Liona flushed as she realized that once again she was babbling on about her woes and dumping it all on Erik. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have dumped all that on you. I have a bad habit of speaking my mind…"
"It's okay. I think I get it. Um. I kinda overheard you the other day when you were studying at my workplace with your friends. It seems to me that you just think a little differently than most when it comes to finding a solution, so everyone doesn't understand how you came to that conclusion. It's like you think outside the box of thinking outside the box…" Erik paused for a moment while she listened.
"Think of it like a tesseract. The tesseract is like the cube is to the square. You are the tesseract being forced to conform to a cube. Being the cube, you can't fit all of your thought process into that small dimensional space of the box, so it tends to overflow, and data goes missing, which is then seen as incomplete. If you were able to contain all that information by either compressing it, or by being allowed to utilize all that space, then I think you would be able to show that you aren't actually failing the assignment…"
"Wow! You got all that from just one of my study sessions with my friends? They try to help me as much as possible remember things by associating them with other things, but that really never helped much. I mean, it helps a little, but not enough to really help my grades and test scores." Liona stared in amazement at Erik, who slowly had a blush creep up from his t-shirt collar.
"Uh, yeah…" The blush kept going until his ears turned pink. She thought that was adorable.
"Um. I was kind of wondering… Why don't you have a sweater or jacket? Aren't you cold? It's supposed to rain later and today's pretty chilly…"
"Oh, I sorta misplaced it…" Erik said, looking away.
"Oh, that's unfortunate. I hope you'll be able to avoid the rain as much as possible. That sky looks pretty ominous…" Liona said as she looked outside the front window, just as a large fat raindrop fell on the window, before the sky opened up, and it started to pour. Her car, sensing the moisture on the window, activated the windshield wipers and started to clear the water as best as it could for visibility. All the while, her car shifted to rain mode so that it could adjust to the wet pavement of the road.
"Looks like I spoke too soon. Oh, well. I guess it's gonna rain for a while." Liona said, as her nav unit's weather radar kept her informed of the weather conditions for driving.
"Your car is pretty fancy. It drives itself, and it tells you all kinds of things on that console in front of you." Erik seemed like he was trying to make conversation, so she indulged him.
"Yeah, my mom and dad said that if I was going to get a car, it had to have all the latest safety design features. So, this is the one that I picked for my Sweet 16. It makes me wonder what my parents will do for my upcoming 18th birthday, besides throwing me an epic birthday bash like usual. Speaking of! Why don't you come to my birthday this year? I think it would be a lot more fun if I had more friends there."
"Me?!" Erik sounded surprised.
Liona laughed a little, "Yeah, you. Who else is in the car? The ghost of Christmas, Nope?" She joked and was relieved when Erik let out a tiny laugh, even if he was trying to stifle it.
"I kinda pegged you to have like a ton of friends. But you make it sound like you don't have many…" Erik commented, with a small smile left over from his earlier stifled laugh.
"I really only have Allison and Chloe as my friends. The rest of the people coming are just my classmates. I invite them every year just for the sake of having an epic bash. It's kind of a tradition that my parents throw me and my siblings a huge birthday every year. We really get two birthday celebrations. One is the party that our friends and classmates attend, while the other is just for the family to celebrate privately together. In a way, our birthdays are mini family reunions." She explained.
Erik kind of mumbled, "Wow. I don't even remember when I had a party, let alone had anyone from my family other than my mom and siblings wishing me happy birthday. It's really only another average day for me and my sisters. But I guess this year, there's Tyler, my baby brother, but even by my birthday he probably won't be speaking yet."
"That's right, your baby brother is only 4 months old. Even if your mom is an omega, unless Tyler is a sigma, he probably won't be speaking until he's at least a year old. Oh, by the way, when is your birthday? I'll make sure to wish you a happy birthday and get you a present."
"It's July 4th…" Erik said quietly.
"Hey, that's a pretty cool birthday to have! Mine is March 17th, so my parties tend to be themed around my favorite thing, which are clovers. My parents take the theme a little far sometimes and make it look like St. Patrick's Day threw up all over everything, but it's still pretty fun and interesting every year. My parents won't tell me what they have planned this year, though. Since they basically said that if I don't pass my finals this year, they aren't going to let me have my party for my friends and classmates. I've been kinda stressed about it for a while, since my party is like the social event of the year for my classmates and I don't want to disappoint anyone, especially my parents, by failing…" Liona started with enthusiasm, but it quickly died out when she thought again of how depressing it was going to be this year because the disappointment on her parents' faces was going to be worse than the failing grades themselves when they came in.
"Is it really a big deal what your classmates think? I guess I just don't understand what the big deal is about humongous parties that probably cost a huge fortune. Is that something really to brag about? What about what you want, instead of what parents want for you or what your classmates want to attend? What would you describe your ideal birthday as?" Erik seemed like he was trying to cheer her up.
So, while they sat at a red light, barely visible in the torrential rain, through the window, she told him what she hadn't even told her friends. "I guess my ideal birthday wouldn't be to make such a huge fuss. I'd like to someday just celebrate quietly away from everyone, with someone special and just be myself, rather than my parents' daughter. Everyone at my school knows how important my parents are in the community, so they're all either really afraid of me snitching on them for some slight; which I don't do by the way; or they want to suck up to me and hope to make a good impression, also in hopes of currying favor." Liona explained, with a slight tint to her cheeks.
"What about you? What would you do for your ideal birthday?" Liona tried to change the subject off of her.
"Promise you won't laugh?" Erik begged her as he looked so adorable over in the passenger seat as the car moved forward at green again.
"I promise I won't laugh."
"I guess, my ideal birthday would be a nice night out, maybe by the lakeside with a little music, with that someone special by my side. Then some fireworks going off in the air, that are just for me, and that someone special, wishing me a happy birthday…" Erik was so cute. He was really a romantic soul hidden behind the timid nature she originally got to know him as.
"That sounds really nice. Perhaps someday we'll both have that after we grow up a little. I know my mom always tells me that being 18 doesn't make you instantly grown up, and that only time and wisdom make you a grown up." Liona laughed a little.
"My mom tells me that I'm too grown up and that I should be a kid more…" Erik laughed, which tickled Liona's senses.
"What about your dad? I know my dad tells me I should be his little girl forever, but of course that's way too unrealistic. I have to grow up someday, and sooner than I want."
"Oh, your dad sounds nice…" Erik got really quiet when she mentioned his dad.
"He's really nice, yeah, he's kind of like a teddy bear really and if I push, he'd probably cave a little, but I don't like doing that to him. He doesn't need me to be a baby and come to him with my problems." Liona said as they finally pulled into the fast-food parking lot.