CHAPTER TWO
You Like Girls

THE NEXT day, Callie awoke feeling nervous. In only nine hours, Robin Buckley would be in her house. Robin Buckley would be in her house! She had to clean. She had to put away the clothes that littered her bedroom floor. She had to hide her fashion magazines lest Robin get ahold of them and make fun of her. She had to remind her little sister to not bother them. She had to tell her parents that when they came home from work there may still be a stranger in the house. There was so much to do, and not enough time to do it.

First things first, though: her morning routine. She went through it blindly, distracted by thoughts of Robin. What if she made fun of her house? What if she didn't come at all? That one might be the worst of all. However, by the time she, Jodie, and Andy were all packed into her Ford Mustang, all thoughts of the girl were pushed out of her mind. How could she think of something as trivial as tutoring while Fleetwood Mac was playing?

The school day went by almost torturously slow. Through every class, Callie smiled kindly, laughed loudly, spoke enthusiastically, but couldn't help from thinking how badly she wanted to go home. And then she'd think about how she wouldn't even get to rest when she got home, she'd have to prepare for a guest, and then she would spiral into a bottomless pit of stress.

     It was two thirty P.M when she got home. Robin would be coming over in a half an hour. The first thing she did was clean up her room ━━ there were clothes and records and crystals all over the floor. The dresses were hung back on their hangers, shirts and pants folded neatly in their drawers, the records stacked neatly on the dresser, crystals charging in the windowsill. She said a heart-aching goodbye to her magazines as she put them in the drawer of her nightstand.

     The second thing was to make sure her fifteen year old sister Jess would leave them alone. Callie knocked on the little devil's door, not waiting for a response before she entered.

     Jess sat cross-legged on her bed, reading Emma by Jane Austen for what had to be the thirteenth time. She looked up when Callie entered and rolled her eyes, already annoyed. "What?"

     "That's no way to greet your sister," Callie tutted, leaning against the doorframe. "'Hi, Cal! It's so great to see you! I missed you so much!'"

     "Hilarious," Jess deadpanned. "What do you want?"

     "I'm having someone come over, so don't bother us."

     Jess's curiosity peaked "Is it a boy?"

     "What? No."

     "It's totally a boy. Don't worry, I'll leave you alone so you can kiss and snuggle and do it."

     Callie faux-gagged, but was still disgusted. "One, don't talk about sex until you can actually call it 'sex'. Two, it is not a boy. It's Robin Buckley."

     "No. Also, why is Robin Buckley coming over here?"

     "We're—" Callie hesitated. "We're friends."

     Jess let out a humorless laugh. "No, you're not."

     "Yes, we are. Shut the fuck up, stay in your room, don't bother us."

     "Fine! I wouldn't want to hang out with Robin anyway. She's in band."

     Callie was almost offended. "You're one to talk, Jessica. You call sex 'doing it'. Grow the fuck up."

     "Some of us have a reputation, Calliope, and can't be seen with those who could tarnish it."

     "You mean the reputation where you're cold-hearted, backstabbing bitch? Maybe Robin and I don't want to be seen around you."

     "Have you tried manifesting me to be less of a... how did you word it? 'Cold-hearted, backstabbing bitch'?"

     "No, Jess. I've prayed. Crystals aren't strong enough to fix you, but maybe God can," Callie scoffed. "Just stay away from us, okay?"

     "No problem."

     "Fucking shithead," murmured Callie as she slammed Jess's door shut, storming off back to her room. She and Jess didn't have the most smooth of relationships ━━ Jess was popular because she was mean, while Callie was popular because she was nice. Jess had a little cult of "friends" that did her every bidding, while Callie had actual friends who would tell her to fuck off and do it herself.

     Everyone at Hawkins knew that the Madison sisters did not always get along. On days where they did get along, they were unstoppable. They made entrances in school that should be accompanied by a slow-motion shot with Queen playing in the background. But when they didn't get along? It was war. It was childish ignorance in the hallways. It was petty pranks. It was stupid, really, but they were both too proud to give up.

     For the next fifteen minutes, Callie turned on the TV in the living room and watched Grease, humming along to the songs and glancing out the window that had a direct view of the driveway every few minutes. Three P.M came, and Robin still wasn't there. Five more minutes passed. She wasn't there. Ten minutes passed. She wasn't there.

Robin Buckley showed up at three twenty, practically jumping off her bike, letting it slam sideways on the pavement, and running over to the door. She rang the bell a few times with urgency, to the point where one would think she was on the run from the police.

When Callie opened the door, Robin was fumbling with her helmet, trying to get it off. "Oh, hey!" Robin said breathlessly, finally unbuckling her helmet. "Sorry I'm late, I had to bike here from my house, which is really far away, actually, you wouldn't believe it."

"It's fine," Callie gave her a polite smile. "You gave me more time to watch Grease."

"Ew," Robin's nose wrinkled. "I don't like musicals."

"I don't even want to let you in my house now. How dare you?"

"I'm sorry, okay? I work at a video store, and I can say with absolute certainty that there are much better movies out there than musicals."

"Yeah, for people who are boring and bland and sad and don't know what happiness looks like."

"I know what happiness looks like and I don't like musicals."

"Clearly not," Callie bristled. "Come in, I guess."

Robin stepped into the house, dropping her helmet on the side table. She took off her coat, which Callie took and hung on the coat rack. Robin walked around slowly, her mouth agape as she took everything in. The Madison house was pretty large, Mr. Madison being a successful divorce lawyer and Mrs. Madison taking over her family business and running the most popular cafe in Hawkins. That being said, they had quite a lot of money.

"Your house is huge," Robin said, running her fingers over the leaves of a plant.

"I guess."

"You guess? This living room alone is the size of my entire house."

Callie let out a dry laugh. "Well, to afford this place, my parents are barely ever home, so..."

Robin's eyes softened a little. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Really." Callie needed out of this conversation as quick as possible. "So, should we, like, go to my room...?"

"Uh, sure."

Callie nodded stiffly and walked over to the stairs, Robin following at a distance. Callie led them up the stairs, stuck up a middle finger at Jess's door ━━ which Robin laughed at ━━, and finally her entered her (newly clean) bedroom. She sat awkwardly at the edge of the bed as Robin examined her room.

Robin picked up a picture frame that was sitting on her dresser. "Is this you?"

The picture was one of Callie, Andy, and Jodie back in '82 on their first day of freshman year. Callie stood in the middle, brown hair in two braids. She was wearing a simple faded yellow shirt and jeans, as it wasn't until sophomore year that she discovered her style. She had a huge smile on her face, clunky braces covering her teeth. Jodie had a little bit of black eyeshadow on, something she would not dare do now, and Andy was smoking a cigarette at the ripe age of fourteen.

"Yeah," Callie said, lost in nostalgia. She was so young in that picture, so wide-eyed and ready to take on the world. She wished she could go back in time and tell fourteen year old her to enjoy her childhood, because before she knew it, she'd be in her last year of high school, getting ready for college.

Robin snickered. "Oh my god, I forgot you had braces. You look so dorky."

"Oh, shut up."

"I can't. This is too good."

"Maybe we should get right to work."

"Why? Are you embarrassed, Madison?" Robin teased.

"No!"

"Okay, sure..."

"I'm not." Callie paused. "But if I was, would you bring an embarrassing picture of you to our next session?"

"I would consider it."

"Fine! I'm embarrassed, okay? I look like a little idiot!"

"You do look like a little idiot," Robin nodded in agreement.

"No, don't agree with me. You're supposed to disagree."

     Robin simply smirked and put the picture back down, continuing her round of Callie's room. She made her way over to the windowsill where all of Callie's crystals sat, the sun streaming onto them. Robin trailed her fingertips over them, feeling the different textures. Some were smooth, others were rough and more like stones.

     "What do these do?" she asked, bending down to get a better view.

     Callie stood up and went over to where Robin was, sitting on the floor beside her. She pointed at the first one in the line. "This is clear quartz, it's a healing crystal. It also enhances other crystals." She moved her finger to the next one. "This one is Obsidian, for protection."

     "Protection?"

     "Yeah, like emotional protection."

     "Oh, cool."

     Callie smiled and continued explaining. "Rose quartz is for love. Not just for romance, but self-love and friendships, too. Citrine helps to release negative emotions and boosts optimism. It's like a happy pill or something."

     "Your friend could use that. What's her name? Andrea?"

     "Andy? Yeah, probably," said Callie. She had offered it to her last year, actually, but Andy shut it down. "Anyway, I use Amethyst to help me with sleep, which it's supposed to assist with. This next one is one of my favorites, Jasper. It brings up courage and confidence, and protects from negativity. The color is so cool. That's Celestine, for sleep too. Next, I have Moonstone, which I just got and don't really know what it does yet."

     "Jesus," was all Robin said.

     "I wear Carnelian and Lapis Lazuli on necklaces, see?" Callie pulled a necklace out from under the top of her dress, revealing a blood orange crystal wrapped in a silver chain. She pulled out a second necklace, with a blue crystal wrapped in a similar way. "I have a bunch more in the bathroom, too. I think I have Jade, Angelite, Onyx, Amazonite, and Blue Lace Agate — which was so expensive, by the way."

     "Holy shit, Madison."

     Callie shrugged. "I like crystals."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Should we get started?"

"Probably."

Callie walked over to her dresser and picked up the binder she had put together (with Jodie's help), placing it on her bed and opening it to the first page. "We're going to go over everything from last year, and work our way back up. If there's anything in particular you need help on or are struggling in, we'll stop and work on that. Sound good?"

"Yeah, that sounds great." Robin moved to sit across the bed form her. "There's so much in there," she said breathlessly.

Callie looked up, the two making eye contact. She could read the anxiety that was written all over her face, something she herself could relate to immensely. It was daunting and frightening, the starting of a new task that had no end date. "We're gonna take this one step at a time, okay? We can take a break whenever you want. We're just gonna focus on these first pages today, the rest of it doesn't matter."

Robin nodded, as if she was convincing herself to agree rather than actually agreeing. "Okay."

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah."

TWO HOURS later, Robin and Callie had complete five pages of work. One of English, one of history, one of science, two of math, covering everything they learned at the beginning of last year. Callie felt incredibly satisfied with what they had done, and before Robin went home, she treated the two of them to the ice cream she had hidden at the very bottom of the freezer (so Jess wouldn't get her hands on it).

They were sitting at the kitchen island, digging into the carton of cookie dough ice cream. Robin was moving side to side, as the barstools at the island rotated, and Callie was sitting on the counter with her legs dangling off.

"So," Robin started, licking the ice cream off of her spoon. "Remember how I said I wanted to keep this a secret, and you got, like, uber mad? What was that about?"

Callie froze mid-spoonful. So they were going to talk about that. "I just don't like being someone's secret. It feels awful."

"You say that like you're speaking from experience."

"I am."

"What happened?"

Callie let out a long sigh. "Sophomore year, I was in a relationship with someone who didn't want anyone to know we were together. I wanted to tell people, but she was embarrassed of me. Of us. When we broke up, I vowed to never be someone's secret again."

Robin's eyebrows shot up. "'She'?"

"Yeah, 'she'."

"You like girls?"

"Yes, I like girls. I like everyone, actually."

"Huh."

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just — I didn't expect that, y'know?"

"Well, what about you?"

A jumbled stutter escaped Robin's mouth. "Me? What about me?"

"Who do you like, Robin Buckley?"

"Um," Robin let out an awkward laugh. "Who do I like? That's the question, isn't it? Well, I like my friend Steve. He's a great guy, really. Fantastic hair. I like my family, they're pretty awesome sometimes. I like my boss, surprisingly. He's pretty chill, and—"

"No. Who do you like?" Callie leaned forward. "When you watch a movie, who do you stare at? The guy, the girl? Both? Neither?"

Robin's face was bright red. The cookie dough ice cream was all but forgotten now. Her voice low, she muttered, "The girl."

A smile played on Callie's lips. "You like girls too."

"Yes," Robin mumbled.

This was not shocking to Callie. She had often seen her staring at Vickie from band (Vickie and Callie had talked a few times, and when they did, they always had great conversations), but what was shocking was the revelation that both of them liked girls. Did the universe put them here, together, on purpose? Was there a greater reason for the tutoring?

"Interesting," Callie said finally, wondering if Robin was thinking the same thing.

Suddenly, Robin stood. "I'm gonna head out now, uh, this was great! Really, this was so great. So, um, see you Thursday?"

"Yeah, see you Thursday," smiled Callie, biting back the urge to laugh at Robin's awkwardness. It was so... adorable ━━ no. It's not adorable, Calliope, she scolded herself. Get yourself together. She walked Robin to the door, handing her the coat she had put on the rack. As Robin literally ran out the door towards her bike, Callie called after her, "Don't forget your helmet!"

Robin, who was about to take off on her bike, jumped off and ran back to Callie, who was holding her helmet. "Thank you!" she exclaimed as she got back on her bike, buckled her helmet, and rode off.

As Callie shut the door, she was grinning ear to ear.

NOTE

I'm so sorry the end of this kinda gets shitty you can tell I was getting tired😭😭 anyway, lmk how I did writing in Robin's voice!! I tried to nail her awkwardness and talkativeness but it's actually really difficult LMAOOO

Callie my pansexual queen

This is also the longest chapter I've ever written. 2687 words. Do you guys prefer the longer chapters or shorter ones?????

Ok bye❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥