Robin, Boy Virgin: Original Series

At lunch, Max and Clarissa made an appearance. Max asked me about my eye and I gave him the short, short version (even briefer than the story I told Harold). More importantly, though, Max and Clarissa’s presence caused an unspoken disturbance among the rest of us. Harold and I felt obliged to talk to Max about what he had been up to when really I just wanted to talk to Cora and Harold just wanted to talk to Minnie. And poor Harold, his crush was forced to resume her seat next to Cora, as far away from him as you could get at the table. I felt bad for him, because at least I get to sit next to Cora.

But, on the other hand, as far as I know, Harold is totally nuts-o in love and making out with Minnie in secret. So. I win for suffering the most, sucker. Sigh.

After lunch, Cora and I walked to Music Comp. We said virtually nothing; we were probably both prepping what we were going to say to each other. Or, does Cora even have to think about what she says? Does the cool, intelligent, and quirky stuff just come out naturally? I dunno.

But I was suddenly struck with skull cramp, that is, my brain as a muscle was stuck and couldn’t work. Yeah, skull cramp. And I was trying to make myself think of how to phrase what I wanted to say (because just blurting out ‘I’m completely in love with you’ wasn’t going to help me), but I couldn’t think of anything. My mind was a total blank. Which… was actually a nice break from all the usual damn worrying I do.

Cora and I went into the practice room and Cora sat in her chair and I sat in mine. Well, my brain was a blank, but my heart was still a worrywart. It started pounding nervously (and excitedly, since I was back in the practice room I’d made out in with Cora yesterday). I picked up the guitar quickly and put it in my lap as a shield from Cora’s potential bullets to my heart. Wow. I’m going crazy and emo. That’s just great.

“I’ll start,” Cora said when I didn’t say anything. K, you go. Cora pressed her palms together between her legs (I suddenly wanted to be her hands. I’m such a pervert, whoa!).

“I’m sending some mixed signals, I realize that,” Cora said. I raised an eyebrow at her without thinking about it. Yeah, ok, these are the kind of mixed signals she was sending: it’s rush hour traffic and the traffic light is red but Cora is yelling at everyone “it’s green, drive, drive!” and there are horrific car accidents that involve explosions in the intersection thanks to her “mixed signals”.

“Ok, I know I’m being totally confusing, put your eyebrow back down,” She gave in and ordered. I straightened my brow.

“It’s just…” Cora began, looking away.

“What?” I encouraged.

“I am, you know, attracted to you, Robin,” She said. Haaa-lleh-lu-jah.

“But I just…” She said and then did an aggressive hand gesture to show the block in her mind.

“I just don’t think you realize how much you mean to me as a best friend,” She said carefully and looked at me. I closed my eyes and shook my head.

“I do. Cora, I do, really. I think that the problem is that you don’t realize how much you mean to me, just over all,” I said. Out loud. I said that out loud? Wow, ok, go me. A blank mind was working in my favour.

“… Hm,” Cora said, blinking. I knew she was now wondering how much she did mean to me. But she didn’t ask and remained silent. And without the question to prompt me, I really didn’t have the guts to tell her in detail what she meant to me.

“I don’t want to lose what we have. Our friendship, chilling with you in the dark, and hanging out all the time. Like…” Cora tried to say. I didn’t know what was going on in her sexy, haywire brain but, um, why couldn’t a relationship with me be that chill way too? Maybe she was being too closed minded.

“I don’t know how to fix this, how to give us both what we exactly want! Like, there’s this big messy unexplainable confusion that I just can’t sort through,” Cora burst out suddenly and rested her elbow on her knee and put head in her hand. Awww, Cora. Don’t stress, everything will be ok!

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it is that the big problems are always looming and too confusing to solve, but you can fix the little problems.

“Well, I have a tangible problem you could fix… maybe,” I spoke up. Cora looked at me, blinking.

“What is it?” She asked. She sounded hopeful. For a brief moment, her body language told me she wanted to get out of her chair and come over to me. And my stupid guitar shield was in the way. I practically threw the thing on the ground. It clattered a little as it was when I put it down.

“I’m attracted to you Cora and when we’re together I get, like, this constant, powerful… urge,” I began. Cora suddenly looked guarded and cool as a cucumber. She raised a suspicious eyebrow at me.

“Tread carefully, Boy Virgin,” She warned me.

“What- no. Noo, I mean I have this constant, like, need to kiss you. Kiss you, Cora. Put down your eyebrow!” I said, trying my hand at the command. Cora paused and then straightened her brow. Cora blinked some more and then smiled suddenly.

“Aww, Boy Wonder,” She said quietly. Then, whoa, she slid out of her chair and knelt down in front of me, like between my legs. Not, like, you know, poised for oral sex type activities, since her face was right near my face. But still. She was between my legs!

And then she kissed me. Just one, gentle, closed mouth kiss. I was a little stunned, since she was between my legs and giving me a kiss and stuff, so I let the only one kiss happen. Were I not totally retarded, I would have kept kissing her.

Cora drew back from my mouth to look at me.

“I wanna kiss you too,” She confessed calmly, still speaking in that quiet tone. Really?? Then what the hell are we doing talking, you crazy girl!

I leaned my head down and kissed her. Pretty passionately, since she’d made the mistake of telling a crazy-in-love virgin she wanted to be kissed by said crazy-in-love virgin. So, I reached up to hold her face with my hands and kept kissing her. And it went well, since she kissed me back, reciprocating the passion.

It hit me hard, suddenly, the reality of what I was doing. I was kissing Cora. I remembered the first moment she walked into the practice room and I looked at her gorgeous legs. I remember every time she rested her head on her shoulder. I remembered the first time we played together, the duet on the piano and the guitar. I never thought I’d ever actually get to kiss this incredible girl, you know? When you crush on someone this hard, you kind of give up hope of ever being with them like this.

I’m breaking down the boundaries! And if I can do it, pretty much anyone can.

After a too short eternity of heavy kissing, Cora and I drew apart. Well, Cora drew away at a natural place to end the kiss. I wanted to keep going.

“… so what are we gonna do, huh?” Cora asked me, tilting her head and making a face. Ok, well, what we should do is we should be together forever and make musical babies that look like you. But are you going to let us do that? Nope. Sigh.

I shrugged slightly. I didn’t know how to fix Cora’s messed up and confusing commitment issues.

But. Like I said. Fix the small things.

“… well. Maybe we could do, like, a ‘best friends with benefits’ kind of scenario,” I suggested carefully. If you think about it, a ‘best friends with benefits’ type of situation is pretty much a relationship. But I didn't tell her that because that would freak her out for some reason because she doesn’t “do” relationships.

“I… don’t know. I mean, ‘friends with benefits’ is kind of just asking for heartache. For the both of us,” Cora said hesitantly, looking away from my face. I know that ‘friends with benefits’ is full of pitfalls and is actually a terrible idea when one of the parties is in love with the other party. But what other option did I have?

Cora looked at me again. I raised my eyebrows and watched her carefully. My expression, I’m sure, was incredibly hopeful. Cora sighed a thoughtful half smile and reached up and touched my black eye. It didn’t hurt, for once. I didn’t have any idea what was going on in her head.

“Ok,” She agreed to my proposal. “With an emphasis on the best friends,” She finished, grinning. Emphasize whatever you freaking want, I’m going to kiss you now. And I did.