Who's the real you?

Chapter Thirty- Three

For almost a week, when Hannah had gone for a morning run, she silently prayed to herself that Channing would meet her at the same spot on the beach. He did, almost every day he was there before she was.

The two them would sit and talk, the two of them would run in silence letting only their breaths fill between them as the morning sun rose and the waves pushed against each other.

Hannah felt relaxed to be around Channing, she felt like she had a chance at just being someone she hadn't been since she was seventeen.

She couldn't help but listen at his jokes, she couldn't help but feel sympathy when he talked about his wife walking away from him and his six year old daughter dying tragically, she couldn't help but just take in every word he said about himself.

Channing collapsed back on the beach as he sat down next to Hannah. "What about you?"

"Me?" Hannah questioned.

Channing nodded.

"There isn't anything to know about me."

"There must be. Why come here? You said sea change but there's more right?" He suddenly realised that he had hit a nerve "Sorry. I didn't mean to prey."

"No, it's. it's." Hannah sighed "Fine." Was it really fine? Was this going to break everything she had just started with this Australian man sitting next to her "My ex-husband." She said that freely and as if it was the truth "I needed to get away from him. So, I took our kids and just came here. Start our lives fresh."

Channing wasn't taken back by Hannah saying she had kids, he was taken back by her saying ex-husband as his mind automatically assumed the worst between their relationship.

"I was young and dumb when I meet him. Fall pregnant with our son and it was almost as if we forced ourselves to believe that we loved each other." Hannah scoffed with pain as she shook her head a little. Her gaze fixated on the waves "Than our daughter came along, we tried. We really tried to play the happy couple, but I guess when you idolise the one who gave you kids, you trick yourself into believing things will get better." Her expression went blank as she tried to hide her pain "The amount of lies we told each other, the amount of times we had to sugar-coat the truth to our kids. It just got too much, he went back to his old ways, and I just came here."

Channing sat in silence; he didn't allow himself to let uncomfortableness set in as he just listened.

Hannah shifted her attention to him "Sorry, too much?"

"No. It's okay."