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Not a Phase
Not a Phase
The young teen muffled herself with her pillow, firmly wrapping it around her face, not wanting her parents to hear her anguished wails of teenage angst. Noiselessly she wept over an endless frustration that filled her, feeling her face redden and become flush with grievances. Her mind raced, asking herself "why?" over and over again as she puzzled and reflected over her newly budding and intense emotions. What was wrong with her? It was a yearning she felt deep within, a desire that she found confusing and utterly ridiculous. Screaming once more in to her pillow, the hot tears continuing to pour out from her clenched eyelids, she just wanted this feeling to go away. Why did Tammy Thompson make her feel like this?
Robin had known her more popular classmate for a good portion of her life. Having gone to the same schools since they were kids, it wasn't until Fourth Grade that they shared a class together. While they were not terribly close friends, Robin would occasionally play with Tammy during their recess sessions, or be partnered up with her when Barbra Holland, Robin's best friend, wasn't available. On rainy days, Robin would sometimes help her rescue worms by picking them up from the asphalt, and concrete, tossing them back into the grassy areas of the playgrounds. The two would remain friendly despite not having a class together again until they entered Middle School. There, Tammy ascended into popularity, while Robin fell into the cracks as an outcast, starting her on the path of her earning self title of being the "weirdest girl in Hawkins."
During this time, Robin felt herself changing. She hated change. She found her mind wandering elsewhere from what she once dwelled on before. Her thoughts, which used to be filled with books, music, and far-off places away from Hawkins, were slowly starting to romance. At first, Robin would just brush it off. The thought of kissing disgusted Robin. Besides, she didn't find the opposite sex as appealing as her pubescent peers did. The Hollywood hunks that her fellow feminine youth made eyes at, didn't do anything for her. John Travolta, Shaun Cassidy, Scott Baio did not inspire anything remotely similar.
All through her early teenage years, she actively suppressed these feelings, not allowing them to bubble up, despite them having intense momentary flashes within. None was more intense than when she saw The Clash of the Titans for the first time. Judi Bowker as Andromeda shook something deep with in Robin. Watching The Clash of the Titans at The Hawk Movie Theater with her parents was both one of the most liberating and uncomfortable moments of her life. She was entranced, yet deeply flustered, being sandwiched between her parents, unable to hold back certain feelings any longer. Leaving the theater in a near shell shocked state finally shook Robin, forcing her to realize how truly different she was from the other girls in Hawkins. The problem was, she had no one to talk to about it.
She wasn't going to talk to her parents. In spite of how liberally minded and accepting they were, she couldn't speak to them about how she felt. She just didn't have that kind of relationship with them. She didn't have Barbra anymore, as Barb ditched her for that prissy nerdy girl, Nancy Wheeler. Her new friends, The Odd Squad, Kate Shippen, Milton McQuown and Dash Montague didn't connect with her on the same level. She felt like an outsider in her own band of outsiders. She would have to continue to just bottle up these desires. No one could possibly understand her. If anyone would know, in her mind, she would become more of a pariah. No one could ever know how she truly felt. She would continue to repress her hormonal desires, focusing on her other interests, bands, languages, and of course, her books. Her repression would become increasingly harder after that summer entering into her freshman year at Hawkins High.
Freshman year is when she would become reacquainted with Tammy Thompson. It was the first day of school, second period, English 101, and Robin had arrived early for Mr. Hauser's class. As she patiently waited at the front of the class for it to begin, Robin had her nose buried in The Great Gatsby, scoffing and rolling her eyes at several passages. It was then that Tammy entered. Letting her blue gaze lift from the terribly written words, they locked on the strawberry blonde. She could feel herself become flush and instantly nervous. What was happening to her? Why again and why now? The awkward teen only felt more awkward as the year progressed as she found herself daydreaming of her raspberry-scented peer when her mind was bored. This was bad. She once again had no one she felt comfortable enough around to talk to about it. She had to bottle this up and keep her feelings hidden. No one can know. Everyone would torment her. She knew she would be ostracized from her middle American, poduck town.
Robin hated living this seemingly dual life, her secret self and her public self. She felt it was necessary, if she wished to survive Hawkins. This only served to desperately fuel her desires to run far away from Hawkins more than ever. Sure, she had talked about it with Barb when they were kids, daydreaming of going somewhere new or exciting, but now it was a true desire. Maybe Europe? She read they were very progressive there. She was already studying French, was fluent in Spanish, and was learning Italian in her spare time. Seemed to be the best and most logical choice to run away to, to allow herself to feel and be her true self. Her parents would be okay with it, maybe.
Richard and Melissa Buckley were pretty easygoing parents. Some would call them hippish or maybe free-spirited. They never really put a lot of restrictions upon their only daughter. Robin never really gave them much reason to anyway. She ate her vegetables, went to bed at a decent hour, and was never overtly disrespectful. They would be cool with her leaving abroad, right? They're always telling her to follow her heart and actively encouraged her interests. They would be cool with it, she rationalized to herself.
"Robin!" called out her mother's voice bringing Robin back to reality. She lifted her face from her tear-stained pillow.
"Y-yeah, Mom?" she called back, doing her best to disguise her voice so it didn't sound like she had been sobbing herself to exhaustion. Her freckled nose dripped as she sniffled, catching her breath.
"Dinner's almost done! I made your favorite!" her mother replied in a sweet almost dream-like tone. Maybe she was high again. It was hard to tell, as her mother always had an airy way of speaking. "Sloppy joes!"
Robin rubbed her face in a sore attempt to dry away her tears and took several deep breaths to settle herself. "Cool," she muttered, her words laced with forced enthusiasm. It hasn't been her favorite dish in many years. The Buckleys weren't rich, so whatever was cheap and easy was always on the menu. "I'll get . . . uh . . . cleaned up now."
She stood still for a brief moment, gathering her energy to manifest a calmness to mask her anguish. Her parents could never know their little genius was struggling with herself, wrestling with her two halves that could never be one.
"Oh cool! Sloppy joes!" she could hear her father's enthusiastic exclamation from the other room. "My favorite!"
Once she found her mask of calm, she opened the door to her room, a disingenuous smile plastered across her lips so that there were no questions, and she immediately went to the bathroom to splash her face with cold water to hopefully hide the remaining evidence of her grief. Hopefully the cool water will calm her glassy tear-ridden eyes and bring her complexation back down a few shades to her usual paleness. This would become a routine she would become accustomed to, because no one could ever know.
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