what more can i say | rini au

PROLOGUE

"You know what? No Ricky. I'm not going to stand here and listen to this again."

She's halfway between wanting to scream and wanting to cry. Fuck this. Fuck him.

"I'm not asking you to-"

"Good." She stares at him, watching his blank face from the other side of their bench.

Sure, she's fully aware that he shuts down when he's overwhelmed, and normally that would prompt her to go over there and wrap him up in her arms, let him bury his face in her shoulder where it fit so perfectly... But right now she's just too upset to be his comfort. She thinks she needs some herself.

"Good..."

His voice trails off as they just look at each other, neither wanting to be the first to drop this eye contact. Sitting there on the bench they've known since they were too little to avoid scrapes and bruises, they felt a little like those six year olds in their pain.

They're eighteen and still feel like they're just two kids. Her small frame perpetually draped with his hoodie that's far too big on her (yet he always says she needs it more than him) and their skate shoes tightly laced- his vans, hers the converse he's always picked fun at and she always reminds him it's because of her narrow feet, the shoes with the drawings in each other's penmanship (his messy, hers less so).

She wonders if she's supposed to toss those shoes out when she gets home.

She wonders if she could bear to. She still has old pairs she's worn through or grown out of. She's never been able to get rid of a memory.

Especially not when it's him.

Does a breakup have the same protocol when it's your best friend you're in love with instead of your boyfriend?

Is this goodbye? She definitely doesn't know if she could bear that.

Nor if he could.

But that can't be her problem anymore.