Chapter 25 Fractures in the dark
Hannah
I spent the entire day pacing the house like a ghost that hadn’t learned how to pass through walls.
Loretta was gone.
The thought kept circling back, gnawing at me no matter what I tried to do. I replayed every sharp word she’d thrown at me, every look of hatred, every moment I’d stood silent while she humiliated me. I told myself she’d been cruel by choice but guilt didn’t listen to logic. Guilt only whispered ‘you should have done more’.
I tried to read. The words blurred.
I tried to nap. My chest felt too tight.
I tried to distract myself by scrolling through my phone, but the headlines hadn’t softened. If anything, they’d multiplied. Loretta was being dissected publicly, her character dragged through digital mud, and every article somehow still circled back to me. The quiet sister.The composed wife. The one who won.
Won what?
By nightfall, the house felt even more oppressive than usual. Too quiet. Too large. I curled up on the couch with a book I’d been pretending to read for weeks and stayed there long past midnight, the pages untouched.
I didn’t expect Timothy to come home.
When I heard the low murmur of voices and the sound of a door closing, my heart leapt painfully. I waited, counting my breaths, until I was sure it wasn’t my imagination.
Then I stood.
His study door was ajar, a thin line of warm light spilling into the hallway. I hesitated only a second before knocking lightly.
“Timothy?” I said.
He looked up from his desk.
He looked… tired. Not just irritated or cold, but worn down. His tie was loosened, jacket discarded, dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes.
“What?” he asked flatly.
“I…” My throat tightened. “I just found out about Loretta.”
He paused, then leaned back in his chair. “I know.”
“You do?”
“I’ve seen everything,” he said, standing and moving toward the bar cart. “The news. The footage. The commentary.”
He poured himself a drink, unhurried, his movements sharp with restraint.
“They sent her away,” I said softly. “My parents. They didn’t even tell me where.”
He didn’t respond.
“I swear to you,” I continued, stepping further into the room, “I never planned any of this. I didn’t mean for it to spiral. I didn’t want her hurt, or humiliated, or…”
“I’ve been looking into how to divorce you,” he cut in.
The words landed like ice water.
“Oh,” I said faintly.
The shift was so abrupt it stole the air from my lungs. But after a heartbeat, I nodded. “Okay.”
He turned to look at me, surprised.
“I understand,” I added quickly. “Why you’d want that. If there’s a way… I’ll sign whatever papers are needed.”
He stared at me, then let out a short, humorless laugh. “You really are something.”
He took a long drink, then spoke again, slower this time. “You want to know the truth about Loretta and me?”
I hesitated. “Do I… get a choice?”
“No,” he said bluntly. “I need to say it.”
I stayed silent.
“We were toxic,” he went on. “From the start. Bad communication. Worse tempers. We fought constantly. And every time things got unbearable, we used sex to patch it over instead of actually fixing anything.”
I blinked, caught off guard by his candor.
“She cheated,” he continued. “Twice. Maybe more…I stopped counting. I broke up with her more times than I can remember. She broke up with me too. Five years of on-and-off chaos.”
His jaw tightened. “It drained me.”
I swallowed. “Then why…”
“Because it was familiar,” he snapped. “She’s the longest standing partner I’ve ever had. And she…we weren’t always this way. Things were great in the beginning. She’s seen me when I was through a lot of tough times. And because walking away for good felt like admitting i didn’t fight for us.”
He took another step closer, his voice roughening. “The night everything went to hell? We were broken up. Again. And this time… I meant it. I was planning to end it permanently.”
My heart thudded painfully.
“I was done,” he said. “I’d already decided. And then this happened.”
The room felt too small.
“So don’t think,” he said harshly, closing the distance between us, “that any of this made me choose you. Because it didn’t.”
I nodded, my chest aching. “I know.”
He stopped inches away from me. “Despite everything, despite how fucked up things were, I would have still chosen her over this sham of a marriage. Over you.”
My throat burned, but I forced myself to meet his gaze. “I understand.”
Something flickered in his eyes, surprise, maybe. Or disbelief.
“She was lucky,” I whispered before I could stop myself. “To be wanted like that.”
He stilled.
“I would never have tried to take that from her,” I added quietly. “Even if she believes otherwise.”
For a moment, we just stood there, the air thick with unspoken things. His breathing was heavy. Mine was shallow.
His gaze dropped.
To my mouth.
My pulse jumped, confusion and fear and something else tangling together. He seemed to realize it too, because he abruptly stepped back, draining the rest of his glass.
He rubbed a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Leave.”
“I’m sorry,” I said reflexively.
He snapped his head up. “I don’t need your apology.”
I flinched.
“Unless you can turn back time,” he continued coldly, “I want nothing from you. Nothing to do with you. Get out.”
My throat closed. I nodded once, unable to speak, and turned away before he could see my face crumple.
I barely made it to my room when a sharp crash echoed from his office of glass shattering.
And Timothy’s low, furious curse followed me into the dark.