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Robin couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in her British literature class. She had an A, wouldn’t be skipping if she didn’t, but Mr. Grayson never took attendance and she could just read the books on her own time.
No idiotic classmates necessary.
Her favorite spot, when the Indiana weather cooperated well enough, was a bench around the back of the school. It was nestled in a corner by the rear entrance to the gym, looking out over a pathetic little stretch of woods that were nicer for the way they hid her from prying eyes than any real natural view.
Rounding the corner, books tucked haphazardly under her arm, she pulls up short at the figure leaning against the dirty bricks. Gray smoke curled up into an even grayer sky as Hawkins High’s newest keg king turned to her with a lazy smile. She stands rooted to the spot, unsure if it would be worth the embarrassment to turn right back around and leave, when he drawls, “Y’know, girls usually have to try a little harder to get me alone.”
She resists the urge to roll her eyes, but it was that insufferable attitude that hardened Robin’s resolve. If he really thought a wink and a nod was all he needed for any girl to be drooling at his feet then she’d prove him wrong.
“Seems to me like they don’t have to try very hard at all.”
While she doesn’t know Billy Hargrove by any stretch of the imagination, she certainly knows of him. In a school where everybody knows everybody else a new student is big news, nevermind that all that separated this attractive asshole from the dozen others he was friends with was his California tan.
Hargrove takes her prickly attitude with an easy shrug, ignoring the cigarette dangling between his fingers in favor of watching as she settles onto the bench. She very purposefully faces away from him, leaning against the armrest and stretching her legs across the wood so he doesn’t get the bright idea to sit with her or anything like that. He’s annoying enough that he probably would.
Even now that she can’t see him, and despite the fact that he’s apparently decided to be quiet for once, his presence is still obtrusive. The air reeks of his cigarettes and under that, barely noticeable, is the hint of cologne, some guy’s scent Robin doesn’t care enough to try and recognize. Pointedly, she coughs, and hears a chuckle from behind her.
“You don’t smoke?”
“Nope.” She makes sure to put emphasis on the word. Then, just for the sake of starting something, adds, “Those things’ll kill you, you know.”
“Sooner rather than later, I’d hope” he says, and Robin doesn’t quite know what to make of that. He sounds like he’s kidding, but Hargrove could deliver a funeral eulogy and it would probably still come out of his mouth with that same soft tone. Amused, yes, but a razor edge always lurked under his perpetual smirk.
Hargrove falls silent again. He doesn’t say anything else as he finishes his cigarette, ashes it under one steel-toed boot, and, only minutes later, disappears through the gym doors without a word.
“You’re kidding me.” Robin peered over the top of her book, incredulous, as the gym doors swung shut behind one Billy Hargrove. She’s facing the entrance and has no choice but to look at him over the pages of Dorian Grey.
“What, do you live out here?” he scoffed. “Truancy’s a dangerous habit.”
“That’s funny coming from you, Hargrove. I skip one class a day and still have straight A’s so what’s your excuse?”
He pulls a lighter and that ever-present pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “I got A’s and B’s.” When she raises a brow at him he sighs. “One C,” he amends, “But who the fuck needs early American history?”
He bends his head to light his cigarette, cupping one hand around the flame to protect it from the breeze even as he shoots a sideways glance at her. “Dorian Gray, huh?” he mutters around the smoke. It’s more a statement than a question, even with the upward lilt to his words, but Robin’s too surprised that he’s starting a conversation about her book to read into it too much. “You reading that for fun?”
“Believe it or not, yeah.”
Hargrove makes a noncommittal noise. Then, “Queer as hell, isn’t it?”
Try as she might, Robin can’t suppress the way she tenses at his words. She doesn’t mean to, doesn’t want to give anything away, but his eyes linger on her for a second too long and suddenly she’s forcing herself to breathe normally under his scrutiny, pinned under a gaze that’s way too intense to be on a seventeen year-old’s face.
What feels like hours later he finally turns away, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “Or maybe not. Forget I said anything.”
Robin figures she better open her fat mouth and come up with something snarky before he really puts two and two together. “I don’t disagree, I just didn’t know you could read,” she scoffs, noisily turning her page for emphasis.
Fine, maybe not her best comeback, but it does make Hargrove glance over at her with a sly smile. “I’m a man of many talents,” he says, visibly turning on the charm, and she makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat at the way the tip of his tongue darts between his teeth. Relentless fucking flirt.
“Is one of those talents shutting up? Because I’m trying to read out here and this is actually the second time you’ve interfered with that.” Robin doesn’t really mind his presence as much as she wants to, but she also doesn’t mind some peace and quiet once in a while.
He cocks his head, stubs his smoke out, gives her that one-shouldered shrug that just screams carefully cultivated disinterest. “Message received.”
He’s got one hand on the doorknob, the other shoved deep in the pockets of his oh-so-cool leather jacket, when he pauses, looks at her out the side of his eyes with an expression that’s far too knowing for Robin’s peace of mind. She holds his stare, unwilling to back down even as something painfully bitter flashes across his face.
“I’ll see you around, Buckley,” is all he says before he’s gone, leaving Robin caught between worry over their half-said conversation and confusion on how Billy fucking Hargrove knows her name.
The rest of the afternoon she’s bracing herself, waiting for the blow to fall. Billy Hargrove, asshole extraordinaire, possibly (probably) knew her secret, and she didn’t think he’d keep something like that quiet. Why should he?
But when she passed by Jimmy Ryman and Donna DeHaan in the hallway they all but ignored her, while Chris Sorrel’s “Looking good, Robin” was just the same amount of snide as usual. She got no disgusted looks in the hallways, no whispers followed her into her afternoon classes… by the time the final bell rang she’d almost stopped holding her breath every time she stepped out into the hallway.
Almost.
“Robin, wait up!” She spins, heart rate ratcheting up, but it’s only Shara, out of breath, backpack over one shoulder and trumpet case in hand. “What are you walking so fast for, huh?”
“Guess I’m just ready to get out of here. It’s been a long day.”
Smiling, Shara shakes her head. “Always is. Hey, guess what happened in seventh period today!”
Shara has the ability to make the most mundane stories interesting. Robin could probably listen to her describe grass growing and be positively enthralled, but before Shara can get a word in edgewise a familiar head of curls appears in her vision and her attention is successfully captured. Hargrove’s leaning against a locker the same way he leaned against the wall outside, too casual to be anything but faked, hands in his pockets, a crooked grin on his face as Charlie Hansen says something dickish… Not that Robin can hear him, per say, it’s just that everything that comes out of Hansen’s mouth varies from rude to outright hostile. She considers ducking away but Hargrove’s already seen her over Hansen’s beefy fucking shoulders.
He doesn’t smile, doesn’t sneer, just flicks one dark brow up in a barely-there acknowledgment before turning back to Hansen. The idea of Billy fucking Hargrove acknowledging her existence was a little too much for Robin to wrap her head around; she hadn’t even realized that she’d stopped walking until Shara waved a hand in front of her face, impatient. “Earth to Robin! Please tell me you’re not ogling Hargrove, you can do so much better for yourself.”
Shuddering at the idea, Robin shook her head. “God, no. Just zoned out I guess.”
“Good,” Shara laughs, “Because if you were, my next question would be ‘what drugs are you on?’”
Robin shoves her with one shoulder, laughing, Shara pretends to stumble with a dramatic gasp and a grab for Robin’s arm, and just like that Hargrove’s off her mind.
It’s raining, a storm of absolutely biblical proportions tearing through Hawkins, so Robin forgoes her usual bench in favor of a secluded hallway. It dead-ended at an electrical room-turned-storage closet which meant the only person who ever came down the hall was the janitor Kenny. He never ratted her out for skipping and had good book recommendations so Robin liked him a hell of a lot better than most of her teachers.
She was immersed enough in The Shining, silently urging Dick Halloran through his perilous journey up to the Overlook, that she didn’t even glance up at the sound of footsteps. “Hey, Kenny.”
“No, but understandable mistake,” a voice that was decidedly not Kenny’s drawls. Robin heaves a sigh.
“You stalking me, Hargrove?”
“You take over all my hideouts, Buckley?” he returns.
She shuts her book around her finger and turns to Hargrove with the kind of withering stare that usually sent people running. Unaffected, he just gave her a barely-there smile and a wink.
He doesn’t pull out a pack of smokes, probably because they’re inside, but what’s even more surprising is the way he doesn’t immediately relax against the cinderblock wall. She’s become used to him lounging in the corner of her vision, at ease, but he just hooks his thumbs through his belt loops and stays where he is in the middle of the hall. Robin goes back to her book.
“That The Shining?” he finally asks, and once again it’s not really a question.
“Yeah,” Robin hedges, wary. The last time Hargrove started a conversation about her book he’d walked away with knowledge about her that nobody else had.
“S’ a good book,” is all he says. Pauses, then… “I’m not saying jack shit to anyone, Buckley.” Robin looks back up, tilts her head in faux-curiosity.
“About what?” she challenges, mostly in a last ditch attempt to save face, but her pretend denial makes Hargrove’s expression darken. She wonders for a moment if he’d been trying to extend an olive branch, then decides that’s probably not something Billy Hargrove knows how to do.
Still…
“Why?” The moment the word’s out of her mouth she’s regretting it. Who cares why? He wasn’t going to out her to the entire town and she certainly doesn’t need a reason to appreciate that.
“I get it,” he replies simply.
There are a hundred different things he could mean by that. He gets having secrets you don’t want getting out. He gets the feeling of censoring a part of yourself just to spare those around you. He gets what it feels like to want the kinds of people you’re not supposed to want. Robin considers asking him about California, if the people there are really so much more open-minded than the denizens of a backwater Midwest town, but that question feels like it’s approaching the kind of ground they both want to stay away from. Instead, she nods to the dark smudge high on his cheekbone. “What happened there?”
Hargrove’s eyes flick to the ground, then back up to her. “Picked a fight with some guy on the basketball team,” he says, just a bit too quick, shaking his head so that lion’s mane falls further in front of his eyes.
Robin knows for a fact that Hargrove never starts a fight he won’t win (and he starts a hell of a lot of them) but his knuckles, peeking out from under the hem of his leather jacket, are unmarked. He’s got a glint in his eyes like he’s daring her to say something but plenty of things have already gone unsaid between them and Robin’s not about to break that streak.
“If you put as much energy into actually playing as you do into tossing your own teammates around the court,” she says instead, “the Tigers might actually win a few games.”
Visibly relaxing, Hargrove snorts. “I can only do so much to carry the team.”
And there’s that infuriating swagger. Robin wishes she could make up her mind on whether or not she hates the kid — all this back and forth was killing her.
“You keep telling yourself that.” She thinks she does a good job of keeping any amused undercurrents out of her voice, but Hargrove’s not fooled.
“Oh, I will, Buckley.” He gives her a slow smile, wide enough to flash his impeccably perfect teeth, and she swears he’s giving her a look from underneath lashes that would give Bambi a run for his money.
He’d make a real fuckin’ pretty girl, Robin thinks, even as she feels relief bubble up in her chest at his half-serious flirting. Some things, it's comforting to know, will simply never change.
When they all come back to school in the fall of ‘85, Billy’s absence is palpable.
It’s not so much that he isn’t there, they really hadn’t seen that much of each other, but the hallways feel ridiculously empty without the weight of all those unspoken words between them.
Maybe he had known her secret, maybe he had been the same way, maybe he was getting hit around at home. Maybe underneath all that bravado and rage was a boy worth really knowing.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, Robin thinks, because nothing of any importance had once been said aloud.