What do you do when your life comes crashing down around you? It comes crashing down around you but no one can know just how much you hurt inside. That's what happened to me when that phone call came through. I had to pull myself together pretty quickly I order to tell the President the news. I had to be the strong one, but how long could I keep the façade up.
The coming days and weeks were tough. His funeral especially. I consoled who needed to be consoled and at night I went home and bawled my eyes out. My man, my Leo was gone, never to return again. My heart felt like it shattering into a million little pieces and would never be full again. I just had to make it through till January then I'd be all right.
I couldn't concentrate on work; it was hard being in the office that once belonged to him, expecting him to walk through the door with his smile and wanton look in his eyes. No one knew about us, it was better that way. We had been together since just before his second heart attack. I was truly in love for the first time in my life. He made me feel special, in the way no man has ever done that before. Who will make me feel special now?
Christmas was a blur. I found myself in the office on the day, not really in the mood to celebrate with anyone. The President found me there after; he Abby and the girls had finished their meal. He said he wanted some alone time in his old friends office, but instead he found me there working hard on something not that important. "Claudia Jean." He had started. "What are you doing here on Christmas day? Why aren't you with the ones you love?"
My heart almost broke all over again when he asked me that but again I had to keep a false face on the matter. "My brother and his family have gone skiing this year and I didn't have the time to take off and go with them." That was the truth but in all honesty I don't think I could have faced Christmas with the happy family. Watching the children opening their presents and all the merriment that went along with it. Not this year. "How was your day sir?"
"Lovely thank you CJ, just wanted a little quiet time in here, needed to remember a dear friend."
"Well I'll let you have the room." I said before darting from the office before he could say anything else.
I never thought that I would survive, but I did. January came and went and with it America had a new President and my friends had jobs that they loved and were happy with one another. Josh and Donna had finally admitted they loved each other. Watching them together made me feel jealous. Why couldn't I have that?
Leaving office and having the spare time to think was what brought me to the conclusion that I had to leave DC. I found out something that was due to change my life and DC certainly wasn't the place to be for it. So I took off and hid, hid from my friends, my family, the world really until I felt ready to face them all again. That would happen in July, hopefully they will all understand.