Strange as IT Seems

Chapter 58: Struggle Forward

"Steve there has to be a reason she stood you up?" Robin says, wiping down the counters after Scoops had finally closed for the night.

It'd been the longest shift of an especially long weekend, but it felt even longer due to Steve being a complete gray cloud the entire time. She'd tried to be supportive of a down-in-the-dumps friend and avoid saying anything remotely mean to him, but that was hard on its own. The world was out of balance and Robin hated it. She knows that he's crushed about Mia not showing up to their date on Friday. He's barely spoken to her or said anything stupid all weekend, which is also concerning to her. She had attempted to give him some teasing jabs about other things, but he didn't fight back at all or even roll his eyes. He'd just take it and ignore her. It hurt her to see him so crushed. His ego had taken many beatings since he'd lost his "king" status after high school and while it had humbled him a lot, the fact that he couldn't manage to get a date or find any meaningful romantic relationship obviously weighed heavily on him. Deep, deep down, Robin had hoped that this relationship would work out for him and Mia seemed genuinely interested in him... sadly it wasn't meant to be.

He sits in a nearby booth, picking at a melted ice cream sundae after they've served the last customer. He'd made it to try and make himself feel better, but it was as sad as he was. It also irked Robin that she was doing all the clean up work while he sat there feeling sorry for himself.

She'd finally ventured the topic with him now that they had the privacy to do so.

"Yeah right," he mutters. "What reason could that be?"

"A family emergency? Maybe her car broke down? Maybe she got sick? Did you consider any of these things?"

"Not really," he shrugs. Deep down, he's kicking himself for not considering these possibilities, probably due to his broken emotional state. "She still stood me up. Didn't even try to find me after to explain. Or call."

"Steve it's been three days. If it was a family emergency, maybe she's still dealing with it. Or if she's sick, she's actively avoiding people."

"Sure, but now she'll probably avoid this place like the plague."

"Dingus don't say that..."

"What's the point? Guess I'm destined to be alone forever."

Robin tries not to roll her eyes at the pity party he is having for himself.

"The first girl since Nancy who's actually said yes to going on a date and she never even shows up."

"Yeah, I know you've mentioned it a bunch of times already. I know that it sucks, but you can't keep beating yourself up over it."

"Can't I?" Steve groans.

"No, you can't Dingus. Your ego might have taken a beating, but it's not the end of the Goddamned world. You've been rejected by tons of girls, and believe me, I've seen it and kept score. And it's barely phased you... why this girl? Why of all the girls in this town... no better yet the state... why her?"

Steve shrugs, unsure how to explain it. "I don't know. I guess I thought she might be different. We'd run into each other a bunch of times and it feels like we could be something if we had a chance."

"Like... the universe was pushing you together?" Robin says sarcastically.

"Yeah sure," he shrugs. He'd never believed in fate or anything like that, but he did want to get to know Mia as they'd met several times and barely had the chance to talk.

"Well, maybe she'll come around and explain what happened. Plus, you didn't exchange numbers so how could she have called you?"

He opens his mouth to say something else but realizes that Robin is right about that.