When I first saw her, I knew.

I was surprised that anyone could miss it. I’m not one for gut feelings, but I knew it physically before I understood it intellectually. She knew what she was doing when she wore her ill fitting pantsuit and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She would tilt her head ever so slightly when she listened to someone speak, as if whatever was being said was brand new, requiring serious consideration. She would later tell me that it wasn’t an act. Even if what the person was arguing was total dogshit, there was something to be learned about people and how they worked. That sort of thing made me want to rupture my own eardrums, but there’s a reason I stick with the numbers.

I certainly didn’t intend to like her. It’s easier when I don’t. It’s easier if you WANT to mould them based on poll numbers and catch phrases. You take someone you can’t stand to be around, and when you start to hate them a little less, you’ve got an elected official.

But she didn’t need that. Not that she’d have let me change her if she did. When I tell her what to do, she always gives me that wry smile, that tilt of the head— she knows I hate it when she turns that back on me.

I’m the expert, I tell her. She reminds me that it doesn’t work on voters, so it won’t work on her.

She lost her first two elections, but it would only be time. I had never felt so calm. With failure, she became relatable.

By becoming relatable, she became successful.

The circle of life. Kind of.

Not that the public was easy on her. Sometimes, they asked her why she didn’t keep a promise. Why she wouldn’t stop a bill. Why she couldn’t make something happen.

She told them the truth. Not just that, she told them the truth as if they could understand it.

She thinks most of them can. I think most of them can’t. But either way, they feel intelligent, and on the campaign trail, that’s more important than being intelligent.

By the time we hit the big leagues, she could have had her choice of campaign manager. I never understood why she chose me.

“You’re an optimist,” she had told me once, over whiskey after the sort of day that required whiskey, and I had laughed.

But she was serious.

“If you weren’t one you’d like people more. They wouldn’t be able to disappoint you.”

“If I’m an optimist, it’s your fault,” I told her, overwarm from the alcohol.

She gave me that humble smile. Like what I thought mattered.

She was right, though. I would watch the crowd when she spoke. The hope in their eyes made me realize I still had some left in my chest. She spoke firmly. Like she meant what she said. They could feel it in their bones.

And she followed through. She wasn’t effective in her early career. She had morals. She would only bend them so far. But she always tried. People began to see that. Began to watch her in parliament, standing with her hands clasped in front of her, expertly tearing apart an argument as her coworkers heckled her.

But the tide changed, like she was the moon and politics the sea.

She’s flawed. It would do her a disservice to pretend she wasn’t. She was stubborn, slow to ever believe she was wrong. And she had a temper. I sanded those edges off without her realizing it. I knew how to redirect her anger. I knew how to write her a speech that could convince her before she said it.

Now we stand in front of the TV, watching a map change colours. She takes my hand. Squeezes it, as people in the hall outside chant her name.

“Thank you,” she tells me, for some reason.

“Any time. Whatever you need.” I tell her, because rejecting the gratitude will not work.

The map disappears, and the news anchor takes its place.

“Our election team has enough reports for us to call the election,” he says.

The results aren’t all that matters. We will get there, somehow. I know it. I know it every time I see her.