“The only reason I’ve remembered or held on to the fact that if you fought again, we would be over, was because it was a stand I made for me and our future and because you continued to make that promise to me throughout our marriage. But I didn’t even remember the events leading up to it, only that you’d gotten to a point where I felt like I couldn’t stop you anymore. And up until a few minutes ago, I’ve thought that this”—I gestured between us—“was the first time something had come between us. Which is stupid,” I whispered, rolling my eyes as I rambled on. “Of course something would’ve come between us before now because we’ve been together forever. People don’t have perfect relationships. But I don’t linger on the imperfections.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I truly move on from whatever it is, Beau. Always. And maybe that’s why I’m so afraid now because I don’t know how to do that with what’s happened.”
His stare unfocused as a surge of fear rocked the already unsteady ground we wavered on. All that pain filling the bathroom until we were drowning in it.
He cleared his throat a while later, his head shifting in the faintest of shakes. “A long time ago, you said you didn’t want me to destroy the world for you. But when I saw Hunter standing there, looking like he hated me in a way I’d expected him to for so long, I saw this happening,” he said meaningfully. “That was the beginning of my world—our world—being destroyed. And I would’ve done anything . . . fucking anything to prevent that from happening. Including break my promises to you.”
“Why?” I asked, my tone dipping with the disappointment from that afternoon. “Why, when you knew what it meant? Beau, your anger is something I always felt I understood—the fighting too. But those last years, each fight seemed to fuel what was inside you. Like it was addicting to you.”
“It is,” he said blatantly, stunning me for a moment.
I blinked quickly as I tried to wrap my head around his admission. “So, what happened the other week will lead to another, and that will lead to another, and that will lead to you in jail and gone from us. That is what I was always trying to prevent for our future.”
His head shook as I spoke, and for a moment, he just stood there. Brow furrowed as if he was trying so hard to figure something out. “It is addicting and dark and disgusting,” he said, his hands coming up to claw at his chest. “It’s like I can feel all that anger getting hotter and hotter and moving through my veins and begging me to do something as it consumes me.”
I listened intently as he interwove things he’d told me long ago with new pieces I’d only ever guessed at. Parts of himself that he’d been so horrified by, he’d wanted to escape them. Refused to voice them.
When he didn’t go on, I said, “And now you’ve tasted that again.”
“I never stopped,” he said honestly.
I pressed back against the tub as his words slammed into me, confusing me and filling me with denial. I would’ve known if he’d still been losing control.
I would’ve known if he’d been getting into fights.
“I’ve never understood all this,” he said, pressing harder against his chest. “Not the way you seemed to. I’ve hated it, and I was afraid of it because I knew what I could do when I lost control. I saw the way the rest of the town and my family and your parents were afraid of me. But the more afraid I was, the easier it was for me to snap. Like my fear of what I could do was directly linked to all that shit inside me. But there’s no getting rid of that, and there was no way in hell I was letting my anger be the reason I lost you, so . . .” He shrugged, the action weighed down as a defeated laugh left him.
As if it hadn’t changed anything in the end.
“I’ve never asked how you controlled your anger simply because I knew you could,” I began softly, head nodding subtly as I thought back to those months leading up to our wedding and after.
After he’d first promised he wouldn’t get in another fight, I hadn’t brought it up. I’d just believed him and moved past it, the same as everything else.
The corners of my lips tilted up. “You know, the whole no-lingering thing. I just wanted to be there for you and help you when I saw you getting to a breaking point, but I didn’t see a need in asking how you were controlling it because I trusted you.” I met his stare and said, “But with what you’re saying . . . I’d like to know.”
“I accepted that it was always gonna be part of me and started testing it a lot when I was alone,”—he jerked his chin toward the back of the house—“fixing up the back for our wedding. Letting myself get wrapped up in all that haze and anger until it went away on its own, over and over again until I wasn’t afraid of the outcome. Until I wasn’t afraid of it at all.”
“And is that what you still do?” When he nodded, I asked, “Why didn’t you do that with Hunter?”
His head lowered slightly as he folded his arms over his chest again. The corner of his mouth twitched up, but his expression lacked all amusement and looked like he was in pain. “That was—” He hesitated for a moment and then shifted his head enough to meet my stare again. “You know when one of the kids is about to get hurt, and you do anything to prevent it, even if you get hurt in the process?”
My head dipped in a slow nod.
“Hunter was bringing the worst kind of pain for my wife and my kids—this bullshit that could destroy you and our marriage, and I had to stop him. So, I let go.” One of his shoulders lifted. “Then again, he was already hitting me, and I was terrified in a way I’ve never been, so I doubt I would’ve lasted much longer before I snapped anyway.”
“You really did choose to break your promise then,” I said sadly.
“I told you, I would’ve done anything to stop that destruction from happening.”
“To stop me from knowing what you’d done.”
His dark eyes bored into mine, pleading with me to understand. To forgive him.
I forced my stare away and shifted lower in the dry tub, trying to get comfortable when that unstable pressure in the room made it impossible to do so.
And with each minute that trudged by in silence, that pressure grew until it was unbearable.
“I don’t think you should leave,” I said as I hurriedly climbed to my feet. “With the gossip and what happened with Stephanie, I think you staying anywhere else is a bad idea—at least until we know where this is headed.”
Beau went still at my last words. His expression carefully blank and his stare on the floor.
“Savannah, what can I do?” he asked once I’d stepped into the bedroom, his voice twisting with worry. “Name it, I’ll do it.”
I turned, already shrugging. “There’s nothing you can do. I don’t know how to blame you for something that happened on a night none of us can really remember—but I’m so hurt by it,” I said, my stomach twisting and heart falling to the floor all over again. “It’s like I can’t escape this image of you and her now, and it makes me sick knowing you kissed someone else . . . touched her . . . fucked her. My best friend.”
His eyelids slowly shut as he ran a hand through his hair and then gripped his neck.