Chapter Nine #3
“What?” I ask. Whatever this is, I know I don’t have the energy for it.
“How was your date?” he asks. His face is still but it looks tense, like he’s flexing every muscle above his neck to prevent any expression.
“It wasn’t a date,” I say, because now I know that it wasn’t. “Why do you care?”
Benito shrugs, his face still unmoving. “I was just asking.”
I take a couple of steps into the room. There are cherubs on the wallpaper. Chubby baby angels on the walls of Benito’s bedroom. I point at it. “Did you pick this out?”
Benito rolls his eyes. “It’s been there since I was a baby.”
“Cute,” I say. I step farther into the room. There are mid-century-style travel posters of London, Paris, and Barcelona on the wall above his bed. Above the dresser there’s an intricate map of what I at first think is Great Britain but upon further inspection I realize is Westeros. “Nerd,” I say.
Benito sighs and stands up, walking over to me.
“I read Game of Thrones in high school and my mother bought this for me. I was barely here as a teenager, so I think she wanted me to feel as at home as possible when I was.” He watches as I scan the rest of his room, though there’s not much else to see: a small wooden dresser, a handcrafted rocking chair, a framed photo of him and the silhouette of a woman on a beach, the setting sun blasting behind them.
I pick it up and examine it. “Sutton?” I ask.
Benito nods. “My mother set that out too,” he says. “Feels rude to throw it out.”
Though I can’t see him clearly, it’s easy to tell that the Benito in the photo is smiling, happy, in love. “Do you miss her?” I ask, immediately regretting it. “Sorry. That’s none of my business.” I put the photo down, but it falls, the glass of the frame shattering. “Oh shit.”
Benito walks over to me. “It’s ok. Stand back.” He walks out of the room briefly and returns with a broom and dustpan, quickly sweeping up the glass from the floor. “Well, now I have a reason not to display it.”
“I’m sorry. Really,” I say. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Izzy, it’s ok.” Benito looks up at me, his eyes wide. He stands, setting the glass-filled dustpan on his dresser. “And to answer your earlier question, no, I don’t miss her.”
I swallow hard, relaxing the tension I didn’t realize I was holding in my neck.
He sits on the bed and runs his hand through his hair. “It was a relationship of convenience. Moving back here isn’t what I wanted, but it did give me an excuse to end things.” He laughs softly at himself. “That sounds bad, doesn’t it?”
“I get it, I think,” I say, sitting next to him. “Though I’m no relationship expert, as you and hundreds of millions of others know.”
Benito turns to look at me. His face looks less rigid than normal. The lines on his forehead are softer and his eyebrows perfectly frame his bright eyes. “Do you mean with the guy who—?”
“Leaked my horny texts, yeah,” I say. I look up at the ceiling and lean back on the bed.
“I don’t make a habit of sexting people I’m not even dating, for the record.
” I follow the outline of the stucco on the ceiling with my fingertip.
“I thought we were waiting for each other, but he was waiting to pounce. I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me. But nothing about that sounds like love, does it?”
I mean it as a rhetorical statement, but Benito considers. “I don’t know. I think it’s brave to love someone when you don’t know if they love you back.”
He turns his body so he’s sitting cross-legged on the bed next to me, his knee barely touching the top of his duvet next to mine. “Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”
His eyes dance into mine and my whole chest swells in response.
It’s how I used to feel when Levi looked at me, like our hearts were having a conversation through our eyes.
It’s sickening, really, how much I romanticized every look.
I thought it meant something, but it was just the chemical reaction in my brain triggering a full-body nervous system response. It wasn’t love; it was neuroscience.
“Do you miss it?” Benito asks.
“You mean Levi?” I ask. I haven’t really let myself think about the answer to that question. It feels dangerous to think of Levi in terms of anything other than the man who destroyed me.
“No,” Benito says. “Congress. Politics. All of it.”
I sigh. I haven’t allowed myself to think about that either. I’ve been scared of what the answer is. “I don’t know,” I say. “Do you remember two presidential elections ago? When Eveline Reed lost to that. . . that fucking buffoon.”
“I think the whole world remembers that,” Benito says with a laugh.
“The most qualified person to run in decades losing to someone with no international policy experience just because she was a woman, a woman of color.” I shake my head.
“I remember watching her during her concession speech. How full of grace she was. How optimistic she was that despite her loss, she could still lead her supporters to create the change she promised.” I take in a deep breath.
“I signed up for a leadership summit right after that. I always knew I wanted to run for Congress someday, but the way she picked herself up after that loss was what inspired me to finally jump in and do it.” I feel a lump starting to form in my throat. “But then. . .” I trail off.
“Izzy,” Benito says. He lies back, so his head is next to mine. “You can’t compare yourself to Eveline Reed. She is like the feminist political icon of this century. She’s had a lot more experience with loss and disappointment. She’s had the chance to build up that resilience.”
“I know,” I say, my voice cracking. “But I couldn’t muster up even an ounce of that courage after my much-lower-stakes loss.
Maybe that means I was never suited for the job in the first place.
” I squeeze my eyes to keep the tears from coming.
I’ve already shed so many from this loss, I don’t need Benito to see me like this.
“Maybe it means this loss will make you stronger when the next one comes along,” Benito says.
We lie in silence for a moment, both of us staring at the ceiling.
I wish I could believe that, but I know the truth: I couldn’t actually hack it as a career politician.
One loss and I fled to Italy, forever giving up, not on what I believe in, but on my ability to do anything about it.
It doesn’t matter if he thinks I want to go back or not, I don’t deserve another chance.
I sit up. “I should go to bed. I’m exhausted,” I say.
Benito nods slowly. “Yeah, me too.”
I stand, fixing my messed-up hair as I do. “Sorry about breaking your picture,” I say.
Benito’s expression warms. “I’m not.”
I skip the shower and slink into my pajamas, flipping open my laptop to find that I have to log into the streaming service where I watch Housewives.
I click forgot password and open my email.
There, at the top of my inbox I see his name again.
Levi Cross. In fact, many Levi Crosses. I scroll to the bottom.
Hi IB (the way he shortens my name because he’d rather die than call me Izzy apparently), been trying to reach you on your cell. I have an idea I want to run by you—you’ve been in my shoes before ;)
Delete. The next one is from Congressman Levi Cross.
Realizing you might have my personal email blocked (you’ll have to show me how to do that one day haha). IB, could really use your expertise—deciding a vote on a bill that was first intro’d last sesh and I want to know if you were leaning yes or no. Call me when you can.
Delete. Next from The Office of Representative Levi Cross (CA-35).
Hi Ms. Rhodes,
Congressman Cross has requested a meeting with you. Please respond with your availability at your earliest convenience.
Delete.
The most recent one from his personal email again.
Isabella, remember that hot August weekend we spent registering USC students to vote?
It was one million degrees with 1000% humidity and you still showed up in a freaking suit.
You looked so cute, energetically trying to engage the privileged freshmen in your khaki suit with sweat stains down your back.
You said it was important to project authority, that people would take you more seriously if you dressed the part.
Well, I took your note and now I never go anywhere not in a suit.
Not even the gym. Seriously, Isabella, I’m running three miles on the tread every morning in a suit.
Don’t ever let them see you flinch. I miss you.
Please call me. There’s so much I want to ask you.
Delete. I wish I did know how to block email addresses, because I’d block his. I consider researching but I don’t have the energy. I reset my password and queue up the housewives.