19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Hunter
The next week, on the agreed upon day and at the agreed upon time, Hunter arrived at Vesper Hill and made sure everything was perfect while not looking like he was trying too hard. He’d asked the crew not to come that day.
Two folding chairs stood near the long windows. Protective plastic covered part of the rear wall, and open wiring ran through metal boxes. The old bottle racks remained stacked near the brick fireplace. Hunter set the chairs several feet apart. Then he sat and kept his hands loose on his thighs.
Wendy came through the open door, her fingers clutching her purse for dear life. Her wedding ring caught the afternoon light. Strain marked her eyes. His face fell when he realized she looked even more tired than when they’d seen each other a few days before.
He stood. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she said.
She looked at the chairs. Hunter waited until she chose the chair nearest the windows before he took the other one.
Wendy placed her purse on the floor by her feet. “I need this to be plain.”
“It will be,” he promised.
“No lyrics, all right? I don’t need poetry because you think it makes the truth sound prettier.”
“Okay.”
Her fingers closed over each other in her lap. “I need you to tell me what happened to our marriage. What you did. Why you did it. What you understand now.”
“I can do that.”
“And you need to finish before you ask me for anything.”
“I won’t ask you for anything.”
“Honesty doesn’t promise you an ending you want.”
“I know.”
She studied him for a long moment. “Then start with the song.”
“I wrote ‘Twenty Again’ for you,” he said. “I found that picture of us, and I wrote it based on memories of that night. The rain, the empty tank, you laughing because I lifted the hood when we both knew the truck was out of gas. I meant to give it to you on our anniversary.”
Wendy’s face didn’t change. “I know what it was meant to be.”
“I hid it because I wanted the surprise to be perfect. Then Billy heard it, and the studio heard it, and people got excited in a way they hadn’t been excited about my music in a long time.
Serena made the arrangement better. The attention got bigger.
I stopped hiding the song for you and started hiding the truth from you. ”
“That wasn’t one decision.”
“No. It was a lot of them.” Hunter forced himself not to rush.
“Every time I wanted to play you the new version and didn’t, I chose the campaign.
Every time Serena posted something and I let people call her my muse, I chose it.
I told myself no one had directly lied because that let me take everything a lie could buy without having to hear myself say one. ”
Wendy’s gaze held his. “Why did you need it that badly?”
“Because people were talking about me like I mattered again. I liked how Serena looked at me. She saw somebody young and dangerous who didn’t have to answer to anyone. I knew that man wasn’t real anymore, but I wanted to feel like him.”
“Did you want her?”
“No.” He didn’t soften it. “I noticed she was beautiful. I enjoyed her attention. I used it. But I never wanted her life, her bed, or a home with her. I wanted the version of myself I saw in her eyes. That doesn’t make what I did less intimate.
It means I used both of you for what you gave me. Her admiration. Your love.”
Wendy nodded and made a small motion with her hand to tell him he could go on.
“I gave Serena access to words and memories that belonged to us. I let her stand across from me and sing them like they were hers. I knew what the performance would suggest. I knew what the tour announcement would do, and I approved it without talking to you. At the Hollywood Bowl, I took your advice about ‘Back Road Mercy.’ I let you check my strap. I kissed your palm. When you asked if there was anything you needed to know, I told you not to worry. I accepted your trust while I was already planning to humiliate you.”
Wendy drew in a careful breath. Hunter knew that as hard as it was for him to confess these things to her, it was harder for her to listen to them.
“I let Serena receive the words about courage and creation. I thanked you for your support. I put her beside me and put you behind me, even though you were the person in every line. Then the cameras turned toward you. Later, when I watched the raw footage, I heard that publicist tell you to keep smiling. Your pain became proof that the fantasy mattered.”
“You saw me,” Wendy said quietly.
“Yes.”
“I used to tell myself you didn’t.”
“I saw you. I looked away because stopping would’ve cost me the moment I wanted.”
Her eyes shone, but her voice stayed firm. “The next morning?”
Shame burned through him. “You asked me a direct question. I knew the answer would show you that I’d handed your song to the campaign on purpose.
So, I talked around it. I told you songs weren’t sworn testimony.
I called the story promotion. I used your work against you and acted like your therapist’s mind had invented the pattern I created.
I brought up jealousy and defended Serena because that kept me from answering for myself. ”
“You touched me… Like nothing had happened.”
“I did.” His throat tightened. “I held you and kissed your forehead because affection had ended hard conversations before. I expected loving you to count as repairing what I’d done to you.”
Wendy looked toward the uncovered part of the window. Rows of vines ran down the slope beyond the glass.
When she faced him again, she said, “And after Serena asked you to choose her?”
“I rejected her. Then I signed the campaign anyway. I knew her feelings were real,” he continued.
“I knew the public story wasn’t harmless to you or to her.
I signed because the numbers made me feel safe.
I told myself I could set private boundaries, stabilize the rollout, and fix our marriage later. ”
“Later,” Wendy repeated.
“That was what I gave you for years. After this tour. After this album. After this launch. I did it to the podcast, your clients, Vesper Hill, children, dinners, and every conversation that asked me to put your life on the same level as mine.”
Wendy closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she nodded at him.
“I noticed your recording room becoming storage,” he said.
“I noticed your work getting smaller. I told myself you agreed to each step, but I made every other choice feel expensive and your sacrifice feel easy. You were good at understanding me, and I treated that like a promise that you would never need me to understand you.”
Wendy’s fingers tightened. “Was that what you believed about me? What else?”
“That you were permanent. That your steadiness meant you couldn’t break.
That because you loved me, you would keep absorbing whatever I did until I was ready to be a husband again.
” He breathed through the disgust of hearing it aloud.
“I treated your love like property. I treated your care like part of the staff. I valued what you carried for me and stopped protecting the woman carrying it.”
A tear rolled down Wendy’s cheek. She wiped it away quickly.
“My father is where I learned to fear becoming irrelevant,” Hunter said.
“I watched him lose work, lose pride, turn bitter, and leave. I decided that if I stayed necessary enough, I could never become him. But he didn’t approve that horrendous campaign.
Billy didn’t either. Serena didn’t. I did all of it.
Fear explains what I was hungry for. It doesn’t excuse what I chose to feed it. ”
“Right,” Wendy said.
“The duet master never entered commercial release,” he said.
“It’s permanently shelved. The solo recording is the only official version of ‘Twenty Again.’ I stopped official distribution and licensing of the Hollywood Bowl performance everywhere I control it.
I can’t erase audience recordings or third-party copies.
That performance will always exist somewhere. ”
“It will,” Wendy said.
“I know. All I can do is stop choosing to distribute it, license it, or profit from it.”
She gave one small nod.
“The anniversary passed while you had me blocked,” he continued.
“I remembered. I wanted to contact you, but I’d already made it impossible to give you what the song was supposed to be.
Respecting your block wasn’t a gift. It was the least I owed you.
You don’t owe me credit for not forcing myself into your life that day. ”
“And the leaked video?”
“It was edited. I made the edited version believable. I won’t use the missing words to argue that your understanding of our marriage was wrong. It wasn’t.”
Wendy leaned back slightly. “What do the canceled tour and Vesper Hill mean to you, really?”
“They mean I stopped some of the damage and tried to preserve a choice I helped you lose. They don’t purchase a future with you.
” Hunter held her gaze. “You can refuse the option. You can divorce me. You can decide never to let me into your life again. The campaign still needed to end. The truth still needed to be public. The property still deserved the chance to remain standing.”
A pause. Neither of them knew how to fill it for a few long minutes.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I hid your song, erased you from our history, and let another woman be praised for waking up the parts of me you’d loved from the beginning.
I’m sorry I made your humiliation useful.
I’m sorry I made you ask for the truth and then punished you for seeing it.
I’m sorry I let your work and dreams disappear because I believed mine should always come first. And I’m sorry I made our marriage a place where you had to become smaller to stay with me. ”
Hunter let the words sink in.
“I love you. I did then too. That’s part of what makes it so ugly. I loved you and still chose myself at your expense. You don’t have to forgive that because I’ve finally learned to name it.”
Wendy lowered her eyes. Several breaths passed before she spoke.