God Bless This Mess(59)

It’s almost like I was afraid to talk to God for fear of what He might tell me, so I stopped praying. The shame and hurt took center stage.

I didn’t turn my back on God completely. But I definitely pulled away from my connection to faith—just when I needed it the most.

*

The crew, the producers, the executives at ABC—everybody knew what kind of a state I was in. Even some of the most powerful people at the top of the studio reached out to me to see what they could do to help. They expressed that they were sorry that I was having such a rough go of it, and they wanted to make it better.

As all of this was going on, I got a call inviting me to go on Dancing with the Stars.

To me, DWTS (as it’s known in shorthand) sounded like exactly the sort of all-consuming distraction I needed. It sounded like something I could throw myself into, and hopefully, along the way, distract myself from the emotional and spiritual pain I was in.

So I said yes.

This was in July. Rehearsals would be starting in August. Once again, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

All I knew is I felt like crap. The world kept beating me down, and all I kept thinking about when I looked ahead to that competition show was how much I wanted to win it. I went back and watched clips from prior seasons, and I saw the Mirrorball trophy—like a Super Bowl trophy for ballroom dancing, with a disco ball on top instead of a football—and I wanted it. I wanted it bad.

I needed a win in my life.

After a year full of humiliating public heartbreak and loss, I wanted to prove to the world—and to myself—that Hannah Brown could still come out on top.





Chapter 19


Dancing with the Scars


Watching the last two episodes of The Bachelorette just before they aired was brutal. Me breaking up with Peter, and breaking up with Tyler, and getting engaged to Jed—all of this feeling and heartbreak and doubt and regret that I’d been holding on to the whole summer was about to come out and finally be revealed to the whole world. I was ready for that. But it was just so hard to relive all the pain that I’d been sitting in for all that time, and I didn’t feel ready at all to see Jed, Tyler, and Peter again in person.

I didn’t talk to Jed again until we saw each other at the “After the Final Rose” special, the live two-night show that aired right after the finale episodes at the very end of July 2019.

The breakup they had filmed aired during that special. It was the first time I had seen it, and our live, in-person reunion that night was just as awkward as it looked. In some ways it felt so good to finally tell the audience, officially, that Jed and I were no longer together. But it was still heartbreaking to come to terms with how it had all ended. It was sad.

Seeing Jed in person, I realized that there were no lingering feelings there at all. I was done with him. I did not miss him. I did not want to be with him. Honestly, it felt like putting it all behind us was already long overdue.

That wasn’t the case with Peter and Tyler, though. The best part of the “After the Final Rose” special for me was getting to see them both in person again. I’d been thinking about both of them since the show started airing, and seeing them in person, each on a separate night, definitely let me know that my lingering feelings for them were real.

There was this little twinge of regret at seeing Peter again, wondering what could have happened if we’d had more time. The thing about Peter is that it seemed like he had very real feelings for me. I hadn’t doubted that, but I wished we could have had another shot to get to know each other. Still, it seemed pretty definite that he’d be the next Bachelor. There was already a lot of buzz about it, so I didn’t really see any future with him as still being on the table. It felt like the best thing to do was to talk him up, and, well, since I had already admitted that we’d had sex twice, I decided to admit to having sex four times in the windmill.

I just figured it was over. He was ready to find someone else to be his wife now. And by this time, I had nothing to hide. So I spoke my truth, straight from the heart.

I was still interested in finding a husband, too. I told the live audience I didn’t need to find a husband. There’s a big difference between needing something and wanting it. Wanting it, choosing it, is a more powerful position to take.

What the public didn’t know was that Tyler and I had already been talking and texting. Nothing super romantic, really. Just saying hi, and talking about what was happening on the show as we watched it unfold on TV. But the more I watched, the more I’d thought, Okay, that’s the guy I’m supposed to be with.

Back on July 19, I had called Tyler and told him that I still cared for him.

He said he still cared for me, too. We agreed it would be nice to go for a drink and hang out the next time he was LA.

When I saw Tyler that night, at the end of July, all of those nervous feelings I’d had about him came rushing back again. The spark was still there. Plus, on The Bachelorette, he had picked out a ring. He had wanted to ask me to marry him. As I rewatched the episodes, I’d kept wondering, What if I’d picked him over Jed? Would things have worked out better?

I had already broken his heart, and I was scared that it was too good to be true that he might be willing to give me another chance. But the two of us agreed that I would ask him, on live TV that night, during the “After the Final Rose” special, if he might want to go out sometime. And he said yes!