Betrayal - EP 28 – Hannah, Pt. 1

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Writer Hannah Pittard discovers that her best friend and her husband are sharing a secret.    You can find Hannah’s latest books here:  We Are Too Many: A Memoir If You Love It, Let It Kill You: A Novel  If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail] and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, it's Andrea Gunning. Our season of weekly stories is coming to an end. But don't worry, we'll be back soon with more episodes. So if you have a story of your own that you'd like to share on the podcast, email us at betrayalpod.gmail.com. In the meantime, we want to do something new and exciting. This month, we're taking short creative essay submissions from listeners. The theme is resilience in the face of a devastating betrayal. We want to hear the story of how you healed, scars and all.

Here's the catch. The limit is a thousand words. If your story stands out, it might be featured in a bonus episode. Please save your submission as a PDF and email it to betrayalpod at gmail.com. Okay, now on to the episode. At this point, my heart has just dropped and I feel like I'm in a vomit. The betrayal felt so intentional and possibly like it was a long time coming. I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal, a show about the people we trust the most and the deceptions that change everything.

Betrayals often come with a loss. On this show, we've heard stories from people who lost the love of their life or their understanding of who that person was. Others have had their children, their home, or their money taken from them. We've told stories about people losing their sense of self. But no matter the betrayal,

everyone we've talked to has held onto one thing, their story. Even when they lost everything, they still had the truth. But then we heard Hannah Petard's story. I remember writing stories from the time I was a little girl. Today, Hannah is an accomplished author. Stories have always been a big part of who she is. When she was little, Hannah's family lived on a farm outside of Atlanta. There, her imagination would run wild.

We had horses, chickens, barn kittens. It was a wonderful time. But it wasn't a wonderful time for everyone. When she was in elementary school, Hannah's parents began a bitter divorce. Hannah was the youngest of three, and at first the siblings all had each other. But eventually her older siblings went off to boarding school and Hannah

was left at home in the middle of her parents custody battle. I was constantly getting interviewed by a different therapist. It felt to my mind like we were constantly going to see a judge. Her escape was reading. I read and I would just go into this fictional dream and block out the noise of whatever was happening in the other room. That's when she started writing stories of her own. By sixth grade, I was writing poems, horrible, sad sack poems. And as a 13, 14 year old, I had started writing little sketches and just became pretty serious about it. Writing felt exciting. It allowed her to get lost in worlds of her own creation. But in her real life, Hannah was lonely. So she asked her parents to send her to boarding school. She thought it would be her chance to But in her real life, Hannah was lonely.

So she asked her parents to send her to boarding school. She thought it would be her chance to start over, to reinvent herself. But when she got there… I was still meek, naturally introverted, living in my head, writing stories. Hannah chose Deerfield Academy, a school known for its challenging academics. It was cutthroat, but Hannah hardly noticed. I was blissfully unaware of what an elite institution it was, and I was blissfully unaware of any kind of real competition. Truly the worst part of it was what I was doing in private to myself.

By 10th grade, Hannah developed an eating disorder. And as a note to listeners, we're going to talk about some details of her experience. For Hannah, controlling food was a way for her to feel a false sense of control. It only made the divide between her and her peers grow wider. You're a kid with a secret and it's a really big secret. It is a secret where you are hurting your body in this intentional way and you're not relying on the outer world and you're not trusting anybody else because you don't want to get caught.

You're just so much by yourself. Socially, I was definitely isolated and isolating. She kept her head down and focused on her studies, especially her English and creative writing classes. By the time I graduated, I'd won a couple of writing awards. So I had this idea that maybe I was good or I could be good. For college, she went to the University of Chicago and got her degree in English. I was too intimidated to take a single creative writing class. I didn't want to be told that I

wasn't as good as I felt like I'd been on Deerfield's campus. I thought, if I'm not saying what I want, then nobody knows to be disappointed in me or embarrassed on my behalf. Oh, you didn't get it. You wanted to be a writer and you didn't get it. Pursuing a real writing career terrified her, but she dreamed of a master's degree in fiction writing. So she sent in a few half-hearted applications.

I think I sent them something that I might not even have reread and swiftly was rejected. And I'm so glad that I was rejected because it was a wake-up call that if you want this, you have to try. She spent the next year honing her craft as best she could. It paid off. I got into several different programs and ultimately ended up at the University of Virginia. She packed up her life and headed to Charlottesville. And she made a promise to herself. The same one she'd made before boarding school.

You're going to get to grad school and you're going to become the social person that you know you want to be. You're going to change your life. From her first day in the program, that vision felt within reach. The program had its very first meeting. All of the second years in the program were there and all of the new first years were there. I will always remember the first time I saw Trish. She was captivating.

Trish was the second year in the program. She had on a great outfit, red lipstick. I think she had on a pair of yellow ballet flats. Her hair looked amazing. She just was cool. Trish was everything Hannah was not. And Hannah wanted to make a good first impression. Back then, I was being plagued with situational rosacea,

which I've had all my life. If you made eye contact with me, I either cried or blushed. And it's not just blushing. You know, I think sometimes people hear the word blush and they think of, like, these two little cherries on either side of your cheeks. It's like a rash that crawls up my neck and makes my cheeks splotchy.

So when she introduced herself to the group, she turned bright red, and Trish noticed. I'm still bright red and she came over and she put her hand on my arm and she said something like, it's really sweet how you blush when you're nervous. It makes you seem authentic. I was pretty excited that she'd noticed me. she made me feel seen, and we became friends after that. That day was a new beginning for Hannah. She was starting to have the social life she'd always wanted.

People from the program would call to invite me out, and they'd come back to my house for house parties. And meanwhile, we're all just reading and writing and going to coffee shops. It was the fantasy that I'd imagined for myself. And at all these events, Hannah would watch Trish command the room. Trish seemed so comfortable in her skin. She seemed comfortable being pretty. She seemed comfortable being perceived as somebody who wanted to look pretty. Meanwhile, I am all day long, nonstop thinking about my body during this time. I was so embarrassed of having anyone think that I wanted to be

pretty or sexy or feminine, even though that is desperately what I wanted to be pretty or sexy or feminine, even though that is desperately what I wanted. Trish started calling Hannah to hang out and her confidence began to rub off on Hannah. For so long, Hannah had been trying to make herself small, emotionally and physically. For instance, she would only wear sports bras. I was eliminating curves, but I was also eliminating the embarrassment of being perceived as somebody

who wanted to be sexy. But Trish inspired Hannah to make a change. For the first time ever, I stopped wearing jog bras. And then I started wearing skirts with her encouragement and I started showing off my body. I'm coming out of my shell and she's helping me come out of my shell. Trish liked to go out. It was something Hannah hadn't really done before, but pretty quickly she realized she liked it too. When Trish would call me, it was, meet me at this bar. She drank beers, she drank shots,

and so I started drinking beers and I started drinking shots and I noticed that it was a lot easier to be at bars and easier to talk to townies and strangers and I followed her lead. Over time, Hannah began distancing herself from the other first years and she was spending more and more nights with Trish. I felt like here at last is a friend who's cool, who I can talk to and go out with. Here is my first female adult friend.

Her friendship, when I was feeling so vulnerable was transformative. Trish was Hannah's first real friend, and their bond only grew stronger during Hannah's second year in grad school. We were brought closer by the fact that my stepfather, who had adopted me, was sick my entire second year. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Trish knew what Hannah was going through. She had lost her own dad a couple years earlier. She understood grief and she understood loss and when I would become quiet or start

crying at a bar she was not judgmental. She knew how to act around me. Hannah's other grad school friends just didn't get it. And so I ultimately ended up isolating myself from them and sort of glommed on to Trish and the Charlottesville music scene. Trish was dating a guy named George, a poet in the program. The two of them were very plugged into the live music scene in town. So they would often bring Hannah to shows. That's how Hannah met Patrick. He was a musician in a local band. Trish and George, they loved the band. They loved this guy. Trish said one night, you

got to meet him. He's so great, he's so cute. He had a girlfriend, so I didn't think of him as a love interest, but I did meet him and I was like, ah, he is cute. During this period, Hannah was often traveling home to spend time with her family and visit her stepdad in hospice. Trish knew that I played a lot of Scrabble with my family

and she knew that Patrick played Scrabble and I never would have made the first move to be in touch with Patrick because I didn't really know how to have male friends at that point in my life. But Trish insisted that the two of them should hang out. So she gave Patrick Hannah's number. I got a phone call one day from Patrick saying, Trish says you play Scrabble.

I said, yeah, I play Scrabble. And he said, OK, well, I'm on the downtown mall. Why don't you bring your Scrabble board and let's play? And I said, I thought you have a girlfriend. And he's like, this isn't a date. I do have a girlfriend. I want to play Scrabble. And I thought, oh, OK, weird, bizarre. I'm not doing anything.

So I went, we played Scrabble at a coffee shop, and we just started playing Scrabble all the time. And he became my first male friend. Like Trish, Patrick was confident, maybe even a little cocky. But they had a real connection. He's a really smart guy. and he was an excellent critic, and his brain was razor sharp. So we had great conversations, and he was so much fun.

Their relationship was platonic, even after Patrick broke up with his girlfriend. He just started dating a lot of women, and I thought, this is so wonderful. I've got a male friend who I get the male perspective from, he gets the female perspective from me. But their dynamic started to shift after Patrick had a major surgery. It meant he needed to spend a lot of time resting at home. His recovery corresponded with the beginning of the grieving process because my stepfather died.

And we started spending just a ton of time together. Hannah would even bring Patrick along to check on her mom, who was now living outside of Charlottesville. I took Patrick out to my mom's farmhouse one day, and the three of us played Scrabble, and it was like the first time I saw my mom laugh. And the two of them loved each other. They got along so well, and it got to the point where my mom would call Patrick when

she'd come into town and say, I'm going to the grocery store, and Patrick would go to the grocery store with her. He would take her to bars. I mean, he was helping her find small amounts of joy. She started to see a different side of him. As they grew closer, they started going out with Trish and George.

The four of us had become this kind of Charlottesville unit. I would see Patrick and we'd play Scrabble and then we'd go to a bar and meet up with Trish and George. The four of them were always out together, talking to strangers and laughing until the bars closed down. You feel young and invincible and this is where stories are happening. You're interacting with people, you're overhearing strange bits of dialogue. She was finally living life and she was channeling these experiences into her writing.

I had so many ideas and I was still getting all of my writing done and because I was in my 20s and made of elastic I'd wake up the next morning at 7 and just start writing She was a good writer. She regularly submitted to literary magazines and she was getting published It felt like this fantasy that I had was within my reach as long as I keep trying. As long as I keep trying, I keep writing, there's a possibility that this could be my life. And Patrick actually started to write short stories of his own. He wasn't in school or in their writing program. But hanging out with Trish and me, fiction writers, hanging out with George, a poet,

he did start writing stories. The two of them would often spend Scrabble games talking about books and story ideas. Hannah also trusted Patrick to read her works in progress. He would get wistful sometimes and say, I don't know how you're like how you are. You're just so cool and you're such a good writer and nothing seems to bother you. And of course, inside I am nothing but roiling turmoil.

With these kinds of comments, Hannah started to wonder, was Patrick into her? It felt good to be seen, and it felt good to be perceived as attractive. And it felt good to have this and it felt good to be perceived as attractive. And it felt good to have this attractive man perceive me as attractive. And before I knew it, I was crushing pretty hard on him. She wasn't going to make the move. She knew Patrick had other women in his life.

And it was hard to tell for sure if the feelings were mutual. And then, it was one of those nights that was not uncommon for the four of us, where we had shut the bars down. We went back to his house. You know, he'd kind of been doing that thing where he was touching my elbow with his elbow and making eye contact a little too long. He's making some inside joke references about things that we'd been talking about during Scrabble. And it's just incredible tension that is mounting. Then at a certain point, probably like four in the morning, George and Trish

went back to their apartment and I was going to call a cab. But she didn't call a cab. They kissed and she spent the night. We went from being best friends, to one night make out, to basically living with one another. There were so many mornings when I would wake up, and I would look over and I'd see that it was Patrick in bed,

and I would think, I am so lucky. I get to do this for the rest of my life. I actually like the person that I'm waking up with and It was just it was bliss They were in love Still much of the time they'd spend together was in their group of four It was non-stop double dating with Trish and George, eventually, the group's lifestyle started to catch up with Hannah. Trish and Patrick weren't just drinkers. They were late night drinkers.

And so that's what I became too for a little while. There were a lot of moments where I would reflect on what I was doing and how I was behaving, and I'd be pretty scared. She didn't like what heavy drinking did to her, who it made her become, and she certainly didn't like what alcohol did to Trish. She could be pretty aggressive, she could be rude, she could piss people off in bars.

When Trish got like this, it would set Patrick off. He had a bit of a temper too, so their tempers could kind of go up against one another. Nights would often end in fights, and even when they didn't, things like this would happen. The four of us were out. Trish and I were at the bar. George and Patrick were sitting where we could see them,

but it was pretty packed. And she was saying, I knew he'd come around. I knew he'd realize he loved you. I knew it. I just knew it. Trish wasn't being the supportive, encouraging friend Hannah had first met. She wanted to just remind me

that he hadn't crushed on me as hard as I'd crushed on him at the beginning. And she always loved to point out that she had been friends with him first. Instead, it felt like she was going out of her way to cut Hannah down. And this drove me a little bit crazy. When Hannah started dating Patrick, her relationship with her best friend started to shift. It seemed like Trish always had something to say, and it felt like at times she was undercutting Hannah's relationship with Patrick.

After Hannah graduated, a window opened. Her mom offered Hannah and Patrick the chance to live rent-free in her mother's farmhouse outside the city. We needed a new place to live and we were broke. I was waiting tables. He was gigging and teaching music and we were so desperate for money. I was desperate for money. So when my mom offered this free place to live, it was not lost on me that this farmhouse came with a happy coincidence of having some emotional distance from Trish and what felt to me like her constant oversight.

So we had this kind of break and I thought it was magical, just magical. Moving into the farmhouse allowed Hannah to make writing her priority. She submitted more stories for publication and even began writing her first novel. To her surprise, Patrick wanted to do the same. He started wanting to focus on writing. And some of the stories were good. And he got a lot of publications all on his own. Other times, he leaned on Hannah. It felt like every time I got a lot of publications all on his own. Other times, he leaned on Hannah.

It felt like every time I got a story accepted, his first response would be, you should tell the editor about this story I just wrote. Every time I would email the editor and say, hey, there's this great story that I just read by a friend of mine. He got a few publications that way. But his success was limited compared to Hannah's. And he struggled with being farther away from town. It took a toll on Patrick. Every day I'd get up, I'd write, and at 3 30 I would drive into

Charlottesville and start my shift at the steakhouse and he'd stay home. And that's where he started drinking during the day. Hannah's mom also noticed a change in Patrick. She once called Hannah during her work shift. And she said, I saw Patrick this morning. He was wearing a robe. And I said, well, it was morning, Mom. And she said, yes. And I saw him again just now,

and he's still wearing a robe. And it's five o'clock in the afternoon. It was a moment when I realized she could see what I could see. That troubled me. Life in the farmhouse wasn't working for Patrick. Hannah was worried. She knew they needed a change.

That's when her book sold. When I got that book deal, it was all of those dreams, everything I'd wanted for so long. And the good news didn't stop there. On top of the sale of her book, Hannah was offered a teaching position in Chicago. Plus, Patrick was offered a spot in an MFA program in Boston. He could complete it and then go meet

Hannah in Chicago. They decided it would be a great change, a fresh start. So we knew that we were going to be leaving Charlottesville and at about the same time, George and Trish decided that they were going to move to New York. Trish and George were also ready for a new beginning. By this point, they were married, and Charlottesville was feeling small. With big changes coming, the group became nostalgic. Trish and George were still Hannah and Patrick's close friends, and no one knew when they'd all be together again.

So for their last couple months in Virginia, Hannah and Patrick moved back into town to relive the old days as a group of four. And suddenly it was like the four of us together again, but I think what I told myself was, we all are doing this because it's a last hurrah, and we know that things are about to change. We're moving to Chicago and they're moving to New York

and therefore it's a last hurrah. Right away, they fell back into their old patterns. Hannah always ended the night feeling hurt or embarrassed. But whenever she asked Patrick if they could cut back on time with Trish and George, He would say, they're part of my past, they're part of who I am. I don't know how to have a social life without them. Patrick was in a fragile place, and Hannah knew that Trish and George made him feel like

his old self. So instead of demanding that they cut off their friends, she went along with it, at least for the time being. I will just deal with it. I've always dealt with the things that are uncomfortable. I can handle it. I can handle it. It'll be fine. It was clear to Hannah that she'd outgrown the group. It was a challenging couple of months. But then it finally came time for Hannah and Patrick to move on. He spent a year in Boston.

And then we moved to Chicago and I wrote another book. Through this big transition, Patrick was there for Hannah. He made me feel desirable. He made me feel intelligent and he made me feel like it was so obvious that I would be ambitious and it was so obvious that I was going to be successful. He was her champion. But when it came to his own career, he felt discouraged. He was writing his first book.

Unlike Hannah, he had a difficult time getting published. So once again, his mental health took a turn for the worse. He really was struggling with giving up who he'd been in Charlottesville, which was a big fish in a small pond. His band was the popular band at the time when he was living in Charlottesville. So he'd gone from kind of like golden god in Charlottesville to a dude struggling to find work and writing his first novel in Chicago, living with a novelist who's got a full-time job. It wasn't an easy time for Hannah either. Her second book wasn't finding a publisher as quickly as her first. And then my agent was shopping that second book and it was getting rejected.

And that's when Patrick proposed. She said yes. Finally, they had something to look forward to. So they started planning the wedding. We wanted it to be small, intimate, Charlottesville-based. It was a beautiful wedding. Of course Trish and George were there. Even though those last couple months together were rocky for Hannah,

they remained the couple's closest friends. They were the origin story, that's how I met him. So they were one of three couples who were there that were not somehow related to us. The day was everything Hannah hoped it would be. We did our own vows. We wrote them together. And we put on like, it was like a scene that we did.

He cried. I felt so happy. I felt so happy getting married to him. And then... And then her book did find a publisher. And she sold a third book right after that. She was elated. But Patrick wasn't.

That third book deal, I think, really, really hurt him. I think my shadow just got bigger for him, and he started feeling smaller. He turned to Trish and George for support. They always made him feel like the person he had been in his 20s in Charlottesville. They made more of an effort to see Trish and George with vacations and visits back and forth.

It felt like they were our best couple friend again. They were always there. They were always there. Hannah also helped Patrick secure a teaching job when she got a new role at a university in Kentucky. The move and the job did little to help Patrick. And his dreams of a book deal? He'd gotten close a couple times but it just didn't happen for him. By this point they'd been together for nearly ten years. Hannah was accomplishing everything she wanted in life. Meanwhile her husband was miserable and she couldn't help but feel that he

resented her for her success. He was lost and grasping for any sense of purpose. She didn't know how to help him. Finally, Patrick was given an opportunity. The second summer after they moved to Kentucky, he was offered two prestigious writing residencies. One was in France and one was at Yaddo. And there was a two week down period between the residencies. It would mean a lot of time apart, but Hannah thought this was good for Patrick and for their relationship.

Besides, she'd be traveling a lot that summer promoting her third book. She told Patrick to go. The idea was by the end of July, we would be back in Kentucky together. He would get therapy and we would figure things out. Between France and his next residency in the States, Patrick had a week off, and he spent it in New York visiting old friends. He decided to go to New York City and stay with our very good friend Hugh.

And the idea was he would go back and forth between Hugh's place and Trisha's and George's place so that he wasn't a burden. And then he goes to Yaddo and he keeps writing. And that's what happened. Or so Hannah was told. The week after Patrick went to his second residency, Hannah needed to be in New York for her book launch. She was going to crash with her friend Hugh, just like Patrick had the week before.

She got in a day early, and the night before her book launch, she and Hugh stayed up late talking. Randomly, they got on the topic of jealousy. And I said something like, well, I'm not a suspicious person. And he said, maybe you should be more suspicious. And I said, that's a really interesting thing to say. And he said, you should ask me questions. She didn't know where this was coming from. say, and he said, you should ask me questions.

She didn't know where this was coming from. But Hugh seemed serious, like he had something he needed to say, like he was trying to tell her something. And I said, is this about Patrick? And he said, yes. And I said, did something happen when Patrick was in New York last week without me? And he said, yes. At this point, my heart has just like dropped and I feel like I'm in a vomit.

And I said, did Patrick have sex with someone? And he said, yes. She knew the question she really wanted to ask. She was just afraid of Hugh's answer. But finally, I said, did he have sex with Trish? And Hugh said, yes. On the next episode of Betrayal, my agent sent me an email and the subject was, have you seen this?

And I opened it and I read it and I read it again and I wasn't able to really make sense of what I was reading. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team, email us at betrayalpod.gmail.com. That's betrayalpod.gmail.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at BetrayalPod. We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts.

And don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five-star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison. Hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning. This episode was written and produced by Caitlin Golden and Monique Laborde with additional production by Ben Federman.

Associate producers are Kristen Malkuri and Caitlin Golden. Our I Heart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Dalvecchio. Additional editing support from Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music Library provided by MIBE Music. And for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.