All The Lies We Told Ourselves

7 - Whistleblower

Celestine

***********

March 6th, Wednesday

The two days after the inauguration event had been busy. I had circled around central administrative buildings in the capitol, provided statements to the media, attended interviews and been followed by the press day and night. All in an effort to convince everyone, for the second time since my brother disappeared, that the Capitol could trust me and our familys leadership.

They had called me a fraudster.

The insurgents had been clever, that I must say. They had poked the beehive that is inter-Capitol politics. No one wants an incompetent chief district overseer, let alone a president, but more than that, everyone wants to be one. In a city governed by wealth and status and simultaneously inhabited by people with loads of it, the hunger for power is endless. Some would, upon hearing me say this, call me an enemy of the state. I call it realism. I never claimed to hate the system anyway. In a way, I've always thrived in it.

The statements and media appearances had helped to some extent. At the very least they had given the impression that I cared what they thought of me. I didn't, really, but it would be stupid to say it didn't matter. Of course it mattered whether I cared or not.

***

"They are staring aren't they?" I said to Ace as we sat in one of the corner booths at the glass palace. "I mean, what could possibly still entertain them? I've given about a dozen statements in the last two days. I'm surprised they're not tired of my face by now."

"You want to give them something else to discuss?"

"Desperately."

"Kiss me."

My drink went down the wrong way and stung my throat.

"What?" I coughed, trying to look calm so as to not give them anything more to talk about.

"Think of the headlines. 'The president's daughter has an intimate date with her new lover at the glass palace."

"Please don't say intimate."

"Whatever. You get what I'm saying. It would make people forget."

"I appreciate your concern but I'm alright. I'm better off waiting until it blows over."

"Your loss." He shrugged and continued eating his steak. I thought he looked so sweet then, the harshness of his muscular shoulders had disappeared. He dug into the food with no etiquette whatsoever, in a way that was uncommon for someone of his status. It usually annoyed me, but not that day. I watched him eat and carefully sipped the soup from the side of the spoon, trying to ignore the lingering gazes of the people around me.

***

I said goodbye to Ace and slipped into the backseat of the black car waiting for me on the snow covered boulevard.

"Where to, miss?" Mr. Williams said.

"Just home. And, take the second route."

I wanted to go the longer way, where the car would pass over a bridge above the Capitol canal and then head through the tree-lined street with the giant statue at the end. And then there would be the tunnel.

When the car reached the tunnel, I rolled down the tinted window and let in the yellow light. The shadows appeared and disappeared on the black leather seats as we sped towards the white winter light. I laid my hand outside the window and felt the cooling air flow through it, until my fingers felt numb from the cold. I remembered the times Ace and I had sat in his car and driven through the tunnel, listening to classics on the radio.