WE ARE THE D.S (Somos la D.S - English version)

5. LIKE FLIES TO HONEY

"Are you nervous?" I stop the van in the university parking lot.

"Something." Roman hunches his shoulders and smiles.

"Relax, there's no pressure. The dean agreed to let you be just a listener in the classes, your goal is to advance exams and with the fee David is depositing, surely they won't be so heavy with you."

"It's all very exuberant here."

"And we're only in the basement, wait till you see what the building is like. I can assure you that you will fall in love with this place."

"A part of me can breathe easy, but all these cars just express that money is in surplus here, and in my case I don't even have a motorcycle. I may not feel very comfortable."

"I don't want to believe that you consider quitting without even having fought, Roman."

"It's not about quitting, but," the boy next to me seems to stop his words as we get out of the car, "I don't belong to this whole world," I deny as we walk towards the elevator.

"You must be clear about one thing, and that is that if you belong to my family, this whole world belongs to you. You may not have slept on golden threads in your childhood like everyone else here, but you pay a hefty fee, that's the free pass to all this."

The large institute is kept well active at a few minutes to the eight o'clock mark in the morning. Everyone is relatively normal, I'm sure Roman can camouflage himself among the masses, because despite the odd bruise or scar on his face, his attire doesn't stand out at all. My mother took it upon herself to forcibly renew his closet and with the excuse that he needed a suit or two, that turned into bathing suits, socks, shirts, brand name clothes. Something worthy after all.

Now, while Roman moves hypnotized through the ample illuminated place, I watch him in silence. I just answer something, and in the minutes we have left, we walk around the institute until we stand at the foot of the large amphitheater-shaped room where I have economics classes.

"I thought they only taught finance here," he says as he gazes out the window at the large golf course."

"Finance and economics is only a small part of the entire educational offerings of the University of Merinthia. Here we have arts, sports, letters, science, engineering, and the list goes on and on. At the University there is everything that a good social status in Madrid and money can afford."

"And how are you supposed to study here? I mean you were born in this city, but part of our childhood was spent in that town, or well, those two years. Surely if everyone here knew where we came from, they wouldn't even agree to breathe our same air, or at least mine. You seem to be cut out for this."

"About that, I know at lunch you'll meet my friends. I know it was stupid of me, but could you just lie for me? Few people know about the nasty way my father abandoned my mother a few years ago and how he had to scramble to make his last name known, and I don't want to divulge details of my personal life."

"Baelee," Roman's hand falls on my arm and I am silenced by his sudden approach, "I understand. I know it doesn't bother me, nor do I deny my origins, but my plan is to keep the party in peace. It won't come out of my mouth that I was born in that town, I won't say much more than that I'm your stepbrother and when they try to investigate I'll just play along. My plan here is not to get friends or seek social acceptance, I just want to have a degree in my hand to be able to defend myself someday and not depend on my father's money."

"You have changed, Roman."

"You haven't," he tries to tease and I roll my eyes at the sky.

We both go into the classroom waiting for the Economics teacher to show up. There are only two classes left and Román will meet my friends. I am nervous, very nervous. I hope he doesn't decide to talk about his brilliant aspiration to be a mechanic, because I wouldn't hesitate to slap his face like when he was nine.