WHO: NANCY AND MIKE WHEELER WHAT: AN OFFICIAL COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET WITH A SIBLING WHEN: JUNE 8TH, EARLY EVENING AFTER CLASSES WHERE: HAWKINS HOUSE WARNINGS: NONE STATUS: COMPLETE
In the past few days, Nancy was coming home after work and classes and going straight to her room, avoiding any and all people in the house, even if not all of them would know exactly why. She was busy, or tired, or just not hungry. Or she was chewing on snacks in her room instead. Was it a completely ridiculous manner of behaving for a girl who prided in her own intelligence? Absolutely, but she never claimed not to be a stupid young adult when it came to love and romance.
But tonight, when she came home, she left the door ajar, anticipating (or hoping) only one person would come through because she had told him she needed to talk to him. She set her bag down on her bed and immediately start to pace. Nancy hadn’t rehearsed anything in her head, thinking it would probably come all naturally to her because this was her brother. She could tell him anything, and she knew he wouldn’t judge her for her discovering her sexuality and all. Still, her palms were starting to sweat and her mind was now a jumble as she waited for him to show up. It would be the first time she’d voice the actual words aloud, open-minded or not, that was still grounds for her nervousness.
Mike had been a little concerned about Nancy just from how little time she’d been spending with the rest of the house. Her we need to talk message had upgraded that concern from “huh, does Nancy have a stomach bug or something?” to “oh god does Nancy have a brain tumor?” He came straight home from school and directly to Nancy’s room, and finding her in a pacing fit didn’t do anything to ease his worries. He didn’t even bother with a hello when he walked in, just went straight to—
“Okay, so what’s going on?”
Despite knowing he was on his way, Nancy still jumped slightly when he spoke. “Hi, hey, okay.” She grabbed onto his arm and steered him toward her bed, signaling him to sit, before she did the same. And once seated, she raised her hands as though presenting the words to him.
Words that seemed to stall coming out. Great.
She shook her head after a pause and tried again. “Okay. So, I guess, I was trying to figure out if what I’m about to tell you was real or not, because I wasn’t sure. It’s been like… five months now? So I guess at this point, I’m pretty sure and I think you should be the first to know this because you’re my brother and I love you, and I’m not nervous about you not loving me after this news or anything but it’s still a big deal…”
“...do you have a brain tumor?”
Because seriously, what else would she be this worried about? Something that’s been going on months, she wasn’t sure if it was real or not—which totally made sense, treatment or death would be really hard to grapple with and accept as reality—something that was a really big deal, and she’d been all weird since prom came up (maybe because it was her last one)…it was definitely sounding like it had to be a life-ending horror.
“Or like…magic dementia?” he asked, because obviously there were a lot of things besides brain tumors that threatened people’s existence. Vallo might even have special magic ones.
Nancy blinked. “What? No. Why would you…” She trailed off, considering what she had told him in that babble, and okay, it did sound that bad. “No, Mike, it’s not bad. It’s just different. I swear I’m not dying.
“Look, since we’ve been here, I guess we’ve been open to a lot of possibilities we didn’t think were possible in our world because everyone is more close-minded than we thought, and I was starting to hang out with Robin here too. So I wasn’t sure if what I felt for her was real at first or just some kind of obsessed must-be-friends-with-her thing but I think it’s real. I… like girls.”
“That’s it?” Mike gave her a look of exasperated incredulity. “Jesus, Nancy, I thought you were dying! Is that why you’ve been hiding in your room all week, too? I was better at having a crush when I was twelve.”
Nancy found herself blinking at him again. “Okay, but it’s not everyday you realize a crush is someone that makes you question your sexuality!” she said, matching his exasperation.
Mike raised one arm in a half-shrug of who the hell cares. “It’s Vallo! Like ninety percent of everybody here is some flavor of gay! If you wanted coming out to hit harder you should’ve tried to beat Steve to it.”
Nancy sighed, running a hand down her face. No, she couldn’t fault Steve for that. She was happy that he was discovered himself and that he and Eddie were together. That wasn’t a thunder that anyone actually deserved more than the other.
“I’m sorry,” she started, letting her hand fall to her lap. “For worrying you. I’ve been hiding because I found out from Eddie that he told Steve that I like Robin and there is a high chance – Eddie wants to pretend it’s not but I know Steve – that he went and told Robin about it. And hence… my hiding.”
“Ohhhhhhh…” Mike winced. Now that was an actual problem. Nancy liking girls, fine, no big deal. Nancy liking a specific girl who just got told that she had a crush on her, that was awkward as hell. “And she didn’t immediately come to you to say good news, I like you too or anything, so…”
It didn’t look good for Nancy. If Steve had told Robin—and yeah, he almost definitely did—and Robin didn’t do anything about it, then it would seem that Robin didn’t like Nancy back. Or that was a strong possibility, at least.
“Maybe she’s planning to tell you at prom?” Mike suggested, looking for any hopeful possibilities. “She might be trying to really Molly Ringwald it up.”
“Exactly. Eddie said she knew for days. At least until he backtracked and said maybe not.” She frowned. “Seriously, I expected more of an ‘oh my god, Nancy, thank you for telling me before I found out from someone else’.”
“Sorry. Uh…” Mike paused, then dramatically threw his arm over his face and fell backward onto the bed. “Oh my god, Nancy! Thank you so much for telling me before I found out from someone else, like Eddie and Steve and the everybody else in the world you already told before me!”
“My god.” She shook her head at him, but she couldn’t help the grin that broke out across her face. Okay, yes, she wasn’t straight. Whether that meant she only liked girls and no longer cared about boys? It wasn’t like anyone in this world really had attracted her like Robin did. She was still trying to figure that out, but she had time.
Nancy grabbed at his hand, pulling him to give him a hug. “Thanks, you giant dork.”
And of course Mike hugged her back. “Clearly dorks are your favorite people if you’re crushing on a bona fide band geek,” he said, despite knowing that it was going to end with either getting a massive noogie or being elbowed in the ribs. He could take it, if it meant Nancy knew that nothing about her liking girls changed anything between the two of them.
Nancy did neither. She instead pinched him in the shoulder when she moved away. “Crushing which may probably not be returned so I’m going to just have to get over it. Or something.” She shrugged. “Sucks, but… you know. Shit happens. I’ll be okay. If not a little embarrassed to be around the dinner table for the time being.”
“If it doesn’t work out, that’s her loss,” Mike replied, because it turned out he actually was capable of not giving his sister a hard time every once in a while. “We’ll find you a better girlfriend among the eight million stupidly hot people of Vallo. And if it does work out, just forget I said that.”
Nancy’s mood dimmed only slightly. She wasn’t exactly stranger to the concept of unrequited feelings but most recently, the last two she felt anything for were Jonathan and Steve and they both had reciprocated. Even if things didn’t turn out the way she had wanted it to. But, Mike was right that it could go either way. Maybe Robin was waiting for her to say something before either turning her down or asking her out. Acting no different was better than avoiding her, after all.
“Yeah, alright. You want to go get smoothies or something?”
“I’m always up for smoothies.” Mike gave her a smile and a pat on the shoulder that he hoped was comforting before standing up. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”