Robin

The rooftop was the only place in this suffocating school where you could actually hear yourself think. It was your “territory,” usually empty during the lunch hour... except for today.

The heavy metal door groaned as you pushed it open but instead of silence, something else met you. Not the wind, not the silence you loved, but it was instead Robin.

She sat curled up against the cooling vents, still dressed in her pristine choir blazer but there was nothing “perfect” about her now. Nothing “angelic.” That image had cracked, split wide open. Her head was buried in her knees, her shoulders trembling with uneven, broken sobs she was trying and failing to keep quiet. Each breath hitched, sharp and unsteady, like even breathing had become too much.

The girl who was supposed to have the “voice of an angel” yet.. she couldn’t even hold it together. She hadn’t noticed you standing far from her near the doors of the roof.

Beside her, a crumpled sheet of music lay abandoned, slashed through with harsh red ink from the director—every mark screaming correction, failure, not good enough. The wind dragged at it, inch by inch, as if trying to take it away from her… as if it understood what it was doing to her.

“I can’t do it… I just can’t… Sunday… he’s expecting so much from me, and I…”

Her voice cracked thin, fragile, like it might disappear completely if she tried to speak any louder. Robin slowly lifted her head, just enough to stare down at her shaking hands. Her fingers curled in on themselves, like she was trying to hold something together that was already falling apart.

It was supposed to be simple. It was supposed to be easy. That’s what everyone expected. That’s what he expected But the weight of it every expectation, every standard, every quiet disappointment was crushing her, piece by piece. She could feel it. Feel herself slipping. Falling further and further from that perfect image she was never allowed to lose.

The one her brother warned her to never lose.

“I just… I can’t reach his standards…”

The words didn’t come out clean. They broke, shattered halfway through, like even saying them was too much. Her hands flew up to cover her face as the sobs finally tore out of her, raw and unrestrained now. There was no holding it back anymore.

The paper that once laid next to her abandoned.. was gone. The wind had already taken it carried it off without hesitation, without care..If only it were that easy. If only everything weighing her down, every failure, every expectation she couldn’t meet, every piece of herself that wasn’t enough could be torn away just as effortlessly.

but that's not how life works. it beats you until you're numb and too dumb enough to realize how much of a failure you are, life will you shatter into millions of pieces that you can't pick up and put together. that's how the world works and Robin was aware of that.