faking it | rini

twenty-three

Against Nini's explicitly stated requests, all her friends gathered together at her house for a surprise birthday party. They always tried (and succeeded) to trick her into celebrating her birth, and no matter for how long they had been friends, they still managed to surprise her. She always knew it was gonna happen, but she could never avoid it, never expected it right before they jumped out from behind couches or forcefully put a party hat on her head. Still, every year, she warned them beforehand, begged not to do anything for her birthday, repeated over facetime and groupchats and real life meet-ups to skip over her birthday. They always nodded, but they all knew they weren't gonna listen.

She was kind of used to it. Enough that she didn't mind much when five of her friends plus her moms surprised her in a new and funky place. The aquarium birthday had been especially fun, since she could easily distance herself from the group to silently watch fishes swim around.

So she had started to grow kind of suspicious when the evening came around and she had yet to see her friends, or even heard of them. She had opened the door to her house with some hesitancy. As soon as she entered the living room, 15 faces jumped out of poorly hidden places and screamed as loud as they could, "Happy birthday!" They had laughed and danced and hugged and yelled and Nini had just stood there, mortified.

She had not accounted for the fact that she had recently made new friends and that they would surely want to party with her on her birthday. She had not accounted for how many people would actually be present, would fill her house, and she was honestly overwhelmed. She wanted to go up to her room and sit in the dark and cry.

That was why, after lingering around the living room and snacking on the food, watching from a distance her friends crack up the music and jump around, she had quietly detached herself from the group, sitting down outside in her backyard.

"What are you doing here?" She had somehow not heard Ricky leave the house and yet here he was, standing in front of her, hands on his hips.

"Reflecting."

"Why aren't you inside?" She answered with a non-committed shrug. "Are you okay?"

"It's a lot," she answered simply. He frowned, concerned, and sat beside her.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Okay. That's fine. Do you want to talk about something else?" She raised her shoulders nonchalantly. He nodded, "Tortoises' shells are part of their skeletons. It's not like their house."

Nini threw him a confused look, frowning, "Is that supposed to be a metaphor?"

"No. Just, like... A fun fact."

"That's a terrible fun fact." She said pointedly.

He raised his arms, jokingly saying, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know I would be judged for this."

"Then that's your mistake, I always judge you," she countered and Ricky rolled his eyes, a smile still making its way on his lips. "When the man who invented frisbees died, they took his ashes and made a frisbee with it."

Ricky turned to look at her, "I'm sorry, what?" His eyes was wide and shocked, "Who's they?"

"His kids, I believe."

"You mean they could play with their dad's ashes? Just throwing a frisbee around at picnics, fun times, not weird at all." She nodded. "Man, some families are weird. Taking not moving on to a whole other level."

"It's a tribute, Ricky." A silence installed itself between them. It wasn't awkward. There was something comfortable in the quiet, just the two of them sitting there, looking at Nini's backyard. "I told EJ, by the way. He took it surprisingly well. Ashlyn said he's upset but not at me. Just sad. It was the worst conversation I've ever had to have and I hated it, but I guess I kind of had to do it. And it went pretty fine when he hugged me and wished me happy birthday. So I suppose it wasn't the worst advice in the entire world."