Because if he loved her he wouldn't have gotten into bed with a woman a decade younger than them both. If he loved her he wouldn't have told the entire world about the exact same thing.
 

 

Eliza's tears make their way down her face, her hands trembling as she crumples another letter into a ball and throws it into the fire. They have six children, six children who adore their father… and he'd done this, for all of them to see.
 

 

She hurts. She wishes Maria Reynolds wasn't put into this scheme; this young woman, too young to get pushed into the spotlight and be treated as a whore. She wishes she could see her, try and make amends. But she'd fled the country, gone to England as soon as things looked grim for her.

 

Alexander hasn't come back to their house since the pamphlet was published. He's afraid of Angelica's rage, who has been taking care of the children with Eliza. He's afraid of Eliza's silent yet terrible heartbreak, too. She knows enough of the man she called her husband to be aware of that.

 

The fire make the smell of ash spread through the house. The letters are gone, and something— something like bitterness presses at his throat. She cries, her shoulders shaking and the tears burning her black eyes. She misses when they were young, when they got married, when she though he'd love her forever.
 

 

"I was so naïve," she whispers to the fire, nobody there to hear. Angelica is taking care of William, Eliza's younger child, born weeks after the pamphlet came to light. She wishes he'd keep it secret for a little while more.
 

 

She takes another one of the letters. Her sides hurt from crying for so long.

 

This is Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, erasing the existence of the softer, sweeter Alexander Hamilton. History will erase his love for her from its unstoppable narrative, and she will, too. Taking herself out of the story, out of the story she strung together with such love to then be broken apart into pieces.