bullied and no one touched me was because my money inoculated me against that kind of thing.”
She nods and thinks about that for a bit.
“Money can be quite powerful,” she admits.
“Yeah, that's what I always thought. What my father raised me to think.”
“So, is that the only reason why you started the hedge fund?” she asks.
“That and I wanted to prove to him that I could make my own money. Money was always the only currency my house held. My mom didn't make any and so that meant that her opinions didn’t matter. My dad made all of it so that means that he was king. I hated it. I hated the way that he tried to manipulate everybody with it and hold it over everyone's heads. I wanted to become someone so different from him and I thought that in order to do that I needed to make my own money.”
“Well, I guess you did. I guess you showed him.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I didn't show him anything. He showed me. As soon as I made my first million, I had to make another one, and then I had to make two more. It was never enough. That's when I realized it was too late. After I lost my wife to my partner and then after I lost both of them to that murder, I only realized the truth of it in prison.”
“Realized what?”
“I realized that money wasn’t everything. Yes, it's nice to have some, but there’re so many more important things in life. The thing about it is that you just keep wanting to make more. After a while, it becomes an arbitrary number and that number can always get bigger. It has nothing to do with what you will buy or what you can own. It's almost as if that arbitrary number is a measure of who you are as a person. At least that's what I used to think. Not anymore.”
“What about now?”
“Now I want to have money and I want that money to serve a purpose. I want to pay off your debt. I want to clear my name. I want to start a new life with you, if you want to join me.”
I look straight into her eyes and I don't blink.
All this time here I was so confused and now, looking at her, I’m only just realizing that I've been a fool.
Isabelle is the only one who understands me.
She's the only thing that matters.
7
Tyler
I can tell that she doesn't know how to answer me. She hesitates and looks down at the floor. I didn't mean for all of the words to come out like that, but now that it's out in the open, I let out a sigh of relief.
Perhaps, that's what I have been bottling up all this time.
“You don't have to answer me now,” I say after a long pause. “I know that it's an impossible ask. It's unfair.”
“No, it's not that,” Isabelle says.
“Yes, it is. I'll have to live underground. I can get a new identity, but everyone will be looking for me and I can't really change my face much. I know that you have a life back home. A life that you have put on hold.”
She takes a deep breath and nods.
“Do you want to go back home?”
Please say no, I plead silently to myself.
“I don't know what I want,” Isabelle says.
We're going in circles.
She is trying to be polite, but I'd rather that she be blunt.
I want to know where we stand so that I can make my own plans.
“I'm sorry. I should have never asked,” I say, feeling myself shutting down. If she doesn't want to come with me, then she's no longer invited.
“It's probably best,” I continue. “It's safer for me to go out on my own. It's better for you to return to your old life.”
“My old life doesn't make sense now,” she says after a long pause. “I don't think I can just go back to work and go back to living in my house as if nothing happened. Besides, I'd really miss you.”
“I’d miss you, too, but we did everything we could, right? You helped me out more than I could ever say. Without you, I’d be arrested, or dead.”
“What would I be going back to?” she asks as if she expects me to answer.
“Your job for one. Your house. Your friends.”
“My anxieties and my fears,” she adds. “Back home, I lived in this bubble and I thought that it