𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋𝐒 [a rini au]

SIXTY-SEVEN

          It was like Nini's awakening triggered Ricky's, for a few seconds after Nini laid her eyes on the unanticipated boy, he began squirming in his seat. He brought his hands to his eyes first, digging his palms into their sockets before opening them. Once he did, his face lit up, Ricky jumping up from his seat and rushing over to the bedside.

         "Nini! Oh my God, Nini," Ricky wanted to tackle her in a hug, but seeing as she was covered in bruises, hooked up to a few pulse monitors, and was restricted by a neck brace, he opted for squatting at the bed rail to be at eye level with her.

          Nini felt tears forming in her eyes as she watched similar ones invade Ricky's honey irises. "How....," the girl's words were raspy. "How are you here?"

         Ricky exasperatedly chuckled. "I have good stamina?"

         His answer implied that he had journeyed all the way to the hospital on foot. Nini couldn't help but giggle herself, wondering what she did to deserve someone as dedicated to her as he was. But, when she remembered where he came from, her frustrations came back. Ricky beat her to the punch, though. "Nini, I don't know how you found out about the project, but I need to make everything clear to you now."

         Nini tried to shake her head, not very successful. "Ricky, you don't have – "

         "No, I do have to," Ricky insisted, taking Nini's limp hand in his and squeezing it. When the girl didn't object, only wrapping her tiny fingers around his hand, he continued. "For my midterm in my Creative Writing class, I had to present my world in a project. I was instructed to take note of all of my experiences throughout the semester and give my teacher this detailed reflection of where I am in my life. Whatever you heard about the project was wrong.

         "What I did was talk about how you helped set me on the path to uncovering who I am. I mentioned how throughout our time knowing each other, you managed to come to terms with things you wanted to change about yourself just as I did, and we worked to make those changes together. I wrote about how you made up my world, Nini. That's all.

         "I never told you about the project because I feared if you knew, you'd think I was using you to get a good grade, or worse, you'd act differently around me. I wrote the assignment based on our raw, authentic interactions, and now I realize that not telling you about it goes against the honesty I was aiming to harvest from the project. When I consider how much you've been through with deceit in your friend group, I realize not telling you was wrong, and I am deeply sorry you had to hear twisted words from strangers.

         "I'm also sorry for freezing up on you. It made me appear super guilty, and that's not how I was trying to come across. You know how much words mean to me, and if I don't have the correct ones, I can't ever seem say them. Just in the short time you were gone and during my extensive search for you, I gathered these words, and I desperately hope they're the right ones."

          Nini gaped at Ricky with the most empathetic look in her eyes. You're a fucking idiot, her conscience scolded. You thought he wasn't thinking about you when all he was doing was thinking about you. She pressed her lips into a smile, Ricky returning it. "I'm sorry for overreacting," Nini turned the tables. "I....I shouldn't have freaked out on you. I saw the way everyone was looking at me, and I got caught up in that old, stupid fear. I guess....I guess I was just worried that I had clouded judgement, and you were just like the rest of them."

         "I'm not, Nini, and I never will be," Ricky pleaded, heart hurting that she thought that even for a split second. "I am giving you my word that I will never be like them, and you know how much a word means to me."