Mission Impossible//Robin Arellano

Part XVII

Why Now

I was sprinting to the Grab 'n' Go. Finn's game starts in 15 minutes and it's at least a 20 minute walk to there from the school. I had a tutoring session that went 10 minutes late. This better not mess up mine and Robin's meet up.

I made it the store with a few minutes to spare. I could see Robin leaned against the wall by the glass doors. As I made my way up to him, he noticed me and a smirk appeared on his face, quickly changing to a smile.

"Hey.. I'm so sorry.. I'm late. My tutoring session.. went late." I said between pants.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it." He laughed a bit at my effort to get here on time. "Let's walk and talk so you're not late again."

"Hm?"

"The game..?"

I had completely forgotten about the game at this point since I had focused my full attention on Robin.

"Sounds good."

We walked for a bit and made small talk about how our days were and I apologized again for being late. I caught him giving me nervous glances every now and then, which made me start to feel nervous. He definitely had something to get off his chest.

"What?"

"What?"

"Why do you keep looking at me all nervously?"

"I'm not." He was quick to defend himself. Like usual.

"Yes, you are. If you have something to tell me, get it over with."

"Will you go to the dance with me?"

I froze in my tracks. I was too stunned to speak. He really asked me to the dance the day before?! The audacity he had. I won't lie, I had been hoping he would ask me, but it's nearly the end of the day. Why would he wait so long?

Maybe he wanted it to be special. But asking me at the Grab 'n' Go doesn't seem that nice. Maybe he waited so it could be more private and not be a huge public thing for all the kids to see. Yeah.. that's it.

"Valerie?"

"Hm? Oh! Uh.. yeah. Yeah, I'll go to the dance with you."

"Really?!" He jumped up out of pure excitement. I smiled a toothy smile and laughed at him. "What? You don't think I could be a cheerleader?" He started mocking the cheer chant and doing some of the jumps poorly. When he stopped, we looked at each other and burst into a fit of laughter. I immediately got deja vu from when me, Finn, and Gwen would laugh with each other over summer. I'd finally found my non-platonic equivalent to them.

•_•

Finn's team ended up winning their game by a significant amount. Me and Gwen cheered as loud as we could and Robin just clapped. He never really showed lots of enthusiasm at sports events, but he put effort in for his friend.

He asked Donna to the dance and she obviously said yes. It was so cute watching them hug each other and awkwardly walk away from each other with pink faces.

Gwen and I planned to have a sleepover on the night before and the night of homecoming. We just needed more time to hang out with one another and Gwen wants to help me get ready. She said she'd make me look "extra pretty" for Robin.

She always knew how to make me smile and she gave me a good laugh. Especially with her commentary during ridiculously stupid horror movies with an idiotic main character. Yes, characters in horror movies are a bit dim witted, but that's what gives the horror movie a good plot. If the victim doesn't trip while running, they'd get away and there'd be no way the killer would kill them.

I offered to get some snacks and drinks from the kitchen since Gwen's dad was awake and he wouldn't act out if he saw me. Finn was in the kitchen as well, enjoying his bowl of cereal. We shared a smile as I opened the fridge. I pulled out two coke bottles and got some ice cream from the freezer. Finn stood up and handed me the ice cream scoop and two bowls.

"Thanks." He nodded in return and went to sit back down when his dad got up from the table. "Get to bed soon." We nodded and went over to the living room. Gwen had been flipping through channels to find a horror movie. She ended up on a channel with a horror movie we had seen a million times. The Car.

We were about a quarter into the movie when flashbacks from Idaho started to fill up my brain. All I could see was my dad in the back off the cop car, the female cop who helped me at the station, and my sister's gravestone. Tears immediately spilled out of my eyes and Finn, who was sitting next to me, noticed.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"My s..sister's gone... and my dad killed h..her." I was trying to silently sob so Mr. Blake wouldn't hear me. Finn engulfed me in a tight hug and I placed my face in the crook of his neck. I continued to cry while Gwen played with my hair. That always calmed me down and she knew it, but it wasn't working this time.

All I could think about was why my dad would do it. How he could kill his own daughter. It didn't make sense. She never did anything wrong. She was the perfect child that every parent envied. Their kids would go to hell and back just to get praise from their parents like she did.

I spent the rest of the movie with my head on Finn's shoulder and Gwen's on mine. They were my favorite people in the entirety of the world and I couldn't imagine life without them.

a/n
this chapter is a roller coaster of emotions and im living for it. im currently taking a writing class so i can improve this story when i edit it. tomorrow is the dance which means like two more chapters. 😭😭