Chapter 14

“Do you ever… feel broken?”

August 13th

“Hi” Sofia says, with her raspy morning voice. She just woke up and immediately called Robin.

“Good morning, Sof” Robin says.

“You sound busy, what’s up?” Sofia asks, sitting in bed and taking a sip of water.

“I was just finishing… writing something” Robin replies, closing her notebook.

“The mysterious thing you’ve been working on and won’t show me for some reason?” Sofia asks.

“Exactly” Robin says, hoping to avoid the subject. “How’d you sleep?”

“Great, I had a dream and you were in it” Sofia answers, opening her closet to pick out an outfit.

“Can you tell me about it?” Robin asks, curious.

“Ok, so, I was in this garden in Vienna, right? Then, a French guy came running to me and asked me if I wanted a croissant. I said no, because I had eaten one already. Then I looked to my side and I was suddenly on a Greek Island, and a guy named Sam was offering me to ride his boat? I don’t really remember that much to be honest”

“Ok…” Robin says, listening carefully to Sofia.

“I entered the boat and the floor was grass, which I found very weird but I didn’t say anything. Then I started walking on the boat and you were sleeping on the grass with a red rose on your hand” 

“Was I dead?” Robin asks.

“No, I don’t think so. I just laid down next to you and suddenly there were fireworks in the sky, like the ones from the 4th of July… so I don’t know if this dream was some sort of PTSD or just random” Sofia says, wondering what the source of the dream could be.

After a moment of silence, Robin speaks up. “Do you ever… think about it?”

“The 4th of July?” Sofia asks, feeling a shift in the atmosphere of the conversation.

“Yeah”

“I mean, sometimes. I try not to think about it, really” Sofia says. “Do you?”

“Yeah… but I think my brain just cut out the bad things, honestly. I don’t remember much” Robin answers.

“That’s normal, I think” Sofia says.

“Yeah” Robin says. “Look, my mom is calling for me, I gotta go”

“Okay, see you later” Sofia says and hangs up.

Sofia gets dressed and cleans her room. She cleans the dishes, gives Tews food and drives Dustin to the arcade, where he’s meeting the rest of the gang.

The Byers are moving out in about a month, and Sofia wanted to give them a little gift. She drives to the record store, in hopes of finding something that they’d enjoy. For Jonathan, she buys Who’s last by The Who. She tries to find any more albums that they might enjoy, but she can’t.

She decides to drive to the bookstore, already with a few ideas in her mind. For Eleven, she buys Alice in Wonderland and for Will she buys The Little Prince.

Since the weather was nice, Sofia decided to take a walk around the stores and window-shop. She had little money left, but once she saw a Boy’s Don’t Cry poster, she knew it would be the perfect gift for Will.

She used the rest of her money to buy the poster, and then went back to the bookstore to exchange the book she had bought for Will. She felt like it would be unfair to give Will two presents and only one to the other.

Sofia exchanged The Little Prince for Emma by Jane Austeen.

Later in the day, Robin arrives for their sleepover. She greets Sofia with a hug that would’ve lasted forever if they hadn’t heard Sofia’s mom’s car pull up.

Robin puts her bag in Sofia’s room, and they walk to the front door again, once they hear Sofia’s mom enter the house. It’s the first time Robin’s meeting her mother, and Sofia is nervous. It feels like she’s introducing her partner to her mother.

Luckily, it went just fine. After they talked for a bit, it was time to pick Dustin up. Sofia and Robin get in the car and drive to the arcade while listening to Madonna (Sofia’s choice).

“You know, I never really liked Madonna” Robin admits, earning an offended look from Sofia.

“How?! She is the moment” Sofia says, kind of shocked.

“I don’t know, maybe I just didn’t like the people who listened to her” Robin says, looking out the window.

“So, you don’t like me?” Sofia asks, joking.

“Yeah, I hate you” Robin says, sarcastically, and they laugh. “My point is, you listen to her so much that I actually enjoy her now”

“Good” Sofia says, smiling, and putting the song louder.

They pick up Dustin and, on their way home, they buy pizza for dinner. When they get home, Sofia and Robin grab one of the boxes of pizza and go to Sofia’s room. 

After eating, Sofia shows Robin the gifts she bought for Jonathan, Will and El. Then, Sofia decides to paint Robin’s nails. Their faces were so close, Sofia swore that Robin could hear her heartbeat increasing as Robin started to get closer to her.

Sofia switches to the other hand and they hear a knock on the door. “Come in” Sofia says, focused on Robin’s nails. She took the chance and looked at Robin’s hands, which she found extremely attractive.

Dustin opens the door and shows a box of pizza. “There’s two slices left, do you want it?” he asks the girls.

“I’m being held hostage now, so no, thank you” Robin smiles at the boy.

“Just leave them here” Sofia says, not taking her eyes away from Robin’s hands.

“o…kay” Dustin says, leaving the pizza box on the floor and leaving.

After painting Robin’s nails, they started talking about going to Europe.

“So, we could move from one country to another by train, it’s much cheaper” Robin says.

“Yeah, but it’s still a bit expensive, isn’t it?” Sofia asks.

“It is, but lucky me I’ve been saving money since freshman year” Robin sighs.

“Maybe I could get a job” Sofia says. “Like a part time job where I could work at the weekends only”

“I highly doubt that there’s some place where you work on weekends only” Robin points out.

“A girl’s gotta dream, okay!” Sofia laughs. “I really hope we can do this”

“Yeah, me too… You know, in freshman year I had to come up with a list of three people that I wouldn’t mind going to Europe with…” Robin starts saying.

“Yeah, I know” Sofia says, nodding.

“I can finally write a name there and be confident about it” Robin says, smiling, looking at Sofia.

“Really? Wait… is it Dustin?” Sofia says, and they laugh.

As Angel by Madonna plays in the background, Sofia and Robin keep planning their trip to Europe.

They’re going to go from Paris to Venice, to Madrid, to Lisbon and Frankfurt. That’s all they planned until Robin started getting sleepy. Robin goes to the bathroom to change into her pajamas. Sofia stays in the room and switches clothes.

“Oh, um, I’m sorry, huh, so sorry!” Robin says nervously when she enters the room and finds Sofia in a bra.

“I-it’s okay” Sofia says, putting her shirt on, and blushing.

They lie down in bed, facing each other. After a few seconds, Robin speaks up.

“Do you ever… feel broken?” Robin asks, looking at Sofia.

“…All the time” Sofia answers with a sigh. “Especially in this-”

“-town” Robin completes Sofia, making her smile.

Sofia always felt like Robin understood her. Even with the unspoken things. There were some things that both knew about each other, even though they never actually talked about it.

It was like they could read each other’s mind. It was like they were connected. It was like they were soulmates.

“Sometimes I wonder… what if there’s just something about me that- that drives people away? ‘Cause I can’t seem to keep any friends” Robin starts to ramble. “And people keep telling me «That’s just how it goes, when you’re a teenager people fall in and out of friendships every other semester» but that doesn’t seem to be the case to anyone but me. There’s something wrong with me-“

“Robin” Sofia interrupts her, placing her hand on Robin’s cheek and putting Robin’s hair behind her ear. “There is nothing wrong with you and I am not going anywhere. You’re not gonna lose me. I’ll always be here for you… and if this town ever drives us crazy… at least we’ll go crazy together” she smiles.

Robin smiles at those kind words and keeps looking at Sofia, casually shifting her gaze to her lips. Sofia’s breathing starts getting heavier as Robin starts moving closer to her.

Sofia also moves closer to Robin, whose heart started beating faster. That was it then. After months of ignoring her feelings, apprehending them, putting them in a box and hiding it, Robin knew it was time. The box was found, and the feelings got away.

In a quick movement, both closed the gap between them. With her hand, Sofia held Robin’s face and Robin placed her hand on Sofia’s back.

Their lips moved softly and slowly, as if they were afraid to hurt one another. It was the best feeling in the world. It felt natural yet unreal at the same time. It felt soothing. It felt right. 

After some seconds, Sofia pulled away. “It’s uhm… it’s too soon” Sofia says, hesitating before talking.

“Okay” Robin says, feeling a bit disappointed, but still respecting Sofia’s decision.

They change positions and stare at the ceiling, still not believing what happened. “I’m sorry” Sofia says.

“It’s okay” Robin whispers. She wasn’t feeling okay. She finally kissed Sofia.

After some seconds of not talking, Sofia says “You’re an amazing kisser though”, trying to light up the mood.

Robin chuckles. “Yeah, you too”.

The next morning, Robin woke up first and realized they were cuddling. Sofia was the big spoon and Robin was the little spoon. Sofia had her arm around Robin’s waist and that reminded Robin of the kiss. 

Was it a mistake? Did Sofia not like her? Did she rush things? Did she do anything wrong? How come it felt so right to her but to Sofia it felt too soon? Could she not have accepted it yet?

Robin ignores the thoughts and carefully gets out of bed. She walks to the bathroom, changes clothes, washes her face and brushes her teeth.

She walks back to the room, sits on the bed, and looks at Sofia. She looked too cute while sleeping. Her mouth was slightly open and clearly, she was sleeping well.

Robin grabs her notebook and looks at the poem she’s been working on. It’s still the same. She can’t seem to find the right words to describe Sofia. 

She moves to another page and starts writing some sentences, which usually gives her inspiration. She comes up with one a few, but there’s one that stands out the most.

please, don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I can recognize anywhere.

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A/N: YAYYY first kiss!! sorry it ended so quickly, but trust me, it’s worth it. I have so many ideas

Please tell me if you’re not enjoying these types of chapters because if most of you don’t like them I can just skip to season 4. I’m just doing these because I think it’s important and it gives more time for Robin and Sofia’s relationship to grow 🙂

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