It was Monday. The bet's deadline has arrived, and I had absolutely no confidence in winning Robin over anymore. My head was clouded with thoughts; I couldn't care less if Kevin or any other one of the guys spread rumours about my secret. I wasn't planning on going out with every girl I laid my eyes on anymore, either. The most important thing right now was figuring out where Phoebe could be hiding.
I felt someone poke something against my shoulder. I figured it was David because he always sat behind me during this hour.
"What?" I asked him.
"Today's the last day," he snickered.
"Just tell everyone the secret and get it over with."
His smile dropped. "It couldn't have gone that bad, could it?"
"It obviously did."
The bell went off and recess kicked in.
"Of course we won't tell anyone your secret," he said after a while, resting his hand on my shoulder while I was stuffing my books in my bag, "That's not even close to funny if we were to do that."
I nodded. "Thanks."
"Let's go to the roof today. It's nice and windy there."
I nodded again and we went off. 'Shockingly' enough, guess who was sitting there with them. No wonder they wanted me to go to the roof today...
I turned back as soon as I opened the door to the roof. David stopped me.
"Can't you even look at her?" he asked me surprised.
"No," I replied simply and pushed him away.
"But what if this helps to get you two together?"
I turned my back to him. "It was all part of a stupid bet, David. I am not attached to her anymore. And why would I do that if she rejected me anyway?"
"Bet?"
Oh no... Out of all the people in the world who heard those words, why did it have to be Robin herself?!
She ran past me, leaving her bag and everything behind with the guys. I told David to guard her stuff and bring them to our next classroom after recess and chased her down. She left the school grounds and fell on the ground. Her back rested against our school's famous oak tree.
I sneaked up behind her. Why was I disappointed that she wasn't crying? Wasn't I already aware that she held no special feelings towards me?
I placed my hand on her right shoulder. She slapped it away without even turning around.
"Go away," she hissed.
"Why are you so upset?" I asked her.
She finally turned to me. Robin didn't seem the least bit happy right now. "You have some nerve to ask me that..."
"What I mean is-"
"You were one of my closest friends... Do I really mean that little to you?"
Oh, right... I was just a friend to her...
I suddenly found myself lying on the ground. It wasn't a surprise that girls slapped me, but nobody has ever punched me before. And especially not a female.
I scrambled to my feet and grabbed her hand tight before she were to swing me another one. She struggled to break free, but I didn't give in. It was time for her to listen to my side of the story as well. "Robin, I'm sorry you heard about the bet that way. But I really had no other choice but to accept it."
"Weren't you the one who told me that you always have a choice?"
"Yes, but it's not the same."
"It's exactly the same."
"Please, just shut up and listen to me."
She glared at me. "Fine. Just let me go."
I did. We both sat on the ground. Robin looked anywhere but at me.
"In the bet I was supposed to seduce you within a month." She huffed. I sighed. "If I were to win, they were to do some stuff for me. But if I lost, they would reveal my secret to the school."
"And what's your secret? That you sleep with a teddy bear or something?"
I hesitated for the longest time before answering her. "I'm still a virgin."
Robin burst out laughing. "Oh, you've GOT to be kidding me!!"
I frowned. "It's more complicated than you think."
"So let me get this straight... You didn't want your million ex-girlfriends to find out about that because you wouldn't seem like much of a man to them then? How pathetic can you get?" Her words struck like lightning on a tree branch.
"It's not that simple... I have erotophobia."
Her eyebrows pulled up. "What the hell is that?"
I looked away from her, took a deep breath and explained: "It's a fear of sex in general, actually. But to be more specific, I can't see naked women. I get really sick when I see someone naked, let alone when they try to make a pass at me. It sucks, because I even get sick seeing Mom naked."
Her eyes widened in surprise. "Oh..." was all she could say.
"So you can imagine why I'm still a virgin." I closed my eyes and rested my head against the trunk. "But of course, other people would just think I'm stupid or something for still having my virginity. They don't know what I had to go through."
"What did you have to go through?"
I looked back at her. She seemed truly interested now. Ah, but the time... "Recess is almost over."
She shrugged. "We can go later."
I nodded. "Alright."
The wind picked up stronger than before. Robin shivered, so I took my jacket off and draped it around her shoulders. She smiled.
"She was one of my first girlfriends," I started, "Three years ago was when I started that one week dating principle. I realized I didn't want to be tied to a female for more than a week. Now, when I look back at it, I feel like an idiot for treating girls so badly. It seemed like I didn't respect them at all. I just used them and threw them away like yesterday's newspaper."
Recess officially ended with the next bell, but we didn't move an inch. Robin was staring at the sky. The wind brushing through her hair was breath-taking.
I cleared my throat and continued. She looked back at me.
"So I was three weeks into dating before I met her. She was strikingly beautiful. She had long, blonde hair which she always tied up in two ponytails. But along with her beauty she had the attitude that befitted her. You know, she was the 'queen of the school', as they used to say."
"Of this school?" Robin interrupted me.
"No. I used to go to a different school three years ago. I've only been here for a year." She nodded. "So she belittled everyone and had her fans do her homework for her and everything. She was pathetic. But I fell in love with her." Disgust was evident in my voice. My stomach churned, but I did my best to hold it all in. I really hated talking about this. "The day came where she asked me out. We became the cutest lovebirds of the school. I have to admit that that was the best week I have ever had. Ever since I started dating, that is. However, I still kept myself to my one week principle. My love for her was set aside for my stupid belief. Breaking up with her was my first mistake."
Robin frowned. "What happened?"
I pulled my legs up to me and threw my arms around them. I hid my face between them. My voice came out a bit muffled but it could still be understood. "She started to stalk me. I couldn't go on dates properly because I would turn and suddenly find her staring at me from a distance." I shuddered at the thought. "She even wrote threatening letters to my dates. It came to the point that she started setting up tiny cameras all around my house. She was rich, so she could afford it. Her beloved daddy bought her everything."
"Wait, she didn't put any cameras in your bathroom did she?" she asked shocked.
I nodded. "She sure did." I looked sideways at her. "Eventually, when I heard she started stalking Mom as well, I snapped. It wasn't that hard to find her. All I had to do was open my bedroom window and she was there."
"Ugh, what a freak," Robin remarked.
I chuckled. "That's not the least of it. See, I was originally planning on telling her to back off, but because she already knew she was about to be scolded, she started to cry."
It was getting harder for me to suppress my stomach from misbehaving. Robin noticed this and placed a hand on my shoulder, asking me if I was alright. I simply nodded.
"I asked her what was wrong, but she wouldn't answer me. She smelled like perfume. It was almost as if she knew I was going to confront her that day. The moment I touched her, she latched herself onto me. I was so startled I couldn't react properly. She held me down and took her clothes off at the same time. How she did it still puzzles me." I paused for a while. The memories strangled me. I felt like I was about to faint. "I think... that if it wasn't for Mom coming home, I would have lost my virginity unwillingly." It hurt too much to have used the word 'raped', so I shoved it aside.
"Oh Zack..." Robin had tears in her eyes.
"As soon as Mom saw her, she pulled her away from me and called the police. But she managed to escape. The next day she didn't come to school. The principal called me to him and told me she went to Europe. Apparently Mom had called him to tell him what had happened. He told me that her father absolutely denied it all, but I have a feeling he was the one who helped her to get those cameras. Of course you wouldn't rat your own daughter out."
Robin needed time to let it all sink in. Then she breathed: "And your friends knew about it?"
I shook my head. "Kevin is the only one who doesn't know about it. He's not exactly a serious guy you can have that sort of talk with, you know?" She nodded. "But apparently David wasn't planning on telling everyone I was a virgin at all. Although he was the one who proposed the idea, he probably only got caught up in the moment." Saying those last words forced me to look away from Robin. She also got caught up in the moment when she kissed me. "So there you have it."
Robin sighed. "Well, at least she's gone now."
I huffed. "I don't think so."
"Huh?"
"I have a feeling she returned. See, Mom suddenly lost her job and wasn't able to get another one for weeks. The only hint we got at first was that people knew about her past as a prostitute. But except for me and you nobody could possibly know that."
"You don't think she did it, do you?"
"She must have. At the part-time job I got last Friday I almost got fired yesterday. Rhonda, the owner of the restaurant I work at, told me she got a few pictures in her mailbox. She had them with her so she showed them to me. The only stalker I knew of was her. Not only that, but I recognized her handwriting on the envelope. She has a tendency to make her letters extra curly. It's pathetic, really."
Robin didn't say another word. She just stared at me. As for me, I cried silently.
"Phoebe's not the only pathetic one here. I am, too," I grimaced.
"Why? Because you're expressing yourself?"
"No, because I was stupid enough to fall for her. Even now that there's someone else I like, I can't get that bitch off of my mind."
Robin frowned. But then her expression lightened up and she tried to make a joke out of it. "Well, hopefully the person you like now isn't that much of a freak."
I laughed through my tears. "You would know."
No matter how much she begged me to explain myself, I didn't tell her what I meant by those words. Why would I bother if she didn't like me anyway?