A/N: Hmm... not even 5 reviews. That's a bit disappointing following several reviews... oh well though. I'm happy to have a couple - better than none. ) Thank you for reviewing! Sorry for taking so long - I got stuck halfway through writing this. xx I hate you writer's block...
Rainy Days - Chapter 9 - The Girls' Night In
"I cannot believe a little person like her can hold so much energy," I mumbled to Squall. I sat on a stool with my head down against the kitchen counter as sleep began to creep its way back into my eyes. I was whining about the energetic Selphie that had just left to go down to the beach. Her bouncy mood had woken me up for my bed and pulled me down stairs to watch them leave.
"Selphie, it's been two days..." Irvine whined. Though he could've stayed home theoretically, he just never left her side even if he wanted to. "We still have like... four days. Plenty of time. How 'bout later w-"
"No!" she insisted. "Irvy! This is the last good day left! Besides, the clouds are coming back tomorrow and it'll rain again." She pouted and somehow roped the cowboy into actually going with her. She also convinced me to join her down at the beach for lunch. It happened so fast - I think the person who actually caught the full of the conversation was Squall, who was wide wake.
"I don't get how you people can live at ungodly hours like this," I continued to whine to him.
"Rin, it's eight in the morning-"
"Seven fifty!" I corrected, with my head still against the counter.
"How do you get to school?" he asked.
"My classes started at nine."
He rolled his eyes. I caught the look and pushed myself up, shaking the sleep out of me. "Okay... fine... I get it..." I stuck my tongue out, followed by my hand. "Food."
He looked down and my hand and laughed, but handed me a bowl and cereal anyway. "What would you do without me, Rin?"
"I'd live," I said, and stuck out my tongue again. The cold milk hit me as I ate and my brain began functioning. "Where-"
"Sleeping," he said simply, dropping his bowl into the sink. "They didn't get much of it last night."
My head snapped up. "What?"
He didn't say anything.
"But-"
"Yeah."
"Selphie and I sleep next door to them!" I exclaimed, "How come you know and we don't?"
"You're heavy sleepers," he said, sitting down next to me.
"But Quistis would never-"
"Never what?" she asked, coming down the stairs. Seifer followed behind her rubbing sleep out of his own eyes. Squall nodded and handed her the paper for that morning. She smiled back and murmured a "Good morning."
"Uhh..." my body suddenly became stuff. I bit my lip, trying to come up with a nice way to say things. "Um... I mean... what you and Seifer... last night..."
She stared at me confused. "What's so bad about that?" she asked, walking over to the cupboards and getting out some mugs.
My eyes became wide and my mouth floated like a fish's. Seifer sat down in front of me scratching himself like the slob he was in the morning.
"I suppose it is a bit out of character for me..." Quistis mused. Her eyes fell a bit out of focus as she thought about it.
"It's not that bad," Seifer continued, looking like he'd fall asleep right there on the table. I was about to fall off my chair when he finished up the story. "Godfather movies are classic."
"What?" my voice dropped down a couple octaves. He continued to stare at me through squinting, sleepy eyes.
"I can't believe you made me watch those," Quistis said, pouring coffee into a mug.
"They were awesome," Seifer shot back, suddenly awake upon hearing Quistis shooting down his favorite movie. "You said you liked them."
I watched them continue arguing just as Squall passed the counter with a smirk on his face and turned the corner to go up the stairs.
It was a few seconds later, my brain clicked. "SQUALL!" I screamed, running after him.
The week flew by quickly, though we really only had about 2 days on the beach. True to her word, the clouds that Selphie spoke of came along. Though they were a day late, they still came and poured down on us midday while we were still out. We came back in soaking wet, but with smiles shining through all of our faces.
We successfully created a sand castle (along with a moat around it) on the afternoon of first day, and Selphie and I managed to bury Irvine in the sand the day after that. On more than one occasion the boys chased us down the beach, picking us up and one by one carrying us out to the water to drop us in. That often resulted in a water fight, all of us splashing water at whoever the figure in front of us was. The two days on the beach often ended like that, followed by a beach sun set and dinner prepared by the girls.
Our three rainy days were spent inside (of course). Most of the time we sat in front of or by the TV room since it was next to the kitchen as well. We only really watched TV about half the time. The other half of the time, the TV was on the TV Guide channel, and we waited until something interesting came up. We always had a board game set up in front of the TV as well, and played in between commercials and boring hours. Sorry, Monopoly, Candyland, - you name it, we probably played it. By the end of the week the stack of games that we had gone through grew to be as tall as the big screen TV that sat by it.
The time spent inside was spent well though - the guys watched more TV than all of us girls combined. Selphie and Quistis however, took the chance to teach me to become a better cook. Most of the dishes I learned were desserts and not actual parts of meals, but I think I got the hang of cooking. I told myself that when we got back, I definitely would have to buy some pots and pans for the room.
"I think," Quistis said one day while teaching me to separate egg whites, "that we should give you cooking lessons more often."
I watched closely as the whites dropped into the bowl below it but the yolk stayed whole. "Why?"
"You're not as horrible as you think, Rin," she replied with a gleam in your eye. "When you set your mind to it anyway."
"She's right you know," Selphie said, removing a pie from the oven that was dessert for that night. "Once you got over that fear of cutting yourself, burning cookies and over cooking the meat, you picked it up pretty quickly. You'd probably be okay with a few cookbooks and a timer."
I looked at them doubtfully. "It's true!" Selphie exclaimed.
"Whatever you say..." But deep down, I was quite proud of myself.
After dinner, I always hid my portion of dessert in the fridge and snuck out while everyone else sat deep into a mystery show or laughing at a cheesy game show.
The rain didn't plan on stopping anytime during the night. It was just the right time of the year: it wasn't too hot, but it wasn't too cold either, so I didn't catch a cold, and it didn't get so dark that I would've gotten lost by stepping out of the house.
Each time I went out though, Squall always followed like a bodyguard. I never left the property; I always just danced around in the driveway out front or on the yard along the sides. But never too far or out of view of the front door. The first day out I spun around and stopped as I caught sight of the porch. Squall sat on the swing pretending to read a book, but I could tell he wasn't really. He always pretended to be doing something, but not watching me. If not, then he always hid by standing in a dark corner so I couldn't tell it was him, or watched me from the window inside. Whatever he did, I always knew he was watching over me as I danced freely. I never mentioned to him that I saw him watching me though, and he never mentioned to me that he watched. It was our little secret that never came out.
I took a deep breath and sighed, wistfully looking around. Sunday morning had finally arrived - though much sooner than any of us expected it - and the boys were loading up the van to go home.
"You know..." I said, gazing at the mansion sized home sadly, "I had a lot of fun here. I mean, even without the beach. It was the whole point of this trip to begin with, but... it was fun. Inside I mean."
"Yeah," Squall agreed from behind me. He and Seifer jumped out of the van as they finished loading. "Yeah, it was."
A breeze blew by, causing me to shiver and rub my arms. I laughed and scrunched up my nose. "Guess what? It's not summer anymore."
"Really? I had no idea..." he rolled his eyes and shut the trunk.
"Yup," I leaned against the car. "Back to the world of early mornings, creepy teachers and take out dinners - not that we had very many late mornings here either."
"Didn't we get rid of that saying when we graduated?" Squall asked, moving me away from the car to open the door.
"Are you kidding me? The teachers followed me up there!" I laughed. "Besides, I didn't get take out every night in high school."
"You never know..."
I climbed through the door that he opened for me, whispering a quick 'thanks!' and sat down in the very back seats. Selphie and Quistis climbed in the middle seats again after Squall sat in the back with me, and Seifer and Irvine sat in front. It was the same seating arrangement as when we came.
"Can you remember not to take any unknown shortcuts this time?" Quistis sarcastically asked Seifer, who was driving. He grumbled as he started the car and backed out.
Within a few days we were back in school and our daily routines fell back into place. Our next vacations were a full month away (save the weekends where we had little or no classes). True to my world, I went back to eating take-out dinners and a soda every night (much to Quistis's dismay - "Why'd you bother to learn to cook then?" "Because I could.") and waking up by 8 every morning. We still met up with each other at the cafe after classes everyday, and then split up into pairs while walking home.
After a few weeks, Selphie, Quistis and I discovered that we all had an upcoming weekend free. The boys unfortunately were not, and the weather wasn't looking up. Though it didn't rain, it was still cold and cloudy. Changing our routine a bit, they brought their belongings with them one day as we met up and came over for a girls' night in. Selphie had also gotten the pictures from our trip developed and brought them along to show us. There were dozens of them - more than that even. If we knew anything about Selphie, it was that she was camera crazy.
As we flipped through the photos laughing, my phone rang. I got up and check the caller ID before picking up. The number looked like I'd seen it before, but I didn't stop to figure out why.
"Hello?" I answered, setting down the photos.
I received no reply. All I could hear was a static-y noise on the phone, and possibly heavy breathing (though I couldn't really tell over the loud static).
"Hello?" I tried again. This conversation seemed familiar some how. "Hey, who is this?"
I heard a chuckle. "A karma that hangs over your head."
"What?" But I said it too late. I heard a click from the other end signaling that the caller had already hung up. I stared at the number. Where have I seen that before?
The volume on my phone was turned up fairly high, so the exchange was heard by both Selphie and Quistis as well.
"Rin?" Selphie asked softly. "What was that?"
I looked over at her. "I don't know..." That number... that voice...
I shook my head and grabbed my address book, setting it down on an end table before sitting back down with Selphie and Quistis. They were still in deep thought about the conversation.
"Hey Selph? Can you hand me that album? I finished this one." I pointed to a small photo album with a heart on it that rested by her feet.
Our moods changed immediately after that, and we forgot about the weird phone call for the time being. Between our jokes and laughing, we had no time to think about serious things like that! Selphie took pictures of nearly every waking moment at the beach house, developed them and sorted them - by day, by location, by mood. There were enough to fill up many books - she also went out and bought several photo albums with different covers to match the ones she sorted. One with a little palm tree on it, one with dice on it... it was insane how she went crazy with little things like this. But that was Selphie for you.
There were pictures of us building the sand castle, playing Monopoly, cooking (or in my case, trying to)... she some how even managed to get some of me dancing in the rain. One picture even captured Squall (or the back of his head rather) watching me from the porch.
"How'd you get these?" I asked, noting how professionally done they looked.
"Easy," she said, surprising me a bit. "I looked through the windows."
"Oh."
Selphie laughed as I shook my head at how obvious the answer was. I flipped the page and giggled some more.
"Aww..." I held up the album to show them both. "How cute!"
Quistis looked up and practically dived at me. "Holy crap! How'd you... when did you--?"
"We were all there," Selphie shrugged, waving off her reaction. "You guys just sort of... fell asleep."
We giggled together, Quistis fighting a laughing behind her hands. She let out a sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
"I just... can't believe you took a picture!" She laughed as she said this, taking the album from my hands.
The photo was of Quists and Seifer on the couch of at the house. We had been watching a movie on TV that ran late that night and Quistis had fallen asleep on Seifer's chest. He didn't mind of course, and put his arm around her, but soon fell asleep himself. Selphie had taken that chance to snap the picture.
She stared at it some more, and the other 3 photos on that page. She shook her head, turning the page and smiled - almost like she was getting revenge. "Speaking of love bugs..." she turned it to face us.
My eyes widened. "Oh crap... Selphie! How'd you get these pictures!"
"I don't know, ask yourself! It's you after all."
"I don't remember posing like this! ... I think," I added hesitantly, grabbing it from her. "Give me that!" I laughed and looked closer.
Squall had been chasing me down the beach at that time, and managed to chase me out into the waters. We were knee deep in the water - he was anyway - in our swim suits and laughing. He had one arm wrapped tightly around my abdomen that had lifted my entire body into the air. Selphie had followed us down there as well, because Irvine chased her too. But she didn't go in the water because she had her camera with her, and took a picture of me and Squall instead.
"Argh..." I groaned and blushed, tossing the album back to them.
"Do I sense a love connection?" Quistis teased. I glared back. She scratched her head and put on a frustrated face, mocking me. "I don't know... I honestly don't know. What do you think Selph?"
Selphie just burst out laughing. Quistis joined in and I sat there rolling my eyes.
"No!" I insisted. "Are you kidding me? Me and Squall?"
"Happened once before..." Quistis reminded me, still trying to calm herself.
"Yeah, that was also when we found out he was a cheating bastard," I said. Selphie and Quistis immediately stopped their laughing. The glanced at each other and me worriedly. "Remind me why I forgave him again?"
Inside, I was regretting every word I was saying. But at the same time, I was beginning to think that I somehow tricked myself into something.
"Because you knew - or thought I guess - that you still had a chance."
"Right..." I shook my head, denying it all. "Where do you guys get this stuff?"
"TV!" Selphie said happily, trying to cheer us up. I giggled and turned the page to find more beach pictures, but this time of Selphie and Irvine. Irvine's head poked out of the sand as Selphie sat next to him patting his head. She also had him embracing her over by the waters, them watching a sun set, and a drawing they made in the sand on the page.
"Okay, this is the love connection that we were talking about earlier," I told them and showed them. We flipped through some more pages of them. Selphie and Irvine's love was definitely too mushy for the rest of us.
"Hey.. what's this?" We were at the last page of the red heart album (I finally understood why there was a heart on it - every single photo hinted at romance). There was only one photo on it, rather than 2 like on the other pages.
The two people in it were a shy brunette and a tall blonde. The blonde had a tattoo along the side of his face and his thumbs up. Zell?
"Huh?" Selphie moved it to get a closer look. "Oh yeah! Irvy and I ran into them at the grocery store that one morning."
"Thanks, Selph. That really helped a lot," I sarcastically told her. "I mean, I totally couldn't tell you were in a grocery store by all the vegetables behind them and the cart saying Paul's Grocery."
She laughed and continued. "That's Zell's new girlfriend. She's really shy about everything, but she was really nice!"
"Really?" I asked. I didn't really talk to her that one day we met.
"Guess he's over you," Quistis said, pointing. "Look how cute they are together!"
I nodded as something came up in my mind. I began getting up as Selphie told Quistis about her.
"They are really cute Quisty! He always holds her hand like he's afraid she's going to run away or something, but she said-Rin? Where are you going?"
I walked out of my room and into the kitchen where I thought I set my address book. Where'd it go?
I walked all around the apartment, looking for it. "Rin? Rinny, what're you looking for?"
"My address book." I said, distracted, walking right past them to keep looking. I could see them glancing at each other puzzled. "I... I just thought of something."
Brushing past them again, I walked back into my bedroom. "Ah-ha! Got it!" I walked back out, almost crashing into them again.
"Rin, what's going on?"
I sat down next to my phone and flipped through the address book and caller ID machine at the same time. "Zell... Zell... Zell... found him! Zell!"
"What does Zell have to do wit-oh my gosh." Quists made the connection immediately.
"What?" Selphie asked Quists. She looked over to me. "What's going on?"
"It's the same number," I said, looking between the book and the number on the phone. "It's Zell's cell phone for sure."
Selphie finally grasped it. "Stalker dude!"
I giggled half heartedly. "Yeah. But..."
"But what?" Quistis asked. "We know who called you now..."
"No, we already knew that," I said sadly. "This only proves it. Remember? I told you guys that I heard him on the phone, but that was only because it was his cell phone. The caller wasn't him."
"Then who is it?"
I threw my hands up in the air. "I don't know!" We all sat in deep thought and silence. I don't get it... how does Zell tie into this?
The phone rang, causing all three of us to jump and give a little shriek. I laughed at myself and placed a hand over my beating heart.
"Wow. We really need to stop having these serious talks." We all laughed as I picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"So how's the girls' night in party?" A deep voice flirted into the phone. "You want to turn it into an even better party?"
"Irvine! Sick!" I yelled into the phone and got up to walk around the room a bit.
"Irvy's on the phone?" Selphie asked excitedly.
"Yup," I held out the phone. "Say hi to your girlfriend."
"Hey babe!" he yelled into the phone.
"Hi honey!" she yelled back.
"Selph, we live in an apartment," I reminded her quietly. She let out a little oops and took the phone quickly.
"How's it going?"
"Good," she answered, finding a bag of Goldfish and grabbing it. "Why?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to check on my favorite girls."
"Aww... Irvy, you're so sweet!" she said, standing in front of the refrigerator that she had just opened. I made a move to take the phone from her hands. She backed away, saying some last words on the phone. "Ah... Rinoa wants the phone now, so I'll tell you stuff tomorrow, okie?"
"Alright."
"Bye honey," she sweetly cooed into the phone before handing it to me as I pretended to be throwing up. I laughed and took it from her.
"What'd you really want?"
"Is that how you speak to your best friend?" he asked, acting as though he was hurt.
"Yup," I said shortly.
I heard him give a 'humpf' and move the phone. "Squall wants to talk to you."
My eye brows raised questioningly as he took the phone. "Hello?"
"Hey..." I answered softly. Wasn't this the guy I called a cheating bastard a few moments ago? "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he answered sincerely. "We just wanted to know how you girls are doing. We finally finished up our classes, so us guys are all done now."
I smiled. "That's... nice. Um..." I hesitated. What did he want me to say?
"You notice how Rinoa goes mushy every time she talks to Squall?" Quistis whispered to Selphie.
I covered up the mouthpiece of the phone. "You guys!" They darted into my bedroom and away from me.
"What's going on?" Squall asked, sensing our conversation.
"Nothing," I said quickly. "We're just looking through our pictures from vacation."
I think he nodded from the other end, but you never really know with Squall. I heard a door chime from his end. He probably walked out the door of the cafe...
"Rin?"
"Hmm?"
"Are Quistis and Selphie next to you?"
"No, they're in my room. Why?"
"No reason..." he said softly and sighed. There was a long pause.
"Squall?"
"Hmm?"
"You still there?"
"Yeah... sorry." He apologized, but there was once again a pause in the conversation.
"Squall, is something wrong?"
"No," he said quickly. "No."
"You can't think on the phone Squall. Phones, unfortunately, don't work that way," I joked. He was still silent. I suddenly became worried. What if there really was something wrong?
"Rin..." he spoke quietly. It was more like a delicate cry, like he was upset about something. The way he spoke that night...
"Squall, what's wrong?" I had been sitting on the counter of the kitchen, but slid off.
"Did you know," he said softly, "It was a year ago tonight that we broke up?"
I froze. He remembers that? I looked at the calendar. Huh... it really is.
"Um..."
"You probably didn't care," he continued, sadness still in his soft voice. "But I did. Just thought I'd let you know."
I remained silent. Why?
"It's been a full year still we broke up and went our separate ways, a year since we last held hands..." I stifled a cry as he said this, my memories resurfacing. I slid down to a crouch and leaned against the cabinets. "You seemed to survive it well," he said, and chuckled softly. "But I don't know how much longer I can hold out."
I fought back a cry as he said this. What's going on? Why's he doing this to me? "Squall..." I cried softly into the phone.
There was a shuffling sound on the phone before he spoke. "Sorry to keep you away from your friends. I just couldn't help thinking about you tonight. Go have a good time with the girls tonight, okay Rin?"
I took a deep breath and wanted to say something, but it didn't come out - it couldn't come out.
"Do me a favor and take care of yourself, okay?" he added. "See you later."
There was a click. He hung up. I put down the phone and wiped away the tears that began to form in my eyes.
Squall.
Why? I shook my head and wiped my eyes, checking my appearance in the reflection that the microwave gave me. I stood up and walked back to Quistis and Selphie. I swore that nothing would ruin our girls' night in that night, no matter what.
A/N: To make up for taking so long, I tried to make the chapter itself long. ) Hope that's long enough! And hope you enjoyed it. Please review!