Tell Me Something I Don't Know.
A/N: Dedicated to SomeGuy, to prove to him that I'm still writing.
“You’re in love with Gabbi, aren't you, Grandpa?”
I turned to my younger friend, Rishi, a girl about fourteen or so, with bouncy brown hair and blue eyes that normally sparkled with excitement. Rishi was kneeling down on the sidewalk, her finger tracing the concrete ground as if she was deep in thought.
“Aren’t you?”
Rishi’s simple, yet quite blunt, words took me by surprise. Normally, Rishi was so cheerful and happy, but her eyes told me something was bothering her, and she was upset...did it have to do with me?
“Well? Answer me, damn it.”
“...I am in love with her. How did you know? I mean...is it that obvious?” I replied. I could feel my face turn a bit pink at admitting something so personal.
“Not really.” Rishi said. “Guess you could call it instinct or woman's intuition or something.” Rishi shrugged, her back turned to me. “You’re in love with her, but she doesn’t know. That kind of sucks, Grandpa.”
Honestly, I wish she would stop calling me by that nickname she gave to me when we met. So what if I was two years older than her? She didn’t have to make me feel old.
“What’s your point with all this?” I asked carefully, trying not to get her angry. I had never seen Rishi angry--and frankly, I didn’t want to know what it was like. If she was anything like Gabbi, which she was, then all Hell would break loose for me if she got upset.
Rishi looked up at me, almost glaring. I recoiled. Defiantly like Gabbi, I thought.
“You’re so stupid, Grandpa.” She muttered, returning to her former activity of tracing the sidewalk. “You don’t have any guts to tell the girl you’re in love with your feelings. Sure, Gabbi can be scary sometimes--I've experienced her wrath a lot--but so what? Why are you so scared?”
“Are you reading my mind?” I asked her, pushing my sandy brown hair out of my eyes.
“No. It’s just written all over your face.” Rishi said bluntly. “It’s so stupid, grandpa!” She faced me as if we were about to fight a major Street Fighter battle. Her fists clenched. “Why can’t you tell her? Because you’re afraid?! You coward!” Rishi yelled, pointing an accusing finger at me. “It doesn’t matter, cuz you—-she could be in love with you, too...!” Rishi's voice turned desperate.
Realizing her tears, Rishi quickly turned away, wiping her eyes. I had never seen Rishi act like this before—-she was always so cheerful and carefree-—but it was like something was eating away at her at that moment, something important to her...
“I’m waiting for the right time.” I said, shaken. “I’m waiting for the right time to tell her.”
Rishi pouted, tears brimming in her blue eyes. “There’s never a ‘right time’, dummy. You can’t wait for a perfect opportunity...your problems aren’t just going to ‘go away’ if you wait. You have to carve your happiness with your own two hands! If you wait on your ass your entire life, all you’ll end up with is regrets...you’ll really be able to be a grandpa by the time you realize that, at the rate you’re going.” Rishi folded her arms, looking at the horizon. “Don’t do something stupid like that.”
“You enjoy saying the word stupid, don’t you?”
“Damn straight.” Rishi shot back. “It’s the truth, you know. You are being pretty stupid.”
I sighed. “You’re not like a lot of people, Rishi.” I finally said, smiling.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I mean...You don’t hide behind words like a lot of other people do you speak the truth...people our age aren't the types of people to do that.”
“You’re two years older than me, Grandpa.” Rishi said, cutting me off from my monologue. “You’re hardly ‘my age’.”
“Guess that’s true.” I laughed. “But still...you’re different. Unique, if you will.”
Rishi grinned at me, the grin I had come to know so well. “Again, tell me something I don’t know.”
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