Materia Enhanced V, page 3 (Patreon)

I was worried if I got too clever with Rikku's dialog in the last panel that it wouldn't be obvious enough she's lying, and that the truth was she couldn't decide to use the materia on anyone and took so long she had to run back.

I thought this could be a funny direction for the story with her situations being more and more unreasonable trying to find people to use the growth materia on.  This time she just didn't see anyone obvious, but as she becomes more desperate, she also only encounters non-choices.