Home- RINI Oneshots

A New Kind of Love

Nini:

I saw them.

I saw them sitting in the booth where Ricky and I would spend hours talking. Munching on fries and sipping on milkshakes.

But there they were. Laughing and holding hands across the table, in the same diner that we had grown up in.

I could feel the eyes of curious customers on my back as I rushed out of the restaurant. The bell rang as I pushed open the door with purpose.

I don't know if he saw me. I frankly don't care. I just needed to get out of there.

I didn't let myself cry as I walked down the sidewalk, staring down at my feet. I couldn't break down in the middle of the day with so many people around to see.

I didn't even know how to describe the way I was feeling. Furious, devastated, hopeless. All words that weren't enough to truly convey the thoughts that swirled around in my mind.

Flashbacks to some of our fights during the slow downfall of our relationship, occupied the front of my mind. All ending the same, all with the same topic of discussion.

Her.

But now he sits with her. Sharing the same stories we shared. Giving her the same laugh that I cherished for years.

I didn't know where my feet were taking me until I arrived.

The abandoned playground where we used to play.

We used to escape our houses during the day to run away from the pain that lived inside those walls. I used to hold him when he could barely breathe through the tears and wipe them away with my thumbs. Both of us clinging onto each other like our lives depended on it.

But now I won't be the person he turns to when he's hurting. For so long I thought that it would be us forever, against the world.

My dreams and visions of the future, shattered on the tiled diner floors.

I sat on the creaking swing set to look upon the slides and monkey bars that we used to play on. I see little Ricky and Nini chasing each other in the gravel sandbox.

Those memories feel like forever ago.

This feeling of defeat and impending doom has sat on my chest since the day he climbed down from that tree house.

That small stupid treehouse. Where we met the beginnings and the end of our friendship and relationship.

I wonder now what little Nini would say if she saw this broken image of what I once was.

I had tried so hard to move on. To occupy myself with distractions so I barely had time to breathe, let alone mourn.

Our friendship that got me through the worst times and created some of the best memories in my childhood. The end to what I had once known crashes down on me.

I'm so dizzy, I feel like I'm suffocating.

I scream.

A wailing, terrible scream until my throat is raw and dry because I know no one can hear me.

No one is coming to my side to comfort me and wipe the tears out of my eyes as I sob.

I will cry until I can no longer feel this pain in my heart. Until it becomes bearable and I am able to pick myself up and put on a brave face when he inevitably confesses to me.

He'll want me to hear it from him and not from some rumor that passes through the hallways of East High.

He's considerate in that way.

So despite this agonizing pain that consumes me, I will continue to love him in the only way I can. Suffering silently as he falls out of my reach and into her arms.

...

That was a doozy.