she's got a bad reputation - rini au

chapter 7: maybe

For the first time in what it seemed forever,
Nini was excited to go to school. Her and Ricky
texted the whole weekend. They talked about
music, movies, what they wanted to do in life.
Even after the Gina incident and the
repercussion, she was happy and no one
could take that away from her. Well, that's
what she thought. She arrived earlier than Kourtney so she went to her locker to grab her books to make time. She knew that Ricky's was close to hers so she was planning on saying hi. Ricky was thinking the same thing. He was already in his locker looking for his things. When he saw her, he took a deep breath and closed his locker to go and say hi. But an arm grabbed him and pushed him in front of his locker.

"Don't even think about it." Gina and Carlos
were in front of him, frowning. They were mad
about something that Ricky couldn't get his
head around it.

"What do you mean?"

"You are not going to embarrass yourself and
us and go and talk with Nina!" Gina was
talking with a tone that Ricky hated.

"You can't tell me what I can or cannot do.
Now if you excuse me, I'll go and talk to her
because she's nice and I lik-" Gina cut him off.
Her tone was different. Was she jealous?

"Don't even say you like her. Don't you see?
She's using you. We are just protecting you.
She's gonna break your heart and we will not
pick up the pieces. What do you think the
school will say, uh? The new boy fell for her
charms. You are not the first one, Ricky. Listen
to us." Ricky looked to where Nini was, she
was looking at him, knowing what was happening. She sent him a sad smile. And left.
He tried going after her but Carlos pushed him
again against the locker.

"Why do you care so much about what other
people think? Besides, this is my life. Not
yours. I can hang out with whoever I want. I
don't care about what people say, I don't even
care what you two want to say because, guess
what? I'm my own person, and my opinion on
people are not based on fucking rumours."
"Ricky, please. Do this one thing for us, and
stop seeing her. We care about you and we don't want to see you hurt." Bullshit. They
didn't care about him. They only cared about
their reputation. He sighed, knowing that no
matter what he said, they wouldn't change
their minds.

"l have a class to attend to. Goodbye." He left
them there, thinking they had succeeded. They didn't know that Nini already warned him
about it, he didn't want to believe her but it
happened, He grabbed her phone and texted
her.

——

On the opposite side of the school, Nini was
talking to Madison, explaining what happened
between her and Ricky. She went to find her
after seeing that Ricky's friends were trying to
convince him to stop talking to her. She had
already warned him, but she couldn't help but
feel sad.

"So let me get this straight, someone
humiliated you at E.J.'s party, threw a drink on
you and then you spent the rest of the night
and weekend talking with her friend?" Nini let
go a small laugh and nodded. She was scared
of what Madison was going to say next, she
knew that she was going to find something to
ruin her happiness.

"l don't know Neens, he might be using you to
drag you with his friends."

"He's not like that, Mods. He is really nice and
he told me he didn't have a close relationship
with them. I even saw him defending me
against his friend at the halls."

"That's bad, Neens! You can't get in between
a friendship just to hook up with him!"

"What? We are not even friends yet, I don't
know him enough to like him but even if I did,
he wouldn't be just a hookup." Nini thought of
he wouldn't be just a hookup." Nini thought of
the possibility of actually dating Ricky. Yeah,
they just started to become friends. But she
couldn't deny the feeling in her body everytime
he smiled at her. Baby steps, Nini. Baby steps.