Get off his fence andchooseme. Or at least choose to work to keep me.
Calledthatone wrong.
My fault, again. Because I’ve seen first-hand over the last six years what Leo’s endured with Elliot. The emotional tug-of-war Elliot’s put Leo through. They’ve been together, what, nearly twelve years? To think Leo would choose me after all these years was fucking stupid. My relationship with Leo was in many ways a mirror image of what he had with Elliot.
To think he’d order me to stay when he refuses to take Elliot’s choice from him was doubly stupid.
Besides,I’mthe dumbass who reminded Leo that Elliot needs him, and who refused to let Leo quit and leavewithme when he offered to do just that.
Fuck.
I’m also the dumbass who paid way too close attention to the lessons I learned from President Samuels’ chief of staff. I know the perils awaiting Elliot if Leo isn’t standing in the shadows, supporting him and taking care of him during the campaign and after Elliot’s elected.
I understand the fact that there are people who’d probably kill—maybe even literally—to have Elliot in their pocket.
Without Elliot committed to me even a fraction as much as he is Leo, I’m a strategic weakness that would be easily exploited, given so much as one false move.
No, Kev didn’t tell me I should quit and leave. He would have outright told me that, if that was his message. It was wrapped in a more general warning about what could happen if Leo wasn’t around to protect Elliot, and how I should proceed if I was staying.
After six years of trying, Elliot wasn’t letting me in. I’m a masochist, but I’m notthatkind of masochist. It was tearing Leo up, too, and I couldn’t keep doing that to him.
Doesn’t help that I’m once again thinking about the terrified twelve-year-old who huddled in his plane seat and prayed the pilot didn’t turn the flight around and send me back to my parents in New York.
I think about the rejection, the fear.
I think about that nameless woman who stepped between me and my parents in the airport, the gate agent who hustled me down the jetway, and the flight attendant who kept an eye on me, and who ushered me straight into Mimi’s waiting arms.
Which, of course, leads me to thinking about Meredith and Alan Cruz, Leo’s parents. People who welcomed me in as family simply because Leo loved me.
How Meredith—I mean Mom—fixed some of Mimi’s recipes for us the first time Leo took me home to meet them.
Leading me to remember how Leo secretly sent his mom the recipes ahead of our first visit to their home in California, because Leo loved me, and he wanted me to feel welcomed.
And now, dammit, I’m cryingagain.
At some point, I need to call Meredith and talk to her before she finds out Leo and I aren’t together any longer, but I don’t know what to say to her. She’s going to ask me a lot of questions, I’m sure, that I won’t have the right answers to. I’m not asking Leo what he told them.
Or if he’s even told them.
Hell, they don’t even know about Leo and Elliot.
I guess I can stick to the basic truth—that the campaign schedule will be brutal, and I want to finish my degree.
That’s the reason I gave Chris Bruunt and everyone else who’s asked. Only Kev, Leo, and Elliot know the real reason.
Well, Elliot might not know, if Leo didn’t tell him. Hell, Elliot might not even know I’ve left DC.
While I haven’t exactly told Kev, he’s not an idiot. He’s President Samuels’ chief of staff. With my resignation coming on the heels of our discussion, I know he assumes it’s related.
Anyway, seems like that’s the easiest truth to tell anyone who asks why the hell I’d give up a great job in DC—at the fricking White House—to return to Tallahassee, of all places.
The campaign schedule will be brutal.
I wanted to finish my degree.
Although neither of those truths come anywhere close to scratching the surface of my soul.
* * * *
