white boys (river phoenix)

55

Chapter Fifty Five

The remainder of that month had been full of exciting, new things for Robin. Now that Robin's book was going through its final stages, the sales' team for Take Flight was beginning to promote her book towards booksellers and give Robin some PR. The book was due to be completely ready and printed and published in August. That meant after reading the fine-print and making the last tiny adjustments, all she had to do was sell it, and while this made Robin very nervous, the fact that she had even been given the opportunity outweighed all her concerns. On top of that, her mother was very noticeably pregnant, six months now and due to pop in mid-June. Noah Robert Skye was going to be a bouncing bundle of baby boy joy, and Robin was more than ready to meet her baby brother. Prom was soon, too.

And lastly, Robin was on her way to college. In mid-march, she had started leaving sporadically some days of the week or weekends to visit the colleges she got into. Though there was a lot to explore as she'd been accepted into so many great schools, Robin asserted that she had to visit the campus, had to stay overnight in the dorms, had to experience campus life because she needed to know the type of environment she was going to be in. In the past months since she'd been living in Boston, harnessing and taking control of her energy seemed very important to her now. If a place wasn't matching her energy, she knew it wouldn't be good for her and her transformation into the person she wanted to be.

And while education mattered to her, obviously, the schools she'd gotten into were all very good schools. So after playing tag between the Ivy leagues and the non-Ivies, she finally settled on Spelman College. Spelman College was the environment that Robin truly felt she fit into best. It was a liberal arts college in NoLa (it's actually in Atlanta but Robin is from there so I'm gonna spice it up) for women, and on top of that it was historically black. There was nothing better for Robin, it seemed. She hadn't had a chance to be surrounded by many black women except for when she hung around her old crowd back in Atlanta, who didn't live in the rich, gated, white community that she did. Her school had been all white and even to her it seemed that being a black woman was somewhat of a mystery. Of course, her mother was a black woman, but black women were their own individuals. She couldn't just base the entire demographic off of one person she knew from it.

There, Robin knew she could discover things about herself, and her culture, which she had previously been sheltered to. There was a lot about herself that she didn't know, and being around people that looked like her would open up a world of possibilities for her to learn these things. Robin wanted to be surrounded by people, specifically black women, who were interested in the same things as she. It would give her a chance to reconnect that she hadn't fully been given before.

Besides, she was very immersed in liberal arts, obviously, and this would be a chance to let her talent shine among people she didn't have to be afraid would ridicule her for it. If there was anything she wanted in a time where she was already getting what she wanted, it was this. This would be the icing on the cake for her. So she had accepted their offer and was set for Spelman College.

April was a month full of book surprises, and hospital visits for her mother's final week of pregnancy. Other than that, Robin didn't have much to worry about except for finals, which were coming up fairly soon, at least for seniors, who took finals in early May and got out late May, following Senior prom. In fact, Robin and River were studying for finals together.

"I mean, you understand the concept, and all. You just-"

"Don't like tests," River sighed.

They were in Robin's room, and River was lying on his back on her bed, playing with one of Robin's squishy stress balls. River was really smart, not just because he was all peaceful and philosophical, as most people might assume, but he sort of just got things. He and Robin were similar in that way- they both just had a natural grasp of certain things, were able to understand things without too much complication. This didn't mean the two of them never got confused, but academic and education wise, they usually understood something the first time it was taught. Still, once a hippie, always a hippie, meaning that River was not a big fan of tests and grades and organizing people by status in general. He only did well because that's what he knew how to do, he just did well because he understood things, they made sense in his mind. But, he had a small focus span and he didn't like big tests such as these, or standardized tests.