The Dreams

Chapter Eighteen

After the mess her mother came home to in the living room as well as upstairs during Corine's visit, Rina found it a bit easier to ask to go out. Considering how quickly her mother agreed to let her go out with Hibiki after her previous resistance she had had to assume that her mother finally wanted her to get out of the house for a while. It was a bit of a relief to finally start to feel as though she had her life back, but she worried she might be regaining her freedom for all the wrong reasons.

She tried not to worry about it though. At least while she was out of the house she had something else to focus her mind on. Today Hibiki was taking her to meet with Penny. She would finally have answers to her questions. Those questions had been eating away at her for the past few weeks. She had hoped to find answers while talking to Hibiki, but he had been almost as far in the dark as her, but he had been able to point her in the right direction. He was even good enough to take her to the person who could give her the answers she so desperately wanted and needed.

Riding in Hibiki's car again took her back to a better time. She felt almost normal again — the way she felt before she got sick and stayed in the hospital. For a little while, at least, she managed to pretend nothing had gone wrong at all. They talked about Hibiki's classes — finals were just around the corner. She hoped he would still find time to be with her in between all of the papers he needed to write and the studying he needed to do. She avoided mentioning her concern though because she did not want to be the girlfriend that distracted him from his studies and messed up his plans to graduate early.

They also avoided discussing the topic that brought about his outing in the first place. Rina's nerves would not allow her to even broach the topic, and fortunately for her Hibiki seemed to be content to keep this discussion relatively insubstantial. She only regretted the light, essentially useless conversation a little bit. She would prefer to have her time with Hibiki actually mean something in the long run, but she knew it would be impossible for every moment of their time together to be filled with meaningful conversation.

As the drive continued on and the casual conversation started to peter out she found herself starting to worry about the outcome of her meeting with Penny. She wanted answers, but she did not know if she would get any satisfaction from the answers she received or if she would be left with even more questions and another long process to find the answers.

That worry ate away at her and by the time they reached their destination her nerves had managed to work themselves up into a frenzy.

Hibiki looked over at her. "Are you okay?" he asked, "You're looking a little pale."

She nodded. "I'm fine. Just a little nervous."

"Are you going to be okay going in there?"

"Yeah. Let's just do it before I lose my nerve."

She tried to smile but it came out all wrong and she felt like crying instead. She tried to take a deep breath and it caught in her throat. All of her willpower went into keeping herself from crying. No matter what she felt inside, no matter the amount of panic she felt right now she would not allow herself to back out of this visit. Getting answers was too important to allow her own discomfort or anxiety to slow her down now.

Hibiki offered her his hand, and she gladly took it. Just that small bit of human contact was enough to act as a conduit. She felt her anxieties begin to lessen as she sensed his calm steadiness. Her worries were still there, but feeling that he had faith that the answers were just around the corner helped her to reign in her own thoughts. He helped her to form a bit of a barrier to keep everything from boiling over.

"We're just here to ask questions and hopefully get some answers. Knowing the truth can only make things better. Not knowing is the scary part, right?"