Free One with the Wind by Jane Livingston

women like a gallivanting playboy?”
                “Well what are you doing up here? Classes haven’t started yet. There is hardly anyone on campus. What are you doing up here alone?” she asked. Nick sipped his beer and looked at his desk. “If you can’t talk to me, who can you talk to you?”
                “All right, if you must know—polar bears,” he said, slamming his beer on the table.
                “Polar bears?” Josie felt more confused.
                “Yes. Polar bears. I see pictures of them floating off to sea on tiny icebergs to a certain death. It upsets me.”
                “So all this moping and grumpiness is about polar bears floating away!” Josie could feel her face reddening.
                Nick sighed. “No! It’s life, or lack thereof. The world is falling to pieces. The artic is melting, corporations are polluting the air and the water, our government is corrupt and taking away all our civil rights, the economy is shit and I am fucking sitting here already twenty thousand dollars in debt and I still do not have a major. By the time I get out of this fucking place, I will be around eighty thousand dollars in debt with nothing…nothing. I will only end up back in Johnstown working in a fucking coal mine or, like my brother, employed as a security guard at a closed down steel mill.” He stared harshly at Josie. “Do you want to know what happened the night of our prom?”
                “Yes,” she said.
                “My sister came home with a black eye and busted lip. Her husband had just beaten her and she was leaving him for good, but no. He showed up at our front door with a fucking gun in his hand threatening to kill himself and my sister if she didn’t come back home with him. My entire family was hostage to him and his madness. Finally, my father was able to calm him down enough to hand over the gun. That mother fucker dropped to his knees and cried like a baby. It was only then that I could leave to pick you up.”
                “I’m so sorry. I wish you told me!” said Josie.
                “Why? What could you have done? Its better you don’t know such things.” he leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet onto the edge of his desk. “Love is so fucked up you know. People go so fucking crazy over it. The passion in my brother’s marriage is dead. His wife won’t have him anymore after the children, so he found a little cookie at bar he goes to every night. My brother-in-law and sister believe slapping each other around is passion.” He looked at Josie. “And you, you’ll find some stand-up guy with a solid career to make you a happy wife with a good life. It will also be so peachy-swell and where does that leave me?”
                Josie repositioned the sheet around her chest. It was a lot for her to take in all at once.
Where should I start
—
global politics, financial debt, or love and relationships…polar bears?
She understood his problem; it was none of those things. It was about the uncertainty of life. How do you plan for the future, when you have no grip on the present? She certainly could relate. “Do you remember what you said to me the first night we met?”
                “No,” he responded dully.
                “You told me you were from the future and you were here to observe humanity.” She laughed. “I didn’t know if you were crazy, but something in your eyes and the tone of your voice made me believe it could be real. Nick, if you’re from the future, you should know everything will turn out fine.”
                “Maybe that’s it. I know it won’t,” he replied.
                “Well you are wrong about one thing. I’m not going to find some stand-up guy to give me a good life, because I want the cranky asshole sitting right here. I didn’t drive up in a blizzard