HSMTMTS: The Core Four

9

Gina's POV

I found myself walking towards the Gamestop store, which reminds me of when I was a kid, Jamie would stop everything's he's doing just to see what's in there. even if mom said no. I slightly chuckle at the fading memory in my head.

I look next to the window to see a body, hugging his legs close to his chest and sniffling softly. I see a single curl under his hoodie. Yep, that's my guy.

I casually walk up to him, but he doesn't notice, he's probably thinking I'm just some stranger looking in the window. I see a glimpse of his phone and it looks like he's scrolling through comments on Instagram. I stand there for a moment, but he still doesn't lookup. Time to say something to this clueless boy.

"Hey, you."

His feet shuffle, his sniffling stops. He looks up at me and I see his red puffy eyes, I think I felt my heart crack, the only person who's ever been able to make my heart crack was Jamie. "Gina, what are you ding here?"

"Well, you wander off, we all decided to look for you, some of them were afraid you got jumped again" I chuckle, but he doesn't, he just looks back down. I guess I should stop making jokes and be serious for a moment. I slid my body down the window sitting next to him, it's quiet for a while. Guess I'm gonna have to make him talk.

"So...you gonna tell me what's wrong?"

"It's nothing."

"If your gonna lie, try to be believable. Now tell me what's wrong?"

He stays quiet for a while until he hands me his phone. He is scrolling through comments, I knew it, but they're talking about how someone's weak or acts all tough but he's really not. I scroll to the picture and I almost did a double-take. Andrew posted a picture of Ricky's bruised and bleeding body on the ground in the Alleyway. His body is injured and battered. I take another look at the boy next to me, he looks so hurt, in more ways than one.

"Listen, don't pay attention to Andrew, he just bags on other people to make himself feel better. So screw him."

"You know, your a little scary sometimes" he chuckles. "Gotta be dude, I'm a transfer student, it's either eat or be eaten."

"Listen, Ricky, um, don't take this the wrong way, but is something wrong with you?"

His head jumps up and looks at me confused, maybe I crossed the line, but right now, I don't care, in fact, I could care less. "What do you mean?" He asks.

"Well, everyone else seems kinda happy and upbeat, but you seem kinda...and I mean this in the nicest possible way...dark and cold. Is something wrong?"

He looks away from me, maybe I could've said that in a nicer way. "Oh come on, you can trust me, I'm pretty good at keeping secrets."

He takes a deep breath before he finally starts to talk to me. "I'm not sure if you'll understand, but it's my parents. They're constantly fighting, sometimes I get yelled at when I ask them to stop. And my mom doesn't spend that time with us anymore so it's just me and dad. Still think you can relate."

"A little" I touch his shoulder making him look at me. "I'm about to tell you something only Jack knows, okay?"

"I won't tell."

"I have an older brother. Well, had. He kinda ghosted me and my mom when I was little, guess you could say he's free-spirited. So it's just me and my mom now."

"Oh, I'm sorry" he mumbles, I guess we're more alike than I would've guessed, I play with the purple ring around my finger, wait, that's it! My ring!