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Out of all her terrible ideas, running away to France, cutting her own hair, becoming friends (somehow) with Steve Harrington, Robin thinks this might be one of her worst. At least, the one she’ll regret the most.
Standing at a party of people she doesn’t know, of people she, frankly, despised, having to follow Steve around like a codependent puppy, at a place decorated for Valentine’s day, even though it’s not until Tuesday, but why would they throw a party on Tuesday and everyone’s got romantic plans that evening and—anyway, Robin really regrets telling Steve they should go.
She, of course, remembers why she did in the first place. Because ever since last summer, Steve’s been hanging out with her nonstop, and, yes, she enjoys having a really good friend, a best friend, for once in her life. But she feels guilty. Robin is not Steve’s typical crowd, and Robin is certainly not hanging out with that crowd, so she’s sort of been… pulling him away from all his other friends. So when he had offhandedly mentioned that Tommy H had said something about a party, Robin had practically begged Steve to say yes, under the guise of, “It’ll be fun,” and not, “I feel bad that I’m taking away all your time from your other friends because I do not want to hang out with people who would beat me up if they knew me, or who want to beat me up just for the principle of me existing without knowing me.”
So, she could’ve thought of a better idea than this.
Luckily, and part of the reason the party was appealing, the booze is saving her. She can keep a drink in her hand, a pleasant buzz in her head, and blame any awkwardness on the alcohol. A perfect cover.
Until, well, she has to pee. She’s technically in a conversation with Steve and two people he knows, but she actually hasn’t cared to offer her voice or to listen in the first place. Mostly, she’s just been standing by Steve and praying she’s acting normal enough.
She takes another sip of her drink, and then turns to Steve. “I’m gonna, uh, find the bathroom.” He nods, and turns back to his conversation, as she begins pushing her way through the crowd of people dancing.
Eventually, after too much touching, and bumping into too many people, and too many “sorry”s, she finds the bathroom a short little hallway. Well, really, she finds the line for the bathroom, because that’s just her luck. She’s only the third in line, but still, she really has to pee. She’s not sure what’s worse: standing in a bathroom line and not talking to anyone, or standing by Steve’s side and not talking to anyone.
She sighs and leans against the wall. At least she doesn’t have to pretend to be listening in the bathroom line.
She’s committed to this plan, of not talking, but then she looks and realizes the girl in front of her is also alone, and also not talking to anyone.
Maybe, Robin thinks, she could make a friend. On her own, without Steve. She can be charming.
She pulls the first thing she can think of as a conversation starter. “Hey, uh, I like your sweater.”
She forgot how bad she is at this.
“Thanks!” The girl practically shouts, obviously not very sober. “Got it at the mall. Though, I think it’s too hot in here now. I might have to take it off soon!”
Robin does not think about random girls stripping their sweaters at a party.
“I’m sure my boyfriend would love that,” the girl says, annoyed.
Not sure how to respond, Robin just says, “Right.”
“He only actually likes me when it’s convenient. It’s so annoying.” Robin typically doesn’t like making assumptions about offhand comments said when drunk, but she wants to tell this girl to break up with him.
The girl waves a hand dismissively. “But it’s Valentine’s Tuesday, so it’s fine.”
And right. Robin had forgotten about that part. It’s three days before Valentine’s Day, and this is a Valentine’s party, and this girl’s sweater is fucking pink little ruffly hearts.
And, look, she doesn’t hate Valentine’s day. She gets it, okay? She would love to be able to celebrate her romantic partner for a whole day, and go on cheesy dates, with chocolate and flowers and balloons.
But when you’re fourteen and you realize that you may never be able to celebrate a Valentine’s day like that, it kinda loses its appeal. The whole idea of public love, of going out and not hiding that you’re together, of buying the cheesy gifts, of declaring your love for someone and the whole world knows—that’s a concept Robin knows she will never be familiar with. She accepted it, at fifteen (fourteen was spent mourning it), and she’s lived sort of in resentment of the holiday since.
But now she's at a party celebrating it, and she knows she won’t ever voice her thoughts here, where people would ask and pry, so she shuts her mouth, puts a little lockbox over the topic of Valentine’s and moves on.
Luckily, the girl does, too, but to a different, equally as bad topic. “You’re the one that walked in with Steve Harrington, right?”
The most annoying part about being friends with Steve is everyone has to say his full name like it’s something special. Which, to be fair, she does, too, but mostly to make fun of him. But other people do it because they think he’s cool and famous like he doesn’t willingly hang out with fourteen year olds at the video store.
“Uh, yeah.” Robin can predict exactly what’s coming next.
“So, are you two, like, together?”
Robin despises this question. Everyone always has to ask it, and she knows why they ask it, because she showed up to a Valentine’s party with Steve. But why do they always have to ask?
“Uh, no. We’re just friends. We, uh, work together.”
“Oh, cool.” The girl sighs, like she’s jealous or yearning or something like that. “I always want just a guy friend, but they always want to get together, it’s so stupid.”
“Yeah.”
Robin thinks back to arriving at a Valentine’s Party with Steve. And yes, they know they’re just friends, and that’s all they’ll be, but other people don’t just assume that, and maybe she’s ruining Steve’s chances.
Because obviously, Steve never shuts up about getting a girlfriend, and maybe the reason he doesn’t have one is because one Robin Buckley is always by his side and that makes people always assume the wrong thing. Robin is ruining more than just his social life with his other friends, but quite possibly his love life as well.
She makes a resolve to stay away from Steve so he can get some or something. Anything to make her feel less guilty for being too clingy with him.
The random girl is still talking about Steve. “Unless, you like Steve. Then I guess, maybe you want him to want to get together. Which is like so fair, it’s Steve Harrington. I totally get it.”
She nods like Robin has just admitted a crush on Steve. Robin didn’t even say anything. Having someone think she has a one-sided, unrequited crush on Steve Harrigton is so much worse than having someone think they’re dating.
“Oh it’s my turn!” The girl says, oblivious to the couple exiting that was clearly making out in there.
Whatever. She might need another drink after this. Maybe if she’s as drunk as this girl, she might be having half as good a time.
Later, she finds herself standing on the outer edge of the party, with Steve nowhere to be found and a drink made with a heavy handed pour. She watches people dance and mill about, watches the couples making out in corners, watches the stupid red streamers on the wall and strictly does not think about it.
She thinks, instead, where the hell Steve has gone when the house is not that big. Maybe he’s in the bathroom. Maybe there’s a porch he’s out on, even if it’s twenty five degrees outside. Maybe he’s fucked off without her.
That, she knows, isn’t true. One, his car is here. Two, she likes to think they’re good enough friends he wouldn’t bring to a party of his friends and leave her by herself for the night. I mean, who knows, this could be the moment Steve Harrington shows his true colors and ditches his weird lesbian band friend for the cool parties and hot girls.
As much as her brain wants her to think that’s the case, she can’t help but remember last summer, sitting in a puke-filled bathroom in the mall, leaving the most vulnerable thing she has about herself in between them, and waiting for the ball to drop.
But it didn’t. She laid herself bare, and put all her trust into one person, into Steve, who she had scooped ice cream with, but then had solved a Russian code and got stuck in a Russian base and then got drugged and threatened by Russians—and, well, if they had gone through all of that, maybe she could trust him. Maybe she could take a risk on herself, and maybe she could finally tear through every single one of her walls and let Steve Harrington see the full her.
And it was worth it, in the end. Even if it was the scariest moment of her life. After the Russians threatening them, of course. But she and Steve were friends. They worked at the video store together, they watched movies, they hung out, and he got her in a way she thinks one else could.
If she didn’t know she was a lesbian before she met Steve, she might’ve been able to let herself believe that this was the feeling everyone was talking about.
Instead, she gets a best friend who might be her platonic soulmate, and staring off at everyone who can enjoy themselves at a Valentine’s party.
She takes a sip of her drink. She’s still not thinking about it.
She’s not thinking of never getting the things she wants because of who she is. She’s not thinking of how unfair it is to outcast herself, because no one knows her here. She’s not thinking of her whole life being lived in fear and hiding.
She is thinking she needs more to drink. Again.
Robin considers going back to the table, when a body slides onto the wall next to her. It’s some sort of jock, she thinks, but really, she doesn’t know, and doesn’t care to. She stares straight ahead.
“You not enjoying the party?” And god she hates the voice men put on to flirt because it sounds so stupid and unnatural.
“I’m fine.” She thinks, for a moment, that maybe she could keep the rumors at bay, could help Steve by making sure people don’t think they’re together, by engaging in a harmless flirt every now and then.
She looks over at the guy and promptly rejects that plan.
“Really? You’re standing at the edges, looking pretty lonely.”
“Not a big party person.” Nor is she a normal one, and he really needs to stop before he finds that out.
“Well, I could change that.” No, you really can’t.
“I’m good.”
“Come on,” he drags out. “How about just a dance?”
How many times before he gets the fucking hint? “I’m good.”
“What? I know you’re single, I asked Harrington.”
She is going to kill Steve. In reality, this guy probably asked Steve if they were dating, and took that as confirmation that she was single, but she still hates Steve for never knowing how to make people shut up about it.
“Look, can you just—leave me alone?”
“Fine.” He turns to walk back toward the center of the party, but not before mumbling out a, “freak.”
Really, it shouldn’t affect her as much, she’s thanking god he didn’t accuse her of anything, but it’s just a stark reminder that Robin doesn’t fit in here. She doesn’t like the right things, the right people; she doesn’t act the right way, all polite and ladylike; she is a band freak who somehow got Steve as a friend.
She pushes herself off the wall to go get another drink, because if she keeps down this path, she’ll start thinking of it.
She finds herself back at the drink table, debating between another heavy-handed pour, or maybe if she should be lay off a bit.
Then, she hears, “Robin, right?” and turns to find a face she vaguely recognizes. She knows she goes to school with him, but also she goes to school with everyone here, so that doesn’t really narrow it down.
“Yeah. Uh, sorry, I don’t—”
“That’s fine. I’m Jacob. From band?”
Oh right. Jacob From Band in freshman year. He was a trumpet player, so they had sat near each other, and occasionally talked, really only ever about band stuff like the music or their instruments. But she remembers he quit after that year, because he was also in newspaper and like, cross country, or something, and three extracurriculars were too much, plus he already got the fine arts credit.
She concludes it’s not her fault for not remembering.
“Right. Jacob. Sorry, I haven’t seen you since, like, freshman year.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, I got busy with newspaper and track.” Track, that’s right. Not cross country. Even if she doesn’t know the difference. “How—how have you been?”
God, this is awkward. She barely knows this guy, barely knew him in freshman year, and now she has to make polite conversation (one of her least favorite things) at a Valentine’s party (another least favorite thing) without Steve by her side (which, she hates to admit, is another least favorite thing).
Then, she remembers her plan from earlier to maybe pretend for a bit like she can pass for normal, and straightens. Jacob From Band isn’t bad. He understands a little bit, being in band for a year, so maybe this could be okay.
“Oh, you know. School, work, still in band.”
“Yeah? Trumpets any better?”
“Still not-the-worst-but-certaintly-not-the-best band in the midwest.”
He laughs a little at that. “Good to hear.”
There’s a lull in the conversation, and Robin curses at herself, because she’s supposed to be normal, and normal people keep the conversation going by asking about the other person, so all she has to do is just— “How—how’s track?”
Jacob From Band lights up at the mention of track. No wonder he quit band, then. “We just had a meet last weekend actually, and I didn’t think we were gonna be that good, but some of the guys really pulled through on the—”
Robin feels a little bad, because the entire time he’s talking about track, she’s thinking about how to act like a normal person. She’s thinking when she should nod, where should look, how she should react to whatever he’s saying, until eventually, he slows down.
“—But yeah, some of the track guys know some people, so I figured, what better way to spend Friday?”
She stares for a moment before realizing this is a cue for her to respond in some way. “Yeah,” she answers lamely.
“Anyway, what brings you here?”
“I’m friends with Steve—Harrington. He knows a ton of these people, I guess.”
“Oh cool.”
Another lull. She looks down and realizes she hasn’t been holding a drink the whole time, and her hands have been left fidgeting with nothing. That’s certainly weird behavior.
She leans down to grab a cup when— “Oh were you trying to get something to drink, cause I could—”
Robin really hopes he wasn’t about to offer to get her something when she’s at the drink table and really doesn’t want men making her drinks.
Instead, he practically blurts, “We could do a shot together, or something?”
Robin thinks for a minute, maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe he gets the wrong signal, or maybe she takes a turn for the worse. But, she also thinks, she wants so bad to not be perceived as strange and the alcohol seems to be helping, and hey, maybe she wants to be a little drunk tonight.
One shot turns into four, and she’s still talking to Jacob From Band near the drink table. He’s definitely still a guy, but he’s not bad. She doesn’t mind making conversation with him.
“How’d you even become friends with Steve Harrington?” Jacob From Band laughs. He’s standing a little too close but somehow, Robin ignores it.
“I don’t know!” she maybe shouts, and, whoops, that may have been too loud, but there’s music playing, it’s fine, right? “We worked together last summer, and then like, shit got crazy, and I mean, like, nightmare crazy, like, monster nightmares crazy, and then he knew—”
She snaps her jaw shut. She may be drunk (a bit past that, at this point, with, what six? seven? drinks in her?) but not even inebriation could make her break that wall.
Inebriation is, however, breaking a lot of her other filters because Jacob From Band is giving her a weird look, and right, it’s not normal to discuss how your job with Steve Harrington gave you monster nightmares.
“Steve knew what?” He asks.
She remembers he’s standing too close, and she immediately can’t stand that fact, as her chest tightens. She takes a step back.
“Nothing.”
Jacob From Band gives her a confused look, and takes a step toward her. Definitely not what she wanted. “Uh—are you—”
Determined, she cuts him off, “I’m going to go find Steve,” before turning and booking it to literally anywhere else in this party.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. God, why is everything so dizzy? Wait, no, that’s her, she’s dizzy, and stupid and weird and—
Where the hell is Steve Harrington? She shoves her way through people trying to focus her eyes to spot his stupid hair, nearly tripping about three times. He’s not in the kitchen, or the bathroom line, he’s not dancing, or in the living room—
There! She sees his signature (and stupid) hair from behind the couch and calls out to him.
She shoves past one more group of people, making her way to the front of the couch and talk to Steve.
“Robin! Thought I’d lost you for good—” he greets.
And she’s about to answer but she notices—a girl on the couch, next to Steve, and his arm is around her.
The fact slams into Robin for the upteenth time tonight: this is Valentine’s day party.
For a girl who swears she doesn’t despise the holiday, this fact sure makes her stomach turn.
Wait, no, that’s actually her stomach turning, and not from her thoughts, and she might actually—
“Robin? You okay?” Steve asks.
She can’t even answer before she’s shoving past people again to get to the kitchen sink and promptly throwing up into it.
She’s still coughing up some remnants of whatever she ate before this (she cannot remember for the life of her in this state), when she eventually feels her hair being pulled back, behind her ears, because that’s about as far as it reaches when it’s this short.
She knows, instantly, it’s Steve. She also knows he’s probably saying something, but her ears haven’t tuned back in yet, as her senses are being too overwhelmed by, you know, throwing up, and realizing there are hot tears running down her cheeks.
When she thinks it’s over, she lets out a breath, and slowly looks up at Steve.
“Is that it? Are you good?”
She nods. The tear tracks are still drying on her cheeks.
“Okay, I think it’s time to get you home.”
She nods again, and he lets go of her hair, but then she’s reaching out for his wrist as she remembers—
“No—wait—driving ‘nd—drink—” It’s in no way coherent, but Steve still gets her.
“I’ve had like, one beer this whole night, I promise I’m fine. I wouldn’t put you in danger like that.”
Right. Steve is nice. Steve is considerate.
“Let’s just—” and then he’s grabbing her shoulders, gently, like he’s aware of his own force and her state, and starts guiding her to the front door. He sits her down on the stairs by the front door. “Just—sit here, and I’ll grab my keys and our coats, and we can go, okay?”
She nods. Steve walks away.
It’s as she’s sitting there, on the stairs in a house she doesn’t know, waiting for Steve to drive her home, that she lets herself think about it. Well, really, feel it, because she has been thinking about it all night, but she’s been pushing down the feelings, until it all came bursting at this moment, in an incredibly ugly sob.
She buries her face in hands, and then her head in her knees and lets the sobs rack her body.
It’s so unfair. It’s so unfair that she thought she could try to fit in. It’s so unfair that she’s like this in a world that hates her. It’s so unfair that Steve Harrington has to give up his friends and his girlfriends and his cool party to take her of stupid drunk ass because she can’t take care of own fucking self when she’s sober.
It’s so unfair that she’s at a Valentine’s party with her best friend and hating every second of it because she can’t be at a Valentine’s party with anyone but a best friend.
A hand caresses her elbow, and she looks up to find Steve back, coat on, holding out her own.
“Let’s get in the car, okay?” He says it so gently, but not like pity, or even like he’s embarrassed that she’s making a scene by sobbing at this party, but like Robin is someone who deserves gentleness.
Robin doesn’t think she deserves a lot of things.
She stands, and shrugs on her coat, not without struggling and having Steve help, but eventually they stumble the way out of the house to Steve’s car.
He opens the passenger door for her, like the gentleman he is, before walking around the car to get in and start the car.
“Shit, it’s freezing out here,” he says, just to keep talking, just to maybe distract Robin from whatever made her sob, but she doesn’t care.
She just feels so stupid. Worse, though. She feels….
She can’t find the word and it frustrates her even more.
They drive in silence for a while. She feels Steve glance at her from the driver’s seat multiple times, as she leans her head on the passenger window. She stares out as she lets what’s hopefully, the last of the tears fall. She doesn’t know how long it’s been, Robin lost her sense of time a while ago.
Eventually, Steve breaks the silence. “Wanna talk about it?”
She hesitates. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“I don’t have to get it to listen.”
She sighs, lifting her head to tilt it back on the headrest. “It’s just… you get to go to this party and talk to anyone you want, and—and touch, and make out with any girl you want, and no one bats an eye. But I have to stand off to the side like a stupid—like a statue, because I can’t trust myself not to act weird around the wrong person and end up being fucking— stoned in the street ‘cause this is Hawkins, Indiana.”
Her eyes are so blurry she barely notices Steve pulling the car to the side of the road.
“And even if I am acting perfectly normal, some guy will still think I’m lonely and try to hit on me, and if I don’t want him I must be some sort of freak—or there’s something wrong, or—disgusting about me. And I just hate that I keep being treated like I’m something bad for whatever I do. Like I’m something disgusting.”
She spits out the last word, like that’s not really the word she means. She wants to say dyke the way people say it all the time, with venom, or with annoyance. When they say it, they mean disgusting. But everyone else is stronger and less of a coward than Robin Buckley, and so the words don’t actually mean as much to them.
She stares ahead in silence for a while, before she hears a small exhale to her left. Oh right, she was saying that all to Steve and now she has to hear his response. Which, can’t be that great, because one, he’s never been great at being all vulnerable and comforting, and two, as she pointed out, he doesn’t get it.
He doesn’t understand the feeling of wanting something without ever being able to try, not for a lack of bravery or for some other internal struggle to get over. No, not being able to try because it’s completely out of her control the way people respond, and she has to put so much fucking trust into a person. It all depends on the world, the way Robin has to trust. The way Robin has to exist.
She has to exist in a way, her mother often reminds her, that other people will tolerate. That other people will like. She can be herself sometimes, but she has to balance it out with something normal because she can’t be too weird as that gets her in a worse position. It’s exhausting, she found, to force herself to exist in a specific way so no one thinks she’s actually trying.
Steve just exists. No strings, no conditions. He gets to choose who he trusts.
She leans her on the window, and speaks before Steve gets a chance to, before he has to stumble his way through comfort he can’t really offer. “Sorry for ruining your time at that party. And making you drag me out and drive me home.”
That makes him look straight at her. “Wait, Robin, what? You didn’t ruin my time.”
She doesn’t look back, keeps her gaze on the unmoving, quiet of the dark outside. “But, like—it’s all your friends and I’m sure you wanted t’ like, hang out with them longer. Or that girl you were with.”
“Robin, I really don’t give a shit about those people.”
Oh. He doesn’t—Robin spent so much time feeling guilty about being outside of Steve’s normal friends, she didn’t even realize he’s barely even friends with them. Which is something best friends are supposed to notice. You know, who they’re hanging out with or not. But, she guesses, Robin had thought she was the reason he wasn’t hanging out with them. Not that he didn’t want to hang out with them.
“Look, you are my friend way more than anyone there was. You’re—you’re funny, and charming, and honest—and you’re, well, not a jackass.”
She lets out a laugh at that, because, really, one of her starring qualities is that she’s not a jackass?
But Steve laughs with her. “Okay, but I mean, all those people are jackasses, and it’s really nice to have a genuine friend who like, cares about other people. You wanted to go to this party because you cared about how I was feeling, but, honestly, Robin, I only went because you wanted to. I would’ve been just as happy if we watched a movie tonight. I’m just really glad you’re my friend.”
At that, she tears up again.
“And..” Steve starts, “I know I can’t fix the world, or the way people act, so they stop treating you like you’re—disgusting.” Robin notices the way he doesn’t say disgusting the way she does, because when Robin said disgusting she meant dyke, and Steve is so considerate, he doesn’t want to come close to that. “But I don’t think that about you. And there’s nothing that will ever make me. And I’m sure there’s other people who feel the same, too, and I know one day you’ll be able to find them. But, you know, for now, I’ll keep reminding you that you’re my best friend and nothing can change that.”
She leans her head on the car door, closing her eyes. For just a moment, she allows herself to bask in the warmth, in the feeling that someone might care about her — someone does care about her. She’s never had this, and even if she ever thought she did, she knew it could be taken away with just a few words.
But right now, in Steve’s car, with her head still spinning and tears still drying on her cheeks, she thinks it’ll be okay to let herself be cared for.
It’s been okay to be cared for. To trust and be trusted in return. To have someone to rely on. To care about them just as much. She’s just been so busy beating herself up about it, she never actually got to live in it.
“Robin? Whatcha thinking about?”
“ ‘S stupid you’re good at th’s sappy stuff.”
Steve laughs. “I think that counts as a compliment.”
She rolls her eyes, laughing along. “Whatever.” She lets out a breath, and looks over at Steve. “You’re my best friend, you know? I love you, dingus.”
Steve smiles, a little huff at the nickname she called him all last summer. “Love you too, Robin.”
An inhale, and a slow exhale later, she feels like she can breathe easy again, not even realizing how difficult it was all night.
She also realizes—“Okay, can you take me home? I’m really tired.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” as Steve shifts the gear and pulls back onto the road.
She watches the trees and landmarks become more familiar and Robin thinks, everything might be okay. Eventually.