Bridgeport Academy 2

40

Unbearably early the next morning, Robyn stood in the doorway of her Latin class, willing herself not to fall asleep on her knee-high-booted feet. The manage to get out of bed on Monday and Wednesday mornings was to set out a new outfit the night before. Today she wore her cashmere wrap sweater in the palest pink imaginable, a brand-new black skirt with a kick pleat in the front, a sexy pair of hand-crocheted black tights, and her black leather riding boots. But neither her sexy outfit nor the adrenaline high from last night's girl-talk meeting could keep her spirits up—Latin was mind-bendingly boring, and Mr. Gaston, who, every Wednesday called on one student to recite five lines  from memory, did not make it any more bearable. She paused outside the door to his classroom to take five deep breaths.

"Can we talk for a sec?" Chris suddenly stood in front of her, wearing his army fatigue sweater—the one with the holes in the elbows. Robyn hated that she knew every piece of his wardrobe by heart. And that she had his schedule memorized and therefore knew when she could and couldn't expect to see him. He was supposed to be across campus right now, in Webster Hall. So what was he doing here?

"What's up?" Robyn tried to make her voice sound apathetic, but she couldn't help it—the moment she laid eyes on him, she trembled a little. She tried to think about Mr. Gaston calling on her to recite a passage and that calmed her a bit, but also soured her mood. "I told you we could talk before bio." 

Chris placed his hand on Robyn's arm and pulled her to the corner of the hallway, out of the way of people entering the classroom, and stared at them knowingly. "I couldn't wait that long. Look, I..." His voice trailed off. He did look kind of awful, like he hadn't been able to sleep last night. But chances were, it wasn't because he was thinking about her or anything—he was probably just playing stupid video games until 3 A.M. again. She steeled herself against him. "I want to get back together." 

With me? Or with Kae? Robyn couldn't help thinking. She stared at the dark circles under his eyes and wound the soft pink sash of her sweater around her fist. "Wh...what?" She looked up just as Teyana stepped into the classroom, but not before giving Robyn a giant, totally obvious wink.

"I made a huge mistake." Chris's eyes looked sadder than she'd ever seen them. "I really didn't mean to hurt you. I think I just needed some, um, time to think." He gulped. "But I love you," he blurted out, as though he'd said it a million times before.

Robyn bit the inside of her cheek, her heart aching in her chest. She'd wanted Chris to love her for practically ever. Okay, well, for months, and it had felt like forever. But his timing could not have been worse. Last night, in front of practically the entire school, she and Kae had made a pact to put their friendship before Chris. Why couldn't Chris have said this to her yesterday?

"So you broke up with Kae?" Robyn asked suddenly, remembering that last she'd heard—from Kae—she'd been the one to suggest they take a little time to think.

Chris stared down at his shoes. The worn-out toes of his brown Vans looked funny against the freshly polished marble of the hallway floor. "Yeah, well, I haven't actually done that yet." 

"You've made everything much too complicated." Robyn couldn't look into Chris's eyes—it was too hard. She was afraid he'd be able to see through all her bravado and realize how much she missed him, and how much she longed to just lean into his arms and pretend it was last year. But it wasn't, and Chris couldn't make it all go away by just snapping his fingers. "Just because you feel this way now doesn't mean you'll feel this way tomorrow. How am I supposed to know that you're not going to just change your mind again?" Robyn looked down and suddenly remembered that her kitten-heel riding boots were the same ones she'd been wearing that awful day when Chris told her it was over. When she'd had to cross the quad, bawling, in front of the entire world, to go back to her room and hide and cry on Jasmine's shoulder, feeling like her life was over. That had been the worst day of her life—and she'd had some bad ones, like when she'd broken her collarbone falling off a horse and her kitten, Butterscotch, had been hit by a car on the same exact day. But nothing had compared to how completely rejected she'd felt when Chris had dumped her like that, so heartlessly and out of the blue.

Chris opened his mouth to say something, but Robyn cut him off, tapping the toe of her boot against the hard marble floor. "No." She liked the way the sound of her voice resonated in the now-quiet hallway—it made her feel tough. "We can be friends. That's it. You can't always get what you want, Chris Brown, whenever you want it." She hadn't realized how much she'd let her anger creep into her voice until Mr. Gaston appeared in the doorway of his classroom, his black mustache twitching with irritation. 

"Is everything all right here?" 

"Yes, we were just finishing up a conversation." Robyn nodded firmly and, with a last look over her shoulder, slid past Mr. Gaston into the classroom, leaving Chris alone in the empty hallway.

She was glad she'd told him off and gotten the final say. Except she couldn't quite help thinking about how nice those words—those three gorgeous words—had sounded coming from his mouth.