Spoilers: Some References to 17
people and to be safe everything after that
Disclaimer: The Characters
belong to the West Wing and it’s
creators. They belong to Warner Bros.,
Aaron Sorkin,
and other rich Hollywoold people. No
copyright infringement is intended. The title belongs to Everclear,
'wonderful' Summary: Don’t want to give it away, you can read it. It is very
good and not that long. (So I think) Rated: Serious discussions no foul
language at
all.
Have you ever wondered which hurts the most; saying something and
wishing you had not, or saying nothing and wishing you had? They both
tremendously hurt. When Abbey came home today I was excited. I had ever
reason to be. She is my wife, she was away from me, away from me when I
could’ve used her support the most. She walked in the office and I asked
her, ‘How was the flight?’ It seemed like the most logical greeting at the
time, but too my wife it was the last thing she wanted to discuss. I
shouldn’t have went into the: ‘We are husband and wife......before we launch
into a huge argument we do, ‘how was the trip?’ ‘How was the flight?’’
lecture. That’s the ‘something’ that I wish I hadn’t said. The whole
argument that followed was about me, not telling her, about Zoey’s
Georgetown papers. There it is, the: ‘said nothing and wishing I had,’ part.
I guess the most important things are the hardest things to
say.
‘Don't be afraid to tell someone you love her. If you do, they might
break your heart... but if you don't, you might break theirs.’ I heard that
before some place. I’m not sure where at the moment, in fact I’m not sure
about a whole lot lately. These arguments I keep having with my wife. They
changed over the past few years from: ‘Why didn’t you take the garbage out?’
To, ‘Why didn’t you tell me I signed a form that is going to incriminate me
in this large plot of yours, to defraud the American public in order to win
a presidential election?’ I try to tell her I love her. I’ve tried so many
times I’m beginning to sound like a tape recorder. Every time I tell her she
ignores it, snubs it away with a pun or a comment on how mad she is at me. I
keep telling her though, I care for her to much to break her heart. I could
never, never tell her I don’t love her.
I always listen to my heart,
it is my main counsel. Your heart decides whom it likes and whom it doesn't.
You can't tell your heart what to do. It does it on its own....when you
least suspect it, or even when you don't want it to. People always ask me,
‘What should I do?’ I simply respond, ‘Listen to your heart.’ My heart
always finds its way to Abbey no matter how pissed I am at her.
Have
you ever wanted to love someone with everything you had? I don’t think many
people do. I don’t think it is entirely possible, but I damn well try. I try
everyday to show Abbey how much I love her. I follow the unwritten
commandment, ‘Everything that is yours is yours, everything that is mine is
yours.’ I give her everything. I try everything to show my appreciation, it
just seems like everytime I do I get slapped back down. Either my job
interferes, or I say some stupid-ass lame thing that I end up sleeping on
the couch for.
Have you ever denied your feelings for someone because
your fear of rejection was too hard to handle? I’m beginning too. Our
conversations seem to end or start with, ‘I love you Abbey,’ to which she
responds ‘You Jackass....’ and continues on about what she is pissed at, and
usually it’s me. I am beginning to feel rejected and it hurts. It
unimaginably hurts, that someone I love so much, can be so pissed at
me.
She is pissed about our ‘deal,’ that I would not seek another term.
It’s so hard for me not too. I love this job, I love these people, I love
doing good, but I also love my wife and nothing means more to me than her.
The deal was to keep the MS a secret from everybody. We would basically lie.
What we didn’t know back then was that I would eventually become president
and this secret would come back and bite us in the ass. People are going to
ask, ‘Why did you lie?’ In fact they are already asking. The answer is
simple. Why does anybody lie? We tell lies when we are afraid.... afraid of
what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be
found out. I was afraid of my MS. I thought if I just kept on living my life
like I was, that everything would turn out alright. That when the time came
and the MS began to take it’s toll I would quietly announce my ‘newly
discovered illness’ and slide out of the spotlight.
But every time
you tell a lie.... the thing you fear grows stronger. Life is all about
risks and it requires you to jump. Don't be a person who has to look back
and wonder what they would have, or could have had. Think about what you
have and had. Then you decide what is best: Should I seek another term?
Resign? Disclose my MS before I resign? Should I tell them I had MS for 8
years? or rather it is new? Should I finish my term and step out of the
lime-light? Disclose my MS and hope everything goes away? It is hard to say
when it is you. I feel like a TV character, one that has a dilemma and the
answer is so obvious that everyone is screaming it at you and you just have
to unscramble it. But the answer is simple, stop the lie and stop the fear
from growing.
I also have my family to think about. I have to think about
Zoey, Ellie, Liz, Annie and Abbey. I have to think about Leo, Toby, CJ,
Josh, Sam, Donna, Margaret, Joey, Mrs. Landingham, Charlie and others in my
extend family that I am dragging into this ‘conspiracy’. Like everyone else
I have priorities and those are first and foremost my wife and
kids.
I can understand were my family and everyone is coming from, I mean
think about it. What would you do if every time you wanted someone they
would never be there? What would you do if your best friend died tomorrow
and you never got to tell them how you felt? What would you do if you
watched your husband, friend or father die knowing he doesn’t know who his,
why he is dying, or that he doesn’t know many, many people love him? But my
biggest fear is dying and not being able to tell my wife ‘I had an amazing
life and I love you.’ Think about it: What would you do if you never got the
chance to say ‘I am friends with all of my family and they know I love
them’? But I am President of The United States and I also have to worry
about: Joe Brown form Davenport who is mad at me because I spent his money
on school books to better educate his kids, instead of repairing his road.
Stacey Miller from Kansas who has ten kids, no husband, no money, no job and
is still paying taxes on her shack-of-a-house. Henry Killington from Detroit
who is pissed because he is making five hundred thousand dollars a year and
he still has to pay taxes so Stacey Miller’s all over can live. I also have
to worry about racists who are going to kill my daughter for dating a black
man. I have to worry about India blowing away Pakistan. Castro invading
Miami. POW’s still in Korea that no one knows about. Unlike every other
schmuck, I have to worry about two hundred and sixty million people, along
with refugees, immigrants, other countries, and the one in five children
living in the most gut-wrenching, back-breaking, poverty filled environments
ever imaginable and that they will never become educated, benefit from the
health care package I will sign, or the tax cut bill, or for that matter
even live old enough to shave.
I have this fearful dialogue
always in the back of my mind I heard somewhere: ‘Some people love, and some
people die. But I want to tell you that you are a friend. If something
happened to me tomorrow, you would be in my heart. Would I be in yours?’ Why
does this lingers in the back of my mind? I don’t know. It probably has
something to do with being forgotten. I worked my whole life to become,
Bartlet the Inert. I don’t want to be forgotten. I graduated High School,
got a Ph.D. in economics becoming Dr. Bartlet, received a Noble Prize in
economics, I was Governor Bartlet, Congressman Bartlet, I got elected to the
House of Representatives and finally became President Bartlet. In between
there I managed to marry a doctor, have three kids, watch them grow up,
watch my granddaughter grow up, provide money and a house for my family,
watch my kids go to school, save a friend from alcoholism, become a
godfather, get shot at, watch as crazed men shot at my daughter and her
boyfriend, my staff, my friends, the public I’m sworn to protect and myself,
and finally get diagnosed with MS. I worked too hard for 40 years of my life
to have it shot to hell in one sentence, ‘Governor Bartlet, you have MS.’ I
still remember it, I cried forever.
I guess once this is released I won’t
have to worry about being forgotten. It will actually be quite the opposite.
I will be remembered as the President who committed a massive act of fraud
to win his election. But I worked to hard to let everything be blown to
hell. So have those who work for me. I can’t let Josh, Sam, Toby, Charlie,
CJ, Leo, Zoey, Abbey or anyone pay for my decision. I don’t know what I
would do if this affected my family. I couldn’t take CJ or Toby hating me, I
love them too much.
Then there is Abbey, if she ever stopped loving me I
will have to die. There is no point of me living without her. She is the one
I need to get through this, I just hope she is willing to be there for me. I
need her so bad right now and she seems to be pushing away from me. I’m
hurting her and I can’t stop it. All I know is I could’ve prevented it, but
I didn’t and it is eating me up inside. I watch her when she is around me,
it is different than it used to be. She seems distant and stubborn, I just
want to slap her for it but I wouldn’t dream of it. Does she realize how
scared I am? Does she realize how much I need her? How much I depend on her?
And how much I hurt? She didn’t even ask me how I was. When Toby didn’t, it
was expected, but Abbey is my wife and she understands the seriousness of
this. I’m beginning to think she doesn’t love me anymore, and that is eating
me up inside more than the MS ever could. That the whole, ‘in and sickness
and in health...I do,’ was a lie. I just hope she will understand me and we
will back to loving each other, before it is too late and I can’t say
it.
Jed Bartlet
__________________
Abbey closed the book.
Her whole body was wracked with tears. How could she be such a cold-hearted
bitch? She carefully rubbed her fingers over the book to wipe away the tears
and put it back on the corner of his private desk. She sat on the floor to
overwhelmed with emotions to walk to the couch. He need her the most, and
she kept turning him away. All he wanted was an I love you back, nothing
more than to know she cared.
"Abbey?........Abbey, Abbey honey what’s
wrong?" Jed came in and sat down on the floor across from his wife. "Abbey
sweetheart tell me what’s wrong?"
She looked up at his pain-filled blue
eyes. It caused her to cry more. Here she was being a bitch to him and he is
dying and he is being so nice to her because she discovered how much of a
bitch she was.
"Come on Abbey tell me what’s wrong?"
She pulled
him into a tight embrace, "Oh, Honey I love you so much. I’m so, so very
sorry."
