Chapter Eight
Dear Kev,
As I write this, it’s a week after the election, you’re now chief of staff for President-elect Samuels, I’m now press secretary, and I realize that there are dreams I might never make come true no matter how much I wish I could. I should be thankful, grateful for what I have achieved, and yet I can’t let go.
You, my sweet man, are a beautiful soul, andI absolutely meant it when I said if they hurt you, I will make them pay, however I have to. Then again, if you’re reading this, I’m not here anymore to make good on that threat. Ha!
Sorry.
But I can see it in your eyes. When I watch you watch him, there’s a love, a heat there that even in our best days you never held for me.
That’s not an accusation, sweetie—that’s realization.
In my heart,I suppose that I always hoped you’d come back to me one day. Even after the divorce, even after that awful day when I held you while you cried and you finally confessed about him.
I just didn’t know who thehimwas, at that time.
I spent most of the two years between that awful day and this night hating the man, because I thought he stole you from me before you were ever even mine.
Tonight,as I flipped through pictures online of the past two years, I realized I’ve been looking at this all wrong.
I stole you from him.
I know I didn’t know it, at the time. But I stumbled across one picture where after you all got the news about winning Iowa, she’s hugging him, you’re standing behind her, and the two of you are looking at each other with a mix of love and satisfaction that I’ve neverseen two humans wear before.
Maybe no one else realizes it because they don’t understand. Anyone else, they probably see two smug bros enjoying a victory.
I see in your face the fact that you are a man who knows he’s going to get fucked shortly by another very happy man.
I didn’t marry you because it was convenient, or because I thought it was a business decision for my career, or because ofthe optics. I married you because I love you, Kev.
Because I’m in love with you.
You are, and always have been, the love of my life.
I see such a beautiful, brilliant soul inside you, encased in pain. Before I knew about him, I thought the pain was due to your asshole father. I thought you were trying to prove something to him, and maybe you were.
But now, when I see you through opened eyes,I realize you’re not trying to prove things to your father so much as you’re trying to makehimproud.
No, I don’t mean your father.
Correct me if I’m wrong (and, haha, you can’t, so there, phhhtp!) but I think you might have never contacted him because of your father and your fear of your father, but I think the rest had nothing to do with him.
I honestly think, at least subconsciously, youwere always trying to reachhim. You were hoping he would see you, contact you. You felt you deserved to be alone and lonely because you never contacted him after that week together, but you never stopped loving him, never stopped needing him.
I know now that work was a self-medication for you, a way to escape me and what you weren’t able to sustain with me. I know you loved me, and still do,but I also know it wasn’t the way I love you. It was a relief when I suggested filing for divorce, wasn’t it?
You know what’s stupid? I was sort of hoping that day I came home early that Iwasgoing to find you were having an affair. Then I could hate you, evict you from my heart, move on, and let go.
But I couldn’t.
Because that sweet, kind man did and does love me.
You’ve just never beeninlove with me, am I right?
That’s always been reserved forhim, that lucky fucking bastard.
I hope he knows what a gift you are. I hope he makes you smile and makes your heart sing, sweetheart.
