i'm empty and aching and i don't know why
Perhaps in a different time, a different place, they could have been together.
When she was younger she read many novels of forbidden love. She could never understand them – if people wanted to be together, iwhy weren't they/i? Why did it matter what other people thought? A love affair only concerned the people inside it. But she had forgotten, or never known, that everyone is connected, that her actions affected the lives of so many others.
Later she realizes she had forgotten how to care about other people. She had forgotten that other people's opinions mattered to her. But they do, and now she is in love and it hurts her. She feels the pain of having to conform to other people's expectations, she feels the pain of having to live her life above reproach. As the second most public figure at the White House, she has to be spotless and clean and cannot dirty her hands with anything as sordid or human as love.
She is no longer allowed to feel his beard against her face, his hair in her fingers. She cannot press the heel of her palm against the sharp line of his cheekbone.
This is not one of the times they can pretend they don't work together. They don't have those times often anymore. On the campaign trail, the first campaign trail, it was easy – after long days and even longer nights and through a haze of booze, they would fall into bed together and she would wake up with his arm around her waist and his mournful look slightly less pronounced. Then, they were not yet the face of the nation. They still had the bliss of anonymity.
Touch, in those moments, was always the first sense for her. She had grown used to the feel of waking up with his body against hers and she had learned the subtle nuances that indicate each and every one of his moods.
But this time around, the second campaign, is different. Andy is ever-present, a fact which hardly bothers her until he tells her that Andy is pregnant. With twins. With his twins. She shares a desperate glance with Sam (who is Toby's – always has been and always will be) under a cloud of congratulations and the beginnings of plans to reunite the two wayward lovers. She mumbles something completely unintelligible and excuses herself, Sam on her heels.
He understands, as she thought he would. His idealistic blue eyes are dimmed and he can hardly bear to look at her, to show her his pain.
Her hand comes up to his cheek, her thumb smoothing a tear away. Her forehead rests against his. She feels guilty for seeking comfort in him, in ihis/i boy, but Sam's hand comes up and rests on her back, and his other arm wraps around her waist – and then their lips meet and she feels a welcome oblivion.
It is death and life at the same time. His fingers are splayed flat on her belly, possessive and so unboyish she can hardly reconcile ithis/i Sam to the earnest and eager Sam she knows and loves. His sharp, smooth chin resting against her shoulder feels alien compared to the softer, bearded one that used to rest there.
Despite herself she cannot stop imagining the two of them together, the shorter, older man with his hands (oh, those hands! those hands she knows so well!) in his hair, on his chest, where her hands are now. She imagines these things, and she can tell Sam remembers them, for he is not reticent as she suspects he is with Toby but controlling and in charge and he kisses her until she cannot think, cannot breathe, can only call up a faint memory of what she feels for Toby.
He wants to marry Andy again because he loves her, because they are having twins together, because that's what's iright/i and least embarrassing to the President (something he hardly wants to admit is a factor in his decision, but it's there and he won't deny it to himself, not now). Because he knows that C.J. will never marry him. Because he's not sure he iwants/i to marry C.J., as much as he loves her.
What he remembers most about her body is the hard curve of her hip that used to press against his hand, his thumb running along the edge. The sharpness of it surprised him, as it always did – it reminded him of the more prickly parts of her personality. But she was softer in other ways – where her neck meets her shoulder, her laugh (that full-throated, delicious giggle), her compassion.
They were young and idealistic together once. She was softer then – physically, still carrying a few extra pounds from greasy college food; emotionally, more open and vulnerable. Her laugh had not yet aged to perfection. Her passion to do good was broader and bright and shining, newly minted. His – tarnished slightly, but burning just as bright underneath it all.
The curve of her hip defined itself over the years – during the frugal years of working on campaigns, saving her $600-a-week salary for things less mundane than food (her first Armani suit, a Montblanc fountain pen for his birthday). And then when she began earning money, $550,000 a year, she had grown used to frugality and by then understood the value of a slim (albeit tall) figure in L.A.
He could trace its evolution. He remembers, now, the texture, the feeling against his fingers, the hardness of the bone beneath flesh. Those memories had been pushed to the back of his mind after Andy. With Andy there was a completely new anatomy to learn, different places for his hands to linger, a different curve of the hip to catalogue.
And Sam. 'Sam, Sam, the sunshine man', C.J. once called him, and it's true. Sam, so young, so idealistic, so igood/i. He almost cannot bear to see him, touch him, feeling his cynicism rub off on him. He does not want to corrupt him.
Sam had followed C.J. out of the room tonight, after his announcement. He couldn't blame him, though he wanted to. Not now, not yet, maybe not ever – not with everything else going on. He does not have enough energy to expend on blame.
She sees Toby the next day, early in the morning, and she gives him a disapproving look – she cannot help it. It is in part, provoked by her guilt (ishe and Sam in her bed – last night, this morning, seeking comfort and refuge and God-knows-what-else in each other/i) and by her anger. He glowers in response.
iHow could you?/i she wants to say, but she does not, nor does she confess iI slept with Sam/i. She does not tell him, for he would forgive her (he would ihave/i to forgive her) and she does not want his forgiveness. She does not need it, she did nothing wrong, though she feels she did. And, most importantly, she does not deserve it, not with the scent of Sam still on her skin, not with the slight scratches of his early-morning stubble on her belly, on her breasts.
Forgiveness is a bitter pill to swallow, especially now.