Chapter Text
Chasten awoke that morning with the sun.
Pete, however, had gotten up with the moon - if he had even slept at all. The empty half of their bed was neatly made, and the shirt and tie that had been hanging on the closet door had vanished.
Chasten’s phone was already in his palm; he’d picked it up in his sleep, or fallen asleep with it in his hand. Blearily he scrolled through endless texts. Pete had sent him one: CNN 7:05 .
He dropped the phone onto Pete’s crisp pillow and sank back into his own, rubbing his eyes.
Finally he rolled out of bed, stood unsteadily up, and stiffly smoothed back the sheets.
In the bathroom, the wan light made the towels and tiles look like a breathless still life. He found a livestream of CNN, turning the volume of his tablet up loud enough so that he could hear it over the hiss and splatter of the shower.
With everything else going on today, it’s easy to forget that the Democratic primary looks like it's finally coming to a hard-fought end. In one of the most shocking upsets in American political history, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg is positioned to secure the number of delegates necessary to make him his party’s presumptive nominee.
He got dressed.
You know, the Buttigieg campaign has got to be breathing a sigh of relief, that they can finally put all this sniping with the Bernie camp behind them. They’ve also got a interesting optics advantage tonight with the Indiana primary. Obviously Buttigieg has leaned very heavily on his Indiana roots when making his pitch to voters...
Brushed his teeth.
Sources close to the Sanders campaign have been saying to us, and they continue to reiterate, that they need to see, and I quote, “more movement on the issues” from the Mayor’s campaign before issuing a full-throated endorsement. It is their belief that the delegate race was ultimately close enough that they have the leverage to pull a Buttigieg administration to the left.
He spit out his toothpaste and rinsed out his mouth.
Advisors tell us to expect a sharper version of Buttigieg now that we're headed into the general, someone who is eager to demonstrate that he can stand up to President Trump directly. The Mayor's Tweets definitely have had more of an edge to them the last couple of weeks. Is this the campaign sending a deliberate tonal message? How much of this campaign is going to be fought online?
As he slicked back his hair, he noticed a smudge on the mirror. It distorted his reflection.
It's ironic that, in the midst of this historic unrest, the candidate with arguably the weakest record with the Black community is the one who the Democrats ended up nominating. The Biden endorsement was moving as all get-out, and it certainly helped Buttigieg in the South, but an endorsement will only go so far. And at this point in Buttigieg’s career, with the history that he has, and with the ground shifting beneath our feet on these major issues surrounding race and police brutality, it might be a difficult sale to make.
He took a bottle of Windex from underneath the sink, aimed the trigger squarely, and pulled. Instantly his reflection diffused into a thousand bubbly shards; drops of clear empty fizz trickled down, thick as blood.
Are we seriously contemplating handing the presidency of the United States to a thirty-eight-year-old small town mayor who has never won statewide office? In the middle of a pandemic? In the middle of a depression? In the middle of historic racial and cultural unrest? This is the guy who we’re putting up against an unhinged president like Donald Trump? It’s - it’s - it’s delusional! We’ve lost our minds!
The scent of ammonia hit him.
While we’re talking vulnerabilities, there’s always been this sense that Buttigieg is a difficult candidate to get to know as a human being. He’s smart and he’s gay and his husband is funny on Twitter. Great. But what’s he like as a person? What drives him? Because he’s not the elder statesman. He’s not someone like Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden or even Donald Trump, all of whom have been in public life for decades, all of whom Americans know. Telling his story is going to be a major, major challenge for him and his campaign moving forward.
He reached under the sink again, carefully unwrapped a paper towel from its roll, tore it, and buffed until the glass was dry and spotless.
We’re staking the fate of the United States on the premise that homophobia is over.
He dropped the dirty towel into the empty trash, then looked himself in the eyes, adjusting his gingham collar. His watch and his wedding ring both glinted under the light.