The rain had stopped by the time school ended, and the sidewalks were riddled with puddles that mirrored the sky. The air tasted fresh, yet was still heavy from the humidity. Ryann waited by the school’s entrance, hoping to catch her before she left. He waited ten minutes, twenty. Half an hour. Until most of the students were gone.
She never showed up.
Cole waited nearby, concerned for his best friend. He came over a few times trying to talk Ryann out of it.
Ryann answered with an icy glare. If Cole had brought up anything but ditching her, he would have happily had a conversation with his friend. But Cole just couldn’t stop pestering him about it until, eventually, he left, too.
Sighing, he checked his watch to find that it had been an hour since class had ended, and there was no sign of her. He stretched his body anxiously, feeling his chest tighten in fear, wondering if she had stood him up.
He worried where she could have wondered off to, before almost slapping himself in his stupidity. Booking it back to the school grounds, he could only hope she hadn’t decided that he had stood her up and left.
Running through puddles, into the main office building, and slipping on the waxed floors, he ran back out to the quad in a panting rush, squinting his eyes to get a better look.
An unmistakable tuff of red hair was sitting beneath the gazebo. She had lifted her knees up on the bench, and had buried her face in the crooks of her elbows, like a ball.
Ryann burst out of its cage of despair, and he beamed in relief. She was still here. Sprinting to the gazebo and running through puddles, he caught himself right at the mouth of the pergola, panting heavily as sweat ran down his smiling face.
She jerked her head up in surprise, and turned to face him.
The smile slid off of his face at the sight of tears. At the sight of her tears. She was in tears, crying, gushing from her honey eyes, down her ruby cheeks. And she was still so beautiful. He gulped awkwardly, wiping at the sweat on his brow before stepping into the gazebo, his heart pounding. He had never seen a girl cry before. Had he made her cry? Was this his fault?! He panicked, frantically thinking about how to bring it up, how to apologize, how to make it up to her for waiting so long. “Myah, I…” He could only manage to stutter, scratching the back of his blond head nervously.
Her face twisted as her tears swelled, gushing down her cheeks like fat raindrops. She unwound herself from her ball and pounced on a startled Ryann, clinging on to his chest as she sobbed loudly. “You do remember me! Oh Ryann, I thought you hated me like everyone else! You didn’t even talk to me earlier, and then you weren’t showing up after classes. I was so scared you had forgotten about me or wanted nothing to do with me, and I would have been alone again!” she cried loudly, her arms wrapped tightly around him as if she thought he’d just disappear at any moment.
All at once, the pain of her loneliness hit Ryann like a freight train. How long had she cried alone, where no one came back to greet her as they had promised? How many times had she been forgotten, or worse, deliberately ignored?
Ryann’s pulled her into a tight hug. His arms wrapped around her as if by instinct. Her body felt familiar and comforted in his arms. It felt as if he had been doing this all of his life, as if this was where his arms were meant to be every day of the year.
It was as if they were back on that beach ten years ago, hugging for the very last time.
She sobbed louder in his arms, hit by the same wave of nostalgia. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so comfortable in someone’s arms. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so alright or even wanted. Her sobs melted away to complete bliss in his presence. For the first time in a long time, she felt the warmth of a friend.
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