35. 35
Annabelle
Now
T he stunned, shattered look on Hayes’ face as he reads Kyle’s letter tells me he’s feeling a condensed version of what I felt the first time I read it over a year ago.
The unassailable pain Kyle was living with was unimaginable. After reading his words, possibly the only truthful ones he ever gave me, my heart irrevocably broke. For Kyle. For the girls. And for me.
I was shaken to my core, teetering on the brink of collapse. Hurt and confused, I questioned everything because the truth as I knew it had disintegrated. It felt like the rug had been ripped out from under me and I was falling in slow motion, no longer certain which way was up or down .
I thought Kyle was in love with me. He wasn’t, nor had he ever been.
I thought he was attracted to me. He wasn’t.
I thought our marriage was a mostly happy one. It wasn't.
There were times when I sensed something was desperately wrong within our marriage, but Kyle gaslit me into doubting myself over and over, making me feel like I was imagining problems where none existed.
He was just busy, too tired, swamped at work, stressed out, lost track of time.
He always had a litany of excuses to explain away my worries.
All the while, I was just a pawn, a piece he moved around and manipulated as he played his game of life.
He stole a decade from me, pretending to be in love with me.
He asked me to marry him, to drop out of college, to uproot my life, and move halfway across the country, yet he never loved me.
Not like a husband should love his wife.
And I gave myself to him wholeheartedly, never once thinking him capable of that level of deceit.
He’d never been in love with me.
My entire marriage was a sham.
And Kyle chose to leave us permanently. He chose to leave our daughters without a father. And he chose to leave me to clean up his mess by myself. By getting the truth off his chest, he lodged a knife into mine. With each word of that letter that I read, the knife twisted deeper.
Despite my own pain, I couldn’t ignore the agony and torment Kyle endured for years, trying to deny who he really was.
I felt so sad for him. It’s staggering to think about how long he lied to himself, his family, his friends, his co-workers.
And to me. Pretending came at a high cost to all of us. But he paid the ultimate price .
Right after Kyle died, I read the police reports, which noted there were no skid marks on the road.
But after finding his letter, I revisited them.
And I saw everything in a new light. The absence of skid marks didn’t point to a speeding driver who hydroplaned in a rainstorm, as the authorities believed, but to the fact that Kyle never tried to brake.
He didn’t hit the utility pole by accident; he aimed for it.
By mailing me his confessional missive, Kyle left me with even more secrets to keep.
I spent the next week obsessively sifting through my memories to pinpoint how I could have been so clueless.
So ignorant and stupid. Finding out that he was gay explained a lot of the concerns I'd had during our marriage.
The lack of attention and affection. Our sporadic sex life.
Why Kyle stopped going to church. His long hours away from home.
Prior to opening the letter, I’d pondered how I missed most of the clues that Kyle was having an affair, but afterward…
Afterward, I blamed myself for not noticing that my husband was gay and depressed to the point of becoming suicidal.
That was a heavy weight to bear, and the guilt I felt took its toll on me.
I was overwrought, flooded with so many conflicting, vacillating emotions. Sadness, rage, disbelief, despondency, wrath. And guilt. So much guilt. Like the funnel of a tornado, my feelings twisted and turned, one after another, tighter and tighter until I spun out of control.
With slow precision, Hayes refolds the letter and places it back in the envelope before he turns in his seat to face me. “Annabelle, baby, what the fuck did I just read?” Hayes draws a hand down his face. “I don’t… I mean… Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
As much as I dreaded this conversation, the relief at finally having my secrets out in the open trumps most of my discomfort.
Filled with newfound fortitude, I take a deep breath and tell Hayes everything.
How I found the letter. How devastating it was.
How stupid and guilty I felt for not realizing the truth on my own.
And after spilling it all, I feel lighter.
However, I can’t shake one remaining fear: that the truth will change the way Hayes looks at me. I don't want him to think that I'm weak or broken. I was once, but with therapy and the passage of time, I've fought my way back.
"Just when I didn't think you could get any stronger," he murmurs, shaking his head. "Forged in the fire is right."
With a surge of relief, my eyes dart to his, and I see love and compassion reflected in them. I shouldn't have worried that Hayes would see me as less than or look at me with pity. But old habits die hard, I suppose.
“Holy shit, Annabelle,” Hayes laments as he pulls me into his arms in a crushing embrace. “I hate that you went through that alone. God, I’d give anything to have been there with you then and to have helped you through the thick of it.”
“You were, and you did,” I whisper.
Confusion mars his face as he pulls back to look me in the eye. “What?”
“After reading Kyle’s letter, it felt like I’d stepped in quicksand.
The more I fought through my convoluted emotions, the harder they tugged me down.
After spiraling for a week, Laura sat me down and told me I needed to get my head on straight so I could be there for the girls.
She pushed me to take a night off. To stay in a hotel, to get some sleep, to relax. ”
I see an understanding pass over him. Then, he murmurs, “The night we met at Tank’s.”
I nod. “Yes, the night we met.”
“Holy shit, Yankee. If I’d known, I would have—”
“No, Hayes. Don’t say anything. I wouldn’t change a single thing about that night.
It was perfect and exactly what I needed.
That night was a turning point for me. For the first time in my life, I understood what true passion felt like.
I understood what Kyle and I lacked. I understood what I wanted to find in a partner.
Meeting you gave me hope, Hayes! Hope that one day I’d be healed enough to find a real, genuine romantic relationship.
After our night at Tank’s, I began therapy.
I found a job. I worked on myself and started healing. ”
Hayes tightens his arms around me, and I soak up every bit of love and strength he offers.
"It's weird, but… meeting you helped me begin to forgive Kyle.
What you and I have together, our chemistry and the depth of my feelings…
I never had that with him. I imagine it must have been what he felt when he was with Grayson.
I don't condone Kyle's actions, but I don't condemn him either.
He was a good person, caught in an impossible situation he didn't know how to escape.
Meeting you and starting therapy helped me let go of most of the anger.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I needed time to be sure of what I felt in my heart.
That you’re the man for me, and that I can trust you.
” My smile is faint. “I trusted Kyle, and he shattered that trust. It’s something I still struggle with—the doubt in my own judgment.
But you, Hayes… you’ve broken down every wall I built around my heart.
At every turn, you’ve dismantled my doubts and pacified my fears.
” I lean in and kiss his lips. “I love you.”
“I love you too, baby. And I’m here for you always, Annabelle. Your problems will never be too difficult or too messy for me, baby. Remember what I told you weeks ago? I’m here for all the bits, but especially the messy bits.”
“Good,” I laugh. “Because I have a lot of those.”
Interjecting a moment of levity, he adds, "And the lady bits. "
"Can't forget those."
That evening, I sit the girls down and explain that Hayes has given us the option of staying at his condo instead of renting a place temporarily.
I spent ten years of my life with a man who never loved me, at least not in the romantic sense.
And I don’t want to waste more time. However, I have to do right by my daughters, and moving into Hayes' condo will impact them.
If they need me to take my relationship with Hayes more slowly, then I will.
As I open the pizza boxes and pass out slices to Grace and Claire, I say, “Hayes is planning on staying at his ranch most of the time for the next few months, so his condo will be empty. He invited us to stay there until we find our new house.”
As she often does, Claire squeals, “We get to live with Wusty!”
“No, no,” I hurriedly reply. “Most of the time, Hayes won’t be there, sweetheart. We’d be staying there without him.”
“Could we visit Wusty at the ranch?”
“I’m sure he’d love for us to visit him, Claire. And occasionally, he'll come back to Nashville to stay at the condo with us."
Grace methodically processes the information as I knew she would. I can practically see her mind working, creating an internal list of pros and cons. "If we don't live at Hayes' condo, where would we live?"
"Probably at a nice apartment complex until we find a house." Renting an apartment is my last choice, since I'll be locked into a six- or twelve-month lease, but I've run out of other possibilities.
“At Hayes', would we each have our own rooms, or would we have to share? ”
“You’d have your own rooms, and we’d move all your bedroom furniture into them. Hayes even had the condo’s bedrooms painted pink for you.”
Nodding slowly, Grace murmurs, “That’s nice.”
“Could we swim, Mama?” Claire’s eyes are alight with hope.
“Yes. We can swim whenever we want, but Hayes said that we can swim at his place even if we decide not to stay there.”
Feeling the need to be as transparent as possible, I list some points I’ve thought of to help the girls make their decision. “Since it’s a condo, we wouldn’t have a backyard.”
“Hayes has an outdoor patio,” Grace counters. "And if we stayed in an apartment, we wouldn't have a backyard either."
“True,” I nod. “There’s also a nice park within walking distance from the condo.”
“And he has a pool!” yells Claire.
I smile. “Yes, the condo has an indoor pool and an outdoor pool, Claire. While your bedrooms will have your furniture, the rest of the condo will still be furnished with Hayes’ furniture, so you’ll need to be careful not to spill or break anything.”
“Wusty doesn’t care if we spill,” Claire says. “I spilled juice on his carpet, and he said it was just stuff, and stuff can be placed.”
“ Replaced , Claire,” mutters Grace.
“I want to live at Wusty’s!” Sweet little Claire is bouncing in her seat, her pigtails bobbing in rhythm with her body.
“Grace, what are your thoughts?” I eat a bite of pizza, which I instantly regret when the sauce oozes out from under the cheese and scalds the roof of my mouth. Taking a swig of sparkling water, I swish the cold water around to cool the burn .
Grace remains thoughtfully quiet for several minutes as we continue eating. I don’t press because I want her to feel good about her decision.
“I think I’d like to live at Hayes’ condo.”
“Me too, me too!” Claire chants.
My heart sighs with relief.
One less thing to worry about.