My mother said I should stay in the kitchen during the wedding photos—only until the “important guests” were gone. I didn’t mention that for the past year I had been

I’d always known my work required distance. I’d chosen policy analysis because I believed in shaping ideas without becoming a political pawn. Dating Daniel didn’t change my values, but it changed how people interpreted them.

That afternoon, I sat across from counsel and walked through my projects. What I worked on. Who funded it. Whether any of my work intersected with the administration.

It didn’t, directly. But “directly” was a flimsy shield when perception was its own kind of evidence.

When I got home, Daniel was waiting, jacket off, sleeves rolled, phone in his hand. “I heard,” he said quietly.

“From who?” I asked, sharper than I meant.

He held up the phone. “My security team. They monitor threats, rumors. Stuff that could become dangerous.”

I sank onto the couch. “So my life is a threat report now.”

Daniel sat beside me. “Not you,” he said immediately. “Never you. The noise around you.”

I stared at my hands. “I worked so hard to be taken seriously,” I whispered. “And now I’m going to be reduced to who I’m dating.”