One Night With The President

The cheap LED tube light above the dorm bathroom mirror buzzed. It was a low, mechanical hum that vibrated right behind Eloisa Williams's eyes.

She stared at the plastic stick in her hands.

Two pink lines.

They were the brightest, sharpest colors she had ever seen in her life. They burned into Eloisa's retinas.

Her stomach violently dropped. The blood drained from her face, leaving her skin the color of old chalk. Her fingers went completely numb.

The plastic stick slipped from her grip. It hit the bottom of the trash can with a hollow plastic clatter.

Eloisa gasped, she dropped to her knees on the cold tile floor, plunged her hand into the trash, and snatched the stick back out. Her hands shook so hard she could barely read the tiny print on the instruction sheet she had unfolded on the sink.

Positive.

The word hit her like a physical blow to the chest.

She scrambled toward the toilet. She gripped the porcelain rim, her knuckles turning stark white. She gagged. Her throat spasmed, but nothing came up except the bitter, acidic taste of her own saliva.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to force her brain to work.

A month ago. The graduation party.

Fragments of memory sliced through her mind. The bass of the music vibrating in her ribs. The blinding flash of strobe lights. The burn of amber whiskey sliding down her throat.

She remembered drinking too much. She remembered her roommate, Isla, holding her arm, trying to keep her upright.

And then?

Nothing. A massive, terrifying blank space. It was like someone had taken scissors to the film reel of her life.

She pressed the heels of her hands hard against her forehead. A single, blurry image surfaced.

A tall shadow. A broad chest.

And a smell. It wasn't the cheap, overpowering cologne that college boys bathed in. It was the scent of cedarwood and old, expensive paper.

She remembered looking up into a pair of deep, dark eyes. But there was no face. Just the eyes, and the smell, and the heavy weight of a hand guiding her.

She slapped her own forehead, hard. The sting did nothing to clear the fog. Her head pounded with a vicious ache.

She had never even had a real boyfriend. She could count her intimate experiences on one hand, and they were all clumsy, forgettable, and years in the past.

This baby. This positive test. She couldn't even put a name or a face to it. It was completely absurd.

Eloisa reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out her phone. Her thumb trembled as she opened her banking app.

Available Balance: $76.58.

The panic in her chest twisted into a heavy, suffocating despair. She was a senior in college. She worked twenty hours a week making lattes at a campus coffee shop just to afford groceries.

How could she raise a child?

She didn't even know who the father was.

Tell her parents? The thought made her stomach cramp again. Her father worked night shifts as a security guard. Her mother scrubbed toilets at a downtown hotel. They had emptied their meager savings to help her pay for her first semester.

She could not do this to them. She could not be another heavy burden on their tired shoulders.

Her phone screen lit up in her palm. A text from Isla.

Eloisa, are you okay?

Eloisa stared at the words. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek until she tasted the metallic tang of blood.

She typed back.

I'm fine. Just headache.

She hit send and locked the screen. She pulled herself up using the edge of the sink and looked in the mirror. Dark purple circles bruised the skin under her eyes. She looked sick. She looked terrified.

She had to do something.

She opened the browser on her phone. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She typed: what to do unplanned pregnancy.

The first result that popped up was a sponsored ad for a women's health clinic in Washington D.C.

She clicked the link. The page loaded with soft pastel colors and words like Consultation and Options.

Her thumb hovered over the button that read Book Appointment.

A tiny, almost imperceptible twinge of pain pulled at her lower abdomen. It was a physical reminder. A biological clock ticking inside her body.

She took a deep breath. The air shuddered on the way into her lungs. She closed her eyes, and she pressed the button.

Seconds later, her phone buzzed. An email notification popped up at the top of her screen.

Appointment Confirmed. Tomorrow, 3:00 PM.

Eloisa gripped the edge of the sink. She was entirely alone, and she was terrified.

The next day, Eloisa pulled the strings of her oversized gray hoodie tight. The fabric swallowed her frame, hiding a stomach that was still perfectly flat. She kept her head down, her sneakers hitting the concrete path of the campus quad at a fast, desperate pace.

She just needed to get to the clinic.

"Eloisa!"

A body stepped directly into her path. Eloisa gasped and stumbled back, Her arms instinctively crossed over her stomach in a tight, defensive shield.

It was Isla. Her roommate was grinning, holding two iced coffees.

"Oh my god, you finally left the cave!" Isla laughed. "I was just coming to find you!"

Eloisa forced her arms down to her sides, her heart hammered against her ribs.

"I'm just going to the library," Eloisa lied. Her voice sounded thin and reedy.

Isla rolled her eyes. "Stop faking. Kurtis Branch has a massive surprise waiting for you."

Eloisa's brow furrowed. Kurtis, he was a linebacker on the college football team. He had been aggressively pursuing her for three months, and she found his loud, performative personality exhausting.

Before Eloisa could tell Isla she didn't care, a roar of cheers erupted from the fraternity lawn fifty yards ahead.

Eloisa looked up.

Kurtis Branch was standing in the middle of the grass. He was surrounded by a dozen massive, metallic red heart balloons. Above his head, a small drone buzzed angrily in the air, dragging a white vinyl banner.

The banner read: ELOISA, BE MY GF!

A crowd of at least fifty students had already formed a circle. They had their phones out. They were cheering and whistling.

Kurtis spotted her. He grabbed a massive bouquet of red roses from a frat brother. He was wearing a custom t-shirt with a picture of his own face printed on it. He started marching toward her.

As he got closer, the smell hit her.

It was a thick, suffocating cloud of cheap body spray. It smelled like synthetic pine needles and rubbing alcohol.

The smell acted like a physical switch inside Eloisa's body.

The nausea she had been fighting all morning exploded. Her stomach violently contracted. The color drained from her face so fast she felt dizzy.

Kurtis dropped to one knee right in front of her. He flashed a practiced, arrogant smile.

"Eloisa, from the first second I saw you..."

Eloisa couldn't hear the rest of his sentence. The blood was rushing in her ears. She slapped both hands over her mouth. She tried to swallow down the thick, bitter bile rising in her throat.

Kurtis stopped talking. He looked at her hands over her mouth. His smile grew wider. He thought she was crying. He thought she was overwhelmed with joy.

"Say yes! Say yes!" the crowd started chanting.

Eloisa's chest heaved. She couldn't hold it back anymore.

She violently shoved Kurtis backward. He fell onto the grass. Eloisa sprinted three steps to a nearby metal trash can, leaned over the edge, and threw up.

She retched loudly, her body shaking with the force of it.

The chanting stopped instantly. The entire quad fell into a dead, horrifying silence. The only sound was the wet, humiliating noise of Eloisa vomiting into the garbage.

Kurtis scrambled to his feet. His face went from bright red to a furious, dark purple. He looked around at the students filming him.

"Are you... are you serious right now?" Kurtis yelled. He threw the bouquet of roses onto the concrete. "You're a freak!"

He turned and stormed away, pushing through the crowd.

A wave of cruel laughter rippled through the students. They pointed their phones at her.

Eloisa gripped the rim of the trash can. Black spots danced in her vision. She wiped her mouth with the back of her trembling hand. She had just become the biggest joke on campus.

Isla took a hesitant step toward her.

Eloisa held up a weak hand. "Don't. Just... leave me alone."

Before Isla could say another word, a massive shadow fell over them.

A black Lincoln Navigator rolled silently to a stop right next to the curb. There were no license plates on the front. The windows were tinted so dark they looked like solid obsidian.

The rear door clicked open.

An older man stepped out. He wore a perfectly tailored charcoal suit. His hair was silver, and he wore crisp white cotton gloves. Two massive men in identical black suits and sunglasses stepped out behind him. They looked like secret service agents.

The older man walked straight to Eloisa. He did not look at the vomit. He did not look at the crowd. He stopped two feet away and offered a slight, formal bow.

"Miss Eloisa Williams?" his voice was smooth, flat, and completely devoid of emotion. "We have been expecting you."

Eloisa's spine stiffened. The nausea was instantly replaced by a cold spike of adrenaline.

"Who are you?" she asked, taking a step back.

The man reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a heavy, cream-colored card. He held it out to her.

Eloisa took it. There was only one word printed in embossed black ink in the center.

Wilkinson.

Beneath it was a phone number.

"My employer wishes to speak with you," the man said. He gestured toward the open door of the SUV. "Please get in the car."

It was not a request. It was a command.

The inside of the Lincoln Navigator was dead silent. The engine was a barely perceptible hum beneath the heavy floorboards.

Eloisa sat stiffly on the leather seat. She clutched her backpack tightly against her chest, inside the front pocket was the plastic pregnancy test. It felt like it was burning a hole through the canvas.

She turned her head to look out the window, but the dark tint turned the passing streets into a murky, unrecognizable blur.

She looked at the older man sitting across from her.

"Where are we going?" Eloisa asked. Her voice shook. "This is kidnapping."

Mr. Pembroke did not blink. He kept his hands folded neatly in his lap. "Rest assured, Miss Williams, you are perfectly safe. We are simply going to a location where we can have a quiet conversation."

Eloisa pulled her phone out of her pocket. She tapped the screen.

No Service.

Her stomach dropped. There was a signal jammer in the car, she was completely cut off from the world. A cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck.

The car drove for what felt like an hour. Finally, it slowed down. Eloisa heard the heavy metallic clank of iron gates opening, the SUV rolled onto a smooth, gravel driveway.

Through the tinted glass, she saw the sparkling water of the Potomac River in the distance. They were in the most exclusive, heavily guarded neighborhood in Washington D.C.

The car stopped in front of a massive, stone mansion, it looked like a museum.

Mr. Pembroke opened the door for her. "Welcome to the Wilkinson estate."

Eloisa stepped out. The sheer size of the property made her feel incredibly small. A massive stone fountain roared in the center of a perfectly manicured lawn.

Mr. Pembroke led her up the stone steps and pushed open the heavy oak doors.

They stepped into a foyer with gleaming marble floors. The ceiling was so high it made Eloisa dizzy.

In the center of the grand living room, sitting on a velvet sofa, was an elderly woman. She wore an elegant, tailored tweed suit, her silver hair was styled flawlessly. She held a delicate porcelain teacup in her hands.

Her eyes locked onto Eloisa. They were sharp, calculating, and cold as ice. Eloisa felt like a piece of meat being weighed on a scale.

Mr. Pembroke bowed. "Madam, Miss Williams has arrived."

The woman set her teacup down on a silver tray. The clink of the porcelain echoed in the massive room.

"Sit down, child," her voice was quiet, but it carried absolute authority.

Eloisa walked forward. Her legs felt like lead. She sat on the edge of the sofa opposite the woman. The cushions were so soft she felt like she was sinking into quicksand.

The woman did not waste time.

"I know you are pregnant."

The blood in Eloisa's veins turned to ice. Her mouth fell open.

"How..." Eloisa choked on the word. "How do you know that?"

The woman smiled, but the smile did not reach her eyes. "I am Eleonora Wilkinson. I know far more than that. My grandson's security detail reported the... incident at the party. We have been monitoring your situation since. Your appointment at the clinic merely confirmed our suspicions. I also know that the child growing inside your stomach is my great-grandson."

Eloisa felt like she had been struck by lightning. Her hands gripped the fabric of her jeans.

"No," Eloisa shook her head frantically. "No, that's impossible. You have the wrong person. I don't even know..."

Eleonora cut her off. "A month ago. A graduation party near Georgetown University. You drank too much."

Eleonora recited the details with surgical precision. Eloisa's face grew paler with every word.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Eloisa lied, her voice cracking. "I don't know your grandson!"

Eleonora's eyes softened into a look of cold pity. "Of course you don't. You probably don't even remember his face."

Eleonora raised two fingers. Mr. Pembroke stepped forward and handed Eleonora a sleek black tablet.

Eleonora slid the tablet across the glass coffee table.

Eloisa looked down. A video was playing. It was security camera footage, grainy and dark. But she could clearly see the corner of the frat house patio. She saw herself, stumbling, barely able to stand.

And she saw the man.

He was tall. He wore a dark shirt. His back was to the camera, but he caught her as she fell. He wrapped a strong arm around her waist and guided her away from the crowd, toward the guest rooms.

"My grandson attended that party briefly," Eleonora said, her voice drifting over the footage. "He despises those events. He left early. But clearly, before he left, an... incident occurred."

Eloisa stared at the screen. The blank space in her memory violently ripped open.

The smell of cedarwood. The weight of his hand. The deep, dark eyes.

It wasn't a dream. It was real.