insomnia (noun)
the inability to fall asleep
𝔦𝔫 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔠𝔥 nini salazar-roberts and ricky bowen are paired up for a psychology project. they help each other not just to get a good grade but maybe save each other's lives.
ricky bowen x nini sala...
it wasn't uncommon for both Ricky and Nini to get less than 3 hours of sleep. some nights it could be only 2 hours of sleep but others could be a restless night.
it was currently second period AP psychology with Mrs. Smith and both of them were struggling to stay focused during a lecture on social psychology. last night was a restless night, continuous twisting and turning for ricky and late night hours to studying for nini.
"alrighty, that is for the lecture." Mrs. Smith announces. "Now it's time for your unit project!" the entire class groaned. psychology wasn't easy, having it as an AP class didn't make it any better.
"this project is a partner project and each of you will have a different project idea. I will be announcing them. you all will have 2 weeks to do research and report your findings. " Mrs. Smith said. she went off the list of partner pairs and told them their project. "Ricky and Nini, you guys have how do people respond when non-verbal expression doesn't match verbal expression."
Nini looked over to the boy before heading over to the back of the class to meet with him.
"hey ricky" they shy girl smiled.
"hey nini" he smiled back. this was going to be the first time working with each other, even talking to each other. "so how do you want work? we can work together, or on our own, up to you."
"i'm honestly fine with any. i know you have football and i have theater after school so we will just have to make ends meet."
"i am available to meet up after my football practices. anything to get out of my house."
she giggled. "me too. sometimes you just need that escape from home."
"trust me, i feel you. so how about we meet at the cafe on 6th street. here is my number" he grabbed the girls iPhone and typing his number into the phone. "just in case we ever need to reschedule or something happens."
"okay cool" the bell rang and both said bye to each other. nini thought it was weird how different ricky was with her than outside of class. she knew ricky wasn't the greatest person to be around, she has seen the videos of the fights and jokes he has pulled. she stopped thinking about it so she can move on with the rest of the day.
meanwhile, ricky was back to putting up with his reputation. ricky was interesting both inside and out. his home life is a different story but at school, it like he has two different personalities. he has is "bad boy" personality and his "normal" personality. nobody knew this about ricky but he actually enjoyed school and liked to learn, didn't matter if it was a regular, honors, or AP class. he is always wanting to learn. but his grades are failing due to home life. bad boy ricky was the ricky everyone knew and not the other personality.
he wanted to change that but he knew to fit it, he couldn't be himself. if he changed, he felt that no one would love him.
~ 𝔩𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔯 ~
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nini was already at the cafe, texting her moms that she was going to do work at a cafe. Mama C was exactly thrilled but understood because she was still doing homework and focusing on her academics.
a few minutes later, ricky walks in to see nini will all of her supplies out at a booth in the back corner of the cafe.
"hey" ricky said sliding into the opposite sides of the booth.
"hey. " nini looked up from her computer. "so i really don't know where to start. like should we plan or start to research."
"we can start to research. we can just try and find different examples of non-verbal communication. let's just try and understand what we are doing"
"okay. if you find something, let me know. i'll add it to the notes." both of them had their computer opened, researching, enjoying the calming cafe music playing in the background and just enjoying each other's company. still nini couldn't quite understand why ricky acts so different around her.
"oooo! i found something" ricky grabbing nini's attention. "this article shows the nine types of nonverbal communication."
nini moved from opposite of ricky to right next to him to see the website that showed what he found. "facial expression, gestures, paralinguistics, body language and posutre, proxemics, eye gaze, haptics, appearance, and artifacts" she murmured to herself. "this is great, let me share you the google doc and we can do more research in how this relates to our question"
they both got back to work doing more research to get a better understanding. after an hour they decided to call it quits, but neither wanted to leave.
~ 7:30𝔭𝔪 ~
"i think this is good for the first day. we practically got 3 days of work done in like an hour" nini joked. ricky started packing up to head back home, but nini stayed put.
"hey. aren't you gonna head out" ricky asked.
"umm.. home is really hectic right now. i have a lot of work to get through." nini half-lied. she just didn't want to be home because it would be hectic if she was home.
"honestly, same." ricky agreed
"well, wether you have work or not, company is always nice." she smiled at him. he smiled back, sitting back down and taking out homework. both continued to do what they do in silence enjoying the salt lake city sun going down, calming music in the background and each other.
