Chapter 5

“Hey Robin, do you need a ride? It’s kinda late for you to bike all the way to your house…” Sofia asks Robin, hoping her voice doesn’t sound as nervous as she actually is.

“Oh, there’s no need, but thanks” Robin responds with a smile.

“Are you sure? We can just put your bike in my trunk, it’s no big deal” Sofia tells her. “Come on, I insist” Sofia says, grabbing Robin’s bike.

They say bye to Steve, and walk to the car. Dustin sits in the back seat and Robin sits in the passenger seat.

Sofia starts driving, and Don’t Forget About Me starts playing in the background.

“Oh my god I love this song… and the movie too!” Robin says, moving her hands to the beat of the song.

“Really?! Me too, Dustin hates it” Sofia tells Robin, smiling.

“I don’t like the song, but I like the movie…” Dustin tells the two girls, looking out the window. He sounds distant. 

“They’re both so incredibly good” Robin says. “And oh my god you got it in tape! I’m so jealous” she says, getting very excited.

“You can have that tape if you want. It has the whole soundtrack of the movie there” Sofia says, trying her best to seem generous. She didn’t want Robin to get the wrong impression of her.

“Oh no, I couldn’t” Robin says.

“You could. But if you don’t want it now then I’ll just give it to you on your birthday” Sofia tells Robin, making her chuckle.

The rest of the ride they talk a little bit about some movies they’ve recently watched. Sofia is really liking Robin. She’s funny, has a nice sense of humor, has a great personality and is very very pretty. Not to mention hot. But she tries not to think of that.

Robin thinks the same. When she looks at Sofia, she feels a different sense of comfort. A new one. Something she never felt, not even with Tammy Thompson. And she feels like she’s going crazy because they only started properly talking that very same day, and to say she has a crush on her… it would be too soon… right?

Sofia pulls up at Robin’s house, and they say their goodbyes. Once Robin gets inside, Sofia gets ready to start driving but Dustin throws himself at the passenger seat.

“Dusty, what the hell?” Sofia shouts, struggling to keep her focus on the road.

“Sorry” he says, looking out the window and Sofia feels he’s distant and in deep thought. But, knowing Dustin, she decides not to ask anything. If he wants to talk, he’ll talk.

After driving in silence for a while, Dustin speaks up. “Sofia?” he calls her name.

“Yeah?” she asks back.

“Can I ask you a question?” he asks, looking directly at her, in attempts to be able to read her body language.

“You already did” Sofia jokes but sees that by the look on Dustin’s face he’s about to ask something serious. “But yeah, shoot”.

“How come you never dated a boy?” Dustin asks, making Sofia freeze. Does he know?  

Starting to feel anxious, she says “I- I don’t know, Dusty”, trying to avoid eye contact.

“It’s just that… I remember boys coming up to you and asking you out and you always declined. Always. I don’t know, I just find it weird-” Dustin says, but Sofia interrupts him.

“Dustin. I always decline because…” she says and takes a deep breath. Why hide it anymore? And it was her brother, it’s not like he’s going to hurt her. “Because I don’t like boys.” she says, really fast, in hopes this conversation could just end.

“What do you mean?” Dustin asks.

“It means I don’t like boys. I-I like girls. In the same way you like girls, the exact same way” Sofia says, feeling very anxious. “Now, I understand this can be hard for you to comprehend, and I’ll give you all the time you need and all the space you need to think about this-” Sofia starts rambling.

“Sofy, why would I need time? I understand” Dustin says, making Sofia very emotional.

“Oh, thank you Dusty” Sofia says, as she feels her heartbeat slow down.

There’s a pause. “So… how come you never dated a girl?” Dustin asks, making Sofia laugh.

“Because, Dustin” Sofia says, parking the car in their garage “I didn’t get blessed with curly hair, like yours. It takes away all my charm” she says, making Dustin chuckle, as he takes off his seatbelt.

Opening the door, he turns to look at his sister and says “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone” Dustin says, making Sofia smile. She’s so lucky.

After picking Cher up from her house, Sofia and Cher were now making plans about the abortion: how to tell her parents, how to have an abortion without anyone knowing, how to tell Chris that he got her pregnant so she’s dumping his ass, etc.

Sofia tried the whole time to make Cher feel okay, to make her feel comfortable with her reality right now but failed in all her attempts. Cher felt miserable and guilty, and no one could make her feel otherwise.

They stay up all night talking and planning. Cher fell asleep by 6am, but Sofia decided to take a shower instead of sleeping. She gets ready, does her makeup and prepares breakfast for Cher and Dustin. She sees her mother leave for work by 8am and watches TV until it’s time to wake Dustin up.

She wakes Dustin up and has breakfast with him, deciding to let Cher sleep for a couple more hours. Sofia takes her brother to the bus station, so he can go to the mall and keep working with Steve about the Russians.

By midday, Sofia wakes Cher up and lends her a dress. She drives her friend home and wishes good luck, hoping that the plan will work. “Call me later to tell me how it went!” Sofia yells from her car window, as she watches Cher give a thumbs up and enter her house.

Arriving at the mall, she makes her way to Scoops Ahoy, but finds Steve and Dustin crouching behind some plants.

“What are you doing?” she whisper-shouts at them, making them jump in place.

“God! You scared us!” Steve whisper-shouts back at her.

“We’re spying! Clearly! Now go away” Dustin tells his sister. She shrugs and walks away.

Entering Scoops Ahoy, she spots Robin by the counter. “Hi Robin” Sofia says, making her way behind the counter and placing her bag in the backroom.

“Hey Sof” Robin freezes. Sof? What the hell? Robin thinks to herself, hoping that Sofia hadn’t heard it.

“Sof?” Sofia asks Robin, with a smile.

“Y-yeah, I was thinking about nicknames for you, and I came up with that one” Robin says, messing with her hands.

“Aw, I like it” Sofia says, feeling her cheeks get warmer. It’s crazy to her that Robin spent more than a second of her time thinking about her. “Wanna go translate the rest?” Sofia asks, picking up the Walkman.

“The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. A trip to China sounds nice if you tread lightly.” Sofia, who’s standing, and Robin, who’s sitting by the little window, read from a notebook. When Sofia realizes how close her face was to Robin, she quickly walks away and starts pacing around.

“Tread lightly?” Robin whispers, opening the dictionary and going through the pages. 

Hearing a knock, Robin opens the little window, goes through it, and opens the second door from the backroom, revealing a delivery man. Sofia carefully stares at Robin, not wanting to get caught. Robin’s hair looks very pretty today.

“Delivery for you” the man says, giving Robin a box.

“Thank you” she says, signing a paper.

“Have a nice day” the man says.

“Yeah, you too” Robin says, with a distant voice, which Sofia notices.

Robin enters the corridor, still looking at the man. “Siver cat” she whispers. Robin starts running, opens the backdoor and grabs Sofia hand, who also starts running. They run past Steve and Dustin, who are talking, and ignore them. They look at the two girls with confused faces.

Sofia and Robin get on top of some benches, still holding hands. “Robin, what’s going on?” Sofia asks.

“Silver cat… it’s a code for Lynx Transportation. I think all of these are names of stores, so… A trip to China sounds nice…” Robin tells the girl, and they start looking around, letting go of each other’s hands. It was such a subtle detail that neither noticed until later on.

“Oh, there! Imperial Panda!” Sofia says, pointing out to the Chinese food restaurant.

“Ok ok, good” Robin whispers. “If you tread lightly” she reads off the notebook. “Kaufman Shoes!” she says.

“Alright” Sofia smiles, grabbing the notebook from Robin’s hands. “When blue and yellow meet in the west.” Sofia reads, feeling Robin’s eyes on her.

“The clock!” Robin tells Sofia, and they look at each other, smiling, feeling accomplished.

“Guys” Steve says, looking at Robin and Sofia, with a confused face. “What are you doing?” he asks.

The two girls glance at each other and Robin says, “We cracked it.”

“Cracked what?” Steve asks.

“Your mom” she says, giving him a funny look. “The code Steve, we cracked the code!” she says, since he didn’t give her any response.

Robin jumps off the benches and extends her hand to help Sofia down.

After cracking the code, Sofia left the mall and went home to call Cher, to find out how the conversation went. 

Cher told her that her parents were mad at her, but happy Sofia helped a lot. They were also considering sending Cher to a Catholic summer camp, but that’s a discussion for later. She is going to have the abortion in another state, so rumors don’t start forming and they can live in peace. They leave tonight, and they’re telling people they’re going on a summer vacation. 

“Can I come over later? To say goodbye?” Sofia asks.

“Yes please, I need all the emotional support possible. Oh, by the way, I dumped Chris’ ass” Cher informs her.

“Oh my god, finally. I hated him” Sofia says.

“You hate every guy” Cher says, and Sofia can almost hear her rolling her eyes.

“Not every guy… just most of them” Sofia laughs. She never told Cher about her sexuality, but she doesn’t feel the need to. It’s as if Cher knew already, even without ever talking about it. It was cool.

A few hours later, Sofia was reading when she got a call from Dustin, telling her to come back to the mall because they had a plan. She decided that she could go over Cher’s after doing the plan.

Dustin, Steve, Robin and Sofia are now on a rooftop, looking at the delivery guys. 

“Look for Imperial Panda and Kaufman Shoes” Robin tells Dustin, who’s with binoculars on.

“They’re with that whistling guy, ten o’clock” he says, after looking around.

“What do you think’s in there?” Steve asks.

“Guns?” Dustin says.

“Bombs?” Sofia adds.

“Chemical weapons?” Robin says.

“Whatever it is, they’re armed to the teeth” Dustin says.

“Great, that’s great” Steve says, nervously, whipping the rain from his face.

“I’m sure I’m gonna get a cold” Sofia says, squeezing the water out of her hair.

The door that’s guarded opens, and Robin asks “Hey, what’s in there?”.

“It’s just more boxes” Dustin replies.

“Let me check it out” Steve says, taking the binoculars away from Dustin.

“No, I’m still looking” Dustin says, grabbing onto them.

“Lemme see it” Steve says, as they fight over the binoculars.

“Hang on!” Dustin shouts. The binoculars hit the rooftop, making a loud thud.

“Duck!” Dustin whispers, as they do so.

Robin grabs onto Sofia’s hand, intertwining their fingers. Sofia doesn’t move her hand, liking the feeling of holding hands with Robin. She’s also too nervous to have a complete thought.

“Well, I think we found your Russians” Robin says to Steve, as the four walk down the corridors.

Sofia and Robin are still holding hands. They don’t even mention it. They just really like the feeling, and both feel guilty about it, but keep on doing it.

They quickly walk back to Scoops, talking about what they just saw. “What time is it?” Sofia asks, in the middle of the conversation.

“7pm, why?” Steve responds, looking at the clock.

Sofia’s eyes widen, as she realizes she forgot about Cher. “Shit!” she grabs her bag. “Steve, can you give Dustin a ride home? Thanks!” she says, as she starts to sprint away.

“What happened?” Robin asks.

“Nothing!” Sofia yells, running away.

“What’s up with her?” Steve asks Dustin.

“I have no idea” Dustin responds, wondering what the hell just happened.