Red, White & Royal Blue(106)

Third, Rafael Luna is perhaps the unlikeliest hero of the 2020 presidential race.





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A speech has to be made.

Not just a statement. A speech.

“You wrote this?” their mother says, holding the folded-up page June had handed Alex on the balcony. “Alex told you to scrap the statement our press secretary drafted and write this whole thing?” June bites her lip and nods. “This is—this is good, June. Why the hell aren’t you writing all our speeches?”

The press briefing room in the West Wing is ruled too impersonal, so they’ve called the press pool to the Diplomatic Reception Room on the ground floor. It’s the room where FDR once recorded his fireside chats, and Alex is going to walk in there and make a speech and hope the country doesn’t hate him for the truth.

They’ve flown Henry in from London for the telecast. He’ll be positioned right at Alex’s shoulder, steady and sure, the emblematic politician’s spouse. Alex’s brain can’t stop sprinting laps around it. He keeps picturing it: an hour from now, millions and millions of TVs across America simulcasting his face, his voice, June’s words, Henry at his side. Everyone will know. Everyone already knows now, but they don’t know, not the right way.

In an hour, every person in America will be able to look at a screen and see their First Son and his boyfriend.

And, across the Atlantic, almost as many will look up over a beer at a pub or dinner with their family or a quiet night in and see their youngest prince, the most beautiful one, Prince Charming.

This is it. October 2, 2020, and the whole world watched, and history remembered.

Alex waits on the South Lawn, within view of the linden trees of the Kennedy Garden, where they first kissed. Marine One touches down in a cacophony of noise and wind and rotors, and Henry emerges in head-to-toe Burberry looking dramatic and windswept, like a dashing hero here to rip bodices and mend war-torn countries, and Alex has to laugh.

“What?” Henry shouts over the noise when he sees the look on Alex’s face.

“My life is cosmic joke and you’re not a real person,” Alex says, wheezing.

“What?” Henry yells again.

“I said, you look great, baby!”

They sneak off to make out in a stairwell until Zahra finds them and drags Henry off to get camera-ready, and soon they’re being shuffled to the Diplomatic Reception Room, and it’s time.

It’s time.

It’s been one long, long year of learning Henry inside and out, learning himself, learning how much he still had to learn, and just like that, it’s time to walk out there and stand at a podium and confidently declare it all as fact.

He’s not afraid of anything he feels. He’s not afraid of saying it. He’s only afraid of what happens when he does.

Henry touches his hand, gently, two fingertips against his palm.

“Five minutes for the rest of our lives,” he says, laughing a grim little laugh.

Alex reaches for him in return, presses one thumb into the hollow of his collarbone, slipping right under the knot of his tie. The tie is purple silk, and Alex is counting his breaths.

“You are,” he says, “the absolute worst idea I’ve ever had.”

Henry’s mouth spreads into a slow smile, and Alex kisses it.

FIRST SON ALEXANDER CLAREMONT-DIAZ’S ADDRESS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE, OCTOBER 2, 2020

Good morning.

I am, and have been—first, last, and always—a child of America.

You raised me. I grew up in the pastures and hills of Texas, but I had been to thirty-four states before I learned how to drive. When I caught the stomach flu in the fifth grade, my mother sent a note to school written on the back of a holiday memo from Vice President Biden. Sorry, sir—we were in a rush, and it was the only paper she had on hand.

I spoke to you for the first time when I was eighteen, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when I introduced my mother as the nominee for president. You cheered for me. I was young and full of hope, and you let me embody the American dream: that a boy who grew up speaking two languages, whose family was blended and beautiful and enduring, could make a home for himself in the White House.

You pinned the flag to my lapel and said, “We’re rooting for you.” As I stand before you today, my hope is that I have not let you down.

Years ago, I met a prince. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, his country had raised him too.

The truth is, Henry and I have been together since the beginning of this year. The truth is, as many of you have read, we have both struggled every day with what this means for our families, our countries, and our futures. The truth is, we have both had to make compromises that cost us sleep at night in order to afford us enough time to share our relationship with the world on our own terms.

We were not afforded that liberty.

But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable. America has always believed this. And so, I am not ashamed to stand here today where presidents have stood and say that I love him, the same as Jack loved Jackie, the same as Lyndon loved Lady Bird. Every person who bears a legacy makes the choice of a partner with whom they will share it, whom the American people will hold beside them in hearts and memories and history books. America: He is my choice.

Like countless other Americans, I was afraid to say this out loud because of what the consequences might be. To you, specifically, I say: I see you. I am one of you. As long as I have a place in this White House, so will you. I am the First Son of the United States, and I’m bisexual. History will remember us.