Today's blog comes from Facebook! "Nik is in the boonies of Couburg... somehow." [Note: Names have been shortened for my writing ease, and for a mild degree of anonymity.]
Nik looked around. There was nothing else out there. Aside from a whole lot of grass, there was absolutely nothing around him. He sighed, wondering what had made him think that it was a good idea to get into his car and drive six hours due north to the outskirts of a hick town where nobody of any interest lived.
That was a silly question, of course. It was a girl. Wasn't it always a girl? Aleks had called the night before, in tears, again, asking him to please meet her outside of Couburg, the town where she had grown up. Nik, like the lovestruck fool he was, agreed, knowing that it would probably end with him making her feel better, and her going back to whichever jerk had broken her heart this time. Now here he stood, in the middle of Aleks' grandfather's field, leaning against his car in the evening sun, waiting for the woman he loved.
He sighed again, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweater, considering getting into the car and turning up the heat. It was still early in the spring, and although the sun hadn't quite set, the air was starting to get a bit of a chill. He decided against it, thinking that he looked cooler leaning against the green Sunfire that he was still paying off. Letting his mind wander, Nik leaned back against the car, staring off at the grass blowing in the light breeze.
His infatuation with Aleks had started almost a decade earlier, when they were in junior high. On the first day of class, Aleks threw up in a garbage can in the middle of the hallway. From that moment, Nik had felt an attraction to her. He reached over and held her ponytail out of the way while she retched, and Aleks repaid him by blushing a bright red and proceeding to ignore him for the better part of their junior high career.
By the time high school rolled around, she seemed to have forgiven him for witnessing her embarrassing moment, and actually responded with a smile and 'hello' when he greeted her in the hallways. She never actually spoke to him first, but Nik didn't notice that. He was just thrilled to see her smile. In their senior year, Nik and Aleks were partnered in their chemistry lab. She was a genius as far as the subject was concerned, and Nik wasn't too bad either, and between the two of them, they always managed to finish the assignments and experiments early. Because they weren't allowed to leave the lab until the end of the period, Nik and Aleks finally started having real conversations, if only because it was too awkward to sit beside another person for an hour every day and ignore them. During these little chats, the pair learned that they had quite a lot in common - they were both fans of the same authors, they shared similar tastes in movies and television, and both were bigger geeks than most of the other people they knew, although Aleks was much better at hiding it that Nik.
By the time they graduated, Aleks had found herself enjoying those chats enough that she started calling Nik on the weekends, just to talk for a while. Nik was beside himself with glee every time that she called, and more than once, cancelled plans so that he could wait to see if she called again. What Nik didn't realize was that Aleks looked at him as a friend, and nothing more. Nik, on the other hand, fell more madly in love with her with every passing day.
When Aleks left the city to go off to college, Nik was miserable. They still talked, but not nearly as often, and it was not long before she started telling him stories about the men she was dating. Of course, calling them 'men' was somewhat overrated, in Nik's opinions. Like most girls, Aleks always seemed to choose the wrong guy. There were the jerks who cheated on her, the creeps who only wanted sex, the losers who wanted her to lose weight - no one was good enough for Aleks in Nik's opinion, and there definitely was not one of them who was good enough TO her. But like a good friend, Nik listened sympathetically on the other end of the line, and every time Aleks was completely distraught, he would agree to meet her north of Couburg, at her grandfather's farm, and let her cry until she felt better.
The sound of an approaching car startled Nik out of his reverie, and he looked up to see a set of headlights bearing towards him. The car stopped, and Nik tried to compose himself, leaning against the Sunfire in his best James Dean pose.
Aleks turned off the ignition and opened the door. At first, all Nik could see were her high-heeled black boots, the staple of any young woman's wardrobe. As she stood up, he took in everything from her newly-cut brown hair to the clinging-yet-not-too-revealing black wraparound dress that she wore. As always, Aleks took his breath away.
"Hey, Nik," she said, sounding almost shy as she looked him over. He felt very aware of his appearance as she did - he had dressed to impress her, as he always did, in fashionable jeans and a button-down shirt with a zip-up sweater - but he suddenly felt far too casual beside her beauty. "How've you been?"
"Good," he managed to reply in an even tone, though his voice tried desperately to crack. "What brings you out tonight?" he asked, cutting to the chase. If he was going to freeze his butt off comforting her, he wanted to start as soon as he could; it was a lot easier to face a cold night with a beautiful woman in your arms, even if you were just letting her cry. "You didn't tell me much on the phone, just that you needed to meet me here."
"I know," Aleks replied, looking past Nik at the prairies behind him. "And you came. Again."
"Of course," he answered, surprised. "Anything for you, Aleks."
She smiled softly, focussing her gaze on him. "Good."
Nik frowned, unsure of what she was getting at. "So what's up? You look like you need a hug."
With that invitation, Aleks smiled more widely and closed the distance between them in a few steps, finding a place against Nik's side and wrapping her arms around his waist. He draped an arm over her shoulder, surprised at this more casual pose, and more surprised at the lack of tears.
"Aleks? Is everything all right?"
"Never better," she murmured, resting her head against his chest. She waited, sensing his confusion, and feeling amused. "I just got a clue, that's all."
"A clue?" Nik asked. "Al, what are you talking about?"
"You," she answered. Without another word, she stretched up and planted a soft kiss on his lips. "How about you? Got the hint?"
