by Evans, LJ
I went to my friend and hugged her. Sorry for what she’d been through. Sorry for what I’d been through. And sorry that I was going to be dragging them through more crap.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “Just pissed now, but look.” She waved toward the TV in the middle as Clare greeted me with her own hug that made me want to cry all over again. It had been so long since I’d had anything close to a motherly hug.
I turned to the TV in time to see Senator Fenway’s face and then a cut to a videotape of the senator and a woman whose face was blurred in an elevator. I realized it was Dani. In the video, she was shaking her head no even as he was narrowing the gap between their bodies. He pulled her, and she pulled back, ripping her dress as they battled. He overpowered her, pulling her tight up against him and kissing her. Her knee came up and hit him in the groin. His face contorted in rage, and he hit her right across the face, and as she was pushed backward by the momentum of the hit, the elevator doors opened, and Dani ran.
I felt like I was watching a movie. Just like my life last night had felt. Unreal. Fake. Someone else’s story.
When I turned back to the couch, Clare was sniffling into a tissue and pulling Dani to her, but Dani’s face was all disdain. “Dumbshit thought he was going to be able to say that it was all my fault. His career is over.”
I looked closer at Dani’s face and saw the red mark on her cheek where his hand had hit her, but I was in awe of the power and strength rolling off of her. Dani really was my new female superhero.
She pulled away from her mom, turned off the TV, and looked at me.
“What happened with you last night?”
I shook my head, unable to talk about it in the apartment. She nodded, as if understanding. “Mac mentioned we might not want to talk here. I have friends coming to do pest control later.”
Pest control. My eyes widened at her as she stepped away. Bugs. They were going to sweep for bugs.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, guilt coursing over me again. The fact that they were having to debug their home because of me. It was driving me slightly crazy that Petya’s lifestyle and Malik’s screw-up were causing the Whittakers more headaches than they needed right now.
“Honestly, I usually have it done once or twice a year,” Dani told me.
My mouth dropped. “What?”
She smiled. “Working at the Capitol and the Pentagon has its downsides. You wouldn’t believe what people will do to get ahead on a bill or in an election. Ask Mom. We kind of grew up with it. With Dad and Granddad being pretty high up the food chain, our cars, homes, offices, and phones usually get a regular cleanup.”
Clare was nodding, but I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure I was prepared for this kind of life—wiretaps, and secret agencies, and sedans parked down the street.
“Where’s Mac?” I asked.
“He went with Dad to make more threats, I’m sure.” She shrugged.
“That’s not at all what they said they were doing,” Clare responded.
“That’s just because they didn’t want me to know they were going all manly-man, protecting their weaker female family members.”
I snorted, waving at the TV. “I guarantee you, that proves, without a doubt, that you are not the weaker family member.”
Dani’s face wavered for the first time that morning. “But I had to call Mac to come get me.”
“You did the right thing,” Clare said.
“You called someone you cared about to come get you. That just happened to be your brother,” I told her. She nodded. We all sat in silence for a few moments. So much that couldn’t be said. So much that neither Dani nor I wanted to discuss. “I’m going to go shower. I’ll be back out in a few minutes.”
I stood in the shower for a long time, trying to wash away the stench that had attached to me from the night before. But I knew, without a doubt, what I’d faced was nothing compared to what Dani had faced.
When I came back out, Mac, his dad, and two strange men had joined Dani and her mom. Mac was handing one of the men my phone. The guy took my phone to the counter and had it opened in two seconds. He looked it over, closed it back up, and handed it back to Mac.
“Nothing there, but they really don’t need it these days. Could be tapped through the cloud, and you’d never know. Get a burner if you’re worried,” he said. Then, the two strange men left.
Mac saw me for the first time. He crossed the room, pulled me into his arms, and said, “You’re looking better this morning.”
I nodded. “Do you really think I need a burner?”
Mac and his dad exchanged a look.
“What?” I asked.
“Only if you want to talk with your sister about what happened. If it’s just your normal conversation, you shouldn’t need it,” his dad said.
My insides tightened. Mac had told his dad what had happened. And even though not a single one of them was treating me any different than they had from the moment they met me, I couldn’t help the shame that welled up inside me. It made me angry. Angry at both the shame and my family. I’d always been determined not to feel embarrassed because of who my family was, and yet, standing in front of this man and his family that I ached to be a part of like I’d never ached for anything before, it hit me like it never had.
I rubbed my forehead; a headache was forming that I knew wasn’t going to dislodge anytime soon. The truth filled me. I needed to get out of their apartment and their life. These beautiful people would never turn away from me. They would never walk out just because of my family, but I wouldn’t let mine drag down theirs. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.
♫ ♫ ♫
Mac and I didn’t have much time alone the rest of the weekend. His family was in and out of the apartment. By the time Mac and his dad had gotten back to the apartment, Dani had made the decision to go to the D.C. police and lodge a formal complaint. After that, we all watched the fall of Senator Fenway’s career on the TV as every station, political or not, was overflowing with it.
Dani was interviewed, handling it with a grace that reminded me of my sister in the backseat of Theresa’s car, saying she knew not to talk. Raisa shouldn’t have had to deal with that any more than Dani should have had to deal with talking about being attacked by a man, or I should have had to deal with invoking Fourth Amendment rights to ensure the safety of my sister and myself.
Raisa texted me from a new number that she was on her way to San Francisco. It was a burner phone. But I wondered if it really mattered. My number would lead any agency that wanted it to her new phone. Harder to trace, but not impossible. Mac’s dad had handed me my own burner when he came back to the apartment.
I thanked him, turning a thousand shades of red.
And it hit me again, for the hundredth time that weekend and with the same ferocity it had hit me in the club when I’d told Raisa to put the drugs in my bag. I had to leave. I was losing all of them.
Raisa called me once she’d gotten to San Francisco. Her burner to my burner. She told me Malik had taken Petya’s private jet and flown back to Russia, and that Petya was furious with him. Petya had had to charter a plane for Raisa. Mom was getting a rehab clinic set up for Malik, and Raisa was worried about what exactly Petya had in store for him other than rehab.
“He left us with the drugs, Raisa. He left you to get arrested.”
She was quiet. “He has been different the last few years. He has always felt entitled to more than what Father gave him. He was unhappy.”
“Don’t make excuses. He did a crappy thing, brother or not.”
“Yes. But I will forgive him. This once. You should too.”
I wasn’t sure I could. I wasn’t normally one to hold a grudge, but I also wasn’t one who kept people in my life who weren’t healthy for me. This thought made me want to laugh because my entire family was not healthy for me. But the ties that bound me to them could not easily be severe
d. I loved them, but I didn’t have to like them. I had a right to be angry, and so did she.
It was late on Sunday when Senator Matherton and their granddad showed up. They had a meeting in our living room about what the rest of the week was going to look like, Dani’s and his press conference scheduled for the next day, and what Mac’s role in it should be.
Mac watched me with hooded eyes as I said goodnight to everyone on Sunday and journeyed up to the loft. I knew he could read my withdrawal even though we hadn’t spoken hardly two words about any of it, but every time he’d started to corner me, there’d been someone else at the door or on the phone.
In a strange way, I was grateful—not for what had happened to Dani, but for the chaos—because it allowed me to distance myself and to start thinking about what I needed to do to move out.
♫ ♫ ♫
When I came out of the bathroom Monday morning, Mac was waiting for me. He wrapped me in a hug, and I let him. I even hugged him back because he’d been through more than I had in many ways, because he’d had to deal not only with Dani’s situation but my own.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m okay.”
“I’m sorry we haven’t been able to talk. That our lives were a circus this weekend,” he said into my hair.
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“It’s going to be that way all week, but I want to be here for you, too. Have you heard any more from your family?”
“No.”
He pulled back and looked into my face, a frown appearing. “What is it?”
I ran my hand along my ponytail before I could stop myself, and he read the tell for exactly what it was. Nerves.
“Talk to me, Georgie.”
“I just―”
“No,” he inserted before I could finish, and it pissed me off. I pushed away from him, grabbing my bags and hefting them onto my shoulder.
“You owe me a favor,” I told him.
His face shut down, emotion leaving it. “I do, but not this one.”
His expectation that he knew what I wanted just continued to irritate me. “As soon as I find a new place, I’m moving out. And my favor is that you let me do this without trying to stop me. That you let me do this…for you.”
My voice cracked on the last words, and I hated it. I wanted to sound as sure and strong as Dani had all weekend. As strong and beautiful as she’d sounded every time she’d repeated what had happened to her.
“How on earth can you think that it would be for me?” he asked, frustration entering his own voice.
“You all have enough to deal with. You don’t need me bringing wiretaps and intercontinental agencies into your lives on top of it. It’s only going to be worse now that they found the drugs,” I said, and I raised my chin, putting on my own emotionless face. Straightening my back. I needed to do this.
“You’ve probably been bugged and followed off and on for years. You don’t think I already knew that? You don’t think I considered that already?” he protested.
“You promised me a favor, Mac. No questions. Just granted.” I turned toward the door.
“I don’t want to grant this one.”
I didn’t look back as I opened the door and said, “I’m moving. You can make it painless for both of us, or painful. That’s your choice, I guess. But I’m asking you not to, and I hope you’ll agree.”
And then I left, because if I didn’t, I would have let him talk me into staying. I would have let him reason away my fears. But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to take my miserable family and move them away from the Whittakers and everything they deserved to have. I wanted them far, far away from my beautiful Mac and his future.
Mac
HOLD ME WHILE WE WAIT
“This is you, this is me, this is all we need
Is it true? My faith is shaken, but I still believe
This is you, this is me, this is all we need
So won't you stay a while?”
Performed by Lewis Capaldi.
Written by Commons / Hartman / Hartman / Capaldi
I was in the middle of talking through another interview with some news station in the Midwest when I saw my dad walk into the office. Senator Matherton’s office had been abuzz all day. It felt, in some ways, like what I’d experienced in the war room at the Pentagon when an op was going down.
It was where I thrived.
What I didn’t thrive on was the sly remarks made about my sister and Guy after they’d stood on the Capitol steps and given a press conference. I didn’t thrive on the well of politicians who were trying to distance themselves not only from Fenway but also from Matherton because he’d stood up for Dani. It made my stomach turn and made me want to pound something…anything…maybe even a person.
When I hung up, Dad was at my desk, hat in hand, flipping it around in circles—a tell of my father’s that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Not even this past weekend over everything that had gone down with Dani. Then, he’d been all action and anger. Now, he seemed wary. Sad.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“We’ve lost contact with a squad,” he said quietly.
My heart stopped, Darren and Nash flashing before my eyes. Darren’s hands around Tristan’s waist, kissing his baby on the top of her head. Nash flirting with Georgie and my sister, all sly smiles. No. Not them.
I shook my head. “Not Silver Squadron―”
He nodded.
My mouth went dry, and my heart crushed into ash. “What happened?”
“An op in the South African Republic. Looks like they were ambushed. We know we lost their leader, but that’s all we knew before they went completely dark.” Dad’s voice remained hushed, not only because he was riddled with his own distress and sadness, but also because he was telling me things in the middle of an unsecured office on Capitol Hill.
Bile filled my throat. Anguish. We lost their leader. Darren was their leader. We lost Darren. And the anguish was swirled with anger. The op. The goddamn op that I’d been opposing for months. The one Nash had told me they were trying to resurrect. The one I wasn’t there to prevent. Now, Darren, and maybe more, had given their lives for a stranglehold in a place that I’d told them wouldn’t work. That I’d told them was full of literal and figurative bombs.
They’d risked everything. They’d given everything. For nothing.
I closed my eyes as the tears threatened to spill. Tears of loss and pain and anger. They’d sacrificed it all while I hadn’t sacrificed shit. I’d gone straight for everything I’d ever wanted, leaving Darren, Nash, and the entire team exposed to the stupidity of those at the DoD.
I’d walked, and it had cost Darren his life. Maybe Nash, too. Maybe others.
I was just like every fucking politician who had sauntered into this office since I’d joined, asking “What’s in it for me?” without a care in the world as to what it was costing everyone else. And it had cost Darren his entire world.
I got up, ready to go bruise my knuckles on some more faces. Ready to gut myself along the way.
“Robbie,” Dad said, stopping me. He pulled me to him in an embrace I didn’t deserve, and I had to fight harder against the tears. I had to fight against the knot that had built in my chest and my throat and was threatening to cut off my air.
I pushed him away, and he let me.
“I’m so sorry, Son,” he said.
“What the fuck happened, Dad?” I asked. “I told them a goddamn hundred times that operation was fucking impossible without losing men. I told them…” My voice cracked, and I stopped, wiping my hand over my face.
“An IED followed by gunfire. They knew we were coming,” he told me.
An IED had exploded a world away from me, but it was as if it was right here in the room with me. Taking everything. Changing my world in a way that I wasn’t prepared for.
“I want to go to the Pentagon,” I told him.
He hesitated and then nodded.
Dani came into the room, took one look at our faces, and dropped the papers that were in her hand. “What happened?”
“We’ve lost contact with a S.E.A.L. squad,” Dad told her because I couldn’t say the words. Wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to say the words. We hadn’t lost them. I had. I’d given up. Walked out. Run away. Chased dreams so stupid, naïve, and ridiculous that they weren’t worth the clouds they rested on.
“Oh my God.” Dani sat down, putting a hand on her stomach. “Nash? Darren?”
“The leader. The others we don’t know yet,” Dad told her. But I knew…Darren…maybe more. I walked out. I couldn’t deal with Dani’s emotions. I couldn’t risk seeing her tears on top of everything else she’d dealt with over the last three days. It was too much. Too much at once. Too much pain and anguish. Too many times I hadn’t been there in the moment that people needed me. Dani. Georgie. Darren. Nash. The faces flew across my mind.
I knew one thing for sure. I wanted someone to pay, even if that someone was me. I wanted to face the fucker who’d rubber-stamped the op after reading all my reasons for not doing so. I wanted to see his face when he shouldered the guilt with me.
♫ ♫ ♫
It was close to midnight when I entered the apartment. I expected it to be dark. Instead, the lights were ablaze, and there were boxes sitting in a pile at the foot of the loft stairs. Another goddamn loss that I didn’t know if I could take. I wasn’t sure it mattered now, anyway, if she moved out or if she stayed. I wouldn’t be here to coax her back to me piece by piece, even if I’d been able to.
I wasn’t sure I deserved for her to come back to me.
Dani looked up from her spot on the couch, throwing her hands in the air. “I tried. I’ve talked to her until I was blue from lack of air. She won’t listen to me.”
She moved toward me, and before I could stop her, she hugged me. “Have we heard anything more?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Still dark. I’m heading down to SOCOM tomorrow. Hopefully, we’ll know more then.”
