“You’d run again. If you lost.”

He clenches his jaw.

I quickly blink back the tears and strengthen my voice.

“Matt, I was on the sidelines for months, looking at a thousand and one strangers, and I realize we all have something in common. You. You’re like a part of this country’s history. You represent a painful moment, and the strength to go on and thrive. You inspire people just by being who you are. Matt.”

I walk over to him, and he sets his coffee mug aside. He takes my hand and lifts it to his lips, kissing my fingertips. “In so many ways I ran for you.”

“What?” I laugh incredulously.

“Thinking you and people like you are out there. Deserving more.”

“Then give us more.”

His gaze slides to the window, face etched with thought. “How much more is enough? How many monsters will need to be slayed? How many dissident voices will need to be quieted?”

“I don’t know, but you’ll figure it out along the way.”

Matt clenches his jaw and lowers our hands, squeezing my fingers.

“Matt, if anyone is worthy of anything, it’s you. If anyone is worthy of leading our country, it’s you. Who do you want it to be? Thompson? Jacobs?”

“God, no, fuck, no.”

He turns to me, and I meet his gaze head-on, knowing this is goodbye. Knowing this is the last morning I let myself wake with him, and seeing in his eyes that he knows it too—even if he doesn’t like it.

I inhale shakily. “You’re two points away from the lead. Go out there and get it, Matt. Because you know what? I won’t be helping you next year.” I scowl then and push at his chest as if he’d bullied me into saying it.

He laughs then, grabbing my wrist and drawing me against the flat planes of his chest as he looks at me. “What’ll you be doing then? Next year?”

He watches his hand as he strokes his fingertips along my cheek, making me breathless. I swallow. “In a year? I’ll be living the American dream, because you’ll be my president.”

He clenches his jaw and whispers, “Come here,” wrapping both his arms tightly around me as he lowers his head.

“You cannot kiss me again, not anymore,” I halfheartedly protest.

But as I speak I go up on tiptoes and let him kiss me, slow, a goodbye kiss. I tremble when I think of it being the last time I feel his lips on mine.

“Are you crying?” His voice is a murmur.

I blink back the tears proudly, but he’s faster than I am and wipes them away.

“Charlotte . . .” His voice seems both surprised and protective. His eyes darken as he looks at me and he strokes a hand down the back of my head. “Fuck me, this isn’t goodbye. I could lose. I could fucking lose.”

“No!” I take a step back, putting some distance between us. “Matt, I want you to win this presidency.”

Determination flashes across his features. He fists his fingers into his palms, then growls, “And I want to win this presidency, Charlotte.”

I nod then, in this moment, both of us coming to an understanding. We both worked each other out of our systems for the last time. It’s over with. Done with.

So I step into his embrace and we just hug. Knowing this is goodbye. Not a goodbye as in me leaving the campaign again. But goodbye to . . . what could have been.

Politics aren’t simple, they are messy; there is always deceit and something lurking underneath. This time it is the fact that I love him, and I think he might have, in another time or place, come to love me, but you cannot do two things at once . . .

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.