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MY GUESTBOOK
Sara frowned. �The who?�
�Old Executive Office Building,� I said. �And I�ll figure out the lodging situation later. You�re sure you think I should do this?�
�Definitely,� Sara nodded. �Go. Call Tracey on your way back to the office; get her to book you a ticket. I�ll bring your things by your office.�
�I feel like I�m running away from something,� I admitted.
Giving me a �are you crazy?� look, Sara shook her head. �You�re going to help your friends, not to mention the man who is going to be the President in a few weeks. You�re not running away from anything,� she assured me. �Where is the Old Executive Office Building?� she asked with a frown.
�The other side of West Executive Avenue, which is basically the White House�s back alley,� I said.
Sara smiled. �I love that you know these things. You�re going to have to give me the insider�s tour one day.�
�Anytime,� I promised, mentally calculating how long it would be before the cherry blossoms started to bloom.
�Good. Now go. I�ll bring your back to your office for you,� Sara said, giving me a little kick to get me out of my seat.
Though I�m sure that she will think I�m hyperbolizing, I have to get my main concern off my chest. �Look, Sara, Washington politics is like the mob, only the attacks and killings are much more subtle and tend to eat away at you over time, tiny cuts that never heal and hurt like hell rather than a slashed vein or artery that drains the life from you quickly. I don�t know if I�m ready to go back to that life,� I said honestly.
Sometimes I wondered how I had managed to fit so perfectly with someone who was so far removed from the life that kept sucking me back in no matter how many times I tried to escape. Sara knew why I had left the White House�or, rather, why I hadn�t gone back�and she understood, to a degree, how the betrayal of Bartlet hiding his MS and the cruelty of professional politics had burnt me out, and I loved her for that, but there were some things that only people who had been there could possibly comprehend.
Josh, who took a bullet to the chest and, even in his pain-induced delusions, was desperate to serve at the pleasure of the President, desperate to serve Jed Bartlet and do great things with Leo McGarry.
Toby, who is perhaps the most pessimistic idealist in the world, knowing that something needs to be done and wanting so badly to do it himself but constantly finding the world to be lacking, fighting the debilitating inability to make the world turn out the way he wants it to be for his children.