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“It smells like gym class in here,” Robin murmurs, wrinkling her nose.
Steve laughs—not a real laugh, not really, more of a sigh. “You’d think they would find somewhere else to have a dance.”
“Yeah.” Robin leans her chin on Steve’s shoulder as they sway to the music. He smells like Steve: his cologne, his hairspray, the faint tinge of cigarette smoke. It took a while, but Robin has come to associate this smell with good memories rather than bad. It’s comforting in this scene where she is so otherwise uncomfortable. Dances were never really her style.
They make an odd couple, she and Steve. It’s a wonder that they convince anyone at all. It was her idea to pretend that they were an item. It’s easier to explain to her family and his friends. She knows that it’s cruel to put him through this, but she has her suspicions that he doesn’t mind. As they dance, he holds her closely. Not so close that it’s inappropriate, nor is it crossing a boundary between them. But still, they are close. His eyes are probably closed. Robin feels a phantom pain in her chest. Is she heartless? Is it so terrible to make Steve pretend that he has what she knows he wants, but will never have? Or, perhaps, she is doing a good thing here. Steve is so respectful. After the bathroom in Starcourt, he never said a word about her like that again. But when she said, we should tell everyone we’re dating, the life flickered back into his eyes. It’s helping him heal. She feels his chin rest on her shoulder and wonders if his mind is focussed on real life or if he’s dreaming right now.
He’s probably dreaming. Robin knows that she is, too.
“Steve,” she whispers.
It takes him a moment to surface. He lifts his head and looks at her. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to get something to drink.”
The dance has been going on for a couple of hours now, and most of the soda cans are gone. She finds an unopened Coke and pulls on the tab. It hisses feebly. She drinks. It’s almost flat.
She finds a seat on the bleachers, staring out at the basketball court that is a dance-floor for the night. Colourful streamers strung across the roof mirror the lines on the floor. Steve is standing dejectedly on the other side of the room, his arms crossed. Between them, odd pairs of high schoolers sway together in the blue-tinged light. Is that what we looked like? They look stupid, with their rented tuxedos and frilly dresses. After everything Robin has been through, after what she has seen and heard and learned, it’s hard to find the joy in a simple dance.
Going back to school was difficult. The confines of a schedule, the way she was expected to sit in class and do what she was told, even if she hated it. This is how the world works—but Robin has seen things in the world that shouldn’t work, and yet did. And somehow the Earth kept spinning, the school bells kept ringing, and nothing changed.
Something did change, though.
Robin sips from her Coke can. Steve is walking over to her. She tries to smile at him, and he tries to return it. He sits down next to her. She leans against him.
“Can I have some Coke?” he asks.
Robin offers it to him. “It’s flat.”
“I don’t care.” He takes it and drinks. A couple of moments pass. Then, “I hate being here.”
“Same.”
Steve sighs, flexes his fingers. Robin is looking down, she can’t see his face. There’s a vein in his hand that she can see pulsing, or maybe that’s her imagination. If it’s real, his heart is working faster than it should be. “Do you think they’re thinking the same thing?”
Robin looks up at him, then follows his gaze to see another couple. Nancy and Jonathan. Nancy has her arms over his shoulders, and his arms circle around her waist. They are what Robin and Steve pretend to be. They fit together easily. It’s almost like they were made to do so. Robin knows that this is a teenage romance that she is watching, that in all likelihood they are destined to implode or drift away like icebergs in the Atlantic, but there is something about them that implies they are meant to be. Their love was forged in the brilliant heat and colour of fireworks in a mall. Robin is happy for them, she truly is, but if she is honest with herself, she’s also a little jealous. They got something good out of this. What did she get? Enough nightmares to last her a lifetime.
This is unfair. She got Steve. She has a friend, at least, someone she trusts completely. He knows more about her than anyone else, and they’ve only known each other a few months. This friendship they have, it’s special. Those hours spent tied back to back under Starcourt forced them into a bond that will last until the end of time. There’s no getting rid of each other now.
Still, Robin finds herself watching Jonathan and Nancy as he leans down to brush his lips against hers, and wonders what it would be like if she was in Jonathan’s place right now. If, in the chaos of the night, she and Nancy had been together, and they had remained together.
Is it completely juvenile for her to think like this? They almost died, the four of them, and Robin is acting like a lovesick teen. Six months ago, she would have accepted this feeling. Now it makes her sick. Everything she used to enjoy is hollow.
The song ends. Jonathan and Nancy break apart. There is a mutual understanding between them—without speaking, they both go towards the drinks table. Their hands find their way to each other, closing fingers over fingers. The drinks table is empty, and Nancy looks around as if there’s going to be a fountain of soda erupting from somewhere. Her gaze drifts across the basketball court and lands on Robin. They don’t smile at each other—they merely look. Nancy tugs on Jonathan’s sleeve and they make their way over.
Robin feels Steve tense as he realises Nancy and Jonathan are coming to speak to them. Nancy looks almost apologetic as she approaches. Jonathan looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. There is a tense minute as Steve and Robin look at Nancy and Jonathan, and Nancy and Jonathan look at Steve and Robin.
“Nice night?” Jonathan says. It’s pathetic, and they all know it, but Robin is grateful. Things aren’t ever going to be normal, but it’s easier if they pretend nothing’s weird.
Nancy looks at the Coke can in Steve’s hand. “Can I have some?”
Steve shrugs. “It’s flat,” he says, but hands it to her all the same.
She drinks and screw up her nose. “Got anything stronger?”
“Yeah.” Steve runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, in my car.”
The night air is crisp. Cold is good—it takes Robin further away from Starcourt. That night was stinking hot. It’s December, though, and snow will come soon. Summer was a million years ago. It’s starting to slip away. She’s not forgetting, she’ll never forget and she doesn’t really want to forget, but the memory is becoming distant. With every passing day it becomes more and more like a bad dream she had as a child, or like something she read in a book but never actually lived through herself.
Steve opens the boot of his car and passes around cans of beer. The metal is like ice in Robin’s hand. It’s funny how Steve came prepared. He brought enough for all four of them, and more than one each. It’s like he knew they would all end up together—and really, Robin knew it too. How could they not?
Nancy looks at her can of beer and giggles. Robin stares at her. “I’m sorry,” she says, “it’s just—Steve, do you remember?”
Steve nods. “Yeah. Long time ago.”
“Yeah.” Nancy stares at the can, turning it over in her hand. Then she pulls the tab open, and so does Jonathan, and Steve, and Robin follows suit.
They raise their cans into the air, a silent toast to their lives. Because really, it’s a miracle they’re all here. Against the odds, against everything, they are alive. They are breathing. They got lucky.
Nancy finishes her drink first and shivers. Jonathan puts his arm around her. She moulds to his side, her head against his chest. She closes her eyes. Robin is staring. Come here, baby, she wants to say. Come here. Let me keep you safe. Keep me safe.
It takes her a moment to realise that she’s crying. When she does notice the tears falling down her cheek, though, it’s damn near impossible to stop them. She furiously wipes at her eyes. She knows she’s smearing her mascara, but she can’t stand the idea that they’re all going to stand there and watch her cry. She doesn’t want to be the weak one in the group.
“Rob,” Steve says quietly.
Robin can’t speak. Something is stuck in her throat, something that feels an awful lot like a sob. She shakes her head, looking at her feet and trying to blink the tears away. She drinks beer. She fiddles with her fingers. She does everything she possibly can. It doesn’t work.
She looks up at Steve, sees that his eyes are glistening too, and then she starts to properly cry. It takes her a while to calm down again, and while she’s busy sobbing into her hands she knows that Steve is crying too, and Nancy’s face is buried in Jonathan’s shoulder and Jonathan’s mouth is twisted into some terrible grimace. They’re sharing the pain between them, and although it’s awful, it’s a little easier to bear in this moment.
Robin doesn’t know how long it takes for their tears to stop. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She looks over at Nancy, and she’s sniffing, dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue. Jonathan takes a deep shuddering breath. Nancy lays her hand on his shoulder, then looks over at Robin.
“Let’s go clean ourselves up,” she suggests.
Robin nods mutely. If she tries to talk, she’ll end up sobbing again.
The school bathroom is empty, thankfully. A single flickery light illuminates the grimy walls and open stalls. Robin can hear music faintly through the walls. Nancy rummages around in her bag for a tissue and leans over a sink to look in the mirror, dabbing under her eyes for the makeup that has run.
Robin irreverently splashes water on her face. She doesn’t care about how she looks. Make-up isn’t something she usually makes time for, anyway. She looks in the mirror. Droplets of water cling to her eyebrows, run down her nose, collect at her chin. Her eyelashes clump together, and she can’t tell if it’s tears or the water that makes them do that. She barely recognises herself.
“Steve and I used to meet up here between second and third period,” Nancy says suddenly. She’s still looking in the mirror.
“Guess I don’t have to ask what you did in here.”
Nancy sighs. “Guess not.” She drops the tissue in an overflowing bin and turns around to face Robin. “I have… I have so many memories. My whole life is split into before and after. Before feels so far away. It doesn’t feel like my life.”
Robin swallows. “After doesn’t either.”
Nancy shakes her head. “It doesn’t.” She steps closer. “Who would have thought we would end up here?”
End up here together, the two of us, Nancy Wheeler and Robin Buckley. They never spoke to each other before that night at Starcourt, and they haven’t spoken since. Now they’re standing in the school bathroom, cleaning themselves up after they cried their eyes out in the parking lot.
Nancy has to tilt her head up to look at Robin. She’s very close. Robin doesn’t know how she got here. Nancy reaches up and brushes water from Robin’s cheek. “Are you crying?” she whispers.
“I don’t know,” Robin whispers back. It’s the truth. Her hand snakes around Nancy’s waist. “Do you hear the music?”
Nancy nods, her hand finding Robin’s. They cling to each other and sway slowly, holding on for dear life.
“This is how I feel all the time now,” Robin says. “Cut off, you know?”
“I know,” Nancy says. “There are… there are only three other people my age who I can talk to. Isn’t that terrible?”
“Awful,” Robin agrees. She leans down.
Nancy tilts her head up further. Their kiss is not a good one. Robin doesn’t need experience to know that. It’s wet and cold and her face is all puffy from crying, but none of that matters. She is here, she is with Nancy Wheeler, they are kissing, and she is alive. It doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It is just happening.
They break away at the same time. Nancy blinks as if waking from a long sleep. “What about Steve?” she asks.
“Not real,” Robin answers. “What about Jonathan?”
“Real,” Nancy says, “but I don’t think he’ll mind.”
Robin knows that he won’t. She doesn’t know how she knows, because she’s never spoken to him, but she knows. He won’t mind, he can’t mind, because he’s part of this too. The four of them—they are a mess, but it’s going to work. It has to, because they have no other choice. It’s like what Nancy said: for every one of them, there are only three other people their age that they can really talk to, that will understand them. Robin and Nancy sway with each other for a while longer. Then that song ends, and they find themselves walking outside again, back to Steve’s car.
Steve and Jonathan are standing together, leaning against it. Their hands are together, not linked, but touching. Steve’s head is turned towards Jonathan. This is it, then, Robin thinks. The four of them against the world. They stand around and drink beer and are silent, until the dance inside the gymnasium ends and all the students, blissfully naive and ignorant, stream out into the parking lot and find their cars, either to drive away or make out in. When that happens, Steve gets into his car and Robin hops into the front seat and Jonathan and Nancy slide into the back, and they drive away and keep driving until they are at Steve’s house, and they don’t speak at all because they don’t need to. They know. They all know.