Pay the Sun

Three

"Fine, but you're going first."

Robin takes the time to write a response, barely giving me enough time to read it before descending down the stairs.

Scaredy cat.

"Hey!" I call.

Robin's muffled, quiet laughter drifts up to me and my cheeks turn red. I'm glad Robin can't see me. There's no reason I should be blushing.

I follow him out into the hallway of rooms and then down the stairs again to the main room where the bar is. Robin taps my arm and points out at the floor.

The few dusty glasses that had been standing on the shelf look like they've been thrown across the room, landing somewhere in the middle of the floor. The front door is shut, just the way we left it, and the room is void of people aside from us.

"I can't handle this spooky shit," I say.

Robin smiles reassuringly.

"I mean, I cry during horror movies," I add. "Well, not really, but I want to."

Robin goes over to inspect the glass shards and waves me over. I follow after him, regretting wearing flip-flops as I maneuver my way around the glass. Robin kicks the pile experimentally with the tip of his shoe, as if to say, 'yeah, that's glass, all right'.

I look around the room, waiting for someone to pop out and scare us. No one does, thankfully. Robin points back to the stairwell and shrugs.

"You want to go back up there when there's possibly malicious ghosts?"

Robin rolls his eyes.

We'll be fine, Jules, he types, then adds as an afterthought, I'll protect you.

I feel my cheeks heat up. "Robin!"

Robin grins and a laugh bubbles out of his chest, the first clear noise I've gotten out of him. Despite him purposely making me flustered, I find myself mirroring his smile. I don't mention it as we walk up the spiral staircase and through the hallway, or even once we're on the rooftop. I don't need to say anything. What we don't say speaks volumes.

Usually, we meet up and hang out in the abandoned building, but we go other places sometimes. We'll go down to the park behind the Dupuy house, where we'll sit on the swings and talk until the sun goes down.

We spend most of the day with each other. Robin never seems to have to do anything, but I have to go do things with my parents when they want me to. On Saturdays, I go to therapy, so I have to walk to the doctor's offices from downtown at one o'clock, leaving Robin alone to do whatever it is he does.

It takes me exactly thirteen days of knowing Robin to get me to start talking about him during my therapy sessions. My therapist, Margaret Burns, who I affectionately call Marge, quickly points out to me how much of a positive influence Robin has had on me.

I pour out my worries to her, and these days, most of them revolve around Robin. I ask if it's wrong to get so attached to someone in such a short amount of time. I ask how I should go about his selective mutism. I ask about if I'm stable enough to be in a relationship, if I should want that, whether it would be good for us, whether I'm being too forward, if I should be worried about him, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

When I leave her office, I leave feeling lighter, uplifted, like a balloon that just got more helium put in. Happiness isn't something that comes naturally to me, but I've been working on it since I was twelve, and I've pretty much gotten the hang of it. I can manage stress now, something I couldn't do a few years ago. I can get out of bed with a normal amount of difficulty, which the pills help with. The pills help with a lot, not with everything, but some things.