softer at this point. I couldn’t look at him. My hands gripped the front of my shirt by the stomach. It was knotting up, twisting it, pulling it. Anything to keep my hands occupied. So much was flowing through my mind. I had a hard time comprehending what was going on. I had so much I needed and wanted to say, but nothing would come out. It was like my voice suddenly disappeared. My normal word vomit when I got stressed was non-existent.
He grabbed my hands in his and took them into his hands and kissed them, making me rip them away from him. “It doesn’t matter because I love you. Let me talk to my parents. Let me figure this out. I beg you please, just don’t do anything rash. I can fix this; I will fix this. I just need time to go home for a few days and figure it out.” He begged. There was sincerity in his eyes, but it was too far gone. The damage was done for all I have considered. Hiding this for our entire relationship when he had every opportunity to tell me, was the final straw. How could you trust someone when they hide something like that? I deserved better.
“How long have you known about this agreement, Austin?” he looked at me and his eyes fell. It was just as I thought. He knew about it for as long, if not longer, than we have been together. I knew I couldn’t subject myself to this kind of pain, to wait around and see what might have happened and the fact that he hid it from me all this time told me that he knew apart of him couldn’t change what was written on paper. He either couldn’t change it or didn’t want to change it and I didn't want to find out that answer. I walked right into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.
“Hannah, please. Open the door.” He begged from the other side, trying to jiggle the handle and open the door. “I don’t have much time left. I need to get on a plane and face my dad but I should only be gone for a day or two max and then I will be back for graduation. When I come back, we can move on like we planned. Please, open the door.”
I ignored him and pulled out my cellphone and texted the only person I knew would be on my side and understand my reasoning for doing this. I don’t have any siblings. I didn’t have my parents. I was an only child and both my parents were killed when I was a sophomore in college. All that was left was Bella and she always had my back, no matter how little we saw each other or talked.
Me: Bella. I’m coming home.
Bella: What did he do?
Me: I’ll explain everything later, but I need your help.
Bella: Say no more. Let me know when your plane lands and I will be there to get you. You know you always have a place to stay with me.
A few hours went by waiting in the bathroom with just me and Bella, texting, trying to keep me occupied. I heard Austin finally leave, but of course, not without one more chance to talk to me and get me out of the bathroom.
“Hannah, please, open the door. I have to catch the plane now. I need to see you. Please. I love you.” H begged me to come out, but I didn’t have the courage to face him. I dated this man for four years. I fell in love with him and wanted everything with him, just to find out he was supposed to marry someone else? Someone who comes from the same elite class he did. Someone who is skinnier, prettier, everything more than me. How could I compete with that? I never even met his parents. That should have been the first clue. What else didn’t I know about him?
Once I knew he was gone, I left the bathroom and started to pack up the rest of my things. I packed up everything that was one hundred percent mine, leaving the pictures, the memories, anything that made me think of Austin, behind in the place I used to call home. Once I had finished packing what I needed, I booted up the laptop and booked a flight online home to Crossdale, Texas, a place I used to call home until I couldn't until that night, my parents were taken away from me by malice, by someone breaking into their home and taking their lives at gunpoint. I shuddered at the thought and continued what I was doing. Once I booked the flight, a sense of grief filled my chest. The pain was immense, but I knew it was from a broken heart. I called Bella and let her know that my flight would be landing at 7 pm that day and she assured me that she would be there to pick her up.
The next step was for me to call for an Uber. I deleted the browsing history on the computer so Austin couldn’t find where I went. I've talked about home before but I never actually said where home was. All he knew is that I grew up in Texas and when my parents died, I went to the funeral on my own. I know, dumb, but I needed to do it by myself. And for once, I was happy that I never went into grave detail about where I grew up. I guess we both have our secrets. I took out a pen and paper and wrote one last letter to the love of my life, well, ex love of my life, to the man I was hoping, one day, to call him my husband, but I now know I would never get that opportunity with him, not when he was promised to someone else as a business transaction. My tears stained the letter I left with every word I marked. I folded the note and placed one single red lipstick kiss on the top, placed my cell phone that he got for me as a present after clearing the history and resetting it, next to the letter and grabbed my suitcase.
With one last look around our home, I let one final tear roll down my cheek. “Goodbye Austin...” I whispered as I grabbed my bag and went out to the already waiting Uber and to make my way to the airport.
As I drove off in the backseat of the car, my heart was breaking, but I knew I couldn’t stay there and wait for the inevitable. I’ve heard of these things happening all the time in the upper class. They made business contracts with their children to merge companies so they could become even more successful, but I never thought that the Austin Nicholson that I grew to love would be part of that business deal. The more I thought to myself, going over the situation, the more I realized I didn’t know much about Austin at all. I made a mental note to look further into him when I got back to Crossdale. My flight was called and, without one single glance back, because who was going to stop me, I left Sacramento and took the first step to the rest of my life and moved back home.
