Caught in The Capitol

Chapter One - D.C. Insider

Living in the capitol sometimes felt like being trapped in a bubble. If people wanted to know what you were up to, there were surefire ways of finding out. Most senators, congressmen, and other D.C. strategists chose a life in the political limelight, but the people who were born into it usually draw the short end of the stick.

For the most part, that was me.

Usually the public wouldn't really care what was going on in the life of a regular nineteen year old girl, though if you stick the title of 'senator's daughter' or 'presidential hopefuls family' on top of her then it changes just about everything.

It's all well and fine when the socialite magazines and websites are publishing complimentary articles about you, but as soon as you take a step in the wrong direction it's plastered over every D.C. corner. So far I hadn't done anything too scandalous for them to feast on, but I hated feeling like I was walking on glass. I was bound to do something stupid sooner or later.

"I don't even know why they give Casey the attention. She is clearly so thirsty for it. Nobody 'accidentally' flashes their boobs anymore! It's so trashy!" Mindy groaned at the front headline of D.C. Insider, everyone's go to website for salacious drama. The big attention was directed towards Casey Neilson's wardrobe malfunction that happened at some event earlier in the week. Casey was the daughter of some social climbing charity owner, which made her think that she was above everyone else. Everybody I knew had a parent on the board of some charity. I don't know who gave her the idea that she was somehow a celebrity. I was a regular in being featured on stupid websites like that. Usually it wasn't anything too scandalous, just a picture of my outfit or dating rumors, but Casey had brought the game to a new level. I didn't know many people that liked her, but being that we saw her basically everywhere we went it was only right to be cordial.

"Didn't you do that last year?" I narrowed my eyes at Mindy suspiciously. If she was going to bitch about something, I at least didn't want it to be a hypocritical bitch.

"I said 'anymore'! Don't be like that, Delia." She flashed me a dirty look with her pale green eyes.

"Just making sure!" I began to change into a loose t-shirt and pajama shorts as Mindy went on to read the article they had written about Casey's whole ordeal.

Of course it was filled with ridiculous descriptions, half-truths, and complete over-exaggerations like any tabloid magazine. The best part had to be when they said her nip slip was part of the reason that her boyfriend broke up with her, which was completely false because they broke up before it even happened. We had all witnessed the very public ordeal at a party just a couple days before. But a little timeline tweak and everything turned into a perfect little story. I found the lies amusing because they were so manipulative. But of course there was never really anything I did that could be sensationalized, but Mindy knew how the other side felt.

Mindy was 'D.C.'s favorite party girl' as all of the tabloids liked to call her. Sure, Mindy had been photographed in many... ungainly situations, but the amount of criticisms she received was just ridiculous. I'd like to say that I was a good enough person to stop reading any of it, but that was hard to do when Mindy herself was so consumed in every word written about D.C. socialites. It was strangely addicting.

"Awe, look at the picture perfect couple!" Mindy turned the screen towards me and I took a close look.

There was a spread of photos from a charity event last week and I immediately spotted the one Mindy was sarcastically referring to.

One of our good friends Joy sat closely with her boyfriend Ian smiling brightly. Mindy knew it would be a joke to me because I was one of the people Joy ran to when she and Ian got in a fight every other day. They're relationship was hanging on by a thread, or more like the puppet strings of their parents. The two of them come from similar political families and were anointed a power couple years ago. They were great together until the past few months, and it has seen been a complete shit show. Unfortunately I had a horrible suspicious of why they were suddenly in such a bad place.