Ballad of a Broken Boy

Spilled Secrets

The rest of the day went really quickly. I wasn't in any other lessons with Ricky, luckily, since things were already weird enough between the two of us. I sighed as the final bell rang because it meant I had two ungodly hours of tutoring. Hopefully things would be okay, like last week.

I said goodbye to Kourtney and made my way to Miss Jenn's room. Once again, Ricky was already there.

"So what are we doing today?" he asked me. I smiled, taking a seat and pulling out a book.

"Well... I don't know. I know how to tutor someone, but I guess this isn't actually tutoring. So I'm pretty clueless." I said, opening the book and starting to read.

"What are you reading?" he asked me. I looked up.

"A book."

"Hilarious. What book?"

"Just a book. God, why does it even matter?" I asked him, frustrated. He shrugged.

"It doesn't, but you're supposed to be tutoring me, not reading a book."

"You don't need tutoring, you know everything."

"Yeah, but you're supposed to be at least trying to help me, you know. You're just wasting my time." He complained. I raised my eyebrows.

"Sound familiar?" I asked him. He looked puzzled.

"Huh?"

"It's your job to at least try to do the work in school. You're just wasting your teachers' time when you ignore every word they say and sit there doing nothing." I explained. He glared at me for a second before shrugging.

"Well... I see what you did there. But it's not going to work. I'm fine with sitting here doing nothing." He shrugged. I sighed.

"Okay, whatever. So... what was that today? Did you honestly just sit next to me because I looked hot?" I asked him.

"Pretty much." He said. I had suspected it, but hearing him confirm it still hurt.

"Wow. Thanks." I said flatly, turning away from him.

"Whoa, Nini! Don't be offended... I've said it before. It was just because... you looked so different. I wondered if you had changed personality-wise too. I wanted to see if we could be friends." He sighed.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked him, expecting him to say nothing had changed, that he still didn't like me.

"That maybe I misjudged you all these years." He said. I smiled, glad that he couldn't see me.

"You didn't misjudge me. I've just changed a lot over the summer. In a lot of different ways." I said vaguely. "Do those changes have something to do with Ej?" he asked. I whirled around.

"How do you know?" I asked him accusingly. He put his hands up in a defensive gesture.

"I saw the way you looked at him earlier, when we walked in together. I asked him about it afterwards. He said, and I quote, "we met over the summer. Messed around for a bit. No biggie.'" He explained, shrugging. I dropped my head, looking at the floor as I fought back tears. So that was what he thought about everything? He thought it was 'no biggie'? Well, fuck him.

"I swear to god, I hate that guy more than I hate you." I breathed, not realizing what I had said until it was too late. I slapped my hand over my mouth.

"Cool. Thanks." He said sarcastically, moving to get up. I was worried that I had just ruined our entire sort-of possible friendship before it really even started.

"I am so sorry! I didn't mean that. I meant to say hated. As in, I used to hate you. And you hated me too, don't even try to deny it. You embarrassed me and treated me horribly. But I don't hate you anymore. I don't entirely like you, obviously. In fact, I don't even think we're friends. But I swear on my life, I am over the hating you part. I hated you this morning...because you were friends with Ej. That's the only reason." I babbled. He sat back down, which I took as a good sign, but he still looked hurt and was shaking his head.