Strings of Solace

Chapter 7

Sitting in Stephen's car felt like being in a spaceship. There was no other way to describe it to make it clear how otherworldly it felt. Not only was it spacious, but even its appearance was so modern that, in my mind, it bordered on science fiction.

Sitting behind the wheel of that car made Stephen look powerful, so out of my league in everything, above me. It was the strangest feeling ever to see him in this light, as, in the past, I always saw him as just Stephen, a nice guy with a troubled past. Now it hit me square in the face how incredibly rich he was. When we were younger, nothing he wore or did showed off his wealth, yet sitting in that car that felt like it could take off and start flying at any moment made it crystal clear how rich he was.

"Mina, are you okay?" Stephen asked, throwing me a worried glance before refocusing on the road ahead.

That was when I realized how I must have looked to him, sitting there stiffly, folding in on myself, trying to look as small as possible with my fists held so tightly that my knuckles were turning white. If I had to guess, I would assume that my facial expressions looked as tense as my body language, and being the nice guy that he was, Stephen immediately noticed my discomfort, probably completely unaware of what could have caused it.

"I'm fine," I whispered. "It's just that your car looks so new and luxurious that it makes me scared I might dirty it or damage it somehow. It feels like I should wear surgical gloves or something."

Noticing I was spewing nonsense like I usually did when I was nervous or uncomfortable, I slapped a hand over my mouth, hoping to stop myself from spilling out any of my other secrets. Because it was a thing that I told no one before, I always had a similar feeling when faced with expensive stuff; that I might damage it, and not only that, but that I wouldn't be able to ever earn enough money to pay for the damages.

Maybe that was why I had an irrational fear of rich people, of being around them. When I got too nervous, I often spilled things or broke them, and with wealthy people, you never knew if a random water glass might cost a fortune or if the carpet you spilled coffee on was a Persian one or a flying carpet from Aladdin.

"Don't worry about that. If you get it dirty, I can always clean it. If you damage it, I can fix it up or buy a new one," Stephen said, chuckling at me talking nonsense. "Having grown up with more things than I ever needed, I don't put a lot of value on material things. I appreciate the intangible things more, such as genuine friendship, love..."

His words made me choke on my saliva, coughing loudly like a person on their deathbed. Luckily, I remembered the bottle of water I had in my bag, so I opened the bag and drank some of it greedily. Not only to stop myself from coughing but also to cool down as my body heated in embarrassment.

"Are you okay?" Stephen asked, all humor gone from his voice.

"Fine, just an itch in my throat," I said, doing my best to preserve at least some dignity.

The answer he gave me was both confusing and annoying. It was no wonder it made me choke. First, I thought it was easy for rich people not to value things when they weren't the ones whose backs hurt because they couldn't afford a new and more comfortable desk chair. They didn't have to adjust their position in bed when lying down because there was a dip on one side of it. Yet, what he said about love... It was nice to hear him say that he valued emotions more than all the riches. It seemed like he had his values straight, and that was something we could connect on.

Silence settled over the car, and I prayed we would arrive soon, before the deafening silence could damage my hearing. Stephen, however, seemed focused only on the road ahead, probably because he hadn't been in the area that often in the past few years. Then he surprised me by turning on the radio to my favorite station.