like real people do [ronance ⚢]

5. this love

a/n: this takes place right after volume 2! i don't think it includes any real spoilers tho besides for one scene maybe? idk- i made up most of it tbh lmao!
as always ignore the typos!!! 

♥

The pitter-patter of the rain falling against the window isn't the only thing stopping Nancy from sleeping. 

It is true, she hates to sleep when it rains. While others might consider the sound of rain comforting, it has always scared Nancy. 

Once, there was Steve Harrington, who'd hold her and cover her ears if she needed him to, comforting her until she eventually fell asleep. 

Then there was Jonathan. Though it is strange to think that there is a 'was' now, rather than an 'is'.
Her ex-boyfriend, from whom she knows that he loves her dearly.
And Nancy had found peace with him. She'd found someone who understood and comforted her more than any other boy ever did. 
And she hadn't thought of this as something that was even possible in the first place—finding peace with a boy. 

Yet doing that had been one thing, he'd made it easy for her. But returning his love had been quite another and until this day, she can't tell if she ever fully succeeded with that. 

Nancy knows what love is supposed to be like, she sees it every day. 
In the movies she watches, in the books, she reads...everywhere she sees the picture-perfect love stories. 
Love is supposed to feel like Jonathan Byers or Steve Harrington. The guy gets the girl. Saves her from monsters, or holds her as she falls asleep. 

Love isn't supposed to be the touch of two hands in the darkness of the upside down. Love isn't supposed to be a gorgeous pair of eyes meeting hers. Rescuing her from the fear that had wrapped its dark fingers around Nancy's throat, nearly suffocating her. 
It isn't supposed to be Robin Buckley. It can't be Robin Buckley. 

Yet ever since the moment her fingers had touched Nancy's, it is all she can think of. 
It isn't Jonathan who is on her mind all the time, even though they recently broke up.
It isn't him, who she secretly wishes for on rainy nights like these. 

She inhales deeply, desperately trying to push the thoughts of Robin Buckley away from her. 

This isn't the first time something like this is happening to Nancy, though she hates to admit it. 
None of this is new to her: The laying in bed all night trying to run away from the thoughts of another girl, the urge to scream into her pillow, because there's a part of herself she can't understand...

There once was Barb, who had caused her to stay up all night. It all had been so new, so different from everything Nancy had ever known. 

Not what people had told her about love, no. 
It had been tender and sweet, looking back at it now. 
The smiles the girl had shared while walking to class and the way Barb had always been able to give Nancy something to laugh about. 
Yet she never figured out a way to tell her about it. 

After months of denying all those things, she had died and Nancy didn't dare to think of what she had felt for her ever again. 

Until now. 

A noise snaps her back to reality—a gentle, careful knock against her window.

For a moment, she hopes for a sign, in the shape of Jonathan Byers. A sign that will take those thoughts away from her, prove that they are nothing but silly fantasies of a girl. 

But then she gets up to let in whoever wants to visit her at 02.00 am and all hopes slip away from her, like sands between her fingers. 
And no matter how hard she tries to hold onto it, it vanishes into nothingness as she lays eyes on Robin Buckley. 
Soaked from the rain, she smiles at her from behind the glass.