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October 18, 1985
MUCH LIKE GRIEF, HEALING ISN'T A LINEAR PROCESS. It was something Amara came to realize as summer transitioned into autumn, and she was facing the tribulations of any other high school senior – SAT prep, college applications, and oh yeah – what she wanted for her future. And as much as Eurydice and Scott insisted that Amara didn't need to have a definite career path in mind, that most people started college with their major undecided, she still felt pressured due to the fact that everyone else, her friends included, seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do.
The truth of the matter was that Amara hadn't expected to make it this far. The beginning of her fourth and final year at Hawkins High marked the longest she'd ever gone without being expelled because the faculty just couldn't handle the stain of a student with autism on their reputation, and Amara was as good at masking as ever even with her circle of friends and augmented name recognition. But being a high school senior was difficult enough even for people without autism, and Amara was surprised at the number of peers she'd witnessed crack under the stress or turn to drugs in hopes of relaxing.
Then in mid-October arrived the very thing Steve had agonized over a year prior: her college essay. For someone still processing that she, the girl whose parents fretted wouldn't be able to speak and had been thrown out of five schools, was on her way to college, writing an essay of exactly 650 words about something that had fundamentally impacted her life did no justice for her nerves. Eurydice suggested that Amara write about her autism and everything she'd overcome throughout her life, but she had chickened out and decided to write about how her role as an older sister figure to a group of misfit kids – now teens – had helped her grow as an individual. She deemed it suitable enough.
But even without her college essay, Amara's senior year was quite busy. Between her increasing workload, her job at Family Video alongside Robin and Steve, and Mike, Lucas, and Dustin appointing her as their ride home from Hellfire Club meetings twice a week, she would've felt like she was drowning if it wasn't for the fact that her diligent schedule kept her grounded, preventing her from stewing over the summer's events. The trauma was still under the surface, but there was a fine line between being in touch with her emotions and going down the rabbit hole, and Amara was determined to stay balanced on that tightrope.
One Friday after school, Amara jotted down notes for her essay outline in the library as she waited for Robin to finish band practice. Nancy was sat across from her; she'd already finished her essay about how her love of journalism had impacted her life and was browsing through a college handbook, ahead of the game as always. Amara was especially grateful that her dating Steve hadn't created a rift between Nancy and herself; after Dustin had blurted out the news to everyone days earlier than Steve and Amara had planned, Nancy had expressed her happiness for them, mentioning that their getting together was "something she had seen coming for a long time."
