All in all, finals come and go with much less fanfare than Alex imagined. It's a week of cramming and presentations and the usual amount of all-night… - Casey McQuiston

"It's public knowledge. It's not my problem you just found out," his mother is saying, pacing double-time down a West Wing corridor. "You mean to tell me," Alex half shouts, jogging to keep up, "every Thanksgiving, those stupid turkeys have been staying in a luxury suite at the Willard on the taxpayers' dime?"
"Yes, Alex, they do-"
"Gross government waste!"
"-and there are two forty-pound turkeys named Cornbread and Stuffing in a motorcade on Pennsylvania Avenue right now. There is no time to reallocate the turkeys."
Without missing a beat, he blurts out, "Bring them to the house."
"Where? Are you hiding a turkey habitat up your ass, son? Where, in our historically protected house, am I going to put a couple of turkeys until I pardon them tomorrow?"
"Put them in my room. I don't care."
She outright laughs. "No."
"How is it different from a hotel room? Put the turkeys in my room, Mom."
"I'm not putting turkeys in your room."
"Put the turkeys in my room."
"No."
"Put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room, put them in my room-"
That night, as Alex stares into the cold, pitiless eyes of a prehistoric beast of prey, he has a few regrets.

Get some shoes, we're running," Zahra tells him. "Priority one is damage control, not feelings. He grabs a pair of sneakers, and they take off while he's still pulling them on, running west. His brain is struggling to keep up, running through about five thousand possible ways this could go, imagining himself ten years down the road being frozen out of Congress, plummeting approval ratings, Henry's name being scratched off the line of succession, his mother losing reelection on a swing state's disapproval of him. He's so screwed, and he can't even decide who to be the angriest with, himself or the Mail or the monarchy or the whole stupid country. He nearly crashes into Zahra's back as she skids to a stop in front of a door. He pushes the door open, and the whole room goes silent. His mother stares at him from the head of the table and says flatly, "Out." At first he thinks she's talking to him, but she cuts her eyes down to the people around the table with her. "Was I not clear? Everyone, out, now," she says. "I need to talk to my son.

Well. It will matter, you know. It will always matter.