𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 • Robin Buckley

Chapter 10

It's 7:30pm. The air is crisp and the sky is a cool grey as the night slowly nears. With each step drawing closer to the towering set of boulders in the middle of the woods, dried autumn leaves crunch beneath Monica's sneakers, and her eyes skim past trees for that familiar sight of short brown hair.

"Monica?" a voice called from a few steps further down the small slope.

"Who's asking?" she teases.

"Does cool loser ring any bells?"

The moment Monica passed another humungous rock, Robin appeared behind the heights of a much taller one, her hair clipped atop her head in untameable curls and her body framed with the blue and black dress from that day.

Robin's lips slanted with a crooked smile that made Monica catch her breath. But as if brought back to earth, her feet picked up and she slipped off her corduroy jacket, leaving her in a white butterfly-sleeved top.

"You're going to freeze."

She wrapped her jacket around Robin's torso.

"I was told I have nice shoulders so I'm showing them off. Besides I'm part reptile! I don't get cold."

"Don't get cold my ass." Monica tugged the jacket a little, assuring it was secure before letting go. When she took in the space around them, she noticed soft white fairy lights dangling from a tree branch and two paper crowns sitting on a much smaller round rock, one white and the other purple.

"What is all this?"

"I wanted it to look less lame," Robin frowns. "The lights were supposed to hang across the branches but I couldn't reach so I just closed my eyes, hoped for the best and threw."

"Okay... and throwing fairy lights in the middle of the woods is normal how?"

"We won't get prom," Robin rose her voice defensively. "You'll go with Billy—"

"That's done," Monica interjected what she knew was falling into incoherent rambles. She neared Robin, slipping her hand onto her waist under the jacket. "No more casual sex, no more deep conversations—"

"Really?" Robin's eyebrows upturn, feeling more emotional than anything else.

"No mullet in my prom photos," she shook Robin's hip gently, working up a small smile onto her face. "Although, I don't know how that one's going to go down with my mom."

"If she didn't like me before."

"I don't care what she thinks. Your opinion is all that matters to me."

Robin could see how much Monica meant it, just as much as she could feel her own heart swelling in the pit of her chest. "I like you," she spills, "and I don't mean sandbox friendship liking, I mean like like. I have liked you for so long I thought I might combust if I didn't say it any sooner. And I can't be your date to prom, just like you can't be mine, but there's no rule against having a prom of our own."

Monica let Robin slip away from her, too overwhelmed in the daze of her emotions to cling to her any tighter. Robin picked something up that she had placed on the rock with the crowns, something in a wrapper. "So..." Robin held up a ring pop wrapper. "Your corsage."

"Wow, it looks delicious."

"It's cherry flavoured," Robin forces an enthusiastic smile until her entire demeanour falls with it in a matter of seconds. She began to unwrap the packet. "I didn't know where to get corsages and I felt too stupid to ask my parents so I just suffered and thought up an alternative. This was the best I could come up with apparently."

Monica let her slip it onto her right middle finger. "I love cherries."

"Good. Me too. We already have so much in common, great!"