6.
Wendy had been proud of her natural ability to navigate the uncomfortable waters of puberty- a difficult thing to do in a small town, with a tightly knit circle of friends who were all just beginning to realize what they could be to each other. Robbie had been the first guy in her group she had ever actually dated, and theirs had been a minor breakup in the grand-scheme.
It was a few years after that, she realized that the old crowd was definitely not a dating pool.
Summer, 2014.
Robbie and Tambry had been going through a rough patch right before her seventeenth birthday party. Still they had all snuck out to the far side of the lake for a bonfire. She could remember how stressed Thompson had been watching the couple avoid each other like the plague.
"Don't sweat it. I'll go talk to Robbie, you talk to Tambry, kay?" She motioned to the girl perched on a fallen log positioned near the fire pit. Thompson nodded and the two of them split up. Wendy wandered over to Robbie, who had the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up, staring balefully into the fire.
"Dude, you're ruining my birthday." Wendy mocked peevishly as she came to his side. He turned his glare on her wordlessly and she laughed in disbelief. "God, I'm just kidding Robbie! Seriously though, are you okay?" She put her hand on his shoulder, and his stony expression dissolved into one more contrite.
"Sorry Wendy… I know we're both being pretty shitty." He muttered.
"It's cool. Everything okay?"
Robbie scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Not really. We've been at each other's throats all week. She never stops looking at that stupid phone… How am I supposed to get through to her?"
"Aw, come on, Tambry's always been like that. It's not some big surprise. That's what all this is about? Looking at you two, you'd think somebody got murdered." Wendy laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. Robbie laughed thinly, peering at her nervously from inside his hood of his sweatshirt.
"There is something else, I guess." He offered after a moment's pause. Wendy raised an eyebrow. "I don't really wanna talk about it here though. Could we like, go somewhere else?"
Wendy's heart fluttered uneasily and her eyes passed quickly from where Thompson and Tambry sat to where Nate and Lee were standing on the lakeshore. "Sure, let's go."
Shortly, she found herself standing a little ways into the forest that lined the edge of the lake, watching Robbie pace back and forth. He glanced at her, and she gave him a look she hoped seemed more sympathetic than puzzled. Her heart leapt in her throat when she heard a shriek of laughter from the nearby fire pit.
"Are you sure you don't just wanna go back…?"
"No, Wendy, you need to hear this." He demanded in that all-too-intense Robbie manner. He suddenly stopped pacing and crossed the short distance to her. "Most of our fights have been about you."
Wendy was astonished. "What?"
"Nobody else knows, but it's gotten so bad that I think I may break up with her. Tambry's jealous of you, Wendy."
"I don't—what are you talking about?" She had a really badfeeling about where this was going. Robbie took a step closer, and he was too close. "Robbie—"
He placed a hand on her bare arm, and her stomach turned in panic as his callused thumb caressed her skin. His eyes were hard, filled with determination as he pulled her to him and crushed his lips to hers.
It lasted all of two seconds.
"GET OFF!" Wendy cried desperately. She shoved him away hard enough to send him stumbling a few steps. She folded her arms around herself and moved away from him. "God, Robbie, what the fuck?"
"I just couldn't forget you after we broke up." He said in a soft voice. He approached her again and she moved further away, "Wendy, if we could just… I'd do anything to be with you again" He choked, and he sounded pathetic enough to extinguish her fear.
"I can't believe I'm hearing this." She turned from him and made for the bonfire again. She heard the dry crackle of dead leaves behind her and she whirled on him, stabbing his chest with her finger.
"Tambry's my best friend, Robbie, and I haven't forgotten that you tried to use mind control on me. What makes you think that any of this was okay? Did it seem like I was asking for it?"
Robbie quailed under her blazing green stare, at a loss for words. Wendy scoffed and shook her head.
"Yeah, I thought so."
She turned and walked away.
Wendy came to the edge of the forest just out of the light of the bonfire. Her rage cooled to thick disappointment when she saw that Thompson was alone and that Tambry had left.
"What happened?" She asked as she sat down beside him. It seemed Lee and Nate had also fled the scene. Wendy smiled ruefully to herself—Thompson was never one to leave a girl high and dry.
He wrung his thick hands nervously in his lap as he spoke, "Well, a little after you and Robbie went off, Tambry noticed and she… Y'know, she kind of got the wrong impression."
Wendy sighed and fished her phone out of her back pocket. She didn't have to read all fifteen messages to know that Tambry had written her a legit novel clarifying just how pissed off she was.
"Great." She muttered, her lips pulling into a grim smile. Thompson frowned at her worriedly.
"Are you gonna be ok?" He asked gently. Wendy shrugged- between her encounter with Robbie and the backlash from Tambry, she honestly didn't know. Thompson and the bonfire swam hazily in her teary vision.
"I'll figure it out. I think this party's over though. Wanna call it a night?" She laughed, and it was hard to keep all the anger and frustration out of her voice. Thompson nodded silently and they stood together.
"I could drive you home." He offered softly, holding her green flannel out to her. She took it and felt a wave of gratitude for him as she slipped it over her tank top. Thomson held out her hat as well, Dipper's old, faded ball cap was a little stained and the canvas a little frayed on the bill, but still her luckiest charm. She suddenly wanted to see him more than anything else.
Maybe if I'd been wearing it...
She took the hat and placed it on her head backwards. "Thanks—actually though, could you swing me by the Mystery Shack? I left something over there and I can walk home no problem."
Later on, as Thompson drove the winding road to the Shack, Wendy checked the thread of messages she had exchanged with Dipper again.
hey you awake?
Yeah, is everything okay?
kind of… passing by your place. mind if I come over?
Not at all! :D
cool dude see ya
The clock on her phone read five past midnight, and she conjured the comforting image of Dipper Pines pacing the floor of the Mystery Shack's gift shop as the rest of his family was tucked away in bed.
Wendy spotted Dippers' lanky form stood on the porch of the shack, shielding his eyes against the headlights of the beat up van as they pulled into the driveway. She turned and hugged the stocky boy, "Thanks friend." Her words were muffled against the swell of his chest.
"Just trying to hold the crew together. Happy birthday." He laughed and gave her a big squeeze.
They said their final goodnight and Wendy slipped out of the car, shutting the door behind her. She didn't look back as she crossed the parking lot to Dipper. They met each other halfway.
"Heeey." She somehow managed to give him a comical once over in spite of her shaken state. He was typically scruffy—the shock of hair over his birthmark somehow even more unruly, he wore plain navy pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt under a weathered denim jacket they had picked up at a garage sale a few weeks back.
"Hey. Wanna go up?" Dipper asked, motioning to her favorite spot on the roof. She nodded, slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow as they fell in step. It was a habit she had cultivated shortly after he hit his growth-spurt.
Once they were settled in on the roof, she told her story. When she got to the part when Robbie forced that kiss on her, Dipper choked on his Pitt Cola.
"Wait—are you serious?" He coughed. Wendy patted him on the back and nodded gloomily. Dipper's face was a thunderhead. "Wendy, I swear next time I see him I'll… I'll…" He stopped short, floundering. His voice broke a little and he cast her an agonized glance. Watching him made the tears swim in Wendy's eyes again.
"Aw, Dipper, don't worry about that. I'm okay, aren't I?" She shifted closer to him and slipped an arm around his waist under his jacket. Somehow it felt better to pretend she was consoling him instead of the other way around.
It was at precisely that moment her phone rang.
Answering Tambry's phone call was one of those mistakes a person makes in the small hours of the morning, when rational thought and judgment take their leave. Wendy could barely get a word in edgewise as her best friend unloaded on her viciously.
…And you better not show your face where I can see it or I swear to god I'm going to scratch your eyes out for what you've done.
That was basically the gist of things.
Before sadness even, cold rage surged through Wendy as she listened to Tambry. The worst thing of all was that she couldn't even defend herself before the phone went dead. It took all her willpower not to just throw her phone as far as she could off the roof of the Mystery Shack.
Dipper put a hand over hers, and she loosened her white-knuckle grip on the phone. "Don't do something you'll regret" He took it from her and turned it off.
"I think I've already hit my quota for shitty decisions today." She laughed bitterly and swigged her soda, wishing for a moment it was a beer instead. "Preeetty sure I've ruined a few friendships tonight."
"You were just doing what any friend would do, not that he deserved it... Wendy, you're one of the kindest, most genuine people I know, and if Tambry doesn't know that..." Her ire faded while she listened to him and the tears she had been holding back finally fell. "Oh no—Wendy, no no no, don't cry!" He pleaded, panic-stricken. Wendy leaned into Dipper's side as she wept, her fingers hitching in the fabric of his shirt. He sat stock still, probably nervous as all get-out by this new situation, but it didn't even occur to Wendy in her state. Dipper was a positive force in her life and for all that meant she needed a positive in that moment. She needed him.
That's why it was so surprising when he did move, his arms came around and he gathered her to himself fully. She was vaguely aware of his hand, trembling with nervous inexperience as it carefully smoothed over her hair.
It made her cry even harder.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Thanks for reading! I'll be working on some edits of the posted chapters for the next bit. Keep on the lookout for new material though!