'tis the damn season

Forty: Lover

"My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue. All's well that ends well to end up with you" 

We'd been walking for almost twenty minutes with no sign of coming out of the woods. Nancy was ahead of us leading the way; I just hoped she knew if we were headed in the right direction.

I kept my eyes focused on the ground as I walked to be sure not to step on any vines. I really didn't feel like alerting Vecna we were there.

I felt disgusting. My hair and clothes were still damp and I was covered in mud and dirt from crawling out of the gate; but at least we all looked like that.

Eddie and Steve were walking a ways back behind us, talking about something—I wasn't even sure Eddie and Steve had ever talked one on one before.

I fell in step next to Robin, who for some reason was unusually quiet.

"How can this be Hawkins if we're in another dimension right now?" I ask her, trying to understand this place.

Although, Robin didn't have any more knowledge about the upside down than I did. "I don't know," she says, ending her answer there.

Something was off with her, I could tell. She never answered anything the simple way. She didn't even so much as glance at me either.

"Are you okay?" I ask. There was no 'beating around the bush' when it came to Robin. It just wasn't in her nature.

She sighs, looking at me for the first time in a while, with a sort of sad smile. "Why have you and Steve been hiding things from me?" She asks, instantly making me feel guilty.

She doesn't look angry with me, but there is a hint of disappointment in her expression which almost feels worse to me.

I try to answer her, but suddenly she keeps going. "I'm not blind okay, I know there's something going on between you two, and that's fine—great even, I mean I was the one that was pushing you guys to get together and now you have, and you've both been pretending like nothing's going on," she explains. "I happen to know you guys very well, and I know when something's up. I just don't understand why you don't want to tell me."

I didn't realize it would upset her like this. I was just trying to do what I thought was right, but instead I ended up just excluding Robin from everything when she didn't deserve that.

I shake my head at her, hoping I'll be able to make her understand. "I'm sorry," I start. "I wanted to tell you Robin, you're my best friend. We just thought with everything going on right now with Vecna, that it would seem like we were bragging about something good, while everything else was going to shit," I explain. "I wanted to tell you everything the second it happened, but at the same time I guess I just didn't want to seem selfish."

I could see in her eyes that she understood me.

"And I don't know, we're still kind of... figuring things out," I add, looking at my feet again, and stepping over a vine. "I wasn't intentionally not telling you to keep you out of it or anything; it's not like that at all."

Robin smiles at me, genuinely this time. "It's okay. That makes sense—everything is kind of going to shit right now," she chuckles.

We both went quiet as we walked. Just like I did before with Eddie, I felt that relief again, but even more so because it was Robin I was talking to. I wanted to tell her about it more than anyone. I was just glad she wasn't angry with me.

"Well things must be going pretty well if you were willing to jump into the lake for him," She remarks, eyeing me. "I swear you guys have been so blatantly obvious."