I keep trying to find excuses for him.
But all those excuses don't matter.
Because the truth is simpler: he chose the business over me.
And now I'm sitting here wondering if anything we built was real, or if I've just been performing a role this entire time.
The stable wife. Proof he’s reformed.
I'm tired, Shay. I'm tired of feeling like I have to guess what people really mean when they could just tell me the truth.
I'm tired of wondering if the tender moments are genuine or strategic.
I'm tired of being the only one who seems to think honesty matters more than image.
You said keeping people at a distance makes you lonely. Yes.
But being let in and then realizing you were never actually trusted? That's worse. That's not just lonely. That's betrayal.
I don't know what I'm going to do. Part of me wants to leave before this gets any more complicated.
But another part of me still hopes that maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe they'll come to me and explain everything, and it will make sense, and we'll find a way through this.
Is that naive? Am I just talking myself into staying somewhere I shouldn't be?
Tell me the truth, Shay. Even if it's hard to hear. Especially if it's hard to hear. You're the one person in my life I trust to be honest with me.
- Anna
I hit send before I can second-guess myself, and immediately the tears I've been holding back start to fall. Because writing to Shay makes it real in a way that thinking about it doesn't.
I’m crying into my hands when a line in Shay’s email catches. I scroll back up.
When you told me about playing chess with your husband in the park, I kept picturing you across from him.
I never told him about the chess game.
My breath stutters.
I scroll through my sent emails. Skim. Search.
Nothing.
I never mentioned chess.
My eyes move back up the screen.
I wish I knew how to be Shay in my real life.
I pull up older emails. Scroll. Scroll. Looking for... I don't know what I'm looking for. Patterns. Inconsistencies.
Something that explains the niggling feeling.
There is only one explanation.
It can't be.
