by Haley Cass
“I understand more than anyone this pull you have inside of you, for this life we’re in.” Her expression turned softer, in the rare way it did for Charlotte only, as she pushed away from the desk and reached for her hand. Charlotte gave it instantly, finding comfort and strength in her the touch. “But remember that even amidst serving the public, you don’t owe them your personal life. You owe the world for you to be responsible and to be able to defend your professional and ethical choices ad nauseum. But your life is yours. And if there is anyone I’ve ever known in this game who I trust will know what to do when the time is right, my girl, it’s you.”
She didn’t know at this given moment if she deserved that trust, because she’d been feeling at such a loss lately.
She squeezed her hands and Charlotte squeezed back, trying to soak in as much of her grandmother’s knowledge and comfort as she could.
“Thank you,” she murmured. She didn’t know if the words could make her feel entirely better; she didn’t think there was anything that could do that.
But it felt nice to hear, still.
Her grandmother squeezed her hands once more before dropping the hold and narrowing her eyes. “Now, hand me your cosmetic bag before that journalist and her team finally get past security. You can’t look like this for your final interview before the election. There’s going to be a cameraman in here for God’s sake.”
They had just enough time for her grandmother to – in her own words – fix Charlotte’s face as she muttered about how Charlotte needed to take better care of herself, heartache or not. Then for her to slip out the side exit of the office to avoid any run-in with Imani before the woman in question knocked on the door, poking her head in with a little smile.
“Sorry it took a bit of time, we got held up in security with Greg’s camera cases.” Imani gave her a polite but warm grin.
“No problem at all, come in.” Charlotte took a deep breath, shaking her head to get into the right mindset, before fixing on a well-practiced smile. “I thought we could sit at my desk, why don’t you all come in?”
Something she appreciated about Imani and the reason why she’d requested whenever possible thus far in the election for her to be the journalist who covered her stories so often, was that she was always prepared. Even though she was warm and personable, she didn’t waste time.
Within minutes, her intern was scribbling notes and holding the recording device in their direction, while her cameraman efficiently snapped photos – of her office and herself. Imani was poised in the chair next to Charlotte’s desk, her own notepad in front of her.
“Why don’t we start with what’s most important – your politics. Even before this election, you’ve done quite a bit of work that would suggest you are fairly socially liberal. In your own words, would you agree or disagree with that?”
Charlotte nodded and took a breath as she leaned in; it was showtime.
They spoke extensively about her social views –
“I would say I’m socially liberal. There are certain things that are not up for debate, in my mind. Access to health care, to education, to housing, to food – these are basic human needs, and it’s the role of the government to make sure its people have access to their basic human needs.”
To delving more into her past projects –
“Yes, I’ve always been very involved in the group homes here in New York. The number of children who need homes and better services here are astronomical, even compared to many other major cities. It’s one of the reasons I sought out this career in the first place.”
To future initiatives –
“I’m currently working on two initiatives that I intend to keep a hand in moving forward, one involving housing projects and assistance for the homeless population, and the others involving a clean energy conservation in the city. I have consults from several senators and representatives working as a team already.”
She damningly stumbled when Imani finished chuckling at one of her anecdotes about her grandmother from her adolescence and asked, “Speaking of your grandmother, one of the biggest landmark changes that has impacted our country under her leadership is, of course, the legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the nation seven years ago. Am I to assume that you have the same approval for the matter as she does? After all, it is very personal to you.”
For a moment, she thought the world truly stopped spinning and all she heard was a ringing in her ears because what did she mean by that –
“Given that your brother, Caleb, is openly gay,” Imani finished.
Charlotte had to control everything inside of herself that wanted to absolutely melt with relief. She had to deliberately make her smile warmer because she knew she was close to looking as panicked as she’d felt in that moment. “Oh, yes. He is, and my grandmother and our entire family has always been very supportive.”
In that moment, as Imani nodded and she heard the shutter of a camera taking a picture of her smile, it was the first time she’d even felt like she was truly hiding something. It made her stomach churn and she wanted to fidget, but instead she slightly tightened the hold her fingers had hooked over her knee.
She cleared her throat and changed the subject to share a story about herself and Caleb in their college years that she knew would easily lead into a conversation about education.
After over an hour, Imani gave her an apologetic smile. “Everything you’ve given me so far is wonderful, Charlotte. Touching both on professional and personal . . . but something that I’ve been pressed to ask about for this full profile is a bit more personal.”
She maintained her grin even as she steeled herself; she was ready for anything about her personal life. She had to be. “Of course.”
“As has been spoken about by your competitor in this election, you have quite the sparse dating life, at least from the view from the public eye. As someone who is young, attractive, intelligent – well, it does read as a bit peculiar. Is there anything you’d like to comment on, officially, about that?”
Yes, she could do this, and it was hardly a lie. “I do, admittedly, have a sparse dating life. I’m afraid that there isn’t much to comment on, because the truth of the matter is that I’ve always been far more focused on my career than on dating.”
Imani sent her another smile, still apologetic though, and Charlotte could tell she actually meant it. “That’s admirable, and not always an easy feat. In the effort to keep this as brief as possible, as we’ve been going on for an hour already, but to appease all curiosities and comments that have ticked up regarding the election . . .”
She paused and gestured to her intern, who quickly reached into his bag and pulled something out, handing it to Imani.
They were pictures, she realized, with a feeling of dread. A cold and heavy feeling weighing in her stomach even as she kept her expression neutral – interested, even.
“Aside from pictures with your family and coworkers, these have been the only ones our own photographers have captured during the election.” She flipped the pictures over onto Charlotte’s desk, laying them out for her.
It took everything inside of her to not react outwardly, even as her stomach clenched. It had been weeks since she’d allowed herself to look at anything with herself and Sutton together.
The saving grace was that the pictures were innocent – the two of them exiting Topped Off, the two of them walking down the sidewalk. And of course, the picture of them outside of her grandmother’s party. The one that had been featured in the newspaper already.
“It’s been no secret that your opponent has been making implications about you and the woman featured in the photos,” Imani continued, with somewhat of an exasperated tone in her voice. “It’s been widely received by many following the debate that this is a reach made by Ms. Young. But for our feature, I would love to have a definitive clarification.”
Charlotte managed to tear her eyes off of the photographs, swallowing before she nodded and forced a smile. “Of course.”
She took a deep breath. “Yes, the woman in the photos was a friend.”
Was. She had to snap her mouth shut in order to maintain her smile against the way that word and the pain that went with it made her want to grimace.
As much as she told herself not to, she couldn’t help but look down again. It was like she craved seeing Sutton’s face, even though she knew it was stupid. Even though she knew it would hurt her.
She looked down anyway and could barely breathe.
The pictures were all at least a month old now, and after a jarring moment, she realized that they felt like they were taunting her.
Because she wasn’t even staring at Sutton; she was staring at herself. At her own face, as she stood and walked alongside Sutton, there was this lightness there. A happiness that she was completely and utterly devoid of right now. That she desperately missed.
That she wanted back and wasn’t sure how to get to it, because . . .
She wasn’t sure that she’d ever had that feeling before Sutton.
It was like the flip of a switch, just a moment that hit her so fast and she couldn’t do anything but stare at the pictures.
What if Sutton had been right?
What if they really hadn’t ever been just friends? What if it was true that this feeling of strictly friendship that Charlotte wanted to desperately go back to wasn’t even real? That – that Sutton had done that to her, had somehow lit up something inside of her from the beginning and she hadn’t even realized it was happening.
It felt like her heart was being squeezed so tightly and she could barely keep up with her thoughts as they raced. Her stomach turned so strongly she felt like she might be sick.
What if everything with Sutton had felt so new and different and good right from the start because of the fact that they’d never been just friends?
God, before Sutton living like she had been, without that feeling of levity, it had been fine. Fine, because she hadn’t had any clue that she was missing anything. And now. . . now it was so fucking hard.
She never thought that she would be like this – could be feeling like this but –
You could be that person, Sutton’s voice, insistent and so believing in her rang in her ears.
The only thing that had gotten her through the last few weeks, aside from keeping as busy as possible, was by reassuring herself that pain didn’t last forever.
She was in pain now and she knew that time healed all wounds. That one day, she would be able to look at pictures like these ones and not feel like her breath was stolen right from her chest.
But.
God, she wished she had more time to process, because everything was happening so quickly. She shook her head softly to try to clear it. So, this feeling of pain would pass one day and then, what?
She looked up and felt caught in Imani’s slightly confused but expectant look.
This was a can of worms that had already been opened, she realized, as her heart thundered in her chest so hard she felt off balance. Everything inside of her seemed to go numb and she could feel her hands shake as she clasped them in her lap. Naomi had opened this can of worms and Charlotte had made it easy for her to do so, but it was too late now.
Because it had been weeks, and she was still being asked about her and Sutton. Because her personal life was already a topic of interest and she could only imagine that now that it already was, it still would be in the future.
Was she supposed to always be looking over her shoulder, wondering if her opponents or the media or anyone with a god damn camera would be watching her, waiting for the next time she would slip up?
It was too late to follow her original plan, she realized with a terrifying certainty.
I truly do admire you – Dean had said to her. But how could he admire her like this? When she was hiding? When, for the first time in forever, she couldn’t even admire herself? Before all of this, when her plan had been to wait at least ten years and come out – simply, quietly, after being an established member of the Senate, with a high approval rating, and already on track for the presidency, it had seemed so right.
But that wasn’t the case anymore.
“Actually,” she forced out, unable to maintain the smile that had been so easy to keep on her face. Not when everything inside of her felt like it was trembling from all of these nerves and anxiety.
Imani paused, lifting an eyebrow at her.
Charlotte’s mouth went dry, her nervous system feeling like someone had slammed the emergency brake. The main voice inside of her head that had always seemed to be the logical reasoning part of her was screaming in alarm about trying to continue to stay the course, to not say anything.
She always listened to that voice. To the voice telling her to make a quip, to go back, to quell this sense of panic.
“I wanted to take advantage of this full profile, with a journalist I trust, to say. . .”
The words caught in her throat.
If there is anyone I’ve ever known in this game who I trust will know what to do when the time is right, it’s you.
But she didn’t know – God, how could she know for sure? Who knew that for sure?
The only thing she knew for sure right now, in this moment, with the evidence staring her in the face, was that things couldn’t always stay the way they were forever. And sometimes there was no going back, only forward.
I can’t be your friend, because I’m in love with you.
It played on a loop in her head, mixing with her grandmother’s words and she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t and maybe the most terrifying thing right now was that she could finally admit to herself that she didn’t want to stop it.
She stared back at the picture with her heart in her throat, barely able to catch a deep breath.
I’m so in love with you.
Charlotte swallowed hard, forcing her spine up straight and clasping her hands together tighter to make them stop shaking. “That I’m a lesbian.”
As the blood rushed in her ears, Charlotte felt like everything inside of her was imploding. The shutter of the camera stopped. The intern’s scribbling of notes paused.
And Imani froze, staring at her with wide eyes.
She’d never known how saying those words would feel. She couldn’t have fathomed it in the least, and honestly . . . she hadn’t wanted to. But she hadn’t known it would feel like this.
This sheer, uncomfortable and uncharacteristic terror, gripping her, like she could see everything falling apart right before her eyes.
Mixed with it, though, right under it, the tiniest kernel of relief. She bit all of it back.
“You – you know we are on the record?” Imani finally recovered a moment later.
“I know, yes,” her words came out on a whisper and she cleared her throat. It was so dry it hurt.
Imani quickly reached for her pen, her eyebrows coming together in question as she flipped back through her notes for a moment. “As far as I’m aware, there have only been a small handful of openly LGBT members elected to the House.”
“Yes.” Her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears, and it was all she could hear. “That’s entirely correct.”
She could only go forward, she reminded herself. She sat up as straight as possible and stared Imani in the eye, even though she wanted to curl in on herself for just a few moments.
“So, the woman in the pictures is more than a friend then? That inference is actually true?” Charlotte could hear the tinge of surprise in her voice. As though she couldn’t believe this actually happened.
Charlotte couldn’t either and she somewhat felt like this was an entirely surreal experience, as she shook her head, “She’s more than that. She’s . . .” Swallowing hard, she dropped her eyes again, tracing them over the way Sutton was laughing so openly and boldly in those pictures. The sight gave her the slightest comfort, something to hold onto in this storm. “She’s so much more than that.”
Imani watched her closely. “We’re osten
sibly at the end of the campaign. Why come out now?”
For a moment, all Charlotte could do was stare at her. Why?
Because she was in love? Because she was miserable right now, and exhausted? Because after years of being just fine with her sexuality being a quiet truth, it only now felt like she was keeping a secret? Because how could she accept someone like Dean saying he admired her, when she couldn’t admire herself?
“Because I owed it to myself.” It was only as the words came out that she realized they were the truth.
She owed it to herself to win . . . or lose being open and honest. She had to do this, even though it was terrifying and she may very well live to regret it.
She owed it to herself to see what the big deal about this was. To really understand the songs and the movies and the things she’d long written off. She just hoped Sutton still felt she deserved it as well.
Chapter 25
Sutton picked up her knife, clinked it lightly against her glass, and was relieved when it actually worked to bring a halt to the wedding fun. The music playing in the background immediately lowered, conversation hushed, and she didn’t have time to be worried about making her big speech because everyone was already turning to look at her.
“Hi, I’m Oliver’s sister, Sutton. I’m going to be delivering the Best Man speech. As everyone might be able to tell, I’m not the Best Man.”
The smattering of laughter boosted her confidence. “But if anyone knows the Best Man, they know that Lucas is a man of very few words, so I received a quiet plea and a dessert bribe to step in.
“In his plea, Lucas informed me that he was asking me because I’ve always loved . . . love,” she admitted with a self-deprecating smile. “When we were younger, I was the one who had so many ideas about what it meant to be in love. I mean, as a child, I even had a list of qualities to look for in a partner.
“What Lucas doesn’t know is that Oliver called me when he first started dating Jane, for the same reason Lucas did – to talk about love. Because he knew in the beginning that he’d never felt that exact way for anyone else.”