Reality And Us

Chapter Forty One

Nick quickly rushed down the stairs. Almost missing a step, almost falling down. But he was definitely going to be late if he didn't hurry.

He threw a glance into the living room, checking if his mom or dad were there. And, both of them were.

"Mum, Dad, I'll be out for a bit.", he half-shouted, and rushed over to the wardrobe, grabbing his shoes.

"Where are you going?", he could here his mom asking him.

"A friend and I are going on a walk."

He was already putting on his jacket. After taking a beanie he was already out the door, barely enough time to say goodbye. His parents wished him a nice time, at least that's what he understood. But he wasn't entirely sure, as he was only really focused on getting out as quickly as possible.

He was always on time. Always. This was a disaster.

Hurrying down the street he cursed his past-self. Sure, yesterday had been fun, and the sleep-over at Jamie's place had been cool, but they had slept in. And when he had arrived at his place that morning, there hadn't been that much time to shower, and now he was late.

He was sure the people out on the street enjoying the nice weather that Saturday noon offered them thought of him as some kind of lunatic, if they noticed him. Which they probably didn't, but he couldn't help but worry.

There wasn't a single cloud hiding the blue sky from the lively city, and the small amount warmth the sun brought when hitting the ground was already enough to make it enjoyable to be outside, at least when you weren't late for a meet-up and almost running down the streets.

But Nick told himself he'd just walk, because he might've been late, but not that late. Plus, that might have seemed kind of awkward.

Walking briskly he almost ran over, or rather walked over a toddler - the mother really wasn't happy about it - he paused for a second. Yeah, he didn't just accidentally took a wrong turn, that was good.

Starting to move again, this time more slowly, he looked around himself. He wished there had been some kind of clock, but that way he couldn't know how late he was. His phone was still in his pocket and shut down, taking it out and turning it on would've been a waste of time.

After going right around the next corner he found himself standing directly in front of his friend.

If the boy was already there, he had to be incredibly late already, he felt pretty bad for that. He didn't want to be late, he knew Zane wasn't so worked up about waiting, but that didn't really make him feel better about wasting the other's time.

"Sorry for being late, I swear I was trying to be on time!", he let out, a worried expression written all over his face, "I'm really sorry."

Zane looked up, shaking his head, amused. "We agreed to meet up at about two minutes ago, you're perfectly on time."

"I'm not. I'm late."

The older of the two rolled his eyes and started moving, they were here because they had wanted to go on a walk together after all. And Nicklas joined him, because just continuing to stand there, complaining about himself being late would've been pretty pointless.

~~~

"I totally agree! She's definitely messed up big on that one.", Zane exclaimed.

The sun had already begun to set, and beautiful rays of orange and pink colored the whole sky to make it look as if it had been set on fire. The two of them had wandered around, had grabbed something to eat earlier and after dozens of interesting topics, ranging from an interesting debate in the parliament to whether or not penguins were cuter than pandas, they were now discussing plotholes of Harry Potter while sitting on the ground, on a pretty lawn.