For the Love of Money

Chapter 12

"Are you nervous?"

I glanced left to the man who was sitting two seats away from me. The speech specialist seemed to have grown some balls since I'd seen him. He'd actually mustered the courage to tell me his name, which was Hal. Despite the fact that he'd annoyed me earlier, I couldn't deny that he was an okay guy who actually did seem to care for people other than himself.

When I'd looked in the mirror, I'd barely recognized myself. Thinking about it now, mirrors were really hard to come by in the streets. Most of the ones you'd find in run down buildings were broken, and no one just carried around something like a mirror anyway, at least not for looking at themselves or whatever. In my eyes, a mirror just a smash away from a knife, another way to defend myself. Looking into that mirror again and seeing my 'transformed self' was like seeing another me, a me that was born among the fruits of life. The suit was shaped to my body, tailored to give me a sturdy build that wasn't too stocky or too limp. I looked supportive of myself, as if I could hold my own weight. What had Liam called that again? Oh, right. He said that I looked like I could lead a people, which that I had to admit was true. My hair was perfect. They didn't even cut the bangs; they shaped them to frame my face, my eyes. I felt about forty feet taller this way, and I couldn't tell if I hated or loved that.

The hovercraft sailed smoothly over fluffy ivory clouds, gliding through an endless azure sky. Between dots of white I could see tiny glimpses of the glamorous cities thousands of feet below us. Sunlight struck window and reflected light like diamonds, beautiful yet blinding. The golden shores of artificial beaches showed people playing, laughing among themselves. If I squinted I could see people around parks and carnivals, sightseeing in cities, cuddling with spouses and children. Having the time of their lives with family and friends, people they trusted and had been trusting for a very long time.

At that exact moment I felt a feeling I'd never felt before: a twinge of jealousy.

"Are you with me, Devin?"

I looked at Hal, suddenly thrown from my dark thoughts. Oh right. He'd asked me something. "What did you say?" I asked, folding my arms and fixing the glare on my face.

"I asked you if you were nervous."

I squinted at him. "About what?"

"About your speech. Everyone will be watching. Everyone will be judging you. Isn't that...nerve-wracking?"

"No."

"But this is so serious! What if they get the wrong vibe and hate you? What if they retaliate by supporting the president? What if they decide to destroy you through the media?"

I shrugged and eyed a glass of water. "I honestly could care less about what rich pigs think about me, because in the end, if they want to fight, I'm always available."

"You're so violent sometimes Devin. Diplomacy is mightier than the sword, you know."

"Diplomacy is for people who have the luxury of thinking that peace is a thing," I replied softly, lost in thought. "Only fools believe in world peace, Hal. It's not going to happen. And only rich people seriously believe that a select few deserve it. If you grew up in the streets believing that everyone was your brother and that no one was truly evil, you'd be dead before the sun got up."

"I get that-- well, I can comprehend what you're saying," he finished quickly as I sent him a cold glare. "Not saying I know what you've been through or anything like that. But anyway, you have to understand that it isn't like that here. Not up here. Here, people have hope that eventually everything will be alright."

"For them, maybe."

"They have the luxury to do that, like you said. That's the mindset. You have to adapt to that way of thinking if this is going to work. It's not easy, but it's going to have to happen. Try to understand what it's like to be...to be--"

"Rich?" I scoffed icily. "That's not a problem. I've been dreaming about being rich since I was able to walk. It's impossible to not be jealous when you're starving, Hal, and your best friend just got killed. I've always wondered what would happen if I'd grown up like this, if I had had the luxury of being able to wake up and not worry about what I was going to eat tomorrow. If I could have been the one playing on playgrounds with friends and not wondering when my friends would stab me in the back later. If I could look both my parents in the eye and speak with them everyday, knowing that they're fine and healthy and in love with me, their son, instead of having this dead certainty that parents were dead or at the very least happy that they'd gotten rid of me. I hate being jealous of anything, especially the idiots on top, but it's hard not to be when you see all the things that others have and you don't. That's nerve-wracking. How do you expect me to understand them when they don't even try to understand me? Why would a zebra try to understand a lion's feelings?"

Hal was silent, seeming to debate whether or not he wanted to say the what was on his mind. "Maybe because if you did that, you'd see that you're not all that different," he said meekly. "That maybe it's not just the upper class keeping society as fractured and harsh as it is, and it's both parties--"

I turned from Hal abruptly, keeping my back to him as I tried to keep my hands from going around his throat. I'd never felt so in tune with the monster inside of me before; I had absolutely no doubt that had I had my baseball bat, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from braining Hal. That's how ridiculous his words were, so stupid that they flipped my mind backwards and forwards and inverse. I wonder how he could muster the strength to even mention something like to that to me. Of all people.

"Devin?" he said tentatively. "Are you alright? Are you feeling sick?"

I inhaled deeply and calmed the storm in my head, placing the toxic feelings to the side. This was Hal. He wouldn't mean to hurt me because hurting people wasn't in his nature. I forced myself to believe that that was all that mattered, and then wretched my head to face him. "I'm fine," I said, swallowing slowly, readjusting my mask of indifference. "Look, I don't expect you and I to share the same ideology, I mean, I'm assuming that we were both raised in very different environments. Yours gave you the luxury of being optimistic and seeing the good in everyone, no matter how rotten, and mine, well, mine gave me a baseball bat and skulls to crack." I ignored his horrified expression and retrained my gaze to the window, staring placidly at the drifting sky. "That dynamic will always be there. It will always be an us versus them. That's just the way it works."

I watched his dejected gaze fall through the reflection on the window. "It doesn't have to be," he muttered softly.

I scoffed. "Of course it does."