Character Analysis
Cheerleaders may appear to be clean-cut Miss School Spirit carbon copies, but Kristina's friend Robyn delivers a huge blow to this stereotype and shows that even chipper cheerleaders have a dark side. Suspecting that Robyn and her cheerleader friends aren't just naturally peppy, Kristina pops over to Robyn's to use her as a crank connection and the two develop a friendship centered on their addiction to the drug.
Robyn's impulsive, act-first-think-later personality takes Kristina deeper into the hole she's digging for herself. "Robyn the Reno High cheerleader proceeded to show me a whole new way to get down with the monster" (Timing is Everything.6), Kristina says of her introduction to smoking meth. She also describes getting high with Robyn as "instant bonding" (We Went into Her Room.6). Things really get nuts when they go to the air show together and Robyn convinces Kristina to kiss her in front of a crowd of people—you know, for spectacle.
In case you weren't doing the math, at the end of the day, Robyn's not exactly the greatest thing to happen to Kristina on her journey with the monster.
But before we get too hard on Robyn for taking a bad situation and making it way worse, keep in mind that she's been on her own twisted path of addiction, fueled by her own brand of pain.
When Kristina runs into Brendan at the air show and confronts him about raping her, Robyn shares her own story of sexual damage. Starved for the drug, she picked up a guy in a casino one night and went out to his car to get it. "He did things to me," Robyn tells Kristina, "terrible things, I've still got the scars—things no sane person would ever do. Of course, he wasn't exactly sane. Afterward, neither was I" (Robyn Wanted the Whole Story.8). Kristina's not the only damaged goods in this friendship.
At the end of the day, Robyn does more for Kristina than give her new ways to get high and acquire the monster. She's an illustration of how addiction can make people do things they wouldn't do under normal circumstances—like publically make out with someone, get in a car with a person who is obviously dangerous, or in Kristina's case, lose her virginity in exchange for drugs. We really just end up feeling sorry for Robyn and hope she comes to the same conclusions Kristina does about the dangers of drugs.