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 readGame of Thronesin 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 photoof 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 likethefeminist 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 squeezemy 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.
