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Barb has been Nancy's best friend since they were kids. They were inseparable. They told each other everything. Sleepovers were for sharing secrets. At fourteen they didn't really have any real secrets. Well, Nancy didn't.
“Can I tell you something,” Barb whispers when it’s just the two of them in Nancy’s room. “Like, a real secret?”
She looks nervous. Scared even. Nancy frowns in concern. “Of course.”
“You know, how, I used to be friends with Robin?”
“Yeah…” Nancy says slowly. That was not what she expected Barb to say. But of course Nancy remembered that Barb used to be friends with Robin. Barb used to talk about her incessantly when they were younger. Though she hasn’t for a while.
“Well, I, I had to stop. Being around her.”
Barb looks so scared and Nancy is so confused.
“Because,” Barb seems to be stealing herself for something. “Because the things they say at school about me are true. I am a, a…I don’t like- I liked her. As more than a friend.”
Oh. Well, that. Was not what Nancy was expecting Barb to say. Not that she actually had any ideas what Barb wanted to talk about or why now, but she wouldn’t have guessed that. She is quiet for a while as she thinks. Plays back how Barb used to talk about Robin and realize that yeah, that makes sense. Of course, Nancy used to think that people were just lying about having crushes in middle school, trying to play grown up. She’d never had one and didn’t get why everyone was in such a hurry to date anyway. But apparently people did have crushes in middle school. On girls. When they were girls. Huh.
“Nancy?” Barb says, voice quavering.
Oh shit. Nancy’s been silent way too long. Focus. Barb is what’s important here. Stupid brain.
Nancy smiles. “Robin huh?” She tilts her head as if considering. “Well, she’s cute. In a nerdy band kinda way.”
Hope flickers across Barb’s face. “You don’t think I’m- It’s not weird, for you?”
“No,” Nancy says sincerely. Barb has always been like, well, gay? A lesbian? So it’s not like anything has changed. “I think I’m happy?” Nancy says, then pauses to consider her feelings about it. She nods firmly. “Yeah. I’m happy that you told me. That you trust me.”
Barb beams and hugs Nancy tightly.
“Do you still like her?” Nancy asks curiously, wondering if she would soon be seeing a lot more of Robin Buckley in her life.
Barb shakes her head. “Not anymore. I actually was thinking maybe we could be friends again.”
Nancy looks at her a little insecurely at that. “Do you think we’d get along?” Nancy is not exactly, likable. She’s never really had any friends before Barb. She doesn’t really know how that works. Doesn’t know what Robin would think of her. Would Robin blame her for stealing her best friend away?
But Barb grins and says, “I think you’d drive each other absolutely crazy and I wanna see it.”
“Barb!” Nancy laugh, all worries forgotten.
Nancy and Barb told each other all of their secrets. Nancy told Barb when she first started liking Steve. They were both excited to finally have someone to talk about liking that might actually be a real possibility. But the more real it got with Steve, the more it seemed that he liked her back, the more Nancy, hesitated.
“Barb, would you judge me if I had sex?”
“What, no,” Barb says.
Nancy asks a different question then. “Would you judge me if I had sex with Steve?”
Barb’s frown does all the answering for her. Yeah, that’s what Nancy thought.
“Do you actually like him?” Barb asks, a hit frustrated. “King Steve.” She says the name with derision.
“He’s not- I do like him.” Nancy says genuinely. In fact, Nancy has never liked anyone before Steve. Except maybe Jonathan, who was sweet and awkward when he came round to pick up his brother. But Will bikes now and she hardly ever sees Jonathan around school and it was never going to happen anyway. But she and Steve have actually gone on dates and Nancy is so excited that she can finally relate to what everyone else has been going on about that it makes her feel a bit like floating.
But Nancy doesn’t say that. Not even to Barb. Even though Barb knows. Sometimes Nancy thinks Barb knows her better than she knows herself.
Nancy just says, “He’s really, he’s sweet when he’s around me. When it’s just us.”
Barb rolls her eyes. “He’s a jerk around all his friends. I don’t get what you see in him.”
“Tommy and Carol are a nightmare,” Nancy agrees. “But Steve isn’t Tommy or Carol. He makes me feel, nice. Normal.” Nancy hesitates then adds, “And, you know, maybe if I went out with him, people would stop saying things about us.” It would be an added bonus. If people would leave them, mostly Barb alone. With Nancy it wasn’t true so it didn’t matter, but with Barb, the way they spoke about her made Nancy feel ill.
“I’m sorry,” Barb says suddenly.
“No. No,” Nancy reassures her quickly. “I just, I hate how they talk about you. Like you’re-”
“Wrong,” Barb finishes.
Nancy shakes her head. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing bad about you.”
“Tell that to Hawkins,” Barb says bitterly.
“Maybe I will,” Nancy mutters. Even though she doesn’t think she will ever be brave enough. But Barb looks at her like she is brave. And so maybe Nancy will be. One day.
“I can’t believe you want to have sex with Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington,” Barb says. But it is lighter now. Fully teasing.
Nancy can’t help the way she stiffens. Want? When did she say that?
Barb frowns at her. “Wait, you don’t, do you. You don’t feel that way about him?”
“I just told you I like him,” Nancy says, confused.
“No that’s not what I mean,” Barb says seriously.
Wait. What?
“I mean, no one really feels that way, right? Or, girls don’t?” Nancy adds the last part quietly.
But Barb looks confused now. “You’ve never? Not for boys…or girls?”
“No. I, you really feel like that? When you like someone? It’s like a, a physical thing? You want to…Never mind.” Okay. Okay okay. Apparently everyone else wasn’t just saying that. Apparently people really did want other people like that. Want to have sex. But Nancy, she doesn’t. So why doesn’t she she? Should she?
Her inner turmoil must be all over her face because Barb is quick to backtrack. “No, Nancy, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
“Sure,” Nancy says, feeling distant all of a sudden. She has often felt like there was a wall of glass separating her from the rest of the world, but she never felt like that with Barb. “Or I’m just broken or something.”
Barb grabs her hand. Pulling her back from behind the glass. “You’re not,” Barb says firmly.
“Have you ever heard of anyone..?” Nancy asks hesitantly. Barb’s expression is enough to answer for her. A resounding no.
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t,” Barb tries to reassure her.
“It’s fine Barb,” Nancy forces a smile. “Forget it. I’m sure I just need, like, some actual experience.” Yeah. That must be it. Maybe it would be different, in the moment.
“Do you even want to?”
Nancy shrugs. “I don’t not want to,” she says honestly. “I’m, curious.” She wants to know what all the fuss is about. And she could use more data. More evidence.
“You don’t have to,” Barb says firmly. “Ever.”
Nancy snorts. “Yeah that’ll go over well.”
And Barb looks at her so concerned. “You-”
“I’m kidding,” Nancy reassures her, even though she wasn’t. “Of course I don’t have to. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to.”
“Nance-”
“What,” Nancy says, a little shortly. She is exhausted all of a sudden.
“Just. You can be a little,” Barb chooses the word carefully, “Impulsive? Sometimes.”
“I am not!” Nancy argues automatically.
Barb looks at her fondly. “Just don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Okay? You’re good just the way you are.”
Nancy manages a small but genuine smile at that.
“I’m fine.”
“This isn’t you.”
“Just go home Barb.”
Steve falls asleep after. Nancy, doesn’t. Her mind is racing. Was it worth it? Did it help? To know that she could. To know what it was like. How it felt. It felt, fine. Painful at first. Then fine. Nice in parts. But mostly, Nancy just wanted to get it over with so they could move on and she could find out if Steve still liked her in the morning.
She kind of wants to cry. All of a sudden. She wants to find Barb and apologize. Barb was right. This isn’t her.
“We slept together!” Nancy exclaims at the end of her rope. “Is that what you want to know? It doesn’t matter!”
“It does matter!”
Nancy is furious. So fucking furious that something as stupid as sex was stopping people from listening to her. Why is that all anyone ever cares about? Why does it hold so much importance, so much weight. It was bullshit. It was all bullshit. It didn’t matter. Nancy and Steve had sex and so what? So fucking what?
Barb is missing.
Barb is gone.
The first time Nancy tries to sleep with Steve after… after. She has a panic attack.
“Stop. Stop,” she manages to gasp.
Steve looks alarmed. “What’s wrong? Hey, breathe.”
Nancy shakes her head. She’s trying. She’s trying. “I, I can’t. Steve.” She says his name like a plea. For him to please save her from her own reality.
Steve looks almost as panicked as she feels. “Sure you can, you’ve been breathing for years.” He takes deep breaths and holds her hand to his chest.
Nancy shakes her head again. “Barb,” she chokes out. “Barb.” Please. Please come back.
“Hey, hey, just. Just don’t think about that okay.” Steve looks like he is going to cry. “Just breathe. You have to breathe,” he begs her.
But how can she, when Barb never will again?
The first time Nancy actually does sleep with Steve, after, she has to promise him, repeatedly, that she is okay. That she wants this.
“Nance, I, are you sure?”
“Yes,” Nancy says clearly, without hesitation. “I want to. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, of course, but, last time…”
“I’m fine,” she says automatically. Then realizing how she sounds adjusts. Softens her tone. “I’m good. Really Steve. Just kiss me. Please.”
She shapes her expression into something like someone who wants him. She must be believable enough, because Steve smiles like he is happy. Nervous, but happy. Which makes one of them.
Nancy does want it, is the thing. Just, not the way he does. And she promises to herself that he will never, ever, find out that she is using him. Not to stop the pain. But to prolong it. Just a little longer. To keep the memories at the forefront of her mind where they should be. To keep Barb where she should be.
It doesn’t make sense, she knows. Not much makes sense anymore. But they are just pretending anyway. Pretending to be the perfect couple. Pretending to be in love. As if their love is not just a coping mechanism for the end of the world. A plea to return to the safety and comfort and normality of before. She thinks they are on the same page there. She knows Steve is like her in this way. In a way that Johnathan is not. Steve likes to pretend too.
When they get the lab and Barb’s family will finally have closure, Nancy thinks, maybe, she can stop punishing herself. Maybe she is allowed to be happy.
When Jonathan kisses her and his hand slides under her shirt she is honestly so curious that she is almost as eager as him. What will it be like to be with someone she really has a connection to? Who understands her. Who isn’t pretending. And she loves Steve. She does. But she was never in love with Steve. And if Steve was in love with her, then it was only the version of her that was pretending. Besides, of course sex was never going to be good between her and Steve. After. After.
But Jonathan? It could be good. It would be good.
It was, fine.
There’s something wrong with Nancy. She has gathered the evidence. She has followed the clues. There is no other explanation. Nancy knows that there are people who like girls, not boys. She knows there are people who like both. But when she imagines herself with a girl instead, nothing. Mild discomfort. Same as with a boy. And Nancy has never, ever, heard of anyone not liking either. But she does like boys, is the thing. She just, she doesn’t want them. Not the way everyone else seems to want someone. Not the way people whisper about or write stories about. She never has. Not even with Steve, before. So it must just be her.
Finding out that she is broken in new ways that have nothing to do with the copious amounts of trauma she’s gone though is…not great. So Nancy does what she does best. Tries not to think about it. She’s always known she was, different. This is nothing new really. Nothing she needs to concern herself with.
Sex with Jonathan was alright. She both loves and hates how intimate it feels, in a way it never did before. She likes how peaceful he seems after. Like some of the weight he always carries is lifted. She likes the power she feels at being able to make him react. Lose control. So Nancy tells herself that it’s fine. It’s enough. Nancy can pretend. But she forgot somehow, that Jonathan can’t.
They are kissing and she must not seem very into it because Jonathan stops abruptly. “Hey, Nance, are you okay?”
She forces herself back to reality and smiles. “Of course.”
Jonathan frowns even harder. “We don’t have to.”
“I-” Nancy wants to cry, all of a sudden. Jonathan rolls off her and sits up.
“Let’s just, chill out. Listen to some music.” He even makes to stand up and move towards the tapes like he is really okay with not doing anything but lying in bed, listening to music with her.
Nancy sits up and crosses her arms around herself. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
“Hey no,” Jonathan says quickly, sitting down closer to her. “No. It’s okay. We don’t always have to, you know. I don’t want to if you don’t.”
Nancy is full on crying now. Can’t stop the stupid ugly tears. “What if I, what if I never want to?”
Jonathan is so still. “Did I do something? Did I hurt you? Did someone else?”
“No. No,” she reassures him quickly.
His expression falters into anxiety. “Do you not -you don’t want me? You’re disgusted by me or something?”
Nancy shakes her head. “It’s not that. Johnathan. I swear.” She takes his hand in hers. “I love you I just don’t want to have sex with you. I mean I didn’t mind it when we did. I wanted to do it, I promise. But I don’t want it. I don’t want to have sex with anyone. I don’t want anyone like that. I never have.”
Nancy can’t breathe.
“Say that again.” Johnathan whispers.
“Please don’t make me.”
Nancy tries to pull her hand away but he holds tight. “No, not that. That’s fine. We don’t ever have to do anything. But did you mean it? The, you love me?”
“I, what?” What? Does he mean it? What? Wait, did just tell him she loves him for the first time? Shit. “Yeah. Yeah I do. I love you.”
And Jonathan beams at her. “I love you, Nancy.”
She lets out a watery laugh and he hugs her tightly.
If Nancy is being honest with herself, part of the reason she stays with Johnathan so long after they both know that it is over is because, well, she doesn’t have to have sex with him. And who else will she ever meet where that would be true? Who else could understand her enough, love her enough? Has been though what she has. Who else could ever feel enough for her where the rest of it wouldn’t matter? And what if Nancy can never feel like that again? What if Nancy never falls in love again and Jonathan was her only chance.
Nancy knows she is a lot. She is a lot and also not enough but Johnathan never made her feel like that. Their problems were always so distinctly separate that she could just keep ignoring them.
When they finally break up, Nancy feels so much more love and fondness towards Johnathan than she has in so long. She feels a peace that she hasn’t felt since that very first time they didn’t sleep together.
Robin is unexpected.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Nancy had said cooly, as if she didn’t know exactly who Robin was.
“I’m Robin. I work with Steve.” It was statement but the whole thing somehow sounded like a question.
The real question actually, that Nancy had wanted to ask, was “How in the hell did you, Robin Buckley, get tangled up in this shit?”
But there was really no time to get into any of that.
Robin teases her about it, later. “You didn’t even know who I was.”
Then Nancy tells her about Barb, and they are both crying. It’s the first time that Nancy’s grief has felt, shared.
“She said we would drive each other crazy.”
And they both laugh though their tears.
Robin is unexpectedly careful. Careful in a way that only a girl who grew up liking other girls in a small conservative town can be. In a way that only someone who is used to misreading social cues can be. And Robin is careful with Nancy. But not in a way that makes Nancy feel weak. In a way that makes her feel precious.
It takes them a long time to get together. Years longer than it needed to, maybe. But Nancy loves being friends with Robin. Then loves being best friends with Robin. And she doesn’t feel the need to change something so beautiful, and good, and right. Something that makes her feel beautiful and good and right. So they take their time. For the first time in her life Nancy feels like she has time. She isn’t in a rush to get to the end of the story. Not when the present is so good.
When they finally kiss it’s soft and sweet and Nancy can’t stop smiling. They hug tightly and Nancy is so overcome with, something. It takes her several moments in Robins arms to put it together. Joy. Nancy is happy.
Robin never pushes her for more, even though Nancy can tell she wants more. It’s almost like Robin doesn’t have any expectations. But Nancy does.
Except, she can’t. Can’t fake it. Can’t pretend. Not anymore.
She paces anxiously around her bed. Frustratedly. “I thought I was okay with this part of myself. But I guess there was a part of me that was hoping that it would be different with a girl.”
“What?”
Nancy sighs. Sits back down on the bed. “I have to tell you something.”
Nancy explains. She talks and she rambles and she gets out everything she has been feeling for so long. And Robin looks at her with something like understanding.
“Asexual,” Robin says.
Nancy stills. “What?”
“People who don’t feel sexual attraction. It, that sounds like what you’re describing? I know there are people like that. They’re asexual.”
“Asexual,” Nancy says, trying the word out. “Even though, I still like people. I mean, romantically.”
Robin just nods, like that’s perfectly normal. “Yeah. From my understanding, some do, some don’t,” she explains.
Nancy’s heart is suddenly racing. “I’m not, I’m not, broken? Or, or just like, traumatized or?”
“You’re not broken,” Robin says passionately. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
Oh. Oh.
Nancy buries her head in Robins shoulder and cries.
Nancy is not the only one. She is not alone.
Robin holds her and strokes her back until the tears finally stop. “Are you okay?” she asks quietly.
Nancy looks at Robin, who’s eyes are full of nothing but concern and love, and she smiles. Nancy suddenly can’t stop smiling.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m, I’m so happy.”
Robin grins back. Then she says seriously, “And I hope you know that I would never expect anything from you.”
Nancy keeps smiling and peppers Robin’s face with little kisses until Robin is smiling again. And they laugh together. Free.
“I love you so much Robin Buckley.”
“I love you, Nancy Wheeler.”