Page 115 of Bona Fide

? What It Takes — Aerosmith ?

“Ladies and gentlemen,”I conclude. “Thank you so much for your time today. We’ll follow up next week.” The table of my advisors from all several departments disperse from their chairs and handshakes immediately take place.

I’m patted on the back, asked to go play golf sometime along with many words of encouragement. But I don’t miss Em shifting her feet at the corner of the room, patiently waiting for the meeting to end.

A few people send a curious glance her way, but she ignores them as she waits for me to finish up. Petite hands clasped together in front of her, she sends a few grins to the men and women leaving the room and, when the last one is out, she marches towards me like the little soldier she is.

“Em, why are you still here?”

She blinks at me and stops walking. “Huh?”

“It’s your day off,” I reply, gathering up papers off the long conference table. “It’s on our calendar.”

“It is?” I fix her with an exasperated look, and she casually shrugs. “I forgot.”

“Em, you’ve been busting your ass for months. We’re in, I’m pledged in. You promised you’d take a day off, you did—months ago—and now you’re following me around the White House like my shadow.”

“I am your shadow,” she mutters. “It keeps the sun off my face.” I roll my eyes. “Can I take off tomorrow instead? I’m already here.”

“Em…” I warn.

“Tomorrow,” she states.

I give her a weak smile. “Awesome.”

She frowns. “It’s going to happen tomorrow.” I nod. “Do you know what I’m talking about?” Her face stares at me intently, and now I know we’re not talking about her sitting around her house, lost, tomorrow.

“Em, I only know the English language, and I’m not good with riddles so…” I round her and make my way to the door, and my shadow continues to follow me.

Once I hit the hallway, it’s crowded with people bustling around with briefcases and leather binders in their hands. I get friendly nods in greeting, and I return them—I have to—and continue to my study where I feel more comfortable.

The Oval Office only reminds me of Scandal, the show Reagan and I used to watch, and it weaves my stomach into knots. It pings the familiar pain in my gut, and I avoid it as much as humanly possible.

It’ll get better.

I keep telling myself that. With time, I’ll be able to breathe better, see things that are actually in front of me and not daze off into memories that are just that—distant and so long ago.

Over a year ago.

Thing is, if I can learn not to torture myself with the video that she sent me, I’ll be better off. It still lies in my phone, played over a dozen times. And each time hurts more than the last.

Emmy thinks she blocked me from watching it anymore, thinks she deleted the video—it’s called a cloud, where everything is backed up to remind myself how I took a good thing and shit all over it.

How she took my love and ruptured it.

“He’ll take his lunch in his study,” Emmy tells someone as I open the door to my office and let her stride in behind me. There’s a personal study off the Oval, but I hate it being so damn close to the scenes in that TV show, so I kicked some press secretary out and made it my own.

Taking an immediate place behind my desk, Emmy stands in front of it with her brown binder pressed up into her stomach, waiting for me to acknowledge what she wants to tell me again.

“What’s the matter, Em?” I say off a sigh.

“It’s...Demi,” she drones. “She thinks she’s pregnant again.” My eyes bore into her, and I don’t mean at her, but she’s the only living thing in front of me so she gets the brunt of it.

“I’d have to fuck her to get her pregnant.” The familiar beginning of a rage-filled fit courses through my body. I’ve told myself that I wouldn’t give Demi the power to make me feel a certain type of way, but it’s hard.

It’s so beyond exhausting and difficult to be linked to her, to have people acknowledge her as my wife like I want her to be.

“You would’ve had to do that the first time too,” she quips.

---