the nice things | ronance

nine. unpack (secrets and boxes)

BACK TO PRESENT DAY...

Robin parked her bike outside the old Byer's house, grinning to herself when she spotted her car parked outside. She felt light on her feet as she bounced up to the front door, which was left slightly cracked open. She pushed it open slightly and peeked inside, boxes around every corner and even a new, few selections of furniture in place. She stepped inside, cracking the door behind her and glancing around. She had never been in the Byer's old home except for once before when Nancy showed it to her after a date. Now Nancy was already half-moved in as if she were in a adrenaline fueled rush to settle down in her own place.

Robin brushed her fingers across the boxes as she traveled through the house. She began down a hallway to the room Nancy described that used to be Joyce's (Jonathan's was larger in the end, but Nancy refused to move into his room as if she were overstepping a boundary by doing so) and took a glimpse inside. The door was wide open, and there on a new bed-frame and mattress was Nancy, an open box beside her as she flit through old magazines and pictures she owned. She was invested in an old journal opened in her lap, so Robin took another step forward and knocked on the wall beside the entrance to catch her attention.

"Who- Robin?" Nancy poked her head up and after a moment recognized her, a smile sliding onto her face. "How was the bike ride here?"

Robin flopped down on the mattress to sit beside Nancy, wiping a bead of sweat off her forehead with her sleeve. "Not too long of a ride so I'm not ridiculously sweaty to the point where a hug would be a dive into the swamp."

Nancy made a little buzz with her lips then brought Robin into a hug, planting a kiss on the side of her chin before they separated. "Glad it was a nice ride," she said.

Robin's gaze switched to the journal in Nancy's lap and she tapped on the cover of it with her pointer finger. "What's this? A little diary or something," she snickered in questioning.

"Actually, you're spot on," Nancy softy laughed back, Robin a little taken aback by her being right. A year ago Nancy owning a diary wouldn't be a shock to her, but after getting to know her it seemed a little too cliché for the realistically badass, busy girl. "I haven't written anything in it since uh.. A few days before Starcourt, but it goes back to seventh grade."

"Hm, I've never written in a diary," Robin pondered, leaning her head on Nancy's shoulder. "Why did you decide to make a diary? What all did you write? Did you write every day or?"

Nancy hummed for a moment and drew her hands over the cover. "I wrote in it every day at first, just about the events of that day even if nothing happened out of the ordinary. When all the Hawkins craziness began to happen though, I resorted to only writing in it when something actually good happened. I uh, I especially stopped writing a lot when..." She trailed off for a moment and her eyes went foggy, Robin leaning back as she took quick note of her girlfriend's sudden distraught. "When Barb went missing..."

Outside of this moment, they often talked about Barb, whether it was to mourn or to reflect on their memories with her. Nancy missed her so much, and that would've shocked younger Robin to her core, as she suspected Barb and Nancy were never an emotional kind of close. Nancy missed her a lot to the point where little things randomly reminded her of her, and Robin never interrupted her when she started rambling about her lost friend or crying about her. Robin was always there as her shoulder to lean on, even if understanding emotions was very hard for her at some points - especially such intense ones that stuck forever.

"Are there pictures of her in these boxes?" Robin asked, scanning her gaze around at the boxes as she wrapped an arm around Nancy's shoulder. Her girlfriend nodded and Robin pulled her a little closer. "How about we unpack these boxes together like you asked me and I can help you set up a little collage on your wall? It'd be just like your old room!"