He wanted Donna.
After a day like that one, he wanted to go home to Donna. He wanted to sit on the couch with her and reminisce. He wanted to have her hold him. He wanted to rest his head on her shoulder, or to cry into her chest. Nothing seemed so bad when she was with him; just being with her took the edge off his pain.
But he hadn’t been quick enough with his offer.
He remembered that day on the campaign trail, that day in New Hampshire when he’d said to her, you should be with me. But he hadn’t been quick enough, then, either, quick enough to call her after she left, or quick enough to see beforehand that she wanted a challenge, that she needed to get out, to get some fresh air.
He didn’t want for the two of them to keep missing out because he wasn’t quick enough.
He wanted her. For the passion, for the fun, that stuff, yes. But most of all, most of all, he wanted to go home to her.
He realised now that was what he had been feeling for eight years. That having her there was reassuring, the way home is, or a favourite pair of slippers, or the way your pillow moulds to your head. Home, horrible cliché that it was, might be where the heart is after all.
He didn’t know if he was ready for the grown up stuff. He didn’t know if he even wanted it. But this he did know: home didn’t feel like home without Donna anymore.
