the subway screeched into the station, lights flickering against the cracked tiles. robin barely noticed the rush of people, the noise, the press of bodies. she was used to it. new york was chaos, and she had learned to sink into it.

until she noticed the green highlights. until she saw you.

you were sitting near the window, a paperback resting in your lap, hair streaked with green under the soft yellow fluorescent light. the sight was so sudden, so sharp, that robin’s chest tightened like she’d been punched.

her coffee nearly slipped from her hand. she gripped the pole tighter, staring, afraid to blink.

you didn’t see her. your eyes stayed fixed on the page, your mouth turned down in that little crease of concentration she remembered too well. the beauty mark by your lips was exactly where it had always been, proof that this was real and not some cruel joke or dream.

robin’s head flooded with painful memories. hawkins rooftops in the summer, when the air smelled like grass and freedom, when your knee brushed hers and both of you froze. cassette tapes passed back and forth with stupid doodles on the cases. whispered jokes in movie theaters where your pinky hooked hers for a second too long before you pulled away.

not because you didn’t want it. because you couldn’t risk it. because your parents watched you like hawks, because hawkins was a small town full of sharp edges, because being two girls in love in the 80s felt like a crime.

robin never blamed you for being scared. she was scared too.

but god, seeing you now? — here, in the middle of the city you both once called impossible — it nearly broke her. how was this even possible? she had moved away from hawkins after everything, and apparently so did you. this was a big town, but the world seemed so small now.

she wanted to move. to say your name, to cross the space, to tell you she still carried every half-finished moment in her chest.

but the subway jolted, the doors hissed open, and the crowd shifted. people pressed in, pressed out, and you never lifted your head. you were gone before she could breathe, disappearing into the blur of strangers, slipping away like you always had.

robin stayed frozen, forehead against the cold glass, heartbeat rattling in time with the rails.

you didn’t look up. you didn’t see her. and maybe that was easier. maybe one day you’d just be another girl on the subway. not and the one she so clearly loved.