What if Neilia Hunter:

(From Joe Biden’s perspective)

Hockessin, Delaware, December of 1972, and a beautiful woman lying before me on the cold hard ground. It was near midnight and all you could hear were the sirens of the ambulance and cars on the other side of the road trying to get through. They carried her to the back of the ambulance and there I stood with her car in shambles and a beautiful woman severely wounded with a scar through her right eye. They claimed she was going to die, so I never dared see or hear any news about her again for the fear of breaking down and wanting to join her. She was only in her 20s, and she was already the best teacher in our neighborhood, while I was just some politician with the name of Joe Biden. She was the love of my life, but I never got the chance to give her a ring.

As years passed I naturally grew at peace with the incident. I am no longer sad to the point where I have restless nights or I can’t get out of bed. Now, I can occasionally remember the happy days I spent with her and live without feeling regret. It's 2020, and we are in the middle of a pandemic. Covid 19 has drastically impacted everyone's lives in multiple ways. I started taking yoga classes to ease my mind off the past. Since the pandemic started, I have been doing my yoga through zoom. Newcomers in the class are usually shocked to see the president in their meeting, but this one girl was different. It was almost like she didn't know who I was. She was very beautiful and around my age with a faint scar through her right eye.  

We were put in the same breakout room and she introduced herself as Neilia. I felt a slight familiarity with her name and face. It felt like I knew her, but I couldn’t quite remember exactly why, or how. She didn't question whether I was the real president, what I was doing there, or even bothered to introduce herself, she just started talking about her sick father as if we were friends. And that is exactly what we became.

We started talking and all the memories came flooding back, my beautiful Neilia was brought to the hospital in Hockessin on the day of the incident and everyone thought she would die except for one of the newer nurses. She managed to get Neilia to a doctor working for the military who saved her life. Then, she never saw me again since I had already moved to Pennsylvania to continue working for my country. She never died. Neilia continued her job as teacher as soon as she got better and taught for almost forty years before she felt it was time to retire. That is when she saw that I had started running for president and immediately moved to Washington DC. Everything was perfect. Except for one thing… I have a new wife. 

A few weeks later, Neilia and I got into an argument. She didn't approve of the law that we passed back in congress. I fought for the freedom of Americans and sided with no masks so the bill was passed and she kept telling me about how her students and her father might get sick. I still think freedom is more important. After all, it is the whole point of America and I am a president who wishes to represent such a country of the eagle. 

Little did I know that Neilia went to the store to get some toilet paper the day before and caught covid. There were way more people than usual and they were all going to get toilet paper. She had to rush to the aisle to try to get as much as she could before anyone else. There was a big crowd of people and no one was staying 6 feet apart. Someone tried to fight her for it and he snatched her mask off instead. Afterwards, she was going to move away to take care of her father in two days and needed to take the toilet paper with her. Her father lived in a remote town in Utah where there was no internet so I wanted to enjoy every last moment I had with her. 

I wish I could visit her one last time, but I have a wife…but at the same time I reunited with the lover of my youth that everyone had claimed to be dead. I don't know if being friends with her is a betrayal to my wife, but I have missed her since that fateful 70’s night. Should we meet up or not? Neilia seemed really stuck on the idea of meeting in person for one last time. It is still extremely risky. I want to meet her but would it be the right choice or will that only bring me, my country, and my current wife more problems? It would not be a good look if I were to get covid from my ex. While it's true we only live once, too many people are depending on me. My country symbolizes freedom, yet I, the president, have none. The freedom to decide and the right to make mistakes should be everyone’s rights, so why not mine? I decided to meet her one last time, for freedom in our country applies to even the president. I think it is worth it to see my lover from my youth and properly give her a final goodbye.

I let her come over to my house to visit while my wife was away. She sneezed at me before she left and I jumped in fear. I can’t afford to get covid now, I have too many priorities for this country. I told her that we should both do at home tests right after and we did. There we went, rushing to her home only to find out that we were both positive. I collapsed at seeing the result and got rushed to the hospital immediately after she dialed 911. I had a heart attack as a result of my shock. I could only see faint figures and guessed that they were the doctors. So this is what she felt when she got carried off that horrible winter night. 

Neilia was at my side the whole time, in the ambulance, but then she got worse. She dropped to the floor of the vehicle and started hyperventilating and losing oxygen. Maybe caused by a panic attack, covid, or both. We were both rushed to the hospital and got checked as soon as we arrived. We were placed in the same room, just separated by a curtain, touching the edge of death’s robe. She opened the curtain with her remaining strength and managed to let out her last words. “I guess choice really is a beautiful rose with thorns meant to give us all a little bit of freedom.” The monitor gave its last beep, and we both drifted to our eternal sleep.