The State of Us

by Shaun David Hutchinson

  Dean’s head spun toward me so fast it just about twisted off. “Wait, we’re in love?”

  I hadn’t thought about the words as I’d been saying them, but as soon as I realized what I’d said, my mouth went dry and I briefly forgot about McMann. “I mean, I don’t know. It’s probably too soon for that.”

  “Probably,” Dean said.

  “But if I was starting to fall, would that be so bad?”

  “Who will catch us if we’re both falling?”

  McMann snapped his fingers in the air. The crack forced me back to the present, where we were being held captive by a megalomaniacal dickhead.

  “What?” I said. “We’re kind of having a moment here.”

  McMann was sneering and, honestly, it was killing the vibe in the room. “I don’t care about either of you or your ill-fated relationship. It was simply a means to an end. Imagine my surprise when I caught Andre trying to take a picture of my room during the debate and saw that he was a Promethean user.

  “I was hoping to find information I could use against your father, Andre, but I found your conversations with Dean instead.”

  My mouth fell open. “You didn’t need to hack my phone because you had access to my Promethean account!”

  Dean shook his head. “But I thought it was supposed to be secure. Encrypted so that no one but the sender and recipient could access the messages.”

  “How did you even figure out my username?”

  McMann shrugged while wearing an evil grin. He looked like a supervillain in that moment, and he probably would’ve thought that was a compliment. “I cross-referenced every Promethean username in our database against your known social media accounts until I found a match. You also used DreOfTheDead when you linked your Nintendo account.”

  “Betrayed by my Switch!”

  “And with Dean’s username, I was able to use an exploit in that pitifully old phone he carries around that allowed me to gain access to his call logs, GPS, camera, microphone. I knew everywhere he had been.”

  I smacked my forehead. “That’s how you knew what we were gonna do.”

  Dean was looking a little pale. “Tamal patched my phone. He said it was secure again.”

  McMann was watching us with a bored expression, like we weren’t even worthy of his contempt. We were roaches and he was just squashing us under his shoe. “But you planned this ridiculous caper within Promethean. You practically called me up and told me everything you were going to do.”

  “You don’t have access to only our Promethean accounts,” Dean said. “You have the ability to access any user’s messages, don’t you?”

  “Data is king,” McMann said. “I don’t sit around reading the inane conversations of average users. The majority of people are boring. Instead, algorithms mine the data for keywords that give me insight into the hearts and minds of the masses. I know what they’re talking about, what they’re afraid of, what will drive them to the voting booth to cast their ballots for me.”

  I could feel Dean shaking beside me, though I couldn’t tell whether he was trembling with fear or rage. I was leaning hard on my anger because it was the only thing keeping me from collapsing.

  “Do you even wanna be president?” I asked.

  McMann laughed. “Not particularly. But it’s great for my stock prices. And as president, it will be easier to get legislation passed that’s favorable to me. Cheaper too.”

  “All of this is so that you can get richer?” I asked.

  “Money is how we keep score.”

  I looked at Dean. He didn’t seem to have anything else to say, and I couldn’t stand to look at McMann for one minute longer without the risk of puking.

  “What now?” I asked.

  McMann seemed to consider our situation for a moment. “We have two choices. The first is that I call Secret Service, tell them that I caught you attempting to break into my room, and we cause a scene involving your parents. The debates would likely be canceled, which would be a shame.”

  “What is the second option?” Dean asked. How he was managing to keep his voice so steady was a mystery to me.

  “You leave with your tails tucked between your legs, keeping all of this to yourselves, I win the debate, then the election, and you boys go on with your lives.”

  I raised my hand and said, “Is there a third choice?”

  “No.”

  Dean took my hand and pulled me toward the door. “We should go, Dre.”

  “Are we really gonna let him get away with this shit?”

  Dean’s shoulders slumped. “He already has.”

  “Correct,” McMann said. He tossed Dean the bag with our phones in it. “You should leave now. I have a debate to prepare for.” He sat back down in front of his laptop as if his dismissal had caused us to cease to exist.

  Dean opened the door, letting McMann’s assistant back in, and we left.

  Dean

  DRE AND I returned to our respective greenrooms and waited to be led to our seats where we would watch the debate. Mindy, Tamal, and I didn’t talk much, and I didn’t see my mother until our escort told us it was time.

  “Dean.” My mother pulled me aside in the hallway and told Nora to give us a moment.

  “Mom.”

  My mother pursed her lips and stared hard at me, her face an unreadable mask. I didn’t know what to expect from her, and I was pretty certain nothing she could do would have shocked me. “You couldn’t have found a nice Republican boy to date? I’ve heard gossip the junior senator from Georgia’s got a son who might be your type.”

  “Would it have mattered?” I asked.

  “I do love you, Dean.”

  “All of me or only the pieces your voters approve of?”

  She looked like she was trying hard to blink back tears. Her lips moved as if she was going to say something, but before she could, Nora popped in and told us it was time.

  Our escort herded us to another spot to wait, where we were joined by the Rosarios and Mel. There was a palpable tension between my mother and Dre’s father, but I didn’t see the point in pretending any longer. I made my way to Dre and took his hand, daring anyone to stop me.

  Jackson McMann was the last to arrive, wearing that self-congratulatory smirk he wore in every photo. He had such a punchable face.

  I squeezed Dre’s hand. He looked at me questioningly, and I nodded.

  Dre cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “Mr. McMann?” he said. “There actually is a third option, and we choose that.”

  “Excuse me?” he said. Confusion was not a look that suited him well. And as much as I detested McMann’s smug face, I didn’t want to miss his reaction to any of what was coming.

  Dre’s father was looking at him. “What are you talking about, Dre?”

  I waited for Dre to catch my eye before taking over. “As we speak, a story is spreading across social media about how Jackson McMann used a back door within Promethean, the program that he helped create, to spy on Dre and me for the purpose of stealing and leaking our private photographs and conversations. In addition, he used the same back door to data mine the accounts of all Promethean users in order to influence the election.”

  Nora was first to her phone, followed quickly by Jose. My parents and Dre’s parents both still looked perplexed. But it was the look on McMann’s face that made it all worthwhile. The smirk was gone, replaced by the shock of someone who had believed he was untouchable. If I’d had a camera out, I would have captured the moment he realized we had beaten him. As it was, his expression will live in my memory forever.

  “It’s all lies,” McMann said. “Unsubstantiated lies, and no one will believe you.”

  Dre shrugged. “They don’t have to believe us. It’s your voice doing the explaining.”

  Dre’s mother grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him around to face her. “Andre Santiago Rosario! What did you do?”

  “Yes, Dean,” my mother said. “Explain yourself immediately.”
<
br />   I felt bad that I’d kept this from her, and I was relieved to finally stop keeping secrets. “Dre and I attempted to tell you that McMann was responsible for the leak, but you wouldn’t act without proof, so we devised a plan to prove it ourselves. Tamal discovered that the Promethean app was what had given McMann access to hack my phone, and we used that knowledge against McMann. Even after we had secured our phones, we knew he could still access our conversations on Promethean. In fact, we were counting on it.”

  McMann looked truly confused at this point, and I almost felt bad for him, but not really.

  “That Scooby-Doo shit?” Dre said. “All an act. We played you. You thought Mindy was trying to lift your phone and that you were so clever preventing it, but she wasn’t taking anything. She was leaving a wireless mic behind.”

  Mindy curtsied and then gave McMann the finger. “You’ve still got my vote, though.”

  “You also believed we wanted your phone so that we could hack it,” I said.

  Tamal chuckled. “Like I need the physical device to do that. All your computers are connected to the Wi-Fi.” He looked at my mother. “Governor Arnault, would you be interested in a spreadsheet of all the senators Mr. McMann believes owe him favors?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, Tamal, but thank you anyway.”

  Tamal offered up a shrug. “If you want to take a peek at it, I dumped all his files to LeakBarrel, so you or the FBI or whoever can sort through them.”

  McMann was stuttering, fumbling for the words to deny our accusations, but the proof was already out there.

  “You were so confident you had us that all we needed to do was stand there and allow you to incriminate yourself. It was far easier than I expected.” I stood in front of McMann, unable to hold back my triumphant smile. “Would you like to withdraw from the race now or wait until after the debate?”

  McMann’s skin had gone pale, and his assistant was trying to show him something on her tablet. But he kept looking from me to Dre, his brain attempting to understand the full scope of his loss and to work out where everything had gone so wrong. After a tense moment, he shoved past us and took off down the hall.

  “Love wins, asshole!” Dre called after McMann as he fled.

  Dre

  I CANNOT TELL a lie. Watching Jackson McMann run away after we dropped the truth on him was one of my favorite things ever. I don’t know how many laws we broke, hacking his computer and recording him without his permission, but either my dad or my boyfriend’s mom was definitely gonna be president, so I figured we’d get through this without a felony record.

  When they tried to show us to our seats, Dean made some noise until we were seated together. I guess now that our relationship was out in the open, he wasn’t willing to go back to hiding, and I was not complaining.

  The debate started late because while the news of McMann’s shenanigans was all over social media, it hadn’t yet trickled down to the folks in the audience or to the moderators. An effort was made to find McMann, but he’d cleaned out his greenroom and fled like the criminal he was.

  It felt weird sitting there hoping my dad obliterated my boyfriend’s mom in the debate, but that was the world we were living in. It wasn’t personal. I might not ever like Janice Arnault, and she was probably never gonna like me, but we had to find a way to respect each other while Dean and I were together, which I hoped would be for a long, long time.

  After the introductions, the moderators dove right into it. Unlike the previous debates, these questions had all been sourced from the audience and social media.

  “This question is from Candyce in Tazewell, Tennessee. She wants to know: How do you feel about your sons dating?”

  Dean squeezed my hand. We were sitting right there. Did they really have to bring up our relationship?

  “Mr. Rosario, you’re first.”

  My dad caught my eye, saw me sitting with Dean, and he smiled. “I feel pretty great about it,” he said. The audience laughed, and I began to relax a little.

  “Someone tried to use my son’s happiness as a weapon to divide us. Happiness isn’t a weapon. Love isn’t a weapon. When two people find each other the way my son and Governor Arnault’s son have found each other, we should celebrate them, not use their joy to tear each other down.

  “The person responsible for trying to divide us chose not to appear on this stage tonight, but I want him to know that he didn’t win. He failed in his attempt to divide us. In fact, if anything, he brought Janice and me closer together, and we’ve discovered that we have a lot to discuss. Such as how we’re going to punish our sons for lying to us and sneaking around.” He paused, looking directly at me, which earned him another round of laughter.

  “I may not always agree with the choices my son makes, but I will always love him and I will always support him. Unconditionally.”

  Dad smiled at Governor Arnault as he finished speaking. Fine, whatever, I teared up. It was sweet. And embarrassing.

  I felt Dean’s tension radiating off him as his mother stepped forward to answer. I didn’t know if they had patched up their relationship, but I hoped she didn’t say anything to hurt him or I’d have to go all angry boyfriend on her, and I was pretty sure Secret Service would not appreciate it.

  “You know?” she said. “I’m not thrilled with it.” I was ready to leap out of my seat and go after her, and there was no one who could’ve stopped me.

  “From the moment Dean was born, I started thinking about his future. I wanted him to have an easier path through life than I did. I wanted him to have everything his heart desired and to not have to fight each and every day for it. I believe that’s every parent’s hope for their child’s future.

  “When Dean told me about his relationship with Mr. Rosario, I knew that this was going to make his life more difficult. I knew that he was going to have to fight for his happiness. And I couldn’t help feeling like I had failed him as a mother. I thought I could fix it by forcing him back on the path that I had envisioned for him. But there comes a time when a parent has to allow their child to make their own choices, even when we may not agree with the choices they’re making.

  “If this relationship is what Dean wants, then he is going to have to fight for it. And I want him to know that while it may take me some time to understand these changes and to come around, I will always fight for him and I will always fight beside him, and I will never, ever stop loving him.”

  A hush had fallen over the audience, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Even my dad was dabbing tears from the corners of his eyes with a tissue.

  “So, no, I’m not thrilled,” Governor Arnault said, “but that’s because I happen to think my son is just about perfect and that there’s not a person alive who’s good enough for him. Though I suppose I’m going to have to give young Mr. Rosario a chance.” She pointed right at me. “Don’t mess it up, son.”

  That got the audience laughing again, but she was serious, and I was seriously scared. When I glanced over, Dean was smiling.

  “Tomás was right. Love shouldn’t divide us. In fact, when we are divided, love is the bridge that keeps us connected. And I will always love my son.”

  Thankfully, I wasn’t going to have to take down Dean’s mom on live television. What she’d said was actually pretty sweet. I still wasn’t going to vote for her, though.

  “Now,” Governor Arnault said, “seeing as our sons aren’t running for president, why don’t we talk about some real issues?”

  Dean

  MY TRAIN WAS late getting into the station. If my anxiety could have sped things up, we would have made the trip in no time, but all it did was make the minutes pass more slowly.

  I pulled up the news to pass the time. Another story about Jackson McMann. This time he was being indicted for tax fraud. He was already dealing with multiple civil suits filed against him by his investors, criminal trials for a slew of charges related to his use of Promethean to spy on users, and, to top it off, his w
ife was divorcing him. I tried to find it in me to have a little compassion for the man, but it was difficult.

  My phone vibrated. It was the group chat I was in on Promethean, which was now owned by a nonprofit organization that actually cared about security and had eliminated the code that had given McMann backdoor access.

  HotTamale: we’re still playing that D&D thing next weekend, right? I got the best character.

  Meltdown: yes, but I need your characters soon!!!

  MindysGayAF: chaotic evil’s the bad one, right?

  Meltdown: you can’t play chaotic evil, Mindy!

  MindysGayAF: try and stop me.

  Meltdown: dre!

  Meltdown: please explain to these people how this game works???

  HotTamale: dean, whatre you gonna play?

  PrezMamasBoy: I was thinking I might play a cleric. Thoughts?

  HotTamale: i figured you for a paladin.

  HotTamale: they’re the ones that are all good and shit right?

  DreOfTheDead: dean cant play a cleric

  Meltdown: ???

  PrezMamasBoy: Then what should I play, Dre?

  DreOfTheDead: a thief obviously

  DreOfTheDead: cause youve already stolen my heart

  MindysGayAF: i’m not playing anymore

  Meltdown: BOOOOOOOO

  HotTamale: take it private you guys

  My train finally arrived in Penn Station. I desperately wanted to shove my way past the people in front of me, but I remained patient. It was a skill being Dre’s boyfriend had helped me hone.

  Staying together hadn’t been easy. After the election, we both still had to finish our senior year of high school and then graduate. We were able to spend a little time together, but I spent a few weeks volunteering in the Urubamba area of Peru, working to provide clean sources of water, and Dre went traveling through Europe. We both had our choice of colleges, and while it had been tempting to choose schools that were geographically near one another, we made a pact not to base our decisions on that. I chose Harvard and Dre chose Columbia. We weren’t able to see each other every day or even every weekend, but we made time when we could and we made it work.