Reality And Us

Chapter Six

Nick felt what could be described as excitement that moment.

He opened his door, and stepped outside. Go right. to the thirty eighth, follow that street until you hit the lake shore boulevard, turn left.

There it was.

He needed to go there, it was planned out. But today, there was another reason he went there, besides training.

The boy from last time just didn't leave his mind. It wasn't that there was anything special about the other. Anything captivating, anything breathtaking.

There wasn't.

But he had given him a riddle, an enigma, and Nick didn't understand it. But having accepted that if he got to know the guy he might get an answer, he was a little bit too keen on going to the fitness center that day. Because, what if the other was there again?

He was clenching onto this hope, as if it was his last one, that he'd get an answer. Maybe not that day, but another, maybe. All these questions in his head, his brain was overworked through estimating probabilities of certain scenarios coming true.

Day and night he hat sat there, trying to obtain the unfindable answer almost as if it was a prize or maybe a cure, but he just didn't manage to understand.

It irritated him, how one, maybe two sentences had shaped his whole week, but this question felt so essential, important, ignoring it ended up being impossible. He felt as if he was going insane.

He didn't know what to do if the stranger wasn't turning up. He didn't know what to do if the stranger turned up.

Could he go to him? Start a conversation? Should he introduce himself? Or would all of that be weird after the way Nick had treated the other the week before?

A part of him hoped the stranger would just go up to him, talk to him again, like the last time. It would be easy. He could continue being grumpy and absent, and still could somehow get to understand the other.

But, that was pretty unlikely. After all, Nick guessed, the other boy probably forgot about him the second he walked away, so why would he make the effort to walk up to Nick? He probably thought very badly of the sixteen year old, the chances that the stranger wanted to talk to someone he thought of as an arrogant asshole weren't as good as Nick wanted them to be.

He hoped the other boy would, if he was there, not be too unwilling to be in Nicklas' presence - otherwise he wouldn't know what to do with all those questions.

Realizing he had already started working out while being so lost in thought he sighed. He was too distracted, and that needed to stop.

He made sure to look around once in a while, not wanting to miss it if the blonde haired entered the room.

▫▪▫

Zane was there again, going to the gym, this time he took his bike. Now that he knew where the building was, this was simply the better way, and he really loved riding his bike anyway.

He was a little bit nervous. He knew that he'd talk to the giant again, if he saw him, because he wanted to help him.

Zane really loved helping people, he pretty much dedicated his life to helping people. And it really looked as if he could help this boy. Just, maybe this boy didn't like to be helped.

That was quite possible and it'd make a lot of things a lot more difficult. How do you talk to someone who doesn't want to be talked to?

He had been thinking about this arrogant stranger once in a while, but not to often. The brown-haired guy was just another person he wanted to help, almost like a charity case - Zane did feel kind of bad thinking like that.