Gina, a haunted girl rapidly approaching womanhood, stood alone on the beach, gazing over the cobalt water with her aching copper pools. Her swarthy hair danced lightly in the ocean breeze, tickling against one cheek as she tried to deny the stirrings in her heart, resting her cheek against one hand as she pushed her headband away from her eyes. She wore a granite shirt that left her swarthy arms bare and pale shorts that looked comfortable and easy to wear. Her mane flowed in a copper torrent past her shoulders, complementing her hollow amber visage. 

Her thoughts wandered to her days in Ricky's company. It must have been fate in mortal form that brought them together. She knew from the moment she laid eyes on him that they were meant to be. From then on, Gina was sometimes needy and close, but then suddenly cold and fearful. Ricky also behaved strangely, one moment adoring, scathing the next. That was how it was to this very day. 

“Gina," Ricky said simply with no trace of emotion. His ochre depths complimented his amber coiffure, kept masculinely short, belying his mournful heart. He was dressed in his usual everyday clothes. He had a toned but slender body covered with coral-flushed lily-white skin. As Gina drew nearer, she caught a note of his familiar scent, a mixture of earthiness and sourness that was uniquely his. Her globes softened. It always reminded her of the time they shared. 

"Ricky. I feared you might not come," Gina whispered. 

"I don't know why I bothered," he murmured. 

She lowered her windows to her soul, down and away back toward the turquoise sea. "Then maybe you should go." 

A pause. "No." He brushed his hand against hers, almost as if by accident. "Come." 

Neither of them spoke for some time. It wasn't uncommon for them -- they'd exchange poker-faced glances and walk in silence for hours, until finally, they somehow touched, and overwhelmed by pain and loneliness they would turn to each other. It was no different this time. They had tracked halfway down the shore, down to where a cliff rose to block their progress, before Gina turned to Ricky and whispered, "I waited a long time for today. I... I missed you a lot." He didn't say anything. "It's like I told you before. You're all I have...." 

She sought out one of Ricky's hands with hers, but he drew away. "Just be quiet." With an agonized glance, Gina let her hand drop. "Every time. Cry, cry, cry. That's all you do." 

Stricken, Gina turned away and began to weep. 

Each sob was a blow against his will and heart. At last he took a deep breath and dictated, "Stop. ... Please. You... you have no idea what effect you have on me." 

"Why are you like this to me?" Gina whispered. "I... I don't understand. I need you, Ricky. I need you like I need air. I'd do anything for you, but you still treat me this way...." She folded her arms across her chest and took a shuddering breath. "Do you hate me, Ricky?" 

"What if I did?" he mused. 

"I would fall apart," she whispered. "I would have no reason to be." She waited for some kind of reassurance that it wasn't true, that it would never be, but it didn't come. She bowed her head. She should've known better than to expect such a display from Ricky. 

Instead, he took a few steps toward the cliff and arced his head to gaze up its height. "If I could be as open as you," he pondered, "I would consider myself lucky." 

"Please let me in," Gina wept. "Please. Together we might be able to bear this cruel world." 

She was without a father. He was unable to forget that someone. Maybe she had a point, he thought. Ricky approached her and brushed a finger below her cinnamon globes. "Perhaps... that might be..." he mused before stepping away again. Gina blinked, and wet her cheeks again with tears as Ricky walked away -- and then hurriedly followed, for she had nothing else in the world. 

After a few moments, they found themselves walking down the beach again. Gina couldn't stop thinking about her shroud of pain. It plagued her endlessly -- while she was far from him and while she was near. It threatened to consume her. When she had let the faintest hints slip in the moments before, it had already taken taken so much of her will. 

Ricky's hollow spheres passed over her once impassively before at last he seemed to steel himself and intone, "Gina. You've been worrying." 

"Ricky... it's..." 

And at that moment everything came together, all of the magic and the hurt that had been building that day, and he locked his orbs with hers and whispered, "You can tell me." 

It was like a floodgate burst, or some barrier of fear had been struck down. Gina shook her head and everything came out at once. "I don't know if I can put it into words. I... lately... it might not even be just lately.... It's nothing. It's nothing! I just... I don't feel well.... I don't know where it is, whether it dwells in my heart in my head. It hurts, Ricky... there's nothing that helps. Except that... sometimes, I feel a bit better when you're by my side...."

Ricky listened silently and solemnly. At last, when all the words had left her and she was at a loss for words, he reached out to her and took a deep breath to whisper back, "Gina... that's awful. It wish that weren't how it is. I wish I could say more. Gina...." Gina's eyes began to burn, and she abruptly pulled him into a fierce embrace. His globes widened at first, but then he too felt overwhelmed by emotion and succumbed to the warmth of her touch. 

"You," Gina whispered, her breath hot on his ear. "As long as you're here, I... I can make it." 

"Gina..." Ricky laid a hand on her shoulder, pushing her lightly so that they parted enough to look each other in the eye. "The truth is, I... feel the same way about you." 

Gina tilted her head forward, pressing their foreheads together, and whispered, "What is it, Ricky? Have you... been in pain, too?" 

"Gina, it's..." Ricky took a shuddering breath and whispered, "I keep thinking about her. You know, we... were together, in our own way.... I didn't want to talk about her all the time with you, Gina. I want you to know... it's not the same. But, no matter what... when I think about her, it burns. She... isn't someone I'm going to forget." 

Gina laid a kiss on his jaw and rested her head against his heaving chest as she murmured, "Oh, Ricky... I, I'm so sorry. I wish nothing so awful ever happened to you... I love you so much...." They held each other as tears trickled down cheeks and dripped onto the shifting sands to be carried away into the sea. With time and soothing embraces, their pain dissipated into a mist swept out by the ocean breeze and into the setting sun.