Risky Business ｡ Stranger Things

52 : Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The counsellor's office at Hawkins High was always warm. Prue even remembered it being toasty last year in the dead of winter, snow falling outside the window. She'd stared out that window at that snow until it had made her dizzy, all as Ms Kelley spoke demurely about the stages of grief.

Prue knew all about the stages of the grief now, and she suspected it was the kind counsellor's favourite topic of conversation. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance—Prue knew and understood them all with a terrible intimacy.

"Some people can even backslide," Ms Kelley was saying softly.

Prue looked away from the colourful posters stuck to the muted pink walls, the potted plants absorbing filtered sunlight and the sticker on the desk that read All Are Welcome. She knew every inch of this little office by now.

"Does that happen often?" Prue asked, tugging at the edge of her cheer cardigan.

Ms Kelley nodded thoughtfully. "Each person is different, and each person handles grief differently."

She picked at the stitching until a thread unravelled like a secret. "Do you think I'm backsliding?"

Ms Kelley sighed a little, laying her arms flat on her organised table, the file on Prudence Anne Owens wide open. "Perhaps backsliding isn't the right word. Revisit," she decided. "Revisiting certain stages and emotions is probably more appropriate. But completely normal."

"You didn't answer my question," Prue insisted. "Am I backsliding?"

She didn't feel like she was backsliding, wasn't enough sure how the two had ended up on the subject because they'd just been talking about her father's regular trips to Nevada and how she felt about that.

Prue felt like she was good and normal, finally after everything. She had even locked away her darling, dearest and dead curiosity. It was for the best, Prue had reminded herself time and time again. It was her mantra now. For the best, for the best, for the best.

Avoiding the question expertly, Ms Kelley said: "How have your nightmares been recently?"

Prue had been seeing the school counsellor for over six months, all with the encouragement of her mother. Talking about things did work overtime, and Prue only had therapy sessions fortnightly now. Because she was doing good.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," she said honestly.

"Do they still flip between the night Bob Newby died and the fire at Starcourt Mall?" Ms Kelley didn't know the full stories, only enough of the pieces to build a half-picture.

She was under the impression that wolves had attacked the laboratory back in '84 and the cover story sold to the media about the destroyed neon-bright mall. She didn't know how Prue had nearly lost Grey to a demodog or how the Mind Flayer had ripped open Billy Hargrove's chest. Ms Kelley would no doubt believe Prue was insane if she divulged the full details.

Prue twisted the loose thread around her index finger, tighter and tighter. "Yeah," she confessed.

Nightmares weren't strangers in the house on Kerley anymore, hadn't been for a long time. Prue imagined she'd feel lonely without the nightmares that always started off sweet, because at least he was still there in her dreams, smiling around a burning cigarette and golden skin shining from pool water. The sweetness never lasted, the colour always fading to grey and black. But still, Prue would take anything from the dead boy.

The Billy dreams rotated with nightmares of demodogs tearing Grey into pieces, screams gurgled with the blood in his mouth. She even dreamed of the Upside Down at rare times, startling awake with a chill creeping down her spine as phantom and eerie particles floated around her bedroom for a second or two before she blinked them away.