I couldn't sleep at all that night. Whenever my eyes dared to close I would see Robin's shaky hands in front of me. Joe brought me to the hospital, but they wouldn't let us see her. Eventually we had to leave. And after all that time all they could tell us was that they were doing all they could with her. I had no fucking clue what that meant. Did they mean she wasn't doing well? Or were they referring to her hands? What the hell was going on here?
I went to school on Friday mostly to tell the teachers about what had happened, although I expected them to already know about it. Surprisingly no one had told them; I was the first one. Didn't her parents tell them? Come to think of it, Joe and I were the only ones at the hospital yesterday. Her parents didn't even come to check up on her.
"You'd think the hospital would call her family up and tell them what had happened," Joe remarked.
"Maybe she doesn't have any parents," Kevin replied.
I didn't hit him this time; he could be on to something.
"Maybe she was bred by aliens or something," he continued.
Before I could even think of doing the usual, Joe did it for me. "Can't you see now's not the time for that?" he added, nodding at me.
Kevin pouted. "Sorry Zack..."
Sorry...
I could clearly see her again. I reached out to her, but she vanished. She was right there in front of me, yet I couldn't do anything for her. Hell, I was the one that caused her to be in such a state.
"Hey," John's voice emerged from my fantasy, "Snap out of it."
All I did was sigh. I had no other choice. I simply had to pay her a visit at the hospital after school.
I wasn't the only one that felt that way. Kevin, Joe, John and David visited her along with me. The second we opened her door we found her wide awake, staring at the ceiling as if it was an unknown monster she had never seen before.
"Hey Heart, are you feeling any better?" Surprisingly Kevin was the one to break the ice.
Robin looked at us. She didn't say a word. We stood next to her.
"Did the doctors say anything?" John asked carefully.
She nodded.
"What did they say?" David asked.
She didn't answer. She just kept staring at the ceiling.
I frowned. "Robin?"
Her eyes finally found mine. She seemed as if she was about to cry.
"What did they say?" I repeated to her, hoping she'd answer this time.
She slowly lifted her arms and placed them across her chest. Her arms were covered in bandages. A teardrop escaped the corner of her eyes. I made a sign at the boys to leave us alone for a while. They nodded and left immediately. Then I looked back at her.
"Is there something wrong with your hands?" I asked her in a low voice.
All she did was nod. I sighed.
"Did your parents visit you already?" I continued asking her.
She shook her head. "They're not even in the country. They're both on business trips."
"Oh..." Well, that sucked. "I'm sorry."
She shrugged. "What can you do? It's not your fault." She then looked at me in a serious manner. "And what Joe did, you shouldn't worry about that, either." She hesitated for a while. "I forgive you."
"You don't really sound like you do," I remarked.
"Well..." Robin paused for a while. "Just when I had started to put my trust in you, you wasted it. Of course it would take me a while before I could forgive you. But I know how it feels to blame yourself for something, so I won't just stand back and let you go through the same thing."
I didn't ask for further explanations. She could always enlighten me on that later. No, instead all I said was "Thank you". Her words really did mean a lot to me. But even so I couldn't just shove it all aside as she thought I would. Doing so felt like I would betray myself. It was still my fault she had the accident, whether she wanted to admit that or not.
Kevin opened the door and peeked at us. Someone obviously kicked him because he suddenly jumped inside.
"Where are your manners?!" David snapped at him.
Kevin opened his mouth to say something, but decided to keep it shut. He was probably up to no good anyway.
The guys came in and continued to chatter with Robin while I mostly lingered in the background, silently, but with a sincere smile on my face. I was still curious as to what was wrong with her hands, but she wasn't exactly in a good state to talk about it right now.
For the days that followed we continued visiting Robin to check up on her. She started to smile more and more. But I noticed it seemed like she was smiling to hide something, her pain perhaps. On our third visit I found out what it was exactly.
She told the guys she wanted to talk to me alone. As expected, Kevin reacted to this; he feigned he was offended. Joe smacked him before I got the chance to. David followed by pushing him outside while the others lingered behind. An uncomfortable silence fell as soon as Robin and I were left alone.
"Is... something wrong?" I asked her hesitantly.
She remained silent. After a minute or so she said: "I can't move my fingers so well." She paused to steady her voice. "What I mean is that it'll take some time before I can write and hold stuff with them again." Her eyes fell on mine. "That includes playing instruments. I guess you won't see me in the music room anymore."
No wonder Robin was so down about it. Did playing the piano really mean that much to her?
"I'm very sorry to hear that," I told her sincerely, "But it's only temporary, right?"
She nodded, pleased about that part. "Fortunately."
"Then all you have to do is get out of this place and get the hang of things again, right?"
"But how long will it take?"
I thought about it for a while, pulling a seat next to her and throwing myself on it. "Don't you have a keyboard at home or something?"
"I do, why?"
"Where do you live?" She told me her address and I wrote it down quickly. I hadn't noticed her hesitance as she did so. A smirk ran across my face. "And you leave the thinking to me, will you?"
She smiled. "Oh, so you're implying I never use my head?"
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure, whatever you say."
She chuckled. "How is school by the way?"
I shrugged. "Boring."
She smiled. "How so?"
Oh, a chance! "You're not there to spice things up."
She grinned, amused. "So let me get this straight... You use me as some kind of tool to amuse yourself with?"
I snickered. "You make it sound like it's such a bad thing."
"What makes you think I see it as a bad thing?"
"Oh, so it's a good thing then?"
"You're so annoying, Zachary Carter."
The way she said my name oddly made my heart skip a beat. I wasn't giving in to her charms, was I?
I wouldn't have realized I was leaning into her if Kevin hadn't barged in all of a sudden. I pulled back suddenly and looked at the ceiling; Robin did the same, but in the other direction.
"What is going on here?" Kevin asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
Neither one of us gave him an answer, but we both glanced at each other and smiled.
Before heading to Heart's house, I stopped by Kevin's first. He insisted I get to know his sister's new boyfriend. According to him, I wouldn't be a 'true friend' to him if I didn't voice my disapproval of him. I've told him over and over again that he was being too overprotective of her. Perhaps that was the reason why she went and got herself a boyfriend, specifically one he didn't approve of. It was either that, or the guy was an average guy like any other and Kevin was just overreacting.
"It's been a while since you came over," Kevin told me when I got out of his car.
I nodded. It's been over two months actually.
"If you want, you can sleep over tonight, too."
"I'll need to ask Mom first," I replied, "And you need to ask yours, too."
"Has she ever cared about that?"
"There's always a first time for everything."
"I guess..." He swung the door open. "Make yourself at home!"
I didn't reply to this. I could never really get used to his house anyway. His parents' bedroom was probably twice the size of my entire house. And don't let me get started on their kitchen.
Kevin's cook and nanny ran over to us with a big bowl of chocolate chip cookies. "It's been a long time, Zachary! Here, you two, have some cookies."
Kevin snatched three and pushed them hungrily in his mouth. He leaned against me, acting as if he was in heaven. I shook my head and grabbed one. I proceeded to take a bite and smile at her.
"It's nice to see you again, Gloria," I said, "I see you still make your signature cookies."
"Stop flattering me." Gloria laughed wholeheartedly. "How is your mother doing?"
"She's alright."
She frowned at this, probably noticing my answer didn't sound that convincing. Fortunately Kevin grabbed another cookie, gave her a random thumbs-up and dragged me to his room.
My jaw literally dropped open at the sight of it.
"What the hell did you do to your room?" I whispered to him.
His room was literally surrounded by staplers. Yes, staplers. I took one step inside and almost stepped on one of his staplers. Kevin's room was still spacious as ever. Spacious, and stuffed with office supplies. He either lost the rest of his marbles and thinks this is fashionable, got a job as a secretary or something, or he got a weird obsession with staplers.
Kevin grinned proudly and ran to grab one of his million staplers scattered over his desk. "Aren't they beautiful?" He hugged the stapler tightly.
I walked over to him and gently placed my hand on his shoulder. "Bro, you need some serious help."
He shoved my hand away, offended. "Don't you get it?"
"Not really, no..."
He sighed impatiently. "Haven't you heard about that new religion?"
"A religion?" What kind of religion would include the use of staplers?
"Yes, a religion." He rolled his eyes. "And I thought you were the bright one of the group."
I squinted my eyes. "And what is that religion exactly?"
"Well, last time I went to the store this girl told me I'd need to collect one thousand staplers. Doing so would automatically give me one thousand dollars. How great is that?" he explained, bringing me into even more doubts.
"Wait, what?" I asked, shaking my head in the process.
Kevin jumped onto his bed. "Look, I went over to ask her which stapler was the best. I wanted to buy one so I wouldn't have to steal Dad's all the time. And she told me all about it. I decided to buy both!"
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Sometimes it really made me wonder why this idiot was a friend of mine. "Kevin, she obviously lied to you. Do you really believe there's a religion about staplers?"
He nodded fervently. "Of course!! If I believe strong enough, the stapler god will acknowledge me. This is the best decision I've ever made."
"I'm sure that girl thinks the same," I remarked.
He tilted his head to the side.
"She's getting all the money with every stapler you buy," I explained to him.
He gasped and quickly rested his hands on either side of one of his staplers. "Shush, they can hear you!"
"What will you even do with a thousand staplers after you get them? Won't you waste more than a thousand dollars on buying them in the first place?"
This made him doubt a bit, but he stood strong. "You have absolutely no respect for my beliefs. I thought we were friends..."
"Kevin," I told him, crossing my arms, "I wouldn't be lecturing you if I didn't consider you my friend. She probably got annoyed because you asked her such a dumb question and wanted to get rid of you already. That was why she made the story up. Of course there's no such religion, you buffoon."
He dropped the stapler to the floor, almost letting it drop onto his own foot. He actually seemed pretty shocked about it.
"Just throw them out or something," I told him, smirking.
He snatched another stapler and shoved it at me. "Want this one for a thousand bucks?"
I took it. "Sure."
"Really?!"
I finally smacked him. I mean come on, he deserved it! But instead of him whining over it, he just laughed it off this time. Well, at least he was starting to mature a bit. Or maybe he just got used to it, I don't know. His pouting would be missed, though.
Kevin dropped me off at Robin's address. Compared to Kevin's huge house –I wouldn't call it a mansion just yet–, Robin's house seemed quite tiny. But then again all the houses in this neighbourhood seemed tiny compared to that, so that was acceptable. Maybe I was being too picky...
Kevin ran to the door. I grabbed him by his shoulder and ordered him to go back and wait in the car.
"Can't I see Robin's parents?" he asked, pouting like a five-year-old.
"No, now go," I ordered.
He mumbled a few things while walking away. I sighed. Before I even knocked the door, it swung open. A tall, muscular man glared right at me.
"Who the fuck are you?" he hissed. His breath stunk of alcohol.
"A friend of Robin's," I reassured him, "I'm Z-"
"Do I look like I care?" I resisted the urge to punch this guy down. "If you're her friend, where the fuck is she?"
Wait, so he wasn't informed? "She's in the hospital. She got into a car accident. I figured someone must have told you about it."
I wasn't sure if he had heard me or not, because he asked me something completely unrelated to Robin. "What do you want here?"
"I wanted to take her keyboard to her."
He didn't even seem like he cared about her. He simply shrugged and walked off somewhere again. Okay, that was uncalled for, but I pushed it aside for now. Maybe he was just stressed out over something. Think positive, right? I quickly made my way over to what seemed like Robin's room. I had to search around for it before I could find it. For some odd reason I found one empty room right next to hers. I was curious as to why they had left that room empty, but it was probably none of my business.
Robin's room was pretty... messy. Even Kevin's bedroom filled with staplers seemed more organized than hers. Her clothes were thrown all over the floor. I went over to her keyboard lying on her bed underneath the pile of clothing. It was after I turned that I realized her drawers were pulled out as well. It seemed more like someone had rummaged through her clothes and all her other stuff as well.
My eyebrows creased in a frown. I got a pretty bad feeling about that dad of hers, and normally I wasn't one to prejudice people. Well whatever, back to Kevin's house I went.
I tried calling Mom up later on to ask her if I could sleep over at Kevin's place, but she didn't pick up. She was barely at home these days... What was she up to?