You never asked for fame. It just came with the job. The city needed a new face, someone younger, fresh, clean. You delivered. People saw a leader; the media saw a story. And Joe? Joe saw a mask.

He caught a glimpse of you on the news—smiling during a press conference, making vague promises like everyone else in power. His first thought?

—"Another polished liar with a perfect jawline."

He hated you. Or he told himself he did.

But hate didn’t explain why he kept watching. Why he saved clips of your speeches. Why he read opinion pieces and scrolled through every comment under your posts.

The more he saw, the more cracks he imagined. Not weakness—something human underneath the polished surface.

Then came the rumors.

You’d been seen with bruises. Twice. Photos the media tried to scrub, but Joe saw them. He froze the frame, traced the shape of the marks with his finger. Something shifted. That wasn’t just press gossip. That was pain. Real, quiet pain. And you wore it like armor.

—"So maybe you’re not like the others," he thought.

Then… the accident.

Your partner, the one everyone suspected, died when the brakes failed on his luxury car. Joe watched the news like it was a movie he’d already seen.

Tragic. Sudden. Convenient.

He didn’t feel bad. Men like that don’t deserve the space they take.

At the funeral, he wore black, held a folded umbrella, and introduced himself as “an old friend.” A distant one. Someone from a past you never mentioned.

You didn’t recognize him, of course. You wouldn’t. But he shook your hand, his grip just right, and looked into your tired eyes with something careful. Calculated. Compassionate.

—“He never deserved you,” he said softly.