The Longer The Fall, Aviva Gat [top 10 books to read txt] 📗

she was speaking in the picture, and everyone’s eyes were on her. She had her bookbag slung over one shoulder and her arms were up in gesticulation—a habit she had gotten better at controlling over the years. (It was quite distracting to anyone watching her, her image consultants had said.) It was obvious the students didn’t know they were being pictured. Madeline tried to remember the moment captured, but she couldn’t exactly place it. There were so many similar memories she had on campus, standing around with her friends, debating politics, complaining about roommates or classes, making weekend plans. She wished she could go back and hear what she was saying when this picture was taken, surely it must have been interesting to have warranted being photographed. When the nostalgia of seeing herself at Columbia passed, the confusion set in. What was the meaning of this picture? Who took it? Why had Brandon left it on her pillow?

Luckily, Brandon had also left a note in his envelope. Madeline pulled the piece of notebook paper out and gently unfolded it to reveal Brandon’s sharp handwriting.

Madeline,

Do you remember the first time we met? I’m not talking about the convention where we formally introduced ourselves and became a couple. Yes that is a beautiful and romantic story of our beginning but it is far from the truth. This picture is the day we met. We didn’t exchange names, or phone numbers, but it was the day that the rest of your life was decided for you.

I was visiting New York that day to speak with a group of potential investors for my new startup. It’s funny thinking of CyTech as a startup, but that is all it was back then. I walked into the auditorium at Columbia where the pitching event was held and I stood in front of the podium and told them about why CyTech would revolutionize the cyber world. They smiled and thanked me, but I knew they wouldn’t invest. Why? Because I bombed the pitch. I mean, it was horrible. I was probably one of the best programmers and developers around, but I couldn’t public speak for the life of me.

I stayed and watched the other startups pitch and when the event was over, I still stayed in the auditorium. I was alone, and it was nice to sit in the quiet, but then you came in. You walked in with your friends from the College Republican National Committee and started ordering everyone around the room. You saw me sitting in the room and you asked me if I had come for the mock election debate. I shook my head and you turned away and continued to explain to everyone their tasks to prepare for whatever this mock debate was you were planning. You had such presence in the room and everyone listened to you unquestioningly.

When you left the auditorium, I followed you outside and took this picture. It was then that I decided that I was going to marry you and you would be the presence in the world that I always wanted to be. It wasn’t hard to find out more about you. From your t-shirt I knew you were in the College Republican National Committee and since my parents were active in the party, it just took a few questions and I had your name and everything else you had written on your admission forms. I had never shown interest in the Republican Party before, so my parents were excited when I started attending events and asking questions. They had always wanted me to be a politician, but I knew that I would never be good at that. So I put all the expectations and eyes on you. It was me who brought your name forward to the party’s leadership. I told them to keep an eye on you, I told everyone that you were the star they needed to polish. And everyone listened to me because of my parent’s money.

While you were basking in the attention and your stardom in the party, you didn’t realize that you were being handed to me on a silver platter. Everyone knew I wanted to marry you and make you the leader my parents had wanted me to be. They spoke to you about me, placing hints in your mind and ensuring that you were single and already primed to be with me by the time we met. Meeting you officially was just a formality. Everything had already been planned.

Aristotle believed that we don’t really have free will in the way we believe we do. All of our actions and choices are based on sequences of circumstances around us, including the environment, others’ actions, and our own personality traits. Your every decision was determined by sequences of circumstances that I created for you. I recognized your love of the spotlight and I helped you get exactly what you needed so long as you continued making the decisions that I primed you to make.

You continued making all the right decisions, until one day you didn’t. I forgave you, thinking maybe it was my mistake that I led you astray. But that wrong decision has come back to haunt us and it threatened everything I had planned.

What I want you to see, is that you would have been nothing without me. Had I not seen you that day at Columbia, you certainly wouldn’t be a senator with eyes to the White House. Chances are your name wouldn’t have even been known in the Republican Party.

Today, what you want and what I planned for you are one and the same. So I want you to understand that your success isn’t possible without me in the background. You won’t win your election without me by your side. You won’t be vetted for Vice President and you definitely won’t be nominated for president.

You took me for granted. Everything I did for you,