Confession
Chapter 32: Confession
“Tawan! Tawan, where are you?!"
Ira’s purse slipped from her fingertips onto the ground as she rushed into the living room in desperate search. She wiped at her eyes again as her tears seemed to fall like someone had turned on a faucet. Her stomach felt like a fist was strangling it and she put her hand to it as she quickly made her way through the house in search of her wife.
It was a miracle that she did not cause an accident as she rushed home after she hung up her phone. She cursed as she thought about that conversation and a sob escaped her as she imagined what state her wife was in right now.
Lai had pulled her cellphone number from Tawan’s employee file when she got to the office that morning in anticipation for what was going to happen. She had initially meant to use it to call Ira to threaten her that Tawan’s job now rested in her hands. What she was going to do with that power, she still had not decided then.
All Lai wanted to do was make Ira bend to her will and force her to see what they could be if she gave them a chance. In her mind, Ira would come crawling back now that Tawan had nothing and was nothing.
Ira had tried to call Tawan from the moment she hung up on Lai until she arrived home just now. She fished her cellphone out of her back pocket again and tried to control her trembling hands as she tried to call her wife again. Her phone went straight to voicemail like it had been doing this whole time and she let out a cry as her panic started to make her even more physically sick.
Ira did not care if Tawan was mad at her, she just wanted to know she was safe because she knew she was not okay.
“Tawan!” Ira cried again, hoping she would emerge from a room.
Ira stomped her foot in frustration and looked up to the ceiling hoping some divine intervention would take place to ease what was surely to be a major blow. She wiped at her eyes with her hand and arm then rushed to the back glass sliding door to use the sunlight since she did not turn on any lights on her way in. Her mind was solely focused and zeroed in on finding Tawan.
Ira sent Tawan multiple text messages again asking her to please call her to let her know she was okay and to let her explain. She did not care if she had to beg or spend the rest of her life making this up to her. She would never hesitate to any of those.
Just as Ira was starting to fall into a pit of despair, she put her phone to her ear again to attempt another call when she almost cried in joy at the sight before her.
Tawan was outside in their backyard, standing with her back to her by the twins soccer ball and her head looking down at it, holding a bottle of whiskey by the neck of the bottle.
Even from right where she was at, Ira could see in the way her shoulders sagged that she was, indeed, not okay and it made her grab her stomach again. She looked to the bottle again and knew Tawan had drank a rather large amount of it because she had bought it for her a few days ago when she noticed they were running low. It made her put her hand to her mouth as she pocketed her phone and opened the sliding door.
Tawan stared down at the soccer ball and tried to not think about everything she had learned within the last few hours. She tried to push down the bile that kept forcing it’s way up her throat when she thought about what she had missed the last month. Her gut kept telling her something was wrong, that Ira was acting weird and that she should investigate it, but she trusted her wife to be honest with her.
To trust her.
This was all new territory and she felt so lost on how to navigate it. She was overwhelmed with all of this on top of the blow of being fired from her job, the circumstances & emotions tied to it, followed by Lai's words. It was a serious undertaking to have to endure her conversation with Lai and then still find the stomach to go say goodbye to her team before rushing out of the office.
On top of feeling like a failure for being fired from her job, Tawan was hurt, she was angry, she was pissed, she felt helpless and inadequate, but, most of all, she felt betrayed.
Why would her wife keep this from her?
The longer she stared at the soccer ball, the more she thought about what Lai had said. If she had stayed behind then she would have been the one to marry Ira and would have shared her most precious memories with her, that she would have been the one to take the twins to practices and to tuck them in at night. That she would have been the one to provide for and love on her family the way they deserved.
It all led to Tawan torturing herself about how she had nothing now to provide for her family, how Lai still loved Ira and maybe she felt the same for her. Because why else would she keep this from her?
Her mind went back to the first day they met when they went to lunch and Lai told her that she let the girl she wanted get away in college. This whole time, Ira was that girl. The girl she agreed with her on that if she were in her shoes and there was always a chance to get it right with Ira should they not be together now in their fairytale life then she would take it every single time because it would be for Ira.
Tawan's stomach constricted and she winced as she felt a new wave of emotions hit her. She lifted the bottle to her lips again and took a long drink as she felt every nerve in her body start to vibrate with numbness to work to make her forget. Whatever it would take to suck this spreading pain and these pounding emotions out through her pores is what she would do.
“Tawan,” Ira called gently, hesitating near her to give her space.
Tawan bristled, her back going rigid and the white of her knuckles gripping around the neck of the bottle in order to not bring it back up to her lips.
At the unexpected sound of her wife’s voice, she felt the familiar, sensual sensation go up her spine in anticipation. She cursed her body for giving her away, for still reacting to her as if the last few hours had not happened. She closed her eyes tightly as tears brimmed them again at what she knew was going to be a defining moment for their relationship.
This mess was going to test their relationship in ways they would have never imagined for themselves. The unknown of it all made her legs wobble at how threatening it felt, how unsure it felt, how unprepared she felt.
“Tawan, please look at me,” Ira begged around desperate tears.
Tawan shook her head once and ran her tongue tightly over her bottom lip to try to compose herself. She loved Ira more than anything on this planet, the only other thing to share that fulfilling and boundless love being their children. They were the product of them, the vision of what their love had created, the embodiment of what came to fruition.
She was hit with a silent sob in her chest at the thought of them and the fear of what the future held. All of these thoughts and feelings made her wish and hope that it was all a dramatic reaction to the situation. However, her heart and mind were conflicted, and they had so many questions and battled for who would get to go first.
“Tawan, I love you,” Ira said, weeping, the painful sound coming from the back of her throat.
“Love?” Tawan whispered harshly as she whirled to her. Her eyes were wild and ablaze, the whiskey coursing through her veins and speaking for her now.
“Tawan,” Ira cried bewilderedly at her tone. “D-don’t say that-,”
“Why have you been lying to me this whole time?” She accused, sloshing her drink as she threw her arm out.
“I didn’t lie to you,” Ira defended, bracing herself and raising her clasped hands to her. “I was going to tell you-“
“When, Ira?!” Tawan demanded, her eyes wretched and pained. “Yesterday? Today? Tomorrow?"
Tawan felt a sharp pain in her stomach that instantly stopped her from continuing as she thought about all the time that had passed. Ira could see it so clearly, the thing she feared the most in this mess, and it made her cry harder at being the cause of it.
"Or was it going to be after her contract was up?" Tawan accused, voice tightening at the next part feeling like betrayal. "Did you want her to do it for you? Dammit, Ira. How much longer were you going to keep letting me make a fool of myself?!”
Ira was crushed by the blame in her tone directed at her, the bite each word inflicted. She could not believe what she was saying to her and how she was saying it. This was not her normally soft spoken wife, the one person who always talked to her like honey spilled from her lips or as if she knew she was nurturing her with every word.
Tawan looked away from her, shame creeping up her arm so she reached down to pull her sleeve up and scratch it. She looked up at the beautiful sky, wiping under her nose and laughing ruefully at how everything did not seem real but looking up made it real. Reality just kept setting in, swinging wild punches at her furiously and unrepentantly.
The heat and her work attire of her long sleeved collared shirt and dress slacks were starting to make her sweat, so she abruptly brushed past Ira, thankful for the momentary escape and much needed space to head back inside their home to try to cool down. Her mind was racing before Ira showed up, but now it was accelerating and she struggled to try to slow it down so she could try to articulate her feelings. Ira reacted to her and the just as hasty wind that blew past her, still shell shocked by her words and her harsh tone.
Tawan headed to the dining room table to set her bottle down to lean the palms of her hands onto the cool surface, looking down and closing her eyes. She took deep breaths and tried to collect herself, but the whiskey was doing its job in numbing her senses and body so she could gain some courage. Ira followed in after her a minute later after crying outside into her hand trying to not feel like she destroyed the person she loved the most and in effect like her world was crumbling around her.
The hurt in her wife’s voice, the debilitating pain & betrayal in her eyes, and the resigned defeat in her body all made her hand go to her stomach yet again.
“Tawan,” Ira cried desperately. “I was always going to tell you. I was just trying to find the right time. I had to know why she was here before I upended-“
“The right time was the moment you found out, Ira,” Tawan snapped as she turned to her. “You don’t keep something like this from me. We don’t keep anything like this from each other. There is no excuse. You lied to me!”
“I didn’t lie to you!” Ira shot back defensively, scrambling to make her see reason. “You don’t know her like I do. There is so much more to the story!”
“Oh, well, that's because you never gave me a chance to,” Tawan argued with a humorless smile. “How am I supposed to know if you don’t tell me. For almost four weeks now, Ira. You kept this a secret from me for almost a month!”
“There is no secret, Tawan. You don’t understand,” Ira argued back, her voice cracking under pressure. “She’s not who you think she is.”
“What does it matter who she is?” Tawan insisted and pointed outside. “I lost my job today because my boss thought that she could do a better job at it than me. This whole fucking time I didn’t know who she was to you. Then she comes into my office right after I got fired and tells me all of this bullshit about you and her and how you used to date. H-how she still loves you. Do you know how stupid I felt?!”
“She is nothing to me, Tawan. Absolutely nothing. You don’t know who she is! That’s not the full story,” Ira protested desperately, slicing her hand through the air.
“So it isn’t true that maybe you two would be married with children right now had she not left the country?” Tawan challenged, pointing her finger at her accusingly.
“Absolutely fucking not!” Ira shrilled, stepping to her determinedly.
"She said she still loves you...a-and that maybe you do, too," she croaked, the words catching in her throat. She had to look away from her and put her hand to her churning stomach like she had been doing for the past few hours now every time she thought about that.
"I have never loved her, Tawan," Ira shrieked, shocked and devastated that she would even remotely think such a thing. "She is a liar and a manipulator who cannot be trusted. I can't believe you would even think that! You know me better than anyone."
Tawan closed her eyes and felt a shuddering breath ripple through her as tears sprang again. Despite the very clear truth coming from Ira and the wonderful life they built as proof, she was far too gone in her whiskey to see it with Lai's words still hanging over her head like a dark cloud. Everything was just so complex and felt like it had too many layers to try to understand at once and so quickly.
Ira knew her waiting to tell her wife everything could potentially be a grave mistake despite her very valid reasons. Lai was a gamble of the most dangerous and destructive kind. She had proof in the experience of a wrist brace and bruises from a decade ago, and the emotional and mental scars she fought so hard to mask every day in the present.
Ira knew her wife would not be viscerally reacting this way had she told her everything from the beginning. The more she thought about it, the more she wished she could go back in time to do it all over. But that was easier said than done, and especially now that they were here right now.
She wondered if her reaction to her trauma would have let her, and seeing her wife right now like this made her conclude she would rather try than not.
Lai being the one to break the news to Tawan consumed her with so much confusion that it clouded her judgement. A stranger told her this huge thing before the person she trusted most in this world to do did. It forced her to draw the only conclusion she could come to as to why her wife would keep something like this from her.
She kept beating herself up thinking about how she kept missing everything, wondering if her long hours at work neglected her from so many other signs that caused her to slip as a dedicated partner to her wife. She took so much pride in being so observant and in touch with Ira. And as much as Tawan wanted Ira to shoulder all the blame for this because of how much it hurt her, she felt she had to share some of it considering she knew she had been putting her job first for so long now despite that not being even remotely the whole truth.
But what else could she use an explanation as to why her wife was now harboring secrets from her? Because the alternative, the only other answer she could think of, shattered her and threatened to deplete her of everything she knew and thought she was to her wife. She had been running from it this whole time the last few hours, quickly shifting her thinking to something else to avoid it all costs.
This was on top of the worse thing being that it was an ex of hers that she had no knowledge about or even knew existed. It was one thing to keep a secret from her, but it was whole other thing to make her feel and look like a fool for not knowing they shared a past this whole time. She was battling with herself about this betrayal and what to categorize it as, refusing the word "cheater".
Who was Lai to Ira before and how was she able to make her keep this from her?
“Well, according to her she used to spoil you and could give you everything you wanted,” Tawan spat bitterly, throat tightening as she turned back to her and pointed again. "Who is she to you, Ira?"
“She's nobody to me, Tawan! She's someone I never wanted to see again,” Ira sobbed, offended as she pushed her finger down. “I don't want her. I want you. I love you. This is my life! You and our children. This is all I want!”
“Are you sure, Ira?” She laughed, sounding mockingly, and turned from her. She snatched the bottle and took another drink before sliding it back down on the table and pressing her fists into her eyes.
Ira watched her back for a moment, shocked at her implication. “Y-you have every right to be upset with me. But don’t you ever question my love for you and our family again,” she whispered shakily, her pain forming a lump in her throat.
Tawan’s heart clenched at her voice but she kept her back to her. Ira waited, wanting her words to sink deep between them, then quickly wiped her tears away.
“Why did you keep this a secret from me?” Tawan begged to the ceiling tiredly, her throat closing as her eyes closed.
“I didn’t keep anything secret from you, Tawan,” she insisted, wearied by the back and forth misunderstanding and miscommunication as she stepped to her. "There is nothing to keep secret."
“Fine, Ira! Then what the hell else do you call it?!” Tawan demanded and turned to her, her frustration taking control again. "What is the reason you kept this from me?"
Ira could feel so many words at the tip of her tongue and tried with all her might to push them over. Tawan could see she was holding something back, the flickers behind her eyes trying to give her away just like they had been this whole time. They were both begging the other with their eyes for understanding.
“I was getting ready to tell you. I was always going to tell you,” Ira pressed around tears, channeling all of her strength as she stepped into her space again.
“It shouldn’t have taken you a month to tell me this,” Tawan objected, voice cracking as she looked away from her for a second. "Even right now you still won't tell me! What is so important that you are still hesitating to say it to me?"
“Nothing is important! I just needed to know why she was here before I gave you any more stress at work. I was trying to protect you,” Ira shared sincerely, reaching for her.
“Don't,” she rejected and flinched from her. "That's not an excuse."
Ira's knees buckled and her hands shook at the way Tawan recoiled from her as if she were fire. She could see her wife withdrawing from her and closing in on herself as if she was trying to protect herself. All Ira wanted to do was comfort her - for both of their sakes.
“I never said it was,” Ira pressed on weakly. She looked both small and like she was barely hanging on by a thread.
She knew she had to tell Tawan everything immediately, but she did not know how or where to start. It felt daunting and overwhelming so much more now as she tried to take into account both her feelings and the storm of Tawan's. Everything would now feel like an excuse on her part and she could not share that dark part of her past with her wife under those circumstances.
They both deserved better than that.
“Then tell me the truth,” Tawan demanded, tone dripping accusation, pausing to swallow hard. “I-it’s because you don’t trust me.”
That admission sucked everything out of the room like a vacuum from the oxygen to the surrounding mass to the sound. It was so still that you could hear a pin drop on the rug under the table. It was like time had stopped.
Tawan had finally said it out loud.
And it made Ira’s heart stop at her voice sounding like a broken whisper in the wind.
Ira stiffened and her eyes winced at the way her wife's eyes bubbled with tears. How her mouth was slightly open and her jaw trembled, how the finger she pointed at the ground between them shook desperately. Seeing the embodiment of her love like this, so utterly crushed and confused, stopped her world dead on its axis.
She wanted to stop this fight, to grab onto her and to hold onto her and to never let her go. Ira could see how bad she had really hurt her, how deep to the bone it cut her, how her soul cried out in pain at wanting to understand. Being the cause of it all, knowing that she could have prevented this, made her hand shoot to her chest as an odd sensation spread across it and a painful sound escaped her tight lips that trembled.
For the first time in her life, Ira’s heart broke.
“Tawan,” she gasped sharply, her fingers painfully scratching at her shuddering chest. “T-that’s…that's not true."
Tawan stared her down and tried to calm her rapidly thudding heart that felt like it was vibrating her brain and rattling her teeth. She had to know, no matter how much the answer or realization may hurt, she had to know this crucial piece of information. When she proposed to Ira, she promised herself that she would never give her a reason to not trust her or to not believe in her.
If Ira was telling the truth and she had no feelings or love for Lai, that this person was really nothing to her, then this was the only other conclusion that she could come to. Something was off about the whole situation and it gnawed at the back of her brain. She could sense her wife's apprehension to delve everything to her, always in tune with her and especially if she was not with herself.
They were, after all, each other's compass. It was how she knew that something was off about her lately, even if she could not pinpoint it exactly. That was why to Tawan, it felt like Ira was running from something and it made her behavior lately seem like she was terrified of it.
In not so many words and mostly through her actions, that is what it felt like Ira was communicating to her. Whether she knew it or not, and especially whether she intended to or not.
This broke her to think about because of the dedication they made to each other to be open and vulnerable with one another to keep their relationship healthy and safe. That is why she had to know the truth, no matter how hard it would be to swallow. Because her wife, the person she adored most in this world, had to have known that she would have had her back always through thick and thin.
That was a bet that Tawan would have wagered her life on prior to this.
Instead, Ira robbed her and in turn themselves of the chance to prove that. It was not about pride, it was about fulfilling her duty and the vows they made to each other to stick by the other no matter what. Tawan never even got the opportunity to prepare her arsenal of protection to figure out how to mend and fix this or how to keep her safe. Whatever was holding Ira back from her, she would have worked tirelessly to cut the strings if given even just half a chance.
Tawan dedicated her life to moving mountains for Ira and she tripled her efforts when their children were born.
“You’re right,” Tawan said, sniffing and wiping her eyes quickly.
“Tawan,” Ira whispered thickly.
“You didn’t keep this a secret from me,” she clarified, shaking her head at her.
“Of course-,”
“How can this be a secret if you never told me?” Tawan continued, stepping to her closely. “A-and that’s because you don’t trust me.”
“Baby, please stop,” Ira begged, anguished as she weakly reached for her collar. Her sad effort was dodged and she slumped back in defeat.
“You didn’t trust me to handle whatever this is,” Tawan heaved and sucked in a watery breath. “It’s been a month, Ira. You didn’t even give me a chance. You haven’t trusted me from the beginning. All the way back ten years ago."
Ira stared at her, unable to say anything as her body was racked with tears and she tried to gather herself to protest her very wrong conclusion. Nothing could be further from the truth, but she was paralyzed by how hurt she looked and sounded knowing it was way worse on the inside. Being the sole cause of it all because it was her past that destroyed her one true love's life and trust in her.
She was deathly afraid thinking about how difficult and painful it would be to find a starting point on how to fix this, but committed to it nevertheless.
"The worst part is that I can't for the life of me figure out or understand why...w-why you still won't tell me," Tawan accused, body shaking with silent tears. "I'm standing right here, Ira. W-what did I do wrong? What could I have done more of? Dammit, Ira. After all this time, if what you are saying is true, you still don’t trust me to protect you and to stand by you.”
Ira’s hand shot to her mouth as she wept at how broken and betrayed Tawan sounded. Her words stabbed her like a million knives. She sounded so utterly defeated and looked so completely lost, so desperate and wanting to understand as if she still wanted to help.
Ira almost fainted at how lightheaded and consumed she felt being the cause of it all.
“I…I…,” Tawan croaked and turned from her in shame. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Ira reached for Tawan who flinched away from her hands as she scrambled to grab the bottle of whiskey before brushing past her. As soon as she disappeared down the hall, Ira fell to her knees beside the table. With one hand gripping on to the table and the other clutching at her stomach, she wept and hoped for a miracle.
Tawan could not stand the sight or sound of Ira crying like that despite her heart breaking into a million pieces because of her. But she meant every single word she said and it being out in the open triggered her fight or flight response so she ran away. She was suffocating again and her mind was blurring her vision as she rushed into her office, closed the door, and collapsed onto the small couch by her bookcase.
Both women broke down and desperately prayed that they could make it through this.