“Okay, Mo.”
She smiles and hurries off to her meeting, genuinely soothed by yet another lie. The truth, I haven’t just thought about therapy, I’ve longed for it. Yearned for a safe place to put all the emotions zipping around underneath my skin.
The problem is there is nothing and no one who meets that criteria because of who I am, or rather, who my husband is. There are no sacred spaces for me anymore, and as long as I’m attached to Aubrey, that will always be the case. It’s infuriating really. He has bunkers, situations rooms, offices with armed guards and bullet proofed vehicles. Every space he exists in is fortified while I remain vulnerable to him and the rest of the world.
A visible target with nowhere to privately lick my wounds and safely plot a way to get my life, career and men back.
The door clicks shut seconds after Monique’s departure, bathing the room in blessed silence that stops me in my tracks.
I look around the space—myspace, the place I’ve built my dreams and forged my legacy in the tech space—and wonder why the hell it never occurred to me that everything I want in the way of privacy and security exists right here in this building I was prepared to give up just moments ago. Unsteady feet carry me back to my desk, and I sink into the chair with hope swelling in my chest. Culture Code isn’t a break from from my life as the First Lady of the United States of America.
It’s the key to being free of the title and the man attached to it forever.
5
SELENE
“Monique says you’ve been in the office a lot more.”
Pride colors my mother’s voice, the warmth of it washing over me through my headphones. She’d called in the middle of me conducting my post-nightmare routine, which consists of listening to guided meditation recordings while I lie in bed staring at the ceiling. Initially, I was a little dismayed by the interruption, but I’m glad that I answered because her constant chattering is actually exactly what I need.
I close my eyes and will the lingering tension in my muscles to fade while the sounds of Mama moving around the kitchen transport me back to my childhood. A pot of Folgers coffee brewing on the counter. Sausage patties sizzling on the stove. Slices of bread toasted in the oven with pools of salted butter in the center.
“Selene? You still there, baby?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well say something then, girl. You had me thinking I pressed the mute button by mistake again.”
She’s right to be concerned since muting herself by accident is a regular occurrence.
“Sorry.” I wince at her light admonishment as I sit up and rest my back against the headboard. “What did you say a second ago? I missed it.”
She repeats herself, adding more context this time, so I have a full understanding of how she and Monique ended up discussing my attendance record at work.
“Don’t you two have anything better to talk about?”
The clang of a pan hitting the stove rings in my ear, prompting me to open my eyes. I blink into the darkness of the room, grateful for the black out curtains that are currently hiding the sun from me. It’s a little after seven, and I need to be getting up to start my day.
“We don’t spend all day talking about you,” Mama says. “She just happened to mention that you were spending more time at work, and I wanted to let you know how proud I am of you for not letting anything keep you from your dreams.”
“Thank you.”
It feels wrong to accept her praise when I haven’t accomplished anything significant professionally or personally in months. I decided to use Culture Code as my base of operations to get out from under Aubrey’s thumb two weeks ago, but I haven’t made any real progress on that front. Mostly, I’ve just been compiling data, studying Aubrey’s voting record from his senatorial career, comparing his campaign promises to his accomplishments in office thus far.
There hasn’t been anything of interest outside of the complaints about his actions sometimes contradicting his words. Entire forums are dedicated to what President Sanders once called Aubrey’s ‘fair weather politics’, filled with posts that put clips of him on the campaign trail promising a foreign country would never have an independent military base on US soil next to an article published in February about him being in talks with the Emir of Qatar to build one in the Midwest.
None of it means anything yet. I mean, politicians lie to get elected all the time. Still, I bookmarked every forum and news article, adding them to my growing database of things I hope will amount to something but most likely won’t because it’s hard to blackmail someone with things that are already public knowledge. I need something bigger, something darker, something undeniable and ruinous, something no one knows but the people closest to him.
Unfortunately, I’m no longer a part of his inner circle, and I wouldn’t be able to stomach the things I’d have to do to change that fact, so I’m just stuck. No access. No leads. Nothing but the desire to not just be free of Aubrey but to burn his entire world down on my way out.
“You don’t have to thank me,” Mama says, pulling me out of my head and back into the present. “I’m always proud of you, baby girl. I’m sorry I never said it enough when you were growing up.”
I hear the wobbly notes of regret in her tone and push out a soft breath. Lots of positive changes have happened in our relationship between her impromptu trip to Vegas during the campaign and now. We had long conversations about what I needed as a child and what I got from her. She’s owned her mistakes and promised to do the work to show up how I need her to now. I’ve trusted her to make those changes and forgiven her, but she can’t seem to forgive herself.
“Mama.”
“I know. I won’t cry.” She laughs, the sound wispy and sad, sending the image of her wiping away tears floating through my mind. We’re both quiet for a beat, and then she perks back up, steering the conversation in a new direction. “What’s on your agenda for the day?”
