Jonathan

"Graduate in what?" Will asked. He was stuffing a few books in his backpack while watching Jonathan sign the form.

"In absentia," Jonathan replied. He scribbled today's date and looked up at Will's confused expression. "It's Latin," he explained. "It just means that I'm not going to the graduation ceremony, but I'm still graduating."

"Oh," came Will's response. He nodded his head a little, always willing to take his brother's word, then frowned as if rethinking the whole concept. "But won't Nancy be there?"

Jonathan half-laughed, half-exhaled. He looked at Will and for a moment felt oddly uncomfortable. Scooping up the form, Jonathan said pointedly, "I'm sure most of my class will be there."

He grabbed his keys and ushered Will out the door.

"Yeah, I guess," Will continued. "But Mike said you and Nancy—"

"Will," Jonathan cut in, "Give it a rest, huh? We worked together to get you. Everybody worked together. But that was months ago."

Will sat in silence for a few minutes as they drove down the road. Out of the corner of his eye Jonathan saw him staring out the car window.

"Did you see the new music store that's opening up downtown?" He asked.

Will perked up. "Yeah, I did."

"Want to go check it out this weekend? I heard they rent guitars. Maybe we can convince Mom to let you start taking lessons."

"Yeah!" Will exclaimed. He started fingering the strings of an air guitar. Jonathan turned on some music and the two sang until they pulled into the school parking lot.

As Will was getting out of the car, he said teasingly, "You know who else worked together to get me?" He shot Jonathan a knowing look. "Mom and Hopper."

Jonathan smiled. "Get to class."

Will would be staying at Mike's house tonight since Hopper was taking their mom out after work. They'd been seeing each other for a while now, ever since reality settled like dust on their world and Joyce could finally open her eyes to anything other than desperation in Will's absence. When she opened her eyes, what she saw was Hopper.

Jonathan was happy for them. At least things were finally becoming normal again for some people. He wondered how long it would take for life to go back to normal for him.


Hawkins wasn't a big town and it didn't have a huge cemetery, but you could get lost weaving around the headstones and giant oak trees if you didn't know where you were going.

Jonathan knew where he was going. When he reached the marker, he pulled out his camera and snapped a shot. What was that, the fifteenth picture he'd taken of the headstone in the past eight weeks?

Replacing the cover on his lens, Jonathan sat down in the grass, like he was facing off with the grave marker.

William Byers, it read.

Jonathan rubbed his temples with his fingertips. Somehow the grave had gone forgotten. Joyce would have gotten rid of the headstone, sold the plot, if she'd remembered it. He was sure of that. But its memory slipped into the ether of everything else she'd worked so hard to erase.

Now the grave was another one of Jonathan's stops. One of the landmarks that tied him to the horrific past that he was incapable of erasing. One of a handful of places that he spent hours of his life, sitting in silence and thinking about everything that happened and trying to convince himself that this unbreakable routine was just obsession. It wasn't a sign that things weren't done yet. Weren't over.

Suddenly he became aware that he wasn't alone. And in the instant it took him to spin around, he traveled from the certainty that the faceless monster had returned to the realization that he would have hit Nancy through blind fear if she had been standing any closer.

Instead he found himself breathless with shock. "You surprised me," he said by way of explanation.