Never I Thought

Chapter 32 - Try Before Failing

Robin was standing in the middle of my secret spot. His eyes darted around, still so confused. I hugged my jacket around me tighter, the cold air unbearable.

"This has been at the back of the school for years? And no one comes here? At all?" Robin pointed to all around us.

"Yes," I gave an exasperated sigh, "are you going to sit now? Or try to humour your way out of this?"

He gave me a sly look, "I don't know what you're playing at here, Mcurth. You ignored me for days and now, all of a sudden, you want to show me your top secret spot that no one's ever been to?"

"Okay, yes, from an outside perspective, I probably seem a bit..."

"Crazy," he raised his eyebrows.

"I was going to say misleading," I muttered.

It went silent for a moment. He could've backed off, he could've rolled his eyes and told me this was pointless and walk away. I know he wanted to, this interaction was too awkward for either of us. To my surprise, he sat down beside me.

"Go on then, crazy lady, tell me why you're misleading," he said, folding his arms as his knee bounced up and down.

"After what happened at the waterfall, I ignored your texts and calls and then it was like you disappeared. I thought I'd be happy, no longer having to walk into classes and have my stomach drop when you were there," I explained slowly.

"Ouch, you really know how to make a guy feel special."

"That's the thing, Robin, I wasn't happy. Suddenly, you weren't there and it was all my fault. Then you turn up to school today looking miserable and the fact that I caused you to—"

"Whoa," Robin cut me off, "hang on there. I didn't stop coming to school because of our kiss at the waterfall, I mean, yes, I was pretty miserable because of that, you finally wanted to kiss and then immediately pushed me away and started screaming at me, that's gonna hurt anyone's dignity."

"But?"

His face sobered from the playful banter he was trying to distract me with. Reality was beginning to rise in his throat again no matter how hard he tried to push it down.

"It was my mum. After everything that happened that night, I thought I scared her away. She turned back up and told me she really wanted to change this time, of course, I didn't believe it," Robin's voice getting softer by the second, "she was determined to come back into our lives, so I agreed to help her."

He took a breath, for a moment all I could do was look ahead. I tried to put myself into his mind, what I'd feel if my mum came back on my doorstep. I imagined there'd be a lot of tears I'd try and keep private.

"That's why I stopped coming to school. I didn't want her in my sibling's lives and I didn't want them to know their mum's back. I helped her during school hours, attend meetings and appointments, making sure she went."

"You did that all for her?" I closed my eyes, "just so she could come back to you?"

He shook his head, "not me. The damage is already done but... for Mel, Andrew, Nyla, Morgan. I want them to have a motherly figure."

"You still put yourself through a lot of pain, you're a really good brother, Robin," I said, he didn't look at me though.

I was sure if he did, he'd probably say something too deep, crossing the boundaries in his mind and therefore releasing things he had tried to keep locked up for so long.

"Eh, it doesn't matter now. My dad found out, they ended up in this big argument and then he and I argued. He forced me to come to school today and, well, I'm here."