Night Walk (Part 1)

I had been waiting for this all week. 

 I had to struggle through the drab monotony of work. Dealing with annoying customers, busy schedules and workplace drama was enough. Having my dreams and aspirations stomped further into the ground with passing of every day, and I found myself ready to crack. Friday night was a blessing I thought would never come. My makeup was done, my drip was on point, and when it was eight-thirty I was already driving. 

 Usually on Friday night, I would have stopped by my friends places and picked them up. Our route would have been straight into downtown to the club and we would have gone wild. Booze, dancing, guys. My friends were probably in the club by now. Today, I couldn't go. I had something else waiting for me. As I drove down the desolate streets, I couldn't help but think about him and his cryptic text. 

 I forgot names easily, but alliterations I always seemed to remember. His name was Aidan Ashby. He had messy blond hair that hung over dazzling blue eyes, a lithe body and tanned skin from hours of gardenwork out in the blazing sun. On his nose sat round-rimmed glasses that tended to slide down if he didn't push them up. He dressed in bright pastel colours, always with grassy stains on his pants, he smelt like flowers and mown grass. At first sight, he was gorgeous. Atleast to my dumb ass. 

 We had first met at the club, and looking back that seemed so bizzare and out of character for him. My friends were there to get trashed, I was there to forget about a nasty breakup and also get trashed. My friends were dancing, I shouted over the pulsing music that I was gonna get a drink. I pushed through throngs of crowds and navigated around tables, I was ordering my second drink and my eye caught him by chance. There Aidan was, in the corner of the room, reading a hardcopy book with airlods in, as if he wasn't situated right within the pandemonium pulsing music of a packed nightclub. I didn't give a shit at first, live and let live and all that, but as the empty glasses lined the counter and more alcohol entered my system, that mysterious man in the corner began to look far more appealing. Getting drunk does that to you, hazes your vision, clouds your judgement, and soon enough all someone needs is a pulse and they'll be good enough for the night.

 The buzz of alcohol clouding my better judgement, I approached confidently, drink sloshing in my hand and he immediately caught my gaze. As he should have, because I knew I was stunning that night — I better have been because I spent like an hour on makeup. I slid into the seat next to him, pick-up game in full effect, slurring and flirting and taking sips of my drink. I don't remember much from that night, but what little I do, I'd cherish. One of which was how his eyes widened behind his glasses, face went a shade of deepest red, as he realised he was being flirted with. Aidan changed the subject by introducing himself, he was only there as designated driver for some more interesting friends, so he wasn't about to get drunk. I introduced myself too, we talked a little while, well, moreso just a one sided conversation of him talking about whatever and me drunkenly flirting. I had a hunch it was getting to him. 

 Five minutes into our talk was when he gave me a nervous, sweet grin and asked me if I wanted to go somewhere private. I, thinking we were going to get to know eachother on an intimate basis, tripped over my words and nodded my approval, biting my lip. He stood up, took me by my hand, and gently led me out from the room. From my previous experiences I was expecting the bathrooms, or a cabinet, or the alleyway, or his car. 

 Then he took me to the rooftop of the nightclub.

 Aidan carefully guided me to a table, sat down opposite, and motioned to the night.

 "Hey, Claire." He fidgeted. "I know this is super random and stuff, but do you look at the stars often?" 

 What was initially supposed to be an easy one-night stand derailed into me, sitting atop the roof of the bar house, as he pointed to the star-filled sky and explained the constellations, the nebulae, the solar system, pretty everything he saw. And I just sat there and listened. Drunk out of my mind, sipping fromy drink once in a while, but utterly captivated. It's so hard to elucidate clearly just how it made me feel, it was peaceful, the sort of white noise I could sleep to. While I was far too drunk to comprehend any of what he said, I still found myself hypnotised by his voice. 

 Our talk was sudden and short. Ten minutes later, Aidan suddenly received a call. He answered it, then hung up, and looked over at me and confessed that he really liked talking to me, that I was so understanding and that he was feeling really lonely and my company really cheered him up. He told me he appreciated me, handed me a slip with his phone number and Instagram account, and that was it. Goodbye, Aidan, have a nice night. I returned downstairs where my drunken friends found me atlast and asked me where the hell was I doing the past twenty minutes? Girl, I don't even know. I still don't know now. 

 At the time, I didn't intend on seeing Aidan again. He was cute and our meeting was a short, relaxing occurrence. But I had still gone through a nasty breakup. A few days of fun and a few one-night stands later, rejection and abandonment still stung harsh like slivers of boiling oil on bare skin. As the week came to a close, my boss was breathing down my neck and the workplace gossip, pettiness of guys, and the feeling of my hopes and dreams slipping away like sand through my fingers... Oh, it just... It made me want to scream, and tear my hair out with my bare hands until I was nothing but a shrivelling pale scalp with bloody clumps of hair. To say the stresses of life was getting to me was an understatement. And then, I remembered him. That cute dorky guy around my height who got excited like a puppy when talking about what he loved. 

 It was just phone calls and texts at first. Aidan listened when almost no-one else would. 

 One thing led to another, and we were dating. And like the night in the club, he took me to rooftop dining and he told me about the stars. Late at night where nobody was dining except for us, nothing but the white noise of distant traffic and bustling city nightlife, his eyes sparkled and he told me about the ancient phenomena that we owe our existence to. And I felt more at peace, more serene,  than I ever had in years. I saw him again, and again, and again. It became something I couldn't halt. Three months in, I've yet to stop. 

 As I drove, my mind focused on him. Like it had for ages at this point. I found myself daydreaming about him at work, I texted him every night.

 And it wasn't just his caring personality and prim-and-proper, nerdy beauty that lured me in. It was his brain. It became quickly apparent that he was possibly the brightest person I've ever met. He loved talking to me about things he learnt and he explained it so well that a child could understand. He loved knowledge, but he loved the stars more than anything in the world. Sometimes I'd have half the mind to tease him, ask him 'more than me?' and then I'd realise that there was the genuine possibility that he'd reply in the  affirmative in his impulsive and oblivious manner. Plus, we only knew eachother for like four months, so there was that too. 

 Unsurprisingly, he was an aspiring scientist. A year out of college, he taught science at a local high school, and was an astronomer. Or atleast, he wished he was. Suddenly a moment from our first date flashed back to me. 

 "That's where I volunteer."

 He pointed far beyond the cityscape, high up, to the little building atop the distant mountain. A wide giddy smile was plastered across his face. 

 "I still can't believe they even let me inside."

 I guess I remember it because of how cute he looked when he was proud. 

 Our date was in the national park. When I pulled in with my rickety little second-hand car, he was there on the bench, waiting for me. Tonight, he wore a fluffy blue jumper and a shirt underneath with black dress pants. Neat, colourful. He looked over his book and he beamed, approaching my window with a spring in his step. He stood by, and gave me a bright, bright grin.

 "I'm so happy you came!" He cheered, and in that moment, I no longer had any doubts about whether coming along was the right decision. 

 Our dates were different every week. On some weeks, I'd plan something, and the others, he got to. After the chaos and amusement of the theme park last week, no doubt poor Aidan wanted something slower. Tonight, it was going to be a walk through the national park, under the night sky. Following the dirt path, he was as he put in his cryptic text, 'going to show a place he loved'. I was a fan of slasher movies and alarm bells did admittedly blare in my head, but I knew Aidan wouldn't hurt a fly. Plus, I doubt his skinny ass could even win against me. Naturally, he began our date by giving me a curious stare behind round-rimmed glasses, and with a suave and romantic comment. 

 "The moon is shaped like a lemon, you know." 

 I stared at him as we walked.

 "What?" 

 "It's a misconception that it's a perfect sphere. It's an imperfect, wobbly shape, pockmarked with huge craters and gashes." He stopped walking and visualised his point by making an odd shape with his hands. "It's more of an oval shape, like this, which is why it looks like a lemon." He wiped some Blond curls out from his eyes and grinned at me, so charming and innocent.. And completely oblivious. Widan did that a lot. He just said the most random things from time to time, and when he saw the taken aback look on people's faces, he just presumed they didn't understand his point, and there he'd go naively explaining it in perfect detail. He didn't even need proper context to justify going on diatribes about things that fascinated him, namely astronomy. I now had the creeping suspicion that the night walk was just the excuse. 

 But his grin and his infectious enthusiasm claimed its victim, and I found myself smiling at him. He took it as an invitation to continue. 

A/N: 

Just experimenting. 

It takes time.