Page 235 of Something Rad
“Then maybe you need to get your eyes checked. Know any places where you can do that?”
The response is out of my mouth before I can stop it, and I have to resist the urge to kick myself. It just came so naturally, slipping back into our old bantering ways.
Robbie’s smile only flickers slightly. “None that would welcome me,” he says quietly.
I open my mouth, not sure what I’m going to say but just knowing I need to say something. But Robbie clears his throat, cutting me off.
“You know, I think it’s kind of cool.”
“What?” I ask him.
“All our time between the shelves. Around books and movies.”
I tilt my head at him.
“Since, you know, those are kind of your things,” Robbie shrugs, dropping down on one elbow to tilt his body towards me. “And we’ve always been around them. We’ve been through a lot with no one but the shelves to see it. It’s almost like…we’ve made a story between the stories. Or something.”
My spine steels.
A story between the stories.
Robbie chuckles, reaching for a Red Vine from the package at his side. “Sorry. That may have been the cheesiest shit I’ve ever said. I take it back. Please, forget I said it.”
“I don’t want to,” I breathe. Robbie glances up, meeting my eyes. I hold his gaze, rolling my lips into my mouth. “That may be my favorite thing you’ve ever said to me.”
He takes a bite of his Red Vine, not forfeiting our staring game as he does. “You keep track of all the things I say to you?”
“Most of them.”
“Do you write them down in your journal?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes, a smile coming to my face. “Some of them.”
“Really?” he asks, shifting up some so that he’s at my eye level.
I shrug my shoulders. “I told you. I write down what inspires me. Anything that I think could become something more.”
Robbie’s tongue sweeps across his bottom lip as a few seconds of tense silence rest between us, only the sound of the movie playing in the background breaking it.
“Have you heard back about your scholarship yet?” he asks suddenly.
I shake my head. “Not yet. But I should know by mid-April.”
“That doesn’t really give you a lot of time to figure things out,” Robbie says, picking up his Pepsi can.
“Well, there’s really not much to figure out. Either I get the scholarship and go to NYU…or I stay here.”
The Pepsi can stops in place against Robbie’s lips, his eyes looking at me over the top of it.
“It’s really just a matter of booking a flight and reserving a dorm room in New York. Or signing up for community college in San Francisco and mentally preparing for being a full-time movie rental store worker until I can make a new game plan.”
Robbie lowers the can away from his face, something in his expression that I can’t read as he picks at his soda’s pop tab. When nearly a minute goes by without him saying anything, I pull my knees up to my chest, turning my attention back to the movie.
“Cooper?” Robbie says, his voice hoarse.
“Yeah?” I respond, chewing on my bottom lip.
I feel Robbie shift next to me, and when I look his way, I find him fully sat up and scooting closer into me. “When you’re thinking about things that could become something more, do you ever think of us?”
