Robin plucks a fry from the container and dunks it into her vanilla milkshake. "Look, I'm probably the last person you should ask about this."
Steve frowns. "Who else, then?"
"I don't know, Eddie?"
"Nope, no, absolutely not." Shaking his head emphatically, Steve swipes the fry from Robin's fingers. He stuffs it into his mouth in frustration.
"Hey, what the fuck!"
"I can't ask Eddie because he's the problem," Steve says through a mouthful of fries.
"I thought the problem is that you're gay now."
Steve levels her with a lethal stare and Robin rolls her eyes. She can't believe that this is fucking happening to her. "I'm not gay. At least fully. I like girls."
"Okay--" Robin throws her hands in the air in exasperation. "So you can't consult Eddie because, what? He's the one who turned you gay?"
"Half gay?"
"Fuck it, half gay, I guess. You like Eddie and you want to ask him out but you can barely figure yourself out."
"There's gotta be a word for that, right?" Steve asks. Robin blinks at him. He blinks back with equal fervor as she reaches for another fry and swirls it into her milkshake. "Come on, you're a lesbian, you gotta know this."
Robin groans before taking a bite into her ice cream fry. "Just because I'm a lesbian doesn't mean I have any authority on this."
"You gotta know more than I do, at least."
"Okay, I'm gonna level with you, Steve. I like boobs. I know that there's a word for a girl liking boobs because assholes like to sling it around"--Steve opens his mouth to interject--"but, just because, I'm more learned than those assholes doesn't mean I know shit about dip. Sure, I like foreign films and listen to Patti Smith, but I don't know anything about the larger concepts. I'm not your guru on this."
Steve frowns. Bites his lip and pinches his nose. "No, you're right."
"I don't know anything about guys liking other guys, and I guess there's gotta be something that defines your predicament, but we're two dingbats living in the middle of nowhere. We don't have a roadmap or anything."
You know, for the longest time, Robin thought she would be alone in all this. She remembers pressing her face into the pillow and sobbing until the whole damn thing became moist with puddles of tears and snot, because no one would ever understand the way she really felt. She'd have to pretend for the rest of her life.
When she grew older, she knew that one day, she was gonna run off to the city and find girls like her who would get it. But she's never been able to go to the city for herself, couldn't afford a license or a car, so it was just her. Lonely Robin Buckley who loved girls who didn't even think of her.
But Steve's looking back at her now the same way he looked at her in the bathroom back at Starcourt and he's asking her how to live his own life. Fuck, she doesn't even know how to start hers yet.
"You know," she says, swallowing, "one day we'll figure it out. You and I."
Steve cocks an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Figure out the mysteries of the universe and everything?"
Robin chuckles and tosses a fry in Steve's direction. She says, "How about we figure out how you'll woo Eddie first, tiger."