"wouldn't you like to know her?" | ronance !

12.

nancy practically shoved steve out of her front door, letting out a soft sigh of relief.

tears pricked at her tearducts as she walked up the stairwell. she dabbed at her face carefully, the cotton of her sleeve absorbing the wetness of her eyes.

she flopped onto her bed, her door adjacent to her wall; ever so slightly cracked.

her arms spread out across her duvet, a drawn out exhale escaping her throat as she went over the previous night.

her mind couldn't stray from johnathan, the way his drunken gaze assaulted her body. the words fizzled on his tongue, she had filled in the blank when steve had cut him off.

she felt numb to the previous night, the whole room had rocked around like a ship at sea.

confusion swept her mind. she couldn't stop thinking about robin's teary eyes, how she wiped them and fell asleep next to her.

being so close to robin felt unnatural. the circumstances were not that of a girly sleepover, things were spontaneous. and, nancy was not in the right state of mind.

right. that was it. nothing about her that night was sober and she couldn't fault herself for...

nausea gripped her. nancy quickly brought herself up, faltering her way into the bathroom. she paused for a fleet second to take in the disorder before lurching over the toilet.

"hey nan-" mike began, his eyes widened with worry.

"yes?" she stumbled over her words, wiping her lips with her hand as she spoke.

mike scanned nancy.

"what is it?" she inhaled, biting back a gag.

"i- i didn't mean to interrupt. i was just going to be nosy-.."

"what is it?" nancy responded, disregarding the rest of his sentence.

"i saw you and robin snuggling last night," he waggled his finger in circles towards her, "do you have a thing going on? if so, i'd get it,"

"you'd get it?" she repeated, feeling ill once more.

her body burned, maybe it was the topic or the feeling of impending vomit.

"i mean, yeah! it would be okay with me, nancy. just be honest, please,"

"no. i'm not queer," her words were laced with light malice, she turned to hold her head above the toliet once more.

"right," he muttered, walking off. strange.

-

after nancy had cleaned herself up, she sat back down on her bed. now going over the weird little interaction with mike from just hours ago.

what did he mean by understand?

it clicked. a little lightbulb lit up in her mind.

mike was gay. that-- that made a lot of sense.

she thought back to each time mike had spent a little extra time with will, or pushed himself away from eleven.

why would she say such hateful things to the person who was objectively dearest to her?