Untitled Song
An installment in the The Interview universe.
"This is a love song."
"What? No, it's not!" Steve argues, looking back down at the notebook.
"It reads like a love song. The little bit you just sang for me has love song vibes," Robin leans more of her weight onto Steve's back, where she's standing over his shoulder reading the lyrics.
He stares down at the page. "Yeah. Okay. I see it. But, like, I didn't mean it to be all love song vibey."
"I would do it again if I could hold you for a minute," Robin reads in a flat tone, unimpressed.
"Okay! Stop, I don't- I mean- ugh!" Steve slumps forward, resting his forehead on the page of lyrics. "Okay, fine, but like, in context I'm clearly talking about like, reliving my whole life. I would do it all again."
"Did you just say that this is clearly about your whole life because if so, I want to be on the same drugs as you," Robin pushes off of him to move around the table and plop into the chair across from him. She tries her best to level him with a stare, but he doesn't give her the satisfaction by refusing to lift his head. The downside of being soulmates, she decides. He knows what she's going to do and when and can, therefore, avoid it. "Look, I get that he was, like, your first love and high school sweetheart but he couldn't have been that good of a fuck. It was just inexperience that made-"
"Robin!" Steve shouts over her, looking at her now so she can see his scandalized expression. Ha! She takes it back. It's an upside to being soulmates because she knows exactly what to say to rial him up. "It's not about the sex! It's about all of it. Everything. I don't- what Eddie did was shitty and it fucking hurt, but that was ten years ago. This song is about everything."
She doesn't see it that way, but even with how well she's able to read him, Steve's mind has always had its own way of thinking she can't quite nail down. With a sigh, she says, "Alright. Benefit of doubt time. Explain the song to me."
"It's not just about Eddie. It's about my whole life. You know how my parents were, how high their expectations were and how I had to hide almost everything about me while I lived with them. That's the my life was a storm since I was born. How could I fear any hurricane bit. And if I hadn't dated Eddie, like, at all. Well, I was already on the track to being an asshole in elementary school. Can you imagine who I would have been in high school if I was still that kid?
"It's also, like, if Eddie and I had stayed together... If we hadn't- I hadn't broken up with him, would I have met Dustin? Or Lucas and Max? Will or Mike, Nancy, and Jonathan? It's like, the years directly after Hey Steve were absolute dogshit, yeah, but it brought me all the people I love now," Steve looks down to the page again, either avoiding her eye contact or finding it too much. She's not sure which one. "If Eddie and I had stayed together there was only option for my future. Once the car had been fully put in my name, I'd have told Eddie to pick a city and we'd have left, for Eddie to chase his dream while I chased him. I wouldn't have gone to Chicago with you, never had the money to purchase that first place to live with you. Maybe never have discovered I loved interior design and house renovation. So, I would do it all again. It brought me my family."
She understands, now, what the lyrics really mean to him. However, she's also the one person in the whole world close enough to Steve to actually see it. "I get what you are saying. But these lyrics do not tell that story. Knowing your reasoning behind it does make me see them that way. But no one who hears that is going to know your tragic backstory."
"So, should I re-write this?"
"Depends. What is your goal with this... statement. What is the best case scenario."
Steve blinks at her. "Oh. Uh, best case, huh? I guess... I want to talk to Eddie, again. We parted on real bad terms, and I think I want closure from that?"
She narrows her eyes at him, judging. "Are you angry, like, at all?" She is. She's still furious with Eddie. His fucking song had blown Steve's life up virtually overnight. But also, she had thought they were friends, too. She hadn't realized their friendship was conditional, with that condition being he and Steve having to be in a relationship.
And, yeah, logically she knows she was Steve's friend first and it would be easy to default to believing she'd be on Steve's side but she wasn't. Not at first.
When Steve had shown up at her house, having gone straight from Eddie's to hers after he told them they were over, she'd held him through the night as he cried. But in the morning, she'd told him she needed to check on Eddie. He was her best friend, too. But Wayne told her he was gone, left last night to Chicago. Wayne had offered her a ride there with him, after he got Eddie's van running again and went to take it to him.
She said she'd think about it. Tried to reach out over all the socials, but Eddie didn't even check them, and then Hey Steve came out and there wasn't any room left in her to care about Eddie and his emotional state.
Not anymore. Not when he'd left her, too. Not when, even after Robin had made her own way to fame, he declined to meet with her. She'd tried to reach out but who was she, a new comer to the music scene and barely known, to Eddie Fucking Munson, lead guitarist to Corroded Coffin?
"I mean, sure, but like... it's been ten years. I don't- I have better things to think about than how mad I was... am? at Eddie. We were friends, first, y'know. And it's complicated. You know this," Steve says.
"Yeah, yeah," Robin waves off his words, "you're whole Eddie was a part of my life for longer than he's been gone from it thing. I'm not sure that the fifteen years of your childhood should be counted the same as this decade of adulthood."
"I get that you don't want to forgive him, and that's fine. But, forgiveness or not, I want closure."
"Okay. Keep the song as is."
"Really?"
"Yes," Robin says, a Cheshire cat grin spreading across her face. If Steve records and shares what sounds like a love song, there's almost a 100% chance that Gareth will reach out again. She knows they're expecting to see an angry and hurt Steve, but instead they'll get this? Robin's not above playing unfair. She hopes this breaks Eddie, consumes him with a guilt as deep as the original hurt felt. "I think we should let everyone think it's your sad, pathetic, pining for a decades-old-love song. It'll definitely get Gareth reaching out to me and my team again."
"Gareth's reached out?"
"It's his job. He's Corroded Coffin's PR Manager now, apparently. When Lauri told me Gareth had reached out, I asked to be included in the call. Anyway, not the point. The point is, if you want to talk to Eddie, this love song is the trick."
"It's not a love song!"
"Whatever you say, Dingus. Sing it again so I can imagine the music to go with it."
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