Chapter 12

“You could never bother me”

July 6th 

Sofia wakes up to the sound of Dustin’s voice. Dustin’s very loud voice.

“Sofy, phone!” he yells from another room. She groans and picks up the phone from her bedside table. “Hello?” she asks, with a raspy morning voice.

“H-hi, it’s Robin” Robin says. Sofia quickly sits down, not expecting Robin to call. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up”

“Oh, it’s okay. H-how did you get my phone number?” Sofia asks, blushing through the confusion she felt.

“Oh, I asked Steve. I hope that’s okay-” Robin responds.

“It is, don’t worry” Sofia says, with a smile on her face.

“Look, I know I asked you to go to the movies with me, but since the mall got destroyed, I thought that maybe you could come over to my house and watch a movie?” Robin suggests, sounding hesitant.

“Yes, yes, that would be perfect” Sofia says. Robin could understand by Sofia’s tone that she was smiling. Robin loved Sofia’s smile, and even just thinking about it made her blush.

“Great! My parents aren’t home ’cause they’re gone for the weekend… n-not that it matters, I just thought you would… like to know… Hm, we do need to rent a movie, I was thinking, maybe, The Breakfast Club?” Robin says, still hesitant.

“Yeees!” Sofia says, with excitement filling her voice.  “Can I come pick you up by 3? I need to go over Cher’s”

“Oh yeah, no worries” Robin responds.

“Thanks. Well, I gotta get ready, so see you later” Sofia says, before hanging up the phone.

“Bye!” Robin says and hangs up the phone. Robin screams into her pillow, but, for the first time, out of happiness. Since the 4th of July, Sofia’s been living rent free in her mind. Robin thinks back to the moments when they held hands, when they were close, when they were resting their heads on each other’s shoulder, and can’t believe only two days passed by.

Two painful days without seeing Sofia made Robin’s desire for her even stronger.

Sofia hangs up the phone, gets up from bed and starts squeaking with excitement and jumping around. “Sofia, are you okay?” she hears her mother ask from the kitchen.

“Yes mom!” Sofia says and stops jumping. She looks over to her door and Dustin’s there, looking at her with a soft smile. “Shut up” she tells him.

“I didn’t say anything!” he says, putting his arms in the air. “So… Robin, huh”

“Yes, Robin” Sofia smiles. “I think it was a bit obvious”

“Oh, trust me, it was. I just needed confirmation” he says and laughs, getting out of his sister’s bedroom. 

Sofia gets dressed and does her makeup. She notices that the scratches on her face are going away, so she takes off the patches and tries to cover them a bit. She gives Tews food, says bye to her brother and mother, enters her car (luckily her mother had a spare key) and drives to Cher’s house.

Sofia feels anxious about seeing Cher again because she never got to say goodbye. With Madonna blasting on her car, the thoughts went away, and she just enjoyed the ride.

Parking the car, she notices that Cher’s parents’ car is gone. She walks to the door and rings the doorbell.

A terribly angry Cher opens the door, with half of her makeup done. “You” she scoffs and starts walking away.

“Cher, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to-” Sofia says, while following the girl upstairs to her bathroom.

“What? What didn’t you mean? You know, I went to have an abortion, which I gotta say, is not easy, and you weren’t here for me. I waited for you, and you never came!” Cher shouts at Sofia, making her shiver.

“I’m sorry, Cher. Truly. I never meant to not come see you, I just lost track of time-” Sofia says, but is quickly interrupted by Cher.

“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” Cher yells, making Sofia’s eyes water. “In fact, I don’t want to be your friend anymore! You wanna know why? Because true friends don’t go to the mall hang out with other people instead of comforting her friend who’s having a fucking abortion!” 

“Cher, it’s not like that-“

“Then tell me, what am I not getting?!” Cher says, but Sofia stays silent because she can’t tell her what truly happened. “That’s what I thought”

They stay silent for some seconds. “How did it go?” Sofia asks. She knew she had done a terrible thing by not visiting Cher before the abortion, but Cher’s yelling seemed unnecessary. Cher had done a lot of shitty things to Sofia, and she never yelled.

“Oh, just shut up. Don’t act like you care” Cher says, coldly.

“I do care, Cher” Sofia says, hoping that Cher would accept her apology. 

“You don’t… You don’t. If you did, you would’ve been here for me” Cher says, keeping the cold tone.

“But I am-“

“Shut up!” Cher yells. “You’re not. Now, go away, I have to get ready for a date. I don’t wanna fight anymore”

“Who’s the date with?” Sofia asks. She couldn’t help but keep the casualty between them, and even if Cher didn’t want to be friends with Sofia again, Sofia still loved her and wanted the best for her.

“Jason” Cher responds, shyly.

“Cher, he’s an asshole! You can’t possibly go on a date with him. Come on, I know we’re not on the best terms right now, but you do remember what he did last year-” Sofia says, scoffing.

“It’s not my fault you don’t like boys!” Cher yells. 

Getting shot in the heart probably feels less painful than what Sofia felt in that moment. She has always felt validated by her friend, she never felt the need to talk about how pretty boys were around her, and now she said that in a discussion. 

Sofia walks out of the bathroom, not wanting to make the situation worse, and when walking down the stairs she hears Cher yell “Dyke!”. 

That’s about enough to make Sofia start crying as she enters her car. She doesn’t know who she’s the maddest at, herself or Cher.

Arriving at Robin’s house, after a painful drive filled with crying, Sofia cleans her tears and walks to Robin’s front door. She rings the bell and Robin opens the door.

“What happened?” Robin asks, looking at the girl.

“Nothing” Sofia lies, forcing a smile.

“Come in” Robin says, with a worried look, letting the girl in. Sofia starts looking around and sees some photos of baby Robin. “Oh my god, you were the cutest!”

“What, I’m not anymore?” Robin asks with a smirk, making Sofia blush. “Follow me” Robin says, giving Sofia a small tour of her house.

They sit down on the couch in the living room, and Robin looks at Sofia. “What happened?” Robin asks, worried.

Sofia takes a deep breath and looks at Robin. “I got in a fight with Cher” she responds, looking back at the ground when she finished her sentence.

“About what?” Robin asks, knowing she wasn’t going to like what was coming next.

“I can’t really say, but she was right… she has all the reasons to be mad at me. It’s not like I murdered her family… I just wasn’t there for her when she needed me… I was with you and Steve and Dustin looking at those stupid boxes… I feel so bad” Sofia responds. While she was talking, she couldn’t believe she was opening up to someone that had come into her life so recently. How and why was she so comfortable around Robin?

“But you’re always there for her, okay? The two of you were always together at school, you two are inseparable. It’s just one fight, I’m sure you guys can get over it” Robin says, trying to comfort the girl.

“The problem is, I don’t know if I wanna be her friend” Sofia confesses, playing with some bracelets on her arm.

“Why?” Robin asks, intrigued.

“She… she called me a dyke” Sofia says after hesitating, holding on tears, and Robin rises her eyebrows in surprise. Robin stays silent because she doesn’t know what to say. Her head is full of thoughts, but the thing she wants to ask the most is Are you?

“Since I was little, I thought there was something wrong with me” Sofia says, still holding on to the tears. “I always knew I was different. Cher was the first person who noticed it and didn’t walk away. That’s why it hurts so much. I never had to hide it with her-”  

“And you don’t have to hide it with me. I understand you… truly” Robin says, looking into Sofia’s eyes.

Robin’s eyes said it all. She really did understand. “Well, we’re two of a kind then” Sofia says, chuckling.

“Like the movie” Robin says and Sofia nods, smiling.

“Thank you, I feel like I’m always bothering you with my problems-” Sofia starts saying.

“You could never bother me” Robin interrupts her. She looks into Sofia’s eyes, getting lost in there like she always does, but her glance keeps traveling to Sofia’s lips. She wanted to stop but couldn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to stop after all.

“Well, we should go, right?” Sofia says as she snaps back to reality, when she notices Robin looking at her lips. It’s not like she didn’t want to kiss Robin. She really did. It was just the time that didn’t feel right.

They walked to the car and talked over the loud music playing on the radio. Robin told Sofia how she learned Spanish, French and Italian, and Sofia revealed that she learned Portuguese, French and Greek. Robin joked about how the two of them were practically walking translators.

They went into the store, rented the movie, and drove back to Robin’s place. They made a quick stop at Joyce’s work to buy popcorn and soda, the cheapest they could find.

They sat very close to each other on the couch and started watching the movie. They often made pauses to talk about the scenes they were watching or to talk about Molly Ringwald (who they agreed was very pretty).

Robin kept commenting on the soundtrack while Sofia couldn’t shut up about the dialogue and how the scenes were written.

After the movie ended, they talked a bit more until Robin started feeling sleepy. “It’s 7pm, how are you sleepy already?” Sofia asks, as they walk to the front door.

“You know, some people don’t wake up at 1pm… right?” Robin jokes, making Sofia laugh. “Oh, wait! I forgot to give you something” Robin says and runs to her room, coming back with Sofia’s denim jacket. “Here” Robin says, handing it to Sofia.

“Oh, you can have it” Sofia says.

“Really? You know the blood was all washed out so…” Robin says with a smile, making Sofia smile too.

“It looks better on you anyway” Sofia says, opening the door. They look at each other, not really knowing how to say goodbye. Robin gives Sofia an awkward hug, to which they chuckle. 

“Do you want to hang out tomorrow?” Robin asks her crush.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t. Tomorrow is Billy’s funeral and Max invited me, so…” Sofia answers, kind of sad that she agreed to go since she could be with Robin tomorrow.

“Oh, it’s okay” Robin says, smiling.

“But we should definitely hang out some other day” Sofia says, not wanting to miss the opportunity of hanging out with Robin again.

“Yeah, totally” Robin says. Sofia walks to her car and is filled with happiness. She can’t stop smiling. And Robin’s the same.

During dinner, Sofia’s mother asked her why she was so happy, because she had never seen her like that. She said “Nothing”, but both her and Dustin knew what it was- being in love.

July 7th

The funeral was quick and small. It was present Billy’s father, Max’s mother, Max, El, Lucas, Dustin, Will, Mike, Steve, Nancy, Jonathan and Sofia. 

Sofia felt bad about all the times she looked at Billy and felt disgust and pure hate. Now she only felt pity and sadness.

After the funeral, Max’s stepfather and Max’s mother went home, and the rest of them went to a skate park. Sofia gave the idea, saying how much she liked seeing kids fall, and everyone thought it was funny too, so they drove there in two cars.

They all sat down and talked while laughing over the kids who were falling. Steve and Sofia bought ice cream for everyone, and it felt like everything was fine. It felt like they weren’t at a funeral 10 minutes ago, or like they didn’t experience weird shit.

It felt like Hawkins was a normal place.