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The words are out of Nancy’s mouth before she can think twice.
“We could just meet up,” she starts. In the passenger seat next to her, Robin turns. Her curious gaze makes Nancy grip the steering wheel tighter. “I know it’s not the same, and I know I’m not Steve. I mean, I know we’re not as close as you and Steve are. But what you said. About missing us, I mean. I feel the same.”
She’s uncharacteristically nervous. All her sentences are tumbling out clipped and awkward in a way that feels so very unlike her. In a way that, ironically, would usually remind her of the very girl she’s speaking to.
It’s just that, after everything that has happened—after four years of war and tragedy that will follow her around like a spectre; after finally getting out of the town that she’s been trying to escape all her life; after making it to where she’s always wanted to be, only to walk away. After a year and a half of wandering and drifting and never quite settling, these two weeks home have been a relief so palpable she could cry. Now that she’s driving the both of them back to reality, Nancy wants, with a sudden and desperate fervour, to cling onto this feeling and never let it go.
“There’s going to be Philly from now, of course. But we’re not that far apart. An hour and a half? Two?” she continues. “So… maybe we could also just meet up. I can drive. If you want.”
Mentally, she winces at the clumsiness of the invitation. She half expects Robin to tease her about it, but instead, Robin only smiles. She’s been unexpectedly quiet the whole ride, Nancy has noticed, staring pensively out the window as the miles between them and Massachusetts steadily disappear. Now, finally, she grins, and Nancy forgets why she was ever worried.
“Yeah? I’d like that.”
For once, Nancy’s glad she didn’t let herself overthink her way out of her impulsivity, because it seems this is all it takes to get Robin back to her usual cheerful self. The remaining way back, Robin punctuates the drive with stories of college life—of her eccentric roommate with the disco lights, and the honey cake that her Russian language professor had bought the class, and of late nights spent working at Smith’s little radio station.
Even after two weeks spent catching up, it seems she never runs out of stories to tell. She’s an entertaining narrator, excitement seemingly overflowing from her voice into her hands as she gestures wildly.
It hits Nancy, hard and sudden, how much things have changed and stayed the same all at once. She can picture, clear as day in her mind, the Robin of two years ago, sprawled in this very seat with her beat-up Converse on the dashboard, talking a mile a minute.
Except, Robin’s hair is long now, nearly golden in the light that streams in through the window. Nancy fights the urge to reach out and run her fingers through it just to see how it feels.
For a moment, she feels suspended in time, caught between past and present, aching for something she can’t quite name. She wants to know the person Robin has grown to become.
When they reach Smith and Robin practically climbs over the console to wrap her in a hug, she combs her hand through the long waves just once. Then once more.
“It was good to see you, Nance.” Robin’s voice comes out muffled, her face tucked into Nancy’s neck.
“I like the hair,” Nancy says, her hand still brushing the ends gently. It tickles.
Robin only laughs, and Nancy can feel the way it reverberates in her chest. “I like yours too,” Robin murmurs, then pauses. She holds Nancy tighter. “Don’t be a stranger. Call anytime.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Robin turns to wave at her when she exits the car, then again when she enters her dorm building, and again before she turns the corner. Only when she can no longer see her, does Nancy put the car into drive and pull out of the lot.
She does end up taking Robin up on her offer to call.
It’s been a shitty day. A profile she was really looking forward to speaking to had turned out to be a complete asshole, and then she had to spend the rest of the afternoon torturously excavating any hint of insight she could get from the miserable interview transcript.
Her apartment is not big by any means, but when she opens the door and flicks the light on at the end of the work day, the empty space suddenly feels lonely and cavernous. Already holding the phone in her hand, she only lets herself contemplate for a moment, before she reminds herself that Robin never says things that she doesn’t mean.
A raspy voice with a vaguely British-sounding accent picks up, and runs off to track Robin down when Nancy asks for her.
A moment later, Robin’s familiar voice crackles through the receiver. “Nance?”
“Robin,” she confirms, immediately relieved, then frowns. “Wait, how did you know it was me?”
“Jamie said it was a girl that sounded smart.” She laughs, then quickly turns serious. “Did something happen?”
“No. Just work stuff. It’s nothing,” she says quickly. She can picture the look of concern that she knows is on Robin’s face—the furrow of her brows, the tilt of her head, her blue eyes widening ever so slightly. It’s endearing, Nancy thinks. Robin’s endearing. “Tell me about your day?”
There’s some hesitation in Robin’s voice as she starts recounting the book she’s reading for one of her classes, but soon enough, they’re embroiled in a full blown debate. Eventually, Nancy does tell her about the terrible interview, and Robin gallantly offers to knock the man’s door down with the nail-studded baseball bat that Steve had passed down to her when she left for Smith.
“Really,” Robin insists, “I could do it. You don’t deserve to be treated like that, Nance.”
“My hero,” Nancy laughs, and feels her cheeks heat up despite the fact that she was the one doing the teasing. “No, I’m fine, really. It’s part of the job. I just… wanted to talk to someone, I guess.”
“I—”
Before Robin can continue, Nancy hears shuffling at the other end of the line. There’s muffled speech, from Robin and someone else, and then a loud sigh into the receiver.
“Thanks for telling me, Nance. I’m glad you called,” Robin says gently. “Someone else needs the phone now though, so I have to go, sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Nancy smiles. “Thanks for listening to me.”
“Always.”
“I’ll see you soon, Robin.”
“Wait. Nance. Are you doing anything later? I’ll call you tonight if I can.”
“That’ll be nice,” Nancy smiles.
It’s like a weight’s been lifted off her chest, by the time Nancy hangs up. The evening feels less heavy, her apartment less dark. She turns on the radio as she makes herself a simple dinner—briefly, it reminds her of Robin, and she makes a note to find out when her show is usually on, so she can tune in—then takes a shower and starts on a book she’s been meaning to read.
She’s only just getting to the good part when the knock at her door comes. Immediately, she tenses. A dozen different scenarios, most of them bad, spring to mind. Logically, she knows it’s probably just a neighbour, but she’s prepared for the worst anyway. The knock comes again.
Before she can overthink it further, however, a familiar voice calls out her name. It’s muted through the wood, but Nancy would recognize it anywhere.
What?
Forgetting to even mark the page she’s stopped at, she rushes to open the door.
On the other side is Robin Buckley, arms full of grocery bags—grocery bags? Nancy pauses to question in her mind—and beaming. “I brought ice cream and snacks. And movies! And my dinner. Let me in.”
How?, Nancy tries to make sense of what she’s seeing. She had just been on the phone with Robin a little over two hours ago. Robin stays—well, Robin stays two hours away, but she doesn’t have a car. She can’t even drive. “How?”
“Bribed my roommate to give me a ride. Her partner lives in Boston, so it wasn’t too hard,” Robin laughs.
For a moment, Nancy just stares at her in disbelief.
Robin’s grin mellows into a gentle smile. She looks almost shy. “I just… didn’t want you to be alone. And we weren’t done talking. I felt bad for hanging up, but I didn’t want to hog the line,” She ducks her head for a moment, and Nancy instinctively takes a tiny step forward to chase her gaze. “Sorry, is this weird? The phone was still being used so I couldn’t ask before I left. But I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Before she even realizes what she’s doing, Nancy reaches forward and wraps her arms around Robin. The taller girl freezes for a moment, then reaches one arm behind Nancy to return the hug.
Almost immediately, the precarious mountain of bags balanced in Robin’s other arm starts falling to the ground. Robin swears loudly. Nancy just laughs, bends down to help her collect everything, and pulls her into the apartment.
The first trip they make to Philly, she reaches the Smith campus almost twenty minutes early. She hadn’t slept all that much or all that well the previous night, but for the first time in a while, it wasn't due to the nightmares.
It feels juvenile to admit, but she had been excited. Excited to see her best friends in person again, excited that they were starting this new tradition, and excited, even, to take this little road trip there and back with Robin. The anticipation had left her restless, and she ended up leaving her apartment far earlier than she needed to.
But when she pulls into the driveway of Robin’s dorm building, she finds that the other girl is already there waiting. Perhaps Nancy isn’t the only one looking forward to this an embarrassing amount.
“I got you coffee!” Robin announces first thing as she climbs into the passenger seat. She’s a whirlwind of energy, throwing her bag in the backseat and placing steaming drinks into the cup holders and handing Nancy an assortment of paper bags. When she finally settles down, she turns to Nancy. “Hi.” She grins, and Nancy can’t help but giggle. “I got us pastries too,” she points to the brown sandwich bags now sitting on the centre console. “And uh…”
Robin reaches across, into Nancy’s space, and Nancy’s breath hitches for a second. But all she does is open up the white envelope now sitting on Nancy’s lap, to reveal a stack of cassettes.
“We don’t have to listen to them now, but I think you’ll like them!” Robin tells her.
Nancy’s already inspecting the options, and popping one into the player.
“Thank you,” she tells Robin, as the music starts and she turns the car back out onto the road. “Tell me why you picked these?”
So Robin does. With each track that comes on, she points out what she likes, and what she thinks Nancy might enjoy. The intriguing rhythm of one song, the string orchestrations of another. She talks about where she first heard them, and what her favourite lyrics are.
It’s like getting to take a secret peek into the mind of the wonder that is Robin Buckley. Nancy thinks she could listen to her talk forever.
“Sorry,” Robin says all of a sudden, “I realize I’ve been talking non-stop.”
“No,” Nancy shakes her head, smiling. “I like listening to you.”
“Oh.” Robin pauses, going quiet for a moment.
When Nancy glances over, Robin’s cheeks are red, a precious sight that has affection swelling bright and warm in Nancy’s chest. She resists the urge to reach over for Robin’s hand—to convey, in whatever way she can, the deep-seated content she feels in the moment.
“This is nice,” Nancy says instead. The next song comes on—a soft, lilting number that reminds Nancy of a waltz.
“Yeah.” Robin beams. The pink in her cheeks makes the smattering of freckles on her face stand out even more than they usually do. Nancy wants to commit her smile to memory.
It becomes a thing. Nancy drives, Robin brings new music that she thinks Nancy would enjoy, and they spend the journey talking about music, then about whatever is going on in their lives, then about anything at all.
Nancy likes it—that they have a thing that is theirs.
There have only been a precious few times in Nancy’s life that she remembers feeling genuinely and completely free.
In the aftermath of the final battle, at the realization that everything was finally, at last, over.
Leaving Hawkins, her entire life packed up neatly into a couple of bags and boxes at the back of her station wagon.
Dropping out of Emerson for the Herald, and stepping out into what felt like the real world.
Lounging on the rooftop of The Squawk with her closest friends, relief flooding her veins that things still felt right when they were all together.
And here, she realizes—sitting in the car next to Robin, the windows wound down to let in the cool breeze as Robin chatters on, hosting a radio show for an audience of one. There is a lightness in Nancy’s chest, like she’s finally come up for air.
She continues calling Robin too, so much so that some of the other girls on Robin’s floor start recognizing her, making small talk as they wait for Robin to come to the phone.
“What are your thoughts on milkshakes?”
It’s late into the night—later than usual, because they had all gotten a little too competitive at Scrabble—and they’re about halfway back to Massachusetts when Robin points to the 24-hour diner in the distance. She grins like she already knows Nancy would agree to anything she asks.
Nancy agrees.
They get their drinks from the drive-through—peanut butter chocolate for Robin and strawberry for Nancy, even though they both know that she'll end up stealing sips from Robin’s cup—and when Nancy pulls into the parking lot, she finds that they’re the only car there. The quiet settles over them like a comfortable blanket.
In the dark of the night, with the glow of the lonely streetlamp casting her face in a striking chiaroscuro, Robin looks beautiful. Nancy is suddenly overcome with the need to say something, but she’s not sure how, or where, to start. She’s not even sure what she wants to say. So much for being a journalist.
The words are buried somewhere in her chest, hidden amongst the deepest parts of herself. To unearth them, she thinks, she might have to hollow herself out. When she does, she might become a whole new person. And somehow, a part of her already knows, with startling clarity, that it will be worth it.
But then Robin turns to her. She holds Nancy’s gaze, the blue of her eyes so deep that Nancy is hit with the sudden, fleeting thought that she could drown in them. She looks like she understands.
“I’m glad we decided to do Philly,” Robin says, voice soft. There’s a little furrow in her brow, like she, too, is trying, and failing, to find the correct words.
In a move more instinct than choice, Nancy reaches for her hand, tangles their fingers together, and holds on tight. There’s a reply on the tip of her tongue, but when Robin squeezes back, she decides that this is enough for now.
Robin falls asleep. Despite insisting that she wanted to stay awake to keep Nancy company, and despite all the sugar from the milkshake, her head starts lolling barely half an hour after they leave the diner. It makes Nancy chuckle. When they hit a stop light, she reaches over to place a cushion between Robin’s head and the window.
“M’awake,” Robin mumbles, even as her head sinks further into the soft material.
“Go to sleep,” Nancy whispers.
Her fingertips ghost the warm flush of Robin’s cheek, lingering for just a moment at the constellation of freckles on her face. She’s filled with so much affection for the girl that it aches.
I love her, she thinks, then stops short at the thought.
It should feel like a revelation. It’s the kind of realization that should turn her world around and send her into a panic and make her scrutinize her every move. She should be stunned, or nervous, or at the very least surprised.
But it’s warm and quiet in the car, and Robin is by her side, and they still have miles of wide, empty road ahead of them.
I love her, she thinks, and everything falls into place.
She thinks about it the rest of the way to Northampton. She thinks about it as Robin hugs her goodbye, hair messy and voice scratchy with sleep. Then thinks about it, alone in the car, listening to one of Robin’s cassettes, all the way back to Boston
I love her, she thinks, wide awake in bed, curled up around the thought until, finally, she drifts off to sleep.
Nancy wakes with her mind already made up. The road, by now, is a familiar one as she steers the car back in the direction she came from less than eight hours ago. Robin's cassette is still playing, filling the quiet of the car, and Nancy finds that she misses having her in the passenger seat. Nancy wants to listen to her talk about music, wants to hear her laugh, wants to study the way the light falls upon her face at different times of day.
God, Nancy wants.
It feels like both the longest and the shortest journey Nancy’s ever driven, by the time she reaches the Smith dorm building. Robin is still half asleep when she answers. She’s adorable.
“Nance?” Robin asks, confused.
Nancy has never been more certain of anything in her life.
She looks Robin in the eye—and all she can see is deep, deep blue—and with all the conviction of a grand declaration and the tenderness of a girl taking her beating heart out of her chest and offering it to another, asks, simply, “Can I kiss you?”
Robin freezes.
Nancy sees gears in her head turning—the confusion on Robin’s face melting into realization, then disbelief. She feels her chest flutter, completely and entirely endeared. She loves her.
“Please?” She continues, and the corners of her lips involuntarily quirk up, unable to resist the urge to tease.
At that, Robin finally takes a step forward. Her palms come up to Nancy’s face, pulling her close—and Nancy, at last, gets to press her lips to hers. She tangles her hands in Robin’s hair like she’s wanted to do for months, and feels Robin relax into the kiss with a shaky exhale.
When they separate, Robin’s eyes are wide, darting around Nancy’s face like she’s searching for answers. Nancy traces the precious freckles on her cheek, then pulls her in again—and everything goes quietly, blessedly, still.