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“God, I seriously can’t believe he’s bailing on me.”
Robin jumped, startled by her friend’s sudden outburst. They were sitting in Nancy’s room, study materials laid out in front of them. Though Nancy was frustrated about having to delay going to Emerson, something she complained about to Robin fairly often, it hadn’t been her decision to wait given that Hawkins was under a quarantine. And even if it wasn’t, Robin didn’t think Nancy would dare to leave her family until the threat of Vecna was far behind them.
If it ever is, Robin found herself thinking frequently, but she always shoved that thought away. No use in worrying about something that could never be proven wrong.
“Who?” Robin asked, looking up from the biology notes she’d been copying off of Nancy. Even for her junior college general education credits, her friend was putting in meticulous effort.
“Steve,” Nancy sighed. “We were supposed to wear matching costumes at the Halloween party next week, but he apparently has some family thing.”
That worried Robin. Steve’s family had rarely been in town before recently, but the last few months his father had actually blown off work a few times in his paranoia and was keeping her best friend on a rather tight leash. She filed the thought away, vowing to call him later, before focusing on the strangest part of Nancy’s words.
“Wait, why were you going to a party with Steve?” Robin asked, feeling a twinge of jealousy. She figured it was because Nancy was planning to steal away Robin’s best friend for the night and brushed it off.
Nancy ducked her head. “We’ve been talking a lot more, since I broke up with Jonathan. He thought that a party could help me lighten up a bit.”
“Fair, but matching costumes? What were you planning to go as?”
“Han and Leia from Star Wars.” Robin could swear she saw a flush of embarrassment on Nancy’s face.
“A real testament to Steve’s narrow taste in cinema,” Robin quipped. “And a couples costume.”
Nancy’s jaw clenched as she scribbled something furiously in her notebook. “It’s not like that, Robin. Steve and I are just friends, as I well remember you saying to me not too long ago. And even if we weren’t, why would you care? It seemed like you were trying to push us together anyway.”
What she didn’t know was that Robin had only done that to get over her enormous crush, a crush she had long gotten over, of course. But Nancy couldn’t know that, so Robin shrugged.
“Just looking out for you.” An idea came to mind. “Hey,” she offered. “What if I went to the party with you instead?”
“You? Go to a party?” Nancy asked incredulously. “Besides, I thought you had to work. That’s what Steve said.”
Robin distantly wondered what else Steve was telling Nancy behind her back. She knew her best friend would never reveal anything serious, but embarrassing wasn’t off the table.
“Eh, I’ll just pawn my shift off to our newest employee. He loves me, after all.”
“Just make sure it’s not a D&D night, or Dustin’s a no-go,” Nancy warned, but in her voice was what sounded like an agreement.
“Great! So I can go?”
“Yes, you can come to the party.” Nancy tried for a tone of exasperation, but Robin could see the smile lifting the corner of her lips. “We’ll need new costumes though.”
“Don’t you already have a Star Wars costume?”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“I’ll just take Steve’s then and hem it up a little. Don’t want you to have to pay for a new costume or anything.”
She wasn’t sure why she was offering, especially since she had very vehemently stated just a minute ago that it was a couple’s costume, but thinking about that and taking it back seemed suspicious.
“You’re going as Han Solo?” Nancy asked with an amused smirk. “But that’s…”
“A guy costume, I know,” Robin said quickly. She cursed herself. Now she’d dug herself into a hole. “But hey, if anyone could pull it off, it’s me. I can rock anything.”
Nancy reached over to take her notebook back from Robin. Now that she was closer, Robin could see her eyes twinkling.
“Yeah,” she said. “You really can.”
Robin tried not to get lost in those bright eyes, but she found herself unable to look away until Nancy glanced back to her biology notebook.
“Well, it's settled then,” she said with finality, and if Robin didn’t know any better, she’d think her friend sounded breathless. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”
***
Robin knocked on Steve’s door the next day. Unfortunately, his father answered.
Robin had never actually spoken two words to Mr. Harrington, but she knew what he looked like after seeing him hovering around his son much more than necessary lately. She’d been coming out of the break room at Family Video once when she walked in on Steve and his father having an argument at the counter, something about his future and how Steve should “find ambition like he did and actually do something with his life.” Robin wished she could’ve told him about all the things Steve had done, all the people he’d saved, but he would never believe her.
“Can I help you?” Mr. Harrington asked.
“Is Steve home?”
“Ah, so you’re his little girlfriend,” he said, smoothing the lapels of his jacket. “I was wondering when you would come calling, given the complete lack of work that seems to get done at your dead-end job.”
“Yes, I’m Steve’s friend,” Robin affirmed with an uncomfortable chuckle, ignoring the last comment. “And I happen to be a girl.”
“Steve!” he yelled up the stairs, startling Robin. “Your girlfriend is here!”
“Not his…nevermind.”
Mr. Harrington ushered her in and shooed her up the stairs. “He’s in his room,” he told her. “But no funny business in my house, you hear?”
Robin tried not to roll her eyes. First of all, there would be no “funny business” given that they were just friends, a concept that everyone struggled to believe, and second, if only he knew about the many conquests Steve had pursued last year when he was still acting as a neglectful, absent father.
Steve opened the door to his room just as Robin went to knock.
“Your dad is pleasant,” said Robin by way of greeting, walking into the room and plopping down on Steve’s cluttered desk chair.
“So you’ve finally officially met him,” Steve replied with an eye roll. “I guess it was only a matter of time. So, for what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I need your Halloween costume,” Robin said without missing a beat.
Steve raised an eyebrow. “Um, why?”
“Because some dingus bailed on Nancy at the last minute and I offered to go to the party with her.”
Steve sighed. “Listen, you don’t have to do that. It’s my dad, he’s having me go in for another “real” job interview that night. As if it matters with the state of things in Hawkins. But I can try and skip it.”
“And have your dad take your keys again? Do you remember how embarrassing it was to have Dustin driving you around? He’s a better driver than you, by the way, and he only has his permit.”
Steve dug the costume out of his closet and threw it directly at Robin’s face. “Shut up, I’m an excellent driver.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you want my costume, anyway? Why don’t you and Nance come up with your own thing? Like princesses or ponies?”
“Do you know me at all?” Robin said with a dramatic sigh, though she couldn’t help but smile at the obvious teasing. “And first of all, I didn’t want her to have to pick a new costume. Second of all, I’m fucking broke, man.”
“Fair enough.”
“You didn’t tell me, by the way,” Robin pointed out as she got up to leave.
“Tell you what?”
“That you and Nancy were hanging out so much. Or about the party.” She meant to sound playful, but a little accusation slipped into her tone, which she realized when she watched Steve flinch.
“Look, Rob,” Steve took a breath and ran his hands through his hair. “Nancy needed a shoulder to cry on, and since she and Jonathan aren’t talking right now, I offered to be there for her.”
“I could’ve been there for her,” Robin said. “We see each other almost every day.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been here since this shit started.” When Robin frowned, he continued. “It’s not a competition.”
“Are you still in love with her?” Robin had no idea why she decided to ask that, and didn’t fully comprehend the question until the words were already out of her mouth.
Steve was just looking at Robin, searching for something in her eyes. “No,” he said slowly. “But it kind of sounds like you are.”
Robin laughed it off, but she could tell it was too shrill. “Love?” she scoffed. “Seriously, Steve?”
She turned tail and left, still laughing and avoiding whatever questions he was sure to throw at her if she stayed. She wasn’t sure she could withstand them.
***
At eight o’clock sharp, a station wagon pulled into the lot in front of Robin’s apartment building. She looked at herself in the mirror. Between her loose black vest and the fake pistol strapped to her belt, she thought she looked cool as hell. Admittedly, Steve would’ve been perfect for the costume, and his hair would’ve completed it. But as Robin mussed her hair and winked at herself in the mirror, she thought she could be a pretty good substitute.
“Are you ready?” Nancy asked as Robin slid into the passenger seat. Robin looked over and saw her dressed in movie-accurate attire, complete with buns that had to constitute some pretty serious extensions.
“Born ready,” Robin affirmed, resting her feet on the dash.
“Really?” said Nancy with an incredulous laugh, “because from what I’ve gathered, you’ve never been to a party in your life.”
“What? Of course I have! I’m like, totally a party person! I’ve been invited to more parties than the rest of the marching band, or at least the trumpet section, and—”
“Robin.”
She cut herself off and looked over to see that amused smile fixed in her direction again, now complete with a hint of fondness.
“It’s okay. I’ve only been to a few parties, and they’re really not all that.” A cloud passed over her face. “They were some of the worst nights of my life, actually. But I’m taking back that control, and we’re going to have fun. It’ll be more fun, since you’ll be there.”
Robin found herself smiling back, and the thought pricked at the back of her mind that maybe Steve was more right than she wanted to admit.
***
The party was being hosted at a house just off the campus of their junior college. Robin was surprised to hear the bass thrumming as they pulled over on the side of the street.
“It’s worse than a school dance,” Robin commented as they exited the car.
Nancy shrugged, but Robin could tell that despite her nonchalant demeanor, she was nervous. “You wanted to come.”
Robin ran to keep up as they walked to the door of the party, a guy at the front collecting five dollar bills from each student as they entered.
“Who pays to go to a party?” Robin grumbled. Nancy paid for both of them before she could take out her wallet, and Robin’s protest was immediately swallowed by the noise of the party.
It was loud, crowded, and filled with guys and girls wearing tight costumes that displayed more of their skin than Robin ever wanted to see. She glanced over at Nancy, poised to make fun of a guy across the room dressed as a sexy chicken, before she noticed a barely disguised fear in her friend’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” Robin asked. Nancy didn’t respond, and for a terrifying moment, Robin thought she might be having a vision again, that Vecna might have gotten her. But her gaze was still present, just trailing over the people at the party with a strange mix of decidedly negative emotions.
Robin grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the side, standing between Nancy and the party.
“Seriously, what’s up?”
Nancy seemed to snap out of her daze and started to form the words “I’m fine.” But when she saw Robin’s expression, she seemed to realize it was no use.
“The last Halloween party I went to… it didn’t end well,” she admitted. “That’s part of the reason I was going with Steve. It was… sort of a do-over.”
Robin suddenly remembered the whispers at Hawkins High about a Halloween party and some drama between Nancy and Steve. That was before she knew either of them, and when she still thought Steve was a massive douchebag, but she wished she had listened more.
“Well, you said we were coming here to have fun,” she declared, trying to conjure up confidence she didn’t feel. “And that’s what we’re going to do. I’ll make sure of it.”
Though her brow was still furrowed in worry, Nancy’s lips curled up in a small smile. “I guess we didn’t pay five dollars for nothing.”
Holding onto her hand, Robin grinned and pulled her through the crowd of inebriated college students toward the table of drinks. Nancy eyed the punch warily, then filled up a glass with some mysterious green liquid.
“It’s monster slime,” explained a guy dressed as a werewolf, curling his hands into claws and baring his teeth. “Not sure you ladies can handle it.”
Nancy rolled her eyes, and before either the guy or Robin could say anything, downed the entire glass.
“Damn, the princess has a backbone,” said the werewolf in surprise, and a couple of other guys cheered.
“This princess has a gun,” Nancy snapped. She filled up another glass, and Robin barely managed to fill hers before she was dragged away.
Robin was too stunned to speak for a moment. She looked at her friend in awe as she sipped on her sickly sweet “vampire blood” punch.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Nancy asked finally, ducking her head to avoid Robin’s eyes.
“Like what?” Robin felt a spike of anxiety. She hoped she wasn’t making Nancy uncomfortable.
“Like I just… won the lottery or something.”
“Um, because that was awesome?” Robin said, her anxiety dissipating. “You totally put that guy in his place!”
“You’ve seen me do things that are a lot more important than trying to prove something to a random asshole at a party,” Nancy pointed out.
“Yeah, but sometimes the assholes at parties are harder to deal with than the real monsters,” Robin said. “In a different way, but still.”
Nancy gave her an indecipherable look.
“Do you want to dance?” she asked suddenly.
“What?” Despite the obvious setting, the first thing Robin pictured was ballroom dancing, her hand on her friend’s waist as they twirled across the floor.
“Do you want to dance?” Nancy repeated, this time sounding more uncertain. “There’s not really much else to do here, unless you want to participate in the hygiene hell that is bobbing for apples or smoke a joint on the back porch with the local metalheads and musicians.”
The last part made Robin think of Eddie, and from the slight frown on Nancy’s face as the words left her mouth, she could tell she had too.
“Let’s dance,” she agreed, pulling Nancy toward the crush of teens dancing to “Thriller.”
Nancy didn’t let go of her hand. In fact, Robin saw fear flash across her face whenever someone got too close, and when they did, she’d squeeze Robin’s hand so hard it hurt. Soon, though, Robin saw her fall into the music, her eyes closing as she danced in a way that almost seemed effortless.
Robin was sure she looked like an uncoordinated foal in comparison, and she only hoped the way her arms jerked in time to the music was funny more than it was embarrassing.
They went to refill their drinks a couple of times, but Robin threw her glass away just as she reached a state of comfortable bliss, in which she was made a little less aware of the sticky bodies surrounding her. What she was made more aware of, though, was Nancy. She seemed to be moving even more fluidly than before, her hands now occasionally catching Robin’s and moving them along with hers. Every touch of their hands sent goosebumps racing along her skin, made her shiver, and Robin didn’t try to hide it. Why should she, when the world could end any day anyways?
The music slowed, a soft female voice whispering over the speakers. Robin was ready to get lost in this song, too, but the guy who offered her an arm as everyone coupled up for a slow dance sobered her quickly. She excused herself, moving toward the drink table with a quick “be back in a minute,” mouthed in Nancy’s direction.
Slow dances had always made her feel ashamed, even as early as the Snow Ball in middle school when she didn’t exactly know why. As everyone coupled up on the dance floor, she’d somehow known, even then, that she’d never have that. She’d never have a chance to move so carelessly, so lovingly, with another person.
Just as she’d filled her third drink of the night, a hand reached out and took it from her. Nancy didn’t say a word, that same strange, indecipherable look in her eyes that Robin had noticed before. Strangely, the first thing Robin noticed was that her hair had fallen out of its tightly wound buns at some point while they were dancing, leaving her hair messy in a way that was more carefree than Robin had ever seen it.
Nancy pulled Robin into the shadows by the stairs, out of the dim green and purple lights. Robin didn’t understand what was happening until Nancy put her arms around her neck and started to sway in time with the music. Robin froze, her heart speeding up until she could hear it in her ears. Then, Nancy spoke.
“Are you going to dance with me, or not?”
She drew in a shuddering breath, then slowly, carefully, placed her hands on Nancy’s waist. The other girl rested her head on Robin’s chest, and she thought faintly that Nancy would be able to hear every rapid beat of her heart.
She closed her eyes, memorizing everything about this moment. She memorized the delicate touch of arms around her neck, the soft music crooning from the speakers. She thought about the fact that if someone were to see them in the shadows, they could almost be mistaken for a normal couple. Her heart ached at the thought, but only dimly, the pain trapped beyond the alcohol and the heady feeling that came with the experience of dancing with Nancy Wheeler.
The song ended, replaced by another upbeat Halloween number. Robin didn’t move for a moment, wanting to savor this feeling for as long as she could, but eventually she pulled away and met Nancy’s eyes.
There was something sad in them, but also something that looked strangely like hope.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Nancy asked, and Robin’s face flushed embarrassingly red before she realized that she meant “do you want to go home?”
“Y-yeah,” Robin stammered, cursing herself for how breathless she sounded. “I’ve had enough of these people anyway.”
But never enough of you, she thought.
The drive home was silent. Between the time they’d spent dancing, the time they spent shoving their way to the door, and the crisp October air that greeted them outside, Robin had mostly sobered, at least to the point where her memories of the past few hours were laced with guilt. She’d volunteered herself for the party, and sure, maybe Nancy did initiate their dance, but she’d probably just been missing Jonathan after their breakup, or even Steve for that matter, and Robin had taken advantage of that due to a stupid, silly crush that, by the way, she was definitely not over.
Her heart was racing for a whole different reason now, and by the time they parked outside of Robin’s building, she was internally panicking.
Nancy put the car in park, and when Robin looked over, she looked like she was contemplating something.
“I’m sorry,” Robin blurted, sick of the silence. “I know this was something you wanted to do with Steve, and then I came along and forced myself into your plans. And I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable: I know it probably wasn’t about me and I understand if you don’t want to talk to me because of it and—”
Nancy’s hand reached out to cup her cheek. Robin gathered the courage to meet her eyes, and she didn’t see disgust, or anger, or indifference.
“It was about you,” Nancy said, her voice so soft that Robin had to lean in to hear it. “It’s been about you for a while.”
Robin had to be dreaming. She had to be, because there was no way this was real.
But Nancy was leaning in, uncertainty in her eyes as she met Robin’s once more.
“I—”
Robin pressed her lips to Nancy’s, hoping desperately that she’d read the signs right.
Then Nancy was kissing her back, and her mind went blank.
She’d heard that kissing the right person should feel like fireworks, but kissing Nancy Wheeler was more like the warm rays of the sun on a beautiful summer day, the kind of day that felt like it would never end. Robin deepened the kiss, her arms moving to wrap around Nancy’s shoulders, and she let out a little squeak that had Robin pulling away with breathless laughter. Nancy was laughing too, and their foreheads pressed together over the center console.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” Robin breathed.
Nancy went in for another kiss in lieu of a response. This one only lasted a few seconds, her fingertips ghosting over Robin’s cheek, before she pulled away.
“I don’t want to stop.”
Robin looked up at her apartment, knowing that her parents were waiting up for her and not knowing what tomorrow would bring, free from the haze of this autumn evening.
“When will I see you again?” she asked, needing confirmation that this was real. That what they had right now, what Robin had avoided thinking about but had desperately wanted, wasn’t going to end in her getting hurt.
“I’ll pick you up at eight?” Nancy ventured.
Robin leaned in to kiss her one more time before her face split into a smile.
“Eight is perfect.”