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Having her ex-boyfriend living in her parents’ basement is weird enough. Him being in the passenger seat of her car while Robin talks about a mysterious paramour that Nancy thinks— maybe even knows, maybe— might be her is even weirder.
She’s keeping a tight leash on her imagination.
It doesn’t matter that her intuition never leads her astray, that the swooping of her stomach has pointed her in the direction of a right conclusion a dozen times in the last few years, that her shots in the dark are bullseyes, or that Robin made a reference to something that is solely theirs on her radio show the other night and Nancy had to bite her tongue to keep from asking her what it meant. If it meant anything at all.
It doesn’t matter that it made Nancy spiral. It doesn’t matter that during times of crisis, the first face she searches for is Robin. Or, that the last time she and Jonathan kissed, she slid a hand up his shirt and had to imagine finding the lace of Robin’s bra. And she likes boys, she does. That’s not the problem.
The problem is that she likes Robin. The problem is mainly that on some lonely nights in her room, she pictures Robin climbing through her bedroom window the same way Steve used to do, and Nancy having to pretend to be above it all. That she wasn’t laughing at Robin’s gangly limbs getting caught on the windowsill, the too loud donk of her unceremoniously hitting the floor, and that, in stubborn spite of it all, Nancy wants to kiss her.
Wants to feel Robin’s kept-short fingernails gently combing into her curls, the press of her body as she corners Nancy on her bed, the mountain of words she’s poised to let loose that Nancy will silence the second they get their mouths on each other.
Nancy is worried she would eat Robin alive. More worried that Robin might let her. Mostly worried that she doesn’t know what it says about either of them.
And if this mysterious person turns out not to be her, that it might be the closest to unravelled she’ll ever allow herself to be. This feels different. So far removed from the heartbreak of splitting with Steve, and a few weeks ago, rejecting the idea of a future Jonathan was clearly envisioning. Crushing, terrifying, like she’s got one foot off the ledge and Robin’s responsible for the sole one keeping her tethered.
In the backseat, Mike is unbothered. Nancy watches him for a fraction of a second, something like guilt settling in her gut. Guilt for thinking of Robin like this, for being queer, for abandoning the picturesque future their parents worked so hard to give them. Guilt for thinking Mike would look at her differently for it.
(Shame for loving Robin at all.)
She blinks a little harder than usual and turns back to the road as Robin’s voice drifts into her ears.
Now, dear listeners, who is this mysterious person who’s caught my eye, you might be asking. And to that I’d have to say you’ll never know. They probably will never, either. So, dedicated to my special someone who will never know, here is Berlin’s, “Take My Breath Away,” the main theme of last year’s Top Gun.
Top Gun. Tom Cruise. Bedroom wall posters. Surely it means something. How could it all not?
Behind Nancy, Mike scoffs.
Beside Nancy, Jonathan stirs. He’s spent the better half of the ride slouched in the passenger seat, pretending to read whatever novel he dragged off her parents’ bookshelf and not napping against the window. Which he definitely was. Nancy heard him snore at least once.
“Kinda weird to think of Robin with a boyfriend, isn’t it?” he says.
Nancy’s throat instantly feels tight. She says, strained, “I mean, she’s pretty. Smart. Motivated. Pretty. I don’t think it’s that weird for someone to have feelings for her, right?”
Relax, she tells herself. Her fingers are gripping the steering wheel so tight they’re paling, and Jonathan glances up blearily from the book in his lap to give her a look she’s familiar with. Seeking, searching. Parsing the guarded truth she’s hoarded for herself, the things she tells no one, not even him, even after breaking up.
He glances back at his book, visual strip search complete. He doesn’t look as though he got the answers he wanted— thankfully. Nancy’s not sure if she could part lips that he’s kissed, and use them to tell him she’s in love with someone else and that that someone else is Robin, of all people. Steve’s friend. A girl, of all things. A girl she really likes.
She forces herself to pay attention to blurring street signs and passing pedestrians, aware distantly of the thrum of her heart that hasn’t settled and likely won’t.
Then: “You said pretty twice.”
Jonathan, not Mike.
Nancy’s not sure which is worse as she swallows so loud she swears it’s audible. “Did I? Whoops.”
“Yeah, you did. Just now,” Jonathan replies, tone bored, unaffected. “You said Robin is pretty, smart, motivated, and then pretty again.”
“Well, she is. All those things. So, it doesn’t mean anything for me to point them out, does it?” Nancy rushes to say, forcing her teeth to close before she can make this into any more of a mess. “Besides, I’m sure you agree.”
“I don’t think Robin cares if I think she’s pretty, Nancy,” Jonathan replies, a hint of humour lacing his words. “She’s too busy caring if Steve does, from what I can see.”
Oh. Oh, God. Whatever ledge Robin was keeping her tethered to is slipping further out from under her alongside Jonathan’s words, and her stomach flips like she’s in freefall. No parachute, no one to catch her. Just the weight of Robin’s crush being on Steve, quickening the inevitable sick crunch of Nancy’s bones as they plummet towards reality.
She turns to look at Jonathan then, eyebrows furrowing painfully together. “You think Robin likes Steve?” she asks.
“I thought it was kinda obvious, to be honest. Everyone does. Have you seriously never noticed how much she looks at him? C’mon. I’ve seen that look before, Nance, it doesn’t lie.”
“You’ve seen it before?”
Jonathan shrugs, too lazy to properly lift either shoulder. “Yeah. I suppose. We probably looked at each other like that once before, y’know. And Will and… my brother and the person he likes. My mum and Hopper. It’s not easy to miss.”
On the radio, the song Robin probably, maybe, could’ve, might’ve not, didn’t, definitely didn’t dedicate to Nancy draws to a close, and a familiar tone that never fails to make her smile fills the car once again.
If the look of love is so obvious, how come no one has noticed Nancy’s? How come no one has pinpointed the brief interlude where Nancy went from glaring to being unable to do anything but gaze, map out Robin’s freckles like studying for an exam she knows she’ll pass?
“I mean, it’s just gross, isn’t it?”
Nancy looks in the rearview mirror at her brother, the downturn of his mouth, his eyes like daggers. She’d forgotten he was here for the briefest of moments and the thought of him hearing her call Robin pretty sinks her back into earlier’s guilt, amplified by her own foolishness.
“What?” Jonathan urges.
“Her,” Mike says, pointedly. “Imagine being so pathetically head over heels in love with Steve Harrington that you keep playing cheesy love songs in between narrating your town’s military prescence. Not to mention that meathead is in the station with her all the time, anyway. And Vecna’s doing who the hell knows what.”
Oh, that, Nancy thinks, and steadies her grip on the steering wheel.
“You think Robin’s crush is on Steve, too?” she replies, trying for cheerfully amused in a way she thinks crashes and burn. Even thinking about it gives her chest pains she’s finding it hard to ignore. “I don’t think she’d be doing all this for him, of all people, Mike. Hopefully not, at least.”
“I’m just saying,” Mike replies, scowl not fading. “What is it about Steve that makes girls lose all common sense? What’s so special about him?”
Nancy feels like her love for Robin is a bloody wound she’s trying to conceal from everywhere so they don’t worry; bandaged beneath so many layers you’d never find it, it’d never bleed through. But, for now, she latches onto what Mike doesn’t say and the big sister instincts that urge her to find whatever bruise is bothering him and press it to see if it hurts.
He’s worked up over something else. Someone else, maybe. She knows what that’s like.
“Girl troubles?” Nancy asks.
Mike rolls his eyes painfully hard. “Whatever, Nancy. At least tell me you’ll talk some sense into her, will you? I think I’m going to be sick if I have to hear that song and think about her and Steve again.”
“Y’know what, Mike? Me, too,” Jonathan replies, then falls back into his book or his unfinished nap.
Nancy can think of nothing but her idiocy, the stripped naked honesty of her calling Robin pretty— not once, but twice, worst of all— and how reluctant she would be to say it to her face. She pictures the look Robin would give her, of either friendly comradiery enough to torture Nancy’s heart, or purely imagined disgust that she doesn’t think Robin is capable of.
Girls call each other pretty all the time, it isn’t a big deal. It isn’t. It doesn’t matter that it’s the first thing she thought of when she met Robin, that she instantly assumed she was with Steve because there was an allure to her that Nancy couldn’t imagine Steve resisting.
Worse, of all the time Robin spent trying to convince her she didn’t feel anything for Steve… she could’ve lied. She could’ve. Maybe all the nights Nancy has spent dreaming of Robin, Robin has been dreaming of Steve climbing through her window, running his fingers along the lacey edge of her bra, kissing her to keep her quiet.
Jonathan casts a curious look at the dash, at the speed limit sign they pass.
Nancy’s only torturing herself. Feeling this way. Wanting Robin. She knows it’s not allowed and that it won’t go anywhere, and yet— and yet, she’s indulging in the fantasy of it, of loving a girl even though she’s a girl, and of pretending she could.
Worse that she’s allowed to want Robin, to dream of her, to imagine her, and not allowed to ever tell her. Not allowed to ever have her.
“You okay?” Mike asks, leaning forward.
The ache of concern in his voice tangles the frayed threads of guilt and shame loose in her into knots, and Nancy aims a forced, pained smile at the rearview mirror. “Peachy.”
They seem to both know it’s a lie, though neither will say.
The view from here isn’t so bad, if she can ignore the huge tower that brings Robin’s radio show to life. It casts a shadow that overwhelms them, drenching them in the kind of murky dark that late afternoon brings, when children are rushing back to home-cooked dinners and the bugs around them are chattering to one another in high-pitched tones that will soon drown the silence.
Inside, inevitably, Robin is forcing all her listeners to hear that song again and drafting whatever she’ll say to her crush when he asks her about it.
Outside, Nancy is sitting on a patch of dirt beside Steve, the late sunset brushing them in strokes of orange and pink that paint the stretch of sky they’re watching. His hand brushes hers and she moves it an inch away, thinking instead of the cool of Robin’s rings when she gently grabbed her arm earlier and the secret smiles they’d shared over a private joke.
It’s Steve who breaks the silence, obnoxiously clearing his throat to force her attention to him as he picks at random pieces of grass.
”I hear you and Jonathan broke up.”
Nancy doesn’t answer. She waits a beat enough to let his words dissipate between them before saying, “Does Robin like you? Like, like like you?”
A strangled laugh bursts out of Steve. “What? Were on earth did you get that idea?”
The cool of afternoon has Nancy thankful for her sleeves and the warmth they provide, mostly to hide the gentle shiver of forced bravado.
“She told me she didn’t like you. When we met,” she says.
Steve shakes his head, insistent. “She doesn’t.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“You don’t have to be— I don’t know, jealous,” he adds, tenderly. “If you are, Nance. Okay? Robin doesn’t like me like that. We’re just really, really good friends. Trust me. Me and her is definitely not happening, ever. It’d be pretty impossible.”
Nancy pauses in her pursuit of heartbreak, offering him a sideways look that catches the expression of resolve on his features. “Impossible, how?”
The late afternoon breeze pushing through the trees ruffles Steve’s hair as he sits in contemplative silence, clearly choosing his next words carefully.
“Robin’s not like other girls I know, alright?” he murmurs. “She’s different. Good different, but still different. It’s nice to have a girl around that I know will just be a friend, and I’m not going to catch feelings and mess everything up like I always seem to do. She’s not interested in me, Nance, that’s all. You’d understand if…”
Nancy hangs on to that if. “If what, Steve?”
“If you were like her, I guess.”
“Like her, how?” Nancy leans into, turning to face him fully. His face is blank, clear, devoid of give-aways she was hoping to find. Steve Harrington, who wears his emotions on his sleeve, who can’t play poker to save his life. “I know you care about her, Steve. I do, too, right? We’re friends. I’m just… curious, is all. She’s not exactly being subtle about it on the air, and I… I don’t know. I thought maybe she did have feelings for you.”
Afternoon sun gold on his skin, Steve reluctantly meets Nancy’s eyes.
“You should speak to her about it,” he suggests. “Seriously. I doubt she’d mind the company. This isn’t the most thrilling time for being a radio host, if you can believe it.”
Approaching night beginning to drape itself over them, Nancy brushes at the grass stains wet on the legs of her pants and takes Steve’s suggestions, sharing one last look with him before leaving him there. The sounds of the others become mute noise, drowned out beneath the violent crash of Nancy’s shipwrecking heart.
It’s not Steve.
She wipes her sweaty palms on her thighs and steps inside the radio station, wincing at the crash that follows. Robin and her clumsy, too-fast-moving hands inevitably, and a few strides in the direction of the noise reveal her crouched on the floor, frantically trying to scoop up a box of tapes she must’ve knocked over.
"I see you've got things under control in here," Nancy jokes. “Do you need a hand?”
“If you’ve got one to spare, I’ll take it,” Robin says, and looks up with a crooked, wide smile that threatens to jailbreak Nancy’s heart out of her chest. “Steve keeps saying we need to organise this place more, but… It’s a lot harder than it looks. Seriously. Have you seen how much stuff is around here? It's a goldmine of useless junk.”
Nancy hands her a tape, their fingers brushing unspoken between them. “You could always ask for help, you know. I’m around if you need it.”
“I don’t want to bother you,” Robin answers, hesitantly.
“Robin, you’re the last person who could possibly bother me. Like I said, I’m around. Like I know you’re around if I need someone who’s a weird runner, or knows Tom Cruise movies—”
“You were listening,” Robin interrupts. “You heard what I said?”
Nancy forces a smile, the myriad of thoughts that she forces back is a kind of internal punishment. For her guilt, shame, love. “Pretty much all of it, actually. He must be really special.”
Robin’s fingers pause on a tape, wide eyes watching Nancy considerably. Softly, gently, dropping the tape back into the box slowly, she says, “Yeah. They are.”
“I’m happy for you, Rob,” Nancy lies. “So, is it Steve? He said it wasn’t, but…”
“It’s not Steve, Nancy.” She intakes a deep breath that seems to take with it all the oxygen in the room, clutching a tape of The Smiths with chipped nails like it’s a lifeline. “It’s not— I’m not like that. I don’t think that way or feel that way, do you know what I mean? It’s hard for me to put into words precisely, but— it’s not Steve. It’s someone I know, you’re right. Just, not Steve. Never Steve.”
Nancy looks at her inquiringly, trying to quell the tidal wave of doubt threatening to drown the ignition of hope within her. “Then who?”
“Nance,” Robin seems to plead.
“Who, Robin?”
Robin’s eyes dart downwards, staring at the scattered tapes like they hold the answers she doesn’t have. “You know, when I said, just then, that I don’t think or feel that way… I didn’t just mean about Steve. I meant about boys— guys, in general. Actually. I don’t like them. Not in the way I’m supposed to or people want me to, or the way I spent years telling myself I should. Not in the way I like you, Nancy.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. ‘Oh’.”
Robin’s apology stains the moment more than anything, that she should feel she has anything to apology for, that she should feel the need to keep her gaze locked on the floor rather than Nancy.
Nancy, who moments ago was teetering on the precipice of unrequited love, of shame and guilt and fear, but now has Robin holding her other hand, pulling her freefall foot to safety. It lightens the air squeezing its way out of her tight lungs, letting her intake a breath that doesn’t threaten to hitch on its way out.
“I’m sorry.”
Robin shakes her head. “Oh, no, you don’t have to—”
“I should’ve told you, Robin,” Nancy interrupts, trying to keep the spill of her confession sealed tight and failing. “The Tom Cruise poster, your Upside Down outfit, the Top Gun song you kept playing… I was hoping it was for me. Until Jonathan and Mike said it was Steve and I thought maybe it was, and maybe I was wrong. I wasn’t, though. Was I? You’re sure? You’re sure it’s me?”
“It’s been you for a pretty long time, Nance, it just took me some time. But I got there in the end.”
Nancy works enough scraps of courage together to reach for Robin, to push past her trepidation and settle her hand on Robin’s arm, her thumb brushing her skin. Warm, soft. Exactly the way Nancy has always known it would be. No shame in the actual act of witnessing her desire, her love, her affection, and within her their tightly wound threads begin to unravel.
“We got there, you mean,” she corrects, voice softer than she thinks she’s ever heard it.
“Oh, we got there,” Robin agrees. Under her splash of freckles, her face is flushed a dusty red. “Can I kiss you? If I'm being too forward, you can say. I've been told I have that habit."
Nancy chews her bottom lip, pretending to be lost in a thought she’s had so many times it’s worn at the edges, before she puts Robin out of momentary misery with a hushed, low, "You better."
And the distance that closes between them leaves no room for guilt or shame.