𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 • Robin Buckley

Chapter 7

"After Tina's I went to Billy's because his parents weren't home," Monica says, her voice filling the space of the car, "and after we had sex I went to his bathroom to kind of... I don't know," she shrugs, "breathe I guess."

Robin turns in her seat, sensing that this was about more than just Billy Hargrove and whatever they got up to in their spare time.

"And I must of been in there for, like, ten seconds max when someone starts pounding on the door super loud. I thought it'd be Billy, but when I open it up, it's his thirteen-year-old sister and I'm stood there in his shirt that barely goes all the way down my thighs and I just felt so..."

Robin watched her rack her brain.

"Caught, I don't know," her eyes narrow. "She was totally sorry, even though she had zero reason to be, and also dressed up as Michael Myers which I'm surprised never made me shit my pants."

Robin laughs through her nose.

"But... I guess I was just surprised by how embarrassed I was. It was like I wanted this middle schooler's approval or something."

"Because you like him?" Robin suggests.

"No," Monica shuts down instantly. "Trust me, it's not that at all. I just get in my head sometimes about that kind of stuff and what other people have to say about it. It's stupid."

"No, it's not," Robin says sincerely, her eyes not leaving Monica once, even as her eyes fall to her now fidgeting fingers.

"I don't even know why I'm telling you any of this," she nervously laughs.

"You can. You can tell me anything really," Robin shrugs.

Monica looks up at Robin through her eyelashes, her eyebrows pushing together sceptically. "Really?"

"Yeah. I want to know everything."

Monica looked between Robin's eyes, really observing them, then straightened her head, scoffing with incredulity. "In school you were so fucking unapproachable and it's moments like this that I just don't get how."

"What do you mean moments like this?"

"Just us, you know," Monica pinched one of the many bracelets riddling Robin's arm and began to play with it. "These days it's all I find myself really wanting. I've never had a friend like that before. It's total sandbox behaviour."

"Well, for the record, same. After all, if I was trapped in a sandbox with a whining, snotty, boundaries-deprived baby, I would want that boundaries-deprived baby to be you."

Monica scrunched up her nose, laughing into Robin since they were huddled so close across the middle of her car, when Robin heard tires against the gravel outside. "Another car," she points out, causing Monica to have to look over her shoulder to see it. "Guess it really isn't just us this time."

Monica turned back around, reciprocating Robin's smile. "Bummer."

By the time the movie started, the both of them were sat back, watching it in a comfortable silence, but it was safe to say that neither of them were focused on the plot. Not really. All they could think about was the fact they were in the presence of one another and it was palpable.

Once Daniel and Ali were hidden behind red and white polka dotted curtains at a Halloween dance, Monica couldn't help but sneak a glance at Robin. Her blue eyes were fixed on the movie ahead, reflections of the screen visible in them, but the second Monica looked away, Robin sneaked a glance of her own.

And Monica smiled, feeling Robin's eyes on the side of her face as much as she felt it leave.

'Well I thought maybe you were still angry with me,' Ali says.

'Why?' goes Daniel.

'Well, because of what I said last time I saw you.'

Monica turned her head side on, tilting it low. Her eyes flickered up at Robin for only a second, and then back down to her hand sitting on the armrest wedged between the both of their seats.

The sound of Daniel and Ali's conversation was as dead as white noise in her ears by this point, her heart picking up the closer she let her hand get to Robin's. Her eyes flickered up to Robin again, noticing her swallow back, and it made her smirk, then she flickered her eyes back down to her hand where she rested it on the armrest, too, leaving an inch of space between them.

'So, where have you been hiding?' Ali asks.

'I haven't been hiding,' says Daniel, and they continue to go back and forth in the same way Robin had heard a good handful of times.

'I haven't seen you around.'

'You been looking?'

'Sorta.'

'Sorta?'

Monica noticed Robin's finger inch towards her, and she breathed a steady laugh at the same time as Ali Mills' beaming smile coincidentally. Monica let her pinky barely graze Robin's before retracting it back to the rest of her fingers. But it made not an ounce of difference because Robin looped them anyway, breathing a sigh of relief once she finally allowed herself to.

And that's when Monica knew exactly what it felt like to smile so hard your face begins to ache, because in that moment it was all she could do.