12. Hans

12

HANS

H ow could I have been so fucking stupid. I thought Allie was different. I thought we shared something last night that was real, and I thought she felt it too.

But today she’s proved I’m just a fling before she gets married. Just the help that gave her a good time before she settles down with her blue chip husband for her privileged life.

Rage boils in my blood and I slam my fist on the kitchen counter, making the coffee pot bounce. It tips over, rolls over the counter, and smashes onto the floor, scattering glass across the tiles.

I don’t care. I want to destroy something. I want to destroy everything.

I’m raging with anger that the woman I love just walked out the door to be married to someone else.

Everything I thought we shared is a lie.

I should have listened to my head instead of following my heart and my dick. I never should have gotten involved.

I pace the cabin like a caged animal. I’ve been so fucking stupid, and I’m furious with myself.

Jenga is sitting out on the coffee table, and I pick it up and launch it at the wall. Small wooden blocks fly everywhere, and one of them flings back and hits me in the brow.

“Fuck.”

I can’t even destroy things without destroying myself.

I touch the place on my forehead where the brick hit me at full force, and my fingertip comes away covered in blood.

“Shit.”

On the way to the bathroom to clean up, I can barely stand to look at the bed. The sheets are crumpled from where only a few minutes ago we lay in each other’s arms.

It felt so fucking real.

My cut stings as I wash it out with water. It’s surprisingly deep, and I should probably get it looked at but I know I won’t. Allie would find it hilarious, going to the ER because of a Jenga piece. But I’ll never get to tell her because she’s marrying someone else.

My fists slam into the bathroom counter, and I’m breathing hard as I look in the mirror. I hardly recognize the lined face that stares back at me. I’m almost thirty-years-old, living in a rented cabin on my own with no woman and only the mountain for company. It’s not the life my parents would have wanted for me.

It used to be that the slopes and the mountain were enough. I had Greta to look after, but now that she’s married and Lorenzo is not the asshole I thought he was, she doesn’t need me here.

I’ve been saving up my money, and maybe it’s time to get out of here, to travel and get far away from entitled assholes and families like Allie’s.

The thought of Allie has my heart cleaving in two. I clutch my chest because it aches so much.

I was so sure she was different, that what we shared was real. I can’t believe how quickly she ditched me as soon as her mother turned up. Whatever hold her mother has over her is too strong.

I grab the sides of the bathroom counter as her mother’s words ring in my head.

I told you not to get involved with the help.

But Allie did. She got involved with me, and maybe she thought I was playing around. I never told her how I feel, not really. Maybe if I did, if I let her know I love her, that I can’t breathe without her, maybe it would make a difference.

I stride back into the living room with new purpose. It might make a difference, or it might not. But I’m not going to give Allie up without a fight. I’m not going to let her marry some rovhatt without telling her how I feel.

Pulling on warm socks and my jacket, I head into the brisk morning air. I’m not giving Allie up without a fight.