34 Robin Has Nothing to Lose

July 31st

Okay. So. It had officially been a week of me ghosting Skyler. Four days since I'd seen him in Armand's class, which I'd stopped going to, obviously, and I had somehow miraculously managed not to run into him anywhere else on campus. It was safe to say he hated me at this point.

"Or he's completely forgotten about you," Maggie added. "That's always an option."

We'd finished a tech run-through a few minutes ago, and I was trying to convince her to get lunch with me. She was resisting because she had "work" or whatever.

"You don't mean that." I sulked. "I'm a lot of things, but ‘forgettable' isn't one." I was perched on top of a speaker, and two different sound-techs had already yelled at me about it, but I'd simply hugged my knees and pouted.

"You are definitely a lot of things." Maggie raised an eyebrow at me, shrugging on her backpack. "So if he hates you now, why not just text him?"

"What?"

She started out of the theater, and I scurried after her.

"No, seriously, what do you mean?"

"Like, what do you have to lose at this point? Either he hates you and doesn't text you back, or he does answer and we know he's got zero self-respect."

She was right. Not about Skyler having zero self-respect (I could only be so lucky), but about the stakes being at an all-time low.

So I said goodbye to Maggie and tucked myself into a shady corner of the theater plaza, trying to text faster than I could change my mind.

Robin: hey so I'm a piece of shit do you still want to hang out

Then I flung my phone onto the bench I was occupying and breathed into my cupped hands.

The sound of the notification all but stopped my heart.

Skyler: where are you

I stared at my phone. Was he serious? I told him I was in front of the theater and barely managed to stop myself from reminding him what a total asshole I'd been for the past week. In detail.

Skyler: I'm outta class, see you in 5

I stood up from the bench and started pacing the plaza.

There was no way he was coming here to like, kill me, right? Though it seemed more likely than the idea that he was absolutely fine. That didn't make any sense.

I widened my circle of pacing slightly, which brought me to the edge of the plaza steps, able to peer out over the quad, see if I could pick out Skyler coming toward me—

Or.

Conversely.

Terri Bishop, discretely vaping behind a tall magnolia, could glance up at that exact moment and lock eyes with me.

I was frozen to the spot. He was alone, there was barely anyone else around, just a few sunbathers who might as well be lawn ornaments—no real witnesses, no attentive audience, and yet Terri had tucked his vape-pen into his pocket and was starting toward me. Deliberately.

In my worry about Skyler, I'd dropped all vigilance. I'd gotten so good at avoiding Terri, anticipating where he'd be, steering clear of highly visible places on campus, but now I'd gone ahead and offered myself up like chum to a shark.

He was getting closer. I needed to move.

My feet barely came unstuck and I stumbled down the stairs, my legs weak and nightmare-watery, ready to buckle under me at any mome—

"Robin?"

Strong hands gripped my shoulders and kept me from falling facefirst onto the path. Without meaning to, I clenched my fingers in the stretch of T-shirt across his chest and stared up into Skyler's painfully blue eyes.

"Fuck," I managed. And glanced over at Terri in time to see him casually change direction—as if he'd never been headed toward me. Skyler followed my gaze, and the two of them actually made eye contact for a moment.

"Is that the guy?" Skyler asked, the hands on my shoulders growing the slightest bit tighter. He was watching Terri with a frown that would have made the gods bow down and beg for forgiveness. "That's him, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry I didn't text you back!" It burst out of me, practically a screech. "And I'm sorry I was so weird in class, and that I ignored you and—"

"Robin." His face was full of concern, though he couldn't quite hide the hurt. "We can talk about that in a minute. Is that the guy who as—"

"I want to talk about it now." I took a deep breath. "I—" Think of a lie, think of any lie "—I was embarrassed about what happened with Terri, and then I freaked out in class 'cause—'cause—'cause I wasn't expecting you!"

Skyler's beautiful shoulders slumped. "You were avoiding me because of what I said at the café, weren't you? About reporting Terri." His perfect brows converged. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pressure you into talking about it."

"Yes." I was going directly to hell. How was he apologizing to me? "It's a work in progress." God, he looked unreal. "I'm just sorry my ... my drama got in the way of becoming your friend. Can we try again?"

Directly to hell. Do not pass Go.

He smiled back at me, though the muscles around his mouth were still tight and his eyes were sad. "Yeah. Um. I'd like that. But maybe this time, don't vanish off the face of the earth?"

"I won't," I promised. This could work. As long as he never found out what a horrible, manipulative liar I was. "So, a little bird told me you were on the hunt for good local pizza?"

"A little bird, huh?" He laughed. "Was this little bird perhaps one of the many texts I sent you that you didn't even read?"

I grinned at him winsomely. "Nope. Definitely a bird." It might take him a minute to stop being mad at me, but it already made zero sense that he was even talking to me right now.

Maybe Maggie was right and Skyler's standards were low enough for me to clear. I was certainly going to try.