Chapter Twenty-six: Trying Not to Love You

Georgie

TRYING NOT TO LOVE YOU

Performed by Nickelback

I woke up in Mac's bed without him. The apartment was quiet. I looked down at my crumpled black dress and wiped at the makeup that was sticking to my face―a mess. It was a mess. Everything was a fucking mess.

I got up, planning to head directly to the shower, and was surprised to see Dani and her Mom on the couch, the three TVs on, volume low.

"You're awake," Dani said, stating the obvious.

I went to my friend and hugged her. Sorry for what she'd been through. Sorry for what I'd been through. And sorry that I was going to be dragging them through more crap.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She nodded. "Just pissed now, but look." She waved toward the TV in the middle as Clare greeted me with her own hug that made me want to cry all over again. It had been so long since I'd had anything close to a motherly hug.

I turned to the TV in time to see Senator Fenway's face and then a cut to a videotape of the senator and a woman whose face was blurred in an elevator. I realized it was Dani. In the video, she was shaking her head no even as he was narrowing the gap between their bodies. He pulled her, and she pulled back, ripping her dress as they battled. He overpowered her, pulling her tight up against him and kissing her. Her knee came up and hit him in the groin. His face contorted in rage, and he hit her right across the face, and as she was pushed backward by the momentum of the hit, the elevator doors opened, and Dani ran.

I felt like I was watching a movie. Just like my life last night had felt. Unreal. Fake. Someone else's story.

When I turned back to the couch, Clare was sniffling into a tissue and pulling Dani to her, but Dani's face was all disdain. "Dumbshit thought he was going to be able to say that it was all my fault. His career is over."

I looked closer at Dani's face and saw a mark on her cheek where his hand had hit her, but I was in awe of the power and strength rolling off of her. Dani really was my new female superhero.

She pulled away from her mom, turned off the TV, and looked at me.

"What happened with you last night?"

I shook my head, unable to talk about it in the apartment. She nodded, as if understanding. "Mac mentioned we might not want to talk here. I have friends coming to do pest control later."

Pest control. My eyes widened at her as she stepped away. Bugs. They were going to sweep for bugs .

"I'm so sorry," I said, guilt coursing over me again. The fact that they were having to debug their home because of me. It was driving me slightly crazy that Petya's lifestyle and Malik's screw-up were causing the Whittakers more headaches than they needed right now.

"Honestly, I usually have it done once or twice a year," Dani told me.

My mouth dropped. "What?"

She smiled. "Working at the Capitol and the Pentagon has its downsides. You wouldn't believe what people will do to get ahead on a bill or in an election. Ask Mom. We kind of grew up with it. With Dad and Granddad being pretty high up the food chain, our cars, homes, offices, and phones usually get a regular cleanup."

Clare was nodding, but I didn't know what to say. I wasn't sure I was prepared for this kind of life—wiretaps, and secret agencies, and sedans parked down the street.

"Where's Mac?" I asked.

"He went with Dad to make more threats, I'm sure." She shrugged.

"That's not at all what they said they were doing," Clare responded.

"That's just because they didn't want me to know they were going all manly-man, protecting their weaker female family members."

I snorted, waving at the TV. "I guarantee you, that proves, without a doubt, that you are not the weaker family member."

Dani's face wavered for the first time that morning. " But I had to call Mac to come get me."

"You did the right thing," Clare said.

"You called someone you cared about to come get you. That just happened to be your brother," I told her. She nodded. We all sat in silence for a few moments. So much that couldn't be said. So much that neither Dani nor I wanted to discuss. "I'm going to go shower. I'll be back out in a few minutes."

I stood in the shower for a long time, trying to wash away the stench that had attached to me from the night before. But I knew, without a doubt, what I'd faced was nothing compared to what Dani had faced.

When I came back out, Mac, his dad, and two strange men had joined Dani and her mom. Mac handed one of the men my phone, and he took it to the counter, opening it in less than two seconds. He looked it over, closed it back up, and gave it to Mac.

"Nothing there, but they really don't need it these days. Could be tapped through the cloud, and you'd never know. Get a burner if you're worried," he said. Then, the two strange men left.

Mac saw me for the first time. He crossed the room, pulled me into his arms, and said, "You're looking better this morning."

I nodded. "Do you really think I need a burner?"

Mac and his dad exchanged a look.

"What?" I asked.

"Only if you want to talk with your sister about what happened. If it's just your normal conversation, you shouldn't need it," his dad said.

My insides tightened. Mac had told his dad what had happened. And even though not a single one of them was treating me any different than they had from the moment they met me, I couldn't help the shame that welled up inside me. It made me angry. Angry at both the shame and my family. I'd always been determined not to feel embarrassed because of who my family was, and yet, standing in front of this man and his family that I ached to be a part of like I'd never ached for anything before, it hit me like it never had.

I rubbed my forehead; a headache was forming that I knew wasn't going to dislodge anytime soon. The truth filled me. I needed to get out of their apartment and their life. These beautiful people would never turn away from me. They would never walk out just because of my family, but I wouldn't let mine drag down theirs. I couldn't live with myself if I did.

? ? ?

Mac and I didn't have much time alone the rest of the weekend. His family was in and out of the apartment. By the time Mac and his dad had gotten back to the apartment, Dani had made the decision to go to the D.C. police and lodge a formal complaint. After that, we all watched the fall of Senator Fenway's career on the TV as every station, political or not, was overflowing with it.

Dani was interviewed, handling it with a grace that reminded me of my sister in the backseat of Theresa's car, saying she knew not to talk. Raisa shouldn't have had to deal with that any more than Dani should have had to deal with talking about being attacked by a man, or I should have had to deal with invoking Fourth Amendment rights to ensure the safety of my sister and myself.

Raisa texted me from a new number that she was on her way to San Francisco. It was a burner phone. But I wondered if it really mattered. My number would lead any agency that wanted it to her new phone. Harder to trace, but not impossible. Mac's dad had handed me my own burner when he came back to the apartment.

I thanked him, turning a thousand shades of red.

And it hit me again, for the hundredth time that weekend and with the same ferocity it had hit me in the club when I'd told Raisa to put the drugs in my bag. I had to leave. I was losing all of them.

Raisa called me once she'd gotten to San Francisco. Her burner to my burner. She told me Malik had taken Petya's private jet and flown back to Russia, and that Petya was furious with him. Petya had had to charter a plane for Raisa. Mom was getting a rehab clinic set up for Malik, and Raisa was worried about what exactly Petya had in store for him other than rehab.

"He left us with the drugs, Raisa. He left you to get arrested."

She was quiet. "He has been different the last few years. He has always felt entitled to more than what Father gave him. He was unhappy."

"Don't make excuses. He did a crappy thing, brother or not."

"Yes. But I will forgive him. This once. You should too."

I wasn't sure I could. I wasn't normally one to hold a grudge, but I also wasn't one who kept people in my life who weren't healthy for me. This thought made me want to laugh because my entire family was not healthy for me. But the ties that bound me to them could not easily be severed. I loved them, but I didn't have to like them. I had a right to be angry, and so did she.

It was late on Sunday when Senator Matherton and their granddad showed up. They had a meeting in our living room about what the rest of the week was going to look like, Dani's and his press conference scheduled for the next day, and what Mac's role in it should be.

Mac watched me with hooded eyes as I said goodnight to everyone on Sunday and journeyed up to the loft. I knew he could read my withdrawal even though we hadn't spoken hardly two words about any of it, but every time he'd started to corner me, there'd been someone else at the door or on the phone.

In a strange way, I was grateful—not for what had happened to Dani, but for the chaos—because it allowed me to distance myself and to start thinking about what I needed to do to move out.

? ? ?

When I came out of the bathroom Monday morning, Mac was waiting for me. He wrapped me in a hug, and I let him. I even hugged him back because he'd been through more than I had in many ways, because he'd had to deal not only with Dani's situation but my own.

"How are you doing?" he asked .

"I'm okay."

"I'm sorry we haven't been able to talk. That our lives were a circus this weekend," he said into my hair.

"You have nothing to apologize for."

"It's going to be that way all week, but I want to be here for you, too. Have you heard any more from your family?"

"No."

He pulled back and looked into my face, a frown appearing. "What is it?"

I ran my hand along my ponytail before I could stop myself, and he read the tell for exactly what it was. Nerves.

"Talk to me, Georgie."

"I just―"

"No," he inserted before I could finish, and it pissed me off. I pushed away from him, grabbing my bags and hefting them onto my shoulder.

"You owe me a favor," I told him.

His face shut down, emotion leaving it. "I do, but not this one."

His expectation that he knew what I wanted just continued to irritate me. "As soon as I find a new place, I'm moving out. And my favor is that you let me do this without trying to stop me. That you let me do this…for you."

My voice cracked on the last words, and I hated it. I wanted to sound as sure and strong as Dani had all weekend. As strong and beautiful as she'd sounded every time she'd repeated what had happened to her .

"How on earth can you think that it would be for me?" he asked, frustration entering his own voice.

"You all have enough to deal with. You don't need me bringing wiretaps and intercontinental agencies into your lives on top of it. It's only going to be worse now that they found the drugs," I said, and I raised my chin, putting on my own emotionless face. Straightening my back. I needed to do this.

"You've probably been bugged and followed off and on for years. You don't think I already knew that? You don't think I considered that already?" he protested.

"You promised me a favor, Mac. No questions. Just granted." I turned toward the door.

"I don't want to grant this one."

I didn't look back as I opened the door and said, "I'm moving. You can make it painless for both of us, or painful. That's your choice, I guess. But I'm asking you not to, and I hope you'll agree."

And then I left, because if I didn't, I would have let him talk me into staying. I would have let him reason away my fears. But I didn't want to do that. I wanted to take my miserable family and move them away from the Whittakers and everything they deserved to have. I wanted them far, far away from my beautiful Mac and his future.