My mother says, sadly, that she doesn’t think there has ever been a truly happy First Lady in the White House or a president capable of making one happy. He holds the most powerful office in the land but it’s so consuming, love has no place in the White House.
Almost in a brotherly way, in the same way he kissed me when I was eleven, Matt kisses my cheek. He wraps his arms around me and I inhale him, closing my eyes, curling my hands around him, forcing my tears back because though a part of me wants to keep him, I want him to win, too.
There’s no time for this. We’ve got an election to win.
Everywhere we go, everyone seems to be watching Matt and whether he looks at me, smiles at me, or so much as stands close to me. Carlisle has been sending me looks, warning stares to avoid giving Gordon and Jacobs fodder. Still, Hewitt, as press manager, is playing the card of childhood friends, and Matt is so stubborn and secretly mad for giving the public such access to his private affairs. He has been blatantly using the press manager’s expert handling of the situation to keep me close and keep looking at me as much as he pleases.
Which in turn both pleases and distresses me.
We travel to Des Moines, Iowa; Manchester, New Hampshire; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Charleston, South Carolina; and one afternoon, we even go visit a tree called the President.
We stand before it, close to the wood sign that identifies it, in the middle of the giant forest of Sequoia National Park in California.
The tree is over three thousand years old, and the most amusing thing is the smaller sequoia trees surrounding it are called the Congress Group: two dense stands of medium-sized sequoias that represent the House and Senate.
“If you win and your ego starts getting too big, one trip here and it’ll be squashed back down. I’ve never felt so tiny next to a tree.” I look up its tall, gnarly trunk to the top, where its leaves rustle in the breeze.
Standing here, I marvel at how many people I’ve met and all the landscapes I’ve seen. I’ve been taken out of my D.C. bubble to see the colorful quilt that makes up our country.
It’s incredible, touring all the states, each unique in its own right, each having its own growth spurts and challenges. You don’t know America until you step back and really look at it.
It makes me want to see more of the world—to travel, do everything, see everything, be touched by everything and touch it back in return.
It helps me remind myself the reason I’m staying away from Matt . . . even when Matt still effortlessly carves time to spend moments alone with me.
37
BACK IN D.C.
Charlotte
We arrive in D.C. early the next day. My machine is flooded with phone calls.
My mother would love for me to spend the night home.
Kayla, Alan, and Sam want to see me.
I look around my apartment, then scroll through my phone contacts.
After denying it all. After everything. One night.
Tomorrow we vote, and that’s that.
But I cannot leave it at that.
I would like to tell him that I love him, but this is not something you do to someone when you know he may have such a hard, demanding path ahead. This is something you might do if he didn’t, if the public chose someone else, and maybe then he’s free . . . to choose me.
But I don’t want to imagine anyone not choosing him, denying what he has to give. I also am human and no matter how much I want to make a difference, I want things for me too. Those things have narrowed down until all I am aware of wanting, every second of the day, is him, in any way I can have him, even if it’s just a tiny piece.
Tonight I could have him whole, all of him. And I want him—I want to hold nothing back, except the words. But I can tell him with every kiss that I cannot help the way I tremble, the way being touched by him makes me feel like the only thing in the world for me is him in those moments.
I sit down and think of him, and before I can think better of it, I text him and ask if I can see him.
I don’t know what it is I want, but I know I cannot go to his house, nor could Matt come here. He’s too closely watched, and I’ll be too tempted, and it won’t be fair. It needs to stop at that last night we shared, but I’m no longer going to be his campaign scheduler. After tomorrow, I’m not sure where to go from here, and if I’ll ever see him again.
We meet at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. We sit by the steps, gazing out at D.C. as the wind whips through my hair and stings my cheeks.
“You could really win tomorrow,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“I want you to.”
“Do you?” He studies my features.
Silence. I shiver. “What’s done is done, what isn’t done isn’t done, I guess.” I shrug. “We did all we could, didn’t we?”
“That’s right.”
Before I know it, he shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. “Charlotte,” he says softly, “we wouldn’t be here without you.”
“Yes, we would,” I assure him.
We wait for a young couple to walk past us, then he inches his hand close to mine, on the steps, under the fall of his jacket, and drags his thumb over the back of mine. “If I lose, I want you to go out on an official date with me.”
I drop my head and suddenly feel more emotional than I’ve ever been, a whole year of campaigning both for him and against my feelings for him hitting me hard. I don’t want him to lose, but I hate yearning for it, just for this second. “That’s really unfair.” My voice cracks.
My face is suddenly wet. I don’t know why I’m crying; I just am.
“The chances of you losing are this big,” I say with my fingers.
I’m sniffling now, and I stand and tuck his jacket closer around my shoulders so I can hide my face inside the collar.
He stands too, stepping closer, his voice tender. “Show me my chances again,” he says.
I clutch the jacket closed with one hand and lift the other, making the space between my fingers slim.
He takes my fingers in his hands and widens the space between them just a little. “I’d say more like this.” He smiles down at me, trying to cheer me up, and I love him all the more for it, because the smile doesn’t reach his eyes at all.
“I love you. I love you and your silly glasses,” I say, widening my fingers as much as I can, and then I add, laughing and crying, “I can’t even use my arms to show you.”