I hadn't seen Alex. Not that I expected to really, it's not like we were even friends, but I had to admit, I was a little upset about that. She did text me a few times though, which was nice. Despite we barely knew each other, there was something about her that was different, something I couldn't get out of my head.
Finally, almost 2 weeks later, she showed up at the grocery store to purchase the usual: Twizzlers, some fruit, milk, and cereal.
"Hey. How have you been?" I questioned.
"Pretty good. Yourself?" She asked.
"The usual." I said as I finished scanning that last of her purchases.
"Have a good day." I said.
She paused and glanced up at me, then walked around the counter so she was almost standing next to me. "I actually wasn't planning on leaving quite yet." Alex leaned closer to me.
"Oh." I didn't really know where she was headed with this.
"So I was thinking, I've been wanting to travel into New York City soon to look at schools there." She grabbed the bag of Twizzlers and ripped it open.
"Okay..." I was confused as to why she was telling me this. It really didn't concern me, but I was happy to talk to Alex about anything, as long as I got to talk to her.
"I wanna go to college there, I think." She took a bite of the Twizzler.
"Did you graduate high school yet?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm eighteen, almost nineteen." Alex answered.
"Really? I'm eighteen too." I looked over at Alex, who was now sitting on top of the counter. I was worried my boss might come over and yell at me for not doing my job, but there were no costumers around at this time of the afternoon.
"And have you gone to college yet?" She took the last bite of the Twizzler.
"No." I replied, sounding almost guilty. I had always assumed I would go to college straight after high school, but when the time came to look at which schools I wanted to go to, I had no clue. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was older or how I wanted to plan out my life. Which is why I was working at a shitty grocery store in a tiny town about 2 hours outside of NYC.
"Why not?" She asked.
"I don't really know. I wanted to go to college, and I still do, but I don't know what I wanna do when I'm older." I responded.
"Oh. I understand. It's pretty much the same way for me. But I think I might want a job in business or something." Alex handed a Twizzler to me.
We stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, just eating Twizzlers.
"Do you know where you want to go to college?" Alex broke the silence.
"I don't know," I paused. "Well, the good thing about going to school in New York City, like you want to do, is that it's not too far away from home. If I lived too far away, I would miss my family and my mom a lot." I explained.
"So you're a Momma's Boy?" She giggled.
I playfully shoved her, "No. Well, maybe a little." I laughed.
"That's adorable. But I wanted to tell all you this because I wanted to hear your opinions on it." Alex said.
"Why are you asking me this?" I rose my eyebrows.
"You seem to be pretty smart and have good suggestions, so I figured you could help me out." She explained.
"Oh. I think it's a great idea! You can get a feel for what it would be like to go to college there, without committing to it." I replied.
"Okay good. You should come too." She nudged me.
"What?" I asked. This was out of nowhere.
"You said you think it's a good idea and you said you still want to go to college, so why not come along with me?" She suggested, shrugging her shoulders.
"You can't just spring this on me and expect me to be willing to go with you, especially since I already told you I don't know what I want to do when I'm older." I said.
"I think you just need a little push forward. You would probably like college. After all, you are smart." She grabbed another Twizzler.
"I don't know..." I sighed.
"Don't be so lame, Hemmo. Just come along with me, I need somebody to go with me!" She rolled her big brown eyes.
"Okay, I guess." I smiled.
"I'll take that as a yes and I'll text you later about all this." Alex jumped down off the counter, handed me another Twizzler and left after giving me a little wave goodbye.
