The guy was also a deacon in his church. Pro-family-values kind of dude.
Yeeeaaah.
It cannot be a mere coincidence that Daniel attended a small social at a private residence with me in DC just weeks earlier and overheard that little nugget of gossip when two senator’s wives were discussing nanniesnotto hire.
Then Tom pissed me off the week before the scandal broke by putting me off when I was working to help secure a cloture vote head count, and he wouldn’t tell me where his boss was or how to reach him. Doubly pissing me off because the senator owed me one for helping him out in a similar manner just the month before. I was going to call that chit in, and Tom damn well knew it.
I might have vented my frustration to Daniel later that night.
No, I’ve never asked Daniel about it, and I don’t want to. Little coincidences like that have happened a lot throughout our relationship. It’s sweet that he’s so viciously protective of me.
Or, maybe they are nothing more than freaky coincidences. After all the years I spent lost and wandering an emotional wasteland and haunted by my ghost, the belief that my devout boy shadows my path in unseen ways is a comfort.
Yet it’s exactly why I’ll never reveal my ghost’s name to him.
Because, sometimes, it’s impossible to completely let go, even when I know I should.
And because there’s still the chance that maybeIsomehow failedhim.
I would never forgive myself, no matter how much pain I’ve endured, if I accidentally triggered misfortune for my ghost.
Even when Daniel and I settled who our hall-pass fucks were, I never spoke my ghost’s name.
He’s simply known to Daniel as my ghost.
It means a wide swath of my college years remain undiscussed in anything other than the vaguest of ways. I remain friends with a few people I went to school with, but because of the circumstances, hardly anyone back then even knew my ghost’s real name, and none of those few even knew we were…more.
Not even my own family, although before I met Daniel I’d trained them never to discuss my private life with anyone unless I was standing right there with them to approve of it. Going into politics meant losing some control, and I wanted to make sure no one ever tried to ratfuck me through my ghost.
Or ratfuck him in any way.
In fact, my family only knows he was my roommate for my freshman year. I…obfuscated after that point by referring to him as Mase.
Technically,nota lie.
But I’ve never revealed even that much to my boy. It doesn’t matter, anyway, right?
For a moment, my gaze settles on his discarded suit, where his clothes ended up mixed with mine where they’re draped over the chair, and my memory once again flashes back to another Sunday afternoon and another suit.
Another man.
I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, slowly inhale, and realize I cannot eradicate this particular memory right now. They pop up this way sometimes, like gas bubbles rising through mud at a Yellowstone paint pot, although I haven’t had one hit me this hard in quite a while.
That’s progress, I suppose.
Opening my eyes, I force my gaze off the suit-draped chair and watch my sleeping husband.
He’s here, with me, right now, safely nestled in my arms. I can inhale and smell his comforting scent—hints of the deodorant we both wear, the bodywash we both use, the same shampoo. Even when we’re apart, these things help anchor our senses to each other. It allows me to conjure the taste of his lips and the softness of his hair playing through my fingers. The warmth and weight of his body.
He’sreal. And he’smine.
He’s no ghost.
Ghosts are meant to be left alone, for the most part.
And that’s what I do.
Except when I can’t.
