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Brandon opened his mouth, but I rushed in, eager to dispel the sudden doubt written so clearly across his face.
"Don't think I want out of this, okay?" I said. "I don't. I might miss parts of my old life, Brandon, but I can't live without you. And I don't want to stop you from following your dreams. I just..." I stopped, trying to find the best possible way to state what I was thinking. "I need a better balance. I need to find a way to live this life that makes it still mine. Do you...do you understand that?"
He stared at me for a minute and ran a hand back through his hair as he processed my words. But then, to my surprise, he smiled, a slow, sweet smile that told me the one thing my heart was yearning to hear: he understood.
"I get it," he said softly. "Better than you know. Shit, I..." There went that hand again, further rumpling his curls. "I remember what it was like, being swept up into this world. It's just been so long that I had forgotten. I'm sorry for that, Red, I should have known better."
I shrugged, toying with the calloused pads of his fingertips. "It's not your fault. I need to speak up better. Maybe in a way that's not yelling at you in the middle of the night."
"Or threatening to sleep in separate rooms?" Brandon clutched my fingers, and I winced at the memory. "Don't run away. Just tell me. I want you to be happy too, Red."
My heart sang with the simple statement. It was in these moments, not the big gestures, that I felt truly loved, when I was truly happy.
"I want to slow down a little," I said. "I feel like we're hurtling through everything, on a timeline because of the trial, the press, the campaign, even us. I miss those days when we just enjoyed an afternoon together working on the couch or messing around Cambridge. And the idea of being a first lady..." I made a face. The phrase sounded so ridiculous. "I'm not going to lie. It scares me. Brandon, I know you say I won't have to give up anything for it, but babe, I already do. Lucas follows me around everywhere. People take pictures of me in the street."
He didn't say anything for a moment. He knew, I thought, that there wasn't much he could do to make that better. Even after the trial, after there were no more threats coming out of New York, there would still be no more bouncing around neighborhoods or taking weekend drives on a whim––not as long as Brandon was in politics. The craze in Woodstock had shown us both that.
Brandon sighed.
"I'll make it better," he said, but his eyes were sad. "I don't know how, but I'll make it better."
The sadness in his voice immediately had me scooting across the couch and into his arms. I buried my face against his chest, luxuriating in the feel of skin to skin.
Brandon said nothing as he continued to stroke my hair. We stayed like that for several more minutes until eventually, I reached over and turned the volume of the TV back on. The truth was out there, and there was no easy fix to the problem. But in the end, we'd find a solution. I had faith, or so I kept telling myself.
~
Much later, closer to morning than night, I woke up in the dark of the room where Brandon was still sleeping beside me. It was the first time in weeks that I had woken on my own, the fury of my thoughts jerking me out of sleep instead of Brandon's thrashing body. The curtains were still open, and the full moon outside was a spotlight on my face.
After several minutes of tossing and turning, I decided to get up, leaving Brandon's sleeping form.
I shut the thick doors of the bedrooms and the hallway entrance, and then wandered over to the baby grand piano that sat in front of the window, the moon shining down over it like a spotlight. I had played it several times in the last month, usually on Brandon's request. It had become one of our favorite pastimes in the evenings when we came home––he would grab a beer and look over campaign materials while I practiced.
I took a seat on the black lacquered seat and pulled up the fallboard, drifting my fingers lazily over the keys. My body was still half asleep, and my hands felt slow. But soon the notes came fluidly.
Chopin had always been one of my favorite composers. He tended to prefer minor keys, and the trills that required a feather-light touch on the keys reminded me of waterfalls, dipping in and out of crescendos and decrescendos. I moved through a few preludes, then a nocturne or two, but there was a piece I was dancing around, a favorite I knew I'd get to eventually.
Brandon asked me once to play a song that reminded me of us. I'd chosen the Waltz in C Minor, a famous piece that moved in between fast and slow cadences, between furious arpeggios and lilting walks. At the time it reminded me of the way Brandon and I always seemed to stop and start, the way we fought and made up, the way our relationship either seemed to sprint or trip over itself.
And despite the fact that he didn't have any musical training whatsoever, he's understood what I meant. That had been the night he'd first told me he loved me, had asked me to move in with him. The last night before everything in our lives went to hell.
I was halfway through the piece before I knew I'd even started playing it. My hands flew up and down the keys, finding a moment––finally––to let out the angst, the pain, the hurt, the love that I kept so cooped up most of the time. I played as the music spoke for all of those unnamable emotions I'd kept locked inside.
But soon my breathing turned hoarse as the angst of the music filled me. Soon I had to stop as I collapsed over the top of the keys to catch my breath against the lacquered wood. The long, painful breaths shook the cracked rib that still wasn't healed entirely, but I let them come, hoping that afterward, I'd feel just a little bit lighter.
"Why'd you stop?"
The deep voice shook me out of my reverie, and I sat up with a start and another deep, concerted breath.
"Wha-what?" I asked.
Brandon stood a few feet from the piano, clearly having shuffled in after tossing in bed like he normally did. He was in nothing but his black boxer briefs, the moonlight casting shadows over his lean, muscled form. His hair was standing up on one side, but I didn't even notice it. All I saw was the sharp worry in his eyes, even in the dark.
He came to sit next to me on the piano bench and slid his fingers over the keys without making a sound.
"That song," he said. "I remember that song."
I sucked in another breath. "You-you do?"
