Nowhere But You

Chapter 19

Robin paced around her apartment. Her favorite alternative rock station blasted from the radio in her living room. A weekly countdown was on, as every Sunday afternoon. She wasn't really listening, she wasn't thinking either, she was just walking around while she rubbed her hands and her arms, tied the hem of her loose t-shirt into a knot and then undid it, and repeatedly tucked a strand of loose hair behind her right ear. There was definitely something making her uneasy.

A familiar sound started coming out of the speakers and as a reflex reaction she ran towards the radio to turn it down, except when she realized she didn't really have to. River wasn't around.

It was Wicked Garden's first single, which was still getting airplay. Whenever it came on, River would turn it off. He always excused himself saying he wasn't happy with the final product in terms of mixing and production, but everybody knew that it was because listening to it still made him feel somewhat conflicted.

Robin stopped for a second and listened to the song, -really listened to it- for the first time in a long while. It felt like listening back to one of those old songs you used to love and then for some reason never listened to again. When a few years down the line it came on the radio, you just remembered it. And you gasped. And it started playing in your mind like a millisecond before the sound came into your ears, because that melody and those words been engraved on your brain all this time. And you remembered why you loved it. And you began humming and singing along, like not a minute had gone by since you last heard it. And all the memories attached came back.

She breathed deeply and smiled. It dawned on her that a little over a year and a half before this, she had absolutely no idea she'd be here now. She had taken the plunge of freeing herself from a life plan, albeit not in the most orthodox way. She was making it on her own. She had found an occupation that was actually fulfilling and that made her explore and display talents she wasn't aware she had. She had found her people. She had come clean with her relationship with her best friend. She had fallen in love. She stood up to her stepfather. She had experienced unfathomable loss, in several ways. She had her heart crumble in a million pieces. She had to mend and start over. She had a rock. She had love. She was okay.

She had found her place.

Her place.

The sound of her bare feet on the floor almost overpowered the music as she walked fast and sturdy towards her fridge and took a piece of paper secured with a magnet on the door, next to one of Andrea's postcards from Paris. She walked back and sat cross-legged on her couch, picked up her phone and dialed the number scribbled on the said piece of paper.

"Hello?" A voice said from the other end of the line, after three rings.

"Hey." Robin frowned, surprised. "I wasn't expecting you'd pick up."

Nathan scoffed. "I wasn't expecting you'd call here."

"Well, you keep crashing on that poor boy's couch." She said nonchalantly, referring to the fact that Nathan was still staying at Eli's tiny apartment. "Do you even fit in it?"

"Barely." Nathan joked.

"When are you gonna find a place of your own again?" She complained.

"Soon."

"Hurry so we can talk properly on the phone."

What's going on?

"Well, Eli's in his bedroom playing guitar with his headphones on," Nathan explained, "I can guarantee he cannot hear a thing from the outside world."

"Or," Robin sighed, "Maybe I don't want to talk on the phone."

In spite of their recent separation, Nathan hadn't lost his ability to detect when something was unsettling Robin over the phone, before she even mentioned it... or before she even realized. They both had mastered this craft over the years, especially during those times when they lived miles apart.