Author's Notes – Hopefully I'll finally get to what I wanted to start roughly...two chapters ago. Stress on the hopefully part of that sentence seeing as I've been wholly unsuccessful the last couple of times. But as the old saying goes, third time's the charm, right?

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Chapter IX – Little White Phone

-

But I won't stop now,
Until I find a better part of me,
That's out there somewhere,
And it can't be that far away,
That's where I'll find myself,
And I'll find my way out,
That's where I'll find out.

-3 Doors Down, The Real Life.

-

As they walked along the sidewalks, Rinoa was mentally calculating down the minutes until they'd get to her house and get this done and over with. History seemed to be repeating itself and more often than not, she was playing catch up to his quick and purposeful strides, despite the fact that she was supposed to be leading him, not the other way around. She sighed for what had to be the millionth time during their trek.

'Ugh, I've had enough of this. I'm going to be in a wheelchair soon if I don't tell him to slow down.'

"Squall- slow down! I can't- walk that fast."

He stopped on a dime and Rinoa slammed right into his backpack. She recoiled backwards only to see him scowl as he turned around.

"Fine, but I don't have all day. I want this over with so I can get home."

They started walking again at a much more comfortable pace. Looking at the side street they'd just crossed, Rinoa knew that it was still quite a ways away until they'd reach her house, quite a long, quiet and boring ways away if she didn't do anything about it.

"So...why are you leaving Balamb on such short notice?"

Still walking, he looked over at her. "-That's none of your business."

'Figures.'

"Sorry, I was just wanted to try and make conversation."

"...Don't bother. I'm in no mood to talk."

"-Well that's nothing new."

Oops.

'I can't believe that slipped out...'

"-You're right, that isn't new." he repeated acerbically.

"Hyne, I didn't mean to say that out loud."

"Whatever, I don't care. It's nothing I haven't heard before."

"Still, it wasn't a nice thing to say. Let me apologize."

He dismissed the idea. "An apology is of no use to me. The world isn't a nice place and the sooner everyone realizes that, the better."

"-You honestly believe that?"

He groaned. "...I thought I made it clear that I wasn't in the mood to talk."

"Answer me that and I promise I'll leave you alone."

"...Fine. I firmly believe that the world isn't a nice place. End of story."

As good as her word, Rinoa didn't say another peep to him. Her cell phone, on the other hand, compensated for the lack of noise. Fishing the little white phone out of her coat pocket, she flipped it open and saw that it was Eden's cell number on the caller ID.

"-Hello?"

"Hey Rinoa, it's Eden. Where are you?"

"On the end of my street, I'm walking home."

"Oh, were you getting something at the corner store?"

"No, I'm on the other end. I was at the library working on the assignment for fourth period."

"That's a little far, why don't I pick you up? I'm on your street anyway so I'm sure I'll be able to find you easily."

"No, I'm fine."

"Nonsense, I'll come pick you up and we'll do something fun at my house with Lucy and Nat. We're having a girls' night."

'Uh oh.'

"Eden, I'd like to but there's something I have to-"

"No ifs ands or buts Rin."

Click! ...Beep. ...Beep.

Not even a minute later, Rinoa saw Squall stop right in front of her as a burgundy car pulled into the closest driveway. And sure enough, Eden was the one who rolled the driver-side window down, with Nat and Lucy both clearly seated in the back, all three of them looking intently at the scene which was going to inevitably unfold.

"Oh I'm sorry Rinoa, I had no idea that you were with him. I thought you were alone by the way you were talking on the phone. Did you want to me to go with the others so you can continue on with...whatever it was you were doing?"

'Oh no, she thinks that I'm going out with.. -Better clear this up before I have to do some serious damage control.'

"No, I can come. I just have to give him some pages for our project that I forgot earlier so he can add them to the rest of it. It shouldn't take too long."

Eden looked unconvinced. "...You sure? It's no big deal to us if you already had other plans."

'Ugh. I thought I was being crystal clear with the whole project thing. Guess I'll have to make it ultra-super-mega crystal clear.'

"Eden, I don't have-"

"No, no, no." she interrupted. "It's okay. We'll leave."

"But you're not listening to me-"

"-I'm leaving, this is getting nowhere." Squall cut in, his annoyance strongly injected in his tone. He turned towards Rinoa. "...I'll find a way to get the pages after I'm back in Balamb."

And with that, he started walking away briskly, much to Rinoa's chagrin – the girls in the car looked like they were going to eat her alive for all of the non-existent details. The raven-haired girl hesitantly walked over and opened the passenger-side door. Judging by their ravenous expressions, it looked like it was going to be a very interesting girls' night.

"So Rinoa...how did this, ahem, 'project' of yours go with Mr. Anti-Social?" Natalia jibed. A tiny explosion of titters erupted from the other two as the car was reversing out of the driveway. The quips kept on coming. "-Could you count the number of words he said on one hand or did he stun you with a full sentence before we came?"

Rinoa pinched the bridge of her nose. 'Better avoid that second question. Who knows what'll happen if I told them the truth.'

'Hyne...I guess this is the kind of thing Squall has to hear all the time. Now I really feel bad for saying what I did, regardless if he said he doesn't mind. I'd hate it if people did that to me.'

"It was okay I suppose. We got a lot of work done."

"...Oh yes Rinoa, I'm sure you two got a lot of work done."

More titters erupted.

"-Nat!" Rinoa shouted indignantly. "Stop making innuendoes, we were in a library working on a school project for Hyne's sake! Not...whatever you were thinking of...that I really, really don't want to hear about."

"Calm down, it was only a joke. -Besides, you would have been too busy to answer your cell if you did."

She loudly sighed. "...You're having fun with this aren't you?"

Even Natalia's oft-frowning mouth couldn't help but curve into a rare smirk.

"Oh yeah. This is hilarious." the blonde replied wryly.

"I don't know Nat..." Lucy drawled from the back seat. "Something tells me that you secretly wish that you were in Rinoa's place."

The smirk faded fast. "-Quiet..you."

At this point Rinoa's mind screamed, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you Lucy!'

The rest of the car trip was relatively silent.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

"-Rinoa, could you pass the bag of chips please?"

"Sure." Rinoa grabbed the blue bag on her left and gave it to Lucy on her right, wiping off the bag's residual chip grease afterward.

They were all sandwiched together on an enormous grey at Eden's house, half-watching a rented movie, half-talking about stuff. Rinoa was an exception though. She was simply listening to the snatches of sporadic conversation while absentmindedly eying the blur of colours flashing on the screen.

Lucy accepted the bag. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"So Rinoa," Eden put the movie on pause. Uh oh, not a good sign. "-In all seriousness, what happened before we picked you up? Was there something going on?"

All faces turned towards her and she was trapped within their collective stares. Wait, she wasn't being trapped, there was nothing to feel trapped before, she'd been telling the truth all along.

'...Still, they're going to think I'm lying no matter what I say because I always end up sounding defensive.'

'Might as well try, not saying anything won't help me any.'

"Nope, we were just working on our assignment like I said."

'Yes! That didn't sound defensive at all and they're not looking at me funny, I'm off the hook!'

"So if I told you that I overheard one of my brother Eric's older friends saying he was interested in you, there wouldn't be a problem if he were to ask you out?"

"Eden, you didn't overhear Tyler," Nat interjected crudely, "-your brother asked you to find out if Rinoa was single for Tyler because you owed him big time."

Eden went red and Rinoa was confused. "Wait- was that why you guys were all bugging me about Squall, because you needed to know if I was single or not?"

"Ah…" Eden's mouth was half-open, unsure of how to form a word with her mouth at the moment. "It would be easier just to say yes, but truthfully, it's a yes and no."

She blinked. "Um, I don't quite understand."

"Well…it's true that I tried to find out for Tyler, but…oh, I can't think of a way of saying this without sounding mean."

"Maybe you should have Nat should speak for you then." Lucy joshed with a big smile. Oddly enough, Natalia didn't take offence, or at least was trying to look like she hadn't.

The sharper-tongued of the two blondes finally relayed what the other wouldn't say. "She means that we were making fun of you because Mr. Anti-Social isn't known for being spotted with people, let alone girls. -And the fact that you were heading to your house was just too convenient to pass up. …Or at least I found it convenient, I think Eden actually thought you two were together for a moment there."

"…Well can you blame me? It kind of looked that way for awhile."

Nat snorted. "-You kidding me? The guy's so frigid I wouldn't be surprised if he gave a freezer a run for its money. Hell, the only time I ever heard of him acting the least bit teenager-like was last year, and even then, it could have just been a rumour."

Eden's ears perked up. "I've never heard of any rumour about him. What was it Nat?"

"Well…let's just say that something might have happened over last year's winter vacation."

"-Like?"

"Come on guys…" Rinoa pleaded, "-if this is just another groundless rumour, I don't think it would be a good idea to repeat it in case if it's untrue."

Nat rolled her eyes. "Thank you for the moral lesson of the day Sister Rinoa, I didn't know the dangers of gossiping. Now I see the light." Her sarcastic tone gave way to her usual lightly-condescending one. "Seriously, it's not like I'm sayin' this at school in the lunchroom where everyone can hear. If you don't think it's true than ignore me, it's as simple as that. Besides, if I stop right here, I think Eden will have a panic attack."

The other blonde had a sheepish look present on her features. "Sorry Rin…Nat's kind of right about that. It's like my kryptonite."

'I guess she's going to say it no matter how hard I try. I'll just have to excuse myself then.'

'-But why do I have to excuse myself? I should be able to just do as she said and ignore it if I don't think it's true.'

'I'll do that. I'm above meaningless gossip, right?'

'…I hope so.'

A sentence was halfway finished by the time she re-entered the real world. Rinoa shook her head fervently to shake out the cobwebs. Luckily, no one noticed her doing so as they were all rapt in Nat's words.

"-and I guess she must have been embarrassed enough to skip town permanently."

Lucy nearly choked on the last chip she swallowed. "I -cough- don't –cough believe you."

"Well, there's got to be some truth in that. I mean, when was the last time you saw her?"

"Hm…Last year's exams?"

"-And there you go Luce. Maybe that's why we haven't seen her all school year and he's been even more bitter than usual. She moved away and he never found out what happened."

Rinoa was relieved in a way, not hearing half of it at the beginning made it nigh impossible to understand what the rumour entailed.

"So let me get this straight-" Eden cut in. "You're saying that she moved away because the guy, who we all know could easily pass for a robot, got her pregnant when they were both drunk? I like hearing gossip as much as the next girl, but even I doubt that very much. He doesn't look like the type to do that, let alone drink. -Where did you hear this anyway?"

The raven-haired girl sputtered a little. '-Whoa, that was an earful …even though this sounds so farfetched that I'd have to be really naïve to believe it. Hm. I wonder if she made this up just because he didn't like her.'

"I know it sounds like a bit of a stretch but, the girl is my cousin Iris and I heard this from my other cousin Hailey, who's really close to her, so there's a chance that it could be true. Not to mention I haven't seen Iris since June either."

Lucy put down the bag of chips altogether. "I don't know…it still seems a little iffy to me. Now if you told us that she was a textbook…" she said with another burgeoning smirk, "-Then I'd be sold."

"Ah whatever. It's why they call these things rumours. You either believe them or you don't; no big deal." She paused for a second. "Now what is a big deal is how Rinoa over here feels about having a blind date with mister Tyler Reid, now that we've deduced that she isn't attached to Mr. Anti-Social by the hip. Care to fill us in on your thoughts?"

Rinoa uncomfortably shifted. "Um…I'm not too sure about this. I don't know anything about him."

"I could tell you more about him if you want Rinoa." Eden offered.

"I don't know… I'm still a little uneasy about the whole idea to be honest with you."

The other girl clasped her hands together and batted her eyelashes. "Please…pretty please?"

Rinoa sighed. 'Why is it that I just can't disappoint people? Is there something wrong with me?'

'-Yeah, I have no backbone.'

'…She must really owe her brother.'

Ignoring her inner monologue, she caved in, "…Fine, I'll do it as a favour, but only if you answer all of my questions and you promise not to spring something like this on me ever again."

"Thank you so very much Rinoa, you're the best. I'll answer any questions you have in the kitchen while I get something out of the fridge. Come, follow me-"

Rinoa got up and followed her to the kitchen without another peep.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

After a minute's worth of walking to the other end of the house, they were in the kitchen in all of its orange wallpapered splendour.

Opening the fridge and digging out two pop cans, Eden opened one for herself and gave one to Rinoa, who gladly took it. Following the crack of the can's tab, the blonde took a swig and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Feel free to ask away."

"Um…okay. So where does this Tyler know me from anyway?"

"He's in our Art class, the one with messy dark brown hair who always gets harassed by Instructor Illione for any little thing."

"I think I may know who he is. Does he have glasses?"

"Yep."

"Okay, so I do know who he is. I'm guessing that he's our age?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hm. What's he like personality-wise?"

"He's really outgoing and funny."

Rinoa furrowed her eyebrows. "So if he's really outgoing…why didn't he try talking to me before?"

"Well, I don't know for sure, but if I were to guess, I'd say that he didn't talk to you in case if you were with someone, I mean, you do hang around Seifer, Tristan and Ryan a lot."

There was a large pang in her stomach after the second name. "Oh, okay."

'I still can't believe I'm doing this. I'm not even over what happened last month yet for Hyne's sake.'

'Does that make me a bad person or a good person?'

'I need help. Advice. Anythin-'

The little white phone struck again, ringing away incessantly in her left pocket. Plucking it out her pocket and checking the caller ID on the screen, Rinoa motioned with her free hand that she was going to take the call somewhere else. Eden nodded and the other teenager went out of the kitchen and into the adjacent bathroom.

"Hello?"

"Hey Rin, what's up?"

"-You're not going to believe this Adrienne."

"…Try me."

"I was kidnapped by Eden, Lucy and Nat not even a moment after Eden called me when I was walking home from the library."

"And what's so unbelievable about that? They've kidnapped me plenty of times on short notice. It's made for plenty of fun girls' nights."

"No, it gets better. They kidnapped me when I was walking home with Squall because I had to give him some pages for the fourth period assignment that I accidentally left at my house."

The line went silent for a good twenty seconds.

"Uh…Rin, could you repeat the last part, the phone cut you off after 'some'. It made it sound like you said, 'They kidnapped me when I was walking home with Squall because I had to give him some."

Even Rinoa couldn't help but laugh at this one, the timing was just too perfect. "There were some pages I had to give him for the fourth-period assignment because I forgot them at home."

"That's better. I was worried that you suddenly turned into a tease overnight. So, did they have a field day with that?"

"That and then some. Nat didn't waste time to start making innuendoes just to poke fun at me."

"Ah, that doesn't surprise me; she always resorts to that kind of thing whenever something's bothering her, even if she won't admit it - but now's not the time to get into that. So, you guys doing anything fun at Eden's house?"

"How did you know I'm there?"

"I was invited to come over this afternoon, but I couldn't go because of work."

"Oh, I see. Well…we were watching a movie, but then Eden decided to stop it to grill me about my library time with Squall. Turns out they were all bothering me so much because she needed to know if I was single because one of her brother's friends supposedly wants to ask me out or something. That, and Nat decided to share a nice little rumour about my library partner." She stopped to regain her breath. "-Crazy day I'm having, huh?"

Rinoa heard some chuckling in the background. "The fun never stops with you, does it Rinoa? Ha, ha. So… who's the lucky guy?"

"This guy in my art class, Tyler Reid. I'm not sure if I want to play along though, I don't know what to expect or how to take this. I only said yes to Eden because she needed the favour, but…I, um… I'm nervous."

"Well if you said yes, there's no backing down. Besides, this is a perfect opportunity to work on your shyness."

"Yeah, but I'm having second thoughts, I…um…don't exactly have a good track record in that department."

"Rin, just because you agreed to give him a chance, doesn't mean you're obligated jump head first into a serious relationship. Go on a date, try to have fun and if it doesn't click, then it doesn't click."

"Thanks Adrienne, I feel a lot better now."

"It's what I do. Now what was that rumour about? I'm curious."

"I don't think it's my place to repeat it, it's kind of too farfetched to be believable."

"I already knew that much. I just want to hear it because it's probably very entertaining."

"Okay, but you might want to be sitting down for this."

The phone picked up the sound of a chair being scraped along on a hard surface. "I'm sitting down, go ahead."

"From what she said, both him and her cousin got drunk during last year's winter vacation and he got her pregnant. Then, when she found out, she was so embarrassed that she moved away and he never found out what happened to her. The whole thing sounds ridiculous to me, especially after spending four hours in a stuffy library with him."

"Hyne, that is ridiculous...but then again, I know that people do strange things when they're bitter. One thing goes terribly wrong and the next thing you know, you're stuck in your own little world and the only way you cope is by trying to drag other people down with you. It's like they say, misery loves company."

"Hm, I suppose your right. Well…I have to go. The others are probably wondering if I died in the bathroom."

"'Kay, I'll talk to you later, and then you can tell me all about your date."

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. Bye."

"Bye."

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Wednesday, December 15th –

There's no going back now, looks like this date (blind date?) is going to happen whether I want it to or not. After finishing up my call with Adrienne, I went back in the kitchen and Eden told me that she had already texted her brother so he could tell Tyler. Hyne, I don't know I'm just being a good friend or if I'm being taken advantage of right now. My guess would be the latter. Doesn't 'Rinoa the Doormat' have a nice ring to it? Ha. Ha. Oh well, I'll just get this done and over with and be back on my merry way in no time.

Gah, I think that watching all of those movies at Eden's house has damaged my ability to write serious sentences. No wait, I had that problem before. My mistake.

Either way, to say that yesterday was an interesting day would be a big understatement. There are so many loose ends in my head that I don't know where to start and right now, I wish I wasn't such a curious person. This is nuts, nothing's making sense anymore. I want to know why there's a guy who likes me and I don't even know what I did to make him like me - now that's a foreign concept if I ever heard of one. Next, there's Nat who's trying to make us believe that her cousin was carrying Squall's child after a drunken-—Aah, I can't even write the words because it sounds so ridiculous. It's obvious that she bitter from being turned down, but... I don't understand why she'd tell us something so... far out there if all she wanted to do is put him down. In all honesty, I would have been more likely to believe something like... he beat someone up for no reason. That kind of thing would have made more sense, oddly enough. The sad part is that I think the others started to believe her after she said that it was her other cousin who told her. Bitter is as bitter does, I suppose.

Hyne, now that I think of it, there's the project I have to worry about too. Great, now there's another loose end in my head. How am I going to figure how a way to get the pages to Squall when I don't even know anything about where he was going or how long he's out of town for? I wish he would have said something so I would have had an idea at the very least. I hope he can find a way to contact me. Wait, how is he going to contact me when I didn't even give a number, e-mail or my address? Darn. Looks like I'm going to some light reading in the phone book to figure out a way to reach him. Leonhart isn't a common last name is it? -Probably not. Hm. Maybe I'll be able to figure out by looking at the home addresses under the numbers if it's listed. He did say that he didn't live too far away from me after all.

-Whoa, my phone is going off. Better stop here and answer it.

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

Flipping the phone cover up, Rinoa answered with, "Hello?"

"-Is this Rinoa Heartilly?"

"Um...yeah..."

"You may not know me, but I'm Tyler Reid."

'Ah, so that solves that mystery. I knew it didn't sound like Squall.'

"So you're the one my friend Eden was talking about."

"Yeah, about that...I'm really sorry if the whole situation was a little creepy. It's just that didn't know how to approach you because you were always with someone at school and my friend asked his sister to find out if you were single without me knowing. I only found out when he sent me text explaining what he did along with your number. ...Which kind of explains why you're listening to me babble on and on right now."

'Wow. This changes a lot of things...'

"Oh, okay, um, don't worry, I understand."

"...Um, so did you want to do something then?"

Rinoa paused. 'It won't kill you Rinoa, just go for it! You can do it.'

"Sure."

"Does a movie sometime this week sound okay to you? I'm available any day."

'Don't stop now, you're almost there!'

"-Sounds good. I'm available any day too."

"How about tonight then? You could pick the movie."

"Actually, I'd feel better if we decided together."

"Sure, whatever works for you. Meet at the movies at seven?"

"I'll be there."

"Great. I'll be waiting outside of the building wearing a navy-blue jacket. You know what I look like, right?"

"I'm pretty sure I do. Dark brown hair and glasses?"

"Not exactly," he paused, "...I got contacts yesterday."

"Okay, I'll remember that."

"See you at seven then."

"Same here."

Click.

Rinoa smiled. 'You did it. You made it.'

-—-—--—-—--—-—--—-—-

End of Chapter Comments – Damn! I thought I was going to get to the turning point this time. Oh well, with the way this is set up, I know I'll get there in the next chapter. To be honest with you guys, I could have made it in this chapter, but I would have made it too long and I didn't want the pivotal point to lose its effectiveness only because the chapter dragged on and on just to get there. Besides, this made for a neat semi-cliffy, right?

Oh and before I forget, whether you've read it through my profile page or not, I'm putting Breaking Free on hold and only updating Reinventing Me in the meantime because university and work's really chewing up my free time.

Either way, I hope to hear from you guys so drop me a line,

-Emerald-Latias