20 Robin Goes on a Date

July 21st

I sat in the coffee shop and gnawed at my fingernails. I was looking back and forth between the door and the chair across from me. The empty one. The one that Skyler would sit in when he got here.

This was everything I'd ever dreamed of, wasn't it?

A date.

My first ever, with a gorgeous knight in shining armor who had already seen me at my most ridiculous and had still said yes. He'd. Love. To.

And yet, ricocheting through my body was a loud and high-pitched Help!

I was terrified. All my life, all I'd wanted was a cute boy to like me and go on a date with me. But now that it was happening, I was almost too scared to breathe.

I swear to god that when the question had left my lips, the only response I'd expected from him was laughter. But he'd said yes. He'd even seemed happy about it, as if ... as if he was interested in me.

What the hell do I do now?

I closed my eyes and took a few deep calming breaths through my nose, fanning myself with the menu.

"Are you okay?"

I opened my eyes and nearly swallowed my tongue. Skyler was standing over the table, with a concerned, amused smile. He was wearing a plain T-shirt and jeans, but forever looked as if he'd just stepped out of the pages of a magazine. Especially backlit by the very last rays of a classic late July sunset.

Swallowing my nervous scream, I tried to grin up at him in a nonmaniacal manner. "I'm fine! Hi!" I sprang to my feet and grabbed the back of the chair across from me, holding it out and waving my other arm toward the seat like I was presenting a car on a gameshow. "This is for you! I mean, this seat, sh-should you choose to accept it, is yours. You can sit down here. If you want. Please."

At the last minute, I managed to clap a hand over my mouth, hoping it seemed like I was simply doing something normal rather than physically forcing myself to shut up. Then I sat my freakish little ass down and set my hands flat on the table so they'd stop embarrassing me.

Skyler appeared to accept the deeply confusing gesture and sat down, biting his lip in understandable awkwardness. "Thank you. Um."

"Eheh." I managed to spark the ignition in my brain. "Um, so how have you been? What do you do? What do you like? Where are you from?" I cut myself off with a pinch.

Skyler froze for a minute, then managed to smile. "Should I answer all of those at once or one at a time?"

"Sorry, how about the first one? How are you?"

"I'm okay. Better than I've been. How about you?"

How did he expect me to think while he kept smiling at me like that? "B'gah ... Oh, um fine. You know. Better. Than the other night. Heh." Was it just me or was it a million degrees in here? "I'm glad you agreed to this. To meet up with me."

His smile turned a little shy, and it was all I could do to keep from melting. "Yeah, I don't exactly know how to make friends, never been good at it ..."

Friends?

Oh.

I swallowed hard, gripping the table to keep from keeling over dead on the spot. "Really? Y-you don't have many friends?"

He seemed thoughtful for a moment. "I've only ever had three—two back home and one here, and"—I swore his cheeks went a little pink—"I guess you'd make four."

I smiled as warmly as I could and nodded. "I'd very much like to make four."

He laughed softly and started perusing the menu, while I had an internal all-out hissy fit.

Friends.

Yes. I was mad about that, but you know what made me even madder? The fact that the moment he'd said that, I'd been flooded with relief.

How much of a coward could I be?

Still, it had become infinitely easier to think and speak.

Skyler got himself a cup of tea, and I got a raspberry cheese pastry, and we both munched and sipped for a while. I kept swinging between desperation and despair—one minute I was trying to find a way to re-ask Skyler out on this date, make it clear to him what my intentions were, and the next I was trying to keep myself from doing exactly that by stuffing larger and larger bits of pastry into my mouth.

"Hey, slow down." Skyler chuckled and patted my hand, causing me to almost swallow my own tongue. "It won't run away."

I swallowed painfully and coughed. "S-so two back home?"

"Excuse me?"

"Two back home. Friends. You said you have them."

He still seemed confused, but then his face cleared. "Oh, yes, um, Matt and ... Matt and Delia."

Delia? His voice had hitched a bit when he said her name, did— Oh my god.

Oh my god, was I that off base? Dear sweet lordy loo, Robin Finch's faulty gaydar strikes again—disaster ensues! "Delia, huh?" I choked.

Skyler nodded, quietly staring into his tea with the tragic Byronic brow I'd been dreading.

I swallowed even harder. "And she was just a friend?" I was a glutton for punishment.

Skyler's cheeks colored, which was quickly replaced by a delicately masked hurt, some pain he'd already become adept at papering over. "I, uh ... it was complicated."

I waited silently, trying as ever to not start screaming and tearing my hair out.

Finally, he broke into a sad and self-deprecating smile. "I guess it's pretty classic ... my brother's girl and all."

Oh you would lead a life lifted out of a country song. "That's too bad," I managed.

He shrugged, staring down into his mug.

I got the distinct feeling there was more to this story. "Did something happen?"

Skyler looked up quickly, clearly horrified. "No. No. It's just ..." He took a deep breath. "It's complicated because I thought I didn't feel that way about people. Like, I'd never experienced that before. Ever. With anyone."

"No other girls?" Where did I get off asking him stuff like this? Why not just straight up ask: Have you only ever been attracted to girls or have you ever considered dating non-girls? A boy maybe? Specifically a short, skinny, red-haired boy who may or may not be sitting across from you right this moment? Please?

Amazingly, Skyler didn't appear embarrassed by the question and seemed to be seriously considering it. "Nope."

That right there? That was a cruel and enduring little ray of hope. "So she's really the only girl you've ever liked?"

He nodded, then gave a sad laugh. "She's the only person I've ever liked, in that way."

Yes, that did mean what I thought it meant—Skyler could very well be bisexual or pan. Oh dear god, why am I doing this to myself?

Just as I was about to start hyperventilating, Skyler gave a gentle cough. "Wow. I've never actually told anyone that before. Obviously I can't tell Matt, that's my brother. It used to be that anything I couldn't tell Matt, I could tell Delia, but they're so happy together and I just needed to get out—" He wet his lips, clearly forcing a smile. "What about you?"

"W-what about me what?"

"I don't know, who was your first crush?" He was trying to seem playful, which combined with the silky locks and twinkling blue eyes might well have been illegal in certain states.

"Benny Horrowitz, kindergarten. I watched him swallow a slug, and it was the greatest feat of bravery I'd ever seen." This was getting stupidly uncomfortable. "Let's not talk about me. It's boring. Where are you from?"

"I'm from Seattle, where we have slugs but don't usually eat them. As far as I know." He shook his head at me, smiling. "And for the record, anyone who admits to being into slug-eating is automatically the opposite of boring. Where are you from?"

"Ah, Seattle. Rain. Space Needle."

"Are you telling me you are also from Seattle or are you avoiding the question?"

"What, do I not look like I could be from Seattle? Not good enough for the Pacific North Wet?"

"Robin."

He said. My name.

I swallowed hard and forced a laugh. "Okay, yeah, I'm from here. Like, here here." I nervously crumpled the edge of the wax paper my pastry had come with. "My whole life. Same town. Same people, same ... issues." Oh no.

He watched me carefully for a moment, then, "Issues? Like that guy? The one who ... assaulted you the other night?" He said it in a gentle voice, like I was an animal he was trying to keep calm.

My body tried to shudder at the memory, but I was holding myself as stiffly as possible now. "Yeah, Terri Bishop. He's been doing stuff like that for years." There was no point in lying; Skyler had already seen the worst of it.

Skyler was frowning, and his hand twitched like it might take mine, which it couldn't because I'd die. "Years?" he asked. "You haven't told anybody?"

I shrugged, surreptitiously taking my hands off the table and clasping them over my knees. "Yeah. Um, I actually have, but you know how it is. This isn't the kind of thing people care about. Even though he usually does this stuff in public, he makes it look ... Like, he makes it seem funny, mostly, so they don't see it as a problem, I guess? He was supposed to have moved away, but—" My breath hitched, and I forced a grin. "Well, at least I got to meet you because of it."

Skyler didn't smile back. "What do you mean people don't care?"

I took a deep breath. "He's good at making it seem like we're friends. Like it's a game, and I'm in on it. A-and when I've tried to fight, it gets worse, so—so I just don't."

Skyler was straight up scowling now; the simmering rage behind his eyes almost made me faint. "That's horrible. I'm so sorry. Someone should do something. You can't live your life in fear."

All I'd wanted was a date, and all I got was Dateline. Typical. I tried to keep grinning. "Watch me."

"Robin, that's not funny." He looked so sad, and he'd said my name again. Ugh. "I'm sorry, I know it's not my place, we just met, but—"

"No, no, you're right." I sat up, frowning. "And actually, on that note, I'm going to head home before it gets too dark." I got to my feet, crumpling up the rest of my pastry into its waxy paper bag.

Skyler's eyes widened. "Wha—? Do you want me to walk with you?"

Oh no, I couldn't possibly handle that. Mercy. Uncle. "No." Then despite myself, I immediately added, "Can we meet again, though? Soon?"

He nodded, brows furrowed. "Sure, just let me know when you have time." His concern was causing my legs to liquefy again.

"I will. Um, nice seeing you." And I shot out the door as quickly as my liquidy legs could carry me.

This was so beyond typical. He wanted to save me—the thought made my cheeks burn and my head try to float away—but not in the way I wanted to be saved.

Friends. No, not even friends. He thought of me as a kitten he'd saved from a tree. I didn't want to be his kitten. Or his friend, I wanted ...

What I couldn't have. As usual.