white boys (river phoenix)

29 - Skin

"Go to your room, Leaf," he coaxed in a gentle voice, giving Leaf a soft nudge on the back.

"Hey, why can't I stay here?" he whined.

River glared at him, but the kid still didn't get it. Then River raised his brows at him and said,

"Go, Leaf!"

Leaf shook his head, his hair going this way and that, and his arms folding as he huffed. Nonetheless, he got off the bed and walked into the hallway and down the stairs to look for his absent mother so he could complain. Robin smiled sadly and when he was gone, she leaned on the doorway to River's room, while he sat still looking up at Robin with an empty look in his eyes, still cradling his guitar. One foot hung off the bed and the other rested against his knee and made a triangle shape. Robin folded her arms and one foot rested on its tippy toe behind her leg, her face surveying his.

"Hi," she said, mustering a small smile.

He tapped on his guitar, and pouted slightly,

"Hi."

"Not a very nice way to treat your brother, is it?" Robin joked, though her voice was quiet and melancholy.

"Eh, he'll be okay," River reasoned, reaching over his head and pulling off his guitar straps from around his body. He turned behind him to hang the straps up on the wall hook dangling over his bed.

"I was just kidding," Robin smirked.

He had dopey eyes and his mouth dropped into an O-shape.

"Oh."

"So, how's it going?" she asked, stuffing her hands into her sweatpant pockets.

"Fine. How are you?"

"I'm good. Well, getting there, but I will be," she shrugged.

"We all will," River fought off a smile. He liked this girl so much, she could run him over with an eighteen-wheeler and he still wouldn't get a clue. But he was trying not to let his walls down, which was unlike him when it came to Robin. And in this case, Robin was trying to open up, which was unlike Robin in general. "Well- so... what are you doing here?"

"Um, I actually wanted to talk to you."

"Right now?" River's head bulged and his voice squeaked.

Robin snorted.

"Yeah, you busy?"

"Well- I- no."

"Good."

"Good." There was a swift pause which River intercepted. He patted down on the now empty space at the bottom of his bed where Leaf had been and awkwardly said, "You can uh, sit here."

She did so, sitting criss-cross applesauce on his bed after taking off her shoes. River did so too, and they had another staring contest, before they both spoke the same time,

"So." They chuckled, then both said: "You go first."

They both laughed again, but River cleared it up,

"Well, you came to me, you should go first."

"Okay... well, I just wanted to say... I just wanted to say..."

There it went again. The word vomit that eventually turned into real vomit all in Dennis' bathroom toilet. Not Dennis, River's. Stop thinking about him and grow the hell up was what she kept thinking. But this time, she didn't get that feeling. She was very calm and felt like anything she said to River she could trust for him to keep between just the two of them, unlike with Dennis.