melancholy bliss || rini au

32. scream

lucas laid back against his couch in silence, watching a few movies and still ignoring his texts and missed calls from his friends. he just needed time alone.

he heard loud knocking at his door, sighing in annoyance as he arrived towards it and opened it, revealing a shaken nini wearing her coat and her eyes all puffy and red as if she had been crying for hours

"neens?" he asks worried, pushing away all the pain and hurt that he felt towards her.

"h-hi-i-" she opens her mouth and realizes how this probably wasn't a good idea and sniffles, shaking her head "i-i'm sorry-"

she turns around to leave but lucas reaches out and grabs her arm

"hey, come in," he says assuringly, pulling her into the apartment and closing the door

nini felt her eyes stinging and tears welling up again as she sniffled and tried pushing them back, rubbing her hands over her face as she let out a breath and followed lucas into the kitchen

he places a glass of water on the counter, leaning his hands against it while nini paced back and forth, breathing heavily and fiddling with her fingers.

so many messy thoughts and emotions were filling up in her brain and she felt like she could scream. like she could just cry out for someone to just understand what she was going through, but she couldn't. she felt a pain in her heart and ricky's words kept haunting her: "because of your dumb insecurities and pathetic crush."

"are you okay?" lucas asks in a small voice, looking at her in concern

nini lets out a bitter laugh and drops her arms to her side, shaking her head

"am i okay? am-you know what? no! no i'm not okay." she snaps, all of her feelings flowing out of her "you know what i hate? i hate that everyone thinks that they can just hurt and make fun of others. it's like no one cares about anyone's feelings apart from their own. it's always about what other people want and feel, but hey, has anyone come to think about how i feel? no one is listening to me. no one understands that i'm hurting too-i-i just-i'm so sick of having to hide and be careful of protecting others when no one does that for me!"

lucas swallows as he sees nini run her hands through her hair in realization after her outburst and her eyes tear up again as she breaks down, sobbing loudly as she feels her breath getting caught in her throat.

"hey," he whispers, coming around the counter and pulling her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her small frame as she cried into his chest, his heart breaking at the sound of it.

"i-i can't-"

"it's okay," he says

nini shakes her head and pulls away "h-he hates me. ricky h-hates me."

"no he doesn't," he assures her, pulling her back into his chest as she holds onto him tightly

"he does. h-he th-thinks i'm pathetic-a-and he's right." she cried

lucas pulls away and lifts her head up for their eyes to meet, wiping her tears.

"you're not pathetic nini," he tells her

nini shakes her head and shudders a breath "you h-hate me too. you should."

lucas takes a deep breath "look, i'm not proud of the way things ended. and yeah, i was hurt and mad. but i don't hate you. i should've put myself in your shoes and i'm sorry for that. you were my friend before my girlfriend."

she sniffled lightly and managed a small smile "th-thank you..."

he smiles reassuringly at her and took a deep breath "come on, i know what you need."

"w-where are we going?" she squeaks

"you need to let your emotions out somehow don't you?" he chuckles, leading her out of the apartment and towards his car as they drove off

they arrived at the same cliff edge he had taken her weeks ago, him leading her towards the very end as they saw the beautiful sunset landscape.

"w-why are we here?" she asks, sniffling again.

he looked around them "there's no one here for a couple miles so; scream."

she blinked a few times and kept a confused facial expression "w-what?"

"when i moved here 2 years ago, i found this place. i would come here when i needed time alone and to think, sometimes i even sort of scream when i'm so fed up and frustrated." he explains "it helps. trust me."

nini looked around her, feeling slightly ridiculous as she took a step forward and looked at the landscape.

"so-i-i just-scream?" she asks again

he nods and she looked in front of her for a few seconds, taking a deep breath before she finally let herself go and scream as loud as she could.

lucas raised his eyebrows in slight surprise and saw as she continued screaming, knowing she was going to break down again but also he knew that was what was meant to happen. she needed to let everything she'd been keeping all these years out.

nini felt her heart breaking more and more as she thought about everything and felt her eyes tear up as she started crying again

she fell to the ground and lucas rushed towards her, taking her in for a hug and she shook her head

"i-i hate this-" she sobbed into his shoulder

he nodded "i know. but i'm here for you okay?"

nini nodded slowly and shuddered a breath as she felt more tears falling down her face, feeling slightly more light inside of her from letting her feelings out.

"after this we'll go get some coffee and dill pickle crisps," he suggests with a small smile, pulling away

nini managed a small laugh as she nodded "th-thank you lucas."

"anytime."