10.0
The clip loops without sound, which somehow makes it worse.
On the tablet propped against a stack of briefing folders, I watch myself pause one beat too long before answering a softball question.
The lighting is brutal, bleaching color from my face until I look carved out of stone.
The caption running along the bottom reads: "WHITMORE: FATIGUED OR FALLING APART?"
The network has helpfully zoomed in on my eyes at the moment I blink-a slow, heavy drop of the lids that reads like a man trying to remember which lie he told last.
I tap to unmute. My own voice fills the office, tinny and flat.
"...we're focused on unity-on lowering costs for families-"
A talking head cuts me off in a split screen.
"Except he looks anything but unified with reality," she says, smiling like she just landed a joke at a charity roast.
Laughter around the table. A second pundit counters that the glare from the lights was harsh, that travel schedules are punishing.
A third chuckles and says, "Listen, I've seen that stare on a hundred candidates-it's not jet lag."
I hit mute again.
The office feels over-air-conditioned, the way all Capitol offices do: cold to keep the nerves sharp.
Blinds half-closed, the skyline cut into stripes.
The carafe of coffee Jenna left is still steaming; I haven't touched it.
I'm nursing a bottle of sparkling water like it's penance, the cap biting dimples into my palm.
On the desk: the speech draft, a poll memo, a notecard with four bullet points that someone else thinks sound like me. Underneath all of it, the stupid laminated coaster with the state seal a constituent made for me two years ago. I stare at the seal like it can swallow me whole.
The tablet jumps again-cut to a social clip.
A freeze-frame of my mouth caught in mid-word, a glassy sheen over my eyes that could be lighting or could be the night before.
The chyron changes: "EXCLUSIVE: SOURCES SAY WHITMORE 'UNSTEADY' IN GREEN ROOM."
The font is big, cruel. The panel leans forward like they can smell blood through 4K.
My phone vibrates across the desk, doing that little angry dance AMBER ALERTS do, except it's not an emergency-just everyone acting like it is.
I close it again. Slow. Deliberate.
My office door clicks twice-Jenna's knuckles, controlled. I don't answer, and the door opens anyway, just enough for her to lean her head in. "Two minutes?" she says, which is Jenna-speak for I already booked ten.
"Make it one," I tell her, even though I know it won't be.
She slips inside, tablet tucked to her chest, a pen behind one ear. Hair in a low knot so tight it looks like it could cut the air. "They're clipping the pause," she says without preamble. "Half the networks are implying you were... tired." She picks the neutral word and lets it hover.
"Tired," I repeat, rolling the cap of the water bottle between my thumb and forefinger until the plastic squeaks.
"We're not going to feed it," she goes on. "We pivot. Push the schedule-show you working. We get you seen at the hospital visit at noon-handshakes with nurses, no statements. Then a manufacturing floor photo op at three. The camera wants movement."
"And if it wants repentance?" The bitterness threads through before I can pull it back.
She doesn't blink. "We don't give apologies for lighting. We give a better frame. Bryan's comms wants you on Tonight at Six to underline focus. I told them no live hits. Taped only."
"Mother approves?" I ask, dry.
Jenna's eyes flicker with the briefest humor. "Your mother already called me. She approves of nothing except a time machine."
My phone vibrates again. Dad. I swipe it face down.
"Bryan at ten?" I ask.
"Nine-fifty," she corrects. "On my line. We'll do it here." She gestures to the seating area-two chairs positioned at a clean angle, a coffee table staged with a bipartisan magazine nobody actually reads. "Before that-eat. Put something solid in you."
"Hydration and food," I say. "You running for my nanny or my chief?"
"I'm running triage," she says. "And-" Her gaze dips to the drawer I didn't open, then back to my face. "Keep the day dry."
The thing about Jenna is she doesn't say please or threaten. She makes requests sound like facts.
"Understood," I hear myself say, which is not the same thing as yes.
I give her half a nod, and she slips out.
The door seals. The air-conditioning hums. My phone lights up again, and this time it's my father's name filling the screen like a courtroom summons. I let it ring. On the fourth buzz, I answer.
"You look like hell," he says, skipping hello like it's a waste of a vowel. "You handed them a baton and told them where to run."
"Good morning to you too."
"Don't get cute, Brooks. You want to be vice president? You have to act like it at all hours."
The impatience in him is always a drumbeat; I can hear it even when he keeps his voice low.
"Bryan's people are apoplectic. This isn't college. This isn't you trying to be clever in a debate club. This is the country watching."
I look past my reflection in the glass to the slice of river glinting like a knife. "I'm handling it."
"You're not. Jenna is," he snaps. "You think I don't know the sound of other people carrying you? Pull yourself together. Dry out. Smile. Shake hands. Then keep your mouth shut until someone smarter writes your words for you."
The last part hits cleaner than he intends. It lands, then slides down my spine like cold water.
"Anything else?" I ask, voice flat.
"Yes. Fire whoever let you go on camera in that state. If it was you-fire yourself."
He hangs up. He always hangs up. Power lets you make every conversation a monologue.
I put the phone face down, the screen still glowing under my palm like a trapped thing. In the window, a gull wheels, a white slash against the blue. I half-wonder what it's like to build a life where no one expects you to be anything but hungry and alive and loud.
The tablet pings-new segment. A morning show jokes about whether my marriage is "keeping me up." They cut to a photo of Margot in a dress that cost someone's mortgage, her smile weaponized against boredom. My throat tightens, then goes loose. I turn the tablet off.
Knock. The door cracks again. An aide I barely know edges in with a brown paper bag and a coffee tray.
"From downstairs," he says, eyes skittering away from mine like moths from a porch light.
"Egg sandwich. Fruit. Uh-no bacon." He sets it on the table like he's delivering a baby, and then flees before I can thank him.
I stare at the bag. I know I should eat. My stomach does a slow, unconvincing turn.
I twist off the cap of a water bottle, drink until my stomach stretches and complains. The bottle in the drawer hums like a fever dream. I don't touch it. I stand.
The jacket goes back on. The watch slides into place, heavy with other people's time. I pocket my phone, tuck the tablet into the drawer facedown, and glance once more at the window where the river cuts a hard line through the city.
On my way out, I catch my reflection in the dark pane of the TV-lapel sharp, shoulders squared, eyes a fraction slower than the rest of me. I adjust the tie by a millimeter, the way my mother taught me, until the knot looks like it belongs to a man who means every word he says.
At the door, I stop. Reach back. Kill the screen on the TV. Kill the overheads, leave only the desk lamp on. The office looks softer in the dim, like a place a person could live instead of a place a candidate gets staged.
The hallway outside is bright enough to make me squint.
Staff move like they're double-booked with living.
Jenna is there at the elevator, already talking while she sends two emails with her thumbs.
"We'll do the hospital first-no press inside, but there'll be cameras on the curb. You shake hands, you listen, you don't promise anything. Then an hour to regroup, then the plant. Monte's downstairs."
"Good," I say.
She steps into the elevator with me, hits the button, then glances up. For a second, it's just the two of us in the box, a small quiet between floors. "You okay?" she asks, and it is not a strategic question.
I nod.
Her mouth twitches. The elevator dings; the doors open on the ground floor, and the world rushes back in-marble, echo, signatures of important men carved where people have to look up.
Monte's near the curb, the car idling, door open. He clocks me once over-chin, tie, lids-and gives the barest nod. It feels like passing a test I didn't study for.
I slide into the backseat. As the door thuds closed, the noise outside cuts to a hush, the car a dark tank moving through sunlight. I look down at my hands-clean, steady. I flex them once, feel the ache where I've been clenching and unclenching all morning.
The city rolls by: people with coffees, kids tugging backpacks, a woman laughing into her phone like she just got good news. It's astonishing, every time, how the world keeps making its own weather while mine feels stuck under glass.
Monte catches my eyes in the rearview. "They talk," he says, meaning the shows. "They move on." He taps the wheel once with his thumb, the rhythm of a man who's seen every hurricane and learned to count the breaths between gusts. "You keep walking."
I nod. "I'm walking."
He turns his attention back to the road, and we merge into the river of cars like any other person with somewhere to be.
The phone vibrates again on the seat beside me. I ignore it. I watch the city. I drink the water like it can absolve me. And for as long as I can stand it, I keep both hands off the part of me that wants to reach for something stronger.
After hours running nonstop, Monte eased the car to the curb, engine ticking as it settled. The frenzy outside the building-phones up, whispers, one overeager freelancer trying to angle for a shot-felt far away behind the glass. Monte didn't look at me when he said, "You alright
"I'm fine," I lied.
He gave the smallest nod.