Once I’m outside where people are getting in and out of cars, I look around but Robyn is nowhere to be seen. Someone obviously had too many of the Midnight Bay blue shooters because I can hear them retching even over the music. When it continues to the point that I’m fearful for their life, I jog over to where the sound is coming from.
“Oh, baby,” I say once I see who it is. Robyn is bent over yakking into the bushes. The force is jolting her body forward hard. I grab her hair with two hands and pull it out of the line of fire. Once I have it secured to the nape of her neck with one fist, I use the other hand to rub circles on her back. “You’re okay, sweet girl. Just get it all up. It’s okay. I’m here.”
“I don’t want—” She surges forward again and heaves but I think she’s out of ammunition. “You here,” she finishes.
“Well, tough shit, sweetheart. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t want anyone,” she begins, pausing to stand and wipe her mouth, “to see me like this.” I release her hair and she glances around. Noticing her purse on the ground, I pick it up. At least it didn’t get puked on.
“Come on. We’ll take one of the sober cars back to the hotel.”
I wrap my arms around her and guide her to the nearest valet. Once they’ve located a car for us, Robyn slides in and I follow.
The driver is a gray-haired man with a gray wool cap on. “Where to, kids?”
“The nearest urgent care center or ER,” I answer.
Robyn looks like I’ve slapped her. “No,” she practically shouts. “Just take us to the Hutton, please.”
“Are you serious right now?” This girl. She’s practically turning green right in front of my eyes. “We need to get you checked out.”
“The Hutton, please,” she tells the driver while ignoring me. “I swear I’m fine.”
“You say that, but you don’t look fine,” I tell her. “And if you think I’m just going to dump you off in your room, you’re crazy.”
The driver ends up taking us to the hotel, where I take Robyn to my room so she doesn’t keep Katie up all night.
After a pack of saltine crackers and two Gatorades, she takes a shower and comes out looking like a new person.
“I’m telling you, it’s just a stomach bug. It’s on its way out.” Robyn promises me she’s on the mend and that if she gets sick again like that she’ll make an appointment with her doctor.
She’s nearly asleep in my bed when she blinks her sleepy eyes up at me and says, “I’m sorry you had to leave your party. And that I didn’t tell you about my mom.”
“I don’t care about parties, Robyn. But can you just tell me why? Why you didn’t tell me about your mom that summer? I could’ve—”
“You could’ve canceled the shows you were so excited about. You would have.” Robyn sighs against my chest before raising her eyes to mine. “Your grandma had just passed and you’d already put everything on hold once. I didn’t want to be the reason you sidelined your dream again.”
“So you didn’t actually want to break up, you just couldn’t go on the road and you didn’t want me to stay?”
“I wanted you to stay,” she says quietly. “I just didn’t want to want that. It was selfish and unfair. And I wanted you to have your shot at your dream more than I wanted to have you hold my hand in a waiting room all summer.”
My whole life I’ve put everyone else first. My sister. My grandparents. Gavin. I’d never realized someone had been putting my dreams before their own needs.
I can’t explain how her confession makes me feel right now so I don’t try.
I lean down and kiss her on the forehead. “Get some rest, pretty girl. We can talk about this later.”
She surprises me by grabbing my shirt. “Spoon me for a while? Until I fall asleep? Pretty please?”
“I never could turn down ‘pretty please.’ ”
She rolls over, curving into me with her backside, and I drape my arm over her body.