white boys (river phoenix)

11

Chapter Eleven

(Sunday) Robin woke up the next morning, though she felt no enthusiasm to do so.

"Ugh," she groaned, wishing she could bend over and vomit away the night before. She turned around to fall onto the floor on purpose- it wasn't like she was in any shape to be walking anyway.

She fell over to find a note standing next to her. On it was scrambled words in River's neat, small handwriting.

The note read:

Dear Robin, you got sick at the club last night. I brought you home along with both Coreys. They wanted to apologize for dragging you off somewhere that you definitely didn't want to go. However. I have to ask you if I can come over today and if you would talk with me about something. It's real important.

Sincerely, River.

Robin furrowed her brows as she read the letter over and over, sort of like how River had last night with Robin's poems that he discovered the day before.

She reread the letter one more time, hoping that whatever the news was, it wasn't that she threw up in his car or something.

She thought to herself, trying to remember anything that may have happened the night before past the creepy bartender and ordering those drinks. She remembered snippets of driving in River's car with the radio playing. Besides that, nearly everything else was an ominous blur.

Her parents- what did her parents have to say about this? She wondered if they even knew anything about it. And were they home by the time she'd gotten home? She didn't know, but there was only one way to find out.

She got ready as if she'd just woken up from a normal night rather than waking up with what felt like a major hangover. She knew she hadn't been drinking, but there was only one way to describe how sick she felt, and that was "hungover." She brushed her hair out, then brushed her teeth and washed her face in an attempt to make it look like she was freshened up. She couldn't find eyedrops, but her eyes were extremely bloodshot.

She'd have to find a way to cover her eyes, so she decided that covering her forehead with her hair so that her eyes were hidden was the best idea. She sighed, taking in a deep breath and trying to find answers to the questions she knew she'd be bombarded with as soon as she got into the kitchen. Her parents were home this morning since last night had marked the last of their meetings they had to go to before school started.

Hesitantly, she walked down the stairs to see her parents drinking coffee at the table.

"Robin, you're up late today," Robin's father spoke first.

In an attempt to seem like the normal Robin, she chuckled weakly.

"So, are you excited to start school tomorrow?" Robin's mom asked.

It hit Robin then that the next day marked the first day of school.

"Uh... yeah," she smiled, trying to hide her loathing for the fact that school was tomorrow and she felt like a broken record making scratchy noises and distorting the words to her favorite song.

"Robin, are you feeling alright? You look a little dull, and your hair's a mess," her mother commented.

Robin hastened her process of making a bowl of cereal so she could hurry back upstairs and eat some.

"Oh, it's nothing. I just have a bit of a headache is all," she lied, nodding her head slowly in order to seem convincing.

"Oh sweetie, do you need some Advil? Tylenol?" Her mother nagged.