8.
My phone is already in my hand before the car even clears the last barricade.
Habit.
Routine.
Something to do with my fingers so my mind doesn't start chewing through the evening the way it always does—rewinding smiles, replaying handshakes, counting how many times I laughed at something that wasn't funny.
Outside the tinted window, the city slips by in soft, expensive blurs. Flashing lights. Black suits. A line of police motorcycles that escort us like I'm either precious or dangerous.
A few months ago, I still flinched at the sound of sirens.
Now I barely blink.
Rodney's first hundred days are almost over, and somehow my body has learned the rhythm of a life that doesn't belong to me.
Charity fundraisers are all the same in the way prisons are all the same—different paint, same locks.
A room full of people who can afford to care, gathered beneath chandeliers to congratulate themselves for it.
Plates too small. Voices too loud. Cameras placed just far enough away to pretend they aren't watching.
I kept my smile in place until the last photo.
Until the last "Thank you for your time, First Lady."
Until the last hand.
Then I slipped into the backseat of the car and let my face go blank.
Joe's eyes catch mine in the rearview mirror for half a second. He doesn't ask if I'm okay. He never does.
The radio is off. The silence hums.
My phone buzzes once.
Vivian.
I unlock it, already bracing myself like the screen can slap me.
Six hours free.
For her, that's a gift to me.
I exhale through my nose and type back.
The dots appear instantly.
Vivian never sleeps, never blinks, never lets the machine slow down long enough for anyone to remember she's a human.
My stomach tightens.
Not because I don't want to attend a benefit. Not because I'm afraid of crowds.
Because I know exactly what a suicide prevention event looks like.
Soft lights. Soft words. Stories told by people who have lived through things they shouldn't have had to survive. Doctors in suits who speak in careful sentences about pain, about shame, about the ways bodies keep score.
And I know who will be there.
Grant Lennox.
He'll be there because this is his world, the part of medicine that's as much politics as it is healing. He'll be there because people like to attach his name to theirs and call it philanthropy.
He'll be there because it makes sense.
And the fact that I want to see him is the part that doesn't.
I stare at Vivian's message until the letters start to blur.
I've been able to attend sessions consistently for the last two months. Once a week when I was in D.C. or zoom on weeks when my schedule shoved me across state lines like a chess piece.
The weeks I saw him, I slept a little better.
The weeks I didn't, I felt like something in me started to fray.
This week, my schedule was so tight I couldn't make it to his office.
Couldn't make it to Zoom.
Couldn't even manage a phone call without someone hovering nearby, listening for a crack.
And now, riding home, my body feels it like withdrawal.
I type slowly, keeping my words neutral because words are evidence now.
I add nothing else.
I do nothing.
My phone buzzes again before I can set it down.
I lock the phone and drop it into my lap.
The car glides over a bridge, the river beneath us reflecting streetlights like scattered coins.
I watch my reflection in the window.
The First Lady.
The wife.
The polished woman in pearls who smiles like she's never been afraid of anything.
I look fine.
I always look fine.
My chest tightens anyway.
Because there's a part of me—small, childish, stupid—that thinks if I show up at that benefit, I'll get to sit near him.
That I'll get to breathe the same air.
That I'll get to exist in the same room as someone who looks at me like I'm a person instead of an accessory.
It's pathetic and I try hard to shake them out my head and ask myself why would I even want those things.
My phone buzzes again. Not Vivian this time, but Reese.
I hesitate before opening it like her name could trigger something too.
I type back.
The dots appear, then disappear, then reappear. Reese is probably walking, talking, fixing three things at once. Reese's brain never stops.
My fingers hover over the keyboard.
I could say yes.
I could tell her about the baby comment, the way my lungs stalled, the way my skin still feels like it doesn't belong to me.
But I don't.
I don't like the way pity towards me looks on people I love.
I don't like being the sad story in someone else's mouth.
I don't like the version of myself that exists when someone knows too much.
So I choose the safer truth.
Three seconds pass.
Reese
Perfect, I'll come. Wine?
My shoulders loosen an inch.
Joe glances up in the mirror again, expression unchanged. Professional. Controlled.
"Everything okay, ma'am?" he asks, voice even.
It's the first time he's asked in weeks.
I blink, smooth my face back into place out of instinct.
"Yes," I say. "Everything's fine."
The lie is automatic.
The car turns down the long driveway, the gates opening before we even slow.
Home rises in front of us—grand, guarded, quiet.
A place that looks like peace from the outside.
I press my fingers lightly to the glass and watch the lights in the windows.
Some of them are on.
Most of them aren't.
Rodney isn't here.
The house always feels lighter when Rodney isn't here.
That thought hits me like guilt, sharp and familiar.
Joe pulls up to the front steps.
One of the agents opens my door before I can reach for the handle.
"Ma'am."
I step out into the cool air, adjust my coat, keep my posture tall.
Habit. Routine. Performance.
But as I walk toward the front door, I feel my phone buzz one more time in my purse, and my stomach twists with the irrational hope that it's Vivian telling me Rodney chose the business banquet.
That I'll be the one at the mental health benefit.
That I'll have an excuse to see Grant Lennox.
And I hate myself a little for how much I want it.
The front door closes behind me with a soft, expensive click.
Silence immediately rushes in to fill the space Rodney usually takes up.
It's not that the house is loud when he's here—it's that everything inside it listens harder. The air itself feels more alert, like it's waiting to see what version of him walks through the room and what mood it comes attached to.
Tonight, there's only quiet.
Only the low, steady presence of security somewhere downstairs. The faint hum of the thermostat. My own footsteps on polished floors.
I loosen my scarf as I move through the foyer, the motion automatic, practiced. I keep my face neutral even though no one is here to look at it. Old habits survive longer than they should.
The staircase curves up to the second floor, elegant and grand. A house designed for photographs. A house designed to imply stability.
A house that is already being hollowed out.
As I climb the stairs, I pass two boxes stacked neatly against the wall—taped, labeled, ready. Someone has written Housner Residence – WH in bold black marker like our lives can be summarized in sharpie and cardboard.
The sight makes my stomach tighten.
Not because I'm sentimental.
Because I know what it means.
The White House isn't just an address.
It's a cage.
I turn down the hallway and push open the door to the bedroom Rodney and I share.
Our bedroom.
That phrase still feels strange.
The room looks the same at first glance—bed made, curtains drawn, lamps arranged with intent—but the corners are changing. One side of the closet is visibly lighter, hangers spaced out where his suits used to pack the rail.
My dresses are still here.
My clothes always stay.
As if I'm the thing that needs to remain within reach.
I set my purse on the dresser and exhale, finally, a real breath. I slip my heels off and let my toes sink into the rug, soft and thick beneath my feet. For a second, I just stand there.
Not moving.
Not smiling.
Not performing.
Just existing.
Then I remember Reese will be here soon, and I move again.
I pull a pair of lounge shorts from a drawer and a thin long-sleeve top. I set them on the edge of the bed, then head to the bathroom.
The shower turns on with a hiss.
Steam climbs the tiles.
I step under the water and let it hit my skin hard enough to drown out my thoughts. I tilt my face into the spray until my breathing evens out, until the tightness in my chest loosens into something manageable.
I wash slowly. Thoroughly. As if cleaning can undo the day.
As if hot water can rinse off hands I had to shake, smiles I had to give, words I had to swallow.
When I finally turn the water off, the mirror is fogged. My reflection is a blur. I like it better that way.
I dry off and change into the lounge clothes. My hair goes up in a loose clip. No jewelry. No makeup touch-ups. Just me—plain, quiet, unpolished.
It feels like taking off armor.
Downstairs, the lights in the living room are on low. Someone has already lit the fireplace even though it isn't that cold yet—another detail arranged for comfort, for optics, for the idea that this house is warm.
I'm halfway to the kitchen when my phone buzzes again.
Vivian.
I stop near the foot of the stairs, thumb hovering.
My pulse does a stupid little jump.
I unlock the screen.
I should be thinking about the speech. The optics. The donor list.
Instead my mind immediately offers up a different image.
Grant Lennox in a dark suit, standing near a stage, calm as ever.
His voice when he says my name.
The way he looks at me like I'm not a headline.
The idea of seeing him tonight sends a pulse of heat through my ribcage that doesn't match the room temperature.
I hate it.
I also—quietly—need it.
I type back with fingers that feel too steady for the mess in my chest.
I lock my phone and slide it onto the kitchen counter.
My hands linger there for a beat, palms pressing lightly to the cool stone. I close my eyes.