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“What’s your point?”
“It doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.”
“Family isn’t heavy.”
“That just isn’t true. How long has it been since you’ve done anything for yourself?”
“A life spent serving your own self is an empty life. Surely you must feel that.”
“I don’t. What I feel is that life can be brutal and short. And if you can obtain pleasure, then you ought to.”
“Is that what I was? Your response to the short brutality of life?”
“Yes. But I was the same for you.”
Her cheeks went pink. “I didn’t want to die a virgin. Who does?”
“Nuns, I would think. If you don’t die a virgin, you kind of lost the game.”
“Very funny. I’m not a nun, anyway. And I wanted a little something nice. But that was different.”
“Different for you than for me?”
“A little bit,” she said. “I wanted something I hadn’t experienced before. You just wanted a little bit more.”
“What if I told you that it was different?”
She frowned. “I wouldn’t believe you. Because how could I be different than anyone else?”
“You can be. Because you’re you. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“Because you’ve never met a feral girl from the mountains.”
“I haven’t, it’s true. Stevie, I really do think that you’re going to bring something valuable to the country.”
“Well. I’m very good at being valuable.” She shook her head. “Just don’t act like you’re invested in reducing my burden when in fact you just want to hand me a new one. And I’m taking it. I’m taking it because my father has very valid worries about our future. I’m taking it because… I am tired. Does that make you happy? I’m abandoning my own principles, about hard work, and about self-sacrifice, because I’m tired. If I miss work, then we might lose our house. If I can’t do my job then I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. We don’t have a safety net. And all right, it’s true. That is a burden. It is a terrible burden, and I am tired of carrying it. So you got me. I want to carry something with the other arm. But it doesn’t mean I’m not carrying something.”
“I don’t want this to be a bad thing for you. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“But you don’t care if I’m happy.”
“I think you and I both know that happiness often doesn’t come into it, does it?”
She looked at him for a long moment. “No. I don’t suppose it does.”
* * *
She had never been to Europe, and she had never dreamed of being anywhere as beautiful as Olympus. It was a crown jewel, set into the center of a crystalline sea. Absolutely glorious in every single way.
She forgot about the things she was angry about. She forgot about the downsides of this arrangement. She forgot about the conflicted feeling that she was carrying around in her chest. Especially when she saw the white spires of the glorious palace.
She had never dreamed of a place like this. It was like something out of a Disney film. It didn’t seem real.
And yet it was.
The plane landed on an airstrip very near the palace, and a gorgeous, well-appointed car whisked by to get them. Then they drove up the smooth, white road that brought them to that gilded palace.
Even the gates were gold.