Letters to Robin

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: DEAR ROBIN

5th May

(Today's prompt: What happened when you found out you lost your loved one? Go into as much detail as possible)

Dear Robin,

Here's how I remember it. (Buckle up because it's going to be long)

You shook me awake at one fifteen in the morning, terrified that you were pregnant. You missed your period, and you hadn't been feeling well, and you were absolutely hysterical. It took me twenty minutes to calm you down. When you were composed enough, we took the elevator downstairs, got into the car and drove to the nearest target.

A Taylor Swift song was playing over the intercoms while I bought eight bottles of water. (I'd later force you to drink six of them) and a box of pregnancy tests. You stayed in the car.

It's only when standing in line at the register, behind a man with a keg of beers and a box of condoms, that I realize I never changed out of my pajamas. If it were any other day, I'd die from embarrassment, but I was too worried to feel self-conscious. The cashier lady scanned the items in my basket and turned up her nose, muttering something about teen pregnancies under her breath and giving me a little judgy look. As if my box of pregnancy tests were somehow different from the man who bought the condoms.

When I got back to the car, you were passed out in the back seat and I didn't have the heart to wake you up. There were bags beneath your eyes. It looked like you needed the nap. The drive back to the dorms seemed unending, the distance stretching out like an endless ribbon of asphalt. I remember stealing glances at you. There were mascara stains beneath your eyes and a frown on your face even in sleep. I thought about how you said you'd left him. That you were going to forget you ever met him because he lied to you, used you. That he had a wife.

I knew the decision tore you up, but I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry, not when it meant I'd be getting my sister back. I looked at the box of pregnancy tests riding in the front seat next to me and I knew that if you were pregnant, you'd be tied to him forever. I thought about the night you told me you met someone. You crawled into my bed like you sometimes did, but this time there was a secretive smile on your face and hearts in your eyes. You whispered his name like it held some kind of secret power.

“It's Professor Francis. I think we're in love, Reagan. But you can't tell anyone, he could lose his job,” you made me promise not to tell, but I wish I'd told someone, anyone, everyone. We had always been just a little smarter than everyone in our class, eerily so. Even with my ADHD. And when the early admission letter from NYU arrived, we were only seventeen. Robin, you were only seventeen. And Professor Francis was forty-five.

I thought about the day you came home with a bruise around your left forearm and the flimsy excuse you made about a tight dress cutting off circulation during a Magazine photoshoot. The bad feeling I had deep down in my stomach when your right arm was completely fine. I thought about all the bruises that followed and how they were always accompanied by reasoned explanations from you.

I tried talking to you, Robin. I tried to make you leave him, but you wouldn't listen to me. You refused to hear anything I had to say, and you shut me out along with everyone else. And despite the hurt and the pain and the way, I could see him breaking you down. Despite everything, I still I kept your secret. I thought about everything that led us to this moment all within the few minutes it took to drive us back to the dorms.

Waiting on The result of that pregnancy test was one of the most terrifying moments of my life and when the moment of truth arrived, and the reality of your pregnancy hit us, we both cried. You wanted to keep the baby, but I made you promise you wouldn't tell him. You promised me you wouldn't tell him, Roe. And when the sun came up, we would call our parents and tell them everything.