Wheelers don’t say “I love you”, Nancy knew that much.
She didn’t even know the word existed until her first day of kindergarten when Cathy Wilson started scream-crying to her mother, begging her not to leave her.
“Please don’t make me go, I love you, I love you, I love you, Mommy! Please!”
She heard it now, in that high-pitched, broken tone, lying on the grass in the backyard of the Buckley family home. A resident, Robin Josephine Buckley, resting her head on Nancy’s chest as she combed her fingers through dirty-blonde hair.
Love.
What a strange concept.
Supposedly, it means a lot of things.
Things like forever. Things like safety.
Forever.
She scoffs. Nothing lasts forever. This moment will be taken from her just like the last.
Her thoughts are interrupted by a loud snore.
She chuckles softly, a fluttering sound.
Robin, of course.
The closest she’s gotten to safety, the closest she’s gotten to love since—
Well, since… a friend she lost, long ago.
It’s hard to think about. It will always be hard to think about. She feels guilty about that. She feels guilty about a lot of things.
She sighs through her nose, blowing loose strands of Robin’s choppy hair around her face.
Love.
Maybe this is it.
No, it is.
But she can’t say it.
———
Robin can.
Robin says it all the time; not a day goes by without a “declaration of her undying love” from one Robin Buckley.
She knows Nancy can’t say it back and why; she said that the first time.
“I love you, I’ll wait for you.”
And she does, she has been.
Thus, Nancy Wheeler’s days with Robin are filled with “Love you, see you after work!” And “I love you, Nance” and the famous “I love you, I love you” in between kisses.
And Nancy feels guilty.
God.
She aches to say it; she really does. But every time she looks in Robin’s eyes, the same crooked smile she’s grown to love bright on her face, the words choke her like bile in her throat.
“The last time you loved someone, it didn’t go well.” Her brain reminds her.
But still, she aches.
———
“I love you,” Robin says for the umpteenth time, stroking Nancy’s cheek, her legs crossed in front of her, and Nancy looks away.
Her vision blurs, tears creeping in.
Robin looks at her with concern, rather than pity.
“Hey. Hey, Nance, what’s wrong?”
Nancy pinches her lower lip between her teeth and lifts her gaze, her heart pumping at an offensive rate as tears threaten to leave snail trails on her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Robin repeats.
“I- I want to,” She replies, lip trembling.
“I know.”
“I can’t— I can’t…”
“I know.”
She huffs. “I feel…”
“Don’t say broken.” Robin warns.
Silence lays itself in between them like a blanket forged of static.
“I am, though.”
“We all are.” Robin argues.
“I know, but I’m…”
“Nancy.” Robin urges.
And Nancy hears it in her rasp of a voice, the same tone that once colored the phrase “This isn’t you.”
“I’m not going to pretend I can fix you, because I can’t. But saying that you’re ‘broken’,” —she air quotes— “doesn’t help anything. I will say this once, and I will say it again and again each and every day for as long as it take for it get into that beautiful, brilliant skull of yours, you are not broken. You are in pain.”
———
Exactly two months, a week, and four days have gone by and she finally says it.
Making out with her girlfriend in her bedroom, her parents at a house party hosted by one of Karin’s PTA friends, Mike sleeping over at the Byers’, and Holly out with their grandma for a “special girls day”.
The air is warm and humid, whether from the broken AC or some psychological phenomenon, she doesn’t know.
Without warning, she’s pushed hard onto the mattress, a noise like a squeak or a squeal leaving her throat from the impact.
Her soft hair spread out among the pillows, she gazes up at Robin, something like desire reflected in her eyes.
And Robin leans down over her and gently flicks a stray strand of hair out of Nancy’s face and whispers, ”Beautiful.”
Time ticks by, but it’s a comfortable silence. Blue-gray meeting plain, glorious blue.
Nancy hums, tracing the jawline of a scrawny, intelligent girl, and murmurs back,
“I love you too.” And it means a lot of things.