AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thisis really what you’re into?” I asked, and the corner of his mouth ticked up.
“Yep. This is really what I’m into.”
“Why?” I waved my hand in a circle. “I think it’s all so…boring and, like, nonsense. We’re supposed to vote for these people, but they don’t do anything for us. I mean, you know how many people still can’t afford medication because the insurance system is so messed up?” Unfortunately, I had a ton of personal experience with the hell that was medical insurance. I took a lot of pills, and they weren’t cheap. It was nutty to me that people were dying every day because they couldn’t afford life-saving treatments. “Isn’t the whole point of the government to help its people?”
On the other side of the couch, Liam turned to me, extending his arm along the length of the cushion, pulled up his right leg, bent at the knee, and grinned. “You want to have a philosophical discussion about the government? Now you’re speaking my language.”
I bit back a laugh. “I don’t. I really,reallydon’t, but I am curious why you want to.”
He raised his gaze somewhere above me and squinted in thought. “I can’t tell you why I find it so fascinating, but I always have. While other kids were staying up late to watchSNLor movies or something, I was staying up late to watch C-SPAN.”
“Oh my god,” I mumbled behind my palm, hiding an outrageously wide grin. “You aresucha nerd.”
“Right?” He met my eyes, his own full of amusement behind his glasses. “I’m interested in how countries came to be, how government plays a role in that. Almost all of politics is deciding what the government should or should not provide for its citizens.”
I pretended to fall asleep, letting out an obnoxious snore, and he poked my thigh with his finger. I woke up to his smiling face. “Okay,” he started, trying again, “I know you’re intoHamilton. I’ve heard you singing it in the shower.”
My brain only momentarily stuttered at the fact that he’d heard me in the shower. I wondered if he’d thought about me in the shower, like I’d thought about him. I brushed my fantasy aside. “Of course I’m intoHamilton. Who isn’t?”
He inclined his head to me in agreement. “Okay, so the whole second act is basically summarizing how the different parties fought for control to decide what the government would do, who it would protect, and as much as that show makes it seem like Hamilton was right all the time, I think it would surprise people to know how he really felt aboutourgovernment.”
“Which was what?” I asked, surprising myself that I was interested in the answer.
“He basically wanted the British government part two. Strong central power with a permanent ruling class, and do you know who he thought that ruling class should be?”
I shook my head, involuntarily leaning in.
“The upper class. So—” Liam stuck his fingers up, counting off points “—he wanted a strong central power, see king,” he stage-whispered, “and electors who were only made up of the wealthy, aka Parliament. In essence, he wanted to recreate England’s power structure with one guy in charge and his personal advisers making all the decisions.”
“Which is bad?” I guessed.
He shrugged. “That’s up to you to decide. Or I should say, for the citizens of each country to decide on their own. But if we’re talking about our country and its political origins, it’s more nuanced than people make it out to be. Hamilton was all for a monarchy without calling it a monarchy, while Thomas Jefferson?—”
“Was a definite bad guy,” I interrupted, earning a repressed smile from Liam.
“This is about nuance, Kennedy.Nuance.”
I pretended the way he said my name didn’t give me chills and motioned for him to continue.
“Jefferson enslaved people, yes, and we know that’s a moral blight. He also believed in upholding the rights of the minority, not in terms of race but in the ruling party. He wanted the people and states to hold the power and believed that abolition shouldn’t be a declaration from the federal government, but as a part of the democratic process, which would involve all slave-owners eventually voting to eliminate slavery.”
“So you’re saying he’s a good guy?”
He tipped his head. “Is anyone a good guy?”
“I feel like this is a trick question.”
“Not a trick question, but one for everyone to decide on their own. What qualities make a government work or not work, what makes it good or bad, that’s what I find interesting. History isn’t really history because we’re still trying to figure it out. Our country, like most, is still fighting over what the government should and shouldn’t do. America’s having the exact same conversations that we had in 1787, but with different terms. Get it?”
“Not at all,” I said, and he dropped his head back to the couch, chuckling.
“You really know how to wound me.”
“No, I’m kidding. I’m sure your students love you. Animated lectures from a hot professor, what else could they ask for?” I grinned like an idiot begging to have her heart broken and playfully whacked his leg.
Which, of course, made him turn to stone. His smile dropped, and he cleared his throat, scooting back into the corner of the sofa like I had cooties.
I put on the acting performance of a lifetime, like I wasn’t one bit affected by the last five seconds. “I was invited out this weekend and wanted to make sure you didn’t have anything on your schedule that you needed me for.”
