In early October, the local election commission held a debate in the auditorium of the high school. Camera crews were there to film it for the local access station and the news, plus a few dozen people came to see Maddie face off against Mike Hoagland live.

With a few minutes to go, she was backstage prepping, not for the debate but for court. Her leave was scheduled to start in a week, but she was determined not to get distracted before then. Her clients deserved her full attention.

Garrett sat next to her, loudly complaining about the Wi-Fi. “Why is it so slooooow? Is it still 1995 in Fallow?”

“Basically, yes. This is why the legislature needs to work on high-speed access in rural areas.”

“In a few months, you can get on that.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Pshaw.”

His confidence felt good, but she also knew there hadn’t been real competition for the seat since Hoagland had first won it. All summer everyone had seemed to enjoy all the pageantry of campaigning. They both had to go to the fair and the downtown concert series. They both had to pose for pictures, shake hands, and literally kiss babies.

Each of those appearances, as out of body and awkward as they had felt at times, had her hopeful because what she’d seen in people’s faces was investment. Sometimes she thought they were wrong—about policy or what issues they’d prioritize or how they thought government worked. Sometimes they thought she was wrong on all the same counts. But no one she talked to was disinterested. Instead, they thought the legislature could make a difference and they were taking seriously the question of who to send there. Whenever she was exhausted or wanted to quit, that kept her going.

Montana Tomorrow had decided not to poll the race—and since no one could decide what the turnout model should look like, any numbers they might have had would have been meaningless—but both Chad and Adam had told her they were cautiously optimistic. The more she campaigned, the less she felt like she knew which way was up. Things felt close, but good.

Also good was Adam.

Since they’d kissed, Adam had stopped being standoffish. They’d ended up on the phone or texting most nights. They talked about the race, about the weather, about things they remembered from high school and his personal quest to eat a burger in every one of Montana’s fifty-six counties.

Every few weeks when she saw him, the intimacy of those conversations made it hard to meet his eyes. Her entire body betrayed her: her cheeks burned and she felt like twirling her hair. Even though she was entirely too old for that giddy shit, she’d fallen into the pattern of liking him, of trusting him, of needing him too far to care. As soon as the campaign was over, she couldn’t wait to be with him, really be with him.

The moderator stuck his head into the green room. “Show time!”

Mike Hoagland and Maddie nodded to each other in the wings before going on stage to spotty applause, shaking hands, and then taking their places behind lecterns. The spotlights were weak, not blinding, and there was a strange calm in her stomach.

The first questions were standard: what would they do to help education and agriculture? Why did they think the economy had stalled and how would they fix it? How would they approach the state budget? Where did they stand on abortion? On guns? On federal public land management?

It wasn’t boring per se, but no one who’d read anything about the race in the paper was going to learn anything new about them or change their minds about for whom they would vote.

Then, at the end of answer about a recent Montana Supreme Court decision about the limits of police investigations, Hoagland went off on a tangent.

“My opponent—” He was doing his level best not to use her name. “—spends her days in court defending criminals. She believes the police have too much power, and she’s argued against them time and again. But I know that law-abiding Montanans have nothing to fear from local police.” Federal ones he probably wasn’t too sure about.

He gave her a sidelong glare. “As long as we’re both here, I’d like to get a straight answer from her. Why doesn’t she want the police to be able to investigate? What does she have against law enforcement?”

The moderator, an anchor from one of the Great Falls news stations, bunched his mouth up. While he had a typed list of questions and a sufficient amount of gravitas to read them, he didn’t seem prepared to manage this. “You, uh, have a minute to respond,” he told Maddie.

She could ignore Hoagland’s question and stick with the underlying issue, but that would be a coward’s way out. Hoagland was giving her an opening by bringing up the one issue that seemed to be holding some moderates back from supporting her. Of course she was going to take it.

“I’m going to use my time to respond to Senator Hoagland’s question, if you don’t mind. I’ll write up something for Facebook about the Supreme Court case.” She looked out into the crowd. Her parents were there and probably the very district attorneys Mike Hoagland thought she menaced. Adam was there too—and he’d want her to give the best rebuttal of her life.

“What do I have against law enforcement?” she repeated. “Nothing. But I also believe in the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects. We’re protected against unreasonable searches and seizures, and without probable cause and a warrant, it’s unlawful for the police to enter someone’s home or seize evidence.”

Across the stage, Hoagland shuffled in his Carhartt boots. “What’s that?”

“That’s from the Fourth Amendment. I think it’s some of the most beautiful writing in the whole Constitution. It’s certainly my favorite bit, anyhow. When I read it in law school, I knew what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be. To my mind, Senator Hoagland, what keeps you safe from tyranny isn’t that you or your supporters choose to follow the law. What keeps you safe is that we have laws. We all have a right to good defense in court. It’s the only thing that makes court, that makes America, fair. Legality changes. Laws themselves can be unjust. People can be unfairly accused. It’s the system that matters. The system is bigger than you or me.”

“Well, I—”

She wasn’t going to let him derail her. “I know you’ve spent a lot of time mocking my work and telling lawyer jokes, but I don’t think it’s particularly funny. I’ve spent years ensuring our system works right. You’ve just cashed checks and done nothing.”

“Next question,” the moderator sang out, saving Hoagland.

The rest of debate was standard, and when it was over, she walked across the stage and shook Hoagland’s cold, clammy hand.

“Goodbye, Senator.”

He croaked something, but she knew they were done. He was done.

Backstage, her friends and family mobbed her. The Montana Tomorrow folks lingered at the edge of the circle, whispering back and forth. Adam’s gaze was warm and appreciative—and she wished the election was over so she could fling herself at him.

“That was perfect,” her mom said as she hugged Maddie fiercely.

“Which is what you’d say even if I screwed up.” But she appreciated it still.

Once her grandparents had congratulated her and Ruth had finished gushing and her brother had snapped some pictures, Maddie made her way over to Chad and Adam. She half stumbled into Adam, and he caught and held her pinkie for a moment.

“Garrett went outside trying to upload that clip.” Chad was grinning so wide his jaw was strained. “You’re going to get so many last-minute contributions.”

“That was totally why I did it. I’m all about the money,” she deadpanned.

“Well hell, it doesn’t hurt.”

She turned to Adam. He wasn’t smiling. No, his expression was too heated, too appreciative for anything like that.

She could feel herself growing breathless. “No critique? No notes? No criticism?”

“You were brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. Damn, Maddie, I didn’t know you were that brilliant.”

Not touching him was almost impossible—but it was going to make touching him on election night all the better. “A review like that would’ve meant everything to me when we were sixteen.”

“I thought the same thing back then.” When she rolled her eyes, he went on. “Seriously, hear what I’m saying: you’re going to be an exemplary state senator.”

Even as close as she was to winning, actually being in the legislature was abstract to imagine. Too big. Too fanciful. But when Adam said it, she believed.

She wanted to fall into him, into those gorgeous brown eyes and those strong arms. But she couldn’t yet.

Chad was still too giddy to pick up on the subtext. He thumped Adam on the shoulder. “She is, right? Don’t tell anyone else, but you’re our favorite. And when Adam’s back in LA, he’ll know he left the state in good hands.”

If Chad had hit her in the head with the Ninth Circuit Criminal Handbook, the blow wouldn’t have been any harder. “Back in LA?”

Adam froze. The color and heat drained from his features as if someone was twisting the dimmer on a light switch. When he’d gotten all the way to ashen, he swallowed.

So. It was true. He was leaving.

Which he might have mentioned during their many, many conversations.

They hadn’t been falling for each other. This wasn’t the start of a relationship. He, like so many other people she’d known, was leaving.

She had to blink against the moisture building in her eyes.

“You didn’t think they’d let him go forever, did you?” Chad asked her. When she didn’t answer, he turned to Adam. “Do you have tickets yet? Or are you driving back?”

“Driving.” That was a whisper.

Maddie bit her lip and focused on the wall. It was lined with posters for the plays and musicals the high school had done, all covered with yellowing signatures. She read the names to herself until she didn’t feel like bursting into tears. Godspell. You Can’t Take it With You. Oklahoma! Noises Off. Bye Bye Birdie. Romeo and Juliet. Cinderella. Our Town.

She wasn’t going to get everything she wanted then. Which she could handle. Like, who did? She was good with disappointment. With losing. She was less good with surprise.

She pulled her phone out of her purse and stared at it. She wasn’t actually reading anything, but she needed the reprieve. She’d begun with the assumption that he was leaving. He’d never actually lied to her. He’d never told her he was staying. He’d just said he’d like to sleep with her on election night.

The only thing that was different now was that she was going to pass on that offer.

“Well,” she said as sweetly as she could, not pulling her eyes from her phone’s screen. “We’ll miss him, won’t we? But we’ll have to soldier on.”

“Montana Tomorrow isn’t going anywhere,” Chad assured her. “We have lots of plans for next cycle—”

“And you know I’ll help.” She put her phone away. “But I need to go shake some hands now.”

“Of course. Enjoy your moment. I’m going to see where Garrett is. I love tonight!” He punched the air as he walked away.

She was less enamored of it, at least of the last two minutes.

“Maddie.” Adam seemed to have found his voice. “I—”

She raised a hand. “Thanks for everything. You don’t need to explain. You’ve been…”

He’d been everything. She would not have been able to get through the campaign without him. Someday, when this shattered feeling in her chest had faded, she’d tell him that.

But for now, she said, “Great.” Her tone implied something else entirely.

He closed his eyes. “I tried to—”

In fairness, she knew he had, but she hadn’t wanted to hear it. The delusion had been entirely on her part. “I really do need to go.”

“We’ll talk soon?”

She didn’t answer him.

She worked through the rest of people she knew—and a few genuinely undecided voters—with a forced smile and then she went home.

It didn’t help because Adam was everywhere: in her kitchen where she’d talked to him on the phone, and in her living room which had a pile of campaign posters and paraphernalia, and in her office and bedroom where she’d texted him. Her space was all full of apparitions and wishes.

She needed an exorcism.

In lieu of that, she took a shower. But before she could crawl into bed, a text alert sounded on her phone.

I drove up with Chad and Garrett, or else I would be sitting outside your house.

She threw her phone on her nightstand and picked up a book. She need to decompress before she’d be able to sleep.

But another arrived. And then another and another. She didn’t respond, but she read them all.

I’m sorry.

Obviously the story of why I left LA is colorful. You’ll love it because I come off like an ass.

The truth is I don’t know what I want.

You’re ignoring me, and that’s fair.

I’ll let you sleep, but I want to say the worst part is I miss you.

No, the worst part was that she did too.