Chapter 29: A very unexpected revelation

[January – March 2374 AD – POV Timotheus Sinterguth]

Since my shopping trip with Sabine and Daniel, I had been on my own again, which was just fine. Over the holidays we had been many people together, and although almost all of them had been family and nice, spending days like that was demanding for me, as I was not a very social person and somewhat on the shy side. I could spend a long time focused on technical topics on my own or occasionally discussing with others, preferably other engineers or scientists, but having meaningful conversations about 'normal' topics was much harder for me, topped only by making conversation with young ladies around my age. During the advent meeting, I had barely managed a couple of sentences when this pretty girl Primrose had been at my table, and my friends Anne and Norbert had even teased me about it. I guess this was hopeless; pretty girls did not usually drop out of a blue sky like it had happened for my twin cousin, and in his case the pretty girl was even way too young. Maybe I needed a miracle of my own? Getting stuck with a nice young lady in an elevator or so?

I'd really better focus on my work, and that was at least something I liked a lot and where I could at least show some success. At university, I had now been working with my professor for some time already, specializing my research and work towards the field of efficient energy storage, which was still an issue even after lots of research and despite much progress in battery technology. Even with the great advances in batteries, allowing to store like ten times more electricity in a device of a specific size compared to what had been possible a few centuries earlier, there was still a need for storing larger amounts of energy. Ideally, we'd be able to store energy in summer from excess sunshine and heat and use it in winter, also for heating houses, but that was still not really possible. My twin cousin's work complemented my own one pretty nicely, actually. I worked more indoors and researched theoretical options and helped to develop various potential technological processes, not all of them turning out to be feasible, of course, whereas he was out in the field a lot, looking for proper locations for power plants and such. At least every other week we exchanged information and what we had achieved, and this exchange was not only tolerated, but even encouraged by our respective bosses and organizations. In addition to that, I had been with my professor to some international conferences already, where we had presented the state of our research and potential development and improvement options in our are of work.

While my grandfather and parents had originally suggested that I come back and take over some position in the family companies right after getting my 'diplom', my first university degree, they had later on encouraged me to stay when they learned more about what I was looking into. After all, the topic fit nicely into our ecological orientation, specifically for the large non-profit foundation we were running in parallel to the main business. At my current age of 25, I expected to complete my research work and receive my doctor's degree in engineering (similar to a PhD) in a year or two. Getting such a title at my relatively young age was also somewhat special, and grandfather had accepted my decision after all.

On a nice afternoon in February I finished the one and a half hours I had spent with my youth group. After Christmas I had taken over the group entirely from Heike, the young woman who had run it before, because she had moved to another city. We had run the group jointly for more than half a year, and obviously I was now trusted to do that on my own; if I had questions or concerns, I could always get advice from the church deacon, who was nominally in charge and sometimes joined us, too. Somehow I usually managed to run the group on my own, to my own surprise; the kids and I got along reasonably well, and talking to them came easier to me than talking to most adult people.

When the group time ended, my girls waved to me and went out to go home. Well, actually I had one boy and nine girls in the group – curiously, two boys had left and only girls joined – but a lot of people just said 'Timotheus and his girls' when they saw us. As usual I looked out of the window and watched them leaving, and I saw Primrose, the tall and pretty blonde girl, once again picking up the two sisters in the group, Christine and Corinna. All three of them were blond and had a darker skin color than typical for blonde people. Corinna, the youngest, was nine years old and the youngest kid in my group and Christine was thirteen; she was already attending 'Konfirmanden unterricht', something like Sunday school preparing for the 'confirmation', when a 14 year old Lutheran confirms their believe and is accepted as a full member of the community. The tall girl out there who picked them up had graduated from Realschule last year and was 16 years old, as Corinna had told me. Since the advent crafting I had not seen her close again, but I still thought that she might easily be the most pretty girl I had ever seen. Not that she was likely to see something in me, of course. Although my body had developed and had more muscles now compared to years ago, I was still a nerd with glasses, and I knew quite well that I was very unlikely to attract female attention. Corinna had recently told me that her oldest sister Primrose had finally stopped growing and had now reached a size of 189 cm.

I almost felt a little bit guilty for looking out and kind of ogling that girl, but I could not resist. Despite being a nerd, I did have hormones being active in my body, and at the very least they dictated some dreams. I sighed, turned away from the window reluctantly and cleaned up the room before I went home.

One week later, again after the youth group session, Corinna asked me:

"Tim, do you like my sister?"

At first I thought that she was talking about the middle sister Christine, and I said:

"You know that I like both of you, Corinna."

Telling a nine year old girl that I liked her was easy, and I did not have any problem with that at all. But Corinna corrected me:

"No, I am talking about Primrose, of course."

I was a little bit embarrassed, but decided to be honest:

"Well, she seems to be quite pretty, and I find it hard not to notice that."

"So, you like her?" she smirked.

I raised my hands:

"Corinna, I do not even know her. How can I know if I like her?"

She smiled and said:

"You met her at the advent crafting session, but would you like to get a chance to get to know her better?"

Wait, what? A chance to meet her again? 'Yes, please', my hormones told me very quickly, while a section of my brain objected 'Oh no, that won't end well'. Slowing myself down, I reasoned:

"Corinna, you know, I am kind of a nerd, and I don't think that this is a good idea."

"What exactly is a nerd, Tim?"

I struggled to explain, but found something:

"You know, just assume a nerd going for a walk and passing a pond in a forest. A frog jumps out and starts to talk: 'Kiss me – I am a bewitched princess!' - what do you think a nerd is going to do?"

"Well, kiss the frog, of course, right?"

"No, wrong. The nerd is going to keep the frog as it is."

"But why? That does not make sense!"

"It does, actually, because what's so special about a princess? But a talking frog, that's real cool!"

Corinna obviously liked that comparison and laughed:

"I need to remember that one – this is good! But seriously, you would not want to have a princess?"

I shook my head:

"No, I guess not. She would only want to order me around, have me buy expensive clothes and jewelry for her, and all that. No, not really."

Corinna pondered that and told me that this was different from the fairy tales she had read. Of course, but this was real life after all, and not a fairy tale. Primrose was – as far as I knew, at least – not a princess, and she sure wasn't meant for me. Corinna, though, was not willing to give up and got back to her original question:

"But still, what about my oldest sister? She does not wear expensive clothes."

"Corinna, what do you have in mind? She is not a princess in disguise, right?

The young girl giggled and shook her head, and I asked another question:

"I hope that you are not planing to play matchmaker, are you?"

"Ah, no, not at all. It's just, that … are you good at counting and ecomonics, Tim?"

"Ecomonics? Oh, economics, I guess; why do you ask?"

"Primrose has started an apprenticeship to become an assistant to a medical doctor, as I told you. She thought this would be mostly about medical stuff, but they expect a lot of those economics stuff and a-counting or whatever they call it, too."

"Accounting, like book keeping?"

"Yes, that's it. So, economics and accounting, and my sister struggles with that. We are looking for somebody to help her with that, but my parents don't have a lot of money, so that somebody would have to help for free, kind of tutoring her a little. Can you do that?"

Now I understood the direction this was going to. How did this nine year old become so smart?

"Well, I kind of minored in economics, so that I guess I might be able to help. I am not so sure, though, if I'm the right person to tutor your sister."

Corinna just looked at me, and I asked her:

"So, if you tell your parents and your sister that you have found somebody, I can just walk in and spend an hour or two with your sister, like once a week or so?"

"Yes, that's the idea. I mean, you sure don't have to talk about counting only..."

At first I hesitated to accept that proposal; the idea to spend some time with the pretty young lady was very tempting, but I did not trust myself to be able to focus on work related topics only, and anything else was likely to not work well for me. Above and beyond that, the concept sure smelled like matchmaking, and while Corinna certainly had the best intentions only, that was not exactly how I had planned to meet a girl. On the other hand, if I had to rely on my own actions or rather inactions, nothing was going to happen for sure, so that I finally agreed to Corinna՚s plan, even though I was sure that this would not work out as planned.

Soon I was asked to come to the Seeberger family apartment on one Thursday late afternoon, in the first week of March. Well, I was definitely not going on a date, but going to help a young person to understand some basics of economics – what could really happen?

When the time was right, I rang the doorbell, and Mrs. Seeberger, whom I had met a few times before, opened the door for me:

"Mr. Sinterguth, good to see you; please come in. Primrose will be with us in a moment."

Before I had a chance to look around a lot, the girl, or maybe I should rather consider her a young lady, came in. Wow, she was really pretty, only a few centimeters smaller than I was – really quite tall for a girl – with wonderful blond hair, blue eyes, or wait, the color was actually somewhere between blue and green, like turquoise. Even her shabby clothes – lose fitting jeans and a sweatshirt – could not completely hide a lean body, and I imagined seeing her muscles move when she walked. I had to focus to not stare at her right away, and I tried my best to show a more or less neutral face when I stretched out my hand to shake hers. However, her hand seemed to be frozen at her side, and she seemed to be totally surprised to see me; she actually blushed and looked embarrassed, so that I started to wonder what I might have done wrong. I looked at her mother to find out, and she told me:

"Please excuse my oldest daughter; sometimes she is really shy."

"That's all right; I fully understand this, and I am also quite shy at times."

Mrs. Seeberger turned towards her daughter and told her:

"Come on, Primrose, go to your room and find out if that young man here can help you with what you need to learn. Corinna told me that he knows his stuff."

Without saying a word Primrose went ahead and I followed her into her small room. There was just space for a bed, a wardrobe and a desk, and fitting a second chair in was already a challenge; the lack of space forced me to sit closer to her than I had intended. I mean, I did not really mind at all, but politeness usually dictated somewhat more of a distance. I did not like to have my own personal space 'invaded', and I always tried to do the same favor to others as well.

Primrose managed to get out her books, and I quickly realized that this was more or less basic stuff which I had learned years ago. There were some basics on economic calculations, optimizing profit, and accounting, and I could do that almost in my sleep. While my main focus was engineering, I had always done some economics as well, knowing that working in my family's company would most likely require that sooner or later. When Primrose was ready, I asked a few questions and got a few answers, but when I continued to check the girl's knowledge, she finally looked directly in my eyes and said:

"Corinna set you up on that, right?"

"What do you mean, 'set up'? Yes, she did tell me about your need to learn more about economics for your apprenticeship."

"And she told you about me and my feelings, of course..."

I had no idea what she was talking about and said so:

"Which kind of feelings? No, she did not talk about that at all."

"She did not? Really?"

Now Primrose had real big eyes, like doe eyes, except for the color, and it looked quite pretty on her, I had to admit. Also, she blushed again and said:

"Sorry, this just is not going to work. I don't think that I can sit that close to you and focus on learning..."

Suddenly I had an idea what she may have meant with 'feelings', but as it turned out, I was only partially right. Slowly I asked:

"Did something bad happen to you? Did your boyfriend dump you or so?"

She shook her head, and I tried again:

"Or maybe you got a crush on a boy and he does not like you?"

She shook her head again and almost started to cry. Maybe I was getting closer now? While my gut feeling told me to run and not bother her any further, I forced myself to stay and tried another variation, not exactly knowing why but following a vague hunch:

"You like someone and you don't dare to tell him?"

She nodded now, and a few tears were rolling down her cheek. I was totally out of my comfort zone here, and I was not sure if I was going be the right person for her to talk this over with; she had two sisters, after all, to confide in and talk to. I almost expected her mother to come in any moment and ask me what I had done to make her daughter cry, but I heard her being busy in the kitchen.

"Look, are you sure that you want to discuss this with me? I am a youth group leader, but I have to admit that I do not have a clue how to handle older girls and young women at all."

Yes, that was indeed a problem. In the past, I had had exactly one girlfriend, when I had been twenty years old, and this had not worked well at all. I had never really understood her, and my affection to her had been mostly driven by hormones; we had split up again only several weeks later, and above and beyond some hugs and a few not really great kisses, nothing had happened between us, and to make things worse, I had found our only later that she had only used me for her own purposes and those of her group. Looking back at Primrose, she appeared to have reached a decision and told me in not much more than a whisper:

"I do need to mention it to you because this is almost going to kill me if I don't. See, it's you I have a crush on."

With those words she turned away from me and buried her head in her hands, with more tears flowing down.

Her words started millions of thoughts in me at the same time. This was absolutely not what I had expected, and I had no clue how to deal with it. I mean, they did not teach handling those situations in school or university. I think that some of my friends would have been able to do the right thing, whatever that might have been, but still I had no clue. Trying to order my thoughts a little, I realized, first of all, that I did not mind at all finding out that a very pretty and attractive girl had a crush on me. Of course, who would have a problem with that? The idea alone was a boost for one's self-confidence.

As a second thought, I did not really know what my feelings for her were. Sure, I found Primrose pretty and attractive, and her voice was very nice, and she had such wonderful long blond hair, and she seemed to have long and slender legs, and her eyes were nothing like I had seen before … wait a second, how many 'and's were there actually? In my mind I rephrased that and found that I was not sure about my feelings towards her, but would not mind at all to find out more. I liked her body, that was quite obvious, but I did not know enough about her to know if I liked the person.

Then, I got doubts – this pretty girl had a crush on me? Seriously? Maybe I had misunderstood? So I asked back:

"Primrose?"

There was no reaction.

"Primrose? Please, did I understand this right? You really have a crush on me?"

There was no verbal response, but at least she nodded, with her head still turned away from me. So, I had not misunderstood. But, what to do now?

"Primrose? Can I talk to you?"

She slowly moved her head around, showing her eyes a little swollen from crying. She said:

"You are still here? You did not run away?"

"Why would I want to run away?"

"You came here to teach me something; you barely know me, and I should not have admitted what I did; you sure have a nice girlfriend waiting for you..."

She failed to complete her sentence and sobbed again. So, she really expected me to be disgusted and run away? Well, actually, for a few seconds I had been tempted to run. This was an entirely unexpected situation, and I'd sure mess it up. However, somehow I managed to overcome my flight instinct; I did not dare to touch her, but I said:

"You are right, I barely know you. However, what I have seen and heard so far makes me want to change this."

"What do you want to change?"

"Well, I would like to change the situation that I barely know you. I would appreciate getting a chance to learn more about you, if you like. And, by the way, I do not have a girlfriend."

The flow of tears stopped, for now at least, and she looked at me from behind a curtain of hair partially covering her face:

"Come again, please; you want what?"

"Considering that I barely know you, I would like to spend more time with you to get a chance to learn more about you, and to give you a chance to learn more about me, I guess."

"Are you serious, Timotheus?"

"Of course I am, Primrose. Look, I have just encountered a very pretty and attractive girl with the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen, and this girl has opened up her heart for me. At the very least I want to see more of that, believe me."

Okay, maybe the 'most beautiful eyes' was overdoing it, but from my point of view this was all true and honest.

The girl swiped a few hairs from her face and asked me:

"The most beautiful eyes you have ever seen? Really? But I probably look like a mess!"

"Maybe so, but still true. Actually, if I had encountered you somewhere on the street, I would have never dared to talk to you, but now as we are talking already..."

Maybe my words were not quite as wrong as I had initially suspected, because her face started to lighten up now, and the tears had completely stopped.

I dared to advance another step and took her right hand into mine, just holding it, and I felt her pulse racing. I really was far from an expert on those things, but even I could imagine that a crush could be really unsettling for a young girl.

But I needed to ask two more things:

"Primrose, you did talk to your sister about your feelings, right?"

She nodded, and I understood that Corinna had obviously attempted to play matchmaker, as I had already kind of suspected. And my second question:

"Primrose, your sister told me that you are sixteen years old; is this correct?"

She whispered:

"Yes, sixteen, going to be seventeen in June."

Okay, so there were a little more than nine years between us; I was 26 years old, and my birthday had been in April. I could live with that, but of course there were going to be restrictions. Wait a second – restrictions to what? What did I want to do? What was I supposed to do? My mind was still in overdrive, trying to digest the situation, and mostly failing. It was fine for me to learn and understand complex technical procedures and dependencies, but with a girl and her crush I was more or less helpless.

I needed to somehow communicate that, but later. For now I realized that we were not going to be able to learn together, at least not for the time being. Also, if I wanted to spend time with Primrose, I would need her parents' permission, and they might not be exactly happy to find her daughter liking a man nine years her senior. I sighed, and Primrose looked at me with concern, so that I tried to explain:

"Primrose, you are a minor. If we really decide to spend some time together to learn more about each other, it won't do to pretend to learn and talk about ourselves instead; this is like cheating."

She nodded, and I continued:

"There is no way around talking to your parents about the situation, and I think the sooner the better. Would you like me to talk to your parents alone for now?"

She nodded again, and I got up. I had heard that Mr. Seeberger had come home by now, and I found both parents in the kitchen. After I had greeted Primrose's father, I politely asked if I could talk to both of them for a few minutes, and they guided me into their living room. I did not waste much time and truthfully told them about the situation, that Primrose had admitted to having a crush on me, and myself not yet sure about my feelings, but quite willing to learn more.

"Look," I said, "I know that I am about nine years older than her and that you barely know me. If you doubt my character, there are a number of people in the church community you can ask. Also, I think that Corinna, who is in my youth group, is quite fond of me. I assume that you need to talk to your daughter now for some time, and please let me know if and when you have more questions. If you decided that Primrose and I should not see each other again, I would understand, and I will of course follow whatever rules you set up for her best."

I did not really want to think about the possibility that they could actually decide that we were not allowed to see each other again, but I had to admit that this was their prerogative as parents, with Primrose still being a minor. If I had a teenage daughter, I didn't think that I'd want her getting close to a man in his mid twenties. On the other hand, even if they decided to stop the whole thing, Primrose and I could override their concerns at the latest when she had her 18th birthday, if we really wanted to, specifically if she wanted to, and this was just one year and a few months away. Right now, she was still a minor though, and I would respect any decision her parents were going to make.

Both parents thanked me for my honesty, and I was dismissed. After saying a quick 'Good Bye' to Primrose – this time she took the hand I offered to shake, but she had a light blush on her face again – I slowly walked home, and for the rest of the evening I was not really able to do anything rather than pondering what had happened.

[Author's Notes: Dear readers, I have to admit that I am somewhat disappointed to see that this story has received neither followers nor reviews so far. If you could help me to write a few words and explain why the story is not good in your view, I'd very much appreciate that!]