Julianna Catching Fire

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

I watched the ring on my finger as I traced small circles on Alex's bare chest. I felt as if a thousand pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders after I came clean. I was completely blissful and content. Everything was, dare I say, perfect.

"What made you want to teach?" I asked Alex. "I'm pretty there were more options than that, even if only a few."

"Well," he said, before taking a long pause. "I don't know."

I snorted. "You don't know? When somebody asks Obama why he wanted to be president I'm pretty sure he doesn't say he didn't know."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you comparing me and my career to Obama and his presidency?"

I rolled my eyes. "Maybe."

"Well, I guess a part of it is I just wanted to do something new. I never considered teaching before, so it was really something out of the box for me. My parents weren't too strict on me and they didn't wrap rules around my neck; they expected me to know right from wrong. So I kind of wanted to see what I could teach someone else, and see what they could learn from me."

Wow, he has a goal. I would never have expected that. "That's nice. What did you want to be when you grew up?"

"I was torn between a lawyer, author, promoter, and having my own advertising company."

"You wanted to be a lawyer and author?"

"Correction: lawyer or author, and yes, I did. I actually applied to Harvard, Brown, Yale, Stanford, and Columbia."

"Were you accepted?"

"Yes, along with all the other schools I applied to."

"Wow. Why didn't you go to Yale then? Or Harvard? I totally would have gone in a heartbeat."

He shrugged. "I just realized that I didn't really want to be a lawyer. It wasn't what I wanted to do with my life; it wasn't what I needed to do. My heart wasn't in it."

"You sound like a Lifetime movie."

He chuckled. "Whatever. What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Now that I think about it, it never really crossed my mind. "I don't really know. I guess I never really thought about it."

"What?" he exclaimed, his eyes nearly bugging out of their sockets.

"What?" I asked innocently.

"You've never thought about it?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess not."

He threw his hands up. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Relax!"

"Relax? Your whole future is based on this little question you've been asked since Kindergarten!"

"No, it's not. Besides, half the people don't even become what they say they want to be when they grow up anyway."

"That's the point. No matter how ridiculous your answer, you're setting a goal for yourself. Even if your dream job changes every two minutes, you're working towards something that's a really big part of your life. It helps you weed out what you want, and don't want. It helps you define yourself."

"I don't need to answer that question to define myself. I know who I am."

He shook his head. "Okay, so you're telling me you've never been really good at anything?"

"I guess. I mean, I've never really been totally spectacular at any thing."

"No hobbies?"

"I love fashion and make-up; beauty in general. But I don't like anything that much that I'd love to do for the rest of my life as a living."