꧁꧂

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴇɴᴛʏ-ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴ: ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ɪ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ

Hearing a groan from one stall over, I gave Robin a look which told her how much I had appreciated Steve also being with us. She smiled sweetly before looking back up at the ceiling, legs leaning up against the stall's door.

It was Steve's fault we had ended up in the bathrooms, throwing up all that was in our body systems currently. He probably shouldn't have looked up at that glass ceiling for as long as he did, because maybe we'd still be watching Marty McFly and his DeLorean.

"The ceiling stopped spinning for me." Robin spoke up for the three of us in the restroom to hear. Glancing up, I smiled at the fact that I COULD actually looking around without feeling so dizzy that I would cough up yesterday's lunch. "Is it still spinning for you?" Shaking my head over at her, I smiled weakly.

"Holy shit." We heard Steve from one stall over, sounding glad for it to finally be over. "No. You think we puked it all up?"

"Hopefully." I murmured, looking back down at the toilet beside me. "Ask something. See what happens."

"Sure... uh...." We could almost hear the ten braincells in Steve's head working together to come up with a question. "When was the last time you... uhh... peed your pants?" Rule number thirty-two: don't let Steve Harrington choose the question. 

"Today..." I gave Robin a grimace of a look as she answered so freely.

"Robin..." I murmured, eyes narrowing as I tilted my head.

"When the Russian doctor took out the bone saw." With that, I found myself chuckling at the girl on the floor. She had a point.

"Oh, my God." Steve laughed at her words from next door, although I was pretty sure he didn't even get to see how big the bone saw was.

"It was just a little bit, though." She insisted over to me, emphasising it with a hand gesture.

"Yeah, definitely still in her system, right Park?" Steve called over to me, causing me to chuckle with Robin, the girl then sitting up opposite me. "Park? Last time you peed your pants?"

Thinking for a moment, my eyes went wide, looking over at Robin. "At the Snowball..." The two broke into laughter, again, questioning what I meant. "I drank too much punch, to say the least..."

"I would pay good money-" Before Steve can even finish his sentence, I gave Robin a look to cut him off.

"ALRIGHT, MY TURN." She declared loudly, smirking over at me.

"Now I regret this..." I muttered over to her, taking in the smirk.

"Have you... ever been in love?" The moment it left her lips, I felt something in me drop. I couldn't tell if it was my heart, my stomach or my soul. I had never truly accepted that well that I was in love with Max, but it was the truth. I was in love with my best friend. Rule number thirty-three: accept you're in love with her. 

"I uh- I think I'm in love with a friend of mine..." I say, toning it down from the shouting that was present in the room moments ago. "They don't like me back, though. They're in a relationship." The girl nodded, seeming kind of sorry that she'd brought it up. "Harrington? Ever been in love?"

"Yep. Nancy Wheeler." It was as though he'd planned out the answer already. "First semester, senior." He made a firing sound, imitating a gun, and I pulled a sympathetic face. Nancy had left Steve for Jonathan, and it wasn't like that was news to anyone who went to Hawkins high and middle school. King Steve was dumbed for Johnathan Byers, the creep who lost his brother the year prior.

"Oh, my God..." Robin murmured. "She's... such a priss..."

"Hm..." Steve answered. "Turns out, not really."

The girl beside me scoffed. "Are you still in love with Nancy?"

There was silence for a moment before the boy replied. "No." It was hard to tell if he was hesitant properly or not.

"Why not?" I asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"I think it's because... I found someone who's a little better for me." And around about then? That's when I decided to shut my mouth. For good. The boy chuckled. "It's crazy. Ever since Dustin got home, he's been saying, 'You know, you gotta find your Suzie. You gotta find your Suzie.'."

"Wait... who's Suzie?" Robin asked, eyebrows furrowed, looking over at me.

"It's... some girl from camp, I guess his girlfriend." Steve said, in the most tired voice humanly possible. "To be honest with you, I'm not 100% sure she's even real..." Honestly, I hoped Suzie was real, but we hadn't heard from her that night on the hill, so it was looking all a little... sketchy. "But that's not... that's' not really the point... The point is, this girl, you know, the one that I like, it's somebody that I... didn't even talk to in school."

I couldn't even bare to make eye contact with Robin, or look over at her as he spoke, wondering if he'd just forgotten if I was also in the room. "And I don't even know why. Maybe 'cause Tommy H would've made fun of me or... I wouldn't be... prom king? It's stupid. I mean, Dustin's right, it's all just a bunch of bullshit anyways. Because, when I think about it, I should've been hanging out with this girl the whole time... First of all- she's hilarious. She's so funny. I feel like, this summer, I have laughed harder than I have laughed... in a really long time."

"And she's smart..." The boy continued on. "Way smarter than me." Didn't take too much, Harrington, but I'll let it slide. "You know, she can crack, like, top secret Russian codes and... You know? She's honestly unlike anyone I've ever even met before." When I did look over at her, Robin was leaning over her knees as she pulled them up to her chest, taking in each and every word being said, her head between her legs.

Oh. This wasn't what she meant. This wasn't what she needed. Letting out a slightly shaky breath of my own, I reached over, resting a hand on her shoulder. When she looked up at me, her hair was now slightly a mess, and there was almost a panicked look on her face. "Robin?" Steve knocked on the stall wall between us. "Robin, did you just OD in there?"

When the girl made eye contact with me, it was as though she was scared. "No..." She spoke quietly, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear than who was in the room. "I..." She let out another one of those worrying shaky breaths, pushing her legs back out. "am still alive..."

Not taring my eyes off of her, I leaned up against the stall's wall, holding my hand out for her to take. To let her know someone was there for her. When she took it, there was a tight, tight squeeze that came with it. She was not okay. Whatever was going on right now, I don't think she was so sure about it.

The stall wall lifted up slightly, with Steve sliding on under to us, making Robin comment. "The floor's disgusting." She tells him as we watched him lean up against the stall's door.

"Yeah, well, I already got a bunch of blood and puke on my shirt, so..." The boy looked down at himself when he said it, sighing while Robin lightly chuckled. Tension now in the air, I was unsure if it was a good idea to stick around, yet, she still had a strong clasp on my hand. I wasn't going anywhere. "What do you think?"

"About?" Part of me wondered if she was playing dumb, since, you know, he'd just basically confessed feelings for her.

"This girl." Steve says, looking right at her.

"She sounds awesome." Robin tells him. I could feel a but coming along...

Steve nodded. "She is awesome... And what about the guy?"

"I think he's on drugs, and he's not thinking straight." Robin said, kind of deflecting the fact that the ceiling was no longer spinning.

"Really? 'Cause I think he's thinking a lot more clearly than usual." When he said that, I raised an eyebrow, glancing away for a moment.

"He's not." She seemed pretty sure of it, too. Every time silence sat between the three of us, tension and awkwardness grew. "Look... he doesn't even know this girl. And, if he did know her, like- like really know her, I don't think he'd even want to be her friend..."

"No." Steve argued quickly at Robin, sitting up a little more when she said that. "That's not true. No way is that true."

"Listen to me, Steve." Every word that Robin said seemed to have been carefully thought through first. "It's shocked me to my core, but I like you. I really like you." Listening to every word that was said, I thought long and hard where she was going with this. "But I'm not like your other friends. But I'm not like Nancy Wheeler."

"Robin, that's exactly why I like you." Steve emphasised back at her, but I don't think that's what she was meaning.

She scoffed a little, looking over at me, raising an eyebrow. "Do you remember what I said about Click's class?" Robin asks, looking down at her shoes, now. Both me and Steve nodded slowly. "About me being jealous and, like, obsessed?" Steve did, nodding and agreeing. "It isn't because I had a crush on you." Looking down at my lap, I tried to not seem as though I was being nosey, but it wasn't like I could just... block it out now. "It's because... she wouldn't stop staring at you."

She wouldn't stop staring at you.

Wow. That's why I understood this girl. She didn't like Steve romantically back in history class, she liked a girl who had liked Steve. She was jealous of the boy who got all the attention she always wanted. She wanted to be the one to take that girl on dates, to drive her home and have dinner with her family on Sunday nights. To have sleepovers where they'd binge everything that they could in one night, not caring about the electricity bill that may come through to the parents at the end of the month.

"Mrs Click?" Steve wasn't understanding, still. When I let out a heavy breath, and looked over at Robin, I saw her chuckle, shaking her head.

"Tammy Thompson." Robin corrected. The silence may have been confusing for Steve, but I got it. I understood all of it. "I wanted her to... look at me. But... she couldn't pull her eyes away from you and your stupid hair... and I didn't understand, because you would get bagel crumbs all over the floor." The need and want for a girl to look at you was something beyond my understanding. The thought that maybe, just maybe, one day Max would look at me the way that I'd seen her look at Lucas was what I'd dream of. "And you asked dumb questions. And you were a douchebag. And- and you didn't even like her and... I would go home..."

"And scream into your pillow... Wishing for a miracle. That one day it would be you instead of him.." I murmured quietly, not looking anywhere but dead ahead. Robin squeezed my hand even tighter than beforehand, causing me to have no other choice but to look over at her. "Her name's Max..." I say quietly, swallowing back tears that I could feel coming up. The girl gave me a weak smile, telling me that no matter what happened now, maybe we had each other.

"But..." Steve still, unfortunately, didn't understand. "Tammy Thompson... Max... they're girls..."

Robin's voice was soft when she looked over at him, "Steve..."

"Yeah...?" He laughed nervously, not getting it before a silence came between the three of us. "Oh..." And although Steve wasn't the... best when it came to reactions, this was much better than others would've had.

"Oh..." I nodded, getting myself more in the corner of the stall.

The boy glanced between the two of us, thinking. "Holy shit..."

"Yeah...." Robin said. The room was not what it was two minutes ago, that was for sure. It was so quiet compared to how we were earlier on. We were laughing at everything and anything no more than twenty minutes ago. "Holy shit..."

The silence went on between us as Steve took in the fact that he liked a lesbian. Yeah, that's a weird sentence, I won't lie to you. The boy looked pretty far gone, though. "Steve...?" I asked, looking over at him. "Did you just OD in there?"

When he looked over at me, he smiled weakly, shaking his head. "No, I just... uh, just thinking."

I nodded, looking back at Robin. She was worried. She was absolutely terrified of what Steve could do. If anyone found out and told the town, we were screwed. We'd be fighting for our lives to ever live a normal life again, at this rate.

"I mean, yeah..." Steve looked away when he then spoke up again. "Tammy Thompson, you know, she's cute and all, but... I mean... she's a total dud." Letting the words set in for a moment, I snickered.

"She is not." Robin fired back at Steve, holding back the idea of smiling at his comment.

"Yes, she is." Steve insisted, looking over at me afterwards. "You remember Tammy? She wants to be, like... a singer. She wants to move to, like, Nashville and shit."

My eyes then went wide when I recalled the girl, looking over at Robin. "That's Tammy?" I asked, keeping my voice soft and low, smiling slightly, though.

"She has... dreams." Robin claimed, looking between the two of us, still fending her corner.

"She can't even hold a tune." Steve continued on, causing a slight smirk to begin growing on Robin's face. "She's practically tone-deaf. Have you heard her?" The boy carried on to atonally mock Tammy with a high-pitched voice, singing the lyrics to a Bonnie Tyler song.

Laughing, I looked over at Robin, who was fighting back the urge to agree with him. "She does not sound like that-"

"She sounds exactly- that's a great impersonation of her, don't you think Park?" Steve glanced over at me to help and I found myself only nodding, smiling and laughing.

"She does not." Robin insisted, slapping my arm before carrying on talking over Steve. "You sound like a Muppet."

"She sounds like a Muppet." Steve emphasised. "She sounds like a Muppet giving birth." As Robin broke into a laugh, we listened on to Steve and his Kermit impression. "And if you could hold me tight..."

"We'll be holding on forever." To say at that point, there and then, it was something unreal. The idea that Steve Harrington, once the King of Hawkins High, was sat in the restrooms with two lesbians joking about one of their past crushes. Rule number thirty-four: do kermit impressions more often! 

"EXACTLY." The boy had never seemed so proud of himself as Robin sung along with me and him, like he'd just got full marks on an English exam.

"I KNOW..." The girl broke into laughter, leaning her head against the wall as the three of us laughed away all of it. All of the problems were no longer there because they just didn't matter. Not anymore.

The door burst open while we carried on laughing, with two walking in and staring at us. "Okay." My head turned at Dustin's voice, smirking at the pissed off expression he was giving. "What the hell?" As the door then closed, I turned to look over at Steve and Robin, breaking out into another fit of laughter. 

Rule number thirty-five: come out with another older teen lesbian in the starcourt mall restrooms to the most popular boy of his own high school years.