Robin, Boy Virgin: Original Series

Siiigh. Life keeps going and the world keeps spinning even when you can't keep up.

That evening, Katrina and I went out to dinner at this expensive restaurant for her birthday. I had Cora on my brain, like hard-core burned in my brain, but I had to at least go through the motions with my mother.

It was just her and I, which I didn't mind because I'm awkward around adults (and, ok, everyone else too), but it was also a little sad, you know? I felt sad for her, anyway, although she didn't seem to mind having few people around either. In that way, I guess I'm like my mom. My dad is a mushy gushy touchy feely person. He loves loving people.

To me, my mother is this complete asexual being. When I look at her I don't see a woman, I just see mom. I've successfully worked through all the Freudian psycho-analytical stages. I think, though, that most people feel that way about their mom (exempt for the fucked up incest kids who actually bang their mothers).

Objectively speaking, though, Katrina is on the shorter side, thin and kind of bony (she has no left over mama-fat), and she has mom-length ash blonde hair. She genetically gave me her hair colour. She's kind of sharp looking, but still nice.

My mother also kind of has this air of formality about her, reflecting her actual personality. Unlike my father, she isn't easy to get to know, she doesn't let people in. My father, being the polar opposite of her, managed to break down her walls for some time. My mother crosses her legs, smiles primly, shakes hands, and reserves hugs for me. My father flings his arms open for pretty much everyone.

After school, I'd changed into some dressy slacks and a button down shirt, to please my mom. I'd thrown some clothes into a duffel bag and wrapped Katrina's present hastily, putting it in a gift bag. I tried not to think about Cora and our trip to the mall and just plowed forward with the evening.

Before my mother arrived to pick me up, I had put up with my dad telling me to behave myself and clean up after myself at her apartment. I do all those things anyway, I don't need him to tell me, but he needs to tell me, so I let him. Sigh, you know, with dads sometimes you just have to let them talk because it's what they need to do.

Anyway, dinner. Katrina and I were sitting in this raised booth thing and our waiter was very courteous and proper. My mother was drinking this fancy white wine with her fancy chicken dinner and shared her wine with me. I sucked back a fair share of the small bottle, because I'm a teenager and alcohol to me is like chocolate to a six year old.

I guess I also was into the wine because of the absolutely awful day I'd had at school. But my mother didn't know about that. Katrina just chuckled at me and let her teenage son entertain her with my teenage behaviour.

"So how does it feel to be forty three?" I asked, slightly tipsy. I was crazy. Katrina touched her earlobe, something she does when she's thinking. She spun her small pearl earring around in the piercing hole.

"You know, not as bad as I would have thought," She said.

"Oh yeah? You're not looking down any dark tunnels in your dreams yet, are you?" I asked. Normally, I'd be a little more tactful and not ask a middle aged woman about her aging. But I was a little drunk, still crazy, and she's just my mom.

"No, no," Katrina chuckled at me, sipping her wine.

"Mom? I read this, this thing online that said loneliness is co-related to a shorter life span," I said. I really did read that somewhere. Not appropriate dinner conversation, I know. But she's my mother.

"Robin," Katrina laughed at me. "I'm not lonely," She said, shaking her head.

"But you're alone," The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. I'm alone and I hate it. Well, I'm not alone entirely, because I don't feel alone when I'm with Cora and I love that damn girl. But I am still alone because Cora and I aren't together, together in a way that takes away loneliness.

"I'm not lonely, hon. I'm content," Katrina promised me. I didn't really believe her and shovelled some of my steak salad into my mouth.

"... I am considering getting a puppy. A small breed for the apartment. Would you like that if I did?" She asked. Duh, of course. I'd get all the cuteness and playful factors of a puppy without the hassle of the daily chores, since the puppy wouldn't live with me.

"Totally," I managed to grunt through my mouthful of food. Katrina tsked at me. Bad table manners really grind her freaking gears. I closed my mouth and swallowed my food. I even wiped my mouth to be polite.

"Oh here," I said, still feeling a little bad and leaned under the table for the gift. She doesn't even mean to do it, but, man, my mother can trigger serious guilt trips. In that respect, I've secretly sympathized and understood my father's stress when he and my mother were together, but unhappy.

And plus I felt bad because she'd been offering me puppies and it was her birthday. I handed her the bag of gifts.

"Oh honey," Katrina said, pleasantly surprised as she took her gift. She looked over all the stuff, commenting happily on every piece of it. She was especially pleased with my seeming thoughtfulness and consideration.

"Mom, Cora helped me pick out your present," I confessed my deep dark secret. My mother barely glanced up from her CD.

"Who's Cora, hon?" She asked, as if Cora was just another friend from school. Oh, Katrina. Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. Cora is the most beautiful, most incredible girl ever in the history of high school. I'm so in love with her, it's retarded.

Don't get me wrong, April was beautiful and incredible too, but April at least seemed human to me. Cora is like some kinda super species. I think I might have been drunker than I realized.

"Just... this... girl," I said awkwardly. Katrina looked at me.

"Is she your girlfriend?" She asked knowingly. Oh God! Mother, I can't even... oh God.

"... no... it... complicated," I said incoherently, unable to get words out. I took a gulp of water from my glass.

"What's wrong?" Katrina asked of mine and Cora's stalled relationship/friendship. Where do I freaking start? In a nutshell, I am what is wrong.

"I yelled at her. And she hadn't done anything wrong. She never lets me down or does anything wrong. She's been a best friend since the first freaking moment we met," I said. My mother tsked at me again, reflexively. It's not that she considers saying words like "freaking" swearing, it's just not nice, proper language.

I stopped talking and looked at my water glass. I ran my finger around the rim, trying to make the pinging, echo sound reverberate off the glass from the water. Ordinarily, when people do things like that, it annoys the shit out of me. But I'm kinda drunk and depressed and in love so I forgave myself.

"Well, I'm sure you'll think of a way to make things right," Katrina said. I smiled a little. Yeah, right. But it's a nice sentiment, ma. Thanks anyway. The pinging was getting louder and high pitched.

"Besides, no one can stay mad at you. It's one of your charms," She finished. That's her being witty. I groaned loudly, completely mortified with what she'd said. Katrina chuckled at me.

"... stop that, hon," She told me, unable to take the annoying noise. I took my hand obediently off of the water glass. It was her birthday, after all.

That night, I was lying in my bed in my mother's apartment. The room is a tad more personalized than just any ol' spare room. I'd hauled in a couple posters and I had some spare clothes and DVDs here. The walls were a neutral white, but the bed sheets were a masculine dark blue. I sleep on white sheets at home, but I have this tartan patterned comforter that I feel is one of those items that is exclusively mine. You know? Like a favourite pillow or stuffed animal or something.

Anyway, I usually don't have any trouble sleeping at Katrina's because:

1.) The house is very clean and the cleanliness equates to ease and comfort. Like, when a house is nice and clean with no question of, like, hidden dirt or mold or something, it's easy to be comfortable in it.

2.) I had spent quite a few nights here before, so it's not like I'm sleeping somewhere brand new.

3.) It was my mother's house and this was more or less my room. If I had to get up in the middle of the night and take a piss in the bathroom, I could leave the bathroom door open by accident and not worry about it. Not that, you know, I don't care if my mother sees me taking a leak. I do care, cuz, you know, she's, like, my mother and she's a little uptight- let's just stop that train of thought now.

So, I couldn't sleep that night. I was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling and missing my Pink Floyd poster. Yeah, I really was. And I couldn't fall asleep because I felt just terrible, right down to my bones. Why did I feel terrible? Whoo boy:

1.) First and most prominently, I am in love with Cora. And being in love is nasty and heartbreaking and just awful when you are in love with someone who is dating an utter jack ass (and that jack ass isn't you).

2.) I'd yelled at the girl I was in love with. And she hadn't done anything wrong except make the mistake of giving the jack ass a chance.

3.) I'd not only yelled at the girl I was in love with, I had yelled at, like, my best friend. Yeah, Cora is like my best friend. And fighting with your best friend just makes you feel so damn awful. Like, you feel so insecure and out of whack and you feel like the entire balance of the world has just all gone to shit.

So. Now. To fix the problems. Oh God, could my problems even be fixed? What could I possibly do? I couldn't stop Cora from dating Brandon if that's what she really wanted. I could throw all the temper tantrums I wanted; but swearing, being outrageously sarcastic, and chucking chairs at people's heads wouldn't guarantee anything whatsoever.

And, well... I couldn't make Cora love me either. And that was the worst feeling in the world. Not that I didn't have control, but that I didn't have any qualities whatsoever that would make Cora fall in love with me. I mean, let's look at this realistically.

Ok, practically speaking, I'm not completely repulsive looking: I'm tall and blonde and that seems to be alright. I'm kinda scrawny, but I'm healthy-ish. I'm, I'm scrappy. But Cora is not scrappy. She's a tall, lean, mean, fighting machine. She's gorgeous and inhuman. I'm almost cute (God I hate that word) and a very flawed human.

Personality wise, I'm a music geek virgin who hides behind sarcasm. Cora is, oh God, she's confident and quirky and kind and the list just goes on and on. And I know that I think so highly of her because I am stupidly in love with her. I know that. I'm totally biased. Regardless of all those things, though, when you get right down to it, I love Cora and she just doesn't love me back. I... think. No, no, I know she doesn't.

Unrequited love is so damn painful. It burns, man. Love really is a burning ring of fire. When you're smack dab in the middle of it, you can't escape and the heat just fucking torches your heart. How can anyone think love is a nice thing, forget a wonderful thing. Even when I loved April, what happened there? She had to leave. Yeah, that was really great, I felt so awesome when the girl I loved had to move clear across the country.

God. Now that I think about it, I don't know what's worse, loving April and having to live without her, or loving Cora and living with her but not having her love me in return. I think maybe the Cora situation was winning for shittiest situation.

Oh my God I was crying. I could feel the stinging in my eyes and a stupid tear trying to escape out of the rim of my eye so it could slide sadly down my cheekbone and into my ear. I crushed my palm against my eye. Stop it, Robin, fuck! Cora is still your friend, she still cares about you. She didn't do this to intentionally hurt you. Remember that you did the yelling and the angry bitching out. I rubbed my eyes roughly, pushing the tears down and then inhaled crisply through my nose. I was a little drunk, that was affecting my emotional state as well.

Forcefully halting the crying had made me realize that even though I had a few (ok, ok a lot) of huge, looming problems, there was one small problem that could be fixed. I had yelled at Cora and thereby jeopardized our friendship. While the love-relationship blanket of death was trying to suffocate me with its uncertainty, I could fix the friendship I'd hurt. I can apologize sincerely to Cora, since I really was horribly sorry that I had gone off like that, and I could try and make it up to her and just hope she forgives me.

Struck with inspiration (and insanity) I got out of bed and walked to my mother's bedroom. I knocked lightly on the door and then opened it.

Katrina inhaled sharply, waking up.

"Robin? What's the matter??" She asked her voice high and sleepy.

"Mom, I was wondering if we could go to the grocery store tomorrow?" I requested. My mother looked over at her alarm clock, frowning heavily.

"... you decided to ask this at one in the morning?" She asked, her voice dancing all over the place and sounding perplexed and condescending. I shrugged. No better time than the present right?

"Yes, yes we can go to the grocery store. Now, go to bed, honey," Katrina said, lying back down. I nodded, closed her door, and went back to my bedroom. I lay down in the bed, pulled my covers up to my chest and flopped my arms on the outside of the covers.

It wasn't much. But it was something.