Donna continues to scrub roughly at the already clean stove top burner in her little kitchen. It 's the third time that night she's wiped down the kitchen appliances, but she doesn't know what else to do with her frustration and cleaning always seems to help. But for some reason, the past four hours of washing, sweeping, dusting, and scrubbing has done nothing to ebb her feelings.
She's angry with herself. She screwed up his afternoon plans with Amy. Her phone call and outburst over the S. 53 notes had been wildly unprofessional. Clearly Josh is trying to have a personal life and he's obviously happy with Amy. He had made that abundantly clear when he mentioned their first kiss. The memory only makes her scrub harder at the ceramic-glass blend cooktop. All she wants to do is focus on her job and be valuable, but she couldn't even remember to ask Josh for the S. 53 notes before he left earlier today. Instead of being helpful she had been a burden.
But Donna isn't just angry with herself, she's angry with Josh too. Why was he treating her like she was a child today? What business was it of his if she ate lunch or not or if she went out with the other assistants? His questions about her finances remind Donna of her college years when her father would call to check in to see if she needed help with money. The comparison doesn't sit well and only pushes her to scrub harder. She feels a tear forming in her worn out rubber gloves around her pinky finger.
And she certainly wasn't going to accept his offer for a ride home. She had already kept him from Amy all afternoon so she was dead set against taking up anymore of his time. No. She would walk or take the Metro, she had no business being in Josh's car. All she was to him was his assistant and assistant's don't get rides home from their boss. And besides, it would look bad if a photographer saw him dropping her off, and she had already caused enough trouble.
Again, Donna finds herself scrubbing harder as she replays the events from earlier today in her head. Eventually, she feels the sponge break in half, causing her to pause.
Debating whether or not to get a glass of ice water, her eyes drift to the refrigerator, and her heart sinks when she sees the sole photograph proudly displayed with a magnet: it's her and Josh with toothy grins dancing much too close for boss and assistant at an inaugural ball. Just a moment's look at the image turns Donna's feelings of anger into sadness. She loves Josh but she's convinced that she means nothing to him. Their relationship is beyond repair and he has Amy now anyway. She's his equal. The picture is a reminder of happier times, and after all her blunders, she doesn't think she deserves to display it on the fridge. With a moment of clarity, she decides that she no longer has a right to have any reminders of Josh in her apartment, and besides, it is just too painful.
With a heavy sigh, she discards her gloves and takes the photo of the fridge. She tries her best to not look at it one more time, but fails. Her eyes fall on his dimpled smile and the way his eyes look like they're on the verge of uncontrollable laughter. "Be mature Donna, you're a grown woman, stop getting emotional over a damn photo of you and Josh, he probably doesn't even remember that night. You're making more out of it than it was," Donna chastises herself as she tucks the photo into the back of her sweatpants to keep it from getting creases. With a little too much force, she opens a kitchen cabinet and grabs her well loved Bartlet for America coffee mug before heading to her bedroom.
She finds a good sized cardboard box and dumps the summer clothes out of it, she'd find a home for those later. Carefully, she puts the mug and photo in the box and then takes a moment to look around her room, her eyes zeroing in on a few specific things. She starts at her dresser, removing the Bartlet for America campaign badge that has been hanging off the corner of her mirror for years. She begs herself not to look too closely at it, to not let the memories wash over her. "Focus Donna, just stick to the task," she tells herself as she opens her dresser, grabbing first a gray and then a crimson colored t-shirt, taking her time to fold them nicely. She holds on to the soft, well worn items for just a moment longer than she would like to admit, then adds them to the box.
Moving to the window, she removes the dried out roses and gently places the bouquet in the box, carefully covering it with one of the shirts. "He only got you those as a joke about your "anniversary", nothing more, don't dwell," she reminds herself. But she knows that even though she's not important to him anymore, that she's just his assistant, that she still wouldn't stop for red lights.
Donna pauses as she looks at the last item that needs to go in the box. It's sitting in its home on her nightstand. With hesitation, she walks over to her bed and sits, feeling more heartbroken and defeated than ever. It just feels so permanent to box these items up and the pain is unbearable.
Donna carefully picks up the Art and Artistry of Alpine Skiing, and runs her hand reverently over the cover. "I'll read the inscription just one more time and then I will put it in the box," she compromises with herself as she climbs under the covers.
So like she does every night when she's crying herself to sleep, Donna reads the inscription, but this time she's hanging on every word, even though she's already committed his inscription to memory. But as she reads his words, her tears begin to fall and her chest constricts violently. She lets out a sob and looks at the box in the corner of the room.
She just isn't ready to put the book in there yet.
As she cries, Donna turns off her bedside light, her eyes burning from the hot tears and exhaustion. She knows she will wake up in a few hours, maybe she will have the courage then to put her most valued, well loved possession in the box, but for now, her heart is just too broken to fathom it.