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Robin used to love autumn in Hawkins.
Jumping in leaf piles and carving pumpkins with Dad on the porch… that was everything.
.
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When she was really little, Robin found a little, dying robin on the sidewalk.
She picked it up without thinking. No amount of running and yelling for Mom could save it, Robin knows.
Her little hands felt that little, animal heartbeat slow.
And… it was gone.
She thinks that's like autumn: doomed to be nothing but fleeting.
Robin's life didn't change by this. She wasn't unhappy. In fact, Robin forgot about the little, dying-so-soon robin when she excitedly got invited to her first sleepover at Beth Wildfire's house. Beth's friends, and Robin, called her "Wildfire" for her aggressively cheerful demeanor.
(And, well, Beth could kick a soccer ball like a menace.)
.
,
In the wake of acknowledging death, and getting older…
Robin supposes that things did feel stranger.
Colder.
Emptier.
More grayer around the edges.
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Robin walks through Hawkins Cemetery on her way home.
She kicks up brightly colorful leaves.
Her bruised-up and bandaged knuckles rap on Will Byers's polished, magnificently commissioned headstone on behalf of the Hawkins township.
"Sorry, kid," she mumbles, and Robin never acknowledges it again.
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