Rich Man

The air of change is not an air. It holds no scent, no breeze, not a single shred of tangible evidence that it exists save for a feeling. The ominous glow built itself up in my stomach as though it were a candle burning in reverse. It burnt furiously down to a dull flicker, waiting patiently to be lit for the first time. But that's what change is in a life like mine: Firsts.

The previous night was surreal. It left my head spinning the following morning, not quite sure how Roark would react to him. And it was funny to me, reflecting on my facade as though she were a completely different person; that Patrice should slip up and not know how to handle her when all along he had acted as if she was the easiest puzzle in the world to solve.

But in truth, his failed actions spoke far louder to me than the spoken word. He was wary and truly weak just as I longed to relinquish some control over her body and her actions. And yet there I lay alone, staring at the white-washed ceiling with curiously half-lidded eyes, examining the possibility that was my free time.

Days seemed to pass this way, my journal entries growing progressively more scant as my purpose grew more and more succinct. I attempted for a long while to distance my alone time with Patrice. I strictly monitored myself, eased my way out of any given situation with a fox-like slight of hand. Loki himself would be proud.

But Patrice was a persistent man and I knew this, therefore I allowed him to stay close whenever we were out and about. He was somewhat more mild when around the group and that itself came as a comfort to my reeling mind. One week had passed in what felt like seconds since his night attempting to ease his own answers out of me. And though he barely failed that night, I somehow had managed to make him think he hadn't begun to touch the surface of my mind.

He kept an awkward separation with me, questioning my attraction to him just by the way he stood. What used to be an open, warm posture was now terse and half closed. He was afraid of saying the wrong thing, convinced that somehow he had made the situation dramatically more awkward. And though I coaxed him (somehow) into believing that I felt no differently about him, that he still had an incorrigible and yet tantalizing hold on my mind, he remained just as tense and guarded.

Our time soon shifted the farther we grew out of our physical interest in each other to something altogether different. Instead of "stories", he craved to hear me teach him things about psychology. He wished audibly one night to know the human mind, to experience what it would feel like to truly manipulate someone else without their knowledge.

I only smiled and gave him a lesson in reading eyes.

"But I don't understand," he countered me, scratching his head in a fit of true cluelessness, "How can truth be more than one thing? It's truth. Truth is truth. It's the correct answer to a question or the proper solution to a problem."

"Yes," I replied from my seat at his desk, scribbling away furiously in a new journal entry. Accompanied by the explanation that it was a "private journal", I successfully deterred him from inquiring into its purpose. "Truth is exactly as you say, but Kierkegaard also believed that truth is also in how you relate yourself to that fact or truth. I mean the truth itself can be considered an objective fact, plain as day."

"But then... Doesn't that defeat the purpose of ethics?"

I smiled. Now he's understanding this. "Please, elaborate."

"Well... Ethics is all about how you act and the decisions you make... So... Why would it all depend on how you feel? I mean that is, essentially, objectivity..."

"So...?" I rolled my wrist at him, beckoning for him to continue his thought.

The boy chewed on his bottom lip before quietly finishing, "Truth isn't just objective. It's much more subjective because--"

"Actions speak much louder than words," I cut him off, nodding. "I'm surprised you made so many connections like that so fast. When I was first learning Kierkegaard, it took me a few days just to put that together."

Patrice stretched out on his mattress, yawning. I couldn't possibly blame him for being tired. After all, he had come home from the game two hours prior and their loss was a rough one. Cuddling with a pillow, he lazily watched me. "When'd you learn about him?"

"I think I was ten."

Patrice stared at me for a moment, smooth jaw disappearing into the pillow in his arms as he raised a brow at me. "I don't know whether to be insulted or impressed."

Softly chuckling, I replied, "Be neither. I was born and raised that way."

"So you were a child genius."

"It's just how I was raised."

"I don't understand."

"You don't understand a lot of things."

"Well if you'd explain it, maybe I wouldn't be so in the dark."

For a moment I hesitated, but his light-hearted, tired stare had the weak spot in my stomach begging to differ. "I was raised in a household with a good deal many other kids, all of whom were not my siblings, that had an upbringing revolving around education. All of us were foster kids, adopted into this system where we learned everything we possibly could. Our parents were scientists and professors--mine, a psycho-physio-philosophically inclined man with a love of instruction."

The boy, oddly enough, frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Hear what?" My confusion was genuine. "Nathaniel loved me like I was his own flesh and blood. He nurtured me and cared for me in a way that other kids couldn't dream of." I could feel my eyes glassing over thoughtfully as I put down my pen and shut my journal for the night. Patrice watched with a look border-lining that of awe, like a child awaiting his bedtime story.

"He required me to learn philosophy and start thinking about deep psychological dilemmas as soon as I could read and spell those words. He home-schooled me rigorously, but his lessons were so fun and interesting... Like he once bought me a jump rope and I remember one of his so-called tests was to see how many different ways I could think to jump while explaining what I had learned that week. If I did well enough, not only was the jump rope mine, but he'd take me out for ice cream and a movie."

Patrice smiled now. "So you had a good childhood then."

"Yeah... It was unique because of how much I knew and was learning so young, but I wouldn't trade it for the world."

"He's the one who got you into becoming a psychotherapist, right?"

I nodded, mentally recounting memories of my father and his ability to make me smile in my youth, warm arms open with both nurturing and a desire for my success. "Without him, I doubt I'd be in any mental state to take on psychology. But what I loved is how he never actually lectured me for more than twenty minutes at a time. His lessons were always filled with activity and true examples of what he wanted me to learn, like he had been through it all and could recount every kind of villain and psyche out there."

"He sounds like one hell of a smart man."

"He is."

"Do you still keep in contact?"

"Admittedly not as often as we used to, as he resides now in Europe and the time makes things difficult, but we exchange calls every now and then."

Patrice was watching me with soft eyes, weary and tired and yet struggling to keep awake. There was a world behind his weakened eyes he was just begging for me to reply to, to answer, but he was losing the struggle against his shutting down body. Out of nowhere, a sneeze shook the frame of his body, eyes springing awake.

"Bless you."

"Thank you," he replied swiftly. But his voice made me crack a small smile, one that he refused to let go of. "What's so amusing?"

"You've never been able to pronounce your 'th's," I explained simply. He frowned like I had either insulted or ridiculed him. "I think it's just really endearing is all. You still find a way to sound utterly intelligent even with a voice so much like yours."

"That's a backhanded compliment if I've ever heard one," he replied half into his pillow.

"I didn't mean it to be that way; I just meant that your voice is very sweet. It's relaxing and calm and it adds an almost surprising effect to the words you use. You're incredibly smart, y'know."

"So you like my voice?"

"Yeah, a lot."

"I like yours a lot too."

With a knowing smile, I stood up and flicked the light to his room off. Only the light of the muted television remained, which lit the room with a dim dancing light enough for me to watch him pull off his shirt and slip under the covers. I was about to find the remote and click the television off when the boy tugged on my arm like a sleepy child and peered up to me with glassy brown eyes. He silently pulled me closer to him until I had no choice but sitting on the bed, scooting closer to him.

"I have my story for the night," he whispered contentedly and, in what was quite possibly the most subtle, small voice he had ever used in my presence, he asked, "Can we try this sleeping thing again?"

Without a word, I lie down beside him. He threw the sheets over my body and for a moment, I felt unusually small and warm; for the first time in so many years, the night ended with a successful lesson and a gentle talk. Shyly still, I felt my body being pulled nearer his until my head lie comfortably on his outstretched forearm, his other tower of a limb cradling my middle to lean me into his chest.

"Come here," he whispered softly until I was comfortably bent into him, my head nestled just under his chin. And we lay there, both sets of eyes closed in the darkness, until nothing remained but the memory of his scent of strength and the knowledge that, for the night, nothing could touch me.