white boys (river phoenix)

16

Chapter Sixteen

The next day at school (Thursday), River had been avoiding Robin all five periods they'd been through. At lunch they sat together, but only because the Coreys would be sitting with River anyway. She'd go up to talk to him in the halls and he would act like he dropped something or would quickly go the other way, regardless of whether he'd have to walk all the way around the hall to get to his next class. She knew she really blew it by acting the way she had that morning and by kicking him in the shin when he offered to walk her home, since his house was across from her's. It was even worse considering Corey Haim and Feldman were both their friends, so they'd want to hang out altogether without any knowledge of what had happened between River and Robin.

She was sat in math class next to Feldman and in front of Stacey while Mr. Pointer made his funny, yet corny jokes. Feldman seemed a little off all day. Not only was he struggling not to make sexual jokes for the whole day due to his bet with River, but he also seemed a little more dainty. Robin wondered if it had anything to do with Heather, who was all over Feldman not too long ago.

When Mr. Pointer instructed the students to copy down what was on the board, Stacey tapped Robin on the shoulder.

"Yeah?" Robin whispered, turning around.

"You got a pencil I can borrow? For the rest of the class," Stacey asked, and Robin tried not to roll her eyes- why was she so needy?

"Here," she said, after finding a pencil with barely any eraser on top of it to hand to Stacey.

Stacey scrunched her nose up as she held the pencil and surveyed it, but muttered a "thanks", anyway. Only moments later, while the scratching of pencils and shuffling of papers could be heard through the bright classroom, Stacey spoke again, leaning into Robin to make sure she could hear her.

"Your friend River's real nice," she said dryly, like she knew something Robin didn't.

"Yeah he is," Robin forced a smile even though she wasn't even looking at Stacey.

"Y'know, I hope you two don't have anything going on, I saw you both on Wednesday, hugging on each other. Whatever it is, I hope it's nothing serious- like I'm not coming in between anything," Stacey said, clearly foreshadowing something else that could have happened.

"What d'you mean?" Robin asked, tilting her head back just a little, furrowing her brows.

"Oh, well nothing. It's just, I don't mean to seem conceited but, I think he likes me."

Robin wasn't angry. There was no reason for her to be angry, because River wanted who River wanted, and it didn't mean that she had to have a say in it at all.

"Oh," Robin deadpanned, trying to keep her face void of any emotion, but she knew she'd slipped.

At that, Stacey tittered,

"Really, it's nothing. I just thought you should know."

At that, Robin knew that Stacey was probably just making things up, or lying to herself, because River didn't even like white girls,

"Oh. Well there's nothing going on between us, but thanks for telling me."

"Gotta help a girl out," Stacey shrugged. "You got another pencil? I just broke the tip of your's."

"No. No, I don't have another pencil. I'm using this pencil, and it's my last one," Robin said, the umbras resonating in her voice.

"No worries, I'll go sharpen it," Stacey said, waiting for Mr. Pointer to finish talking so she could get up and sharpen her pencil.