It's finally here!!
Part 2 of To: Freaky Callback Boy.
Yes, it's been a little over a month since the last post and about ten months since part one came out (oops).
This one didn't take nearly as long to write as the first one, but three months is still quite some time (not so much compared to some of the previous ones 😅).
Started: January 13, 2021
Finished: March 28, 2021
Ok, yes, I know this was finished so long ago and is only coming out now, but I have a good reason: I try to post the stories in order of the date I started them (for the most part [5 is the exception]), and when I realized how close my two years on Wattpad was, I figured then would be the perfect time to post because this is one of my favorite storylines I've written.
Oh yeah, I've been on Wattpad for two years now!! More about that at the end of the story.
How I finished this one so fast compared to the previous ones I don't know😅
🍪🍪🍪
Previously:
"We missed you, Ricky. All of us did," Gina said when they pulled back.
He looks everyone in the eye before frowning a little. "Thank you for the warm welcome, but..." The room is tense as they wait for him to keep speaking.
"Who are you people, and who's Ricky?"
***
Nini felt her heart stop. She couldn't tell if she was dreaming or not. Not only was she shocked that he was here, that he was home, but he didn't know her or who anyone else was. He didn't even know himself.
"We've been over this. You're Ricky," his dad tells him.
"Oh, right. I forgot again. Sorry."
Everyone stared at him with wide eyes. They didn't know what to do. "I think I'm gonna be sick," Nini mutters to herself.
"What's going on?" Big Red directs at Mike.
"So Ricky came back to town a few days ago-"
"Yes, we can see that," Kourtney says.
"He kinda just showed up," his dad explained, "and said he was sent back early because he couldn't remember anything, and it wasn't safe now that he has forgotten his training. I've tried to get him to, but he just doesn't."
They look back at him in disbelief. "Ricky, what do you remember?" EJ asks.
"Um, not a lot. Apparently, there was this big explosion... and when I woke up, I didn't remember where or who I was. After a lot of trying, I've managed to learn a few things: I know that my name's Richard; I was born and raised in Salt Lake City; my parents' names are Micheal and Lynne; I went to East High all my life; and... yeah, that's about it. Oh, and I had these two dog tags around my neck," he says, showing them. One was his name and identification number, while the other was the one Nini gave him back in junior year. "I don't know what the second one is, but I use this one," he said, gesturing to the first, "to remember my name."
Nini's heart sank even more. She was struggling to process all of this. He doesn't remember his life, their memories... his name. Nothing. "I think I'm gonna be sick," she repeats to herself. EJ helps guide her to the couch.
"Ricky, you don't recognize us?" Carlos asks.
He looks at each of them before shaking his head. "I'm sorry but no."
"Let's take him around town," Seb suggests quickly, "and show him everywhere we hang out." Everyone nods as they start to walk outside.
Big Red noticed he hadn't moved yet. "Ricky? You coming?"
Ricky looks over at Mike first. His father responds with, "It's ok to go with them."
Ricky thought about it for a moment before agreeing. "Ok." He walks out too.
Nini is still glued to the couch with her head in her hands, not able to move. "I'll meet you guys out there," Big Red says. They nod and start walking and talking with Ricky about anything and everything.
Big Red looks at Mike, silently asking him if he and Nini could have a minute. The older man nods knowingly and goes upstairs to his own room. He carefully puts a hand on Nini's shoulder, and she jumps for a second before looking at who it was. "So... whatcha thinking about?" he asks first.
Nini looks at him as if that question really needed to be answered. "Everything. The last five minutes are just clouding my head." She leans back on the couch before rubbing her hands over her face.
"Do you want to join us on the tour we're about to give Ricky?"
Her first instinct is to say yes, but she hesitates. "I don't know. I want to, but I don't know if I can handle it if it doesn't do anything."
"I think it would be best if we're all there," he reasons, "but think of it like this: he's back, Nini. We got our best friend back."
"Did we though?" She looks up from her lap to properly face him. "He doesn't remember us. He doesn't remember anything; his life, his name. He called himself Richard, Red. Richard." That might be what hurts the most. He thinks he goes by Richard.
"It is hard; I'm not denying that. But won't it be so much better if we help him remember? We could at least try to, despite the hardship of it all. We go back to college in less than a month; I think we should spend it with him. Even if he doesn't properly know us."
Nini looks up at the ceiling to will the tears away. "Ok. Ok, let's do it. And if this fails?"
"We knock him over the head with a frying pan and see if that works." Nini laughs at his joke, appreciating that he was at least trying to make things better.
"Um, no. We will not be doing that."
"Well, let's get going then if you don't want to do the frying pan plan."
The two walk out of the house, and everyone begins discussing where they should go first. The decision: East High.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a Saturday, which at least meant there wouldn't be any people here. The gang pulled up into parking spots that were close to each other. Nini took a deep breath before getting out. "So... does the building look familiar?" Ashlyn asks Ricky.
He stares at it for a while before saying, "The words East High look familiar but other than that, no."
It's fine; we still have plenty of places to try, Nini tells herself.
A few minutes later, Carlos and Seb pull up. "Any luck so far?" Seb asks.
"No, not yet," EJ said.
"Try number two," Carlos mutters, walking up to the building.
"What are you doing?" Gina asks.
"Miss Jenn gave me her keys; that's where we were."
"She just entrusted you with her keys to the school?" Big Red asks.
"Of course. I'm her all-time favorite choreographer," he says, pretending to flip his hair.
"Is he always like this?" Ricky says out of the side of his mouth.
"The short answer is yes," Kourtney replies.
They walk into the building, and it's kinda creepy looking with no lights. EJ runs off to try and find a way to turn them on while the rest of them get their phones out. Seb walks over to the railing of the cafeteria and motions for everyone else to join.
"Anything?" he asks Ricky. He stares at all the tables around the room. Deep down, he knew this place was important in his life, but he didn't understand why. There must be a reason they're showing me this.
"I... no. I'm sorry."
"It's fine; don't apologize," Ashlyn tells him.
"What now?" Kourtney asks. A few people shriek when the room lights up without a warning; EJ had found a way to turn them on.
"Auditorium," Carlos says, marching off. The others chuckle at his antics.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All Ricky can do is stare in awe at the size of the auditorium. This place looks amazing. "So what happened here?"
Oh, it's only part of the reason that we've been in a relationship for about the past two to three years. No big deal, none whatsoever, Nini muses. Every time she wanted to say something, all the air just left her.
"In your junior year of high school, there was this musical that you auditioned for," Kourtney starts explaining.
"It was our stage production of High School Musical," Ashlyn finishes.
"Wait, it was a musical after something called High School Musical?" Ricky was a little lost.
"Yes," Gina says simply.
Ricky continues walking until he's standing on the stage. I wouldn't have imagined a high school theater like this. He gazed at all the seats and lights hanging from the ceiling. "Keep explaining what happened," he says, continuing to walk around.
"Despite hating musicals, you wanted to audition because you wanted an excuse to spend time with your ex-girlfriend," Big Red says, very straightforwardly.
"Could you elaborate more?" he asks. Why would I do that? Nini just watched as he took in this information, waiting for any sign of some memories.
"You told her you wanted a break, but she took that as a breakup. When the first day of school rolled around, she already had a new boyfriend," Seb said.
"Why'd we break up?" Everyone's eyes flicker between each other, trying to communicate without using words.
"You couldn't say, um... a certain three words... and then just up and left the girl's room after she said them to you." Everyone is shocked when they realize Nini's the one who spoke up. She hasn't said a word since they have arrived, and for her to be the one to say that was surprising.
Ricky looks in her direction, and Nini can hear her heartbeat growing louder by the second. The more she thought about everything, the more scared she became. What if he doesn't remember... ever?
Something about her scared expression triggered something in Ricky's head... but he didn't know what it was.
The two continued to look at each other for a few more moments until the gang started to feel uncomfortable witnessing this strange staredown. "Wh- Who was it?" Ricky whispers, not breaking eye contact.
Nini wanted to make sure he was completely serious about this because they just avoided talking about this after getting back together. If they did talk about it, a little bit of crying was always involved. "It was me," she murmurs, not thinking he would hear her. He did.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After many hours of talking in detail about every little thing in that school building, they head back towards the front, and Nini's never felt more worried about something in her life; she hasn't been this nervous to be around Ricky since they were in high school.
"So that concludes the tour of our high school. Do you remember... anything?" Ashlyn asks, hopeful. The others wait anxiously for an answer.
"Uh, not really," he says sadly. The gang all feel discouraged but still a little motivated; they weren't done yet.
"It's fine. We still have some time before we all go back to college. Everything will be fine," Gina says. The sun had set a while ago, so their time for today was well over. They all say their goodbyes and go to their separate cars.
As Ricky is about to get into Big Red's car, he's stopped. "Hey, if you're up for it, would it be ok if I showed you something else? In an attempt to remember anything." It was Nini.
After thinking about it for a moment, he nods. Nini looks over at Big Red and he nods also, having heard the conversation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Big Red dropped the pair off at Nini's house before going to his own. When they get home, Carol and Dana are shocked. "Ricky? Oh my god, you're back!" They come over to hug him, but he takes a step back, confusing them.
"Moms, can I talk to you for a second?" They nod at her and go into the kitchen while Ricky stands near the door. "So Ricky has a slight case of amnesia."
"How bad is it?" Mana D asks.
"Um... he doesn't remember... like... anything." Her mothers' faces pale. "He just came back into town a few days ago, and Mike invited us over earlier to see him. He didn't recognize any of us. We took him to East High, but that didn't work either, so I brought him here," Nini quickly explains.
Her moms go back towards the front door, a little more scared this time. "Ricky? You don't know who we are?" Carol says worriedly.
"I'm sorry, but who's Ricky?"
Nini's parents' heads spin around at lightning speed. "You're Ricky. Remember?" she says.
"Oh, right. I haven't quite got that down yet." He plays with the dog tags around his neck in embarrassment. "I'm sorry."
"He thinks he goes by Richard," Nini whispers to her moms. They just have blank looks on their faces. "C'mon, let's go upstairs." Nini keeps her head down as she goes up to her room, Ricky following.
When she opens the door, Ricky takes everything in. "This is your room?" he asks.
"Uh, yeah." She's not sure what else to say.
Ricky takes note of all the pictures that hang above her bed. "What are these?"
"Special moments all through my life. You're in most of them."
His eyes bounce to the different pictures. He sees his face but doesn't know what any of this is. "This is us?" he questions, pointing to one of them.
Nini looks at what he's talking about. "Yeah. Valentine's Day of freshmen year." It was her and Ricky standing outside her locker that had a bunch of decorations on it.
"And this one?"
"You know how we were talking about a musical that we did our junior year?"
"Yeah."
"This was the picture taken for it."
Upon further examination, Ricky's more confused. "Is that what my hair looked like?"
Nini laughs and pulls the picture out of its clip, so he can see it better. "No, it was a wig that made you look more like your character. This one is a better representation," she says, referring back to the Valentine's Day picture.
"These were the people from today?" he says, still looking at the musical picture.
"Mhm, all but two are in the picture."
"Did we know each other before this?"
"Um, yes and no. You knew me... Big Red... and Kourtney before that," she says, showing him her contact photos. "You and I have known each other the longest."
"When did we meet?" He turns to face her and sees the emotion on her face.
"Hold on, give me two seconds." She quickly runs downstairs as fast as she can, and luckily her moms are still in the living room. "Would you guys have any idea where one of our earliest photo albums is?"
"Probably out in the garage," Mama C answers. Nini says a hurried thank you as she runs to the door. Once out there, she starts looking at all the boxes on the shelves, trying to find anything that would be helpful.
She finally finds a box that's covered in cobwebs that says 2008 in sharpie on it. In a very scary game of Jenga, she finally pulls the box out of its place and brushes some of the dust off of it. "Perfect." She carries it up to her room and plops it on her bed. "This," she starts, pulling out a thick book, "is a photo album starting at what I think is our kindergarten year."
"Wow, we've got a lot to go through," Ricky says, eyeing how thick it is and opening to the first page.
"We're gonna skip a little in the beginning though." Thankfully, most of the pictures were in chronological order. Nini flips through the first pages and eyes a certain one. "This is your first birthday after we met." Ricky had cake all over his face, and the candles had been thrown to the side after being blown out.
"Judging from when this book was made, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say we met in kindergarten?" he asks.
"Yeah. It's about as cheesy as one can get," she jokes.
"I'd say from the fact that we're still friends it can't be that bad," he chuckles. That hurt a little. Friends. While it's true that they still technically are best friends, there's also the fact that they're dating.
Nini awkwardly clears her throat and says, "Uh, yeah. We've been through quite a bit."
Ricky flips through the pages and glances over the different pictures with a small smile. "I still don't see you as a Nina," he chuckles.
Nini's head snaps toward him so fast she's surprised her neck didn't break. "What?" she mumbles. She's convinced her heart just stopped.
Ricky didn't hear her, but when he looks up again, he raises his eyebrows at why she was staring at him. "What? Is something on my face?"
"No no, what did you just say?"
"I asked you if there was something on my face."
"No, before that."
"This is a thick photo album?" he says cluelessly.
"No!" she says, growing desperate. "After that."
"We met in kindergarten?"
"Dear god! After that. Right before the face thing."
Ricky stands there for a moment, just staring back at her. "Uh... I don't see you as a Nina?"
"Yes!" Nini exclaims. "You remembered that?"
Ricky's face lights up at this realization. "Holy shit, I did!"
They throw their arms around each other in a tight hug and tears spring to her eyes. Nini pulls back a little, wipes her eyes, and says, "Do you remember anything else?"
He shakes his head. "Unfortunately, no."
Nini sighs a little and says, "It's fine. We still have time."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They were running out of time.
It's been about three weeks since Ricky's come to town; it was about another week before summer was officially over. Many of them were packed and ready to go back to their respective states. Ricky was making progress, but he still didn't remember most of his life.
"I don't know. I'm getting scared," Nini tells Kourtney.
"Me too. I know he's normally slow, but this is ridiculous."
"Kourtney," Nini whines, "not now."
"Right, sorry. Serious moment."
"We've tried high school, stories, Big Red's basement, my house, pictures, and the skate park. Even his own house barely worked. We're kinda running out of options." Ricky's already been told the majority of his life stories, which Nini was involved in all of them, but it somehow wasn't enough.
"I'm sure we'll think of something. Besides, the world's not gonna explode between now and fall break. We still have time," Kourtney says slowly, trying to get her best friend to understand that this wasn't the end of the world. This might not be the end of the world, but it was the end of her world.
"I don't wanna go back to New York knowing Ricky's the way he is right now."
"I know, but all we can do is think of more ways to remind him of who he is. I don't know how to do that though."
"Big Red's been helping me think of ideas, but we're coming to a dead end."
There's a faint voice that comes through the phone before Kourtney says, "I have to go; my parents want me."
"Kay, bye," Nini says sadly. What am I gonna do?
Songwriting didn't take her mind off of what was happening, and she'd normally go to Mike's, but Ricky's actually back so that wasn't an option either. The park it is, she resorts to despite the sun already being down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As she's approaching her usual bench, there's someone else already sitting there. Families are normally in their houses at this time. Who would be here now? Nini wonders. She puts her hand on her phone in her pocket in case something were to go wrong. Relief washes over her when she realizes it's that head of familiar curls. "Ricky?" He jumps at the voice but relaxes when he sees where it came from.
"Hey, Nini. What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," she says, sitting next to him.
"I asked first," he counters, turning to face her.
"Fine," she caves, "I just needed some air. You?" Not a total lie, yet still not the complete truth either.
"Same. A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks."
Don't I know it. "Yeah, it really has." A bit of silence passes before Nini says, "Why here?"
"Hmm?"
"Just... since you don't really remember the town... why would you choose to come here?"
Ricky shrugs. "I don't know. I wanted to find a place to clear my head, so I started walking down the street, and a few blocks later, here I am," he chuckles. "What's your reasoning?"
"I, uh... I don't think you'll get it."
"Try me," he said with a smile.
She knew he wouldn't understand her reasoning, but there wasn't any point in making something up. "This is where we spent a lot of our childhood. This place is very sentimental to both of us. Well... to me at least." She mumbled the last part to herself.
Ricky feels a little guilty for not remembering this place but asks, "What happened here?" instead of moping.
"Everything. This is where we spent most of our time up until maybe middle school-ish age. Despite that, we still came here quite a bit," she explains with a smile.
They both look out at the old playground until Nini's shivers catch Ricky's attention. "You cold?" he asks, taking note of her small cardigan.
"No, I'm fine." She pulls her cardigan tighter around her.
"Here." He takes his jacket off and hands it to her.
"I said I was fine," she said, smiling a little. God, we've had this little argument too many times to count.
Ricky gives her a look saying really? He chuckles at her stubbornness and scoots closer to her, so he can throw his jacket over her shoulders. She finally caves and puts her arms through the sleeves. "Isn't this better?" he says, trying to line up the zipper.
Nini giggles and says, "Yeah, I guess." His cologne was strong on this, and she was enjoying it. It was so warm too since he had been wearing it; it was like when she would put his hoodies on for warmth.
Ricky zips the jacket enough to keep her warm while also not so much that the zipper would scratch her.
He looks up to ask her a question and notices how close their faces are. He swallows hard and whispers, "I- Is that fine?"
Nini knows she's getting lost in his eyes, and she doesn't mind. "It's good," she says just as quietly. One of his hands comes up to brush a piece of hair out of her face, and Nini feels a chill go down her spine, and it wasn't just because she's cold.
Their eyes flick up and down from the other's lips to their eyes. Ricky starts moving closer to her; their faces are centimeters apart when Ricky asks, "C- Can I kiss you?" His voice was a little shaky out of nerves.
Nini feels like she just swallowed a rock but nods slowly. She meets him in the middle before she can change her mind, and this was a craving she's been dying to fill since he left.
One of his hands comes to hold the back of her head, deepening the kiss; one of her hands reaches the side of his face while the other moves to his hair. Ricky could feel the wrists of his jacket against his face because the sleeves were so long on her.
His free hand presses into her back to bring her closer. Her hand that was on his face drops down to his shirt collar, and she pulls it to bring him closer. His tongue pushes past her teeth, causing her to softly moan into him. Nini tugs a little on his hair, making a small groan come out of him, which makes her smile into the kiss. They pull away just a little only to do it again and again.
When they finally pull away from one of the most amazing kisses of their lives, they look into the other's eyes, taking in what just happened. "Nini?" Ricky says confidently, panting.
"Y- Yeah?" Nini says, also out of breath.
"I love you."
🍪🍪🍪
Another cliffhanger? Yup. That makes three in a row now, wow😅
(I regret nothing.)
This is for my second anniversary on Wattpad!! I hadn't realized it was two years until I saw the date when I went to post something under the conversations tab. This has been one of the best decisions I've ever made. Writing allows me to do what I want, when I went, and it's so freeing, relaxing, and calming (until writer's block decides to visit 😅).
If you haven't seen it yet, chapter 89 for Just for a Moment is up too!
(Celebratory video for this milestone is in that chapter also.)
Oh, and part 3??
3959 words
Published April 5, 2022