Chapter 13

“They tried to murder me!”

After hanging out on July 6th, Sofia started calling Robin some mornings. After that, Robin started calling Sofia some nights. Then, they started calling each other every day. Since Robin woke up earlier in the morning, Sofia called her when she woke up, and since Robin went to sleep earlier than Sofia, Robin called her before going to sleep. 

It was amazing how this routine worked so well for both of them.

They hang out about two or three times a week. Sometimes Sofia helps Robin look for a new job, sometimes they go to the park, to the arcade, … They also enjoy each other’s silence, so sometimes they go to the library and just seat in the comfortable brown couches reading (not in the annoying chairs that Sofia thought was poorly designed).

Sofia took Robin shopping once, but then they saw Cher in one of the stores and Sofia didn’t feel like shopping anymore. After that, Robin bought Sofia some ice cream in hopes of cheering her up. 

It did.

They also liked to bike around Hawkins. They liked to visit the strawberry and peach camps, to run away from the bees, to eat some of the fruit (carefully stollen) and to do competitions to see who rides the fastest on their way back home.

They started to enjoy each other’s company a lot more, and each day they fell harder and harder in love. Every time they made some sort of physical contact, Sofia always blushed and felt butterflies in her stomach, and so did Robin. However, they never talked about love and liking girls- none of them felt ready.

Part of Sofia still didn’t believe she only liked girls. Why couldn’t she like guys? She tried to imagine herself kissing guys, but every time she disgust or simply nothing. However, when she thought about kissing girls… She did feel something.

It felt like taking a bath after a long day on the beach. It felt like going to sleep in fresh sheets. It felt like a breeze on a very sunny day. And mostly, it felt right. 

August 1st

Today, Sofia, Robin, Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, Dustin, Will, Mike, Lucas, Max, and El are all going to the local pool. Sofia thought it was a bit soon to go, since Billy worked there, but Max was the one suggesting it.

Sofia made lunch for her, Dustin, Robin, and Max, as they planned. She got dressed in a red swimsuit and a long blue dress on top. She picked up Robin, who sat in the passenger seat, and then Max, who sat on the back with Dustin. Sofia played Kate Bush since she knew Max loved her.

The ride was quick. They were the first group to arrive, so they chose the best spot on the grass (after Dustin’s lecture about the Sun’s orbit) and laid down their towels. Sofia takes off her dress and lays down on her towel. Sofia looks to her side and sees Robin taking off her shirt, revealing a black bra.

“Sofia, put sunscreen on” Dustin orders. Sofia rolls her eyes and grabs the sunscreen, applying it on her arms. She gets up and puts it on her legs and neck.

“Hey, hm… Robin… could you apply sunscreen on my back?” Sofia asks Robin.

“Uh, yeah sure” Robin says. She starts to feel a bit of panic but keeps it cool.

Sofia hands the bottle to Robin, who sprays it on Sofia’s back. Sofia chuckles because the cold tickles. Robin starts to spread sunscreen on Sofia’s back, making her want to melt by Robin’s touch. She was definitely touch starved.

Robin grabs one of the straps, applying the sunscreen underneath it. She does the same thing with the other strap and then it is all finished. Sofia turns around to look at Robin and gets the urge to kiss her even more than she did before. The urge to grab her hair while kissing her and leave little kisses on her neck and-

“Hey guys!” Steve says, walking towards the group with black sunglasses on, a bag and a beach chair.

“Hi” Sofia and Robin say to Steve, blushing. Steve puts his towel next to Robin’s and gives her a smirk, to which Robin rolls her eyes.

By 10am everyone had arrived. They put all their towels in a circle and the lunch boxes in the middle, covered by the parasols.

“Hey, can we go to the pool now?” Mike asks Nancy, holding hands with El.

“Have you applied sunscreen?” Nancy asks Mike, as the other kids gather around.

“Yes, can we go now?” Mike asks, in a bored tone.

“Yeah” Nancy says, keeping an eye on Mike while he walks away.

“No kissing!” Sofia shouts while the kids walk to the pool, making the rest of the group laugh.

Sofia looks at Dustin and smiles at how happy he is. She watches the kids for a while, making sure none of them drown. 

After getting bored of doing so, she grabs her walkman and listens to The Works by Queen. As Radio Ga Ga plays, Sofia feels her eyelids getting heavier, so she closes her eyes and falls asleep within seconds.

Some minutes after Sofia fell asleep Steve noticed it. “Is she seriously sleeping?” Steve asks, making Nancy, Jonathan and Robin sit down on their towels to look at Sofia.

“I mean, she didn’t get her 8 hours of sleep” Robin says, looking at the girl sleeping with headphones in. Her mouth was slightly open. She looked cute.

“Jeez, at what time does she go to sleep?!” Nancy asks.

“Late. She likes to read at night” Robin says with a smile, thinking about that one time Sofia called her at 4am to talk shit about John from Sense and Sensibility.

“We could… throw her in the pool” Steve suggests.

“I think she’ll wake up” Robin says, sarcastically.

“We could throw water in her face” Jonathan says, and the four smile.

They all get up and each one grabs a water bottle. Robin carefully removes the headphones from Sofia’s head and puts it inside her bag with the walkman.

They count to three and drop the water. Sofia immediately wakes up and sits down, coughing.

“What the fuck?!” she shouts, as the four of them laugh.

“What happened?” Dustin asks, as he and the rest of his group come back from the pool because it was too crowded.

“They tried to murder me!” Sofia says, making everyone laugh. “I’m getting revenge, okay? And I’m talking about a spiders-in-your-hair kind of revenge”

“Can’t wait” Steve says.

After that, Sofia and Robin start doing crosswords together but since it’s too easy they decide to go swimming. “You guys wanna go too?” Sofia asks the group, as she takes her sunglasses and puts them in their little box.

“I could go again” Dustin says, looking at his friends.

“Me too” Will says.

Everyone, except for Nancy and Jonathan, gets up and starts walking towards the pool. Max catches up with Sofia and Robin, standing in the middle of them. “I can’t wait to show you my handstand under water” Max smiles, interlocking arms with Sofia.

They get in the water and Sofia starts swimming around and playing with the kids, feeling Robin’s eyes on her. 

Robin and Steve are seating on the edge of the pool, whispering about something that looked important. The two of them are always glancing at Sofia as they’re talking, so Sofia started thinking they were talking about her. But part of Sofia felt foolish for thinking so.

Sofia swims to where they are, and they stop talking. “Let’s go play mermaids” Sofia says with a childish smile.

“Mermaids? I’m a grown-up man, Sofy” Steve says.

“I love mermaids!” Robin says, so Sofia extends her arm and pulls Robin into the water. 

“Thank you for the warning” Robin says, right after she comes up, trying to open her eyes.

Sofia gives her a dorky smile and watches as Robin pulls her hair back to not get on her face. Robin looks at Sofia, who’s looking back at her, and looks at her lips. She fights the urge to kiss her, especially because they’re in a public place, but doing so is becoming harder every day.

Every day she spends with Sofia she realizes how perfect she is, how funny and cute and pretty and hot… And every day she spends with Sofia she realizes she might be her soulmate.

Sofia scans Robin’s face, realizing that her freckles are much clearer. She starts thinking of songs that could describe what she felt for Robin. Maybe Angel by Madonna. Maybe Without You by David Bowie. However, she knew no song could be as perfect as Robin Buckley.

“Hey Sofy!” Max shouts, gaining Sofia’s attention. “Look!” Max says and does a handstand. When she resurfaces, Sofia starts clapping. “You could be a ballerina” she says.

Then, Robin throws water at Sofia. “Oh, so you wanna have a water fight?” Sofia asks her, with a surprised look.

Robin flashes her a smile and both start throwing water at each other nonstop. Between their laughs, Sofia can barely hear Dustin calling for her. Suddenly, Robin gets hit with a ball in her head. Sofia stops throwing water and covers her mouth, trying not to laugh. She looks at Steve, the person who threw the ball, and he starts laughing.

“You’re dead dingus!” Robin says, getting ready to throw water at Steve, when Dustin yells “Stop! I’m hungry!”

The three of them look at Dustin with a confused face, and Sofia asks “So?”

“So? Let’s eat” Dustin complains.

They get out of the water and Sofia gives Robin, Max, and Dustin their sandwiches, and then takes one for herself. Everyone else starts eating too, so they all seat on the edge of their towels, so they’re all talking in a circle.

After a while, it starts getting windy and Sofia starts getting cold. Robin notices Sofia shivering, so she gets up, sits next to her, and puts her towel on their backs. “Better?” she asks and realizes how close their faces were to each other.

“Yeah” Sofia says, smiling, as it reminds her of one of the times they hung out.

They were at the bus stop, because Sofia’s car was getting fixed, talking about random stuff as they saw the bus arriving. It was full. It was so full that Sofia thought they couldn’t get in. They enter, squeezing in to fit inside the bus. Sofia pays for the two tickets, and they stay there, since they couldn’t go to the back. 

Sofia sees an old man staring at her, looking up and down, making her very uncomfortable. Robin notices and switches places with her, so Sofia thanks her. 

The bus stops again, and more people come in. Some people get out, so Sofia and Robin can get out of the door to let people in. On the next stop, more people come in, so they have to squeeze a bit more, and the old man gets closer to them.

Seeing the old man trying to come even closer, Robin pulls Sofia to the middle of the crowd and hugs her from behind, placing her hands on her waist. This way, the man can’t even see Sofia.

“Better?” Robin asks Sofia.

“Yeah” Sofia replies with a smile.

They play cards and UNO, and then the kids go to the pool again. Sofia grabs her book and starts reading, with her head on Robin’s shoulder, but soon her back starts hurting. “Can we lie down? My back’s killing me” Sofia asks Robin, who nods in agreement.

They lie down on Sofia’s towel and use Robin’s as a blanket. The towel was too small for the two of them, so it ended up only covering their legs and feet.

Sofia places her head on Robin’s shoulder and starts reading. She couldn’t believe how comfortable it was to lie down with Robin. It was like laying down with very soft cotton-candy. Robin also starts reading, to avoid thinking about what it would be like to cuddle with Sofia.

It’s now 2pm and Sofia’s sleeping next to Robin. As Jonathan is taking photos of Nancy and the kids, they look back and see Sofia and Robin sleeping.

“Sofia converted Robin to the sleepy side, we lost a soldier” Max jokes, as everyone looks at them.

“They look so comfortable, now I wanna sleep too” Lucas says.

Jonathan walks closer to the two girls and takes a photo. “Seriously, dude?” Steve asks.

“They’re gonna like it, trust me” Nancy says.

Half an hour later, Robin wakes up and realizes she fell asleep next to Sofia. She also realizes that she has never slept better. She sits down, trying not to wake Sofia up, and sees everyone else was in the pool.

She grabs her notebook and her pencil and keeps working on a poem she’s been working on since the 20th of July. She looks at Sofia and back to the poem and sighs, thinking that nothing could ever be as perfect as the girl sleeping next to her.

What if I can’t prove
The strength of your touch
My cries alone
Are not good enough

But I’m spilling out
Around you I need
Your help I can’t last
All in a frenzy

I have nothing to say
About love anymore
Love is nothing
I am yours

______________________________________________

A/N: Robin’s poem is part of the song Generous Heart by Maya Hawke!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Can’t wait for them to kiss already😭