3 Years

17 - The Beginning

I once again didn't realize this book had hit another milestone. 4,000 reads... Why do I never notice these things!?!😅

This song is a masterpiece!

🍪🍪🍪

*Friday*
Ricky and Nini have been mentally preparing for this talk. Nini's more nervous than Ricky, but that's not important at the moment.

She doesn't know how to bring up the whole kid situation, but it'll come to her. Surely. Everyone's planning on being there, so they'll probably help move the conversation along. Knowing her, it most likely won't be talked about today.

Ricky's kinda nervous, but not as much as Nini. He knows what he has to talk about. But he also has many questions. The issue: most of his questions seem invasive. He doesn't want to bombard them (specifically Nini) with questions when it's their life. He missed the past fifteen years; he can't question how they decided to live their lives. He just hopes this could mean new beginnings for all of them.

Ricky starts walking towards her house. Jayden and Lauren are gone by now, so Nini's nerves are a little calmer. The group was showing up to her house one by one, eager to get this going.

"How deep are we getting?" Gina asks.

"We all know Nini's side isn't going anywhere," Kourtney comments. Nini couldn't even argue with her.

"Let's just figure out why he's been away for so long first, ok?" Big Red suggests.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rings, making Nini jump on the inside. "I'll get it," Ashlyn says. She quickly goes to the door and hugs Ricky when he comes through.

"Hey, Ashlyn," he greets. She leads him into the living room with everyone else.

He and Nini make eye contact as he approaches her couch. This was the first time she really noticed his appearance. His hair had grown out considerably, but it was still curled; he was dressed in a hoodie and jeans, a classic high school look that apparently hasn't left; the hoodie was a little tight on him, and that was one of the things Nini saw first. Not now.

Ricky sits down slowly, kinda scared of something going wrong. The room is full of awkward silence until he says, "I guess I'm starting?"

"Well, you were the one who was gone for over a decade, so yeah, that would be nice," Kourtney says.

"Ok, um... god, where do I even start?" he mumbles. The others wait for him to start with great interest.

"We were in a submarine. There was this, uh, missing trunk that had ended up in enemy territory somehow. I was on the night shift with my partner, Justin, and it was the same as every other night: not much activity and pitch black. I was looking out the windshield, thinking about how I had only four to five more months of this. He claimed to have seen something through one of the side windows, so I got out of my chair to look with him. I didn't see anything at first, just a lot of mud and sand. But then it was there."

Ricky takes a moment to swallow the lump in his throat. He hasn't talked about this since he told his dad everything a few days ago, and for some reason, it felt so much harder to talk with them.

"I stupidly thought it was some animal, but it was far from it. The next few minutes are such a blur. Up was down; left was right; it felt like I was on a bad rollercoaster ride. We'd been hit by a torpedo. I- I don't know who was shooting, but I just remember everything became a chaotic frenzy. Justin had run off to find everybody, and I tried to steer us away from whoever was shooting. The controls were failing, and the inside of the sub looked like a wreck. Another person came up behind me. I could see the fear in her eyes, and that scared me more than anything. She tried different buttons and switches, but... just about everything was unresponsive. I told her to continue trying while I went to find Justin. I found him and told him to have everyone get to the escape pods. Nothing was working so... so they were our last hope."