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“You can still give yourself to Connor without giving yourself to me,” she says. “We're not a package. I know things are tough with your girlfriend in England because you’re here, but don’t throw her away.”
I hold my fingers against my mouth. I’m fucking this up. All of it.
“Just promise me this won’t change your mind about Connor,” says Hannah.
“No. Never. I will always give him everything he needs, do whatever he wants.”
“Then you need to talk to him, explain you're his dad, but you won't be with us forever. You have to tell him you’ll leave again. It's unfair. You've everybody stuck in a cruel limbo while we wait for you to make up your mind.”
Hannah’s right. This is guilt. Obligation. My stupid idea I can walk back in and put everything upright – the last eight years, Connor, me, and Hannah. I don’t want her, and I’ve been too numb to recognise what I want—a future I control and a life lived for myself, not others.
I curl my arms around Hannah, holding her head against my chest, in a gesture of comfort as if she were one of my sisters. “I'll be here for Connor until he's well. Because hewillget well. Then we can decide what to do.”
Hannah wriggles away. “But speak to Avery. Reassure her. Don't lose another girl who loves you.”
I leave Hannah in the kitchen and head to the small room that’s my home currently. I sit on the edge of the bed, mind in turmoil. I almost kissed another woman.
Shit, Avery, I’m sorry.
Unable to cope with the emotional shitstorm growing between us, I've shut Avery out of my heart and mind in the last few weeks. I’m hollow, but now I realise part of the emptiness isn't the lost years without Connor, but the lost weeks without the woman who'd settled into my heart and made it home.
Hannah is right. I have to step away from the limbo I’m holding us all in and think things through instead of ignoring reality.
If I want Avery, I have to let her know before it’s too late, and I have to finally let go of Hannah.
