Chapter 31 COST OF BREATHING
POV NATHANIEL
I woke up to the sound of a radiator clanking like a dying robot and the smell of cheap instant coffee. For a split second, I looked for the silk pull-cord next to my bed to summon Silas.
Then, my hand hit a cold brick wall, and I remembered. I was in a dorm room. I was a fugitive. And I had forty-three dollars and a nickel to my name.
Sylvie was already at her desk, her hair tied in a messy knot, three highlighters tucked into her bun like colorful chopsticks. She looked like a general preparing for an invasion, but her shoulders were tense. I knew she was looking at the bank app on her phone.
"We need more than tacos, Nate," she said, not looking back. "The university housing office sent an automated alert. Since my scholarship status is 'under review' due to the legal inquiry, they’re asking for a security deposit to hold the room. Two hundred dollars. By Friday."
"Two hundred dollars?" I sat up, the twin mattress groaning under me. "That’s... that’s a pair of socks, Sylvie. I can find two hundred dollars."
"In this world, Nathaniel, two hundred dollars is a month of groceries. And you don't have it." She finally turned around, her expression soft but blunt. "I have a shift at the library, but it doesn't pay enough to cover the deposit and our food. You need to stay low. My grandfather’s 'recovery teams' are still patrolling the campus perimeter."
"I'm not staying in this box while you work yourself to death to pay for my air," I said, standing up. I felt the hunger from the previous week lurking in my stomach, but the fire in my chest was stronger. "I’m an academic rival, remember? I have skills. I can work."
"Doing what? Mergers and acquisitions? You don't have a suit, and you don't have a bank account."
"I have a brain. And apparently, I have a very recognizable face. I’ll figure it out."
Walking through the student union without a security detail felt like walking through a jungle without a vest. I kept my hoodie pulled low, my hands shoved into the pockets of the jeans Sylvie’s mother had lent me. I looked like every other grad student, but I felt like I had a target painted on my spine.
I stopped at the campus job board. My eyes scanned the flyers.
Tutor for Advanced Calculus – $20/hr. Barista at The Daily Grind – $15/hr + tips. Lab Assistant – $17.50/hr.
I reached for the Barista flyer. I’d seen people make coffee. How hard could it be? You press a button, milk froths, people pay you.
I walked into The Daily Grind, the air thick with the scent of roasted beans and the frantic energy of finals week. The manager was a guy named Mike, who looked like he hadn't slept since the mid-nineties.
"You got experience?" Mike asked, eyeing my leather jacket—the only expensive thing I had left.
"I’ve spent twenty years being served coffee," I said, trying to sound humble but probably failing. "I understand the chemistry of a perfect roast. I’m a quick study."
Mike snorted. "You're that Cavill kid, aren't you? The one who kidnapped himself for a girl?"
The room went quiet. A group of freshmen at a nearby table looked up from their laptops. I felt the heat rise to my face. "I wasn't kidnapped. And I’m looking for a job."
"Listen, kid," Mike said, not unkindly. "I can't hire you. Not because of the scandal. But because the moment I put you behind this counter, fifty paparazzi are going to storm my shop and break my windows just to get a shot of you steaming milk. You're a liability. Go home."
I walked out, the cold wind hitting me like a slap. Liability. It was a word I’d used to describe investments. Now, I was the bad asset.
I tried the tutoring center.
"Mr. Cavill, your academic record is impeccable," the administrator said, looking at me with genuine regret. "But the Cavill Foundation provides thirty percent of our funding. If I put you on the payroll, Arthur Cavill will pull the plug on the entire center. I can’t risk the jobs of twenty other tutors for you."
I stood on the sidewalk, the reality of my grandfather’s reach finally sinking in. He didn't have to arrest me. He didn't even have to find me. He just had to make me a ghost. He was starving me out, one rejection at a time.
I was about to head back to the dorm, defeated, when I passed the university athletic complex. A large sign was posted near the back entrance: TEMPORARY LABOR NEEDED – GYM FLOOR RE-WAXING AND EQUIPMENT MOVING. $25/HR. CASH PAID DAILY.
No payroll. No foundation oversight. Just manual labor.
I looked at my hands. They were the hands of a pianist. A scholar. They had never held a mop or moved a weight rack in their life.
"I'll do it," I said to the foreman, a massive man with a clipboard.
"It's back-breaking work, pretty boy," the foreman said, looking at my build. "Ten hours. No breaks except for lunch. You quit early, you get nothing."
"I don't quit," I said.
Six hours later, I realized I had lied to myself. I wanted to quit. Every muscle in my back felt like it was being scorched with a blowtorch. The industrial wax smelled like ammonia and rot, and the heavy weight machines seemed to get heavier with every inch I moved them.
"Keep moving, Cavill! The basketball team needs the court by morning!" the foreman shouted.
I gripped the edge of a heavy squat rack, my knuckles white, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My palms were blistered, the skin raw and stinging. A week ago, I was worried about the "integrity of the brand." Now, I was worried about whether my knees would buckle before the next hour was up.
I thought about Sylvie. I thought about her sitting in that library, shushing people for ten dollars an hour just so she could keep a roof over our heads. I thought about the way she’d looked at me in the blue house, telling me I was the signal, not the noise.
I pushed. The rack moved.
By the time the sun started to set, my shirt was soaked with sweat and my jeans were stained with grey wax. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the clipboard as the foreman counted out the cash.
Two hundred and fifty dollars.
Ten crisp twenty-dollar bills and a fifty. It was the smallest amount of money I had ever earned, and yet, as I held it in my hand, it felt heavier than the millions in my frozen trust fund.
"You did good, kid," the foreman said, slapping me on the shoulder. "Most of your kind wouldn't have lasted the first hour."
"I'm not 'my kind' anymore," I said, my voice hoarse.
I walked back to the dorm, every step a struggle. I stopped at a small grocery store on the way and bought a bag of actual food—bread, fruit, a box of pasta, and a small, slightly wilted bouquet of yellow daisies. They weren't peonies, but they were real.
I let myself into the dorm room. Sylvie was slumped over her books, asleep on her open notebook.
I moved quietly, setting the groceries on the tiny counter and placing the daisies in a plastic water bottle. Then, I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled out the money.
I placed the two hundred dollars for the deposit on her keyboard.
Sylvie stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She blinked at the money, then at me. Her gaze took in the wax stains, the sweat, and finally, my bandaged hands.
"Nathaniel?" she whispered, sitting up quickly. "What happened? Are you okay? Did someone find you?"
"Nobody found me," I said, a tired, triumphant smile breaking through the exhaustion. "I found a job. Cash in hand."
She looked at the money, then back at my raw palms. She didn't say anything for a long time. She just reached out, took my hands in hers, and brought them to her lips. She kissed the blisters, her tears warm against my skin.
"You're a maniac," she whispered.
"I’m an earner, Sylvie. I told you I’d help."
"You did manual labor for the gym, didn't you? Chloe said she saw someone who looked like a 'disheveled prince' moving racks."
"I prefer 'industrial technician'," I teased, pulling her into my arms.
We sat there in the dark, the smell of cheap pasta and yellow daisies filling the room. For the first time in nineteen years, I didn't feel like a Cavill. I felt like a man.
Arthur Cavill thought he could starve me into submission. He thought that by taking away my luxury, he would break my spirit. But he didn't realize that every blister on my hands was a new unwritten rule.
We weren't just survivors anymore. We were builders. And as I held Sylvie in the quiet of the night, I knew that the empire we were creating—built on sweat, twenty-dollar bills, and a blue dorm room—was something my grandfather would never be able to touch.
"We have fifty dollars left over," I whispered into her hair.
"What should we do with it?"
"We’re going to buy the most expensive, non-mystery tacos in the city tomorrow," I promised. "And then, we’re going to figure out how to take over the world."
She laughed, and for a second, the radiator stopped clanking. The war was still out there, but inside this room, we were winning. One shift at a time.