Page 109 of Pitcher Perfect
Nope. Absolutely not. That was irrational.
Unless he’d waited too long to get his head out of his ass.
Robbie dropped his equipment bag to the floor with a thud, raking a panicked hand through his hair, the pulse in his neck sprinting like a mailman trying to outrun a Doberman. Crouching down, he riffled through the front pocket of his bag, freeing his phone and calling Skylar, his chest seizing at all the heart emojis he’d added to her contact profile when he was drunk on lasagna. He was going to add more later.
She couldn’t have gotten far, right? She’d still been there at the end of the third period. He’d simply ask her to come back, they’dresolve the remaining divide between them and put a permanent end to this separation. That would be that.
Voicemail.
Fuck.
“Skylar, could you please stop whatever you’re doing and come back here, please? Don’t make me look at you all night and not even kiss me afterward. What the hell is that?”
He hung up, stared at his phone. “RING,” he bellowed.
“Robbie, that was a terrible message.”
“Ma, please, I’m in the middle of a crisis. Did she say where she was going?”
“Don’t you think I would have told you by now?”
“She was asking an awful lot of questions about that kite,” his father drawled, still holding a half-drunk beer in his hand. “Wanted to know directions. Logistics. For chrissakes, Angela, you drew her a map on the back of a bar napkin.”
“The kite?” Robbie stood up slowly, but his legs were starting to tingle. “Why did she want to know all that?”
“When she kissed me goodbye, she said she’d see me on Long Island.” His mother laughed, clearly not grasping the gravity of the situation the way Robbie was beginning to do, his stomach squeezing like a lemon. “Maybe she meant sooner than later.”
He called Skylar again, but this time his hand was shaking.
“Hey, Rocket...”
“Honey, he calls her Rocket,” whispered his mother, hands clasped beneath her chin. “How adorable is that?”
“Listen,” Robbie continued, his vision starting to turn an ominous shade of gray. “I know this is a long shot, but you wouldn’t be on the way to Long Island, by any chance? Right? To get a kite down out of a tree? No.Right?” His throat was shrinking down to the size of a cocktail straw. This wasn’t an average person he was speaking to. His girlfriend was highly competitiveand well versed in challenges just like this one. She’d absolutely make this attempt. Oh my God. “Because that would be a very bad idea, Skylar. That tree sticks out over the edge of a cliff.A cliff, okay? It’s a big drop with a lot of rocks... and I’m suddenly very positive that’s exactly where you’re going. But you can’t. You cannot try and get that kite down, please, because you could get hurt and I won’t... I can’t even conceive of that without getting dizzy. If something happens to you, it happens to me. Stop the goddamn car, Skylar.” He jabbed his thumb into his eye socket, pacing in a circle. “Okay, I know you won’t. I’m right behind you. I’ll stop you myself.”
Robbie hung up, fumbled his phone back into the bag with quaking hands, slung the strap across his chest, and ran for the exit, his parents hot on his heels.
Chapter Thirty-Three
A faint glow of sunlight was just beginning to show itself on the horizon when Skylar reached Long Island. Even in the wee hours of the morning, the traffic going through the Bronx was backed up, due to the abundance of delivery trucks ferrying goods to Manhattan and the outer boroughs. Bridge traffic flew, however, the majority of cars heading in the opposite direction as she was welcomed by the nicer roadways and greenery of the island.
She didn’t have a plan. She only had a goal.
There was a good chance this idea made her psychotic. Point the finger at the asylum where she was raised. Courage had always been rewarded. Accomplishments. And while the Page family had made some serious strides recently in expressing their feelings to one another in a normal, healthy, non-life-threatening way, retrieving the kite from the tree was the biggest expression of love she could come up with. It was a tangible thing that she could understand, and Robbie would hopefully recognize, so she was trusting her gut and going for it.
Skylar would include words, too. Words were important. Maybe they would be enough on their own, but she couldn’t hand him the heart out of her chest, so this was the next best thing. It was real, proactive. Like Robbie moving into a new place. Or showing up with Boston University sweatshirts. Or taking her first pitch.
And at the very root of this possibly risky adventure was this:she loved him and wanted him to have the fucking kite. It wasimportantto him.
Therefore, it was important to her, too.
Skylar had listened to the voicemails. Five times each. She didn’t like the panic in his voice, but apparently this need to prove how much he meant to her was making Skylar more stubborn than usual, because she kept driving, checking the rearview mirror every few minutes, searching for a car that might belong to Robbie’s parents.
She reached Sands Point Preserve at 5:15a.m.It didn’t open until nine.
Too bad.
She parked on the side of the road and walked along the metal fencing until she was out of view of the security camera, then she used the trunk of a tree to hop over into the Preserve, offhandedly wondering who she would call with her one jailhouse phone call. Ironically, it would be Robbie. But she wouldn’t mind swallowing her pride if she had the yellow kite. Something to make him believe in her again. Trust her with his heart.
