𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬. [ 𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐢 𝐚𝐮 ]

busy .05

the bell rang for lunch and nini bolted out of her chair as fast as she could. the girl was so excited to see if they was a letter under the bleachers like she hoped for. honestly, it was a long shot for the person to write back, but nini held onto hope.

the girl walked into the gym and saw how empty it was. nini quickly rushed over to the specific spot of the bleachers and crawled under the empty space to look for the letter. there it was, right in front of her. nini's eyes lit up and she happily untapped the letter from the bleachers.

"wow... he actually wrote back," nini said and held the letter to her chest. she made her way from under the bleachers and leaned against the gym wall as she read the note.

"awh.. he came up with a little schedule," nini cooed as she read the letter over and over again. she noticed that the boy ended the letter with an "l".

"hmm.. i don't know anyone that's name starts with an L," nini muttered. she put the letter away in her backpack and headed over to cafeteria where all her friends were.

"nini!" gina yelled across the cafeteria and called nini over. once the girl got there, she sat down. "what took you so long to get here?"

nini thought about telling all her friends about her new "friend" but decided against it, "uh.. had to use the bathroom."

as on cue, ricky, ej, red, and seblos all walked into the cafeteria. everyone immediately surrounded them and greeted them as they walked towards their usual table.

"wow.. they are really our hoco dates," frankie stated as all the girl watched them. nini let out a deep sigh and tried to hide her smile as she watched ricky laugh at something carlos said.

"you're welcome," kourtney said and applauded herself. gina and frankie rolled their eyes while nini still focused on ricky.

"and the world record for never blinking goes to nini salazar-roberts!" gina exclaimed as everyone else at the table laughed at her. nini quickly looked away from ricky and rolled her eyes at gina.

"stop... i was just thinking," nini defended herself and looked down at the table.

"about what? dating him?" ashlyn joked as she nudged nini. the girl let out a chuckle and annoyed her friends' comments for the rest of lunch.

+

it's been 15 minutes into history class and ricky and nini haven't said a word to each other. ricky carefully glanced at nini during class and saw how focused she was on doing her homework. the boy sighed and rested his chin on his hand while he tuned out mr. rod's lecture.

meanwhile, nini was writing her response to ricky's letter. she was so into the letter that she wasn't aware of mr. rod calling nini's name the last six times.