Chapter 2 - A Night to Remember

"Aria, is that you?" Robin asks thinking his eyes are playing tricks on him.

"Robin?" Aria says confused.

"Thank god, you don't know what the fuck I've been through, to be honest, I don't know either," Robin says scared.

"Robin, what is that on your hands?" Aria asks.

"Please give me a ride home and I'll tell you everything I know. Please." Robin still not understanding anything that happened after he pulled over.

"Uh, yeah get in, I better get a good explanation or I'm taking you to the police instead of your house!" She said in a tone that could either be a joke or her being serious.

"I promise Aria. I promise." Robin says spooked.

Robin gets in the car with Aria and she drives back onto the interstate, as they drive towards Robin's house. Robin explains what all happened after he dropped her off, about the boy and the dream, and him waking up in the middle of nowhere naked and bloody. He gets done telling her everything that happened, and for a few minutes, she sat there driving not saying a word.

"Aria, please say something."

"I believe you. I mean if I can dream of you and then wake up next to you not knowing how I got there, then you waking up in the woods naked doesn't shock me. Far as the blood goes, it's probably from the boy you saved, why it's on your mouth, you probably wiped it on your face not realizing it was on your hands."

"On my face!" Robin pulls the passenger mirror down and looks at himself, his hair and face were greasy, and the rims of his mouth were stained with blood, Robin pushes the mirror closed breathing heavily.

"Robin. Robin!" Aria shouts trying to get his attention.

"It's okay. Robin, it's okay. We'll figure it out alright." Aria says, trying to calm him down.

Robin breathes slower, then he leans his head back onto the headrest of the seat. Then drifts to sleep. He wakes up to Aria shoving him awake.

"Huh. I'm awake, I'm awake." Robin says, wiping the drool from his mouth.

"We're here," Aria says.

Robin looks at his house and opens the car door, when getting out, he remembers everything that happened as if a semi just smacked him in the head.

"Um, Aria?" He speaks.

"Yes?" She says staring at him with those beautiful green eyes.

Him stuttering, "Um, can you stay with me for a little while?" He says staring at the ground.

"Yeah, Just for a little bit, okay?" she says with a smile.

"Okay. Thanks." He smiles.

They get out of the car and walk to the front door.

"Robin? Why does your front door not have a door knob and look like it's about to fall off the hinges?" Aria asks.

Robin lets out a chuckle as he pushes the door open, "I might've also got attacked by a wolf last night." Aria stares at him as they walk through the door, Robin continues, "You know, now that I think about it, I think I stabbed the wolf in the side when it lunged at me, then I ran upstairs, and when I eventually came out of the house the boy was outside with a knife coming from his side. What if..."

Aria interrupts, "Before you say something ridiculous, let's sit down and relax and talk about this later." She says walking through the broken door.

"Okay. Also, the wolf had a bite..." Robin mumbles as he pulls up his sleeve to inspect where the wolf had bitten him, but there was nothing there as if it never happened. Dazed by the utter confusion, Robin just considered it was the impact of the wolf smacking him.

They walk through the foyer and Aria sits on the couch while Robin starts to walk upstairs.

"I'm going to go take a shower, if you need anything the kitchen is where the other broken door is and the bathroom is past the stairs, the first door on the right." Robin says.

"Okay, yeah you need a shower, I can smell you from here." Aria says as she holds her nose joking around.

Robin smiles, "Thanks Aria." Robin says knowing she's trying to cheer him up.

Robin heads upstairs and turns on the hot water letting it run until it got steaming hot, he goes to his bathroom mirror and looks at himself, steam from the shower fogging up the mirror to the point where robin can only see his eyes. He leans in to get a better look and his eyes turn a bright blue, he falls back against the wall startled, then looks to see his eyes turned back to normal. Confused he gets in the shower and cleans all the gunk and dirt out of his hair, looks at his blood-stained hands, and scrubs them hard enough to get the blood off, he washes his hair and body and steps out of the shower and dries off. He gets dressed in a tank top and some blue polo shorts. He walks downstairs to Aria laying on the couch, he asks if she wanted anything to drink and she does not respond, he walks toward her worriedly, he steps around the couch and sees that she had fell asleep, he feels a rush of relief and covers her up. He goes to make himself something to drink until he feels a warm soft hand grab his wrist, he looks back to aria still asleep and goes to put her hand by her side, quickly she grabs his hand pulling him down next to her on the couch.

She opens her eyes to Robin lying next to her. Startled not knowing what to say as she blushes.

Robin blushes, "This is not what it looks like, I'll get up." As he goes to get up, Aria pulls him closer.

"No, don't leave. It feels good with you next to me. I feel free." Aria whispers as she rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes.

"Okay." Robin smiles happily and rests his cheek on the top of her head and drifts to sleep thinking to himself that it's okay because she'll probably be gone in the morning like every other girl. Robin wakes up in the morning and looks to his side to Aria, not beside him and a part of him was hoping that it'd be different but who was he kidding? He gets off the couch and walks through the broken kitchen door, Robin surprised but happy, sees Aria standing at the stove cooking.

"Good morning!" Aria says excitedly.

"Um, Good morning, I thought you had left," Robin says shocked.

"Yeah, I was thinking about it but couldn't do it without saying goodbye. I may have helped myself, are you hungry?" Aria asks as she looks at the food cooking.

"Yeah, sure. Thank you." Robin says with a smile as he sits at the kitchen counter.

"I figured I'd make you breakfast since you made me some the other day." she says as she puts some eggs, bacon, and a blueberry jam biscuit on a plate and puts it in front of Robin, "I hope you like it. I'm not a very good cook." She laughs.

Robin pulls the plate closer and grabs the fork and starts eating, Aria leans her head on the palm of her hands as she watches Robin eat.

Robin takes a bite and he's shocked at how good it is, "Damn, this is probably the best breakfast I've had since my mo..." Robin stops mid-sentence realizing what he was about to say and goes back to eating. Aria looks at him and walks over to him, he looks up at her as she pulls his head to her chest, Robin could hear her heartbeat as he blushes, eyes widened, slowly wrapping his arms around her waist.

"You can talk to me, you know that right? I'm a pretty good listener." Aria says enthusiastically.

"Yeah, seems like you're the only person in the county that I actually can say I enjoy being around." Robin laughs.

"Yeah," Aria says, sinking her face in his freshly washed hair.

They stare at each other speechless, as Robin blushes he looks away and starts eating again, "How does she know how to make me blush and drown all my worries away with a smile?", Robin thinks to himself. He finishes the food on his plate while Aria continues to watch him eat, arms on the table holding her head up. Robin gets up and puts his plate in the sink, he turns the water on and starts to rinse the plate.

"Robin?" Aria says.

"Hmm?" Asks Robin.

"Do you have anything planned today?" Asks Aria.

"No, why?" Robin asks.

"Hmm." Aria thinks, "How about we go to the lake?" She speaks.

"Sure, if that's what you want. We can take the boat." Robin says.

"You have a boat?" Aria asks.

"Yeah, my parents bought it awhile back," Robin says.

"Okay, one normal, non-eventful, laid-back day coming right up!" Aria says with a smile.

Robin points Aria in the direction of the hangover the boat was under as he backs his truck over to hook the trailer up. They finish hooking the boat trailer up and hop in the truck to head to the lake. The drive was only an hour but the awkward silence made it feel much longer than that. Robin starts to wonder if she thought this was a date, he wanted to ask her but after the past few nights, he thought it'd be too soon. They continue the drive in silence until they finally reach the lake. Robin touches Aria's shoulder in case she was asleep. Aria jumps out of the truck quickly, startling robin, he gets out worried if he did something wrong. He leans on the bed of the truck and looks at Aria.

"Are you okay?" Robin asks concerned.

"Uh, yeah, just startled me." She mumbles.

All he could see was her back but he can tell she was shaken up, he noticed that her cheeks were red. Was she blushing? He asked himself. Did he make her uncomfortable or was she just nervous? He decided to just walk over to the boat launch and unhook his boat into the water, Aria follows behind with a smile on her face like nothing happened which made him happy cause he didn't want it to be awkward between them. They finish loading the boat into the water and Robin pulls around to the dock to pick up Aria. She gets on and sits beside Robin.

"Ready?" Robin asks.

"Yeah, does it go f..." Robin full-throttles the gas and stops her mid-sentence as she screams and grabs ahold of Robins's arm. He notices how it felt for her to be around his arm so he pushed the boat to go faster as she squeezes more tightly. Robin smiles and starts to slow down so she enjoys the day and doesn't hate him for the rest of her life. She unclenches his arm and looked at him with a look of disapproval.

"Are you okay?" He asks.

She continues to give him the devil stare, "DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M OKAY! YOU DIDN'T THINK IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO WARN ME BEFORE HITTING MACH JESUS!" She screams startling Robin.

Not knowing what to say Robin looks away sadly.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." He says with hurt in his voice.

He looks at the birds chirping high in the sky circling the evening sun, he turns back around with a smile,

"I just liked the way you held onto me, so I sped up but I didn't mean to scare you." He smiles and scratches his head scared of her response.

She looks at him and forms a smile, "Just ask me next time." Aria says blushing.

Robin's cheeks light up like he just got smacked with a red paintbrush. Aria scoots closer to Robin and put her arms around his, he tries to not let her notice his face turning red so he turns towards the lake and continues to drive. They continue to drive around Lake June until the sky grew darker, as Robin started heading back to the boat launch, Aria pulls his arm signaling him to stop. Robin slows down and stops in the middle of the lake.

"What's up?" Robin says.

"What we should be looking at," Aria says jokingly as she's looking at the stars leaning her head on Robins's shoulder.

Robin cuts the boat off and looks up to see millions of stars in the sky, he forgot how beautiful it looked out here rather than near the city. Aria gets up and grabs his arm pulling him with her, they walk to the bow of the boat, and Aria starts to lay the extra towels on the floorboard and lays down. Robin lays down next to her and looks up at the stars, he remembers the times he and his dad did this, they'd look at the sky as his dad would teach him the different constellations above. He looks at Aria noticing how beautiful she looked under the moonlight, slowly, he reaches over and touches her hand, he saw her jump, and slowly their hands entangle as they lay under the stars. Aria turns her head to meet robins eyes. They both slowly move their heads towards each other finally touching lips as Robin puts his hand on her cheek.