Soft Flannel Hank Quotes

“Hank remembered his first therapy session. I just want you to fix me. He’d begged Nadja. Fix me. He still had nightmares from watching the footage of that police raid gone wrong. He probably always would. There was no fixing that. But Hank had realized over the past few weeks that he didn’t need to be fixed. He was a work in progress and that was okay. He liked a project.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“I had a vasectomy ten years ago,” he blurted out, wondering why he’d waited this long to tell her about it. She snorted, apparently having the same thought because she said, “Now you tell me that?” Hank felt his cheeks blush. “I just… I didn’t want to make you… Is that a problem?” He should have told her sooner. Sure, the vasectomy would make things more convenient, but he realized in that one hovering moment that there was so much they hadn’t talked about. “If you want me to get it reversed, I can,”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“He pulled away an inch, his eyes closed and his nose barely touching hers. “I love you,” he said. “I love you so goddamn much.” Esther gasped and he smiled that half smile of his. It was more of a lift of one corner of his mouth that anything, but it was a smile nonetheless. “Say it again,” she whispered. “I love you, Esther MacLaren. And if you ever leave me again, I will find you. There’s not a place you could run where I wouldn’t catch you. Because you’ve been tied to me since that first day. I don’t know how you did it, but I feel you. Right here.” He pressed a hand to her ribs, just below her beating heart.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“Why do you think my life matters more than your life?” “Because it does!” he barked. But if his anger was smoke from a burnt pan, that truth—that simple truth that he cradled in his hands—had the same effect as throwing open a window next to the stove. All of the smoke, all of the fight left him in a rush. In a soft, choked voice, he said, “It matters more to me.” Esther settled back onto her heels. “Hank….” Hank took a deep breath. “I have felt more like myself in the last month since meeting you than I had for seventeen years. Seventeen years, Esther! Do you know what it feels like to be a ghost in your own house? In your own life?” She bit her bottom lip and Hank watched her top teeth make a dent in the soft pink peach slice of her mouth. He went on. “And then you came along. And you… you made me hope. You made me hope that things could change. That they could get better. That I could have a life again.” He stopped and rubbed a hand down his face. And then his hoarse voice cracked with emotion as he said, “You made me hope that I could be happy again.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“Esther sat on a barstool at the little square kitchen island and watched Hank cook eggs and bacon. She wondered who she could call to report the absolute crime that was Hank in a pair of gray sweatpants. They sat low on his hips, beneath the swell of his belly and hugged his muscular ass in a way that was frankly obscene.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“He had fallen in love at eighteen. But it felt nothing like his love felt now. Hank’s grown love was liquid, thick and viscous. His feelings, deep and raw and frighteningly big, moved around within his brain and couldn’t have been separated from his body for as long as he drew breath into his lungs. And like a liquid, his love was shaped entirely by its container which, at the moment, was the rapidly beating confines of his heart. If Esther would let him, he would pour all of that love into her and let it fill in all the cracks and scars left by a life that had been less than kind to her.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“Esther, I have things I need to tell you. But I’m too wound up right now to do it.” “Where will you go?” she asked, feeling the tears rising once more. “Not far, sweetheart. I’ll never be far.” And with that, he squeezed past her and out the door, leaving Esther alone in the cabin. She took a deep breath and looked around her. In a moment, she heard the unmistakable sound of wood chopping. Glancing out the window confirmed it as Hank stood with an axe next to a pile of downed tree limbs. Doesn’t this man have any other ways to emotionally regulate? But she knew he didn’t. Maybe because nobody had ever shown him how. Maybe because he’d never allowed himself to feel deeply enough to require them.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“Some small part of Hank had braced himself for Esther to ask about Marnie the moment they pulled out of Magda’s driveway. But Esther could ask him any question she wanted and Hank would carve open his heart and his past for her to dissect and autopsy, if only she’d keep holding his hand like this.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“No. Now, he had the urge to lock himself away from her until she left, so he wouldn’t be tempted to let her in again. He was dispensable. This moment in time was dispensable. And she would move on and leave him behind when she did. He couldn’t let her become indispensable to him. Because she’d take all the best parts of him that remained when she left.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“He walked quietly to his room and closed the door behind him. He dressed and sat on the corner of the bed to put on his socks. This made it much easier. I’m so ready to go. That was what his brain had needed to hear to take control of the battle with his heart. A reminder that she was as good as gone once the dust settled. Frankly, it was better this way, though Hank’s stomach was in knots about it. He couldn’t afford to love someone who would leave him behind again. He’d survived it once. He didn’t know that he’d survive it again. Not like that. Not with Esther.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“He didn’t know her well. That was true. But from the moment he’d met her, he’d also felt as if he’d known her all his life. As if his heart had been waiting for hers all along and that it recognized her immediately. Which made what he was about to do all the more heartbreaking.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“Hank liked to help people. He always had. Just as he’d always liked to protect people. Hank had been the kid on the playground that stepped up to the bullies, even if it got him a bloody nose or a black eye, even if he got detention. Hank had wanted to become a police officer when he grew up because he figured that it would just be the best job in the whole world to be a professional helper. A superhero. That’s not what the job had been, though. Not really. He had helped people, sure. But it took that terrible tragedy to make him realize that the ideals he held close, the ideals that governed his actions and behavior as an officer of the law, didn’t necessarily match up with the ideals of the institution at large, or with the institution’s history and legacy.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“World’s End, Washington.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“Hank climbed into the left side of his queen-size bed. Since his wife had left seventeen years ago, he’d slept on his couch more often than not, afraid of that empty space beside him that he couldn’t ever fill, either with pillows or his own body. But as he lay on his back with his hands beside his head, staring at the water spot on the ceiling above him, the other side of the bed didn’t feel empty. It felt reserved, like it was waiting for something, someone. Maybe it was. Maybe he was too.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank

“Hank, you’re many things. But I don’t need to know you very well to know that pathetic isn’t one of them.” He shook his head. Just because she said it didn’t make it true. “I mean it,” Esther continued. “Besides, I just met this great guy and he’s been really sweet and I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t call him a loser.” He looked at her. Just looked at her. She was talking about him. “I’m sorry if you weren’t really ready for this or if this was a lot for you, Hank. If I was a lot for you,” he heard her say through the ringing in his ears. “I’ve been told before that I’m too much. And not in a good way. I—”  “Stop,” he bit out with more force than he intended. He took a deep breath and said, softer, “Just stop.” He placed his palms against her bare thighs, squeezing gently. “That was the best I’ve ever had. You—” He swallowed. “You were the best I’ve ever had. And if anyone ever told you that you were too much, about anything, well, they were just too small to handle you.”
― Eliza MacArthur, Soft Flannel Hank