36: Robin
1218 Words
“You’re nervous.” Saga nudged me in the ribs with her elbow as we waited for Aurelia to pay for a parking ticket, and I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Did you come all this way just to embarrass me?”
“You don’t need my help with that,” she laughed, and I clenched my jaw. “And I came all this way because I’m sick of babysitting Caius all the time.”
I rolled my eyes; she was definitely lying, or at least not telling the entire truth.
She didn’t think of it as babysitting him, even if she was going to try to convince everybody else she felt that way. She liked him more than she would admit, but he was hung up on Aurelia’s mother and she wasn’t used to being someone’s consolation prize.
It was frustrating her, but teasing her for it would not end well. I didn’t filter myself when it came to the fact she was blatantly going to use that fact Felix was crazy about her to get to Caius, though.
“Nothing at all to do with the fact you want someone’s attention, then?” I asked innocently.
“I told you, I’m sick of babysitting him. Robin, I’m not interested in Caius that way; I have his attention, and I am not bothered about keeping it.”
Entirely untrue, and we both knew it.
“You are protesting way too much; I didn’t even mean Caius.”
She blushed; it hadn’t occurred to her that I might be referring to her other potential love interest, because her head was so stuck on Caius that she had forgotten anybody else might be an option.
“I just needed to get out of that stupid house, OK?” she mumbled. “And I’m not the nervous one.”
“Yeah; you’re also not the pregnant one. I don’t think it’s weird that I’m nervous when I’m responsible for Aurelia.”
“Because a gig with friends is going to be rife with hidden dangers, obviously.”
Saga’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, but that’s how I had been feeling since we left the house; everything was a potential threat, and I was feeling so on edge that I was regretting letting Aurelia go to pay for the ticket alone, even though she was still in my line of sight.
“I’m gonna...” I nodded towards her as a weak explanation.
“Rescue her before someone questions what century that outfit is from?”
“Don’t,” I murmured a warning. “She’s self-conscious enough without your snide comments. She looks beautiful and I couldn’t care less how old the dress is.”
“Or the p***y?”
Apparently, she was trying to cause a fight.
“If you say s**t like that in front of the others, they’ll assume I knocked up someone inappropriately young, so please do everyone a favor and shut the f**k up for once.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Saga blushed. Of course, she hadn’t thought about that. Why would she have thought of how other people might interpret her comments when she had immediately understood and accepted Aurelia’s actual age?
“Twenty-six, if anyone asks,” Aurelia said blankly, passing me the parking ticket to look after. “I know you’re both younger than that, but I find people never question it when I say twenty-six. It’s better to have an answer on hand, so nobody suspects we’re lying. It’s not exactly a topic that people raise unprompted, though. As long as nobody brings it up, it’s not likely to be an issue.”
I wanted the ground to swallow me up - she had been listening to the entire conversation.
“Baby...” I sighed.
“And I don’t think it would be a good idea to tell anybody I’m pregnant. It’s bad luck this early on.”
“Bad luck?” Saga smirked. “As if it isn’t obvious to anyone who sees you two what is going on?”
Aurelia looked annoyed, but I could see my sister’s point - everyone was going to question everything about my situation and we probably weren’t going to be able to hide the truth.
“Maybe we should just go back,” I sighed, but Aurelia shook her head.
“We’re here now. I’m prepared for whatever this concert has in store; I want to know what you’re turning your back on.”
Not what.
Who.
People I had cared about for years - the people who had accepted me and made me feel welcome in a world that was so outwardly and performatively hostile. I actually fit in with them.
“There’s not exactly much concert left,” I sighed and glanced at my phone.
A number of unread messages and missed calls were cluttering my screen, and I finally returned one of them; it was answered immediately.
“Five minutes, I swear,” I said, and noted the way Aurelia’s beautiful golden eyes widened.
She hadn’t heard me speak Swedish before. She didn’t even know I had been raised there for several years, and the fact my sister was half Swedish didn’t seem to have registered for her.
She was as surprised by that as she had been when Saga spoke Latin, and I wasn’t sure whether that was amusing or mildly offensive. It reminded me how much we had to learn about each other, anyway.
“Is he mad?” Saga pressed me immediately.
“We were supposed to be here two hours ago. The venue is closing soon.”
I wasn’t about to answer what she had actually asked, because I didn’t want to make it easy for her to play mind games with my friends.
“I’m not the one who kept everybody waiting,” she shrugged. “Besides, Felix is never on time for anything.”
I raised one of my eyebrows at her.
“Who says I spoke to-”
“-just hurry up. We’re beyond fashionably late.”
I groaned, but there was no point arguing and I wanted to get to the place before there were too many guests leaving for us to slip backstage without being seen.
Our timing meant Aurelia didn’t have to pretend to enjoy the spectacle of a live black metal show, at least, and it gave the others a chance to get changed,so she didn’t have to experience anything too difficult to explain.
As if that made it any easier for her when a tall human stranger with long blonde hair launched himself at me and crushed me in a hug.
“Do you know how many rumors I’ve heard about you lately? I half expected you to show up missing a limb.”
I laughed - he wasn’t joking, but I wasn’t in the mood to hear everything that people had fabricated with no evidence whatsoever.
Felix knew I had wanted a break from everything for a while, and he had been understanding of it when I told him I needed to get away for a few months. He knew me almost as well as Saga did, and he was less infuriating than she was most of the time.
“I’ve been busy.”
- Writer
