Page 13 of Overachiever
His shoulders rise and fall as he gestures for me to join him. “I don’t know.”
It baffles me how others can go through life without a plan. How do they sleep at night without knowing what to do next? He steps back a little, giving me room to look through the telescope. Wow. I’ve never been too interested in space or planets, but I’ve also never seen one through a telescope this powerful.
“What do you see?”
“It’s Jupiter!” Owen beams at me when I glance at him before putting my eye to the lens again. “It’s beautiful.” It really is. Bands of brown and red alternate with white, turning to a yellowish orange in some spots.
“Can you see the Great Red Spot?”
It’s clear as day, and I think back to my high school science class. “Yeah, it’s a storm, isn’t it?”
“The biggest in the solar system. It’s been documented since the year 1665 so it’s existed for over three hundred and fifty years.”
It’s fascinating, and I can’t seem to tear myself away from it. “Amazing. What causes the color difference? Different gases?”
“It’s a combination of the chemical composition and the temperature of the gases. The light colored bands are called zones. Those are areas where the gas is rising. The darker colored bands are known as belts, and those are the regions where the gas is sinking. Plus, don’t forget, they’re raging around at hundreds of miles per hour.” Excitement shines in his voice as he asks, “Do you want to see Saturn?”
“Can the rings be seen with this?”
“Of course.” He regales me with facts and information about Saturn while he adjusts it, and we spend the next couple of hours admiring the night sky. He shows me star clusters and an asteroid. The craters of the full moon burst with detail I’ve never witnessed before. I’m amazed to see what appears to be one bright star when viewed by the naked eye separate into two—a set of double stars—when I look through the telescope.
His passion for outer space is adorable and contagious. It makes me want to learn more about it. After he puts the telescope away, we lie on the sand, in no hurry to move on. “You’d make a good teacher,” I tell him, tucking my hands behind my head.
With a smirk, he rolls on his side, his head propped on his hand. “Remee? Was that a compliment?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“I don’t know if I want to teach. It’s what most people do with a degree in astronomy, but I want…something different.”
“Something that makes more money?”
“No, it’s not about the money. I want to do something I love. I don’t needstuff. I could live in a studio apartment my whole life and that’d be fine with me. It’s better than the alternative.”
He can’t mean what I think. Owen isn’t lazy. I’ve always seen him work hard at school, and he’s never without a job. “Working hard?”
“That’s the number one thing to you, isn’t it?” His tone isn’t accusatory, only curious.
“Of course. It’s important.”
With a sigh, he lies on his back, his gaze on the sky. “We sell half the waking hours of our lives to survive. I don’t want to live like that. I want to be free. As free as it’s possible to be, anyway. I work hard for things I care about, but I won’t spend the majority of my life in a job I don’t enjoy just to chase money.”
His outlook is commendable, but not exactly ambitious. Short of being independently wealthy, that kind of life isn’t waiting for most of us. “You could just marry a rich woman,” I tease.
“A sugar mama, that’s what I need, absolutely. What about you, why do you want to be a psychologist?”
That’s a question I ask myself more often now. “It’s a respected, well paid career that never goes out of demand.”
“That’s the most boring answer I’ve ever heard.”
His reply makes me laugh. Sitting up, I stare down at him. “It’s why I originally chose it, but since I’ve been studying, I’ve found it’s fascinating to get inside people’s heads. To understand why we do things, why we make the decisions and mistakes we do. We all feel so individual, like we’re the only ones with the thoughts we have, yet so many general rules apply, and we can be counted on to react in similar ways.”
“And you want to help people?” he suggests.
“That’s the answer I’m supposed to give, isn’t it? But if I’m being honest, it’s more about having a secure future.”
“Without marrying a rich old man?” He grins, tossing my words back at me.
“Ew, gross, no.”