Chapter 16
Raven POV
I wring the water from my hair. Crying in the shower does wonders for the soul but I'm a bulimic with my feelings and nothing helps purge than venting into your journal. My pen hovers over a page till my wrist gets tired. This is a huge part of my life but there are no words to sum it up. I don't want to ever forget how I feel today, right now. I was someone's Robin and I broke their heart. Will Robin hurt as much as I do now when he break mine? Will he break mine?
I let out a frustrated breath. Who wants all this drama? I know girls in school that pout and throw tantrums with their boyfriends, "I saw you looking at that girl! Why can't you admit you're cheating on me?" only to get back together a week later with, "Oh, a charm bracelet! You shouldn't have! I love you, baby let's never fight again". They would kill for my situation. I broke up with my boyfriend because I have an unrequited crush on his best friend who will probably hate me when he finds out how I broke Wally's heart. What a headache. I'm nauseous and I'm not sure if it's my guilt or the questionable stew I had for lunch.
A small knock on the door alerts me that my mom is about to come in. She enters with a small suitcase. Oh, no. I had forgotten what today was. I last day of the month...the "In case" cases day. Let me explain a bit what life is like living with a paranoid mother. Every since I was young, my mother and I played a really disturbing game called the "In case" case. Where my mom would pretend the house was on fire, gang members have just come to steal our entire house or a meteor hit the earth (the story changed sometimes) and I'd have to grad what I couldn't live with and stuff it in the "In case" case. As I grew up, I learned that my mom is afraid that these things will happen so the cases are always packed just "in case" we need to run off. Every month we changed the perishables like snacks, wash the clothes we packed, replace the batteries of whatever runs on batteries, etc. Needless to say, I'm not in the mood for this. I'd actually be grateful if the earth swallowed me whole right now.
I make a note to never allow my mother to watch "The Walking Dead" she's thought about fires and meteors. I don't want her thinking about zombie apocalypses.
She lays my case on my bed and unpacks what I packed in last month. Out comes, a floral print sundress, a soft pink sweater, bunny pyjamas and other clothes I won't miss should they be stored in a suitcase for a month. All gifts from my mother, she thinks it's because if there was an emergency I would want to save the clothes she gave me. It's actually because it would take an emergency to get me to wear them. She looks tired...more than usual and I give her a hug to ease her pain and forget my own. I feel her stiffen at first, a usual reaction from anyone who know I'm not a hugger but she relaxes and returns it, putting down the clothes as she does so. I love this about my mother. She always hugs properly; let's go of everything to enjoy those pesky endorphins get released in a hug. She kisses my temple and we hold each other for a while.
I can't help but think of my absent father sometimes when I'm with my mother. A lot of kids have absent fathers but I just want to know what kind of man he was. Some kids would ask their moms and either get little bits of information, like how he drinks his coffee. Some kids would have their moms rag about what a horrible no good butthole he was. I get nothing and I mean nothing. Any question relating to my mother would make my mom go scary quiet. She'd stare into space with a haunted look on her face and I'd back out of the room.
Holding her like is nice. It's almost like we're a normal family.
The door bell rings and she pushes me aside, lifts her skirt and grabs the gun she has strapped to her thigh. She eyes blaze when she looks at me. She puts a finger to her lips, signalling me to be quiet before she creeps downstairs; so much for normal.
"HOLY $ #^! Is that a gun!?" Bruce yells from our front door.
How sad is it that I actually thought I could talk to my mother about this. The only love life I've known her to have is with our house security system.
I look to my computer and think maybe there is someone I can talk to.
Robin POV
Kori giggles as I lean forward in my seat trying to see more of the road without actually moving the car forward. I inch my car a little to the left and Kori giggles. I smirk and turn right.
"You always seem to lose the way to my residence" Kori notices
"I've only been twice" I defend
"Then maybe you should visit more often"
There's an undertone of a purr in her voice that frightens more than excites me. Kori has a reputation for being a bit of a serial dater. I felt her hand on my knee and swerved so fast the seatbelts yanked us back down into our seats.
I spot the house and stopped neatly by it.
"Well, here we are" I smile brightly
I stop smiling when I see Kori not getting out of the car and pouting. She looks a bit sad for a while as she unbuckles her seatbelt to face me.
"Robin?" She asks leaning in
"Er...yes?"
"Do you not find me attractive?"
"Wha...heh...yeah, I mean sure Kori. I find you very attractive."
A bright smile spread on her face and she closed her eyes and leaned in further. I froze. I liked Kori, sure but this...
A knock at her window made her jump and I got my breath back. Donna Troy was peering in. Her family had been so kind to sign up for the student exchange program and housed Kori.
Kori looked alarmed at Donna's troubled expression and I have to admit I would have been more concerned had I not been so relieve the awkward air of intimacy had evaporated.
"Is all well, friend?" Kori asked Donna
"Yeah, I just need to talk to Dick"
"Dick" was a name few used when referring to me. Only four to be exact, Donna Troy, Garth Currie, Roy Harper and my best friend, Wally West.
Kori exited and gave Donna an air kiss as well as her seat in my car. Donna strapped herself in and said,
"Titans Tower" making me gulp a bit.
Titans' tower was what our group of five called the tree house we spent our days in. We called ourselves Titans while other kids had clubs like, the "smiles-a-lot" club or the "I love n-snyc" club. We've been friends a long time. Our friendship dates back to our parents or in my case god-parent seeing as Bruce is the reason I came to know the Titans. Titans' tower is where we go now for intervention or if one of the group is having a personal crisis.
Our group disbanded when we all hit puberty and Donna...for a lack of a better term...blossomed. It got complicated. We all loved her and we all thought we could date her-test it out and fall back into being friends but that wasn't what happened.
Wally had a crush on Donna but Roy started dating her only for Garth to catch him cheating and all of us just hating him for it. Garth was the only one who always felt like Donna was a sister but her started going out with this really hateful girl we spread this nasty rumour that Donna was a closet lesbian who took pictures of the girls' lacrosse team while they showered. Donna got kicked off the school team coz of that rumour. Garth knew what kind of girl he was dating but he still decided her loved her despite her attempt to ruin Donna's life. I went on that single date with her and realized we were only always going to be friend but a date is a date and it made things a bit weird after. But when there's trouble despite our drifting apart, we still know who to call.