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Joyce has already learned that the world doesn't stop turning for anyone's loss, but Hawkins without Jim is just wrong. So this time, she runs.
She knew California would be good for them, and it is. California means no more of the same streets and the same storefronts and the same police station in the town where Joyce spent four decades of her life. In California she stops catching herself glancing over her shoulder, half expecting to see people who had always been there. In California Joyce gets El and Will and Jonathan registered at a new school. She interviews for a new job.
Will is taller than his mom now and he needs new jeans only a few months after the last pair, and while she's shopping for those Joyce spends too much of their budget on a new dress for El and justifies it because there's not enough things in the world making El Hopper smile these days, and deep down, maybe Joyce had always wanted another girl in the family.
Joyce is needed and that keeps her busy enough while the days slip by and tired enough by the end of them that she’s asleep every night not long after her head hits her pillow.
But in her dreams time loses its shape and she tastes cigarettes.
They’re seventeen again, playing hooky and sharing a pack of menthols behind the bleachers. With that omnipotence that comes with dreams Joyce knows that this is a memory from her Junior year, right before or about the time Hop first asked her out. It had been about three years since he'd shot up so goddamn tall and six months since he’d started really growing into all of that height. Jim is sitting just a bit closer to her than he ever did before and every inch of her skin is blazingly aware of the line of warmth that is coming from every part of him that's not-quite-touching her.
There's a feeling in her stomach that Joyce had forgot about, for years and years until just before the end, when it had come back. It's that blazing anticipation, nervous and optimistic, heart and stomach all full of fucking possibility every time she caught Hop's eyes and thought she knew what they both were thinking.
Joyce wakes up that morning feeling a bit sick and lays in bed until she can make her legs work again. Downstairs are the kids she loves more than anything in the world. Downstairs is her job, which she mostly hates but is lucky to have. Downstairs is her future, the one she still has left. So she gets up.
That day she gets some mail.