Speaker 1: Hey, it's Andrea Gunning. Our season of weekly stories is
Speaker 1: coming to an end, but don't worry. We'll be back
Speaker 1: soon with more episodes. So if you have a story
Speaker 1: of your own that you'd like to share on the podcast,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayal pod at gmail dot com. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, we want to do something new and exciting.
Speaker 1: This month, We're taking short creative essays submissions from listeners.
Speaker 1: The theme is resilience in the face of a devastating betrayal.
Speaker 1: We want to hear the story of how you healed
Speaker 1: scars and all. Here's the catch. The limit is a
Speaker 1: thousand words. If your story stands out, it might be
Speaker 1: featured in a bonus episode. Please save your submission as
Speaker 1: a PDF and email it to Betrayal Pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Okay, now onto the episode.
Speaker 2: At this point, my heart has just dropped. Then I
Speaker 2: feel like I'm going to vomit. The betrayal felt so
Speaker 2: intentional and possibly it was a long time coming.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about
Speaker 1: the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
Speaker 1: change everything. Betrayals often come with a loss. On this show,
Speaker 1: we've heard stories from people who lost the love of
Speaker 1: their life or their understanding of who that person was.
Speaker 1: Others have had their children, their home, or their money
Speaker 1: taken from them. We've told stories about people losing their
Speaker 1: sense of self. But no matter the betrayal, everyone we've
Speaker 1: talked to has held on to one thing, their story.
Speaker 1: Even when they lost everything, they still had the truth.
Speaker 1: But then we heard Hannah Patard's story.
Speaker 2: I remember writing stories from the time I was a
Speaker 2: little girl.
Speaker 1: Today, Hannah is an accomplished author. Stories have always been
Speaker 1: a big part of who she is. When she was little,
Speaker 1: Hannah's family lived on a farm outside of Atlanta. There,
Speaker 1: her imagination would run wild.
Speaker 2: We had horses, chickens, born kittens. It was a wonderful time, but.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a wonderful time for everyone. When she was
Speaker 1: in elementary school, Hannah's parents began a bitter divorce. Hannah
Speaker 1: was the youngest of three, and at first the siblings
Speaker 1: all had each other, but eventually her older siblings went
Speaker 1: off to boarding school and Hannah was left at home
Speaker 1: in the middle of her parents' custody battle.
Speaker 2: I was constantly getting interviewed by a different therapist. It
Speaker 2: felt to my mind like we were constantly going to
Speaker 2: see a judge.
Speaker 1: Her escape was reading.
Speaker 2: I read, and I would just go into this fictional
Speaker 2: dream and block out the noise of whatever was happening
Speaker 2: in the other room.
Speaker 1: That's when she started writing stories of her own.
Speaker 2: By sixth grade, I was writing poems, horrible, sad, sac poems,
Speaker 2: and as a thirteen fourteen year old, I had started
Speaker 2: writing little sketches and just became pretty serious about it.
Speaker 1: Writing felt exciting. It allowed her to get lost in
Speaker 1: worlds of her own creation. But in her real life,
Speaker 1: Hannah was lonely, so she asked her parents to send
Speaker 1: her to boarding school. She thought it would be her
Speaker 1: chance to start over, to reinvent herself, But when she
Speaker 1: got there.
Speaker 2: I was still meek, naturally introverted, living in my head
Speaker 2: writing stories.
Speaker 1: Hannah chose Deerfield Academy, a school known for its challenging academics.
Speaker 1: It was cutthroat, but Hannah hardly noticed.
Speaker 2: I was blissfully unaware of what an elite institution it was,
Speaker 2: and I was blissfully unaware of any kind of real competition. Truly,
Speaker 2: the worst part of it was what I was doing
Speaker 2: in private to myself.
Speaker 1: By tenth grade, Hannah developed an eating disorder, and as
Speaker 1: a note to listeners, we're going to talk about some
Speaker 1: details of her experience. For Hannah, controlling food was a
Speaker 1: way for her to feel a false sense of control.
Speaker 1: It only made the divide between her and her peers
Speaker 1: grow wider.
Speaker 2: You're a kid with a secret, and it's a really
Speaker 2: big secret. It is a secret where you are hurting
Speaker 2: your body in this intentional way, and you're not relying
Speaker 2: on the world, and you're not trusting anybody else because
Speaker 2: you don't want to get caught. You're just so much
Speaker 2: by yourself socially, I was definitely isolated and isolating.
Speaker 1: She kept her head down and focused on her studies,
Speaker 1: especially her English and creative writing classes.
Speaker 2: By the time I graduated, I'd won a couple writing awards,
Speaker 2: so I had this idea that maybe I was good,
Speaker 2: or I could be.
Speaker 1: Good for college. She went to the University of Chicago
Speaker 1: and got her degree in English.
Speaker 2: I was too intimidated to take a single creative writing class.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be told that I wasn't as
Speaker 2: good as I felt like i'd been on Deerfield's campus.
Speaker 2: I thought, if I'm not saying what I want, then
Speaker 2: nobody knows to be disappointed in me or embarrassed on
Speaker 2: my behalf. Oh, you didn't get it. You wanted to
Speaker 2: be a writer, and you didn't get it.
Speaker 1: Pursuing a real writing career terrified her, but she dreamed
Speaker 1: of a master's degree in fiction writing, so she sent
Speaker 1: in a few half hearted applications.
Speaker 2: I think I sent them something that I might not
Speaker 2: even have reread, and swiftly was rejected. And I'm so
Speaker 2: glad that I was rejected, because it was a wake
Speaker 2: up call that if you want this, you have to try.
Speaker 1: She spent the next year honing her craft as best
Speaker 1: she could.
Speaker 2: I paid off. I got into several different programs and
Speaker 2: ultimately ended up at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 1: She packed up her life and headed to Charlottesville. And
Speaker 1: she made a promise to herself, the same one she'd
Speaker 1: made before boarding school.
Speaker 2: You're going to get to grad school and you're going
Speaker 2: to become the social person that you know you want
Speaker 2: to be. You're going to change your life.
Speaker 1: From her first day in the program, that vision felt
Speaker 1: within reach.
Speaker 2: The program had its very first meeting, all of the
Speaker 2: second years in the program were there, and all of
Speaker 2: the new first years were there. I will always remember
Speaker 2: the first time I saw Trish. She was captivating.
Speaker 1: Trish was a second year in the program.
Speaker 2: She had on a great outfit, red lipstick, I think
Speaker 2: she had on a pair of yellow belly flats. Her
Speaker 2: hair looked amazing. She just was cool.
Speaker 1: Trish was everything Hannah was not, and Hannah wanted to
Speaker 1: make a good first impression.
Speaker 2: Back then, I was being plagued with situational roseatia, which
Speaker 2: I've had all my life. If you made eye contact
Speaker 2: with me, I either cried or blushed. And it's not
Speaker 2: just blushing, you know. I think sometimes people hear the
Speaker 2: word blush and they think of like these two little
Speaker 2: cherries on either side of your cheeks. It's like a
Speaker 2: rash that crawls up my neck and makes my cheeks blatchy.
Speaker 1: So when she introduced herself to the group, she'd turned
Speaker 1: bright red, and Trish noticed.
Speaker 2: I'm still bright red, and she came over and she
Speaker 2: put her hand on my arm, and she said something like,
Speaker 2: it's really sweet how you blush when you're nervous. It
Speaker 2: makes you seem authentic. That was pretty excited that she'd
Speaker 2: noticed me. She made me feel seen and we became
Speaker 2: friends after that.
Speaker 1: That day was a new beginning for Hannah. She was
Speaker 1: starting to have this social life she'd always wanted.
Speaker 2: People from the program would call to invite me out,
Speaker 2: and they'd come back to my house for house parties,
Speaker 2: and meanwhile, we're all just reading and writing and going
Speaker 2: to coffee shops. It was the fantasy that I'd imagined
Speaker 2: for myself.
Speaker 1: And at all these events, Hannah would watch Trish command
Speaker 1: the room.
Speaker 2: Trish seemed so comfortable in her skin. She seemed comfortable
Speaker 2: being pretty. She seemed comfortable being perceived as somebody who
Speaker 2: wanted to look pretty. Meanwhile, I am all day long,
Speaker 2: non stop, thinking about my body. During this time, I
Speaker 2: was so embarrassed of having anyone think that I wanted
Speaker 2: to be pretty or sexy or feminine, even though that
Speaker 2: is desperately what I wanted.
Speaker 1: Trish started calling Hannah to hang out, and her confidence
Speaker 1: began to rub off on Hannah. For so long, Hannah
Speaker 1: had been trying to make herself small emotionally and physically.
Speaker 1: For instance, she would only wear sports bras.
Speaker 2: I was eliminating curves, but I was also eliminating the
Speaker 2: embarrassment of being perceived to somebody who wanted to be sexy.
Speaker 1: But Trisha inspired Hannah to make a change.
Speaker 2: For the first time ever. I stopped wearing jogbras, and
Speaker 2: then I started wearing skirts with her encouragement, and I
Speaker 2: started showing off my body. I'm coming out of my shell,
Speaker 2: and she's helping me come out of my shell.
Speaker 1: Trish liked to go out. It was something Hannah hadn't
Speaker 1: really done before, but pretty quickly she realized she liked
Speaker 1: it too.
Speaker 2: When Trish would call me, it was meet me at
Speaker 2: this bar. She drank beers, she drank shots, and so
Speaker 2: I started drinking beers and I started drinking shots, and
Speaker 2: I noticed that it was a lot easier to be
Speaker 2: at bars and easier to talk to tawnies and strangers,
Speaker 2: and I followed her lead.
Speaker 1: Over time, Hannah began distancing herself from the other first years,
Speaker 1: and she was spending more and more nights with Trish.
Speaker 2: I felt like, here, at last, is a friend who's school,
Speaker 2: who I can talk to and go out with. Here's
Speaker 2: my first female adult friend. Her friendship when I was
Speaker 2: feeling so vulnerable was transformative.
Speaker 1: Trish was Hannah's first real friend, and their bond only
Speaker 1: grew stronger. During Hannah's second year in grad school.
Speaker 2: We were brought closer by the fact that my stepfather,
Speaker 2: who had adopted me, was sick my entire second year.
Speaker 1: He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Trish knew what
Speaker 1: Hannah was going through. She had lost her own dad
Speaker 1: a couple of years earlier.
Speaker 2: She understood grief, and she understood loss. And when I
Speaker 2: would become quiet or start crying at a bar, she
Speaker 2: was not judgmental. She knew how to act around me.
Speaker 1: Hannah's other grad school friends just didn't get.
Speaker 2: It, and so I ultimately ended up isolating myself from
Speaker 2: them and sort of glombed onto Trish and the Charlottesville
Speaker 2: music scene.
Speaker 1: Trish was dating a guy named George, a poet in
Speaker 1: the program. The two of them were very plugged into
Speaker 1: the live music scene in town, so they would often
Speaker 1: bring Hannah to shows. That's how Hannah met Patrick. He
Speaker 1: was a musician in a local band.
Speaker 2: Trish and George they loved the band. They love this guy,
Speaker 2: Trish said, one night, you got to meet him. He's
Speaker 2: so great, he's so cute. He had a girlfriend, so
Speaker 2: I didn't think of him as a love interest, but
Speaker 2: I did meet him and I was like, ah, he
Speaker 2: is cute.
Speaker 1: During this period, Hannah was often traveling home to spend
Speaker 1: time with her family and visit her stepdad in hospice.
Speaker 2: Trish knew that I played a lot to scrabble with
Speaker 2: my family, and she knew that Patrick played scrabble. And
Speaker 2: I never would have made the first move to be
Speaker 2: in touch with Patrick because I didn't really know how
Speaker 2: to have male friends at that point in my life.
Speaker 1: But Trisha insisted that the two of them should hang out,
Speaker 1: so she gave Patrick Hannon's number.
Speaker 2: I got a phone call one day from Patrick saying,
Speaker 2: Trish says, you play scrabble. I said, yeah, I play
Speaker 2: scrabble and he said, okay, well I'm on the downtown mall.
Speaker 2: Why don't you bring your scrabble board and let's play.
Speaker 2: And I said, I thought you have a girlfriend, and
Speaker 2: he's like, this isn't a date. I do have a girlfriend.
Speaker 2: I want to play scrabble. And I thought, oh, okay, weird, bizarre,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing anything. So I went. We played scrabble
Speaker 2: at a coffee shop and we just started playing scrabble
Speaker 2: all the time, and he became my first male friend.
Speaker 1: Like Trish. Patrick was confident, maybe even a little cocky,
Speaker 1: but they had a real connection.
Speaker 2: He's a really smart guy, and he was an excellent critic,
Speaker 2: and his brain was razor sharp, so we had great
Speaker 2: conversations and he was so much fun.
Speaker 1: Their relationship was platonic. Even after Patrick broke up with
Speaker 1: his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: He just started dating a lot of women, and I thought,
Speaker 2: this is so wonderful. I've got a male friend who
Speaker 2: I get the male perspective from he gets the female
Speaker 2: perspective from me.
Speaker 1: But their dynamics started to shift after Patrick had a
Speaker 1: major surgery. It meant he needed to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time resting at home.
Speaker 2: His recovery corresponded with the beginning of the grieving process
Speaker 2: because my stepfather died, and we started spending just a
Speaker 2: ton of time together.
Speaker 1: Hannah would even bring Patrick long to check on her mom,
Speaker 1: who was now living outside of Charlottesville.
Speaker 2: I took Patrick out to my mom's farmhouse one day
Speaker 2: and the three of us played scrabble, and it was
Speaker 2: like the first time I saw my mom laugh. And
Speaker 2: the two of them loved each other. They got along
Speaker 2: so well, and it got to the point where my
Speaker 2: mom would call Patrick when she'd come into town and say,
Speaker 2: I'm going to the grocery store, and Patrick would go
Speaker 2: to the grocery store with her. He would take her
Speaker 2: to bars. I mean, he was helping her find small
Speaker 2: amounts of joy.
Speaker 1: She started to see a different side of him as
Speaker 1: they grew closer. They started going out with Trish and George.
Speaker 2: The four of us had become this kind of Charlottesville unit.
Speaker 2: I would see Patrick and we'd play scrabble, and then
Speaker 2: we'd go to a bar and meet up with Trician George.
Speaker 1: The four of them were always out together, talking to
Speaker 1: strangers and laughing until the bars closed down.
Speaker 2: You feel young and invincible, and this is where stories
Speaker 2: are happening. You're interacting with people, you're overhearing strange bits
Speaker 2: of dialogue.
Speaker 1: She was finally living life, and she was channeling these
Speaker 1: experiences into her writing.
Speaker 2: I had so many ideas, and I was still getting
Speaker 2: all of my writing done, and because I was in
Speaker 2: my twenties and made of elastic, I'd wake up the
Speaker 2: next morning at seven and just start writing.
Speaker 1: She was a good writer. She regularly submitted to literary magazines,
Speaker 1: and she was getting published.
Speaker 2: It felt like this fantasy that I had was within
Speaker 2: my reach. As long as I keep trying. As long
Speaker 2: as I keep trying, I keep writing, there's a possibility
Speaker 2: that this could be my life.
Speaker 1: And Patrick actually started to write short stories of his own.
Speaker 1: He wasn't in school or in their writing program, but.
Speaker 2: Hanging out with Trish and me, fiction writers, hanging out
Speaker 2: with George, a poet, he did start writing stories.
Speaker 1: The two of them would often spend scrabble games talking
Speaker 1: about books and story ideas. Hannah also trusted Patrick to
Speaker 1: read her works in progress.
Speaker 2: He would get wistful sometimes and say, I don't know
Speaker 2: how you're like how you are. You're just so cool
Speaker 2: and you're such a good writer, and nothing seems to
Speaker 2: bother you, And of course inside I am nothing but
Speaker 2: roiling turmoil.
Speaker 1: With these kinds of comments, Hannah started to wonder was
Speaker 1: Patrick into her.
Speaker 2: It felt good to be seen, and it felt good
Speaker 2: to be perceived as attractive, and it felt good to
Speaker 2: have this attractive man perceive me as attractive, and before
Speaker 2: I knew it, I was crushing pretty hard on him.
Speaker 1: She wasn't going to make the move. She knew Patrick
Speaker 1: had other women in his life, and it was hard
Speaker 1: to tell for sure if the feelings were mutual. And
Speaker 1: then it was.
Speaker 2: One of those nights that was not uncommon for the
Speaker 2: four of us, where we had shut the bars down.
Speaker 2: We went back to his house. You know, he'd kind
Speaker 2: of been doing that thing where he was touching my
Speaker 2: elbow with his elbow and making eye contact a little
Speaker 2: too long. He's making some inside joke references about things
Speaker 2: that we'd been talking about during scrabble, and it's just
Speaker 2: incredible tension that is mounting. Then at a certain point,
Speaker 2: probably like four in the morning, George and Trish went
Speaker 2: back to their apartment and I was going to call
Speaker 2: a cab, but.
Speaker 1: She didn't call a cab. They kissed, and she spent
Speaker 1: the night.
Speaker 2: We went from being best friends to one night makeout
Speaker 2: to basically living with one another. There were so many
Speaker 2: mornings when I would wake up and I would look
Speaker 2: over and I'd see that it was Patrick in bed,
Speaker 2: and I would think, I am so lucky. I get
Speaker 2: to do this for the rest of my life. I
Speaker 2: actually like the person that I'm waking up with, And
Speaker 2: it was just it was bliss.
Speaker 1: They were in love. Still, much of the time they'd
Speaker 1: spend together was in their group.
Speaker 2: Before it was non stop double dating with Trish and George.
Speaker 1: But eventually the group's lifestyle started to catch up with Hannah.
Speaker 2: Trish and Patrick weren't just drinkers. They were late night drinkers,
Speaker 2: and so that's what I became too. For a little while.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of moments where I would reflect
Speaker 2: on what I was doing and how I was behaving,
Speaker 2: and I'd be pretty scared.
Speaker 1: She didn't like what heavy drinking did to her who
Speaker 1: it made her become, and she certainly didn't like what
Speaker 1: alcohol did to Trish.
Speaker 2: She could be pretty aggressive, she could be rude, She
Speaker 2: could piss people off in bars.
Speaker 1: When Trish got like this, it would set Patrick off.
Speaker 2: He had a bit of a temper too, so their
Speaker 2: tempers could kind of go up against one another.
Speaker 1: Knights would often end in fights, and even when they didn't,
Speaker 1: things like this would happen.
Speaker 2: The four of us were out, Tricia and I were
Speaker 2: at the bar. George and Patrick were sitting where we
Speaker 2: could see them, but it was pretty packed, and she
Speaker 2: was saying, I knew he'd come around. I knew he'd
Speaker 2: realize he loved you. I knew it. I just knew it.
Speaker 1: Trish wasn't being the supportive, encouraging friend Hannah had first met.
Speaker 2: She wanted to just remind me that he hadn't crushed
Speaker 2: on me as hard as I'd crushed on him at
Speaker 2: the beginning, and she always loved to point out that
Speaker 2: she had been friends with him first.
Speaker 1: Instead, it felt like she was going out of her
Speaker 1: way to cut Hannah down.
Speaker 2: And this drove me a little bit crazy.
Speaker 1: When Hannah started dating Patrick, her relationship with her best
Speaker 1: friend started to shift. It seemed like Trisha always had
Speaker 1: something to say, and it felt like at times she
Speaker 1: was undercutting Hannah's relationship with Patrick. After Hannah graduated, a
Speaker 1: window opened. Her mom offered Hannah and Patrick the chance
Speaker 1: to live rent free in her mother's farmhouse outside the city.
Speaker 2: We needed a new place to live, and we were broke.
Speaker 2: I was waiting tables, he was gigging and teaching music,
Speaker 2: and we were so desperate for money. I was desperate
Speaker 2: for money. So when my mom offered this free place
Speaker 2: to live, it was not lost on me that this
Speaker 2: farmhouse came with a happy coincidence of having some emotional
Speaker 2: distance from Trish and what felt to me like her
Speaker 2: constant oversight. So we had this kind of break, and
Speaker 2: I thought it was magical, just magical.
Speaker 1: Moving into the farmhouse allowed Hannah to make writing her priority.
Speaker 1: She submitted more stories for publication and even began writing
Speaker 1: her first novel. To her surprise, Patrick wanted to do
Speaker 1: the same.
Speaker 2: He started wanting to focus on writing, and some of
Speaker 2: the stories were good, and he got a lot of
Speaker 2: publications all on his own.
Speaker 1: Other times he leaned on Hannah.
Speaker 2: It felt like every time I got a story accepted,
Speaker 2: his first response would be, you should tell the editor
Speaker 2: about this story I just wrote. And every time I
Speaker 2: would email the editor and say, hey, there's this great
Speaker 2: story that I just read by a friend of mine. Right.
Speaker 2: And he got a few publications that way, but.
Speaker 1: His success was limited compared to Hannah's, and he struggled
Speaker 1: with being farther away from town. It took a toll
Speaker 1: on Patrick.
Speaker 2: Every day I'd get up, i'd write, and at three
Speaker 2: thirty I would drive into Charlottesville and start my shift
Speaker 2: at the steakhouse and he'd stay home, and that's where
Speaker 2: he started drinking during the day.
Speaker 1: Hannah's mom also noticed a change in Patrick. She once
Speaker 1: called Hannah during her workshift and.
Speaker 2: She said, I saw Patrick this morning. He was wearing
Speaker 2: a robe, and I said, well, it was morning, mom,
Speaker 2: and she said yes, And I saw him again just
Speaker 2: now and he's still wearing a robe, and it's five
Speaker 2: o'clock in the afternoon. It was a moment when I
Speaker 2: realized she could see what I could see that troubled me.
Speaker 1: Life in the farmhouse wasn't working for Patrick, Hannah was worried.
Speaker 1: She knew they needed a change. That's when her book sold.
Speaker 2: When I got that book deal, it was all of
Speaker 2: those dreams, everything I'd wanted for so long.
Speaker 1: And the good news didn't stop there. On top of
Speaker 1: the sale of her book, Hannah was offered a teaching
Speaker 1: position in Chicago. Plus Patrick was offered a spot in
Speaker 1: an MFA program in Boston. He could complete it and
Speaker 1: then go meet Hannah in Chicago. They decided it would
Speaker 1: be a great change, a fresh start.
Speaker 2: So we knew that we were going to be leaving Charlottesville,
Speaker 2: and at about the same time, George and Trish decided
Speaker 2: that they were going to move to New York.
Speaker 1: Trish and George were also ready for a new beginning.
Speaker 1: By this point, they were married and Charlottesville was feeling
Speaker 1: small with big changes coming, the group became nostalgic. Trish
Speaker 1: and George were still Hannah and Patrick's close friends, and
Speaker 1: no one knew when they'd all be together again. So
Speaker 1: for their last couple months in Virginia, Hannah and Patrick
Speaker 1: moved back into town to relive the old days as
Speaker 1: a group of four.
Speaker 2: And suddenly it was like the four of us together again.
Speaker 2: But I think what I told myself was, we all
Speaker 2: are doing this because it's a last hurrah, and we
Speaker 2: know that things are about to change. We're moving to
Speaker 2: Chicago and they're moving to New York, and therefore it's
Speaker 2: a last hurrah.
Speaker 1: Right away, they fell back into their old patterns. Hannah
Speaker 1: always ended the night feeling hurt or embarrassed, but whenever
Speaker 1: she asked Patrick if they could cut back on time with.
Speaker 2: Tritian George, he would say, they're part of my past,
Speaker 2: They're part of who I am. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to have a social life without them.
Speaker 1: Patrick was in a fragile place, and Hannah knew that
Speaker 1: Trician George made him feel like his old self, so
Speaker 1: instead of demanding that they cut off their friends, she
Speaker 1: went along with it, at least for the time being.
Speaker 2: I will just deal with it. I've always dealt with
Speaker 2: the things that are uncomfortable. I can handle it. I
Speaker 2: can handle it. It'll be fine.
Speaker 1: It was clear to Hannah that she'd outgrown the group.
Speaker 1: It was a challenging couple of months, but then it
Speaker 1: finally came time for Hannah and Patrick to move on.
Speaker 1: He spent a year in Boston and then we.
Speaker 2: Moved to Chicago, and I wrote another book.
Speaker 1: Through this big transition, Patrick was there for Hannah.
Speaker 2: He made me feel desirable. He made me feel intelligent,
Speaker 2: and he made me feel like it was so obvious
Speaker 2: that I would be ambitious, and it was so obvious
Speaker 2: that I was going to be successful.
Speaker 1: He was her champion. But when it came to his
Speaker 1: own career, he felt discouraged. He was writing his first book.
Speaker 1: Unlike Hannah, he had a difficult time getting published. So
Speaker 1: once again his mental health took a turn for the worse.
Speaker 2: He really was struggling with giving up who he'd been
Speaker 2: in Charlottesville, which was a big fish in a small pond.
Speaker 2: His band was the popular band at the time when
Speaker 2: he was living in Charlottesville, so he'd gone from kind
Speaker 2: of like Golden God in Charlottesville to a dude struggling
Speaker 2: to find work and writing his first novel in Chicago,
Speaker 2: living with a novelist who's got a full time job.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an easy time for Hannah either. Her second
Speaker 1: book wasn't finding a publisher as quickly as her first.
Speaker 2: And then my agent was shopping that second book and
Speaker 2: it was getting rejected. And that's when Patrick proposed.
Speaker 1: She said, yes, Finally they had some thing to look
Speaker 1: forward to. So they started planning the wedding.
Speaker 2: We wanted it to be small, intimate, Charlottesville based. It
Speaker 2: was a beautiful wedding.
Speaker 1: Of course, Tritian George were there. Even though those last
Speaker 1: couple months together were rocky for Hannah, they remained the
Speaker 1: couple's closest friends.
Speaker 2: They were the origin story, That's how I met him.
Speaker 2: So they were one of three couples who were there
Speaker 2: that were not somehow related to us.
Speaker 1: The day was everything Hannah hoped it would be.
Speaker 2: We did our own vowels, We wrote them together, and
Speaker 2: we put on like it was like a scene that
Speaker 2: we did. He cried. I felt so happy. I felt
Speaker 2: so happy getting married to him.
Speaker 1: And then and then her book did find a publisher.
Speaker 1: And she sold a third book right after that. She
Speaker 1: was elated, but Patrick wasn't.
Speaker 2: That third book deal I think really really hurt him.
Speaker 2: I think my shadow just got bigger for him and
Speaker 2: he started feeling smaller.
Speaker 1: He turned to Tritian George for support.
Speaker 2: They always made him feel like the person he had
Speaker 2: been in his twenties. In Charlottesville.
Speaker 1: They made more of an effort to see Trician George
Speaker 1: with vacations and visits back and forth.
Speaker 2: It felt like they were our best couple friend again.
Speaker 2: They were always there. They were always there.
Speaker 1: Hannah also helped Patrick secure a teaching job when she
Speaker 1: got a new role at a university in Kentucky. The
Speaker 1: move and the job did little to help Patrick and
Speaker 1: his dreams of a book deal.
Speaker 2: He'd gotten close a couple times, but it just didn't
Speaker 2: happen for him.
Speaker 1: By this point, they'd been together for nearly ten years.
Speaker 1: Hannah was accomplishing everything she wanted in life. Meanwhile, her
Speaker 1: husband was miserable and she couldn't help but feel that
Speaker 1: he resented her for her success. He was lost and
Speaker 1: grasping for any sense of purpose. She didn't know how
Speaker 1: to help him. Finally, Patrick was given an opportunity. The
Speaker 1: second summer after they moved to Kentucky, he was offered
Speaker 1: two prestigious writing residencies.
Speaker 2: One was in France and one was at Yadoe, and
Speaker 2: there was a two week down period between the residencies.
Speaker 1: It would mean a lot of time apart, but Hannah
Speaker 1: thought this was good for Patrick and for their relationship. Besides,
Speaker 1: she'd be traveling a lot that summer promoting her third book.
Speaker 1: She told Patrick to go.
Speaker 2: The idea was by the end of July, we would
Speaker 2: be back in Kentucky together, he would get therapy, and
Speaker 2: we would figure things.
Speaker 1: Out between France and his next residency in the States.
Speaker 1: Patrick he had a week off and he spent it
Speaker 1: in New York visiting old friends.
Speaker 2: He decided to go to New York City and stay
Speaker 2: with our very good friend Hugh. And the idea was
Speaker 2: he would go back and forth between Hughes place and
Speaker 2: Trisias and George Place so that he wasn't a burden,
Speaker 2: and then he goes to Yado and he keeps writing.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened, or so Hannah was told. The
Speaker 1: week after Patrick went to a second residency, Hannah needed
Speaker 1: to be in New York for her book launch. She
Speaker 1: was going to crash with their friend Hugh, just like
Speaker 1: Patrick had the week before. She got in a day early,
Speaker 1: and the night before her book launch, she and Hugh
Speaker 1: stayed a bla talking randomly. They got on the topic
Speaker 1: of jealousy.
Speaker 2: And I said something like, oh, I'm not a suspicious person,
Speaker 2: and he said, maybe you should be more suspicious. And
Speaker 2: I said, that's a really interesting thing to say, and
Speaker 2: he said, you should ask me questions.
Speaker 1: She didn't know where this was coming from, but Hugh
Speaker 1: seemed serious, like he had something he needed to say,
Speaker 1: like he was trying to tell her something.
Speaker 2: And I said, is this about Patrick? And he said yes.
Speaker 2: And I said, did something happen when Patrick was in
Speaker 2: New York last week without me? And he said yes.
Speaker 2: At this point, my heart has just like dropped and
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm in a vomit And I said,
Speaker 2: did Patrick have sex with someone? And he said yes.
Speaker 1: She knew the question she really wanted to ask. She
Speaker 1: was just afraid of Hugh's answer.
Speaker 2: But finally I said, did he have sex with Trish?
Speaker 2: And Hugh said.
Speaker 1: Yes. On the next episode of Betrayal.
Speaker 2: My agent sent me an email and the subject was
Speaker 2: have you seen this? And I opened it and I
Speaker 2: read it, and I read it again and I wasn't
Speaker 2: able to really make sense of what I was reading.
Speaker 1: If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team,
Speaker 1: email us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com, and be sure to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Betrayal Pod. We're grateful for your support.
Speaker 1: One way to show support is by subscribing to our
Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and
Speaker 1: review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A
Speaker 1: big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is
Speaker 1: a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment
Speaker 1: Group and partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive
Speaker 1: produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced
Speaker 1: by me Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced
Speaker 1: by Caitlin Golden and Monique Leboard, with additional production by
Speaker 1: Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Mercury and Caitlyn Golden.
Speaker 1: Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Audio
Speaker 1: editing and mixing by Matt del Vecchio, additional editing support
Speaker 1: from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music
Speaker 1: library provided by mybe Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts