She watches as Nancy and Jonathan graduate High School, of course Nancy is the valedictorian and gives an amazing heartfelt speech. They both get accepted into NYU, Jonathan studying Photograph, Nancy studying Nursing, because she wants to help people, because she wasn't able to help Barb, she wasn't able to help Eleven. But she would be damned if she couldn't help everybody else.
She watches as Joyce and Hopper build a relationship, and finally one day, Hopper proposes. Holly is their flower girl, Nancy Joyce's Maid of Honor, Jonathan and Will fight over who gets to be Best Man, Jonathan's argument being that he was going away to college, Will's argument being that if it weren't for him going missing they never would have developed a relationship. Hopper lets them both have the role for no other reason then to shut them up, while Mike, Lucas, and Dustin are Groomsmen. A year later they have a little girl that they name Eleanor in honor of a strange little girl called Eleven, El for short, that touched their lives so briefly. She gets teary eyed when she hears this.
She watches as Will gets better, he starts coughing less, the lasting affects of the Upside Down wearing off,. He calls Jonathan everyday at college and they talk for hours on end. He watches over Eleanor, saying he always wanted a little sister. He and the guys become closer than ever, because nothing strengthens a friendship more than a near death experience. He admits to the guys about being gay, and of course they don't care because they always kind of knew. He draws pictures about the adventures that the guys had the week he went missing, about a badass girl with a buzz cut and superpowers that made Troy pee his pants in front of the whole school, a girl that flipped a van with her mind. She thinks they would have be great friends, had they met.
She watches as Dustin's teeth finally grow in and he discovers that he can sing. He joins the school choir, though he makes sure to never miss AV club meetings or D&D game nights. He meets a girl in choir and gets all flustered around her, until one day Mike and Lucas push him into her, literally, and he finally gets up the courage to ask her out. He takes her to see the new Star Wars movie at the movie theater and afterwards they go to McDonald's and geek out about it. She thinks they're perfect for each other.
She watches as Lucas joins baseball and becomes the schools star player never missing a hit, because after all it's just physics. He becomes friends with the baseball team, but Will, Mike, and Dustin will always be his best friends, his top priority. He starts to date the softball team captain, a competitive girl that moved to Hawkins during their freshman year of High School that he's had a love/hate relationship with since they met. She thinks they're good together.
Finally, she watches Mike as he grows taller than all the others, as he slowly gets that spark back into his brown eyes, as he starts to laugh and joke more with the guys. But the fort that she lived in for a week remands untouched, an unspoken rule that even his family abides by. He plans D&D campaigns, he goes bike riding with the guys, he calls Nancy everyday at college, but he never dates. He politely turns down any girl that shows interest in him, keeping himself occupied with school, AV club, and his friends.
Until one day, towards the end of sophomore year, nearly three years later, she finally becomes strong enough to escape the Upside Down. It's the night of the Spring Formal, Dustin and Lucas take their girlfriends, Will goes as "friends" with a boy he met in English class, and Mike gets dragged along, because they "aren't going to let him miss out on the High School dance experience", which he knows means they just want him to suffer alongside them as they're forced to listen and dance to the god awful music.
She shows up at the Byer-Hopper household all dirty, hair a tangled mess to her hips. Joyce nearly burst into tear upon seeing her as she hugs her tightly, calling for Hopper, Eleanor already in bed for the night. El mutters two words in her quiet voice, "Spring Formal", and Joyce immediately understands, she has Hopper heat her up a whole box of Eggos as she helps her into the shower. As she eats, Joyce cuts her split ends and curls her hair. She does her makeup and dresses her up in one of the dresses she'd been saving. It's pale pink just like the first dress she ever wore.
Hopper drives her over to the high school where the Spring Formal is being held in the gym. She walks inside, butterflies going crazy in her stomach, her thoughts filled with doubts.
What if he forgot about her?
What if he didn't want to see her?
What would she do if that was true?
Her thought came to a halt. Across the gym sitting at a table was Mike, laughing and joking with Will and his date-not-date as they watched Dustin's hilarious attempt at slow dancing with his girlfriend, Lucas snickering at him as he spun his girlfriend professionally around the dance floor purposely showing off.
Will was the first to notice the eyes on them. Turning around he sees a slim girl, hair curled to her waist, standing frozen in the middle of the gym clenching her pale pink dress in her hands as she stares directly at Mike. He immediately knew who this girl was despite never meeting her in person. He reaches over and slaps Mikes shoulder, saying his name urgently. When he finally gets Mike's attention, he points at the strange girl still standing there frozen.
Annoyance quickly turn to shock as Mike follows Will's finger to see a familiar sight. Eleven, it was Eleven, though she was taller and her hair was longer, he would know that face anywhere. And while this might not be the Snow Ball and they might not be the same as they once were, she had a promise to keep, and he knew she wasn't about to break a promise.