Page 65 of Embers in Our Souls
Your hopelessly in love husband who can’t wait to come home to you,
xoxo
Ty
CHAPTER 35
Tyler
2 1/2 YEARS AGO
July 22, 2022
Dearest Indiana,
I know receiving a letter from me is the last thing you want at this point. I understand how upsetting my last correspondence must have been. I’m sorry for the anger and sadness I’ve caused in your life.
You deserve an explanation and I’m hoping my words can give you a little bit of that. It won’t replace the time in which I’ve caused so much pain in your life, but I hope it opens the door to be able to start to mend this hurt I’ve brought.
I was in a bad place when I wrote you that letter—plain and simple. Do you remember Georgie? I lost him not two weeks before writing you that letter. It caused me to do some pretty destructive things in my life. I pushedaway a lot of people and things I loved—most importantly you.
I walked away from the best person I could have asked for. You were a gift in my life and I simply destroyed any future we could have built together. For that I will always be ashamed of my actions.
Georgie’s death left me in a tailspin; the destruction causing me to deal with the trauma in a terrible way. In the end, I wrote that letter with the intention of hurting you. It was filled with lies. I took the cowardly way out, mostly because I wanted you to hate me enough not to look back. I wanted you to walk away from me, from us, and not feel the urge to come running back.
I felt like it was best you not have someone like me surrounding you, so you wouldn’t have the possibility of suffering the same kind of fate as me, possibly getting news of my loss in the line of duty. After watching the devastation Georgie’s parents endured, I couldn’t think of putting you through that, so I panicked. That letter seemed like the only way.
Since then, I’ve seen a therapist and he helped me realize the errors of my ways. I was wrong and I understand that now. Writing you feels like our safe place and I’m opting for that still. It seems that has always been our safest form of communication. Even back whenwe were intertwined the deepest. I should have been brave and told you how I felt that weekend we spent together in Chicago. I was so in love with you that I didn’t even want to voice it out loud, for fear that it would blow away.
I have no idea what your life looks like now. I hope you’re happy. I hope your heart has recovered from the devastation I likely put you through. But I feel like you deserve to know where I was when I wrote that note. I never meant to put you through any heartache, but I was suffering. I didn’t know how to deal with such sorrow.
I’m sorry for doing what I did. My heart was breaking, and instead of running toward you, I pushed you away.
Forever yours,
Ty
CHAPTER 36
Indiana
I heldoff on reading the letters until most had gone home for the day. I reached out to one of the parents to pick Noah up and take him to tee-ball practice for me. I’ll need to leave in the next few minutes if I want to get there in time to pick him up.
But I’m frozen in place after reading these two letters. After reading it once through, I thought this was some sort of joke; maybe he wrote these as an attempt to win me back. But the sheets are tattered at the edges, like they’re weathered after years of being bent and handled.
If Tyler is playing with my emotions, he’s doing a damn fine job at it. Aside from the lie he told in that final letter to me after Georgie’s death, that was never his style.
Finally, I decide to shove the papers in my purse, grabbing my keys and other items from my desk, opting to do any other work at home later tonight. I can’t focus on this right now, so I’ll have to shove all things Tyler to the side for now. Noah needs my attention and I’ll revisit my feelings, albeit complicated, later.
Everything is feeling jumbled in my head, and my heart is hurting in so many ways. Why didn’t he tell me about these letters when he saw me the other day? Had Malloy not come tosee me today, would Tyler have signed the divorce papers and never seen me again? Why is he turning away from everything without putting up a fight if he had these letters?
I feel the more that was said about our destruction, the more I realize I didn’t comprehend Tyler Hunter’s complicated layers. Is that what I want? More confusion in my life? I feel like years ago, when I sat with him after graduation, he held the ability to make things uncomplicated. But now, things feel twisted and hard at every turn where he’s concerned.
Walking out of my office, my phone buzzes in my purse. I pull it out to see my mother’s name staring back at me. I’m contemplating ignoring her, but I’m only putting off the inevitable. If I ignore her now, she’ll keep bugging me until I finally talk to her. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid.
“Hello?” I say, no enthusiasm to my tone.
“Indy, good to hear your voice,” my mom’s tone is clipped, the judgement oozing from her voice.
