Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 18th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

Jackie’s blood sings as she darts up the field. Focus, she tells herself, squinting against the sun. 

Up ahead, she sees Taissa dribbling the ball between two nimble legs. A quick pass to Mari, who charges forward—until a flash of purple and white darts in. No! Another player, a girl smaller than Jackie, steals the ball clean from underneath Mari’s feet. 

The pulse of Jackie’s heartbeat increases its crescendo. “Nat—!” she shouts, but Natalie is already darting up from the rear. Then Shauna barrels in like a bull, all elbows and determination. There’s a thud, followed by a stumble when Shauna body-checks her. 

Did she mean to do that? Jackie never knows with Shauna. But the ball is free again, and Shauna is shooting her a grin that says, look, I fixed it. 

The roar of the crowd washes over her, and Jackie’s legs burn as she cuts diagonally across the field. Almost there. This is it, the final match. The one they’ve been talking about since freshman year. If she can do this—if they can do this—they would win it all. The Wiskayok High School girls’ soccer team would become undefeated national champions. She can taste it, can already see the banner hanging on the school’s front sign. The culmination of years of hard work and an impeccable senior year. 

Jackie loses sight of Shauna, but senses her still. 

She doesn’t need eyes in the back of her head to know that Shauna is hot on her trail; her face rigid, ready to snatch the ball away to return it to the capable feet of Nat, or Tai, or Mari. 

They’ve practiced this a million times. They’ve got this. 

Her lungs scream as she continues her mission. The burn is sweet, heady like red wine, like staying up all night at a sleepover. Her face splits into a shit-eating grin. 

“Tai! Tai!” Akilah’s call ripples through the air, sharp as a whistle. The wind carries it, catching tendrils of Jackie’s hair. It reminds her of Shauna’s gentle fingers. 

They arrived in Seattle four days ago. 

The flight was uneventful. Jackie had slipped a valium into the soft pillow of Shauna’s palm and grabbed another for herself, dropping it onto the blushing tip of her tongue. They fell asleep holding hands, snoring in hushed tones until Coach Martinez came to shake them awake. 

“Rise and shine, you two,” he’d said, rolling his eyes, and then moving down the aisle to do the same for Natalie and Lottie. 

The first game began the very next morning.

Jackie’s stomach churned all through warm-ups. Allie was none-the-wiser to Taissa’s harebrained scheme of sticking her on the sidelines, but Jackie knew the truth. Tensions still ran high, even now. Taissa was stiff and aloof, ignoring both Jackie and Laura Lee, who was the one to inform Jackie after discovering the plans herself. Under normal circumstances, Jackie would’ve marched up to Tai and told her exactly where she could shove her bad attitude. But this was Nationals, so, like… definitely not normal circumstances. This was everything. So she bit her tongue, swallowed her annoyance, all in the name of “leadership.” 

(Okay, fine—it was plain old selfishness. She wanted to win! Sue her.) 

They won that first game 3-0, and the tension between the girls melted away like snow down a hill. 

In the huddle, Tai’s eyes had met hers. There was no smile, no nod. Just a flicker of Okay, we’re good, and Jackie’s shoulders finally relaxed. 

Later that night, when they were back at their hotel, clinking their cans of cheap beer together, she caught sight of Taissa whispering an apology into Laura Lee’s ear. Quickly, like Tai was afraid someone would notice. Blink and you’d miss it, but Jackie didn’t miss much. Or so she liked to think, anyway. She watched them, sipping her beer, never saying a word. 

Things were perking up.

They breezed through games 2 and 3, both easy wins. By the semifinals, they were unstoppable. 

It all led to this moment, right here.

Jackie spins around, eyes blazing. She sees a shot—a way into the back of the net. Just like at state, she realizes. 

She skids to a stop, grass spraying under her cleats, and pivots to sprint at the center of the field. Coming up from the right is Taissa, with Mari a blur of motion somewhere to her left. 

She waves her fist like a madwoman, yelling. You can do this. If Taissa kicks it her way, it would take nothing to send it flying into the goal. Jackie was hopeless in trigonometry, but right now, she could feel the angles—the way the ball would arc, the sweet spot where her foot would connect. It was as though the universe was noticing her for the first time, handing her the answer sheet to life. She feels it in her bones. “Taissa!” she screams. “Taissa, over here! I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” 

Her eyes follow the tango of Taissa’s feet, hanging onto every moving inch, a smiling symbiote, preparing. 

Tai kicks, Jackie runs. The ball soars. 

Then—another flash of purple. An opposing midfielder, she realizes, from somewhere in the back of her mind. 

They battle, and Jackie loses. 

The girl tries to gain an edge over Jackie by leveraging her size advantage. She tries to dodge to the right, huffing a strand of hair away from her forehead. 

She’s met with an elbow to her face. Something cracks. 

Pain explodes. It’s bright and white.

Jackie goes down hard, throwing an arm out to try and catch her fall. 

Something cracks again, splits, and then tears. 

Shauna. May 18th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

Shauna can see Jackie’s bone.

It sticks out of her arm like a grotesque, fracturing tree branch, sixty-two degrees in the wrong direction, multiple inches of ugly, off-colored white. Was that her… tibia? No, no, that’s not right. Maybe it’s her radius. Shauna can’t recall even the most basic biology at the moment. Whatever. It doesn’t fucking matter right now, does it?

The ref’s whistle shrieks, but Shauna’s feet remain glued to the grass. It’s a good thing they pause the game, because she forgets about it entirely, abandoning the center forward she was supposed to be guarding. Fuck this game, fuck this game so hard. Her eyes dart around in search of any kind of medical professional, but there is only Misty Quigley dashing across the field, twin braids flapping in the air behind her.

And… fuck the league, too, for not having anyone better than Misty goddamn Quigley on site. Most of all, fuck the girl who would dare to throw an elbow into Jackie Taylor’s face. 

It’s that last thought that straightens her spine. Shauna can literally feel the muscles in her neck snap towards Jackie’s attacker; a compass needle pointing north. If anyone else were hurt, anyone but Jackie, Shauna might have noticed the look of distress on… that… on that bitch’s stupid, pale face.  

If it were anyone but Jackie, she might have even had a rational response. It was possible. And it’s not that she thinks Jackie can’t handle roughhousing on the field. Shauna knows she can. But this? Well. If only. Because Shauna is currently staring at the ivory broken beam of her best friend’s fucking arm. 

Shauna clenches her teeth. 

She is going to fucking kill her. Well—perhaps not that. Maybe she’ll just break her jaw, or something. 

The sun heats the jersey against her back, which is weirdly comforting. Means she’s dry, and that she won’t trip on the grass, which is very important if one is planning on starting a fight, after all. Not that Shauna ever did much planning when it came to that sort of thing. 

Now Shauna’s cleats dig into the turf. 

The girl, the offender, is standing a few feet away from Jackie with a grimace on her face, entirely unaware of Shauna approaching her from behind. Good, it will make the first punch really ring. Her hands curl into fists. She imagines the crack of her knuckles against jawbone. She also hears—

“Shauna, no!” Taissa. 

Natalie. “Dude, stop! You’ll get us disqualified!” 

Shauna ignores them. Like that mattered. Like anything matters except the white shard jutting out from Jackie’s arm. Fuck Nationals, and fuck Taissa and Natalie, too. 

Her plans are quickly being noticed. Distantly, she hears Coach Martinez yelling for her to stop, but it may as well have been a mosquito’s buzz for all the attention she pays him. Someone else is blowing a whistle, high and piercing and loud and constant. Probably one of the referees. Players from both teams swarm closer, buzzing like flies as they sense the beginnings of a brawl. 

She lifts her fist, hissing, “How fucking dare—”

A hand catches her wrist, long and slender fingered with tan lines where rings usually sat. Fuck this person, and fuck their stupid jewelry lines. Fuck it all. 

In the haze of her anger, she doesn’t recognize Lottie. 

Shauna turns like a wrecking ball, swinging fast, just sheer cold, killing metal. Natalie and Taissa lunge at her together, fucking traitors, rough hands curling into her jersey to try and pull her out of the way, before her instinctual punch can blotch Charlotte Matthew’s beautiful skin. 

“Get it the fuck together,” grunts Natalie, leaning back on her heels.

“Let. Go.” Shauna thrashes, close to punching her too, all of them even, because why shouldn’t she? She can see Jackie’s bones.

“Shauna, would you—just—my God, stop it!” Lottie grabs her by the biceps with an unexpected strength and digs in her nails, sharp as cat claws. “Shauna, you need to focus. This is stupid, just turn around! Jackie needs you. Look at her!”

Oh. Jackie.

Her face crumples and her fists drop to her sides. She forgets all about punching and spins around again. 

Jackie is lying on her back a few feet away, curled into herself like a crushed soda can. She’s crying those big belly sobs, the ones that wracked your entire chest and left your nose victim to an embarrassing amount of snot. Shauna knows that cry. She knows all of Jackie’s cries. This is the worst. 

She hates it. She hates it more than she hates all of the gawkers standing stupid around them. 

Tears blur her vision. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t—ah. Too late. A hot drop slides down her cheek. It’s as natural a response as the sharp gasp she sucks down into her lungs. 

Jackie’s arm is all wrong. The bone juts up, pale and waxy. There is blood on the grass, not much, but enough that Shauna knows it will stain her knees. She doesn’t care. 

“I’m here, Jax,” she says frantically, collapsing on the ground beside her. Jackie’s forehead is slick with dirt and sweat, hair matted to her temples. There is so much blood. “You’re gonna be okay. I’m here, I can hold your hand, and—and—and we’re going to get you to a doctor. Okay?” 

Jackie turns, her face blotchy and red. “Shauna,” she chokes. Her voice is split between a whine and a pant. “Shauna, my—my fucking arm!” She coughs the words out, thick and mottled like rotten fruit. 

Shauna’s throat goes tight. It twists her stomach to see the bone jutting up so unnaturally. What should be in, now poking out. She smooths a hand over the sweaty skin of Jackie’s forehead, and repeats dumbly, “I know, it hurts. I’m sorry, Jax, I’m right here. Everything is going to be okay.” 

“No, no, it’s not!” Jackie blubbers. “We almost had it, we—I almost had it.”

She can’t bring herself to care about the game in the slightest, but she knows Jackie does. Jackie always did, so much. 

“I know,” Shauna whispers. “You did so good, you were right there. You were amazing.” That much is true. “Coach sent Misty to get you some real help.”

Remembrance stirs in her belly. A few feet away, she sees her would-be victim. Her eyes narrow. Her rage flares up hot. Be scared, Shauna thinks, viciously. 

The girl looks away, frightened.

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 18th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

Listen.

Jackie isn’t some weak little princess who can’t take a hit. She knew people thought she was, with her ribbon-tied ponytails and carefully applied makeup, but that was a part she played with painstaking purpose. They were wrong. She’s an athlete, a varsity soccer player, and a grizzled veteran of contact sports. She’d taken cleats to the shin, elbows to her ribs. Getting knocked to the ground was practically routine. It sorta came with the territory. 

But this? This is like nothing she’s ever experienced. 

The midfielder’s elbow became a meteor as it collided with her bone just below her left eye, unleashing a blinding explosion of white light. Stars, she thinks dizzily, like the cartoons. For a moment, Jackie exists as a loony tune, with quacking little ducks running in circles over her head. Except these ducks aren’t cute. They’re twisted, hurt, squawking in pain. Jackie wails along with them; a beautiful and terrible symphony.

And then she’s spinning and twisting into a grotesque and unnatural crash. 

Instinctively, she tries to catch herself, but it’s much too late and she’s moving far too quickly. Her body collides violently onto the unforgiving earth. Her arm bends in the wrong direction—backwards. 

Bending is too kind a word. It implies something like slow motion. No, this is quick. Rapid, even. It is a snap, a break, it is bodily horror at its finest. The sound is crisp, like breaking a KitKat bar. 

It all happens in the blink of an eye and Jackie screams like an animal. 

She doesn’t quite realize the extent of her injuries at first. She tries to roll onto her side, to get up somehow. You need to stand. The game… The thought becomes unintelligible as it bumbles around her head, lost and drunk. 

She rolls, and then she faints. The pain is horrific. Darkness creeps at the edge of her vision like a bastardized form of unconsciousness, not cozy like sleep, but thick and oily instead, dragging her under.

Eventually, Jackie drifts awake again. Seconds later, maybe? Minutes? Time doesn’t seem to mean much right now. She vaguely recognizes the sound of other girls yelling and a whistle, too. Her head lolls to the side, left eye pulsing like she’d been punched. What the hell happened? Why does everything hurt? 

Then she sees her arm and the real agony begins. 

Every nerve ending from the tips of her fingers up to the rolling slope of her collarbone sizzles and crisps. She screams. It breaks and shatters in her mouth, flopping into the air as a terrible sob, a wrenching wail. She didn’t know she possessed the ability to make such a wounded sound. 

Tears blur her vision as she turns her head away into the grass, the blades scratching against her cheek. Just rip the entire arm off. Throw it away, she wants to scream. What did she even need a right arm for, anyway? (Quite a bit, unfortunately, on account of her being right-handed.) 

She blinks into the dirt, unable to do anything else, while the world spins around her, gravitating on some fucked up axis. 

Mari is the first to reach her. Misty is not far behind. “We’ve gotta put pressure on it!” Misty yells. 

Though she can hardly make sense of anything, Jackie still screeches in protest. “No, no, don’t touch me!” 

Her eyes flash feral and wide at Mari, who, bless her, lunges forward to hold Misty back, keeping her at a safe distance from Jackie’s poor, mangled arm. 

Coach Scott soon skids to his knees beside her. “Misty, go! Get the trainers, now!” He jabs a finger toward a distant building. “Go there to the trainer’s building, and hurry. Tell them to call an ambulance!” 

An ambulance? In between her hiccups and her sobs and her ugly snorts of snot, Jackie takes another peek at her arm, trying to better assess the damage. 

Someone is retching—is that her? Oh, yes. It is. 

Cleats pound around Jackie while she gags on her own saliva. It’s a sickening rhythm, set to the chaotic beat of stomping and shouting. So many people are yelling, but one voice manages to cut through the clamor. It’s Taissa, yelling for Shauna. 

Jackie is rather hysterical at the moment. Likely concussed. Certainly filled to the brim with adrenaline and cortisol and whatever other motley assortment of unpleasant brain chemicals. But Shauna’s name blooms through like sweet dopamine, a beautiful S-H-A-U-N-A. 

“Shauna,” she spits out, “I want Shauna.” Her words are slurred and stuttered. Her eyes dart between the forest of legs and feet that surround her, searching for her face.

Then, suddenly, a shadow looms, descending with a speed that she should be startled by, rather than comforted. Shauna’s knees appear before the rest of her and Jackie shudders out an agonized breath and gasps in relief. Such a strange, sadomasochistic sensation. Her muddled brain has a brief notion to kiss those knees, but the thought disappears as quickly as it arrived, because Shauna presses a hand to her forehead. 

It’s warm and rough, the only thing tethering her to consciousness. 

“Shauna,” she says in an unpleasant, whiny keen. “Shauna, my—my fucking arm!” 

Shauna says something in response, but Jackie can’t hear her words of comfort. The pounding of her heart is too loud, drowning out everything else. She takes another shuddering breath. Belatedly, she realizes that Shauna’s palm is pressed to her forehead, a comfort to her clammy skin, and leans into the touch, still blubbering about their near-win. 

“Oh my god, I can’t even look at it,” says someone. Jackie doesn’t recognize the voice. “Her bone —”

“Then close your fucking eyes!” Shauna snarls, spinning around with a nasty sneer on her face. “All of you—get the fuck away from her! Back up, right now!” 

It’s as though Shauna had read her mind. Jackie’s never minded being the center of attention, but all of the stares and whispers were beginning to overwhelm her. 

Once she’s satisfied with everyone’s retreat, Shauna turns back. Her face is red and splotchy, so concerned that it makes Jackie cry even more. 

“They’re coming, Jax. The ambulance is coming.” She leans forward to press a frantic kiss to Jackie’s sweaty hairline. Her lips tremble. “You’re gonna be fine. You hear me? Fine. Can you breathe for me?” 

And so she does. It’s difficult. She can’t stop gasping, and her tears still fall, but she tries her best. 

She doesn’t know how long it takes for help to arrive, but it does, eventually. The medics come rushing onto the field, shouting orders for everyone to back away. One of them tries to shoo Shauna away too, but when they see the angry snarl on her face, they allow her to remain there a little while longer.

The ambulance comes next. Two paramedics lift Jackie onto a stretcher. It tips her world sideways. She almost faints for the second time, and she screams—a raw, animal sound, guttural and thick—but it quickly disintegrates into a quiet sob. 

Jackie fixes her eyes on Shauna’s face. It’s smudged with dirt. 

“Breathe,” Shauna whispers again. 

It works. Sort of. It’s curious how the mere sound of her voice works to lessen Jackie’s pain. 

Shauna. May 18th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

“Shipman, what are you doing? The game isn’t over yet! You can’t just—”

“I don’t care!” Shauna spits, cutting Coach Martinez off mid-sentence. Her voice cracks, raw as her skinned knees. Over his shoulder, she can see Jackie’s stretcher being hefted into the back of the ambulance. The sight of it makes her feel like someone is yanking on her ribs with a pair of tongs. “I’m going to the hospital. Don’t stand in my way.” 

“Jackie is in good hands,” he says, frowning at her over the length of his clipboard. “The team needs you right now. There’s only a few more minutes left in the game.” 

Shauna stares past him, through him, as if he weren’t there. The team. And? So what. “Fuck the team,” she hisses. “Fuck you. Fuck all of this. I’m going with Jackie. You can try to stop me, but…” she shrugs, petulantly crossing her arms over her chest.

Normally, speaking like this to her coach would have landed her a one-way ticket to a suspension, even at this point of her senior year, but Coach Martinez must have a heart. He puts a hand on her shoulder. A mistake. Shauna jerks away, lips curling back into a sneer. Touch me again and I’ll bite, she thinks, reckless and wild. 

He sighs softly. “Don’t leave the game. Jackie wouldn’t want that. You should go out there and play. For her.”

Shauna laughs a bitter bark. “Then fuck Jackie too. I don’t care about the stupid game and I don’t care about what she wants.” What Jackie needs is more important, and she needs Shauna at her side. Not a stupid trophy. 

Taissa materializes beside her. She also reaches out to touch Shauna’s shoulder, achieving better results than Coach Martinez had. “Shauna, you heard the paramedics,” she says. “Only one person can ride in the ambulance, and it has to be Coach.” 

Shauna whirls around, more than happy to redirect her anger. “Then I’ll fucking run there. You think I won’t?” Her voice rises, growing shrill. “I am not going back into the game. Are you all deaf? Should I scream louder?” 

Coach Martinez and Taissa exchange a look, the sort adults shared when they thought a child was being dramatic. Shauna digs her nails into her palm and looks up at the sky. 

“Turner, I need you to step it up. With Jackie gone, I’m making you captain of the team,” says Coach. 

Taissa straightens up. “Really?” 

“You need to rally the other girls. It’s been a long year and everyone has put in so much work. I don’t want that to go to waste.” Coach fiddles with the brim of his visor, looking nervously out at the field. “We still have a chance to win this.” 

Taissa nods solemnly, looking for all the world like a fresh army recruit, eager to follow her sergeant’s orders. Shauna wants to knock the stupid, serious expression off of her face. She resists, but only just. 

Jackie was finally in the ambulance now, and this was Shauna’s last chance to catch her before they left for the hospital. Coach Martinez beckons over Coach Scott and shoves the clipboard into his arm, rushing out a quick series of instructions and directions. 

Shauna ducks past him and rushes toward the ambulance, her cleats digging into the dirt. 

“Shauna—” Jackie’s tears start again as soon as Shauna comes into view. Her good arm stretches out, fingers trembling. 

Shauna takes her hand, tenderly lacing their fingers like she’s done a thousand times before—after practice, during horror movies, walking into parties. “I won’t be able to ride with you, Jax, but I’ll be right behind you. I’m going to meet you there soon,” she promises, ignoring the pitying stare from the paramedic. “Swear on my life.” 

The medic clears his throat, stepping aside to let Coach Martinez climb in the back. “Time to go, kid.” 

Shauna lets go, after swiping her thumb under Jackie’s nose to wipe away the snot. Her skin is clammy, her lips chapped. She hates being messy, Shauna thinks, wiping her hand down the front of her jersey. “I’ll be there soon,” she whispers, as the ambulance doors slam shut in front of her face. 

Red and blue lights flash and fade away, leaving Shauna there with tears drying on her face. Clumsily, she wipes them away. 

Then, a new hand comes to rest on her shoulder. Not this again, she thinks, spinning around, ready to bite. 

Lottie doesn’t flinch. “Relax, I’m not here to stop you.” 

“Good, because if you were, then I would tell you to fuck off with the rest of them. I’m done playing.” 

The words surprise her. She realizes, suddenly, how true that really is. There would be no more soccer after this. She was done, this was the end. It did not end with a bang or a whimper, as the cliche goes, but with a snap, a crack, and a sob. 

“Shauna—” 

“I’m so fucking serious right now, Lot. I’m going to meet Jackie at the hospital. I’ll walk… or take the bus, or… I don’t know—fucking hitchhike or something.”

“Stop it. Would you just listen to me already?” Lottie yanks her into a hug and curls her fingernails into Shauna’s shoulder. Shauna stiffens, but then collapses and buries her face in Lottie’s hair, sinking into the tightly wrapped embrace. “I’ll get you a cab,” murmurs Lottie. Her breath is warm against Shauna’s ear. 

“With what money?” Shauna croaks. 

Natalie appears in front of them and she tosses a duffel bag at their feet. “Here. Go ahead and raid the bank.” 

The gesture is so kind that it staggers Shauna. Finally, she returns the hug, sliding her arms around Lottie’s waist and squeezing. “Oh my god, thank you, Lottie, thank you so much—”

They release each other and both kneel down next to the bag. After rifling around for a second, Lottie digs out an expensive looking leather wallet and shoves it into Shauna’s hand. 

“There should be plenty of cash in there, and a few of my dad’s credit cards. But don’t lose it,” she says, grinning. “All of my spending money for the whole month is in there.”

Shauna holds the wallet against her chest like it’s something holy. “I’ll guard it with my life.” 

It’s Natalie’s turn now to grab her by her shoulders. She hauls Shauna back to her feet and points off in the distance. “Phone booth is over there. You can go, we’ll handle it from here. Tell Jackie we’re going to win this stupid thing for her.” 

Shauna nods. “Thank you. And… sorry for leaving.” 

Except… I’m not sorry at all, she thinks, already running.

Natalie. May 18th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

The vibe amongst the team was off, to say the absolute fucking least. Jackie and Shauna were gone, and it’s as though they stole with them all the remaining enthusiasm. 

Nat watches Shauna bolt toward the phone booth with Lottie’s wallet clutched to her chest like a life preserver, and is reminded of why she was given the title of Fastest Person On The Team. 

“Nat! Lottie! Get over here!” Taissa barks, her captain’s voice ready and sharp, fresh out of the box. “Yellowjackets, gather ‘round!” 

They trudge back to the huddle, kicking up clumps of grass along the way. The team cloisters around Taissa, their faces a mess of panic and sweat. Van, in particular, looks like she’s chugged sour milk, with her cheeks tinged a nasty shade of green. Nat slaps her back half-heartedly. 

“Listen up,” Taissa begins, “I know today isn’t going as we planned. It’s been—”

“A disaster?” Mari cuts in, rolling her eyes. “No shit, it’s not going as planned. We don’t have Jackie, we don’t have Shauna, and you think we’re still going to pull this off?” 

Nat’s temper flares. “If you’ve got a better plan, Mari, we’re all waiting to hear it. Why don’t you—” 

“Hey,” Coach Scott says, frowning at them. “Relax, all of you.”

They collectively ignore him. 

Taissa presses her palms together like she’s reciting a Hail Mary, but most likely, she’s just trying not to scream. Despite her clear anxiety, Nat thinks the role of captain looks good on her. It fits her like a pair of brand new cleats: stiff at first, but perfect once broken in. Nat watches, begrudgingly impressed, as the wheels in her brain begin to spin. 

“Okay. Okay. Uh… Britt, Robin—you’re off the bench! Britt, you cover Shauna’s spot. Robin, take Jackie’s. We can still win this.” Taissa barks, jabbing a finger at two bench warming sophomores. “Okay, everyone, listen up. The plan is…” 

Taissa spills out her plan. Pass here, defend there. When she finishes, she leads them in a chant. Buzz, buzz, buzz, bitch. Nat mumbles it, her throat tight. Then they take the field with a newfound focus. 

In the end, it all still comes back to Jackie fucking Taylor. 

Somehow, they win. 

But they only do, because Allie—of all people—kicked in the winning goal. Allie, who Taissa tried to bench. Allie, who was only here because Jackie made sure that she was. Allie, smacking the ball into the net. Jackie was stuck somewhere in an ambulance, she wasn’t even here. And she’s still the reason we won. 

Nationals, fucking Nationals. 

Nat bends over, hand on her knees, gasping as her teammates cheer around her. Her lungs burn, her ponytail clings to her neck like a wet snake, and she laughs.

Victory belongs to the Wiskayok High School Yellowjackets. Undefeated triumphants, and the best damn soccer team in the entire United States. 

The fucking irony of it all, man. 

Chapter Text

Shauna. May 18th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

It is not until she finds herself face-to-face with the pay phone that Shauna thinks her plan may have been ill-conceived. First: she has no idea what hospital Jackie’s being taken to. Second: she doesn’t know the phone number of a single cab company. It’s not like she’s ever been to Seattle before. 

Ordinarily, she’s quick-witted, but she’s running a deficit today. It’s left her slow and sluggish, unable to think on her feet. 

Her fingers tremble as she drops the phone receiver, leaving it to dangle uselessly from its cord. The crisp air meets her cheeks when she exits the booth in search of the trainer’s building that Coach Scott had mentioned earlier. 

Her initial surge of adrenaline is beginning to recede, leaving her with an impossible weariness. Her knees wobble with every step, threatening to buckle, and her breathing comes out shaky and shallow. Still, she marches on through the trainer’s door with a resolute purpose.

It takes some strong-arming and a performative bout of tearful crying, but eventually, Shauna is able to coax out the answers she needs. (Although, “strong-arming” may be a bit of an over-exaggeration. In actuality, she just snaps at a bewildered university student until he goes to retrieve his supervisor.) 

Fifteen minutes later, she is back inside the phone booth, dialing a number scribbled on a scrap of paper. 

Then comes an excruciating wait. Shauna sits on a conveniently placed bench that sits perfectly halfway between the parking lot and the athletic complex, where she can hear her teammates still playing. Her neck swivels back and forth, torn between watching the game (which is what Jackie would want, right?) and fleeing the scene entirely. Tension gnaws at her as she sits, looking back and forth, and then forth and back, picking at the wood beneath her legs. 

She doesn’t care that it might give her a splinter.

At last, the taxi arrives. The driver inside looks roughly her father’s age, though there is a gentleness in his eyes that her dad never possessed. He clearly sees the blood staining her knees, but doesn’t comment on it, instead listening quietly as she names the hospital Jackie’s going to. When he opens the back door for her, there is a placating smile on his face. She wonders if it’s pity, or genuine kindness she sees there.

They set off through the city streets and Shauna chews her cheeks raw the whole time. The sweat on her thighs makes her legs stick to the leather seat, which is probably for the best, because she thinks, absurdly, that she might float out of the window, carried away by her exhaustion and her worry, if not for the sticky anchor.

Twenty minutes of thick traffic later, they pull up to the front of the hospital. The desperate flutter starts up again in Shauna’s chest. 

The driver parks the car and comes around to open her door again. Lottie’s wallet is clenched in her hands, and she fumbles it open, rummaging for a crumpled bill. “Thank you, er, for driving so fast,” she manages. 

He smiles. “Of course, it was no problem.”

She thrusts a wad of cash toward him, ready to bolt through the hospital doors, unable to bear another moment of delay. 

He flips through the money with the practiced motions of someone who has done this a thousand times, and then hands her back a ten-dollar bill. She tilts her head, confused, her mouth already forming a question. 

“A discount, because of the traffic,” he explains gently, giving a vague wave of his hand. His eyes shift toward the hospital doors behind her, lingering just long enough for her to catch notice. “I have a daughter around your age, she also plays sports. I don’t know what is going on, but I hope everything is okay.” He smiles, all teeth and gums and wrinkles on the corners of his mouth.

Despite everything, Shauna feels a small knot of warmth unravel in her chest. “No, you should keep it,” she blurts, unthinking. 

It’s Lottie’s money, not hers, and yet she’s sure Lottie won’t mind. There is still plenty left stuffed between the wallet’s folds. Anyway, taking a discount for getting stuck in traffic (something entirely expected) does not seem right. 

“I won’t take it,” the driver responds, still smiling. He pockets the amount he deems fair and opens his own door. He climbs inside and leans through the window. “Buy yourself something to eat, and take care. As-salamu alaykum.” 

He waves, and then the taxi glides away, merging into the whir of traffic. 

Shauna does not understand the words he offered her, but she feels the kindness behind them. She waves after him until the taillights disappear from view. Then she remembers Jackie and her mission resumes. She rushes into the hospital.

Across the polished floors, her eyes quickly locate the receptionist’s desk. 

“Uhm, excuse me—I don’t know if this is the right place, but, uh, I’m—”

“Shauna, is that you?”

She recognizes that voice. 

Coach Martinez stands from a cheap cushioned chair and crosses the waiting room, his features shuttered and drawn. He moves towards her, frowning. Not with surprise, but rather the resigned look of someone who saw this coming. And so, when he speaks, his voice is edged, but subdued. “I thought I told you to stay with the team, Shipman.” 

“And I thought I told you to fuck off, Coach.” The words spit out, a clear and reflexive challenge, but they lack her previous bite. She’s too sad to be properly angry. 

Coach Martinez regards her in silence for a minute, his expression caught somewhere between impatience and pity. Then he sighs, dropping his gaze to the visor clutched in his hands. “Between this, and whatever the hell you were trying to pull on the field, you and I are going to have a talk later. But right now… well, you’re already here.” His shoulders roll, like he’s trying to shift a weight. “We’ll do it another time. Go on and sit down. We’re going to be waiting here for a while.”

A flurry of questions fill her mind, squawking madly. 

What room is Jackie in? Is she still crying from the pain? Have the doctors taken a look at her arm yet? Has she been asking for Shauna?

Are her bones still out? 

These questions revolve in grisly orbit on an endless carousel of anxiety. 

Half-stumbling, half-flopping, Shauna drops into the seat next to Coach. He sits beside her, letting out a small grunt from the great effort of moving. 

“Have you called her parents yet?” Shauna asks at last, her eyes fixed on the corridor beyond, where nurses and doctors move briskly in scrubs and white coats. 

Coach raises an eyebrow, as though she’d asked if the sky was blue, or something equally as obvious. “Of course I called her parents. They’re checking flights now—they’ll come up first thing tomorrow morning.” 

That catches Shauna off guard. “Wait… she’s not flying back with us?” 

He shrugs wearily. “You saw… you saw how it looked. She’s going to need surgery. It’s a lot more than a splint-and-painkillers kind of thing. I’m going to stay here until her parents arrive, but you and the rest of the team will fly back to New Jersey tomorrow. She’s going to be here for a little while.” 

“How long is a little while?” she presses.

Not that the answer matters. Shauna’s mind is already twisting itself into new plans: how to persuade her mom into letting her stay, how to scrape together enough for money for a night in a motel, and most importantly, how to sneak around hospital visiting hours so she can stay at Jackie’s side as long as possible. Stupid fucking rules.

Coach only shrugs. “Don’t know yet. She’s only been back there an hour. We’ll learn more when she’s out of surgery, but she’s in expert hands. I promise.”

Expert hands. Shauna is more than a little skeptical. She highly doubts Coach has any real idea which hospitals in Seattle are best or worst. But she says nothing, too preoccupied with the unspoken weight latched to her chest. She looks down at her dirty, bloody nails and sighs. 

Ten long, torturous minutes slip by. Shauna endures them for as long as she can, until she suddenly cannot bear another second. She jumps from her seat. Coach looks up at her, brow furrowed at her abrupt movement. 

“I’m going to call my mom,” she declares. “Do you know where the phones are?” 

Coach answers by lifting his visor, pointing it in a vague wave towards a row of pay phones. They’re old, practically relics, painted in a faded baby-blue. Thank you, Lottie, she thinks, as she slides two quarters into the machine. 

Mom, please be home. 

It’s Saturday, which means it’s a night-shift day. There’s still a chance Shauna can catch her. How many hours separate Washington from New Jersey? Three? Four? She can’t remember, her mind is too crowded. 

The loose, chapped skin on her bottom lip nags at her attention. She chews at the flaking piece, listening to the ringing of the phone. Once… twice… three times. She sighs, bracing for the voicemail. Then, miraculously: 

“Hello?” 

Deborah Shipman’s voice is crisp and alert, not yet strained with the weary weight of a twelve-hour shift. At the sound of her mother, a sharp relief rushes through Shauna. It nearly buckles her knees. She grips the phone more tightly and tries to steady herself. 

“Mom?” she manages. There is a tremor in the syllable, a clear crack of composure. 

“Shauna? Is that you?” A rustling follows, and Shauna imagines her mother moving around their small kitchen, trailing the phone cord past the island, dragging a stool closer so she can sit while she talks. “I wasn’t expecting you to call. How’s the tournament going?” 

“It’s… I—” Her voice breaks. It’s this shaky, watery thing. 

Deb notices immediately. Her voice sobers, dropping an octave lower. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

“Yes, I’m okay, but…” she swallows. “Jackie got hurt. Like, really bad.” 

A hush settles on the other end. “Oh,” Deb breathes, her worry immediate. “Oh, sweetie, no. What happened? Is she alright?” 

Shauna, at heart, is like every other teenager. Day-to-day, she bristles over her mother’s questions, more irritated with her than not. She keeps her secrets and offers her half-truths, guarding everything else behind a teenage veil of surly standoffishness. She forgets, sometimes, that her mother is more than a caretaker, more than a shadow in the house. (She’s still too young to recognize her mother as a fully-fledged person.) But here and now, hearing Deb’s worried voice, Shauna surrenders and lets it wrap around her. 

“I don’t know,” she says at last, and the words crash against the receiver as a clumsy sob. “It’s bad. She—she broke her arm, and it was… it was bent backwards. I—I could see her bones, Mom. We had to call an ambulance and everything.” 

Deb inhales sharply. “That’s horrible news. Oh, my poor sweet Jackie.” 

Shauna knows her mother’s love for Jackie runs as deep as it does for herself. (Sometimes, she even worries that Deb loves Jackie more, just like everyone else does.) 

“She was crying so much,” Shauna murmurs, closing her eyes and seeing it all over again. “Like, basically screaming. It was awful.”

“Have your coaches called Mr. and Mrs. Taylor yet?” 

“Coach Martinez said he did,” She brings a trembling hand to the nape of her neck and grips, pressing cool fingertips against the downy wisps of her baby-hair. “She’s not going to be able to fly back with us tomorrow.” 

“That doesn’t surprise me,” says Deb, quietly. “With that kind of injury, she’s probably going to need surgery. Did she hit her head?” 

Shauna’s brow creases as she tries to recall the awful moment. “Maybe? It all happened so fast. I—I can’t remember. But, probably, yeah. She hit the ground so hard, but… I was more focused on her arm.” 

Her mind conjures the image again: the unnatural bend and bright flash of bone. She tries to pause the memory, frame-by-frame, to see if Jackie hit her head, but it’s blurry. She can only see the bone, the very foundation of her best friend on display for everyone to see. 

“It’s okay, the doctors will know to check for that,” Deb says quietly. “Are you at the hospital? Is anyone with you?”

Shauna reflexively shakes her head, though her mom isn’t able to see. “Coach Martinez is here with me. I, uh… left the game after Jackie was hurt. I couldn’t keep playing. Does that make you mad?” 

A faint sigh echoes across the line, tinged with wry amusement. “No, I’m not mad. I just hate that I can’t be there with you both.” A pause. Shauna hears the ache in her voice. “Will you please tell Jackie I love her and that I’m thinking about her? Promise her that I’ll make her favorite dinner when she’s back home.” 

“I will,” Shauna whispers, unable to say anything else. She breathes softly into the receiver, comforted from knowing her mother is worrying with her. 

“I’ve got to head in for work,” Deb continues, her regret audible, “but call the hospital if you learn anything more. Janet is at the phone desk tonight. I’ll let her know to expect you.”

“Yeah, okay, I will.” Shauna’s answer is hardly louder than a ghost moving in the wind. 

“I love you, Shauna. I’m so sorry this happened. And please, let Jackie know that I want to be the first to sign her cast. Even before you.” 

A soft laugh escapes her, thickened by tears she can no longer hold back. “I’ll tell her. I love you too, Mom.”

Hours pass. 

At some point, Coach Martinez rises from his seat, muttering something about making a call to Coach Scott to let him know which hospital they’re at. 

Shauna watches him walk away. 

The melancholy that pangs her when he’s gone is unexpected. After all, she’s never been one of his favorites, and the feeling was mutual. He praised her speed, yes, acknowledging the raw skill she brought to the team, but he’s never tried to make her feel special like he does with Taissa or Jackie. And certainly not Natalie, who, despite all of her missed practices, still manages to hold a soft spot in his regard. Nevertheless, his presence has been comforting. 

Now, she’s alone, and it feels like it.

Inevitably, her thoughts veer back to Jackie. 

Briefly, she tries to push it aside, but the memory of Jackie’s injury returns with an unrelenting force. It’s an awful film reel that plays over and over—the ugly twist of her arm, the sandpaper shred of her shriek, and the milky-white glimpse of her splintered skeleton. Shauna winces as though the memory itself physically stings. 

She cannot bear to think of it. She also cannot stop thinking of it.

She wonders what Mr. and Mrs. Taylor think about it. She’s never liked them much, despite knowing them for most of her life. They were so hypercritical, so rigid, so unable to appreciate the person their daughter was, how good she is. They were lucky to have her, and they refused to see it. 

(You, too, says a small voice in her head. You’re lucky too, you hypocrite. The thought burns like acid.)

Mrs. Taylor, in particular, was the harshest critic, always looming over Jackie’s shoulder, leering at her choices like some fucked up Geppetto. Would they treat her like a wounded doll? The idea makes her stomach twist. 

Shauna picks at her nails, waiting, waiting, waiting. 

Coach Martinez eventually appears again. 

He returns with a new brightness that jars Shauna out of her spiraling thoughts. He’s grinning ear-to-ear, and she notices he has a king-sized Snickers bar in his hand. He tears the wrapper off and snaps the bar in two. She frowns at him when he passes her one half, mistrusting this sudden good cheer. 

It’s wrong, strange, and out-of-place in a moment like this. 

She takes the candy, but does not eat it right away. 

“They did it, Shipman,” he says, lowering himself back into the same chair. His solemn mood has become a relic of the past. “They won. By one single goal, right at the end. We did it. We’re National champions.” 

She sits there, chocolate in her hand, uncertain how to react. 

At least she would have good news for Jackie once she was out of surgery. Shauna is happy about their victory, sorta, but mostly because she knows she has to be. They worked for this all year, it’s great that they’re finally reaping their reward. But… 

Was it worth Jackie’s arm? Was it worth hearing her awful screams? 

Shauna chomps down on the Snickers bar, hearing the faint echoing crunch of Jackie’s snapped elbow as she bites into its nougat center. 

Shauna hears the team before she sees them: a clamor of foot-steps, half-laughs, and triumphant chatter ricocheting down the corridor. 

It’s Taissa that rings the loudest, commanding and breathless still from the game, assured as she says, “I think the waiting room is this way, you guys. Come on.” 

The rumble draws nearer. The conversations mingle and overlap. Shauna can only pick out stray fragments. 

“Dude, did you see their faces at the end? I think number ten wanted to bite off Allie’s face.” 

“Ha, I wish they would have tried. Shipman isn’t the only one up for a fight.” 

“Lottie, can I use your mascara? I think I left mine on the plane.” 

“I bet Jackie’s going to be pissed about having to miss the victory banquet.” 

“Quiet, you don’t want Shauna to hear you say that.”

They materialize around the corner in a swirl of blue and gold, Lottie and Taissa at the forefront, radiating confidence. Shauna lifts the wallet in her hand and waves it to beckon them over. 

At the same time, Coach Martinez springs up beside her, arms flung wide as he cheers. (Who fucking cheers in a hospital waiting room?)

“Look who it is! It’s the 1996 National Champions!” he crows loudly. The grin on his face is almost manic with joy. “I’m so proud of all of you girls.” 

A cheer ripples through part of the group, and Shauna notes who joins in—who, in their rude thoughtlessness, seems to forget that Jackie isn’t here, that she’s in pain somewhere. The surge of rage within her is sudden, potent, but she manages to reign it in before any words emerge. She wants to spit out something mean, but she can’t think of anything to say, so her mouth closes on nothing. 

Lottie, always perceptive, breaks from Taissa and approaches Shauna, moving with a soft grace to take back her wallet. 

“Thank you,” Shauna whispers, passing it back to her with a quiet urgency. “Really, I—just… Thank you, Lot. And also, uh, congrats on the win.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that.” Lottie floats down onto the chair next to her. She places the wallet in her lap, then lightly takes Shauna’s hand in her own. “Honestly, it’s Allie you should be thanking. She’s the one who scored the final goal. But if you want to thank me for the rest, you can. But I don’t think you should. It wasn’t a problem.” 

Every part of Shauna’s body is still fraught with tension, and the celebratory chatter filling the room only grates at her even more. But she can’t contain the slight, incredulous lift of her brow. “Really? Allie made the shot? Oh, Jackie’s gonna hate that. A freshman…” 

“Will she?” Lottie retorts mildly. “If anything, it’s because of Jackie that Allie is even here. And it’s Allie’s doing that we won.” 

Shauna looks away. Shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

Lottie squeezes her hand, mercifully shifting the topic. “Have you heard anything?” 

“Not yet.” Shauna glares disdainfully at the receptionist’s desk. She’s been up there countless times fruitlessly seeking information. “All I know is she’s still in surgery. She’s not going to be on the flight back tomorrow.” (Shauna does not mention that she also has no intention of boarding that plane.) 

Lottie leans back, her expression darkening as she surveys the waiting room. Her nose wrinkles, as though the room stinks, but she’s the only one who can smell it. “I don’t like Jackie being stuck here. I hate hospitals.”

“Me too.” About Jackie, she means. In truth, Shauna quite likes the hospital. She practically grew up in one, after all. 

A faint stain of smeared orange-brown on her knee draws her focus. A moment passes before she realizes she’s looking at Jackie’s blood, dried now, a souvenir. She lifts a fingertip, almost absently, to brush along it. She feels Lottie’s gaze upon her. 

“Do you want me to stay here with you?” 

Lottie's voice, so gentle, makes Shauna blink with surprise. For the second time today, she is startled by the kindness of Lottie Matthews.

Shauna regards her with unguarded gratitude. Lottie’s always been among her favorites—weird, strangely intuitive, but unwaveringly kind, until she decided you didn’t deserve it. Perhaps protective is the better word. 

“No,” Shauna says. “It’s okay. You should go to the banquet with everyone else. But—I really do appreciate you offering.” 

And Lottie must hear the sincerity ringing in her voice, because she smiles back softly. They sit together in a companionable hush. It’s more comforting than Coach Martinez’s presence ever was. 

Glancing at the others, Shauna watches Van flail her arms in a theatrical retelling of their moment of victory, before looking back. Well, while she has the time… 

“So,” she says, leaning closer. “Jackie’s going to wake up sooner or later, and she’ll want to know every detail she missed. I already know she’s gonna be pissed at me for blowing off the game, but maybe she’ll forgive me if I can give her a decent play-by-play. Will you tell me what happened?” 

Lottie’s laugh spills across her ears. She squeezes Shauna’s hand again. “Yeah, sure. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Hey,” says Taissa, now occupying the spot Lottie left vacant when she went off to follow Laura Lee in search of a vending machine. “So, I guess you won’t be making an appearance at the banquet?” 

“No.” She smooths her tongue along the chewed up inside of her cheek. “Fuck the banquet.” 

Taissa snorts. It’s a sharp noise that burrows under Shauna’s skin. “Yeah, I gathered as much. So you’ve been saying, all day long.”

A flush of defensiveness grips Shauna. She stiffens in her seat. “Look, I’m sorry for walking off the field in the middle of the game. I just—”

But Taissa cuts across her, coolly waving off the apology. “Shauna, I get it. It’s Jackie. I don’t blame you for that. It’s just… it’s that stunt you pulled afterward, trying to beat up that girl on the field? You almost sank the entire game for us. What the hell were you thinking?” 

Shauna frowns, feeling an irritated heat creeping up the back of her neck. She touches her fingertips to the prickling spot, trying to tamp it down. “What was I thinking? I don’t know—I guess I was thinking that I wanted to hit her. That’s all.”

Taissa frowns right back. “It was an accident. Remember those? They happen sometimes, especially in this sport. She didn’t do it on purpose.” 

Shauna glares at her like she’s trying to drill a hole through the side of her face. “Did you see Jackie’s fucking arm, Tai? It sure looked on purpose to me.” 

“It wasn’t,” Taissa insists. “It was an accident! A horrible one, yeah, but still an accident. I mean, did you even notice the girl afterwards? She was crying on the sidelines. She didn’t even play the rest of the game.” 

A shrug from Shauna, hollow and dismissive. “Whatever. I didn’t even get to hit her, anyway. No harm done.” 

“Yeah, you’re welcome for that, by the way,” Taissa says dryly. Then she smiles, tone shifting to something more conversational. “Anyway, at least we won. That counts for something, right?”

Shauna thinks of Jackie, who would absolutely insist that, yes, it counts. “Sure, Tai. It counts,” she mutters, glaring at the floor. 

Taissa leans over the armrest and bumps their shoulders together. Shauna catches the mingled smell of sweat and perfume, something warm and human that brings a smile to her lips. She doesn’t pull away.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come back to the hotel with us?” Taissa presses, arching a brow. “We’re leaving soon to get ready for the banquet. You don’t have to come out to celebrate, but it might make you feel better to get into a new pair of clothes. Or to have a shower?” She leans in, inhaling exaggeratedly and then wrinkles her nose in false-disgust. “You kind of stink.” 

Shauna gives a humorless little laugh. She understands and appreciates what Taissa is trying to do, but it’s a waste of her breath. “I’m staying. I want to see Jackie when she’s out of surgery.” 

“It could be hours,” Taissa says. 

“Then I’ll wait.” 

“And if visiting hours end?” 

“Then I’ll figure something out, or go back to the hotel,” says Shauna, tired. “But that’s for later. I’m not leaving. You guys go and have fun, though. Take a lot of pictures. Jackie’s gonna want to put them in her end-of-year scrapbook.”

Taissa chuckles and rises from the chair, brushing her hair out of her face. “Yeah, you’re right. She’ll kill us if we don’t at least take a group picture. I’ll make sure Lottie brings her camera. We’ll take so many, it’ll feel like you were there with us.”

Shauna’s answering smile is thin, but warm. “Sounds good. I’ll see you later.” 

With a small jerk of her chin, Taissa turns to face the rest of the team. “Alright, are you guys ready? We need to get back to the hotel. It’s almost banquet time!” 

A swell of excited chatter rises. Coach Scott, at the first sign of movement, stands up. “I’ll go tell the bus driver we’re about to leave,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads out of the waiting room. 

Lottie materializes just then with Natalie in tow. There is so much sympathy pouring out of the brown of her eyes. Shauna wants to avert her face. If it were anyone else, she’d be rankled, but because it’s Lottie, she keeps quiet, sitting in her discomfort. 

“Tell Jackie we love her,” Lottie says, “and that our team picture definitely won’t look as hot with her not in it.” 

Nat scoffs, half-laughing. “Speak for yourself, Lot, I plan on looking great. But, yeah Shipman—tell Jackie we miss her. We’ll miss you too.”

Shauna stands up and opens her arms. Lottie and Natalie each lean in for a brief hug that breathes some warmth back into her. 

“Thanks, you guys.” 

“See you at the hotel later?” Nat asks, stepping back. “You’ve had a fucking day, Shipman, so I’ll make sure to save a joint for you.” 

“Yeah, sure,” Shauna says, more enthusiastically than she really feels. “I’ll come by later. In the meantime, I’ll just be here… spending a lot of quality time with Coach Martinez.” 

Lottie laughs. “Sounds like a riot. You crazy kids have fun.” Then she hugs Shauna again quickly and ushers Natalie away. 

Shauna watches them go. Then she sinks back down into her chair. Coach comes back too. They meet each other’s gaze. Neither of them, it seems, are particularly enthused about this forced quality time. Strangely, the mutual discomfort helps steady her. They turn away from each other. 

Shauna looks down at her nails again, picks, and waits.

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 19th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

Jackie wakes up from a medicated sleep at exactly 4:44 in the morning. 

She blinks in confusion, and then notices the clock on the wall. It’s one of those digital ones, with big red numbers that stare back at her. The triple fours hold her gaze. She stares until the last digit flips to a 5. 

How long has it been since the nurse first slipped the anesthetic mask over her face? It feels like no time has passed at all. Logically, she knows that isn’t true. The sun was shining when she arrived, but now she can only see moonlight sneaking through the cracks of the polyester hospital curtains.

She had to have been unconscious for hours. 

The thought sinks down low, to the benthic zone of her gut, where it situates itself among the bile and acid like a crayfish in mud. 

The game. Everything comes rushing back. She mourns over the memory like a widow weeping above a grave. 

The crowd, their cheers. The burn in her legs from muscles working perfectly hard. She remembers the sloping trajectory of the ball, how it fell just so, right in front of her feet. She was going to win the game. It had been right there, inches away. And then… 

Then came everything else. 

Jackie’s lips fall open as she recalls explosions and floating ducks and boiling pain burning her arm from fingertip to shoulder. Her heart beats fast in her chest. She tenses, hearing a sudden beeping grow louder and faster. 

The heart monitor. 

She glares at it, like it’s tattling on her, as though this were some idiotic comedy movie. It’s an audio manifestation of her anxiety. All she can do is lie there, listening to the beep-beep-beep, wishing she were back on the field, or in her own bedroom, anywhere but where, with only the moon and a glowing red clock for company. 

Suddenly, she remembers the long list of injuries the doctors rambled off when she was still half out of it. A Grade 3A olecranon fracture, a hairline fracture in her orbital bone, and a minor concussion to boot. The doctor had listed them to her in a detached, almost bored voice, going on about X-rays as the nurses wired her up to machines. At the time, she’d been more focused on the fact that her arm felt like it was on fire, and when she might get some medication. 

(Anesthesia is a hell of a drug, if you didn’t know. She passed out in less than a second.)

Jackie closes her eyes and shutters herself away to a safer kind of darkness. 

There is a wobble in her throat, a teetering, as though she’s fumbling on a balance-beam. Except, she only has one arm to steady herself. The other is trapped in a thick plaster prison, trapped to her side. The realization hurts, landing right in her throat.

Jackie chokes on it. 

She can’t help but break into tears. They’re hot and salty, slipping down the sides of her cheeks, and she presses a fist to her mouth, biting down on her knuckles just to keep from wailing. But it’s pointless. Trying to hold back her sob feels like using duct tape to stop a break in a dam.

It spills out anyway, rolling up her throat like vomit to spew up between her fingers into the darkness of the room. 

Why did this have to happen? And more specifically, why did this have to happen to her? What had she ever done to deserve a ruined arm, a messed-up final game, and this stupid hospital bed? Had she asked for too much? Did she want too much? 

(Of course you did. You always want too much. You should learn how to settle.)

Even thousands of miles away, Jackie can hear her mom’s nagging voice, pinching at her sides until she’s reticent and ashamed.

And… It's, like, the most annoying thing ever, because of course Jackie knows how to settle. It’s what her entire life has been about! Settling is Jeff and his poking fingers, it was eating pizza but not the crust, it was fucking Rutgers and Omega Phi Alpha, it was two-point-five kids and a picket fence. It was… well, it was everything. 

Jackie hates crying. 

She keeps trying to swallow it all back, keeps wishing she could suck her tears back into their ducts, but they keep rolling and shuddering through her chest, making her nose run and pulling her breaths out in jerky increments. She tries to stop, but it’s as much a failure as the soccer game was.

So she lies there, heart monitor beeping, breathing all ragged, with tears blurring her eyes. 

Jackie always settled, always went along with someone else’s plan. 

There were only two things she ever dared claim for herself, and now she’s gone and ruined one of them. 

She used to feel comfort in knowing she would always have high school soccer to look back on with shining pride. (Her glory days, if she’s being truthful with herself.) No matter what her life shaped out to be, at least she would have those memories: ponytails tied with blue scrunchies, lockers decorated in team colors, the wild laughter and leaping into sweaty piles of people after a big win. Buzz, buzz, buzz. 

But now, as she turns to look at the white plaster of her cast, she knows it is finished. Soccer is over. And she is left, quite literally, broken over it. 

The only other thing Jackie never settles about—never, ever—is Shauna Shipman. 

Jeff? He was merely a necessary ornament, an add-on in her story, garnish, for show. Pizza with no crust? That was a healthy sacrifice, and it would keep her figure slim, besides. Rutgers and a sorority were predetermined expectations, as set in stone as her own last name, as inevitable as two kids and a picket fence. Her parents wrote Jackie’s story before she knew how to read. Nevertheless, she dots her I’s with the round shape of a soccer ball, and Shauna’s name has been written thousands of times into the margins with Jackie’s own handwriting. (S-H-A-U-N-A.) 

Just thinking of Shauna makes her tears fall even faster. She’s… so alone right now. It makes her feel stupid and pathetic. Deep down, she knows Shauna is somewhere nearby. She has to be, right?

Jackie never settles with Shauna. 

Shauna is a beautiful mirror, her counterpart, something needed and wanted in equal measure. Shauna gives Jackie the bigger scoop of ice cream, and because of her, Rutgers has become a fantasy of pink and green, of twin beds in a dorm room pushed together to make one. She thinks she might even love her two-point-five kids, thinks she’ll kiss them on their cheeks every day, so long as her picket fence was nestled right next to Shauna’s. 

Jackie forces her eyes away from her broken arm, chased by the ghost of scorching pain and cracking bone. It’s harder to keep them open than to shut them so eventually she gives in. 

Hiccuping, a new wave of tears streaks down her face.

Where is Shauna right now? 

Is she here, in the hospital somewhere? Jackie pictures her in a waiting room, curled up in a chair with her knees to her chest. Perhaps wearing Jackie’s hoodie? Or—maybe she’s already back at the hotel, sleeping alone in their shared room. 

That one doesn’t sit right. It’s all wrong, like stale shrimp and spoiled milk, all at once, making her stomach twist. 

No, no, Shauna must be here, somewhere. She has to be. 

Jackie believes this as surely as she believes the sun will rise tomorrow. 

It brings her just enough comfort to let her drift back to sleep.

It is exactly 8:02 in the morning when Jackie opens her eyes again. 

The first thing she does is groan. “Ugh, what the fuck.” It comes out hissing, like air escaping from a tire. 

She must have been drugged up to hell last time she woke up, because now, everything hurts. Her arm throbs in this slow, pounding beat. And even though her eye isn’t throbbing, exactly, she feels a deep ache, a slow press against her brain-flesh. 

“Jackie,” she hears her own name spoken like a prayer, soft and sweet. 

She knows that voice. Her eyes snap open, and despite her pain, her stomach flips with relief. “Shauna,” she croaks. “Shauna, I need drugs. Like, right now.” 

That isn’t what she meant to say, but it’s true, so she lets it stand. Everything hurts. She tries to smile, but she’s pretty sure it comes out like a grimace. Shauna’s eyes go comically wide, and Jackie thinks it’s so cute, and she would tell her so, if only her arm didn’t feel like it was resting on top of a stove.

“There’s a button—” Shauna says, leaping up from her chair. It makes this awful squeaking noise as she shoves it back, and Jackie tries not to cringe (her face can’t handle such a movement). “Hang on, I’ll do it.” 

Shauna leans over her, making a canopy of dark brown hair, of blue and gold, of grass stations and ruddy elbows. Jackie takes a good, long look. Her ponytail is disheveled. Dozens of stray strands have escaped to frame her face. How long has she been sitting around in her uniform? Jackie watches as Shauna presses a button on the IV pump. There’s a clicking noise, and then—

Ah. 

“Oh God,” Jackie breathes, eyes fluttering shut. “Fuck, I think I love drugs now.”

“Are you… are you in a lot of pain?” Shauna settles back into her chair, scooting close enough to tap her knees against the side of Jackie’s hospital bed. Her eyes dart down to Jackie’s cast, widening, as though she can’t believe how thick it is. 

“Well, it’s not just a little pain, that’s for sure,” Jackie replies, shrugging with her good shoulder. “But the drugs really are helping a lot.” She’s half-inclined to ask Shauna to press that button a second time.

Shauna’s voice gets all shaky. “I was so worried about you. Seeing you hit the ground like that… it was, like, the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.” 

She reaches out with gentle fingers that barely graze Jackie’s hand, almost as though she’s afraid that even the slightest pressure might hurt. Jackie turns her palm up, nestles Shauna’s fingers into her own, and squeezes. The medication is beginning to take effect and her pain starts to subside, bit by bit. It allows her to finally focus on Shauna, to really see her. 

That’s when she notices, again, the dirt and grass stains all over Shauna’s clothes. A weird spark flutters inside of her, because surely that means Shauna’s been here the whole time, probably all night. “Have you been here since the game ended?” 

Shauna nods. 

It would explain the messy ponytail, why there’s blood and mud on her knees, as well as the state of her clothes. Jackie gingerly reaches out with her good hand and taps a finger against a bloody spot, almost in disbelief. “Aw. Shipman.” Then she grabs Shauna's hand again.

“I know… I probably should go and clean up,” says Shauna, “and I still need to call my mom and figure out how I can stay here with you, but… I just needed to see you first.” 

It’s a horrible thing—the way her insides turn all soft and gooey at that. She thinks of the tears she cried earlier in the dead of night, her sleeping daydreams, of wishing and hoping Shauna was close by. And here she is… exactly where Jackie hoped she would be. (Selfish, you’re selfish.) But right now, it feels just right, like slipping into a cozy blanket; warm and fragrant, washed and cleaned and dried. 

Jackie smiles, and then—

“Wait… stay here with me?” she repeats, once she’s sure she heard that correctly. 

Shauna gives a small shrug, but Jackie notices the tightness at the edges of her eyes. “Well, yeah. I don’t want you stuck here with just your parents and Coach to hang out with. Geez, what kind of friend do you take me for?” 

Her breath catches. It is only now occurring to her that she would not be on the flight home tonight. Which… yeah, duh, the flight was this evening and she’s… she’s broken, stuck in a bed. 

“Oh god, did you say my parents? Are they coming?” Jackie groans. “No, that’s the worst. I hate that. Why?” 

Shauna looks sympathetic. “I think they have to, legally… or something. Like, for insurance, maybe?” 

“But I’m eighteen! I don’t want them flying up here to babysit. They’re going to be so annoying about it.” If she could, she would cross her arms for emphasis. Unfortunately, she has to content herself with an annoyed huff. “Well. This fucking blows.” 

Shauna nods. “I know. That’s why I’m going to stay with you.” 

That sounds sweet. And it would certainly make everything more bearable. But Jackie thinks about her parents again, and her stomach sinks. 

Already, she can hear mother’s voice, berating her. Cindy Taylor’s never said it in so many words, but Jackie is well aware how much she hates her daughter playing soccer. 

(“Your poor, scraped knees. You shouldn’t wear shorts when they’re looking like that.”)

(“Your thighs are getting huge. It’s all of that running you’re doing, I told you, too much muscle!”

(“You aren’t planning on continuing to play sports in college, are you? It’ll be hard to find time between your sorority and your classes…”)

Cindy Taylor was going to have an absolute field day of this injury, she just knows it. 

At least it was the end… the last game. If this had happened earlier, her parents would never have allowed her to think about ever touching a soccer ball again. 

“Shauna, you should fly back with everyone else,” Jackie says, keeping her tone gentle. She doesn’t want it to sound like she’s kicking Shauna out. 

“What? Why?” Shauna frowns, just as Jackie knew she would. 

“Oh, come on, you know how my parents are.” Jackie laces their fingers together and gives Shauna’s hand a little squeeze. “They’re going to give me the worst lecture of all time, about how this is all my fault, or whatever, and how I should have joined the yearbook club instead. No way I’m gonna put you through that torture too.” 

“It shouldn’t be a lecture at all,” Shauna mutters, her voice sour. “It was an accident.”

She looks ready to argue more, but then Jackie starts running a slow thumb along the purlicue of Shauna’s hand, and her scowl eases. 

“It’s going to be a lecture either way. Look at me!” Jackie lifts her plastered arm a fraction of an inch, shooting it a resentful look. “My mom is going to lose her shit. And that’s not even talking about my face, which I haven’t even looked at yet. Then she’s going to start bugging my dad, and he’s going to get annoyed, and they’ll fight, and somehow I’ll be in trouble because they’re fighting. It’s gonna be a whole thing, Shipman. I don’t want you here for that.” 

“But, Jackie—” 

“Please?” Jackie shifts, leaning forward, pushing against the heavy strain of the pain medication in her system. “I just… it’s not going to be fun, and I’m already freaking out about it. It’s going to be bad enough without you having to see it all, too. It’s embarrassing.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Shauna whispers earnestly, her deep brown eyes darkened with concern. “I’m serious, you don’t.”

Jackie gives her a soft, sad smile. “I know. But I will be anyway, so please.. just go back with everyone else. Besides,” she adds, squeezing Shauna’s hand, not allowing her the chance to pull away, “you’re going to be taking care of me for the entire summer, so you should probably prepare yourself.” 

Shauna snorts. “Prepare how, exactly?” 

“Well, yeah,” she says. “Do you need me to make you a list? First, I’ll need you to stock up on all of my favorite snacks. Then we’ll need all of our favorite movies, and obviously, I’ll be borrowing at least four of your flannels. Hm, I guess you’ll need to write the list for me, considering my arm…” Jackie pauses, suddenly bemoaning. “Oh my god, I’m going to have to learn to write left-handed. My handwriting is going to be as bad as yours!”

She watches how Shauna’s tense mouth quirks into a smile, a small laugh breaking free a moment later. Vindicated, Jackie settles into her pillow. Shauna is smiling. Mission accomplished.

“So, Shipman—do we have a deal?” Jackie smiles teasingly, arching a brow. “And, remember, I’ve met your mom, so I have very high expectations for a caregiver.” 

Shauna answers by leaning in and resting her elbows on the mattress. She lifts their joined hands to her cheek and nuzzles her face along Jackie’s knuckles. Her breath is warm and soft on Jackie’s skin. 

“Fine,” Shauna says, rolling her eyes, “Nurse Shauna, at your service.” 

Jackie exhales, and it’s like the first real breath she’s taken since she hit the ground yesterday morning. She can’t wait to ditch this stupid hospital and head back to New Jersey. The thought of hunkering down at Shauna’s is addicting. She wants to watch movies on the couch, and she wants to force Jeff to buy them pizzas, and she wants to rub her cold feet on Shauna’s legs under a blanket until they fall asleep together. 

“Let me tell you my first order of business, Nurse Shauna,” says Jackie, doing her best parody of her mother’s voice, high and sharp and demanding. “I demand information.” 

Shauna grins, playing along. “Oh, really? And what might that be? Your wish is my command.” 

Jackie abandons the fake voice and leans forward, suddenly serious. “Please tell me that we won the game.” 

Shauna purses her lips, eyes sparkling mischievously. “Well, I have good news… and bad news.”

Jackie narrows her eyes. “Shauna…” 

“Easy now, I’ll start with the good news,” says Shauna, giggling. “Jackie Taylor, you are the captain of the 1996 National Girls Soccer Champions. The Wiskayok Yellowjackets beat the Northbrook Giants by a grand total of 1-0, scoring with just seconds left on the clock."

“Oh, thank fuck,” Jackie says, hushed and reverent, before breaking into genuine laughter. “I only broke myself in half for this team. At least we ended up winning the damn thing. Wait, what’s the bad news?” 

Shauna bites her lip, like she’s trying not to laugh. “Well… Allie was the one to score the winning shot.” 

“You’re kidding me?” Jackie’s jaw drops open in mock outrage. “A freshman? Ugh, that little bitch.”

Obviously, she’s joking. Secretly, she feels a flood of pride and the glow of satisfaction. Allie only scored because Jackie gave her the opportunity too, in more ways than one. She might never play soccer again, but this belonged to her still—the team, and this victory. It’s enough. It has to be. 

Jackie swallows, pushing a brighter smile onto her face. “Oh, I have another question. I barely remember it, on account of my arm practically falling off, but did you really try to fight someone on the field? Or am I imagining that?” 

As soon as the door closes after Shauna, Jackie taps the pain-med button repeatedly. 

They spent the better part of an hour together, talking through every detail of the day before, rehashing every angle until they’d exhausted every perspective they could think of. Then Jackie effectively ordered Shauna to return to the hotel so she could shower, pack, and catch a little rest, if possible. 

“I can rest on the plane later,” Shauna had argued, waving her off, “so I won’t be gone long. I’ll shower and pack and come back straight after. I’ll bring your suitcase, too.” 

Now that she’s alone again, Jackie figures she may as well enjoy this medically sanctioned opportunity to be high out of her mind. She settles deeper into the bed and sighs, allowing the warmth to flood through her blood. 

Snidely, she thinks she’s beginning to understand why her mother loves this feeling so much.

Jackie drifts off in bits and pieces, never fully asleep. The hospital never quits, and the revolving door of nurses and aides popping in to check on her doesn’t help. But when she is able to sleep, she dreams of purple clouds and soccer balls and Shauna’s hair tickling her cheeks.

At some point, she must truly pass out, because the next thing she knows, Coach Martinez is sitting in Shauna’s spot, fiddling with his blue visor, and looking at the floor. 

“Coach?” she asks dumbly, rubbing her eyes with a fist. Her throat is dry and scratchy. She’d do just about anything to brush her teeth. 

“Hey, Taylor. Glad you’re awake,” he says. “You took a real nasty hit out there.” 

Jackie smiles. “I’m just glad we still won the game.” 

He snorts. “Yeah? Me too, kid. Me too. We couldn’t have done it without you. You did a good job getting us here. I knew I was right to make you the captain.” 

“Even if I’m not the fastest, and my footwork isn’t the best?” Jackie asks pointedly, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yep.” Coach Martinez says, unruffled by her candor. “Even then.” 

She can’t help but laugh. “Thanks, Coach. I think.”

He rests the visor back on his head and smiles at her in an unexpectedly warm way. “You know, this year’s team… you, Turner, Natalie, Shipman, all of you… you’re something else. One of my favorites I’ve ever had. Maybe even number one.” 

Jackie gushes. “Aw, really? You’re my favorite, too. Don’t tell Coach Scott.” 

He waves his meaty palm, brushing her comment aside. “Stop, stop, I’m serious. All of you, you’re so good at what you do. I mean it. You’re all killers. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s been a genuine honor to be your coach, even if I don’t always act like it.”

That means a lot, more than she expects it too. Shauna once said that Jackie was like Tinkerbell, that she lived for praise, for proof that she was doing the right thing. Coach Martinez was always so gruff and surly. She isn’t used to hearing him talk this way. 

“Thank you,” she says softly. “Really, Coach. I appreciate it.” 

He shifts in his seat, looking at her cast. “Listen, I’m sorry about your arm. It shouldn’t have ended like this. I just wanted you to know that I’ve seen how hard you worked. It hasn’t gone unnoticed.” 

Jackie feels her throat go tight, in a good way. She doesn’t know what else to say, but she doesn’t need to, because Coach stands up from his chair and fixes his visor more firmly on his head. 

“Get some rest, Taylor. The rest of the team will be up here soon, and I’m sure they’re going to try and bother you. I’d conserve my strength, if I were you.” 

She nods. “Hey, Coach? Do you know when my parents will be here?” The faster they arrived, the faster she could return home to New Jersey, where she belonged. 

“Their flight lands early tomorrow morning. I’ll pick them up from the airport and bring them straight here.” 

“You’re staying too?” she asks, a hint of relief in her voice. At least she wouldn’t be completely alone while she waited. 

Coach laughs quietly, gripping the door handle. “Even if I wanted to ditch you and leave you alone across the country, I can’t. Legally speaking. That’s what those permission slips were about.” 

“Yeah, I never actually read any of those.”

“Figures,” he mutters, with a flicker of fondness in his voice, if she closes her eyes and strains to hear it. “Get some rest. That’s an order. I’ll see if I can grab you something sweet from the vending machine when I come back.”

Then he’s gone. Jackie gazes at the door and then lets her eyes flutter closed, willing sleep to take her. 

Shauna will be here again soon. 

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 19th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

Hospitals are so boring. And of course Jackie is assigned to a room that doesn't even have a TV.

What do they expect her to do—count the ceiling tiles? She alternates between that and napping, while her arm throbs in time with the beat of her heart monitor. 

The clock on the wall informs her that it’s mid-afternoon now. Soon enough, the team would stop by to say their goodbyes before boarding the coach bus that would drive them to the airport. 

To fill the time between then and now, Jackie daydreams, because there isn’t anything else to do. 

Mostly, she thinks about the banquet she was forced to miss last night. Shauna didn’t go, which… good, she thinks, selfishly pleased, but the others did. Had Lottie worn that one pink dress that cost more than Jackie’s entire monthly allowance? Did Mari convince Laura Lee to let her do her makeup for once? And Nat… no doubt she wore combat boots under her dress, with eyeliner sharp enough it could kill a man. 

Jackie sighs. Her own dress had been perfect. Pale yellow-green with skinny straps and tiny colored flowers, purchased after begging her mom the last time they were at the mall. (“Alright, but make sure you don't eat too much beforehand, sweetheart. This type of material clings.”)

She’d tried it on in the warm, dim lighting of Shauna’s bedroom, underneath the mindful eyes of Weezer and The Clash as they loomed from their poster spots on the wall. 

“You’re lucky, Shipman. You don’t even need to go shopping,” Jackie had said, twisting around and inspecting herself in the mirror. Hmm. Perhaps her mom had a point. This dress definitely wouldn’t hide any bloat. “You have the perfect dress already.” 

Shauna had flopped onto her bed, rolling her eyes. “For the millionth time, I am not bringing the boob dress to Seattle.”

“Why not? You look hot in it.” 

“Because I wear it, like, all the time.” 

“Yeah, so what?”

“It’s literally the only thing you ever want me to wear.” 

“I told you! Because you look hot!”

Jackie smiles now, remembering. 

Maybe someone had won an award at the banquet dinner. She pictures herself shaking hands with a league official as she accepts a plaque that reads: Most Injured Player. MIP. Also known as minor-in-possession. Didn’t Natalie get one of those last year? Or… maybe she almost did, and it was the time the cop took sympathy on her on account of her dead dad.

She shifts against her pillow and thinks of Shauna. It’s impossible to get comfortable. God, she would kill to be able to roll over onto her side. She was never any good at sleeping on her back. 

She was also not so good with downtime. Perhaps because of her parents’ voices always nagging in the back of her head: no idle hands, busy girls succeed. But… Jackie was always busy—with soccer, homework, stupid country club brunches, or Jeff. However, her favorite kind of busy was Shauna-busy. Laughing in her room, riding in her passenger seat, and arguing over dumb shit like the boob dress. 

The dress Shauna picked for Seattle was blue, not red, but it hugged her hips just right. The ass dress? Jackie smiles, excited to make the comment to Shauna when she gets the chance.

Then she frowns. 

They would have looked so good walking in together, if not for her stupid, injured arm.

Jackie groans, close to clawing off her own skin out of sheer boredom. She continues to fidget and twitch, growing more restless by the second. 

Eventually, she manages to convince a passing nurse to take pity on her, begging to see a glimpse of her face. She’s handed a pocket mirror, which she holds warily in her hand. This will be her first chance to see how she looks post-injury. 

Obviously, she didn’t expect it to be pretty, but… fuck, she is not prepared for the actual sight of it. As soon as she tilts the mirror toward her face, her breath catches in her throat. 

Ho-ly shit. 

It is, quite frankly, gnarly. 

There are bruises covering the entire upper-right part of her face, deep purple splotches rimmed by an angry red. Her eyebrow is puffy and swollen, almost balloon-like, curving down her eye like some weird fleshy ridge. Even the tape that’s holding her bone together can’t hide the fact that she looks seriously fucked up.

She stares into her own eyes for a heartbeat or two, then snaps the pocket mirror shut with a sharp click. She shoves the stupid thing back at the nurse and mutters out an ungrateful, “Thanks.” 

There’s no way she can continue on sitting here, stewing in her own thoughts. She’ll only end up driving herself up the wall, chased there like a mouse fleeing a cat, with the shrill ghost of her mother’s voice echoing too-loud in her mind. She needs a distraction, now. 

“Hey, do you have, like, a newspaper or something?” she asks the nurse. “I’m dying of boredom over here.”

Which is how Jackie finds herself resorting to solving a literal crossword puzzle. God, when was the last time she’d done something like this? She frowns. Ten letters down—what was the 1996 Best Picture winner? She’s rolling her eyes when there’s a knock at the door. Except whoever is on the other side doesn’t care to wait to be welcomed in: the door swings open almost immediately, and a flash of newly bleached hair steps through the door. 

“Fuuuuuuck, dude. You look like shit.” Natalie Scatorccio blurts, stepping inside, with Van and Taissa squeezing in right behind her. 

“Gee, thanks.” Jackie deadpans, trying not to raise her eyebrow, lest she send a fresh stab of needles and pain shooting through her face. 

Nat sets her hands on the edge of Jackie’s bed, wide-eyed. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… whoa, you don’t look like you.” 

Van and Taissa share an equally rattled look, as though they weren’t expecting her to be quite so banged up. Jackie notices their twin expressions and rolls her eyes, feeling a surly mix of snark and defensive insecurity. 

“Wow, Jackie,” murmurs Van. She, at least, is contrite enough to keep her tone less dramatic than Nat’s, but she’s still wide-eyed. “How are you feeling?” 

Jackie snorts. “Oh, y’know, I’m great. Turns out bending your arm backwards and snapping your elbow the wrong way is a blast. I highly recommend.” 

Van wrinkles her nose. “Don’t remind me. I threw up when I saw.”

“Yeah, so did I,” Jackie says without thinking—and then immediately wishes she could un-say it. Ugh, it makes her want to take a shower. 

That dangles in the air between them in a moment of awkward silence, and then Jackie lets out a small, breathy laugh, which sends Van and Nat into giggles of their own. In the midst of it, she catches Taissa's smile and her small nod as the greeting it is, a little hello, just between them. 

“So, uh, where’s Shauna?” Jackie can’t help asking, eyes flicking to the door, half-hoping that it will swing open again to reveal her favorite brown eyes.

Taissa’s mouth quirks into a smirk. “Wow, Jackie, is our company not exciting enough for you?” 

“Your company is fine, I promise,” she says, using her good arm to push herself a little more upright. “I was just curious.” 

Shaking her head, Taissa crosses her arms and leans against the wall. “The hospital staff said we couldn’t go all at once—too many people, or whatever—so we’re doing it in small groups. Shauna said she wanted to be the last one to see you, so she’s out in the waiting room with everyone else.” 

Jackie’s cheeks go warm at the tidbit. Love is worry, worry is love, and Jackie is happy to take what she can get. 

“So,” Nat drawls, plunking into a chair at her bedside, “how’re the drugs?” 

Jackie makes a show of sighing, lolling her head back in an exaggerated roll. “Fantastic. It almost makes this whole thing worth it.” 

“Oh, I bet. You’re getting the premium shit.”

Van and Taissa both find spots at the foot of her bed, perching beside each other. 

“I’m sorry about your arm,” Taissa says, lightly touching Jackie’s ankle. “I know this must really suck for you.” 

“Yeah, well,” she mumbles, looking away and scratching at her blanket. “I’ll heal.”

“How long do you have to keep that cast on?” Van asks, eyeing it curiously. “And can I sign it?”

“Six to eight weeks,” Jackie answers with a groan. She’s going to look ridiculous when she arrives at Rutgers, busted up with her shitty left-handed notes. Her hair would probably be greasy too, on account of only having one arm to shower with. She can only hope that her face, at least, is healed by then. “And no, you can’t sign it, not yet, anyway. I promised Shauna’s mom that she’d be the first to sign it. I don’t break promises to Deb.” 

“Well damn, Jackie,” says Van, with the melodramatic ennui of a seasoned actress. “I guess I’ll just have to get in line with the rest of the plebs.” 

Nat laughs. “You’ll have to get in line after Shauna.” 

Jackie nods. “Yes, that’s true.” 

“So, did Shauna fill you in on the game?” Taissa asks. “Coach… kind of, uh, made me captain after you were out.” 

Jackie notices the hesitation in her tone, but can’t bring herself to comfort her, or even care that much—she’s just glad they won. “Yeah, she told me, but she didn’t know all of the details.” 

Van snickers. “Yeah, she was too busy going John James Rambo on the field and then disappearing in a taxi cab to catch the finer points.” 

“Hey, lay off her,” Jackie says with a grin, shaking her head. “She was upset. Anyway, tell me about how Allie—of all people—managed to make the winning shot. I need to know everything. Ooh, wait, maybe I’m a psychic? I knew it wasn’t a good idea to ice her out.” 

Taissa rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, Lottie and Nat have been saying ‘I told you so’ since last night. I get it—having her there was a good thing. I’m eating my words. Whatever.”

It’s as close to an admission of regret as Taissa ever gets, so Jackie lets it go, filing it away as yet another victory. Then she waves an expectant hand.

“Come on, keep talking. I want to hear about every single play.”

Mari, Akilah, and Coach Scott trickle in next, and their faces basically mirror Tai, Nat, and Van’s from earlier, all wide eyes and grimaces. It doesn’t surprise her, but it does irritate her. Can’t anyone control their faces? It’s like… yeah, she knows she’s banged up, but come on, at least pretend to have some manners about it.

“I guess it’s a good thing you don’t have to worry about prom, huh?” Mari asks, once she finishes gasping over the bruises. 

She says it like she’s making a joke, but it still kind of stings. Of course, she isn’t wrong. Jackie would be in tears right now if she had prom photos waiting on her horizon. 

Akilah is more kind, which she expects. she looks at Jackie with those big eyes that leave her feeling overly exposed. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she says softly. “It was horrible, what happened.” 

“Thanks, Akilah,” Jackie murmurs. 

Mari, meanwhile, is bouncing on her toes. She taps Jackie’s leg, looking far too excited. “Van puked on the field, and so did the striker from the other team. Did you see?” 

She grimaces. “No, can’t say that I did. I was pretty occupied at the time.”

“Alright, Mari, that’s enough,” says Coach Scott, clearing his throat after a small nervous laugh. “But, seriously, we missed you at the end,” he tells her earnestly. “It’s a tough way to close out the year, but you did a great job as captain. You led the team through an undefeated run. I’m proud of you.” 

Jackie manages a little smile and gives her cast a small wave. “Well, at least I almost made it to the finish line.”

“Just wait until you see the trophy.” Akilah chimes in brightly. 

Mari nods. “Seriously, dude, it’s huge. It’s, like, taller than you are. It has to have its own seat on the plane ride home.” 

A gigantic trophy doesn’t make up for her pain, but she can’t deny that she likes the sound of that. 

“We’ll have to take a group picture together once I’m back in New Jersey,” says Jackie, feeling a rush of excitement. “I call dibs on holding it.”

After that, Lottie, Laura Lee, and Allie are the next to slip into her room. 

Jackie loves all of her teammates, even when they get on her nerves, which is more often than she would ever admit. That being said, she’s very fond of Laura Lee, who was serially sweet, effortlessly kind, and always eager to help. Yeah, sometimes that sweetness bordered on naivety, and she could take it too far with the whole religion thing, but Jackie loves her all the same. 

As for Lottie, they’ve always been friends. 

Allie, however… 

Jackie doesn’t mean this to be mean, believe her, but she’s just never cared much about Allie either way. She’s a freshman. Jackie’s known her for literally six months, and they’ve only been playing together for four of those. So it comes as a surprise that she’s actually happy to see her. 

“Hey, look who it is!” Jackie greets, her voice chipper. “Our champion, the last minute savior. I heard about your winning goal, Allie—you did a great job.” 

For her part, Allie isn’t known for being humble, and Jackie doesn’t fault her for it. She’d have been worse if she made varsity her freshman year. But she’s uncharacteristically bashful now as she meets Jackie’s eye. “Oh, I—thank you. I’m, uh, really sorry about your arm.” 

“This old thing?” Jackie shrugs, as though this massive cast isn’t consuming her entire arm. “It’ll be good as new in no time.” 

She says it like she wasn’t screaming like an agonized animal on the field yesterday, or crying her eyes out under the dim light of the moon in the early hours of the morning. Something about Allie’s awe-filled stare makes her want to play it cool, to act tough. She forces on a brave smile that feels as stiff as the plaster holding her bones together.

“I prayed for you,” says Laura Lee, her face serious. “I’ll keep praying, too. You’re going to pull through.” 

Jackie can’t decide if she hates that, or loves it. (Deep down, she knows she kind of loves it, but she isn’t about to admit that, even to herself.) “Thanks, Laura Lee. Say hi to the big guy upstairs for me when you do, okay?” 

Just then, Lottie leans over the bed, almost like Shauna had earlier. Her hair swings forward and Jackie catches a scent of her perfume. Unlike Shauna, though, Lottie’s skin and clothes are pristine—no grass stains, no sweat, no scrapes. And for some reason, Jackie finds herself missing those rougher edges. 

Lottie presses a gentle kiss to Jackie’s forehead and straightens up. “I hope you get out of here soon,” she says, frowning. “Hospitals are the worst.”

“Right? I’ve been so bored, it’s ridiculous,” she says, gesturing to the newspaper in her lap. “Like, I’m actually working on a crossword puzzle, that’s how bad it is.”

“Ooh, scary. The horror,” teases Lottie. “Although that might actually be a good idea for the flight home.” 

Jackie wiggles the paper at her. “Well, you’ll have to find your own, Matthews, because I’m not giving mine up. I need it more than you do.” 

Laura Lee tilts her head. “So… you’re staying in Seattle, right? Until they clear you to travel.”

She makes a face. “Ugh, yeah. They want to keep me for another day. Something about me possibly having a concussion, or whatever. It blows, though. I’d rather fly back with everyone.” 

“Hey, at least you’ll have Coach Martinez here to keep you company,” Lottie says, giggling. “You’ll be best friends by the time you get back home.”

“Haha.” Jackie deadpans with a snort. “I don’t know if Shauna would appreciate me swapping her out for a middle-aged dude with anger issues.”

“Why not? It’ll give her something to stew about on the flight home. She’s been freaking out about having to fly back without you. This would be the perfect distraction.” Lottie smiles. “Also, a best-friend with anger issues is totally your type, middle-aged man or not.”

Jackie frowns, well aware of how much Shauna dislikes airplanes. It bothers her, the thought of Shauna feeling scared without Jackie there to comfort her. She looks up at Lottie, pursing her lips. “Will you keep an eye on her for me, Lot? I don’t want to worry about her, on top of everything else.”

Laura Lee nods. “We will. Maybe she can sit with Van? I know she doesn’t like flying either.”

“I’ll sit with her,” Lottie assures. “Van will probably want to sit by Tai, anyway. Besides, if I can get my hand on a crossword, Shauna can help me solve it in, like, five minutes. I just have to figure out how to entertain us for the rest of the flight.”

“You’re better than me,” Jackie says, laughing. “I refuse to do puzzles with her.”

Of all the visits she’s had, this one feels the most comfortable. 

“Okay,” Jackie says, pointing at her puzzle. “I need one of you to help me figure this out. I’ve been stuck on number seven for half an hour. Allie, get over here, take a look at this.”

More of her teammates filter in and out after that. There’s Gen, Melissa, and Rachel. Then comes Britt, Robin, Kristen, and Misty. Some of the JV girls stop by, too, giving awkward well-wishes, despite hardly knowing Jackie at all. 

She’s polite to them all, but honestly, she’s impatient for them to finally clear out. She has someone else on her mind. 

Finally, Shauna steps into the room. Her brown eyes immediately latch to Jackie’s face, the way they always do. 

“My goodness, finally, Shipman,” says Jackie with a wide grin on her face. “I’ve been waiting forever.” 

“My bad,” Shauna replies, not looking sorry at all. “I wanted to be the last one to see you, so I could stay here until it's time to leave.”

Jackie’s heart warms at that. She shakes her head. “No, don’t be sorry. It’s good. I’m glad you’re here. I missed you.”

“Well, now I’m here,” Shauna says, dumping two suitcases on the ground with a thump, before returning to the seat she was sitting in earlier that morning.

“Yeah, you are, but… not for long. Which, for the record, sucks.” Jackie pouts. “I should be flying with you. Who’s gonna hold your hand during takeoff and landing?”

“According to Lottie, she is. She volunteered to be my ‘plane buddy’ when she came back to the waiting room.” Shauna arches a knowing eyebrow, and Jackie studiously pretends not to notice. “But, if you want to hold my hand so badly, I can still try to stay behind.” 

“It’s alright, Shipman, I’m only whining for fun,” Jackie murmurs. Then, shifting the subject, she asks, “How long until you have to go?” She really hopes she has more than a paltry few minutes. She’ll kill the other girls if they’ve sucked up all the free time. 

“About an hour.” Shauna’s gaze slides along Jackie’s cast, lingering on her elbow, as though she’s trying to see through it to jagged, broken mess inside. She looks worried, eyebrows pinching together in a way Jackie knows well. 

What is she thinking about?

Sighing dramatically, Jackie shifts against her pillows. “One hour… then I’ll have to spend the next few days trying not to die from absolute boredom. I don’t know if I’ll make it. I might perish.” 

“Perish? Really?” Shauna chuckles. “It’s only a few days, Jax. And it’s like you said—I’ve got a lot of prep work to do. You said four flannels, right?” 

“Make it six, just to be safe,” Jackie retorts, trying for a regal lift of her chin. 

“Sure, sure,” Shauna says, nodding slowly. “Six… for emergencies. 

Jackie extends her good arm and offers her hand out like a gift. Shauna takes it, intertwining their fingers in a familiar way. 

“But, for real, are you going to be okay on the flight?” 

Shauna gives a quick nod, but the corners of her lips droop slightly. “Yeah, I’ll manage. I’m more worried about leaving you behind, honestly.” 

“I’ll be okay. I’ll have Coach here,” says Jackie. Shauna gives her a look that clearly says you know what I mean. “And anyway, my parents will be here first thing in the morning. It’ll be super fucking annoying, but I can deal with them. Besides, my mom might flee from the room when she sees how bruised and ugly I am now, which’ll give me some peace and quiet.”

“You’re not ugly, Jax,” Shauna says fiercely, letting her gaze sweep across Jackie’s features, practically drinking her up. “You’re never ugly. You’re just… really bruised.” 

“I know. Can you believe it?” Jackie laughs in disbelief. “I look like I walked out of some slasher film.” 

Shauna’s expression shifts, her frown deepening. Sadness rises up. “It was really scary, though… seeing you hurt like that.”

Jackie squeezes Shauna’s hand again, wishing, not for the first time, that her broken arm wasn’t stuck in a cast, because she wants to hold onto Shauna with both of her hands. But this is her new reality, and as usual, she settles for what she can get.

“And, obviously, it was way worse for you,” Shauna goes on, a soft frustration in her voice. “But… it was really fucking awful for me too. I’ll never forget it, and… I dunno, it’s making it really hard to leave.” 

“You always get so lost in that big brain of yours,” Jackie says, even though that’s one of her favorite things about Shauna. “But you know I’m gonna be thinking about you the entire time. And the second you’re home, I’m going to start calling your house every five minutes, like I’m your crazy ex-boyfriend.” 

Shauna laughs. “What if my mom picks up?” 

“Even better. I love catching up with Deb,” Jackie declares, grinning wide.

They spend the rest of their hour talking and holding hands, exchanging small giggles between a shared space. It flies by far too quickly, because somehow, though it’s only been a single blink of an eye, Shauna is sighing and scooting her chair back. Jackie’s heart sinks. 

“I’ve got to go, Jax.” 

She hates hearing that, hates how sad it makes them both. For a second, Jackie even considers changing her mind, and begging Shauna to stay. They probably have enough time to change the plan… damn her parents. But saying goodbye is already difficult enough, and it’s likely for the best that she doesn’t complicate things even more. 

“I’ll miss you, Shipman.” 

At that, Shauna straightens, as though she’s just remembered something important. “Oh, right—”

The chair scrapes loudly as she jumps up, heading for Jackie’s suitcase on the floor. Rummaging around, she looks back at Jackie with a playful smile. 

“I brought you something,” she says. Jackie immediately perks up. “I heard that you’re so bored you resorted to an actual crossword puzzle. Which, by the way, I want to look at that when you finish it. Anyway, I have a book for you. It’s one of my favorites.”

She pulls out a wrinkled paperback, weathered by age and use. From the faded cover alone, Jackie knows it’s a well-loved book. She tries to peek at the cover, but she can’t see it from here. It’s probably some random, obscure shit—knowing Shauna. 

Shauna hands it over and Jackie takes a look at the front. “Rebecca?” she reads. “By… Daphne du Maurier?” Yeah, she’s never heard of it. “I was expecting you to give me Wuthering Heights. Isn’t that what you were reading on the plane?”

“Yeah, but I’m not finished with it yet, so you get this one instead.” 

“Damn, how many books did you pack with you, Shipman?”

“That’s not the point.” Shauna’s cheeks turn pink. “The point is, I wanted to leave something with you, something to keep you entertained, but also, something that will make you think of me.”

And, oh, Jackie is so charmed by that. She holds the book close, taking a second to memorize the flush coloring Shauna’s face, the way she looks at this exact instance. A Kodak moment, or whatever. “I already think about you all the time, Shipman. But… thanks. I appreciate it. And I love you.” 

Then, as the reality of saying goodbye begins to close in, she finds herself frowning, suddenly choked with a sudden anxiety. Without even thinking about it, she lifts her good arm to the back of her neck. There, her fingers fumble and twist with the chain, moving like five drunken workers that have no idea what they’re supposed to be doing. At last, she manages to unhook it. 

“Here,” she says, sliding the necklace off. A little golden heart dangles from her thumb. “For you, so you can keep a little piece of me, too. To make you think of me. If you want it.” 

Shauna’s eyes gleam. “Of course I want it.”

Shauna takes the necklace and slips the chain around her neck with surer fingers than Jackie’s. It settles against her chest, resting in the valley above her breasts. Jackie lets her eyes trace over it and almost considers letting her keep it forever. 

They lean in for a hug—well, as close to a hug as they can manage with one of her arms out of commission. Their hands linger on each other, neither wanting to be the first to pull away. But, eventually, Shauna straightens up, and Jackie lets her fingertips skim down the length of her forearm until there’s no more arm to hold onto. 

“Shauna?” She asks. 

“Yeah?” 

Clutching the book to her chest, Jackie gazes at her, eyes wide. “I love you. Call me when you land?”

Shauna hums in response. “I will. Love you too.”

Shauna. May 19th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

Shauna takes her final valium before boarding the plane with the rest of the team. By the time she’s sinking into her seat, the pills have begun their persuasions, already pulling her into a sleepy state.

She thinks of Jackie once she’s settled, her bruised, glowing face, and her quiet laughter. 

Fuck, she’s tired. It’s as though her limbs have been stuffed with cotton, her every movement is weighted and slow. She feels the entire frantic week rolling together in a single, lulling wave. Aside from a few slump-necked naps during her all-night vigil with Coach Martinez, she’s barely slept a wink in the last thirty-six hours. 

Lottie appears in the aisle, stretching up to put her carry-on away. Shauna notes the curve of her waist with a hazy sort of fascination. 

Catching sight, Lottie chuckles. “Feeling good? You look like it.” 

Shauna grins, wide and lazy. “Actually, I am. Valium is really nice.” 

“That’s great to hear.”

“Your belly button,” Shauna murmurs, entirely unaware of how silly she sounds, “is really cute.” 

Lottie laughs, looking down through her arms. “Thank you? That’s a new one. I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.” Then, with a practiced swing, she slides down into her seat, pink sweatpants skimming against Shauna’s knees. “It’ll be an easy flight,” she murmurs. “We’ll be home before you know it.”

And yes, that’s true, Shauna thinks. Her eyelids already feel weighted with sand. Testing the waters, she lets them close, and sighs deeply, submitting herself to the inevitability of rest.

“You can put your head on my shoulder if you want,” offers Lottie. 

Shauna smiles, leaning over, pretending that it’s Jackie’s voice and Jackie’s shoulder. She feels the warm press of Lottie’s cheek against the crown of her head, and sinks deeper into her fatigue. 

The rest of the team file onto the plane and take their seats, but Shauna hardly notices, letting it all fade into a background buzz. The last thing she sees before her eyes remain closed is Coach Scott carefully walking by, balancing a five-foot trophy with comical care, walking short and stunted to prevent it from clipping his shins. 

“I miss Jackie,” she whispers, hand drifting to the chain around her neck to play with the necklace there. She thinks of Jackie in her hospital bed. Her bruises, her cast, her poor swollen eyebrow. Then she thinks of Jackie on the field. Her wails, her blood, the awful angle of her elbow.

She thinks of her splintered bones. 

“I know you do,” says Lottie, soothingly. “Try and get some sleep. I’m sure Jackie is already waiting for your call.” 

And Shauna shouldn’t love the idea of that as much as she does—Jackie, propped up in bed, waiting for her. But she does, she loves it, she loves it so much. 

Lottie turns out to be correct. 

As soon as the wheels of the plane lift off the ground, Shauna is soundly asleep, snoring against Lottie’s shoulder, with one finger hooked into the chain of Jackie’s necklace.

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 20th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

The clock ticks past midnight, but the phone remains stubbornly silent. 

Jackie tries calling herself, but Shauna never answers. 

Maybe it’s the drugs they’ve got her on, or the way her body still aches from her injury, or the hollow boredom that makes each minute stretch out endlessly—but Jackie’s feelings are hurt. Because… Why hasn’t she called? What the hell, Shauna? They had to have arrived home hours ago. She’d calculated the time difference: it was four in the morning in Wiskayok. Their plane landed hours ago. 

Despite her earlier promise to harass Shauna’s house like a crazy ex-boyfriend, she held herself back—only three calls, spaced evenly apart, just in case Deb’s mom was catching some sleep between her shifts. She wasn’t that selfish. 

It isn’t as though she expected Shauna to sprint to the phone the moment she stepped through the door. Like, it was totally fine if she wanted to shower off the airplane grime or scarf down a sandwich. But to not call at all? 

Jackie glares at the phone, mocking her with its silence. 

Maybe it’s the Valium, she thinks, twisting the edge of her bedsheet. Shauna was a notorious lightweight, known to get tipsy after just two wine coolers, and maybe that applied to pills, too. Perhaps she was already asleep in bed, snoring on her stomach with her face shoved underneath her pillow. The image is warm, familiar, and it makes her smile. 

She tosses her pen onto the crossword puzzle and shoves them both away. She’d been at it all day, pestering her nurses for clues every time she found herself stuck on a troublesome question, which was quite often. After working at it for hours, more than half of the answers still remained blank. She’s determined to see it through, however, intent on presenting Shauna with a fully completed puzzle the next time they see each other.

The nighttime nurses were much less obliging to her constant chatter, so she tables it for now, abandoning the eight-across, “Longest Running Scripted Primetime Television” question she’s been staring at since dinner. 

It was probably best that she go to sleep. Her parents would be arriving earlier, rather than later, and it was hard enough being around them while fully-rested. But her bones hum with a restlessness that keeps her awake. Closing her eyes would only leave her staring at her eyelids until sunrise arrived. 

So, instead, she reaches for Shauna’s book, turning it over in her hands as she gazes over its cover. 

Well, she muses, flipping it open to the first page. It’s not like I have anything better to do. 

Jackie’s never been a big reader. 

The last thing she read for fun was probably some coming-of-age Judy Blume story, something with a cracked spine from her middle school library. Nothing like this dusty old relic. She cracks open the stiff, buckram cover and squints down at the copyright date, snorting. 1938. Typical. Of course Shauna would pick something that was released when her grandmother was still in her childhood.

Still, when Jackie starts on the first chapter, it’s with a weird ache in her throat. She can’t explain where it comes from. 

At some point, she falls asleep. 

It isn’t her fault, because, come on… the first chapter is a bit of a snooze-fest, all winding driveways and pretentiously named estates, stuffed with characters that sipped tea with their pinkies out. Jackie doesn’t need explosions and drama on page one, but this felt like watching paint dry in slow motion. 

She tries to fight it, but her eyelids grow too heavy and the words begin to blur in front of her. 

The book slips down her body to rest facedown on her chest. As she drifts off, a single line loops through her foggy mind: We’ve got that in common, you and I. We are both alone in the world.

Jackie jerks back to life five hours later, disoriented, as though she’s been yanked back from somewhere far away. Shauna’s book lies splayed beside her now, open to some random spot. She grabs it clumsily with her good hand and closes it gently. 

When the nurse arrives with breakfast, Jackie can’t help but notice that she’s acting… odd? Something is clearly off. 

Not rude-off, or very-busy-off, but something else that she can’t define. Secretive, maybe?

She’s furtive, shooting glances as Jackie when she thinks she’s not being noticed. Jackie plays dumb, acting unaware of the strange energy, instead focusing on maneuvering her spoon with her left hand, though she makes quite a mess on her tray. 

“How’s your arm feeling, sweetheart?” the nurse asks. 

Jackie tilts her head, confused by the cautious tone of her voice. She doesn’t know what to make of it. “Same as it was yesterday,” she responds, shrugging her good shoulder. “The meds have been helping. My head doesn’t hurt as much.”

“Good, good,” the nurse mutters, turning toward the window the moment she makes eye contact with Jackie. She yanks the curtain open, flooding the room with early morning sunlight that casts a glow over Jackie’s face. Jackie squints down at her sad scramble of eggs and the greasy puddle of butter soaking into her toast. 

The nurse hovers, fiddling nervously with her scrub pockets, before pulling out a cup of pudding. “I know the breakfast here’s… not great,” she says, thrusting it at Jackie. “So I figured you might want something sweet to eat. Everyone likes chocolate, right? Here ya’ go.” 

Jackie takes it from her and sets it on her tray. An uneasy frown begins to form on her face. “Uhm, yeah, chocolate is… great. Thanks.” 

Still avoiding eye contact, the nurse gives her a jumpy smile. “Well, just… just let someone know if you need anything. Anything at all, okay?” 

“Sure,” Jackie says slowly, watching her bolt from the room. 

Her pudding sits untouched. Jackie’s stomach twists in knots—not from hunger, but from the prickling sense that her body knows the answer to a question she hasn’t yet been asked. 

It continues like that.

One of the aides brings her a third pillow. He refuses to meet her eyes, but is quick to assure her that this one is especially comfy. Then her doctor comes to check on her arm, but he too is acting strange, speaking too softly, moving too gently. It’s not that the staff was awful to her yesterday, but they definitely were not this kind or accommodating. 

Eventually, she scarfs down her pitiful breakfast of rubbery eggs, mushy fruit, and limp toast, and then scrapes her pudding cup clean, spooning globs of chocolate into her mouth until all that is left were streaks along the side. 

Nourished, Jackie returns to her crossword.

In the morning light, the answer to the eight-across comes to her in a jolt. “Oh, duh,” she mutters to herself, scribbling down the answer: Simpsons. But her triumph quickly fades. Number 14 taunts her. “Organizer of the 1985 Ethiopian Famine Live Aid Benefit Concert?” she reads, shaking her head. What the fuck? She scoffs, flinging the paper aside once again. There was no chance she would guess that one. 

Then she picks up Rebecca again, determined to give the first chapter of the book a second chance. She only makes it halfway through the first page when a nurse swoops in to change the bandages on her face, snapping his gloves loudly as he approaches.

“Do you know where my Coach is?” she asks, tilting her head back, pliant under his fingers, while he peels back the cotton-fiber gauze from her wounds. It stings. 

“No,” he says, slowly, like he’s unsure how to respond. Come on, dude. It isn’t a riddle. “But I’m sure someone does. I’ll check as soon as I’m finished here.” 

“Thanks,” says Jackie, jaw tight. “It’s just—my parents are going to be here soon. I want to ask him if he’s heard from them.” 

The nurse presses his thumb against the sticky edges of her bandage to smooth it onto her skin. When he finishes, he steps back for a quick inspection and then presses his hands together. “I’ll, uh, go and see what I can find out.” 

Jackie watches him flee the room, each step quicker than the last. 

Alone again, Jackie presses a hand to her left breast to feel the thump of her own heartbeat. For the second time, the beeping monitor at her side reflects her anxiety. It begins to chirp faster. She listens to it, glaring at her blanket. 

Why am I freaking out? 

The air Jackie sucks into her lungs carries a weight. It doesn’t calm her. The oxygen sinks heavily through her body and she shoves it out in a rapid puff. There is no relief. Breathing is a burden, a cinderblock dragging at her ribs. Something is wrong, her body screams, but her brain lags behind, scrambling to catch up. 

(You’re being silly, she tells herself, but her racing pulse seems to know it’s a lie.)

There is a narrow window on the door that lets her see a small piece of the activity outside—nurses hurrying, carts rattling. Jackie stares, waiting to see Coach Martinez’s face appear with a steady growing impatience. But minutes tick on by, and the window remains empty. 

Grumbling to herself, she collapses back against the pillow with enough melodrama to make her arm start burning again. 

What the fuck is going on? 

Jackie isn’t suspicious by nature, but she also isn’t clueless. This wasn’t adding up. Why is everyone acting so weird? The nurses’ pitying glances, her whispering doctor, Coach’s mysterious absence. What does it mean? It has to mean something. She knew she wasn’t crazy. 

Despite her joking comment to Taissa, she didn’t believe in psychics, or superstition, or any other supernatural nonsense. Ouija boards were meant to make sleepovers more fun, ghosts were something that only existed in stories and movies.

But sometimes, sometimes, your body knows things before you do. Have you ever had an experience so surreal, so unexplainable, that the only rational explanation was the existence of something greater than yourself, something big and unknowable? 

She begins to grieve, but she doesn’t know for what. 

Jackie will remember the next moment for the rest of her life. She will spend months, years, turning over every detail, freezing each frame until she could perform it in a play. The memory will unsettle her forever.

It all begins in a twisted, fucked-up slow motion. Or—maybe that part comes later, when she begins to reflect, obsess, and cry. 

Coach Martinez walks through the door. 

It only takes one look at his hollow, red eyes for her to know that something terrible has happened, something horrible and awful. He looks as though he’s aged by a decade since she saw him yesterday. Already, she wants to flee back into the past, to hours ago, when her biggest worry was her itchy cast and the crossword’s stupid number fourteen. 

He scuffs his feet as he walks, moving as though he were invisibly chained. He moves like a dead man walking, like he’s been carved and sculpted from ash. It scares her to see him look like that: gray, pallid, gaunt, with tear tracks on his cheeks.

Jackie starts to cry. 

She doesn’t even know why. 

Coach freezes, his eyes widening in sudden panic. “Did someone already tell you?” he chokes out in disbelief, hovering awkwardly in the middle of the room. 

Jackie shakes her head, shoulders trembling. So, there was something she needed to be told. (You knew it. There it is. You knew it in your gut.)

“Tell me what, Coach?” Her voice cracks. The trembling in her shoulder spreads to her arms, wrists, fingertips, the broken one and the one not, until her whole body goes numb and cold. “Coach—tell me what? I don’t… I don’t understand. What’s going on?” 

Coach Martinez exhales like the weight of the entire world rests on his shoulders. He grips his visor cap like it’s the only thing holding him together, twisting the brim into a tight, desperate spiral. “I—” and then his voice breaks, chopped in half as he starts to cry. “I can’t—” 

There is ice in Jackie’s veins, frozen sludge in her nose, and hoarfrost in her ears. If he doesn’t hurry up and spit it out, she’s going to scream, because the awful anticipation is killing her. But at the same time, she doesn’t want him to say anything, because if he’s crying, that must mean…

Who died? 

She’s scared to ask the question.

“Coach, please,” Jackie says, almost whimpering, and definitely begging. “What happened? Please, I need you to tell me.” 

When he finally speaks, his voice is splintered. “I—they—” he rubs roughly at his face, trying to wipe his tears. “It’s the plane… It—they… they never made it to New Jersey. They think—they think it—” but then he starts to cry, and Jackie does too, even though she’s so confused. What is he talking about? 

“What do you mean they? I—the plane didn’t make it to New Jersey?” She frowns. “Where did it go?” 

Logically, she understands what he’s saying. Each individual word is clear in her head, but they are out of order. She can’t put them together in a way that makes sense. They bounce around her skull, refusing to stick, spilling through her body like a broken bowl of sentence-soup. 

“Okay, fuck,” whispers Coach. He rubs his sweating hands down the front of his t-shirt. This time, when he speaks, he’s flat and distant. “By they, I mean the authorities. They can’t locate the plane. Right now, they believe it crashed.” 

Jackie’s mind snags against that. “It… crashed?” she repeats, as though he’s just said something gross and bizarre. She shakes her head, blundering forward, too loud. “That’s not possible.” 

Coach doesn’t look like Coach anymore. He crumbles, doubling over as if punched. “My sons… fuck, fuck, fuck.” Then he turns away from Jackie. “My boys, my boys…” He keeps on repeating himself: fuck, fuck, fuck. 

The room tilts. A ringing starts in her ears, growing louder and louder. At the same time, her stomach lurches, like she’s on a rollercoaster that never stops going down and down and down. If she were standing, her legs would have collapsed. 

“That’s not possible,” she insists, raising her voice. “No, no—that can’t… what? Like, no, that’s… that isn’t true. They must have landed somewhere else. I know it. They’re at some other airport, and they’re going to call soon.” 

Jackie nods firmly, clinging to her denial, even as her eyes are still flooded with tears. Coach is wrong. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. He’s only reacting so strongly because his kids are missing, and he’s worried. That’s completely understandable. She sits up straight, staring at him. “Coach, I know—I know it’s scary, but it’s going to be okay. They have to be at another airport.” 

She will never forget the look on his face. Not ever. 

Coach Martinez lifts his head, and for the first time, Jackie really sees his eyes—brown, like a muddy puddle after a thunderstorm, except… hollowed, with all of the life scooped out. They aren’t even Coach’s eyes anymore. They belong to a ghost; haunted, hallowed from the inside out, but filled still with so much emotion that she can hardly stand looking at him. 

They stare at each other through the longest second of Jackie’s life.

“Jackie,” he rasps, strangled, invisible fingers choking around his throat, digging deep into his windpipe. “They don’t… They don’t know where the plane is. I’m serious. The governor is involved, and it’s all over the news—they say that it’s crashed.” 

The words punch her straight in the gut. She chews on them and then spits them straight out. 

Like, literally, she spits. It happens before she’s able to stop it, a thick wad flying from her mouth to land with a wet splat at Coach’s feet. She’s never done that before, never in her life. 

They both stare at the glistening blob, stunned. 

“No,” Jackie gasps, shrill now, more noise than speech. “No, it’s not possible. Planes don’t just… they don’t just disappear. They don’t do that, Coach, they don’t.” 

“I—Jackie… I can’t—I can’t do this right now, I’m sorry.” He rakes a hand over his scalp, gripping at his hair like he wants to yank it straight out. “I have to go. Your… your parents are going to be at the airport in an hour.” 

He backs away, which only makes Jackie cry harder. She doesn’t stop him, doesn’t beg him to stay, and he doesn’t offer her anymore comfort. He just leaves her there, alone in the room, with spit on the floor and a sob clawing up her throat. 

She presses a fist to her mouth and falls apart. 

It’s not, like, a huge secret that Jackie’s parents kinda suck. 

It’s why she prefers to attend sleepovers, rather than host them, and it’s why she’s never risked throwing a party in her own house. 

Her mother, Cindy, has always been her biggest critic, but her father, James, wasn’t too far behind. They each approached it differently. Her dad never dared to comment on her clothing, or appearance, but he had a lot to say about her hobbies, or her plans for college, or how she spent her free-time. Meanwhile, her mother took charge of everything else—weight, pimples, boys, her figure. Her mother gave out shame with an open-hand. 

But when she sees them standing in the doorway, Jackie shatters into a million broken pieces. 

She locks eyes with her father first. Her face crumples and she holds out a single, pathetic arm. 

“Daddy,” she whimpers, and damn if that isn’t foreign on her tongue. She hasn’t called him that since she was six years old. 

She barely gets it out of her mouth before they’re both rushing across the room to wrap her in an embrace so suffocating it burns; hot oil scalding her skin. Her first instinct is to squirm away, but the thought of that hurts even more. 

“What—” she croaks, crying and hiccupping again, “what’s happening?” 

Her mom’s hand strokes at her hair like she’s a little girl again, except now, she isn’t bothered about the tears staining her silk blouse. Her father wraps his arms around them both, awkward but firm. It’s the worst day of Jackie’s life, but for a moment, it feels like they’re a real family. 

Until her mom ruins it. 

“Oh, thank God you’re safe,” she breathes into Jackie’s hair, “that you’re not—”

The freeze comes for her again, but it’s not internal anymore. This time, it pours over her from the outside, over the crown of her head and down her neck, dripping between each vertebrae of her spine in a long, bitter moment. 

Jackie shoves them away so hard her cast clangs against the bed rail. 

“Don’t—” she snarls, not recognizing her own voice. 

Her parents freeze. Her dad stares at her as though she’s gone feral; her mom, however, tries again, reaching forward to hug Jackie again. She cringes backward, fleeing to the back of her bed. The movement is rough on her broken arm and she cries out in sudden pain, flapping her good hand at them until they finally back up and give her some space.

They both stare at her, wide-eyed and shocked, unsure how to proceed. Her father starts to extend a slow hand, but he quickly pulls it back, scared she’ll bite him. 

“Wait.” Jackie demands. The ice in her body turns to stone—hard, unyielding, jagged. “I need—please, I need to know. Just… just tell me the truth. What’s going on?” She looks at her mother directly. 

Cindy glances at James, sharing some sort of silent communication with him. Then, sighing, she perches on the edge of the bed and meets Jackie’s gaze. 

“Sweetheart,” she whispers, following a long, pregnant pause. “The plane has gone missing.” 

“No,” Jackie whispers back, shaking her head. 

Tears pool in her mother’s eyes. The sight comforts her and devastates her in equal measure. 

“I’m so sorry,” says Cindy, her arms trembling open. “Please, baby, come here.” 

Jackie glances at her dad. He’s stoic, jaw tight, which isn’t unusual, but there is a tightness in his eyes, a sheen of moisture that she’s never seen from him before. And that’s what does it, what makes her believe. 

“No, no—they—Shauna, she… no, she can’t—” Jackie finally caves, collapsing into her mother’s arms, shaking both of their bodies with her full-belly sobs. 

Jackie loses her fucking shit. 

There is no other way to describe it. 

Later, in the weeks to come, she’ll barely remember it. The details will blur into a dream she doesn’t care to recall. 

But, for posterity’s sake, once she finishes her violent sobbing against her mother’s silk, pink blouse, Jackie whirls around to face her father, eyes wild. 

“I need you to go out and buy me a TV,” she blurts. “Right now.”

“Jackie, I don’t think—” 

She cuts her mother off without remorse, well past the point of caring. She raises her voice. “I mean it, Dad. I need you to go to Walmart, or Target. Anywhere. I don’t care. Or—ask someone here if there’s a spare. Please. I need to know what’s happening—what they’re saying.” 

“But you’ll be discharged tomorrow,” her mother tries again, but Jackie refuses to listen. She can’t bear it. 

“Please, Dad, please,” she begs, lip wobbling. Her face feels tight and hot with a new level of anguish. It pushes up her throat, making her feel like she needs to gag. “I swear, I’ll never ask you for anything ever again. I’ll sell my TV at home if you want. I’m serious. I just—I need to know, and I can’t—I won’t—sit here all day in the dark. Please. It can be small, or—or even a radio. I just need something.” 

Her mom opens her mouth to continue arguing, because of-fucking-course she does, but then her father lifts his hand, the universal sign for stop. He exhales wearily, like Jackie is asking for the moon. 

But for all of her dad’s faults, he’s always been happy to spoil her materially, preferring to hand out his credit card in favor of emotional connection. She counts on that now. She grips the hospital blanket, begging with her eyes. If you love me at all… 

“I’ll see what I can do,” he finally says. 

A jolt of absurd laughter escapes her, bubbling up against her will. It’s a terribly false cheer. Actually, it’s hysterical, almost manic. She’s fucking insane. All of her friends might be dead. Shauna might be dead. And she was laughing. It’s disgusting, and she can’t stop it. What the fuck is wrong with me? 

With shaking hands, Jackie wipes the tears from her cheeks. The horrible laughter eases off, leaving her feeling dizzy, almost delirious. 

Her father scrunches his face in a way she doesn’t understand, and then he strides out the room, marching into the hallway with the entitlement of man who was used to getting his way. 

Then, once again, Jackie can’t breathe. 

It’s as though every swallow of air sticks in her chest. She clutches at her hair, remembering Coach Martinez doing the same not too long ago. The image of him, bent over in helpless distress, finally makes sense. 

She wants to scream, because Shauna could be—no, no, no, she would not finish that thought. She refuses. Shauna is somewhere, alive. She would not think any further than that. 

But, then… if Shauna’s alive, where is she? 

James Taylor has only been gone maybe five minutes to hunt down a television, but it feels more like hours. Through that endless stretch of time, Jackie cries with everything she has, so hard she isn’t sure she’ll ever stop. Her own lungs fight against her, making her battle for each breath, while her fingers curl themselves into stiff, rigid shapes. Cindy hovers uselessly near the foot of the bed, arms half-outstretched, like she can’t decide whether she should hold Jackie or give her space. 

She is clearly out of her depth.

A plane crash. For god’s sake, what the fuck? Is the Universe playing some sick joke on her? 

It can’t be real. Childishly, Jackie clings to that. Shauna and the rest of the team—Nat, Lottie, Tai, Van—they can’t have just vanished. Planes don’t disappear. People tracked them, there was radar… and satellites, and people all over the ground. 

Yet, somehow, no one knows where they are? It doesn’t make sense. 

She’s lightheaded. Her mind skitters around, a bug on a hot stove. The heart monitor reflects this, spiking in noise. 

Jackie tries to regulate her breathing—slow, in, slow, out—because if she doesn’t get herself together, if the beats-per-minute kept on rising, the nurses would rush in, and they would try to calm her with sedatives. She can’t have that. She needs to be alert, awake, ready for any piece of news. 

Coach had said the governor was involved. Which governor? New Jersey’s? Washington’s? This is exactly why she needs a damn television. 

Her dad is taking his time, or maybe it’s just that time is moving slow. Jackie is torn apart in a vicious loop: they’re missing, no one knows where they are, and all she can do is cry and cry and cry.

At long last, the door swings open, revealing her father. He wheels in a bulky television set, the same boxy shape the teachers used in school when there was a substitute, or a movie day. 

Jackie’s tears vanish in an instant, replaced by a tight, bracing curiosity. Finally, she’ll have a way to occupy her mind. Finally, she’ll have some scrap of news to cling to. 

Her mother remains silent. She hasn’t said a word since her father disappeared into the hallway. Which is fine, Jackie prefers it like this. She watches, restless, as her dad messes with wires and fiddles with the antenna, assisted by a single pitying nurse. 

When a blurry image finally flickers across the screen, Jackie doesn’t bother trying to be polite. “Go to ABC,” she demands, forgetting to say thank you. 

Her father taps at the television, flipping through a flurry of channels. Jackie glares at them all, the cartoons and the soaps, until: 

“Good afternoon—”

“Stop!” she practically yells. Her hand swipes through the air, beckoning for him to step away. 

On the screen, a news anchor with carefully combed hair and a neat blazer says, “We’re going to pick up where we left off earlier this morning with the latest updates on flight 3616. The plane, privately chartered, was last seen departing Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last night, at 7:15 PM.” 

Jackie withers and wanes. She’d hoped against all odds that this was some huge misunderstanding, that somehow, someway, her parents and Coach were wrong. That the plane really did, in fact, land somewhere else, somewhere unexpected and remote, which is why it took so long for them to make contact. 

But the words on-screen are relentless. She asked for this. It beats her down in a series of bludgeoning blows. 

A flashing graphic appears: bright red, giving way to a top-down map with neat lines and stark arrows. The anchor stands in front of it, gesturing with his hands, talking about where the plane vanished from radar. 

“It’s still unclear why the altitude on the plane’s tracking device suddenly plummeted to zero,” the anchor continues. “Our experts say—”

Jackie bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood. Her tears threaten to return, but she does her damndest to banish them away. She needs to remain in control, needs to keep listening, no matter how awful she feels. 

“You can see here scenes from Newark Liberty International in New Jersey,” he adds, voice perfectly even. “Friends and family are already gathering.”

Then a photo appears on-screen, and it may as well be another slap to Jackie’s injured face. It’s Laura Lee’s father, hunched at the edge of a crowd, looking stricken. Next to him, a woman clings to his arm, her face twisted with sorrow. 

Jackie stares, wide-eyed, too stunned even to cry. Fuck, this is real. It isn’t some sick dream. She won’t be able to wake up and make everything better again.

“Here’s one grieving family member—looks like that’s his wife holding onto him,” the anchor says, as though describing a mild weather report. 

She can’t believe they would violate this man’s private misery and broadcast it for everyone to see. She gapes, mouth open.

“We have team coverage on the investigation, around the clock, starting tonight. Here is Dave Keller, on the scene in New Jersey, right now. Good evening, Dave.” 

The image on the screen shifts to a new man. He’s standing in a place Jackie knows all too well, the same terminal she herself stood at only a week ago. He stares blankly into the camera for a beat, and then snaps to life. 

“Thank you, Mike,” Dave says. “Yes, as you said, it’s been a truly difficult time for these families and friends, as you can imagine. Their loved ones were supposed to arrive in New Jersey at about two o’clock this morning, but sadly, that didn’t happen.” 

Then, as if things couldn’t get anymore cold, anymore callous, the TV cuts to a bold red slide, with huge yellow letters in a brick-style font. VANISHED. 

Jackie feels sick. 

A picture of Lottie flashes across the screen. Then Taissa. Then a group photo of the entire team. Jackie sees herself, pressed right up beside Shauna, so happy, so full of life. 

Dave carries on, explaining that the missing plane was transporting a soccer team home from their Nationals tournament. The camera follows him as he walks backwards through the airport, talking about their big victory, their final score, and dropping in random details about Wiskayok and their high school. Jackie watches, numb. This is too fast, it’s all happening before she’s able to process anything. 

She doesn’t want to keep watching, but she can’t look away. Limbo, she thinks. A no-man’s-land full of waiting and dread. 

Then Dave hands off the coverage back to Mike, who reappears again in front of the flight map, frowning as though he actually cares. But Jackie knows it’s false. He didn’t know a single one of them. Where did he get off frowning like that? 

“We have a statement here from the airline,” says Mike. “I quote: ‘we deeply regret that we have lost contact with flight 3617. We are working with all the necessary authorities to do everything we can to locate these kids. We, alongside the full cooperation of the government, have activated our own Search and Rescue teams. We are currently in the process of calling all next-of-kin for the passengers and crew members. We ask for the public’s prayers and support as we work to find any potential survivors.’” 

It goes to commercial break after that.

Jackie presses her palm to her chest, searching for the drum of her heart. She tugs at the flimsy fabric, half-choking, still trying to breathe, because the phrase “potential survivors” has just carved a new and raw ache. 

She falls back on her pillows, clenching her teeth so hard it would make her dentist shudder. Her mind flickers back to the book Shauna gave, to the line Jackie kept turning over in her head in that liminal space before falling asleep. It stabs her now, a personal message from the author.

We’ve got that in common, you and I. We are both alone in the world. 

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 20th, 1996. Seattle, Washington.

The hospital doesn’t carry any premium cable channels, so Jackie is stuck, forced to flip between the local news broadcasts. If she were at home, she could flip to CNN or Fox News, and devote her entire day to the grim comfort of around-the-clock coverage. But here, she has to settle for KIRO-7, an ordinary Seattle news station that isn’t even on all day. 

Luckily for her—she probably shouldn’t call it that, lucky—the missing plane was Seattle-based, so at least when the news is on, they’re talking about the crash.

It’s late-afternoon now, and Jackie’s been glued to the TV ever since it’s arrival, blankets bunched up under her chin. About an hour ago, they released an official list of the missing passengers. Jackie listens to the recital in a haze, trembling, but finally too-worn out to cry. She’s exhausted every tear in her body, for now, at least. 

They don’t show photos of the girls, only their names. If she were more like Laura Lee, someone who believed in the power of prayer, she would thank God for that small kindness. But she isn’t. She simply watches, each one a fresh stab to her heart. 

Gen. Mari. Melissa. Brittany. Robin. Rachel. Akilah. Javi. Travis. Lottie. Laura Lee. Van. Misty. Kristen. Natalie. Coach Scott. Allie. Taissa. 

Shauna. 

Nineteen names in total, not counting the pilots, or flight attendants, or Coach Scott. 

Jackie doesn’t claim to have been friends with all of them, but they were still her team, her people. She spent every afternoon acting as their captain—guiding, leading, pushing, and always cheering them on. Who is she left with now? Her parents? Jeff fucking Sadecki? If she weren’t so exhausted, that thought alone would send careening into another horrid fit.

As it is, she’s too tired, too weak, too doped up on pain medication. The doctors allowed her to take a lower dose, but they, along with her parents, refused to allow her to forgo the medication entirely. 

Jackie learns to resist the weight in her bones that wants to pull her into sleep. What if she’s asleep when they find the plane? What if Shauna is found alive, and Jackie’s too fucked up to remember her phone number—even though she’s had it memorized since she was seven years old? 

She pinches the tender skin of her inner-thigh, jolting herself awake. A small price to pay. 

Maybe not every girl on that plane was Jackie’s dearest friend. But the one person who mattered most in her life was, along with all of her other close friends. Anguish grips her like a vice. 

Logically—realistically—Jackie knows people died last night. Multiple people, even. She’s an optimist at heart, but that doesn’t make her an idiot. When planes crash, people die. It is basic math. That being said, she refuses to consider the idea that Shauna might be one of the dead. It is simply not possible. They’re fused together, Jackie and Shauna, two twin trees with roots knotted so tight you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. 

She would know if Shauna was dead. She would feel it in her spine, like a crack in her ribs. Shauna dying would wrench Jackie’s heart from her chest. The only thing remaining would be a smoking, smoldering crater that would drag Jackie down too. 

Shauna is alive. She refuses to consider anything else. 

So she doesn’t cry. She doesn’t blink. She only sits in her hospital bed, knees tucked to her chest, to stare at the television like it’s a test she has to pass.

Her mom hovers nearby. “Jackie…. are you sure you want to keep watching this? It’s—well, it’s morbid, isn’t it?” 

The blonde, semi-bald news anchor drones on, slick with fake sympathy. He’s interviewing a retired pilot, theorizing with her on the possibility of there being any survivors. The pilot, a middle-aged woman with gray hair and kind eyes, twists her lips into an uncomfortable frown. 

“There’s still hope right now. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet, and the first day is the most important. There is still a chance they’ll find survivors among the wreckage. However…” the pilot clicks her teeth. “I don’t expect it to be a pretty sight. Plane crashes are always a tragedy, even if some of the girls are still alive.”

Cindy shifts closer. “Maybe we should turn it off. It’s… morbid, isn’t it?” 

“No.” 

It is morbid, her mother is right. Jackie keeps watching anyway.

A map flashes on screen, blotched with different colors: green for the original flight path, yellow for “possible deviations,” and red for “worst-case scenario.” The red swallows half of the country, stretching from southern Canada down toward Kansas and Missouri. 

It’s so much ground to cover. 

Where are you, Shauna?

The news anchor goes on talking. “No debris has been discovered yet. There have been no emergency signals detected.” 

Jackie digs her nails into her palm. How does a plane just vanish? 

More interviews flash across the screen, along with clips from the national news. There are aviation experts, members of the coast guard and the airforce, politicians from multiple states, and even a group of deep-sea divers, all talking about the missing flight. It’s surreal. 

To make things even more insane—the news cuts away from the diver’s mid-interview, panning abruptly to an interruption by the President. The actual President.

His face fills the screen, solemn as a funeral director, his tie perfectly knotted. 

“My fellow Americans,” he begins, his hands folded on the Resolute Desk, “today our nation mourns.” 

Jackie has never paid much attention to politics, but she can’t help thinking that Taissa would die over this. Then she freezes—maybe she already has. No, no, she can’t start with that, not right now. 

“We’re working closely with our aviation authorities and have dispatched our search-and-rescue experts. The Canadian government has also offered the full extent of its own resources to coordinate efforts and share vital information.” 

It’s comforting, at least, to know that the full might of the American government was working to find them. That meant it would be soon, right? 

And, in one of the oddest moments of Jackie’s life, she hears a reference to herself. 

“Amid this profound tragedy is one small glimmer of good news. One member of the team was not on the plane. Our prayers are with her as she faces this unimaginable journey.” 

How strange. The President of the United States knows who she is. He might even know her name. 

She glances at her parents, who are sitting rigidly on the couch, leaning forward, both of their eyes glued to the television. Cindy’s mouth twitches into a faint smile, and James is doing that thing where he grips his chin like he’s listening to something extremely profound. Jackie sneers, bitter. For a second, she hates them more than she hates anything else in the world. 

Some of her teammates might be dead, and those that were alive were probably traumatized. And yet, here they both were, preening because the President must know their last name. She rolls her eyes. They didn’t even vote for the guy.

“I want to assure the families, and all of those affected by this awful event, that we will leave no stone unturned in our search for answers. I pledge that my government will spare no effort in uncovering the truth and finding these kids.” 

God fucking bless America, or whatever. If they manage to find Shauna alive, she’ll become a patriot.

The screen cuts back to the news anchor. 

She glares at her parents, while saliva pools heavy under her tongue, hot and sour. 

This should hurt more, Jackie thinks, watching her parents hover by the door. But it doesn’t. It just feels… familiar. Oh well. 

“We’ll be back first thing in the morning,” her father says, his hand limp around her mom’s. “And then we’re going to get you home.”

Her mom tilts her head, “Will you be alright here, sweetheart?” She says it with false sympathy, and Jackie knows what she wants to hear. 

Obligingly, she nods. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. You can go.” 

Her mom exhales, shoulders dropping in clear relief. She doesn’t even bother trying to hide it—how much she wants to go. “Well, alright then. Call us at the hotel if you need anything. I wrote the number down for you on that sheet of paper there. We’ll be back in Wiskayok this time tomorrow night.” 

Nobody acknowledges the implications of that sentence. The How of it all, the specific method of transportation. Jackie doesn’t bother asking, because she already knows the answer. It’s one thing they all have in common, mommy, daddy, and Jackie too—always avoiding the point, never saying out loud what could otherwise remain unsaid. 

Jackie ponders that as the door closes behind them.

They will be flying home tomorrow. Flying. Her stomach cramps at the thought. The roar of the engine, the lurch of the wheels lifting from her ground, the thick popping in her ears as the cabin’s pressure decreases. She’s never been scared to fly, but now the anxiety comes to claim her. What were her parents thinking? Did they want to traumatize her even further? 

Trains existed, cars too. But her father’s job—always the job—couldn’t wait. He was apologetic for it, but that didn’t help her much. She isn’t surprised that he has the audacity to use his usual excuses. 

It doesn’t matter. There is a small part of her that almost wants the fear, that looks forward to the horrible twist in her chest. She’ll deserve every white-knuckled minute. 

The TV drones on, while Jackie watches, her eyes glazing into a blur, slack and red and heavy. Clips of the president’s address are replaying, interspersed between pictures and videos of her teammates and information about a nighttime vigil at their high school. 

Jackie presses a hand to her chest, where guilt burns like hot coals under a fire. It’s been growing since the moment Coach Martinez, a living dead man, stepped into the room to deliver the awful news. It spreads through her body, acid corroding her veins, a rough-spun noose going tight around her neck. 

You should have been on that plane, the guilt whispers. 

I know, Jackie answers. 

The plane ride home would be awful, but it was no less than what she deserves. 

Jackie can’t think deeper into it, into why she deserves it. She’ll have to, eventually. Soon, she’ll be forced to face the music and pay the piper, because deep down, she knows it’s her fault that this happened to Shauna. She can’t face it now, but the shame is still there. And it fucking hurts. 

It hurts more than her stupid, broken arm, and worse than watching the back of her parent’s head as they left the room, prioritizing themselves over her yet again. 

Her cast itches. The guilt gnaws. And beneath it all, a fury stirs—at her parents, her doctors, at the universe. Mostly, though, at herself. 

You told Shauna to go, her guilt hisses. Why? 

Jackie doesn’t know. She curls onto her side. The rough, woolly blanket sticks to her sweaty legs as she shifts around, struggling to get comfortable against her stiff pillows. She wants to crawl out of her own body, wants to leave her flesh and blood and broken bones behind, and float away to wherever her team is. She wants to become a persistent, desperate specter. But she can’t. 

She’s stuck.

When the aide brings her dinner, Jackie takes it, despite not feeling much in the way of appetite. At least it’s better than what they brought her for lunch. Sighing, she stabs her fork into a steaming green bean and eats just enough of the cardboard chicken to keep the nurses off her back. They wouldn’t let her get away with skipping a meal. She knows because she already tried. So, angrily, she eats her vegetables and her chicken breast, but she denies herself the pudding cup, leaving it untouched on her tray.

While she eats, she watches Wheel of Fortune on the television, waiting for the evening news to begin. 

A horrible, listless feeling wraps around her neck; a steel cord, squeezing and tightening until Jackie is no longer exhaling carbon-dioxide, but rather, sheer cortisol and painful epinephrine, all anxiety and no relief. 

Her hand stretches toward the phone next to her bed without thought. The numbers blur as she clumsily dials.

It is a very short list, the people Jackie can call right now. (You’re alone, alone, alone.)

She breathes and waits, and waits and breathes, until finally the ringing stops. 

“Hello?” 

“Jeff?” Her voice cracks. “Is that you?”

A pause. Jackie doesn’t need to be there to know he’s standing in his family’s kitchen, hunched near the faded brown door to the garage, next to the corkboard on the wall that held pictures and postcards and phone numbers his mother wanted to remember. She imagines him bracing himself against the wall, palm flat against the paint. 

“Jackie?” His voice is half-gasp, colored with shock. “Shit—I… I didn’t expect you to call. It’s just, well—damn, it’s good to hear your voice. I heard that you… that you weren’t—weren’t…” He trails off. 

Jackie begins to cry. “Jeff.” 

“I’m so sorry, Jackie,” he says, too fast. “About everything. I don’t even know what to say. It’s—it’s all anyone’s talking about.” 

“I can’t believe this is real. It can’t be, right? I—I can’t believe it,” she whispers, wiping at her face to stop her tears. Unfortunately, they are a well-provisioned army and they keep on coming. 

“No, it doesn’t,” he says softly, his voice rumbling low in her ear. It brings her comfort to talk to him, which is a testament to how alone she is. Not once has she ever called him seeking his assurance. 

“Do you… do you know anything new? I’ve only been able to learn a little,” says Jackie, “Are there any new updates, or—or something I haven’t heard about yet?” 

“No, nothing.” She hates how small he sounds, hates that he’s also crying. “It’s all been the same stuff.” 

She sniffles. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. I’ve been watching the news all day, I promise.” says Jeff, sadly. “It’s all I’ve been able to think about too.”

Something about that makes her angry. We are not the same. There is no “too.” But even so, it’s nice to know that someone is sad with her, even if Jeff’s pond of worry is nothing next to Jackie’s vast ocean. 

“I’m so scared,” she whispers. “They’re all just… out there. Shauna is out there.” 

He inhales sharply, a high-pitched of sort of sound, different from usual and unexpectedly strangled. He sounds almost pained. “Yeah. My mom, she, uh, brought some food by earlier to Mrs. Shipman. She’s… she’s not doing so great.” 

Jackie can imagine. 

So far, she’s avoided thinking too deeply about Deb, about the woman she loves more, even, than her own mother. She was suffering, hundreds of miles away, and it was all Jackie’s fault. I should have let her stay. 

Her lips fall open, and she intends to respond with, like, actual words, but all that comes out is a soft, quiet cry. 

He cries with her, which she supposes is sweet. It reminds her to give him more emotional credit than she has so far. Although, she supposes the entire town of Wiskayok is crying tonight. Or they ought to be. 

“I’m so sorry, Jackie,” he says, wet with tears. “I’m just so, so sorry.” 

“Yeah, me too,” she whispers, meaning it in more ways than one. “Thank you for answering. I… I really needed someone to talk to.” 

There’s a sniffle on the other end, and a rustling. His voice is gentle. “Of course. Call me anytime, for anything. And if I don’t answer, leave a message, or—or call Randy, whatever you need to do, okay? I want to be there for you.” 

“Thanks,” she murmurs. “I’ll, uh, call you tomorrow, I guess, when I make it back home.” 

When they hang up, Jackie doesn’t say I love you and neither does Jeff. She is glad for that. Those words belonged to a different life—one where planes didn’t vanish, and best friends didn’t either. 

She tugs the scratchy blanket over her shoulders. Outside, the sun dips below the parking lot, painting the walls orange. Jackie closes her eyes, too tired to fight sleep, and ready to be done with this terrible, awful day. 

The hospital serves Jackie her discharge papers first thing at dawn. 

Chipper nurses prattle off a series of instructions: keep the cast dry and what to do if it gets wet, what prescriptions she’d need to take, and reminders to book an appointment soon with an orthopedic doctor. The words dissolve before reaching her brain. She barely hears any of it. Who cares? Anyway, if she has questions, she’ll just make her mom call her pediatrician, or something.

At least her parents are paying attention, for once. Because, like, if not now, then literally, when?

Her father steps forward to take the stack of paperwork, folding it neatly into his briefcase as though it were just another quarterly report. Her mother fusses with the sling supporting her cast, fingers trembling as they adjust the straps. It digs into Jackie’s neck, but she doesn’t complain. Let Cindy play nurse, let her pretend everything is fine. 

“Coach,” Jackie says suddenly, jerking from her mom’s grip. “I need to say goodbye to Coach Martinez. Do you know where he is?” 

It dawns on her then that he is the only other person who might understand what she’s going through. Which—that isn’t true, not exactly. Deb would know, and the other families, their parents and their siblings. But he was the only one here, the only one in Seattle who was also missing a chunk of their heart, now for more than twenty four hours.

This morning, the news talked about the team’s “dwindling survival chances” and Jackie had nearly puked up her entire breakfast. Apparently, they lowered dramatically with every passing day. But this guy wasn’t an expert, he was merely a news anchor, repeating words from a teleprompter. What did he know about search and rescue? It wasn’t as though this were a very common sort of situation. Anything could happen. 

Or so she tells herself. 

But—back to Coach. 

She thinks, for an inexplicable reason, that it would do her good to see him. She doesn’t know what she’ll say. Sorry your kids are gone? Sorry we’re still alive? Maybe she’ll hug him. Stranger things have happened. 

Cindy tucks a strand of hair behind Jackie’s ear, eyes darting across her face. Yeah, Mom, she wants to snap, my hair is greasy and gross. Get over it. 

“Your coach left last night,” her mom says, very gently. “He took the first flight home he could find.” 

“What?” Jackie whispers, her throat tightening. She understands, obviously, but it’s still a blow to her fragile feelings. She doesn’t want to cry in front of her parents again. 

Already, her dad is shuffling his feet, tapping his polished loafers against the floor, clearly uncomfortable. Men don’t cry, she thinks, they just check their watches and act like everything is alright. 

The tears come anyway, despite her efforts, hot and traitorous.

James puts a hand on her uninjured shoulder and sighs. “He has a wife he needs to get home to, Jackie. They’re going through something awful. His boys…” 

And Jackie wants to cry, wants to scream that she’s also going through something awful, wants to whine: what about me? Why couldn’t her father take off work, so they could take a train? Why can’t her mother look at her without noticing everything that’s wrong? More than anything, why did they have to be who they were? Because if they were different, if they weren’t so… themselves, then Jackie never would have allowed Shauna to walk away and get on that plane.

That wouldn’t help any of the others, and it wouldn’t stop the crash. She knows how selfish she’s being, caring only for herself, and by extension, Shauna. She knows. 

All she wants is Shauna here, whole, healthy, and entirely alive. She wants to see her, hear her, love her. 

But she bites her tongue and doesn’t say any of those things. Her parents wouldn’t understand. They never had, and they never would. 

The airport buzzes around them, all squealing toddlers and squeaking suitcases. Jackie’s medication makes her limbs move slow, like she’s pushing through wet sand. Her dad steers her toward the gate, his grip firm on her good arm, while her mom clucks about needing to buy a water bottle. 

They board the plane. Their first class seats remind Jackie of the plane they arrived in, the one Lottie’s father chartered for them, the one someone probably died in. (Not Shauna, though, never Shauna. I would feel it.) 

“I want the window seat,” Jackie mumbles once they reach their row. 

“Are you—is… is that a good idea? Are you sure you don’t want the middle seat, or the aisle?” She purses her lips and looks at James for backup. 

He’s shoving their bags into the overhead bin, looking weary and tired and ready to be done with it all. Same here, Jackie thinks. Lazily, he shakes his head. “Let her have the window seat if she wants it.” 

Jackie slumps in her chair and presses her forehead to the glass, ignoring Cindy’s nervous glance. 

The engines roar and Jackie’s stomach drops. But she does not look away. She deserves this—the guilt, the fear, the pain in her arm. She deserves all of it. 

Her father orders a whiskey and Cindy flips open a magazine, quiet beside her. 

It isn’t just Jackie that’s nervous. The entire plane hums with a anxious energy. The flight attendants titter around restlessly, smiling too brightly, their laughter forced. Some of the other passengers are flipping through safety pamphlets that they would normally never read. The bar cart would surely be busy today. 

Jackie slumps in her seat, awkwardly propping her cast on her knee. 

Home. The idea is hollow. What does it even mean to her now? Wiskayok without Shauna was just a sad town full of sad people and sadder ghosts. Someone could obliterate it from the map for the all value it holds to her now. It was one thing to be secluded here, in the far corner of the country. It was another thing entirely to be home without Shauna, or Lottie, or Taissa. Even Misty. There was no team waiting for her. It was just her and Coach, the two left behind. (The “lucky ones,” they would be called later. Lucky… it’s enough to make her spit in their faces.) 

Cindy fidgets anxiously in the middle seat as the flight takes off, fingers twitching like she wants to reach for Jackie’s hand. Resentful still, and perhaps always, she hides her hand in her lap, out of her mother’s reach. 

The glass window rattles her forehead as the wheels lift off. The world below begins to shrink in a blur of green and brown. Is this what Shauna saw? But no—Shauna’s plane took off at night. She would have seen nothing but darkness. 

Her palm slicks along her leg. She’s clammy, almost trembling. 

Jackie hates herself for it, but she can’t stop imagining the nose dipping, how everyone would scream around her as the ground rushed up to meet them. Crash, she thinks, crash and let me find her. Guilt curdles in her gut. How horrible is she to wish death on all of these innocent people? Her parents? But, like she’s already established, she’s not a good person. She accepts that now. Selfish, selfish, selfish. 

Shauna, where are you?

Unfortunately, the plane lands smoothly, no bumps, no drama, not even a single bit of turbulence. Seriously? Unfortunately? She’s disgusted with herself.

To the horror of both herself and her parents, there is a media storm outside the airport. Reporters swarm around like flies on rotting fruit, all talking into their cameras, microphones jutting out in front of them, voices overlapping in a cacophony of “how are you feeling?” and “is there anything you want to say about your teammates?” 

They weren’t here for answers, not really. They were here for a spectacle, here to capitalize on the broken girl with the broken bones, here to make money off a tearful soundbite.

The lights flashing take Jackie off guard. She looks to her father, fearful. Was she really going to have to walk through all of them? 

“James,” says Cindy, gripping Jackie’s good arm tightly, nails digging into her skin, “we cannot put her through this. We need another way. I mean, her face, and well, we should walk out with some privacy. I don’t want them plastering her all over the nightly news. It wouldn’t be good for her.” 

Jackie knows what she really means, that Jackie is broken and busted and ugly. A mess. A terrible story. 

Her dad nods, all business. “I’ll go and speak with someone from the airline.” Tentatively, he ruffles her hair the way he used to when she was little, when she was cute and small and the apple of his eye. His palm is large and warm. Jackie lets her eyes flutter closed, wishing it would comfort her like it used to. 

When he goes, Jackie slumps into a plastic chair next to her mom. They don’t speak. 

Her dad returns fifteen minutes later with a burly-shouldered security guard and a stern-faced aviation agent in tow. 

Jackie follows them, numb, to a concrete garage that smells of exhaust and stale oil. Jackie wonders if this is where the celebrities exit when they land here, or politicians. There’s a yellow cab waiting for them. The driver inside eyes them with a vague sense of pity. 

She slides in and presses her forehead to the cool window. 

Then the cab lurches forward and they escape the airport, heading toward home.

Wiskayok looks the same as it always has. The same trimmed lawns, the same rusted swing set in the park, the same people. Jackie hates it. It should look like something from a horror movie. It should be barren and desolate, a true wasteland. She’s ruined inside, a husk of the girl she used to be. The world should reflect that. It’s not fair that it doesn’t.

She squeezes her eyes shut as they pass by the high school. 

The last thing she wants to see are the wilting flowers piling at the gates or the poster boards plastered with well-meaning messages of mourning. She keeps them closed the entire way, because Mari’s house is on the same street as her own, and so is Allie’s. She can’t stand to look at them. 

“Jackie,” her mom says softly, trying not to spook her, “we’re home. Let’s get you inside and cleaned up.” 

Cleaned up. She hasn’t showered since breaking her arm. This is the filthiest she’s ever been, caked with days of grime and sweat. Her hair is oily and she definitely smells, but the idea of being in water, naked and alone, doesn’t sound very tempting. There isn’t a shower in existence that is strong enough to rinse off the last week. 

The house is dark inside, thick with the smell of a lilac candle. Jackie points at the phone, which is dangling from its chord instead of its rightful spot on the hook. “Why is the phone like that?” 

Her mom opens a cabinet and pulls out a wine glass. “Oh—there were too many calls. Reporters. Neighbors. Everyone wanted to know if you were okay.” 

Her dad stands near the hallway, holding Jackie’s suitcase. “We couldn’t sleep with all the noise.” 

Jackie nods, slow and sluggish. “Right.” 

Then she turns, leaving her mother alone with her cabernet, and follows her father up the stairs. They walk silently together down the hall to her room. At the sight of her bedroom door, she freezes. She can’t go in there. 

Being back in Wiskayok was one thing. Her family’s grand, white colonial was another. But her own bedroom? It’s littered with painful reminders. If she steps inside, she isn’t sure she’ll ever come back out. She’d become a hermit, a mole-person, going blind after a long time without seeing the light of day. 

Shauna is in every corner. 

Her sweatshirt is still slung over the back of the desk chair. Her handwriting is scribbled on all the notes taped to Jackie’s mirror. There are trinkets from shared vacations and boxes full of doodles and angry letters and sweet makeups. 

“Dad, wait—” She grabs the back of his polo shirt, voice wild and strangled. “I can’t—I don’t want to go in there yet. Can you—can you just… put my stuff in the guest bathroom. I’m going to take a shower there. Please.”

He turns, his face twitching the way it does when he doesn't know how to fix something. For a second, she thinks he might argue—it’s just a bedroom—but then he sighs and shuffles further down the hall. “Sure thing, kiddo.” 

Her mom would’ve pushed. Her mom would’ve said something like, “Don’t be silly, Jackie,” before pushing the door open anyway.  

“Thanks,” she whispers. 

Then she smiles at him. 

It’s weak, thin, but it’s there.

Real.

Jackie doesn’t shower. She knows it’s gross. She feels gross. But she can’t bring herself to do it.

She pretends to, though, cranking on the hot water and letting the room fill with steam. The door is firm against her back as she leans against it, sliding slowly to the floor, pulling her scabby knees to her chest. What is she supposed to do now? What’s the point of being clean if her whole life is one large dumpster fire? 

If yesterday was a tearful hell, then today is a numbing limbo. 

A hollow, itchy nothing. 

Her parents would never understand. They would never even try. She thinks of her father’s discomfort at seeing her cry. Why can’t they try to get it? Why can’t they try and see her—fully? 

The cast on her arms is heavy. Her arm throbs from inside, aching in sync with the buzz of the bathroom fan, pulsing like the beat of a nightclub Jackie would never visit, because why would she? All of her friends were gone. There is nobody to go with.

She vacillates between despair and hope as her mind runs wild. One minute, she thinks her friends will be gone forever. The next, she’s sure they were mere hours from being found. 

Jackie has always been an optimist. She doesn’t want to let that go, not yet. 

Her palm comes to rest on the tile floor, fingernails dragging through the grout, savoring the gritty friction of chipping keratin. It’s the only sound in the room, save for the shower’s hiss. Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch. 

She sits there like that long enough that her mother comes to knock at the door. 

“Jackie? Are you alright in there?” 

No. She scrambles up, knees burning, until she’s far away enough to sound like she’s calling from inside the shower. “I’m fine,” she says, raising her voice. 

Cindy’s slippers shadow through the crack under the door. “Well, alright, but don’t stay in there for much longer. You’ll prune up. And you need to take your medicine soon.” 

Jackie rolls her eyes. As if Jackie is worried about water-wrinkles right now. Like that matters. Like anything matters.

When her mom finally shuffles away, Jackie presses her ears to the door, listening for the click of her parents’ bedroom door shutting closed. She takes a deep breath and stares up at the ceiling. 

The urge to jump out of the window prickles under Jackie’s skin like a thousand ants marching. Just open the window, hisses a voice, and jump. Pressing a hand to her chest, she gulps for air until her rib aches, staring at the lightbulb until she sees color spots. 

She stands up on shaky legs, moving on autopilot to her suitcase. It’s flat on the tile, closed until she yanks it open. There’s an outfit inside for every occasion, because Jackie was a chronic over-packer. Everything inside is tangled in a heap. She paws through the mess, flinging aside a hairbrush and a half-empty bottle of nail polish. 

Her toiletry bag is buried at the bottom. She stuffs her medication inside, along with her doctor’s instructions: Take with food. Avoid alcohol. Rest. 

With the shower still roaring, Jackie looks into the steam-fogged mirror. She doesn’t recognize the girl staring back, with her empty eyes and sad, pale skin. Then, she slips from the room, tip-toeing downstairs, still on autopilot, not thinking straight at all. 

The phone still hangs from its cord. Jackie grabs it and jams it back on the hook. When she picks it up again, she hears the dial tone buzzing. She can’t be here. She can’t be anywhere. Clumsily, her fingers begin to stab out a phone number. 

A deep voice answers. “Hello?” 

“Jeff?” Her voice is foreign to her ears, too high and desperate. “Come and get me. Like, right now.” 

“Jackie? What—”

“Now, Jeff. Please.” She huffs. “I need to get the fuck out of here and you’re the only one I know to call. So, please, get in your car and come pick me up.” 

“Okay, alright, but can you at least tell me what’s goi—” 

“Hurry,” she snaps, slamming the phone back on the hook. 

Outside, the curb bites into her thigh as she sits. The streetlights buzz and moths throw themselves to their death trying to rush into its glow. A car turns around the corner. It’s Jeff’s beat-up Honda. He slows to a stop in front of her and tumbles out, letterman jacket half-zipped, jeans wrinkles like he’d grabbed them from the floor. He doesn’t bother to cut the engine. 

“Jackie, what’s going on?” He asks urgently, hand hovering in the air like he wants to reach for her, but doesn’t want to risk upsetting her. “C’mon, talk to me.” 

She takes the initiative and grabs his hand, using him to pull herself upright, and letting go immediately after. “Let’s go,” she says, marching around to the passenger side, “before my parents realize I’m gone.” 

It wouldn’t be much longer until her mom noticed. She hadn’t even turned off the shower.

He doesn’t argue. 

The car peels away. Jackie stares straight ahead, knees bouncing, absently picking at one of the scabs on her knee. She can feel Jeff looking at her, probably wondering if she’s gone insane, or perhaps noting how awful she looks—dirty, deranged, and broken. It is strangely freeing to be so ugly in his presence. He’s never seen her this uncurated, without the makeup and pretty outfits. Let him see her how she really is. 

She’ll be grateful to him later, for helping her escape, and for his company, and for never asking the right question, so she never has to give him the wrong answer. 

“Where do you wanna go?” He asks, knuckles white around the steering wheel. 

Jackie digs her nail deeper into her scab, drawing blood. Back to before. Back to Shauna’s laugh. Back to States, so she can shatter her own knee caps to prevent them from ever getting on that plane to Nationals. Or, if nothing else, back to that moment in the hospital bed when she told Shauna to go home without her.

I should have let her stay. But I picked my parents over her. 

Then, the answer becomes obvious. She should have known. There is only one place for her right now. 

“Take me to Shauna’s house,” she says flatly. 

Jeff flinches, looking at her with the puppy-dog eyes she used to pretend to find endearing. Now it makes her want to shove him out of the car. “Are you serious?” 

“Yes.” She turns, neck stiff, and glares. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine. Stop the car and I’ll walk there myself.” 

“Hey, c’mon,” he says defensively, frowning at her. “Of course I’ll take you. I would never make you walk. I’m just… I’m worried about you. Are you okay?” 

“No.” And that is answer enough.

Jeff doesn’t ask again. Jackie presses her fist to her mouth and bites on her knuckles to keep herself from screaming. It helped, a little. It hurts, but at least the pain is something she has control over. 

When they turn onto Willow’s Court, her stomach twists. Shauna’s house looms ahead. She swallows, looking at Jeff with a sigh. “I’m sorry for snapping at you.” 

“You don’t have to apologize,” he says immediately, slowing to a stop. “It’s okay. I understand.” 

No, it isn’t. “I don’t think you do,” she says, shaking her head. 

The car idles, illuminating the driveway. Jeff purses his lips and shrugs. “Maybe I don’t… but, still—it’s okay.” 

Jackie pushes open the door and climbs out, grabbing her toiletry bag. “Thanks for the ride.” 

“Of course. I meant what I said,” he murmurs, watching her. “Whatever you need, I’m here.” 

Jackie nods and does not kiss him goodbye. 

She tells him not to wait, watching his car drive away until it’s out of sight. Then she marches to the porch. 

Every step to the front door is another crack in her skeleton. She stops fighting the tears she’s been swallowing all day, allowing them to spill over, hot and relentless, as she drops to her knees on the welcome mat, frayed from years of scuffing feet. With her good hand, she claws through the potted fern next to the door, unbothered by the dirt that cakes under her fingernail, searching until she finds the spare key. 

Does this count as breaking and entering? She bites her lip and jams the key into the lock. It slips, clattering against the knob, unsteady in her shaking hand. Finally, between wet and ugly gulps, she manages to get it open. 

The smell hits her first, washing over her in unholy baptism, slow-roasting her from the outside in. It is heaven and hell and home, all at once. She sags against the doorframe. 

Further in the house, there’s a clatter, followed by the thunder of footsteps. “Who the hell is in my—”

The voice is angry and beautiful and exactly what Jackie needs to hear. 

Deb Shipman freezes in the doorway, her hair wild, eyes dark and blazing, with a baseball bat in her hand. For a second, she looks ready to swing, but then she halts, face twisting with recognition. “Jackie?” 

The suitcase slips from her grasp and hits the floor with a thud, falling onto his side. She wants to explain, to say I’m sorry or I’m scared or I don’t know where else to go, but all that comes out is a mangled, throaty sob.

Deb doesn’t wait. She drops the bat and crosses the room in three strides and grabs Jackie by her shoulder. Not gently, like her own mother would. Deb’s grip is firm, real, and her thumb digs into Jackie’s collarbone like she’s anchoring them both to the earth. “Damn, kid,” she whispers, voice cracking. “You look like hell.” 

Jackie laughs—a wet, pathetic sound that slides up her larynx and out over her tongue—and collapses into her arms. 

Finally, someone Sees her. 

The pain in her arm screams, but she doesn’t care. Jackie clings to Deb like she’s the last solid thing left in the world. Deb’s tears drip into her hair. She’s crying too. 

Jackie tries to speak, but she is trembling too much. Her body vibrates like a leaf on a boom box, pulsing and beating with something awful.

“I don’t—I… I can’t—” she chokes out, fingers twisting into Deb’s shirt. 

“Shut up,” Deb murmurs, soft. “Just shut up and let me hold you.”

They crash into each other, knees knocking, sobbing together. They sink to the floor right there in the entryway. Deb doesn’t ask why she’s here. She just hugs her close and rocks, slow and steady. 

Deb holds Jackie, Jackie holds Deb, and they cry—two drowning souls clutching one another through a storm. 

Chapter Text

Allie. May 19th, 1996. The Plane.

“I call dibs on the front row!” 

Allie sports a shit-eating grin as she playfully pushes to the front of the line. There’s a chorus of groans from the other girls, but their protests are half-hearted. Ever since she scored the winning goal at nationals, they’ve been a lot nicer to her. 

Finally. 

Because, like, it isn’t easy, being the only freshman on the varsity team. Every practice was a battle of rolling eyes, and laughter that went quiet as soon as she came near. She’s had to fight for every inkling of respect and recognition they’ve given her. Even when she tries her absolute hardest, it’s as though the juniors and seniors refuse to take notice. 

But today, the trophy was hers. The goal, the victory, the cheers, the way they’d hoisted her onto her shoulders like she finally mattered. 

She’s in a great mood as she bounces through the air bridge, dragging a baby blue suitcase behind her. It had sucked to find out that nationals would take place during the same weekend as prom. She’d been so pissed. There went her chance to prove to the team that she was just as good as they were, maybe even better. How many of them were noticed by a senior when they were her age? But then Jackie Taylor scored that header at states, intercepting all of Allie’s plans for the special weekend. 

Obviously, she’d been excited to make nationals, but she knew that she would have no opportunity to shine. 

Allie was good at soccer, good enough for varsity, but she wasn’t as quick to spot a play as Taissa, nor as swift down the field like Shauna, and she definitely didn’t possess Lottie’s nimble agility. 

But then she’d gone on to score the winning goal. Her! Allie! Now, prom was a bullet dodged. Who needs a corsage when you can have a trophy as tall as yourself?

She didn’t want it to go down the way it did. Not with Jackie Taylor sprawled on the field with a shattered elbow and a bloody face. But a win is a win, and when they lifted Allie up high, she didn’t think about prom, or Brad, or Jackie at all. 

The plane hums under her sneakers as she tosses her bag onto the window seat, flopping down in the spot beside it, still buzzing. 

Even Jackie seemed proud of her, back in the hospital room—and even though Jackie is always pretty nice, she hadn’t ever taken a great interest in Allie. Having her approval was a good thing, if Allie wanted to be captain of the team one day.

Outside, the tarmac glitters under the runway lights, covered by the reflection of stars all along the asphalt. It’s pretty, yeah, but night-time flights always made her nervous and twitchy. Too much dark, too much sky. She reaches over and snaps the shade shut, before twisting around to Natalie in the row behind her. 

“Hey, do you care if I recline my seat?” 

Like Jackie, Natalie was never anything but nice to Allie, if not a little standoffish. But she still intimidates her, with her bleached hair, and the rumors, and all of her sharp, jagged edges. Normally, Allie would keep quiet, but it’s getting late, and she has a celebratory breakfast with her grandparents early tomorrow morning. She’ll need her rest.

A beat. Then Natalie lifts one half of her headphones from her ear, arching an eyebrow. “Huh? What’d you say? I couldn’t hear you.” 

“Do you, uh, mind if I put my seat back?” Allie asks, suddenly aware of how small her voice sounds. “I wanted to ask first before I just, like, randomly did it.” 

This is a private plane and there was plenty of space, and Natalie wasn’t big at all, and barely took up any room, so it shouldn’t even matter. But for the first time since joining the team, she feels like part of the group—actually accepted by her teammates. The last thing she wants to do is piss off Natalie, of all people, by being rude or assuming, or whatever.

Natalie glances down to assess her leg room. Shrugging, she scoots over, sliding sideways into the window seat. “Knock yourself out, champ. I don’t mind the window.” Then she puts her headphones back on and presses play on her Walkman. Distantly, Allie hears the faint buzzing start of an electric guitar.

The rest of the girls file onto the plane. 

She watches Shauna meander by, slow and sluggish, looking all sad. Lottie follows right behind her, with a steadying hand on her back to help her keep pace. Then come Mari and Akilah, holding matching bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in one hand, pulling their suitcases along with the other. 

Coach Scott is the last one to board, and Allie can't help but grin, smug and warm, when she sees him holding their trophy—a tall, gargantuan pillar with a golden soccer ball perched on the top. He gives her a wink as he passes. 

Rachel plops down in the seat across the aisle and unravels a teal, argyle blanket. “So,” she says, draping it over her legs. “Are you excited to go back home?”

She’s a junior, but she was picked for varsity from the same tryouts as Allie. With the team being as insular as they were, the two of them had ended up as friends. 

Allie shrugs, tucking her foot under leg. “Yeah, I guess so. I don’t even care anymore that I had to miss prom. And, since I played so well, my parents said I could finally start driver’s ed once school is out. I’m really excited. I’ve been waiting for months.” 

“Ooh, that’s so fun,” Rachel says. There’s the crinkle of plastic as she rifles in her bag, and a second later, she pulls out two bags of gummy worms, tossing one towards Allie. “Are they gonna buy you a car after you finish? You’ll be sixteen soon, right?” 

“Yeah, in July,” says Allie, catching the gummy worms between the palm of her hands. “I don’t know if they’ll buy me a car, but I really hope they do. Did your parents get you a car?” 

“No,” she responds, rolling her eyes, “but I’ve been saving up for one all year. My grandpa has this old Bronco that I really like. He said he’ll sell it to me if I can save up $3000.”

Allie sighs dreamily. “I want a car that I can take the top off of—just any kind of convertible. I don’t even care about the color.” 

They continue like that, idly chatting, just two girls on a school trip. The plane eventually rumbles to life, taking off without a hitch. A little while later, the lights turn off and the noise slowly settles. Some of the girls switch on their reading lights, but most of them go to sleep. Allie leans her head against the window and watches the dark ground below. 

She manages to doze off, until a jolt of turbulence snaps her back awake. 

Grumbling, she shifts around, trying to get comfortable again. But the plane jerks a second time, making her stomach drop. Just a bump, she tells herself, nothing to worry about. She swallows, closing her eyes. 

Only… it happens again. And again. And again. Then, it doesn’t stop happening. 

The cabin lights flicker on and off. This isn’t normal. She might be young, but she does know that much. She squeezes her armrest and looks around to see if the others were noticing. 

Everybody is noticing. All of the girls are turning around in their seats, heads swiveling in confusion, all except for Shauna, who seems to be soundly asleep, head lolling forward so her chin rests against her chest. Jesus, Allie thinks, staring at her in disbelief. Talk about a heavy sleeper.

A voice pierces the chaos, coming from a few rows back—Mari’s, maybe?—asking, “Coach, what’s happening? This is weird, right?” 

Allie holds her breath, straining her ears to hear his reply. 

“It’s, uh, probably just… just some bad turbulence.” But even Coach Scott has a nervous edge to his voice. “Stay calm, you guys. It’ll pass.” 

It doesn’t pass. Not only does it keep going, but it gets even worse. The plane bucks harder, tossing Allie sideways. She feels like a goldfish trapped in a bag, clutched in the fist of an angry kid, shaken and bounced in all directions. 

A second later, the luggage compartment bursts open overhead. Backpacks, duffels, a pair of shoes—all of it rains down in a hailstorm. Overhead, the intercom crackles as the pilot’s voice cuts through, and Coach Scott eats his words. 

“This is your captain speaking. I need your immediate attention. We are currently experiencing an emergency situation. This is not a drill. Fasten your seatbelts tightly and assume the brace position. Prepare yourselves for impact. I repeat, this is not a drill.” 

The intercom goes silent, replaced by a horrid alarm that starts to beep and blare, backdropped by the increasingly loud rumbling of the engine.

From outside, there’s a blast, some sort of explosion. 

The screaming begins.

This is a situation she wouldn’t wish on anyone, even her worst enemy.

The cabin shakes harder and there’s a sinful hissing as the oxygen masks are deployed, plunging down in front of their faces. Allie fumbles for hers, fingers trembling, remembering—you have to help yourself, before you can help anyone else. But there is no one beside her to help, just an empty seat and the smell of panic. She tugs her mask over her face and closes her eyes, cold and afraid.

It’s awful, listening to the wails and the screams, the audible noises of a death-approaching terror. This must be what hell sounds like. 

Allie starts crying and praying, begging God and Jesus to save them, to save her, please Lord. She doesn’t want to die. 

A woman cartwheels by, one of the flight attendants. She’s a human-tumbleweed, cascading down the aisle, on her back, then on her head, and around all over again. Her blonde hair streaks red and she smears blood along the floor as she rolls by Allie’s seat, moving fast and violent. 

Gravity stops for no one. 

There’s a crash from behind, and then a can of Dr. Pepper is soaring through the air. It bounces off the bathroom door and explodes in a spray of sticky foam and brown sugar soda. It gets in Allie’s eyes, Allie’s hair. 

It’s too loud to hear anything but the blood-curling, primordial shrieks and screeches of a plane filled with kids, all terrified out of their minds. It’s raw and guttural, awfully animalistic. Allie joins the cacophonous symphony with a keening wail of her own, becoming a harmonious alto in the world’s most fucked up choir.

The nose of the plane sharply dips, forcing Allie forward until her body is straining against the seatbelt, the only thing holding her in place. She slides forward, knees slamming into the seat in front of her. Mom, she thinks, her tears mixing with the soda on her face, I want my Mom. The cabin lights flicker again and there’s a great, big rumbling, the boom of something new, an explosion. 

It’s the sound of the world tearing apart. 

Her ears pop. 

Suddenly, she is seeing in slow motion.

It’s like the action movies her older brother loves; Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, William Holden in The Wild Bunch. Time freezes to a standstill, allowing the hero a moment to look around, gauge and evaluate. Meanwhile, the poor goons he was fighting against were stuck at boring, old regular speed. 

It always ended with the hero winning the day. 

Allie hears the deafening screech of metal tearing, louder than any scream, and realizes it’s steel wrenching from its mother-structure. Yellow sparks fizz, stinging her cheeks, bright and burning, as the pilot’s cabin starts to rip away from the rest of the plane. 

A beam jerks up, wriggling in place for a halting second, before turning on her like a snake, jagged and alive. 

She thinks of her sister’s laugh, her dad’s waffles on Sunday morning, and the smell of freshly cut grass on the soccer field. 

She isn’t a hero. 

She is just a kid. 

With her eyes wide open, she watches the beam hurtle straight at her; a long, silver bullet that tears through her flesh and cartilage and the apple of her throat, until—.

Shauna. May 19th, 1996. The Plane.

Shauna wakes up to the sound of Lottie screaming beside her and an oxygen mask that dances like a cat’s feather-toy before her eyes. It shakes and rattles, just like the plane itself, which groans as though it’s in pain. She jolts on instinct, lunging for her mask, fingers slipping on the tan elastic strap. Her head spins as she tries to make sense of what she’s waking up to, because… what in the actual fuck?

It’s like a scene from a horror movie. The Day the Earth Caught Fire comes to mind, something she used to watch with her dad when she was little. She still remembers all the people screaming. 

But this is no movie. This is real, just as the screams around her were real. It’s dark, impossible to see in the cabin, which makes everything eerie like a haunted house. The only lights were a dim few, overhead for reading. They cast an orange, unsettling glow. 

The speaker crackles to life. A voice says something about “impact” before cutting away with a scratch of static and a shrill, beeping alarm. Shauna, desperate to understand, reaches over Lottie to yank up their window shade. 

All she sees is an endless, cold, and pitch-black nothing. 

Lottie digs her nails into Shauna’s arm, screaming still. Her howl rings through Shauna’s skull as she sits back up. Her head is swimming with the leftover Valium in her system. She’s dizzy. Is her oxygen mask even working? Her stomach churns; it’s terrible fear, it’s debilitating confusion; it’s both at once, come to take root inside of her and freeze her up. 

She turns, realizing that Lottie is still fumbling to get her own mask on. She reaches out and grabs Lottie by the chin, forcing her to be still while her shaking hands slide the strap over and around her head. When she lets go, it slaps down like a bra strap. 

The plane drops, tossing them sideways. We’re going to die, Shauna realizes, but the words don’t feel real. They were someone else’s thoughts, someone else’s panic. Shauna can’t scream. Can’t move. She stares at the night-black abyss. The astral void stares back, threatening to swallow her whole, while her ears ring with a terrible screeching that drills into her skull. 

It’s everywhere. In her teeth. In her bones. 

She brings her hands up to block her hearing, to hide, to rip them off, anything to make it stop.

Lottie grabs at her elbows, clawing at Shauna with nails that dig, pinch, and cut, carving into her skin. Shauna grabs back just as hard, mirroring her every movement. Their foreheads press together, sweat-slick and trembling, like they’re trying to fuse together into a single being. Lottie’s sobs are hiccupy, desperate, and Shauna bites down on her tongue until she tastes blood. Hold on, she thinks, just hold on. 

A body goes flying past, a woman whose limbs flail out in every which way. 

One of the flight attendants, she realizes, distantly. 

Her face smacks painfully against Shauna’s arm as she goes, twisting and bouncing like the scarecrow does in the Wizard of Oz. Shauna can’t look away, staring in morbid curiosity as she flips and flops down the entire length of the plane, blood spewing from her head until she comes to a crumpled halt near the pilot’s cabin. Shauna watches until she isn’t able to see her anymore.

Soda cans become projectiles that punch and torpedo through the air, and bags of pretzels and sliced apples soar above like confetti—it’s the world’s worst party.

The plane lurches forward. 

Shauna’s stomach jumps up her throat. Finally she manages to scream, just as the world flips upside down. It doesn’t take an expert to know what this means. 

We’re going to crash, we’re going to die. The plane is falling down. 

The shockwave of impact snaps her body forward like a twig. Her stomach bends over the seatbelt, which slices into her hips, yanking her forward. 

Her head slams hard into the seat in front of her. 

She’s out.

Natalie. May 19th, 1996. The Wilderness.

Natalie trembles. 

Her father is fucking dead, has been for years, but here he is again, phantom jaw mangled and missing. He whispers at her through the steel beam that splits the seat in front of her, carving through him like a cleaver. If he were real, it would have taken the other half of his face. 

She stares at him horrified, frozen in shock as he leans close. ”Could’ve been you,” he taunts. She can’t smell his breath, but the memory of it comes back to her—stale beer, nicotine, a sour tang. 

Noise clots the air. 

It’s so loud. 

There are sparks popping, steam hissing, metal groaning, and girls screaming. Natalie’s heartbeat thrums steady underneath, and it all blends together to make a terrible song. 

I’m alive, she thinks, stunned. Our plane crashed and I’m fucking alive. 

The aisle is blocked by the beam jutting through her father’s seat. It drips with blood and fuel. She stares at the pool of it beginning to grow underneath the row in front of her, congealing into a circular, liquid mass. 

Hey, do you care if I recline my seat? Allie’s voice, tentative and doomed, loops through her skull. 

Natalie digs her fingers into her thighs and pushes herself up. 

She kneels, joints cracking, and looks around. 

Death is no stranger, but the scene before her was plucked from the depths of hell, a biblical horror that would burn them all to ash. 

It is salt and fire and brimstone. 

The cockpit is gone, completely ripped away. In its place is a wall of sparks and fire. A flight attendant is dancing in the flames, failing around and screaming; a burning effigy, an omen, and a curse. 

Another crash tears through the cabin, an explosion at the back of the plane. More fire blooms, hungry and bright, and it starts to spread from seat to seat. Natalie licks her lips—there is ash on her tongue. If they don’t do something, they would suffocate, burn, and ultimately, die. 

She jumps into action and ducks under the bloody beam. 

Lottie’s scream rises above the smoke, raw and serrated. “Shauna! Shauna, wake up! Wake the fuck up, now!” Natalie moves toward it without thinking, her boots crunching over shards of glass and debris. 

Shipman is knocked out cold, slumped in her seat like a gutted fish, nose-split open, with blood on her lips and chin. Lottie has a vise-tight grip on her shoulders and she’s shaking her frantically, as though Shauna were only a ragdoll. Natalie joins the effort and reaches down to unbuckle the seatbelt around her waist.

Shauna sags into Lottie’s arms, head lolling. 

“Can we carry her?” Natalie asks, surging forward to help support Shauna’s weight. 

“I—I don’t think so, the aisle is too cramped, and—” Lottie coughs, spraying out spittle and darkened phlegm, “it’s getting hard to breathe. Shit. Shit.” 

“Well, we can’t just leave her here!” 

“You don’t think I fucking know that?” Lottie snarls, whirling around with ice in her eyes. “I’m trying to figure something out!” 

Laura Lee materializes at that moment with a wild look in her eye and soot streaking her cheeks. She shoves Natalie aside and points a finger toward the emergency exit in the middle of the plane. “I’ll help Lottie with Shauna. You go and help the others get that door open, or we’re all going to die here.” 

Natalie hesitates, staring at Laura Lee and her warrior eyes, then at Lottie, who has tears tracks on her face, and finally to Shauna’s slackened mouth, and the spit and blood shining on her upper lip.

“Natalie, go,” barks Laura Lee, shoving at her again. 

She stumbles back. “Please—please, stay alive, all of you.” 

There’s a bunch of girls already clustered in front of the door: Misty, Taissa, Mari, Akilah, and Robin, too. Natalie joins them. Ash clots her throat, making her sputter, and smoke stings her eyes red. 

She throws her shoulder at the door in parallel with Mari, while Taissa—is she holding a fucking ax?— and Misty heave and shove, trying to leverage their combined body weight against the pole wedged in the door. Natalie presses hard. Her collarbone screams, but she ignores it. 

But even with Akilah and Heather pushing from above, slapping and pawing at the upper half of the door, it isn’t enough. The door doesn’t budge. Because of course. 

“The Devil is patient, baby,” says her dad, whispering from behind her. “ And the Devil likes his jokes.”

“Harder!” someone screams. 

Akilah grunts, punching at the handle. Heather scrapes her nails against the metal. Natalie hears her father laughing, and the fear of death comes for her, crawling up her throat, choking her with black smoke that she can’t help but suck into her lungs. This can’t be happening. They can’t die this way, burning and screaming, trapped like lobsters before a boil. 

It’s vicious, dirty work, but there is nothing else they can do. They keep fighting. 

At some point, Rachel arrives to help, throwing herself into the fray. The door creaks and groans, but still, nothing.

Her shoulder burns. There was a time when Natalie thought she wanted to die, back when her dad blew his own brains out because of her. But something inside of her screams, live, because dying here—smeared among a wreckage with her father’s laughter being the last thing she hears—it’s too much like surrender. And maybe she doesn’t really want to die, especially not like this, and maybe not at all.

But then—and fucking finally, god damn it—the door gives another inch. A sliver of moonlight, just a single stream of it, creaks through. It becomes a beacon, a sign. Natalie keeps pushing, harder and harder. 

Mari grunts, Natalie pants, and Taissa, Misty, Rachel, and Robin ram, shove, and scream, until: 

The door flies off its hinges. 

They spill onto the earth together, landing in a pile of limbs and hair and half-swallowed screams. Natalie lays on her back, lungs heaving, staring up at the sky. 

It makes her dizzy, the sheer relief. 

Alive, alive, alive. 

Shauna. May 19th, 1996. The Wilderness.

Someone slaps her across the face, and Shauna wakes up. 

She groans, her mind swimming upward through layers of confusion, trying to make sense of this muddy rush of consciousness. Had she jumped in front of a train or something? Her head was pounding. Where? Her mind becomes a tangle of half-formed questions. When? She lifts a heavy arm, touching her face. Her fingers come away sticky. What?

“Shauna!” a voice comes, distantly urgent, but muffled to her ears. “Shauna, get up right now!” 

“Mmm, five more minutes,” she whines, the words thick. Her tongue is a foreign thing. She groans again, keeping her eyes closed. “My head hurts.” 

Then, again—

SMACK. 

Another one, right across her cheek. Her head snaps sideways and she gasps, eyes popping open to a jagged light. She whirls around, flabbergasted, growing angry as she sputters, “What the fu—”  

Laura Lee’s blue eyes stare down at her, two twin glaciers. Lottie is next to her, yanking hard on Shauna’s arms. Both of their faces are haloed by a hellish red glow. Fire, she thinks, how pretty, as if observing a painting. 

Stupidly, Shauna blinks up at them, slowly coming to her senses. “Laura Lee, did you just fucking slap me?” 

Neither of them bother to answer. Instead, they yank her up by her arm with enough force that Shauna worries that they would rip her shoulder clean from its socket. She’s pulled up to her disoriented feet and then looks around, suddenly remembering. Her mouth falls open in shock. 

The plane, the plane, the plane. We went down. 

Moonlight bleeds through a ruptured door, casting light on the scene and allowing everything to swim into horrid focus. Fire burns all around, and there, a few rows ahead, pinned grotesquely to their seat, is a burning body right by the inferno. The flames lick closer to the corpse, creeping down the carpet. Allie. 

Allie Selby, her mind recites. There she is, dead, impaled, speared through the throat by a long metal beam. Freshman. Chewed gum too loudly. She stares, transfixed, unable to turn away from the blood, the meat, the gore. It was just like with Jackie, back on the field. Her protruding bone, her face contorted in an awful scream that she replays in her mind, even now; beautiful, violent, and terrible, too, rising unbidden as the flames inch closer, tongues lapping at Allie’s shoes. 

“Shauna, get it together.” Laura Lee cuts through the reverie and shoves her, hard, in the shoulder. “We need to get out of here!” 

Oh, yeah. Everything is on fire. 

Shauna’s legs are unsteady as she follows after Lottie, with Laura Lee leading the way. They scramble down the aisle, coughing and choking on blankets of smoke and melting metal. The heat is immense now, becoming a living thing that shrieks after them. There is no more air left to breathe. 

The valium still clings to her brain like cobwebs. She staggers, trying to keep her feet moving. Desperately, she lifts her shirt collar to cover her mouth, gasping for what little oxygen she can find. Each breath is scalding on her throat, but it’s better than before. Laura Lee and Lottie vanish through the maw of the emergency exit, swallowed by the moonlight, and Shauna is just about to follow them, when—

“Help me! Help me, help me, please, I need help!” 

And oh, if that isn’t a blood-chilling scream. 

She follows the shrill sound, bracing her hands on the doorframe and looking around. First at the front of the plane, at her dead teammate, at the burned husks of the flight attendants, further down, to the back, to more fire, and… 

…to Van.  

Van, writhing, trapped and struggling beneath a caught seatbelt. 

“Van, I’m coming!” Shauna shrieks, turning in a move that is more instrict than decision to run down the aisle. 

“I’m stuck, help me, I can’t get out!” Van is jerking back and forth, kicking her legs, straining her arms, and flinging herself back and forth like an animal caught in a maiming trap. She yanks hard at the seatbelt which had surely saved her life in the crash, but now beckons death and ruin by fire and flame. 

Her seat is already half-wrenched off the wall, which has left Van hanging in a suspended, forward-bend. Fire burns hot behind her. Shauna falls to her knees next to her and begins to claw at the strap, pulling with every ounce of strength she still possesses in her weary body. 

“It won’t—give—” Shauna rasps, starting to cry as she pulls harder, the strap biting into her palms.

The heat becomes unbearable. The smoke is even worse. 

They’re both beginning to panic, because the fire has already devoured the seats in front of them, and it’s only getting closer. Shauna can’t leave her here. Allie is dead already, skewered to her seat. If Shauna doesn’t get this seatbelt off, then Van would crisp and fry and cook and die. No, no, that cannot happen. 

Fear and fumes continue to choke them as they keep on trying. Is this how it would end? Would they die together? Perhaps, because Shauna is not going to leave her behind. How could she?

They both sob wet, sticky tears that sting and mix with the smoke. It won’t stop, it won’t go away, no matter how hard they try to blink. The fire is getting close, and Shauna, distantly, has a moment to think—fuck, isn’t there fuel around here somewhere? 

They need to hurry, they need to be faster, before—

Something explodes from the back of the plane. A wave of hot shock roars forward and a concussive rush of heat flings Shauna backward. Her skull meets the carpeted floor with a dull thud. Her ears ring, the world fragments, she coughs, she can’t fucking breathe. 

“V-Van,” she sputters, trying to find her. Where is she? And then, oh no, “Fuck! Fuck, ow, ow, no, no, it burns—” 

The world was on fire—or was it her? It’s fire on her legs, her feet, snaking up her legs, and it’s worse than everything she’s ever felt before. Van’s name dissolves into the smoke, weightless, as her skin blisters and the soles of her sneakers melt and fuse with her socks, her skin. Jackie, she thinks wildly. She was going to die, she was going to burn up, and Shauna would never be able to see her again. 

But then powerful arms grab her, lifting her up and hauling her backwards. Her heels carve furrows against the ground as she continues to burn from the bottom up, legs writing. The fire clings like a lover refusing to let go, and she is going to become a thing of spark and ash. Shauna screams, she fucking wails, because why won’t anyone make it stop? 

Then she’s tasting dirt, gritty and alive, in her teeth, on her lips. 

“Shauna—” she hears through the melting of her flesh. 

Someone tosses her around, slapping at her body, rolling her across the ground, like a hot dog rotating above a grill. 

The flames disappear, but her burning does not. 

“Off—get these off of me,” she shrieks, voice high and alien, kicking her legs. She is a flailing fish. 

Fingers yank and tug at her shoes and her screams dissolve into gurgles when she feels the wet peel of her skin going with them. Her jeans follow, stripped from her skin. Like a baked potato, she muses, delirious, split open and steaming. 

Everything hurts, but it’s better now. Marginally. 

She collapses onto her stomach and gasps, the soil cool against her ravaged flesh. Her fingers dig greedily into dirt as she lies there in her shirt and flannel and underwear. I lived, I fucking lived. The pale, muscular arms that pulled her from the wreckage hover at the edge of her vision. Shauna turns her head, meets Van’s gaze, and finds herself smiling. And Van lived too. 

The scene around her is awful. Girls are weeping, others scream from somewhere she can’t place. There’s even a man’s voice, roaring somewhere with an unknown angst. Shauna presses her cheek into the dirt and tries to catch her breath, unbothered by the grit of it on her lips. 

I am alive. 

And, she realizes after looking around, so is Lottie, and Laura Lee, and oh, there’s Taissa, jumping onto Van’s back and crying with relief. Misty marches off somewhere at the edge of Shauna’s vision, purposeful and sharp, while Mari tries to wrap a piece of torn cloth around Rachel’s thigh.

The plane looms behind her. She knows Allie is dead within its skeletal innards. She is—no; was—so young. And now she’s gone, body still burning, but at least not hurting. There was a small satisfaction to be had in that.

And for the first time through all the smoke and chaos comes the realization: Jackie isn’t here. Her elbow was broken and her bones were jutting wrong, wrong, wrong, but she was alive. The relief is a tidal wave, blinding her, upending her, flooding her lungs until she’s gasping, coughing. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. 

She could kiss the earth, could kiss the splintered ruin of Jackie’s bone. 

It’s a manic sound she spits from her lips, this hysterical laugh. It spirals, unhinged, scraping painfully up her throat. But Shauna lets it rise. She laughs until her throat can’t do it anymore, until more tears prick at her eyes. 

Holy shit. 

Chapter Text

Taissa. May 19th, 1996. The Wilderness.

It’s only been five minutes since the plane decided it no longer wished to be a plane. Now, it’s become a funeral pyre. 

Here’s how it goes: 

The sky spits them out and Taissa lands in the dirt. 

She gasps, giving her screaming muscles a moment to rest as she tries to make sense of the frenzied circus around her. Carnage and chaos reign supreme. Fire and screams light up the world. 

Rachel is sprawled on the ground next to her, bawling, blubbering Allie’s name, while a cut on her thigh steadily bleeds, dripping blood onto the soil and staining her pale skin. Melissa stumbles by next, leaning one way and staggering the other, sea-legs on earth, like a dancing, weaving ghost. She clutches a faded, pink hat, crying indiscriminately. 

Taissa reels with the devastation, twirling in a circle; she is a pitiful marionette. Her strings tangle together, knotting and intertwining so tight that she can’t find her rhythm; just spinning, spinning, spinning. 

They almost died. 

For a moment, she thought they all would, that they would be stuck in that plane until their skin melted like candle wax and their bones blackened into dust. Even with all seven of them pushing until their fingers bled, it had been a close call. 

Now the forest looms. Tall, dark spruce trees surround the wreckage, acting as towering sentries that survey them in their misery, long shadows mocking. The middle of the woods, Taissa thinks bitterly. Of course. 

She tugs her letterman tighter. The leather smells of smoke and fear and the expensive lavender detergent her mother uses. How could they have crashed? How can this be real? Planes don’t fall out of the sky. That doesn’t happen. 

Except, well, it did happen. 

“Van?” The name slips from her lips, softly, and by mistake. She hadn’t meant to, hadn’t even thought about it. But once the errant thought strikes her, it jolts her system like a defibrillator. Taissa shudders and comes back to life. Her neck jerks erratically as her eyes dart around, searching. No. No, no, no. Where is Van? 

Gen wretches a few meters away, doubled over, hands on her knees, painting the dirt with bile and vomit. Rachel still wails Allie’s name, as though her screams might bring her back from the dead. There’s Crystal too, sitting motionless on a log with blood serpentining down her temple. She is silent, staring blankly at the trees, shell-shocked. 

But no Van. No freckles, no calloused hands, no red hair. 

Her heartbeat stutters and falters. She brings a palm to her chest and takes a deep breath. Find her. Find her now. 

“Van!” she screams. The trees swallow the sound. Greedy. And no one answers. She can only hear howls and cries. She turns, kicking aside debris. “Van! Has anybody seen Van?” 

Taissa takes off in a run, choosing a random direction. Brambles catch on her jeans as she screams again, “Van!” Adrenaline burns through her veins. Where is she even running to? Who knows. Taissa certainly doesn’t. 

She slaps at her face with her palm, wiping away the tears that threaten to blur her vision. Smoke stings her eyes. Her chest heaves. Panic begins to coil around her ribs. 

Still trying to breathe her terror away, she sucks in a series of ragged gulps, but they each taste of ash and dread. Van could be burning. What if she’s stuck on the plane? Van could be broken. What if she’s lying on the ground somewhere, dead or worse? Horrors dance around her thoughts, because there are things that are worse than dying.

In her sprinting hysteria, Taissa collides straight into Travis Martinez. They crash together like bowling pins, chest to chest, a tangle of angry limbs. 

His hands tremble as they catch her by the shoulder, gripping stiff-armed, making them look for a moment as though they were sharing some awkward, leave-room-for-Jesus middle school dance. His eyes, wild and hollow, mirror her own. 

“Van—” she chokes out, voice frayed at the edges. “Have you seen her?” 

“Javi,” he rasps, as though he doesn’t hear her, “My brother—Javi—have you seen him? I can’t find him anywhere.” 

Taissa blinks, shaking her head. Her compassion wars against her own desperation. She can’t bring herself to care, even though she knows she does, of course she does. But she can’t do anything until she finds Van. “I haven’t, but—Van, have you seen her?” A cry bubbles up her throat. “Please, I need to—”

“Come on,” Travis says, taking her hand. His grip hardens. “We’ll find them together.” 

Hands still clasped, they plunge back into the trees, their screams tearing through the night. 

“Javi!” Travis yells, voice cracking like a boy’s. 

“Van!” Taissa bellows, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Van, please!” 

“Van!” Travis screams. 

“Javi! Where are you?” Taissa shouts, obviously returning the favor. 

The thundering boom of a distant explosion comes as a surprise. It sends fire blooming upwards, bright and crimson against the black, lighting up the entire forest for a single moment. Taissa staggers. Travis’ hand is her only anchor in this sudden hellscape. No Van. No Javi. Travis meets her gaze, his face a mask of soot and terror. No words pass between them, because none were needed. 

They run again, faster now, toward the screaming, and return to more chaos. 

Girls are shrieking, scattering from the flaming debris rain-showering from above. 

Travis and Taissa stumble to a halt, alarmed by the sight, but then in continuance with their unspoken agreement, they bolt forward into hell together, hands still clasped, back into the inferno’s maw. They’re rounding the tail-end of the plane when Misty knocks into them, severing their hands and sending them careening back a few steps. 

Taissa seizes her arm, “Misty, have you seen Van?” Then, after a quick glance at Travis, she adds, “Or Javi?” 

Wrenching free, Misty jerks her head behind her, eyes blazing. “No, I haven’t, but Coach Scott, he—” She gasps, out of breath, but forces herself to continue. “He’s trapped underneath a piece of the plane. He needs our help, like now. We need to pull it off of him.” 

Her gut twists. It’s an icy feeling, this decision. To stay and help? Or run and find? Van would help, she thinks. And so, against her own intuition, Taissa nods. The choice is bitter on her tongue. “Okay, alright, let’s go.” 

Travis follows without a word, jaw clenched, with his little brother’s name still etched in the creases of his face.

They sprint in a stampede of clomping feet, kicking up dirt as they go. A few others fall into step along the way—Lottie, eyes wide; Nat, cursing; Akilah and Mari, bloodied and holding hands; and Laura Lee, prayerless for once. 

“Coach Scott!” Taissa yells, once she sees him there, flat on his back. A piece of the plane’s fuselage side pins his leg to the ground, huge and square, made of silver titanium and carbon fiber. His leg is a ruin. The sight makes her stomach churn. 

She doesn’t have to be a medical expert to know something horrible when she sees it. 

But, to his credit, Coach Scott tries to keep a brave face. “Girls, is it, uh, can you move it?” 

Breathless, Misty drops to her knees next to him and claws at the metal. “We can.” 

“Come on, everyone, grab on.” Taissa takes charge, claiming her place next to Misty. Her palms are slick against its edge. Everyone else takes a position. “Alright, Yellowjackets, on three!” she barks, throat raw. “One… two… three!”   

It’s a line of grunts and groans as they wrench the giant slab of metal up. Taisssa clenches her screaming muscles, veins throbbing like live wire. It’s so heavy, God himself may as well be holding it down with a fist. There’s pushing tension and pulsing pressure under her ear as they lift and lift, and shove and shove, until finally: movement. 

The metal shifts, inch by brutal inch, until one final heave, and then they hurl it aside where it crashes to the earth a few inches in front of Coach. 

Lottie screams, “Oh, fucking God!” 

Mari turns away, retching into the dirt, her whole body convulsing. Laura Lee and Akilah hover nearby, each placing a hand on her back to give comfort, though they both look close to vomiting themselves. 

“What the fuck?” Natalie gasps, voice low. She edges away, pale-faced, moving closer to Lottie, who is scooting backwards through the door on bloodied palms, her eyes wide and horrified. 

Coach Scott’s leg is, frankly, a piece of mangled meat and bone, unrecognizable as the limb it once was. Taissa gags. She can’t even find his foot among the pulpy mass. She claps a hand over her mouth and turns away, and doesn’t notice Misty stumbling away. 

It’s an awful moment. 

Coach Scott flops onto his back, knocked unconscious by the pain. That is probably for the best. How are they supposed to save him? All they have are bandaids, or whatever first aid kit is on the plane. And even that was a maybe. Taissa isn’t sure of anything right now.

Travis returns to her side. His fingers dig into her sleeve, urgent and pleading. She meets his gaze—Let’s find them, his eyes scream—and nods. They run. 

They circle around the full perimeter of the plane, stopping only once when startled by the pilots’ corpses, slumped against the controls, their brains painting the glass. They halt, morbidly frozen by the grisly sight, their breaths hitching, until Taissa blinks into focus again and drags him onward. As they stomp over shards of plane, Taissa finds her knees buckling. Despair coils in her gut. Where? Where? 

Then… if it weren’t already bad enough, there’s laughter. 

It’s unsettling, slithering through their focus, bitter and broken. They follow the noise, past the others to two figures on the ground, lying underneath a rising sheet of smoke. 

Shauna is the first one she sees. She’s on her stomach, half-undressed, with red and swollen legs, blistered and weeping a slow ooze from her calves down to her feet. It’s Shauna that’s laughing, she realizes. And as she gets closer, she sees that Shauna is crying too. “Fuck,” Taisa whispers, as the burns come into brighter focus. 

Her throat tightens. Was she left behind? Why didn’t I think to check?

But before she’s able to feel too guilty, she’s distracted. Her eyes slide over to the figure crouched at Shauna’s side. 

Oh. 

Van has burns, too, but nowhere nearly as bad as Shauna, and only on the side of her cheek. Seeing her alive is the most beautiful thing Taissa has ever seen. Without a word, Travis releases her hand, and then Taissa is running—flying—across the space between them. She collides with Van, arms locking around her to pull her close, as if she were trying to stitch them into one creature through sheer force. 

“Van!” 

“Tai!” 

“You’re okay,” Taissa chokes out, tangling her fingers in Van’s hair. It’s burnt, Taissa can smell it. She leans in and inhales, letting her eyes flutter closed. 

Shauna continues to laugh nearby, and Taissa knows she ought to check on her, but she doesn’t, because she can think of nothing but Van’s thudding pulse beneath her palms. 

Right now, all of her stupid rules don’t seem to matter so much. They almost died, only they didn’t. Taissa gasps, shoving forward to capture Van’s lips with a pleading kiss. 

Van pushes into it, grabbing at Taissa’s waist, frantic almost, letting her hands roam up her back and down her arms. Taissa clings to her, laughing and crying all at once. What did shame matter right now, after everything? 

“I thought you were gone,” Taissa whispers against her mouth. “I couldn’t find you, and—and I thought you might be dead, but you weren’t. You’re here, you’re alive.” 

“I almost wasn’t,” Van murmurs, brushing at the tears on her cheeks and smoothing her hands down the front of Taissa’s clothes to check her for injuries, “I almost—Shauna, she… Well, it was really close. I’ll tell you all about it later, but, uh, Shipman saved my life, I think.” 

Then, seemingly satisfied that Taissa is not hurt, Van bends forward and presses her face into the opening of Taissa’s jacket, breathing deeply. Taissa holds on tighter.

“You think?” Shauna rasps, finally recovered from her fit of laughter. Still sprawled, she looks up at them, chin lifting from the dirt, with a fevered gleam in her eyes. “I’m pretty sure I definitely saved your life.” 

“Thanks for not leaving me there to burn. For a second, I really thought I was going to be a goner,” Van says, breathless. Gently, she places a hand on Shauna’s back. “I owe you one.”

The words settle heavy on Taissa’s shoulder. Burn. How could she not have noticed that she was leaving them behind? She gazes at Shauna’s scorched legs, the blister on Van’s cheek, and feels the dam inside of her begin to splinter. It begins to hit her, how close they came today. “We fell out of the fucking sky,” she deadpans, sharp and sarcastic, with laughter as raw as a dagger in her throat. Stinging tears pool, but she swallows them. 

“Allie’s dead,” Shauna mutters, cheek pressed into the soil. “I saw it. It’s bad.” 

“Yeah.” Taissa’s jaw clenches. “I saw it too.” She kisses Van’s hair again and closes her eyes against soft, red hair, knowing she can’t stay here long. The plane is still burning. Coach Scott is still… well, probably dying, if he isn’t already dead. There were blood, injuries, and missing boys that still needed to be dealt with. Not to mention Shauna herself. “We need to do something about your legs, Shipman.” 

Shauna chuckles darkly. “That’s probably a good idea.” 

“Stay here with Shauna,” she whispers to Van, pressing their foreheads together. “I’m going to go and help the others, but I’ll be back with something soon.” 

“Go,” Van says, pulling away slowly. “We’ll be fine here. I’ll stay with her.” 

Taissa nods, stepping back. 

Travis lingers a few feet away, watching them, his face half-shadowed. He says nothing, but a worry takes hold in her chest. He saw us kiss. But now was not the time to think about that. There were things to do, and a mission to accomplish. 

“Come on,” she says, jerking her head in his direction. “Let’s go find Javi.” 

Shauna. May 19th, 1996. The Wilderness.

Shauna won’t call anything about this lucky, but respite does come in the form of rain. It falls softly, at first, then with a fervor that seems apologetic, as though Mother Nature herself is apologizing for their predicament; the clouds washing clean the sins of the sky.  

The rain quenches the fire and reduces its rage to a smolder, and brings relief to her injured legs, but it could not unburn what had already been burned. 

It’s the worst pain she’s ever felt in her life, worse than any cut or bruise. The pain is almost a living thing, a creature with teeth gnawing her toe to knee. Once she’s able to stop laughing, she props up onto her elbows to look at the damage, eyes squinting. 

Those have to be second degree, right? It was disgusting.

It is the worst at her feet, which do not even look like feet anymore. They were grotesque little things, blistered and fevered, already oozing a creamy-white pus, while the skin peeled away like wrinkled flower petals. Her ankles are better, relatively speaking. Also blistered, but not as charred, only raw and pink, and swollen too. Jackie would have called them cankles, if she were here. But she’s not here—Jackie is safe—and for that, Shauna could kiss the dirt. 

The ugliness of the burns continues to lessen in a similar fashion, up her calves and to her knees. 

She lets herself flop back, closing her eyes shut, as though darkness could erase the injuries, like they would not exist if she wasn’t looking at them. But they do. The pain continues to pulse, so deep in her body that she can’t take it. It’s beyond her scope. She hisses between her teeth. 

It’s nothing like she imagined it would be—being on fire. And she had imagined it before, in history class when they learned about the Salem witch trials, and the women who were condemned to a pyre as a result. This pain was harsh and unforgiving. The fire may be out, but Shauna is left to fester in its leftover heat. 

A moan escapes her, rolling out thick and guttural across her tongue, a sound she does not recognize as her own.

Van sits down beside her. Then Lottie finds them, visibly shaking, as she sinks to her knees next to them.

“Misty just amputated Coach Scott’s legs.” 

Shauna doesn’t know what she expected Lottie to say, but it definitely isn’t that. The words hang there, improbably absurd. She blinks, so surprised, it almost distracts her from her pain. “Wait. What the fuck?” 

Van is staring too, as boggled as Shauna. Her eyebrows rise, losing themselves in her hairline. “Bitch, you have to be joking.”

“No, but I wish I was,” Lottie says, sighing heavily. “But I think it kind of saved his life? I thought—we all thought he was going to die.” 

Shauna does not sit up. She probably couldn’t, even if she wanted to. But she turns her head slowly, resting against the yielding softness of Lottie’s thigh. “But, like… how did she do it? I doubt the pilots kept surgical tools lying around.” 

Lottie’s hand descends to splay her fingers through the strands of Shauna’s hand, brushing gently over her scalp. “She used the axe, the one they used to open the plane door.” Her touch is gentle and relieving. Shauna closes her eyes underneath it, soothed. Lottie continues, “She just… came in out of nowhere. Honestly, it was kind of badass and awful, at the same time.” Lottie laughs, splintered and low. “But, I don’t know—she’s been super helpful with all the first aid stuff. Literally, a life saver.” 

Van frowns. “Where the hell did Misty learn to amputate limbs?” 

A shrug vibrates through Lottie’s leg. “Apparently, she took some kind of babysitter first-aid course, twice, or something.” 

“I didn’t know first-aid courses had a section on traumatic amputations,” Van says, dry as kindling. Then, a beat. Her disbelief melts into a reluctant respect. “Misty Quigley, huh? Who would have thought?”

Shauna’s lips twitch at the absurdity, a phantom of a smile. “I dunno. It kinda makes sense when you think about it, right?” 

Van snorts, shaking her head. “Not really.”

Lottie shifts to lay on the ground next to Shauna, taking care not to disturb her head still resting on her thigh. “What happened to you guys? I could have sworn you were right behind me, Shauna.” 

The night sky yawns above them, blowing a warm wind, dotted with pin pricking stars all over its black shroud. What is this place, and where are they? The trees whisper no answer. 

Van reaches out and takes Shauna’s hand, and Shauna, in turn, grabs Lottie’s, their interlaced fingers a fortress. 

“Shauna came back to save me,” Van says, dancing the wire between jest and confession. “Shipman would make a pretty good fireman. Or—a firewoman, I guess.” 

“I don’t know. Look at her, she’s burnt from the knee down,” says Lottie, chuckling softly. “That seems like a pretty shitty firefighter to me.” 

A genuine laugh bubbles up Shauna’s throat, or as close to one as she can manage. It’s gnarled, born of marrow and ash, but it still spills out over her tongue. Van joins in a moment later, then Lottie.

“Hey,” Shauna says, “I got the job done, didn’t I? Plus, I wasn’t trying to fight the fire, just rescue you from it.” 

“Yeah,” says Van, softer than before. “And you did.”

Shauna smiles. “Anyway, you saved me too when you dragged me out, so we can call it even.” 

“Well,” Van sighs, leaning back on her palms, “the least I could do was return the favor.” 

The wind keeps blowing high in the sky, seemingly too-cool for what ought to be a summer’s breeze, but pleasant all the same against Shauna’s fried skin. It rustles the leaves of the looming spruce trees standing sentinel around them, and Lottie turns her face toward it, closing her eyes at the sky and breathing slowly. Shauna quietly watches her. 

“What a shitty day.” Lottie says.

Shauna nods. “Yeah.” 

Van snorts. “Tell me about it.”

They lay there beside each other, listening to the others shout, while the fire still burns, not too far away. 

This is when the rain finally comes. It startles Van first, which triggers a chain reaction down the line of them. 

Lottie sits upright, turning. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” 

Van blinks, surprised by herself. “It’s nothing, sorry—a raindrop hit me, I think. It scared me. I wasn’t expecting it.” 

As if on cue, Lottie presses a palm to her own forehead. “Oh. Yeah. One just landed on me too.” 

And then the sky splits open. 

It’s soft until it’s not, and then it comes in sheets, blurring the world so grey that it even snatches the moonlight away. Distantly, Shauna can see the others moving in shadows, rushing off to grab their belongings to hide them from the rain. She doesn’t stir. Let her notebooks drown, let her socks dissolve. Instead, her body sinks into the mud. The rain hisses against her calves, cool as a salve, ushering a wave of relief to her blistered flesh. Sleep, the earth seems to croon. She’s so tired, everything else be damned. Her body hurts, and there is a possibility she has a concussion, or so it seems with the throbbing in her head. 

She moans, sinking even further into the mud. 

Lottie withdraws her hand, sighing. “I’m going to check on Misty and see what she’s doing.” She tilts her head. “Someone really should look at your burns, and I guess she’s the only one qualified.” 

Van nods slowly and pulls her knees to her chest. “Go ahead, Lot. I’ll stay with her.” 

Lottie rises, hair drenched and dark. She vanishes into the downpour, going off in search of their resident doctor, Misty Quigley, it seems. Shauna shakes her head, baffled.

Then she closes her eyes, and with Van right beside her, allows the rain to wash over her face. It’s tranquilizing. The cool water is feather-soft, sweetly numb against her reddened skin. She doesn’t know enough about burns to know how helpful this is, like, medically speaking, but it does feel fucking amazing, and that is enough. Sighing, she opens her mouth and lets the rain wash over her tongue. 

“Shauna?” Van says. 

“Yeah?” Shauna whispers back. 

Van hesitates, voice thick with an emotion Shauna can’t place. “Listen, I know this is, like, the worst time to worry about something like this, but… will you, uh, not tell anyone about what you saw? With me and Taissa?” 

Shauna snorts. “Yeah, it’s really not the time,” yet she does remember it, sort of, distantly there in a haze of laughter and pained delirium: Van and Taissa pressing together, their wild hands, and their worried lips. She squeezes her hand, too muddled to think much about it, and nods. “But, of course, I won’t say anything. Honestly, I’d be more worried about Flex.” 

Van seems to consider that, and then shrugs. “I’ll leave that to Tai.” 

Silence pools, filled only by the patter of the rain. Shauna turns, mud on her cheek, and gazes at Van. “I’m, uh, really glad we’re both alive.” 

Van purses her lips and looks her in the eye. “Ditto.”

Natalie. May 19th, 1996. The Wilderness.

“Hey. You alright?” 

Natalie sidles up to Lottie’s side, who is standing rigid, arms folded, watching Misty Quigley’s retreating figure as she scampers off somewhere else. Her face is withdrawn, closed-up. The shadows of her expression darken her brown eyes into something low and haunting. Natalie’s voice must startle her, because she snaps up straight at the sound, turning around quickly. 

“Is anyone alright?” 

“No, I guess not,” says Nat, jamming her hands into her pockets, “but let’s pretend for a minute. Seriously, Lottie. Are you okay?” 

The chaos had finally simmered into something quieter. The fires were gone, leaving only wet ash and a metallic stink in their wake. Coach Scott and his oozing leg stump was put on a lumpy set of seat cushions, while the others clustered in sad little clumps along the wreckage, their faces slack. No more screams. No more fire. Just rain pissing down from above, turning the dirt into mud.

Small victories, or whatever? Yeah, right. Fuck off. 

Taissa and Travis managed to find his little brother. Javi is standing next to his brother now, clothes soaking wet, and silent. Kid hasn’t said a word so far. Nat doesn’t blame him. 

So, yeah, the general mood is dog shit, but at least everything isn’t actively on fire anymore. Progress. 

Lottie presses her lips together and crosses her arms tightly around herself, as if trying to give herself a hug. She sniffs. “I’m fine. I just…” Her lips twitch into a frown. “I can’t find my suitcase.”

“Same here. I’d look for them, but it’s dark as shit right now. But maybe we’ll find them tomorrow, y’know?” She scuffs her boots against the mud, mushy against the tips, where it sticks, digging in between the rivets and bends of her soles. “Sucks I don’t have it, though. I’ve got some cigarettes stashed in there. Damn.” 

Lottie cracks a small smile then, huffing. “Don’t say that. I’d kill someone for a cigarette right now.”

“Noted,” says Natalie, grinning back. They bump shoulders together, a familiar gesture, and hover in each other’s space for a second. Then Natalie steps back. “Let’s move, find somewhere dry to sit. We don’t have a lot of options, I guess… but still, let’s go.” 

She yanks on Lottie’s hand like a leash and pulls her over toward a distant tree. 

It sits there, tall, bark peeling from its trunk. It’s not dry, but it is less wet. A shitty consolation, but better than anything else she can think of. The plane’s carcass was decidedly not an option; Allie’s corpse is in there, still speared to the seat, a human shish kebab that no one dared to be near. Even Coach Scott, who is the worst off of them all, refuses to rest inside, instead remaining right at its entrance. 

They slump against the trunk and scoot as close together as they can, hiding from the rain beneath the nettles and the pine needles. 

Silence hangs between them, but Natalie is fine with that. What was there to say? Congrats on surviving the flying death trap? Sorry you’re fucked? 

A fifteen year old girl was dead. So were the two pilots and the two flight attendants. Shipman looks like she’d just been scooped off of a barbecue pit. Coach Scott is missing half a leg. There is nothing nice to say, so best to not say anything at all, right? 

Natalie almost laughs. They were completely and utterly screwed. Of all the rotten luck… because, of course this was happening to her. Was her life always destined to be such a cosmic joke? The universe never stopped flicking her on the ass, as though she were a mere zit. Had God simply doomed her to a life of constant fucking piss? Alcoholic, pill-addicted mom. A dad whose brains were splattered on the porch. A sad, pathetic trailer park life. And now this. 

Their victory at Nationals was clearly a fluke, just a bright and shiny distraction in an otherwise endless pit of tragic melodrama—something to distract her, so her guard would be lowered before the next sucker punch. 

Honestly, she should probably apologize to the rest of the team. 

Hey, guys, sorry. It’s, like, totally my fault that we crashed. My existence is a curse and everything around me always turns to shit. My bad. Next time, I’ll die first. Will you forgive me, Allie? 

She huffs and leans her head against Lottie’s shoulder, focusing on the press of Lottie’s cheek against the crown of her head. They shuffle closer, seeking shelter, tangling their arms and legs together and intertwining their hands. Natalie traces a thumb along the length of Lottie’s pointer finger. 

“Nat?” Lottie asks, soft and wet and sad. 

“What’s up? 

A sniffle. Natalie doesn’t lift her head, doesn’t look. Let her cry. Let them all cry. There was nothing she could do except let the rain wash it away. 

“Is it my fault this happened?”

Natalie blinks, not expecting that. “Would it be crazy if I told you I was just thinking the same thing?” 

Lottie stiffens. “You were thinking it was my fault?” 

“What the fuck? No, I was thinking it was mine.” 

Lottie untangles herself, looking down with an irritable jut to her chin. “Why would you think that? Of course it isn’t your fault.” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” Nat says, defensive. “Why would it be yours?” 

“My dad chartered the plane.” Lottie deadpans. The duh is loud, despite never being uttered aloud. There’s something dark in her voice that makes Natalie want to reach for her, to tangle up again. 

“Fuck, Lottie,” says Nat, snorting. “Your dad’s Amex card didn’t cause this. Of course it’s not your fault.” 

And, yeah, she’s a hypocrite, considering she was wallowing in her own spiritual guilt mere seconds ago. 

Lottie stares down at her hands. “It feels like it is.” 

“Well, it’s fucking not, okay?” Nat barks. She grabs Lottie’s wrists too tight, squeezing, thumbs pressing to her flesh. “It was the storm, or the pilots, or a busted gear, or something. But it wasn’t you. Don’t even say that, okay? Shit… shit just happens, sometimes. I promise, it isn’t your fault.” 

Lottie nods slowly, staying quiet, which Natalie doesn’t like. 

She brings Lottie’s knuckles to her lips and presses a dry, perfunctory kiss there. Hoping to lighten the mood, she murmurs, “Y’know, if my cigs are ruined, I’m going to be so pissed. Like, I might be so mad I die about it, and then I’m going to haunt the forest and beg all of the other ghosts to let me bum a smoke.” 

Lottie snorts, wet and nasally. “Make sure you share with me.” 

Shauna. May 19th, 1996. The Wilderness.

The rain doesn’t last for long. 

By the time Misty finishes binding Shauna’s scorned ankles in strips of cloth torn from pajamas, it’s faded like a sigh, lessening into a dull sprinkle. 

“It’s a good thing that it rained when it did,” Misty intones. She tugs on the makeshift bandage and leans close to inspect her wounds. As she tightens the knot, she says, “Water is really the only thing we have to help you. Hopefully it’s stopped any further tissue damage. We’ll also need to find a log, something for you to elevate your legs with. It’ll help with the swelling.” 

“I didn’t know elevation helped with burns,” Shauna murmurs, not argumentatively, but hollow and tired. Her body was a vessel of blistered and shuddering cold. If Misty could pull off a goddamn battlefield amputation without killing her patient, then Shauna would take her at her word. 

“Well, it does,” sniffs Misty, seemingly affronted by the implication that her expertise wasn’t up to par. Then, as though a switch were flipped, her face brightens into a grin. “Anyway, that should do it for now. I’ll take a look again in the morning. It’ll be easier with more light. But, for now, I’m off to my next patient. Yell if you need anything!” 

“Will do.” 

Shauna watches her go. Then, when she’s sure Misty isn’t in earshot, she turns to Van and Tai—the latter freshly returned from helping Travis find Javi. “Is it just me,” Shauna ventures, “or is she… enjoying this—a little too much?” 

Van laughs, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe. Actually, probably yes. I bet she’s relishing it. But, who cares, right? I don’t. I mean, she’s the only one of us who seems to know what the hell they’re doing. Honestly, I don’t know what we would do without her. She kept Coach Scott alive, after all.” 

That’s true enough. Reluctantly, she nods. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

She lets her gaze fall to the watch on her wrist—her grandfather’s, passed down to Shauna by her father—it’s a miracle it’s still functioning after all the blunt-force trauma, fire, and rain. But it still ticked, steadfast, through it all. There was that to be thankful for, she supposes. The hands positioned on its face indicate that it’s 4:19 am. That would be New Jersey time, and how helpful is that? God knows what timezone they were in. 

“How long do you think it will take for them to find us?” Van asks, plucking at the wet strands of hair plastered to her face. 

Taissa curls inward and brings her knees to her chest, propping her chin there. “Today, hopefully. It has to be today. I mean, Misty’s a lifesaver, for sure, but we’re going to need more than a babysitter’s first aid course. Coach Scott needs real medical attention, and so do you, Shauna. Shit, we all do, probably.” 

“What if they don’t come today?” Shauna asks, unable to help herself. Images of festering wounds, of fevers and infection unspool through her mind. She’s always been a worrier by nature. “What if it’s longer?” 

The idea is uncomfortable and venomous. Van’s jaw tightens; Taissa’s eyes dart uncomfortably to the trees. No one answers. Shauna understands. She doesn’t have anything to offer either. What would happen if rescue didn’t come today? Do they have food? Or water? What would they do if Coach Scott’s leg became infected? Or if her legs became infected? What if she began to rot and decay, until she had no other option other than to lie down before Misty’s axe, waiting for amputation? Are there animals out here? What if there are wolves? 

She swallows, listening as the forest breathes around them. Old. Indifferent. 

“We can’t worry about that,” says Taissa, suddenly pushing herself up to her feet. “We have to hope they do, for now.” 

Van’s eyes follow the movement, wide and questioning. “Where are you going?” she asks. 

“To do something. For the meantime.” Her voice is clipped with an efficiency that reminds Shauna of the soccer field. “We should probably try to… I don’t know—set up camp. The rain is stopping. We could start a fire.” 

“Oooh,” Van hums, wagging her eyebrows. She turns, a smirk on her face. “A fire. Doesn’t that sound perfect, Shauna?” 

Shauna’s laugh is thin and brittle. “Y’know… I think I’ve had my fill of fire for the day,” she says, joking, but also not. “But I guess it would be nice to have some light. Just don’t expect me to sit too close. Not that I can even walk if I wanted to.” 

Frowning, she considers that. How is she going to move around? Would she be forced to drag herself around on her stomach, pulling her useless legs behind her? 

Taissa must realize the same thing, because her brow furrows into a crease Shauna knows from years of shared math classes. A twin frown appears on her face, and she puts a hand on her chin, pondering. “Maybe we could find some way to drag you around… like—what if we made some sort of stretcher? See, this is why we need to try and find all of our stuff. And a camp would be a great place to put everything, don’t you think?” 

Van leans back, crossing her arms. “I’m sensing that you would like to set up a camp,” she drawls, smiling. 

“It’s the practical thing to do,” Taissa shoots back, already pivoting to squint to the broken plane. “It’s possible that they take longer than a day. So, we should gather everything we can. Food, water bottles, any snacks we can find. Fucking… Advil, or whatever. Just in case.” 

And Shauna admits that Taissa has a point there. She’d kill for something to help with the pain, even something as mundane as Advil. A snack wouldn’t hurt either. She could kick herself for not stopping at the vending machine before boarding the plane. The opportunity was there. But her valium had just started to kick in, and she was so nervous about flying, and worrying about Jackie, and already missing Jackie. So she didn’t. 

Fuck, a Pop-Tart sounds so good right now. 

Taissa ropes a few of the others into her scheme and sets them to work searching the immediate area. There would be a better search come first light. But, for now, they would do what they could. Nat is tasked with starting a fire, which Shauna was skeptical about being able to do, considering how wet the ground is, but somehow, Natalie manages to bring a small flame to life using only a lighter. 

Everyone gathers around it, but Shauna and Van hang back, content to watch the other’s faces—bruised and illuminated before the flames—from afar. 

But not too much later, Taissa approaches, with Misty and Lottie hovering behind her. 

“Time to move you,” she says softly. “It’s too dark to make a stretcher right now, so we have to drag you. I’m sorry.” 

It’s difficult. 

Lottie and Taissa each grab one of her arms, while Van lingers off to the side, nervously chewing on her lips. Misty buzzes around, chirping constant reminders. (“Keep your legs lifted, higher, please. C’mon, you can do it!”) It’s to prevent them from dragging and scraping through the dirt, but it hurts to move them even an inch, let alone hold them suspended in the air. Agony laces through her at the first attempt. She’s so fucking tired. 

“Fuck—fuck—” Shauna hisses, thighs quivering. They’ve only moved a few feet. 

She can’t help the tears that leak from her eyes, but she does her best to stay silent. Then she fails at that too, continuing to swear and curse the entire way. 

They press onward, and eventually, thankfully, they make it.

Taissa and Lottie position her carefully—close enough to feel the warmth, but far away enough to soothe any anxiety. She lays there breathless, trembling from the sheer weight of existing. 

Around her, the others huddle, their faces flickering in the firelight. She gazes at them, wondering not for the first (or second, or tenth) time: What the fuck are we going to do? 

The general mood around the fire is somber. Silence pools around as they collectively listen to its crackle, and the low moaning of wind rustling through the trees. It’s as though the reality of their situation is sinking in, bearing down with a weight that is as heavy as the sky itself, until Akilah’s voice punctures through, tiny and afraid. 

“What do you think is happening back home?” 

Mari pulls her knees to her chest, and says, “I bet my parents are totally freaking the fuck out right now.” 

“If they even know yet,” mutters Rachel, hurling a stick into the flames. “What time is it in New Jersey, anyway?” 

Shauna glances at her watch. “It’s 6:12 in the morning.” 

Which meant that it was 3:12 am for Jackie in Seattle. She was probably still in her hospital bed, safe and unscorched, but broken. 

“Well, they definitely know, then,” says Nat, staring at the fire. “We were supposed to land hours ago. The airline has to know something went wrong. Planes don’t just… not show up.”

“Where even are we?” Akilah’s words tremble, a leaf in a gale.

Nobody answers for a long second, until Taissa sighs, wearily shrugging her shoulders. “Who the hell knows? Somewhere in Canada, maybe? The pilot said he was routing north because of a storm in Utah, or whatever.”

“Fucking Canada?” Nat shakes her head, barking out a laugh. “Thank God it’s May, then. Can you imagine if it were winter?” 

Gen’s voice emerges, thin as smoke. “If the airline knows we’re missing… then they’ve definitely told our parents. Right?” 

It’s the first time Shauna’s heard her speak. She’s been silent since she stopped puking, and now sits next to Melissa, perched on a small, damp log. 

Javi nudges Travis with his knee. “Do you think Dad knows what happened to us?” 

Travis makes a face. “Yeah, he probably does. But I bet he cares more about—” he waves a bitter hand at the rest of them, “ all of them more than he does us.” 

No one knows how to respond to that, obviously. The fire crackles. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, until Mari breaks through. Of course it’s her. 

She leans forward, her grin sharp, “I bet Jackie is gonna be thrilled about breaking her arm when she hears about this.” 

Shauna’s breath catches—it hits like a needle to her lung, jolting her out of stasis. Lottie’s gaze swings toward her, but Shauna avoids eye contact, staring resolutely upward where the tree branches claw each other under the stars. Jackie’s name hangs in the air, a grenade with its pin pulled. She hasn’t let herself think much about Jackie, aside from her initial relief. They’ve been occupied, you see. But this is Shauna. Shauna, who knows Jackie’s every sigh, every whim. Shauna always thinks about Jackie. It’s an inevitable, unalienable fact. 

She gets the feeling that the others are waiting for her to say something, but she refuses to give them the satisfaction. Her throat clenches like a vault sealing shut. Let them wonder. Let them choke on the silence. 

Lottie’s hand finds hers. They’re fingers interlace.

Taissa leans forward, “Look you guys,” she begins, quietly insistent. “I know this is the… the worst thing that’s ever happened to us. But we’re going to be alright, okay?” Her eyes sweep across the circle over their faces. It’s not as good as one of Jackie’s pep talks, Shauna thinks, but she gives Taissa points for trying. “We’re a team. We just have to stick together, and we’ll make it through.” 

Shauna sighs. Teams needed captains, and theirs was miles away, swaddled in sterile sheets. 

“I really hope it doesn’t take a few days,” Mari says, snorting. “I’m supposed to start my period, like, any day now, and I have six tampons. Six. ” 

Laughter ripples over them—thin, gaunt, but laughter all the same. Van’s shoulder shakes against Shauna’s; Natalie smirks into her shirt collar. Even Lottie’s grip on her hand loosens. Not Shauna. She doesn’t smile. She’s never felt like doing something less in her entire life. She’s wet, burned, and bruised.

But, mostly, she’s just sad.

The conversation shifts when Laura Lee, through tears, confesses to being the reason the plane crashed. 

A cunt, she called Mrs. Brophy. And though it hurts, stitching and pulling at her burns, Shauna breaks out into giggles with the rest of them. Then Lottie goes on to admit that she’s a prolific shoplifter, and that makes her laugh even more, because of course she is. Classic rich girl shit.

Even Rachel, who’s been radio silent since she stopped crying out for Allie, has a secret to confess. “I caught my father with another woman, and I, uhm, blackmailed him into getting me my own phone line for my room. My mom still doesn’t know.” 

Which—yikes. 

Shauna says nothing, refusing to offer any secrets of her own. 

If lies and hidden shame are the reason behind their crash, then she knows without a doubt that the fault belongs solely to her. She’s never believed much in the concept of karma, but perhaps there is some validity to the whole ‘good things happen to people who make good choices’ shtick that her mother was always spouting off about. 

And if karma is real, and this is her fault, then she can add a plane crash to her laundry list of offenses. 

If what goes around, comes around, then it is surely Shauna’s fault that Allie is dead; no longer a living, breathing girl, with hopes and dreams and crushes on boys, but a husk, a shell, a corpse, forever destined to stare empty-eyed until the dirt came to claim her eyes along with everything else. 

Misty slips away in the middle of the conversation, dissolving like a shadow in the trees. Her absence is followed immediately by Coach Scott’s screams. The others rush off to check, but Shauna stays behind. Not much choice. She isn’t very mobile. 

Lottie and Laura Lee stay behind with her, at least. 

She can’t help but stare at Laura Lee, remembering for the first time since it happened, that she was the one to bring Shauna back to consciousness when the plane was burning. Until now, she’s been too busy with her burning and her aching to reflect on the strange series of events that kept her alive. She stares unabashedly at Laura Lee’s blue eyes and the tear tracks on her face. It’s a chilling contrast to the blazing determination she’d possessed when she was slapping Shauna across the face.

Everyone contains multitudes, Shauna thinks. 

If she weren’t so fucking traumatized and injured, Shauna would remember to be impressed. Idly, she brings a hand to her face and presses two fingers to cheek, feeling a ghostly sting. 

And Lottie too, she acknowledges. If not for them yanking her drug-heavy body up to its feet, she would have burned. They saved my life. 

“Hey, you guys?” Shauna says, barely above a whisper, even though there was no one but the three of them. The words seem too small for the weight they carry, but she says them anyway. “Uh, I just… Well, I guess that… I wanted to tell you, uh, thank you. Both of you. For getting me off that plane. I didn’t get a chance to tell you before, because, well… you know—it was crazy. But, thank you, really. I think it definitely makes up for you calling Mrs. Brophy a cunt, Laura Lee. And for your thousands of dollars in TJ-bucks, Lottie.” 

“Did you think we would just leave you there?” Lottie asks, voice laced with a challenge and edged with affection. She shakes her head. “Besides, I didn’t even do much besides freak the fuck out at you. It was Laura Lee who did the actual work.” 

Shauna laughs softly, looking at the girl in question. “Has anybody ever told you that you have a mean right hand?” 

“No,” Laura Lee says, giggling. “I’ve never slapped anybody before today. But… I guess today has had a lot of firsts. For instance, my first time falling out of the sky.”

Lottie turns back to stare at the fire, frowning again. “A lot of lasts, too,” she murmurs. “I still can’t believe Allie is dead.”

“I wish we could have saved her,” says Laura Lee, voice quivering. Her fingers twist the hem of her cardigan, anxiously rubbing the woolly material. “What happened to her was horrible.” 

“Me too. But… I don’t think she suffered,” Shauna says, as though it were a consolation. It definitely isn’t, despite being the truth. She had seen Allie’s body, the long, jagged metal that tore through her throat. She probably hadn’t even been aware that she was dying. She just… did. Does it matter if she felt it? Dead is dead, all the same. 

Lottie reaches over Shauna to grab for Laura Lee’s hand. “She’s with God now, right?” she offers, her tone tentative. “A better place, like you always say.” 

And Shauna is pretty sure Lottie isn’t religious. Most of them aren’t. Or, at least, not religious in the way Laura Lee is, where every other sentence is a prayer of some sort. But she also knows that Lottie loves Laura Lee more than most and that Laura Lee loves her back. 

A sad smile tugs at Laura Lee’s lips. “Yeah, she is.” Her thumb brushes along the back of Lottie’s hand. “I’m not sad for her, but I am sad for me. And her family. And for all of us.” She pauses, firelight catching on her face and lighting up the tear streaks that run down her cheek. “I know everything happens for a reason, and that He works in mysterious ways, but…” Her voice frays as she shakes her head. “It’s still very sad.”

Yeah, Shauna thinks. It really fucking is. 

So, it turns out, the reason Coach Scott began screaming from somewhere in the distance is because Misty Quigley went off and cauterized his fucking leg. 

Shauna found it strange when Misty showed up with the ax, considered it stranger still when she pressed the blade to the fire until it turned angry and red, but was in too much pain herself to actually ask any questions. Nobody else had either, seemingly content to let Misty wander away from their sharing circle without any further questions. 

Don’t get Shauna wrong. She’s glad Misty’s here. She hasn’t seen Coach Scott or his stump for herself, not yet, but listening to the others tell it, he’s lucky to be alive. If it weren’t for Misty’s intervention, he would be dead. 

Still… it’s weird. The fucking equipment manager—of all people—is moonlighting as a trauma medic.

But again. She’s grateful. 

When the commotion of Coach Scott’s medical emergency ebbed, the other girls crept back to the fire, faces drawn, with exhaustion following behind like an unwanted straggler. 

They were all so tired. Shauna is so tired. 

Her feet throb in endless metronome. Sleep would be a welcome escape, if only it would actually come. It’s unnerving to sleep in the woods to begin with, let alone with dead bodies just around the corner. She can only hope their rescue will arrive sooner, rather than later. 

At least she’ll return to an equally injured Jackie. She imagines her propped in a sterile bed, lifting her casted arm in greeting. (“I’ll be your legs, Shipman, if you’ll be my arms.”) They could recover together, tangling their broken limbs in their attempts to cuddle, to merge into one. (“We’re, like, a whole person together.”) It would be difficult, but they would find a way to make things work. They always do. Or… Jackie does, at least. 

She glances at her watch. It’s 7:42 am in New Jersey now, which means it’s 4:42 am for Jackie in Seattle. 

Time seems to have dissolved here. Shauna has no idea what timezone they’re in. There are no hints of dawn on the horizon, which probably meant they were closer to 4 am instead of 7. Jackie probably had no idea. 

Would she cry? (Yes, without a doubt.) 

Will she worry? (C’mon, Shauna, be for real.) 

Would she assume Shauna is dead? (Maybe. It’s a plane crash, after all.) 

And why does that please her as much as it does—the concept of Jackie mourning her? The thought coils, venomous and sweet. Not for the pain it would bring Jackie, but for the proof, for the answer it brings. See how I matter? See how your world flips when I’m gone? 

She pictures Jackie clutching the phone, digging her nails into her palms, her fear becoming a living thing. Guilt follows the image, swift and stabbing. Shauna can’t help it. She only wants to be needed. To be wanted as fiercely as she wants. 

This doesn’t mean anything, she tells herself. She’s just thinking aimlessly, searching for something to make her feel better while they were stuck here. It couldn’t be long until they were rescued. Jackie would not have to grieve for long. Shauna would return, burned and battered, but alive, and she would hold Jackie’s hand and tell her everything was alright. Except, of course, for the things that were not. 

Allie, Allie, Allie. 

Shauna brings her hands up to touch the cool metal of Jackie’s necklace against her collarbone. She’d forgotten it was there. Her fingers graze across the pendant, and she shudders, struck with a dizzying wave of relief that it had survived the crash and the fire that followed. 

So you can have a little piece of me as well. To think about me, if you want, Jackie had said. 

Well, she certainly got her wish. 

It’s impossible to imagine her in this situation. 

The violent rattle of the plane still vibrates in Shauna’s bones. Her ears still overflow with the haunting shrieks of her teammates. Blood, dark and red, that stains the carpet and splatters the seats with its awful color flashes through her mind. The whole thing was terrifying enough, but what would she have done if Jackie were there? What would Jackie have done? 

Would I have screamed her name? Would I have torn my own hands raw trying to reach her? 

The horror of it curls in her gut, pure revulsion. In this terrible fantasy, Jackie takes Lottie’s place at her side. She’s screaming, until she’s suddenly snuffed out, pinned to the seat by a protruding metal beam that skewers her throat, leaving her eyes forever wide and staring, slender fingers curled stiffly around the armrest; necrotic rigor mortis. 

If karma is real, this is her fault. But at the very least, the universe did not deem it fit to punish her with Jackie being here too. 

No, Jackie is safe. Badly hurt, yes, but safe. Her parents, as awful as they could be, were going to come get her. They would bring her back to New Jersey and put her safely in her bed. If she needed anyone… Well, Shauna supposes there is always Jeff. 

That makes her cringe. She digs her nails into her palm.

Shauna hates the way her pulse quickens at the idea of Jackie alone, of Jackie needing Jeff in her place. But it’s not like she’ll have anyone else, will she? Anyone she’d be likely to call is already here, huddled and asleep in piles around the campfire. 

The necklace grows heavier around her neck. 

Jackie doesn’t deserve to think all of her friends are dead, and she doesn’t deserve to be stuck with a shitty boyfriend as her only comfort and company. A shitty boyfriend who would cheat on her with her best friend the night before proclaiming his love for her. 

It might sound as though Shauna is minimizing her part in all of this, but trust her, she’s not. That’s part of the karma too, and she accepts that. 

Whether or not Jackie deserves it is irrelevant, however, because it’s all Jackie will have. 

Maybe she would be so devastated about their deaths that she would break up with him for good. Not likely, Shauna admits, but possible. Or, worse, perhaps this would spur her to finally bring Jeff into her bed. The thought of Jeff on top of her, touching her, makes her insides curdle. She squirms, uncomfortable, suddenly flushed. 

Now isn’t the time to worry about this. She knows that. But it’s easier to think about Jackie, and Jackie and Jeff, and Shauna and Jeff, than it is to think about the circumstances she currently finds herself in. It’s less painful than thinking of Allie’s vacant stare, Coach Scott’s stump, or her own, blistered, alien legs. Jackie, whole and safe and alive. 

These woods, this violence… it was no place for her. Jackie may be alone, which makes her sad, or she may be with Jeff, which makes Shauna angry, but she is not here, which is the only thing capable of bringing her any peace. 

Shauna probably should just go the fuck to sleep already. 

Most of the other girls have, except for Misty, who was off somewhere, as well as Van, Akilah, and Rachel, who were off on a bathroom excursion. 

Shauna’s been growing increasingly nervous about her own need for that. She was fine for now, but what would she do come the morning? She couldn’t walk. She’d have to ask someone for help. The thought makes her cringe.

Everyone else, however, is asleep in small heaps around the dwindling fire. Mari curls up alone, awaiting Akilah’s return. Laura Lee and Lottie are asleep back-to-back, with Natalie a few feet away, using her boots as a pillow. The juniors clump together, a pile of limbs and elbows. Shauna, meanwhile, is next to Taissa, the only other person awake. She stares at the tree line, eyes fixed as she waits for Van. 

Silence pools. Van, Akilah, and Rachel come back first, claiming their spots, which allows Taissa to finally settle down. Misty arrives not long after and finds a spot near the juniors, with whom she was marginally more friendly with. 

Shauna’s eyelids flutter as she watches the fire and remembers what it was like to be covered in flames. Then she promptly falls asleep.

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 21st, 1996. Wiskayok, New Jersey.

(Tuesday Night) 

It’s probably selfish; how she behaves when she shows up at Shauna’s house. 

But isn’t this what she always does? Make everything about herself. She places herself at the center of the world, and it doesn’t matter who she hurts in the process. Even now, standing in the Shipmans’ entryway, she’s only thinking about how she feels, how she’s breaking. Does it even matter how hard she tries to be good, if this is all she’ll ever be? 

I should have let her stay. It’s my fault, my fault, all my fault. 

Jackie hates to cry. 

It makes her face blotchy and washes out her skin. Her mom always says so. Worse than that, it makes her vulnerable, exposed. She hates it, and she’s tried to swallow it all day, but now she can’t stop, not even after Deborah Shipman pulls her into an embrace. She’s the dog who caught up to the car, she’s sand between open fingers. 

Her tears soak into Deb’s sweater, hot and messy. 

This isn’t mere grief—though there was plenty of that to go around. This was greater, more awful. It festers inside of her, ripping her to shreds to shove her face-first into an endless crucible she would never escape from. It’s as though someone has reached deep into her chest to yank out everything that was good, leaving behind only a hollow, gnawing pit. 

Her parents would never understand. 

How could they? They could never understand how scared she feels. 

She’s terrified. Not just for Shauna, or the team, or Coach Martinez’s boys, but for herself too. This is a wreckage, born fresh, conceived from her worst nightmare, and it threatens to swallow her whole. It’s everywhere. In her shaking hands, in her thumping heart, in the awful buzz under her skin that just won’t quit. She’s worried about what she might do. 

Earlier, in the bathroom, she’d stared at the fogged-up window, had imagined pushing it open to lean into the cool air. Had imagined jumping. Just to feel something else. Just to make this stop. The sky was an inviting, dusty blue, sleepy and tempting. It would have been so easy to tug the window open. The squeaky hinges and the old, scraping wood frame wouldn’t have been enough to stop her. 

But I wouldn’t, she tells herself, I couldn’t do that.

Nevertheless, the fact that it crossed her mind to begin with is scary, right? 

This state-of-mind is dangerous, and who did she have to turn to when everyone else was gone? 

The panic comes roaring back again, taking over her body. The pit widens. Her lungs won’t work. They gasp for air, unable to do their job. Her emotional wreckage smolders. She wheezes, jolting in Deb’s arms, terrified by the impenetrable ache rising in her own chest. 

“Jackie—” Deb starts, but Jackie jerks away and stumbles back, dizzy. Her lips buzz. 

Can a person die from overwhelming sadness? Was it possible to suffocate with devastating worry? It must be, because it is happening to her right now. She’s sweating, shirt clinging to her spine, and the hallway feels like it’s closing in. She gulps, stuck in an unforgiving vacuum. There is no air to breathe. Then her hand curls into a claw, frozen, refusing to unclench. A parasite takes over, bringing it to her chest. She tries to flatten it against her body, tries to force it flat, but it doesn’t belong to her anymore. 

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Jackie gasps, but she isn’t sure what she’s apologizing for? Existing? Breathing? Forcing Deb to see how shattered she is? 

It’s too hot, and she’s going to die right here in the entryway of Shauna’s house, and it would all be over with, this pathetic little life of hers.

“Jackie, breathe, please. Sweetheart, I need you to breathe.” The voice is calm and steady, smooth enough to break through her chaotic interior.

“Deb—” Jackie’s jaw is clenching to the point of pain, tight and tension-bound, pouring cement down her throat and thickening her words, “—my hands.” 

“I know, I know, but how about we breathe together first, yeah? Will you focus on my voice?” Deb is in front of her, reaching out for  Jackie’s fist. She pries it open, her grip warm and firm as she straightens out Jackie’s fingers. “You’re having a panic attack. I know that it’s scary, but just keep listening to my voice. Can you do that?” 

Jackie nods.

“Let’s breathe together, you and me. Okay? We’re just going to breathe. It’s going to be okay. I promise. In and out. With me.”

Jackie tries. 

The first breath scrapes her throat raw, and it hurts on the way out. The second tastes like salt and snot. Deb keeps squeezing her hand, which gives her something to focus on. The third breath takes the buzzing in her ears from a scream to a hum. They do it again, and again, and again, until she finally stops dying and starts breathing. Her convulsions melt into small trembles, which leaves her hollowed, but here.

“There you go,” Deb murmurs. “You’re okay.” 

No, I’m not, Jackie wants to scream. 

See what she means? This is selfish of her, and she knows it. Jackie isn’t the only one with a reason to fall apart, but that doesn’t stop her. And not only is Jackie breaking into a thousand tiny pieces, but she’s also forcing Deb to guide her through it, even though this frightening worry must be eating at her too. 

But all the same, she nods, wiping her face with her sleeve. It’s gross, but Deb doesn’t flinch. 

“Come on, babe, let’s get you some water. Are you hungry?” Deb tugs softly at her hands. 

“I don’t think I can eat right now,” Jackie whispers, shaking her head. 

At that, Deb nods. “That’s fine. At least you’re talking now. That’s something, right?” 

Yeah, at least there’s that. Jackie nods. She wants to say I’m sorry. Instead, she just follows. 

In the kitchen, Jackie gulps down life-saving water like it’s the first thing she’s tasted in days. It slides cool and wet down her dry, heated throat. She drinks the entire glass, and then another, allowing the coldness to shock life back into her body. It helps, but an exhaustion remains, digging so deep that it burrows into her cells and her atoms, becoming the only thing holding her form together. 

Jackie grips the counter for balance, swaying where she stands. She should say something. She wants to say something. 

Thank you for bringing me back to earth? 

I’m sorry that your daughter is probably dead? 

What are we going to do? 

How are we going to get through this? How will I? 

But Jackie says none of that. Instead, she yawns. 

In the end, it’s probably for the best that she seems to have lost the ability to speak. It could send her spiraling back to that crawling, all-consuming darkness, and that is the last thing she wants. 

Jackie folds in on herself, wrapping her arm tight around her middle as though she’s trying to hold her shattered pieces together. 

Deb must be the strongest woman on the planet, because she doesn’t seem to mind. She doesn’t look angry that Jackie’s come here to gobble up all the grief, that’s she is actively sucking up every ounce of air in the room. 

Her eyes are red-rimmed but steady as she fetches Jackie’s medication. Once she reads over the instructions on the bottle, she shakes out three pills and hands them over to Jackie. 

“I—” Jackie starts. 

“Shh,” murmurs Deb, cutting her off. Now, Jackie can hear it, the wobble in her voice that betrays the cracks in her facade. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” she says, like tomorrow is a cliff they would both be shoved off of. “You look exhausted. Let’s get you to bed, okay?” 

Jackie nods, because what else is there to do? 

Tomorrow will not be easier. In fact, it will be worse, she is sure of it. Let’s skip to the next terrible page, please.

But today exists like a fist around her throat, and she wants to be finished with it. 

Deb’s eyes glisten—brown, warm, like Shauna’s—and Jackie looks away so she doesn’t have to see, focusing on the pills in her hand instead. 

She’s like a child again; standing behind Deb in the bathroom with a folded towel clutched to her chest, watching as Deb runs the water, testing the temperature with her fingers. She remains in a daze as Deb explains how to bathe without wetting her arm. “I’ll be right outside,” she promises, stepping out into the hallway to give her privacy. 

It’s a moment she won’t ever forget. 

The thought crosses her mind as she sits in the tub, knees drawn to her chest, with her right arm propped up on a towel. She will remember this forever. When she’s old, when she’s happy, and when she’s sad. She would be branded for life by these terrible few minutes. 

Shampooing one-handed is a clumsy ordeal. Suds drip into her eyes and conditioner slicks the tub. She gets through it mechanically, pretending, for a moment, that she’s just a girl in a bath, and not a girl whose world has completely ended. She watches the sudsy soap swirl in a spiral around the drain, listening to Deb call out encouragement from the hall. 

At least she’s clean, and fuck, doesn’t that feel good, at least? 

She’s almost guilty for experiencing this moment of relief, but in the theme of these selfish few days, she allows herself the respite. 

With how quickly she’d bolted from her house, she didn’t think about clothes. Deb must have realized that, because after she gets out of the tub, she realizes there is a folded set of pajamas on the counter—baby blue shorts and a faded pink t-shirt from the “Jackie drawer” in Shauna’s bedroom. The drawer she’d filled over years of sleepovers. If she sticks rigidly to that drawer, she’ll have enough clothes to last her for at least a week. She can’t stomach the idea of wearing Shauna’s clothes, not yet, maybe not ever. 

“All set?” Deb asks, when she slips back into the hallway, and Jackie nods, trailing after her downstairs to the couch. Not Shauna’s bed. Thank God. Even the mere thought sends a static poison through her chest. It threatens to pull her back under. 

She rubs absently at the spot as she settles on the couch’s brown leather cushions. 

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Deb asks, settling a throw blanket over her legs. 

She shakes her head, picking at the blanket’s frayed edge. “No.” They don’t know anything. She’d left the shower running, and then wallowed on the curb until Jeff arrived to get her.

Did they even notice she was gone? She imagines the water overflowing, spilling under their bedroom door, soaking their pristine carpet. Let them drown in it. Let them feel something, for once. 

“Alright,” Deb says softly. “I’m going to give them a call, okay? I don’t want them to worry.” 

Jackie digs her nails into the cushion. They won’t care, she wants to snap. You shouldn’t bother. But she bites her tongue, knowing that’s a step too far. It’s been established already that Jackie is quite self-centered, but she isn’t so far gone as to snap at Deb. She doesn’t deserve Jackie’s anger. 

What wouldn’t Deb give to not worry about where her own kid was? 

Jackie nods, responding with a meek and quiet, “Okay.” 

Then she’s alone again.

She tries not to look too hard around the room, because every tape on the shelf holds a memory, and Shauna’s fingerprints still dust every button on the remote. 

— (“C’mon, Shipman, you’re hogging the blanket, and my feet are so cold. Scoot closer.”) 

Jackie pulls the blanket tighter. It is so soft and gentle against her knees, and it smells like fabric softener, and the faint wisps of Shauna’s perfume. 

Fuck her parents. She can hear Deb speaking softly to them from the kitchen, and she tunes it out. 

At some point, Jackie will have to deal with them. They would be furious with her for leaving, though she doubts it’ll be for the right reasons. No, knowing her mom, she would choose to be upset about the prospect of the neighbors seeing her flee. What would they think of us, Jackie? Do you ever think before you act? 

Just a single day. That’s all she asks for. Just a single day to rot and wallow with the only person alive that knows exactly what she’s going through. 

Is that too much to ask for?

Maybe, if you’re Jackie. But, remember, she doesn’t settle when it comes to Shauna. Jackie asks, and takes, and grabs, and she gravitates around Shauna like a planet does to its star. She settled once, and look at what happened. 

She won’t do it again. 

Deb returns from the kitchen with a grimace on her face. “Well… they’re concerned about you, to say the least,” she says, choosing her words carefully. She sits down next to her. “Did you really run away while they thought you were showering?” 

Jackie shrugs, staring at the coffee table, her unfocused eyes lingering on a magazine resting open on its surface. “Are you going to make me go back?” she asks, throat tightening. 

Deb blinks, surprised. She tilts her head and furrows her brows. “Jackie, what? No, of course not, you’re always welcome here. I told them you would give them a call in the morning.” 

“Oh.” That’s nice. It’s a relief to hear, but it doesn’t stop her eyes from filling again with tears. “Thank you. I just—I couldn’t be there anymore. It wasn’t… they weren’t… and, well, I think I needed to—” She has to cut herself off, because the words start tumbling like marbles, constricting her lungs. 

Deb shushes her as though she were only a toddler, placing a gentle hand on her knee. “I know. You don’t need to explain.” 

“And I just—I’m so sorry. I know, I showed up here without asking. I shouldn’t have, because… because you’re hurting too, but I’m selfish, and—and I didn’t want to be alone, but then my parents—they’re so—” 

“Breathe,” Deb says, cutting her off. Her voice is soothing still, but her eyes are filled with tears and fixated on the ceiling. “I need you to calm down.” 

I’m making her cry. I really am the worst.

The thought hisses in her head, sharp as a slap. She clenches her teeth, swallowing back tears, as shame colors her face a horrid red. “I’m sorry,” she chokes, wiping her face with the blanket. 

Deb sighs, not unkindly. “Don’t be sorry. Trust me,” she says, her laugh brittle, “I get it. But you’ve had a long day. Sleep might help.” 

Help? Jackie almost snorts. Nothing would help. Not the pills, not the bath, not even Deb’s gentle voice. But she nods anyway, because she doesn’t want to be more of a burden than she already has been. She doesn’t want to suck up anymore of the oxygen. Deb deserves the space to lose it. She has to need it, right? 

All Jackie does instead is nod. “You’re probably right.” 

The house creaks around them, familiar and aching. Shauna’s house. Shauna’s blanket. Shauna’s mom. It should feel like salt in the wound, but instead, it’s the only thing anchoring her to the ground. The hospital had been cold and sterile. Her parents' house was worse. But here? Does she even need to explain it?

She’ll lay it all out, if she must, but surely, you must get the gist by now? 

(Wednesday. May 22nd, 1996.)

Jackie wakes up tangled in the blanket, so disoriented that she almost doesn’t recognize her surroundings. Almost. 

For a few precious seconds, it’s a day like any other. She’s spent so many Saturdays waking up in this exact position. Unfortunately, all it takes to shatter her illusion is the absence of a warm body beside her. She reaches out instinctively, expecting to nudge Shauna’s shoulder, but her hand hits empty air. The disappointment is a gut punch. 

She sits up too fast, wincing as her ribs throb. The living-room looks wrong in the morning light. It’s the same faded curtains, same dented coffee table, but everything is shifted, like a stage after the play is over. Her pills sit a few feet away in a crumpled brown bag, mocking her. 

The previous night comes back to her in a rush. Her meltdown plays like a loop through her head: her snotty tears, clawing hands, and Deb’s patient voice guiding her through something as instinctual as breathing. It’s embarrassing. Mortifying, even. Deb would never dream of holding it against her, but still, even remembering is enough to make her cringe now. 

She’d been completely out of control. 

Hell, maybe she still is. Definitely is, actually. And she would probably ride this spinning cyclone of chaos into the next day, if she was a betting girl. 

Jackie’s never experienced an attack like that before. Sure, she got anxious, but it was just like every other person. She has sobbed, cried hard, like she thought the world was going to end. But it was nothing like yesterday. That was scary. It felt like dying, or at least what she imagines dying to feel like. 

Can a person suffocate from devastating worry? The jury is still out, but Jackie is inclined to say yes, they could.

Shauna, are you dead? She can’t be. Jackie would know. 

Another layer of cold dread runs through her body, deepening the bags under her eyes and agitating the simmering heat that resides deep in her chest. Jackie swallows. She can’t let that happen again. She didn’t want to relive her hands locking into claws, or needing to be talked down like a spooked horse. 

At least it happened here, she tells herself. If it had to happen at all. 

Her parents would’ve handled it all wrong. She sees it play out as a movie in her head. Her dad, shuttering into silence and leaving the room in a mumble of excuses. Her mom holds out two xanax pills and a glass of clean, filtered water. (“Here, honey, just take these. They’ll make you feel better.”) Honestly, that part actually sounds kind of nice. 

The xanax. Not her mom. 

She kicks the blanket from her legs and gets onto her feet. Her body still aches all over, but she would have to get used to that. She would be black and blue, inside and out, all over, up and down, for a very long time. 

The kitchen is quiet and empty. A quick glance at the stove tells her it’s 7:48 in the morning. Early enough to enjoy some coffee without worrying about her parents hounding the phone line. Small victories. It wasn’t as though she was rushing to get the chance to talk with them. 

Coffee first.

She shuffles to the cabinet by the fridge, where it’s always been kept. She moves on autopilot, clearly comfortable here, even with one arm broken. Jackie knew Shauna almost as well as she knew herself, a fact that she’s always taken pride in. There is a map of Shauna’s house tattooed on Jackie’s brain, etched along the gyrus, painting the ridges and folds of her mind with shades of home. 

A roasted, nutty smell permeates the room as the coffee machine gurgles and rumbles to life.

While it fills the pot, Jackie grabs for her pills. Ugh. The childproof cap. She’s always found these hard to open, but it’s even worse with only one arm at her disposal. She wedges the bottle under her arm and squeezes it tight against her ribcage, twisting the cap with her good hand until her palm turns red. Come on, you stupid—

It suddenly pops off, clattering to the floor. Whatever. Jackie leaves it there and dry-swallows a pill, grimacing at its chalky taste. 

The phone looms on the wall. Jackie stares at it after pouring her coffee, allowing the mug to warm her hand. She doesn’t want to call. Doesn’t want to hear her mom’s tight and pinched “Jackie,” or her dad’s lecturing, “what the hell were you thinking?” Not yet. If this were before, if she weren’t destroyed, if she wasn’t shattering, on the brink of something greater than herself, something big and dark and empty, then she would simply go home rather than risking their wrath. She would be obedient, tossing in some witty attitude, perhaps, but respectful to their wishes all the same. 

After all, Shauna would still be there tomorrow, right? 

The miserable irony makes her snort. 

She keeps sipping her coffee. It wasn't before, not anymore. She’s bitter now, almost eager to defy her parents. This thing in Jackie, this gasping, unpredictable mess of emotion, it grows. It swells and swells until it pushes aside all of her organs and makes her wild.

Jackie gulps down half her coffee, and then abandons it on the counter. Best to rip off the bandaid now. 

It rings three times. For a second, she worries no one will pick up. Maybe they were out. Maybe they don’t even care. 

But then her mother’s voice cuts through, crisp and full of hope, like she’s been waiting for this. “Hello?” 

Jackie squeezes her eyes shut. “Mom? It’s me, Jackie.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other end. She imagines her mother making her usual pinched grimace. 

“Jackie, oh, I’ve been waiting for you to call.” 

“It’s barely eight in the morning,” Jackie snaps, unable to soften her tone. It’s probably too much. It’s the first conversation of the day, and she’s already too much. But, honestly, it feels good. Like scratching an itch. Slinging mud at her mother gives her a target for all of her restless energy. 

Her mom takes the bait, voice tightening with a sadness that saps away the fun. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? You can’t just leave like that, not without telling anybody. Did you ever consider how worried I would be when I realized you were gone?” 

“No, Mom, honestly, I didn’t.” She rolls her eyes, leaning against the counter. 

There is something eager in Jackie’s chest. It isn’t the crawling panic of yesterday, but something different; a cousin, a lateral gear, and it does not itch or prickle, but rather, pokes and prods, urging her forward. She presses the phone harder to her ear, waiting to receive Cindy Taylor’s anger. 

But instead, she gets only a sigh that’s frayed at the edges. 

“Now, listen. I know this… situation is really hard for you.”  Situation. Like Shauna’s plane vanishing was nothing more than a popped button on a blazor. Jackie snorts. It’s a strangled impression of a laugh. But her mother bulldozes forward. “I don’t expect you to go back to normal right away. You understand that, don’t you?” 

No, she doesn’t understand that. As if normal even exists anymore. There is no normal, and there never would be a normal again, not if they didn’t find Shauna. Alive, alive, alive. But admitting that would mean showing vulnerability in front of her mother, and that would not do. Her feelings are too raw and real to be shared with the likes of her. So she defaults to a script, knowing her non-answers will only frustrate her mother further. 

“Yeah, I understand.” 

The silence stretches. Jackie traces a line of spilled coffee on the counter, savoring her mom’s uncertainty. It feels weirdly like a victory. 

“When… when will you be coming home, then?” 

“Not today, Mom.” Jackie straightens her spine, ready for battle, eager to let her stubborn-flag fly. “I want to stay here… and wait for news. With Deb.” 

The long huff that Cindy exhales into the speaker makes Jackie feel as though she expected as much. 

“Are you sure it’s not a better idea to be home, with your family? What if—” 

Jackie cuts her off before she can finish the thought. “I’m sure.” 

Another heavy sigh. “Alright… I suppose one day is fine. I’ll be right here at home if you need me.” 

“Yep.”

Neither hangs up. The silence hums, thick with everything they couldn’t say. This is unusual, this lingering. Jackie gnaws her lip, refusing to cave first, unwilling to bandage over this awkward quiet with an easy goodbye. And geez, doesn’t her mom have anything better to do than breathe at her through the phone?

“Will you call me tomorrow?” Her mom asks, almost pleading. 

Jackie takes it for the surrender that it is.

“Sure thing.” 

After hanging up, Jackie grabs her half-empty coffee and stumbles back to the couch. 

Now what? 

She slumps down and stares at the TV, where a local news anchor drones on about “mechanical failure” and “storm patterns” as possible explanations for the crash and disappearance. His mustache twitches as discusses the tragedy of it all, and Jackie fixates on it, as though focusing on the absurdity might keep her from screaming.

Deb remains asleep, and as difficult as it is to be alone, Jackie won’t wake her. 

She remains, just like that, for an entire hour, until Deb finally comes down the stairs. 

“Good morning,” she murmurs, hovering in the doorway.

Jackie jumps, nearly knocking over her mug. “Oh—hey. Good morning.”

She hates how timid she sounds, as though she’s been caught doing something wrong. It’s hard to look at Deb directly. Embarrassed, she picks at the edge of her blanket, flattening it between her thumbs. 

“I’m sorry,” she blurts, keeping her eyes trained on the television. “I totally freaked out on you last night. I shouldn’t have just… shown up like that.” She trails off, finally allowing herself to meet Deb’s gaze. “It was rude to come and fall apart all over you. I didn’t even bother to call first.” 

Deb leans against the doorframe, wrapped in a comfy looking yellow robe, her hair slipping loose from a haphazard bun. Dark circles bruise her eyes, as though she didn’t get any sleep. And she probably hadn’t, for two nights now. 

“Jackie,” she sighs, exasperated, “I mean this in the nicest way, but that is just ridiculous. Do you really think I’m upset with you?” 

She shrugs, fingers still worrying over the blanket. “No, not really. But also, like—yes? I broke into your house and cried all over your kitchen. I wouldn’t blame you. You have every right to be mad.”

Deb snorts, a sound so unexpectedly Shauna-like that it makes Jackie’s chest go tight. “I was hoping you’d come here, you idiot. Will you listen to me? Please?” 

Jackie nods, and Deb continues. 

“Now, I didn’t expect you to dramatically flee from your parents house, I’ll admit,” she says, waving a hand, “but I expected you to show up eventually. And maybe this is wrong of me to put on you, but you’re… the only person, I’d say, who is worried the way that I’m worried. Who is terrified the way that I’m terrified. I mean, fuck… it’s like I can’t breathe.” 

Jackie nods again. “I get that.” Because she does. Physically, and spiritually too. 

“And, of course, Greg is worried about her too. He’s her father, I know he’s terrified, but,” Deb rubs a hand on her forehead, “I don’t think there’s anyone on earth who loves Shauna like I do, except for you.” 

Her throat closes. Love. The word is too big, too dangerous, and too true. 

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I am happy you came over last night. You don’t need to apologize to me. I’m going through this with you. And I’ve been here, alone,” she says, choking over the last word, “ever since I got that first shitty phone call. This is horrible of me, but it made me feel better to take care of you last night. Gave me something to focus on other than myself. Does that make sense?”

“Misery loves company, right?” Jackie says, wiping her eyes. Because it does make sense. It really, really does. 

“Ha. Clearly. Why do you think I chose to be a nurse?” Deb glances over at the television, which is currently on a commercial break. “But, seriously, you can stay for as long, or as little, as you want. My house will always be open to you, no matter what.” 

Jackie sniffles. “Thank you. Like… really. Thank you so much.” 

Deb pulls her robe tighter around her. “Are you hungry? I can make you something for breakfast, if you want.” 

“Yeah,” whispers Jackie. Her cheek sticks to the leather cushion. “That sounds nice.” 

They eat their breakfast together on the couch, settling in to watch the news. 

And that’s basically how the rest of the day goes. 

They don’t move from the couch until the sun goes down, except to use the restroom or grab a snack from the kitchen. The phone continues to ring every hour. Reporters. Neighbors. Family. But Deb ignores them all, only picking up to talk to Shauna’s father. 

“No, Greg, no news. Nothing yet.” 

When it’s well and truly dark, Deb rises from the couch, robe slipping from her shoulder. “I need to lie down for awhile,” she says, distant and reedy, tired, like she hasn’t slept in years.

“Okay,” Jackie mumbles back. 

They hug each other quickly, and then Jackie is alone again. 

She sits, staring at the TV. The talking heads are finishing up a conversation about yet another thing the President is doing wrong. They were supposed to be covering the plane’s disappearance after this segment, but Jackie is tempted to skip ahead and check the other channels. 

Her mind continues to race. All she can think about is the plane. 

She’s considered every possibility. What if the plane crashed in the ocean? What if they were stranded on a frozen mountain? Each possibility is worse than the one before. The only outcome she refuses to consider is one where Shauna is dead. She is not dead. Jackie would know, because she would feel it. She would die right along with her.

Even if all the others are gone, I could survive it… she thinks, guilt souring her stomach, as long as Shauna is alive. 

After three full days of worry, Jackie doesn’t know how much more she can take. It’s forcing her mind to sail into uncharted waters full of devil’s bargains, genies in bottles, and acceptable collateral damage. It’s staggering, even to herself, just what (and who) she would be willing to give up to have Shauna returned to her. 

Shauna is alive. She has to be. To think otherwise brings her to a place of nightmarish horror. And what is she going through? Is she scared? Hurt? 

Is she thinking of Jackie?

There is nowhere safe from these worried thoughts, no corner of her brain to escape from the fear. Shauna is everywhere, all around her, laughing and smiling and begging to be found.

By midnight, her eyes burn. She’s cried away every tear she has. There are no updates. Jackie didn’t expect there to be, but it hurts, devastating her all over again. 

Finally, she drags herself to her feet, leaving behind the indent she’s surely left imprinted on the couch. Dazed, she stumbles upstairs, intending on washing her face and brushing her teeth so she can prepare herself to do this all over again when the miserable tomorrow comes. It’s dark in the hallway. The only sound is her own shaky breathing. Her hand slides along the wall, fingers brushing along the framed pictures—Shauna blowing out a birthday candle, Shauna sticking her tongue out at the camera, Shauna balancing a soccer ball on her head. 

Then she freezes. The ladder to Shauna’s attic bedroom looms ahead. 

How many times, Jackie wonders? How many times has she climbed those rungs; silly and smiling, drunk and delighted, soft and sneaky when Shauna was grounded? She steps forward, refusing to touch the ladder, and cranes her neck up to the trapdoor to the bedroom. More home than home itself, and the root of so many of her favorite memories. 

No, I can’t, Jackie thinks, backing away. She can’t do it. The same old panic returns, crawling and prickling up her throat, bleeding through her body. 

She shakes her head and turns away. The itching panic fades, returning back to nothing.

(Thursday. May 23rd, 1996.)

The TV drones on… “The disappearance of Saturday’s Flight 3617 continues to remain a baffling enigma for aviation authorities and disaster recovery specialists alike. It’s been four days now since we first reported the disappearance of the New Jersey girl’s soccer team…” 

Jackie spins a Twizzler between her fingers, watching the red-braided licorice stalk whirl in circles like a horizontal windmill. She isn’t paying attention to the news. There isn’t any point. 

Four days. How can it be four fucking days already? Four days of the same experts arguing over weather patterns and conspiracies. Four days of her stomach knotting so tightly she could barely choke down her breakfast. 

It’s one thing for the plane to have crashed, but to disappear, into what appears to be thin air? Nowhere to be found, even after half a week had gone by? It’s inexcusable. 

Isn’t the military involved now? What’s taking them so long? It makes no sense that an airplane full of her friends could just cease to exist. 

The newscaster must think the same thing, because he’s gesticulating wildly with his hands and ranting angrily to his co-host about the slow drip of bureaucracy. Jackie looks up from her bag of Twizzlers just in time to notice. She brings the candy rope to her mouth and snaps off a piece with her teeth. Her mom would chide her for this. (“You might as well eat poison, Jacqueline.”) 

It’s early afternoon now, and this is Jackie’s pitiful attempt at lunch. 

She’s never been the most voracious eater even on her best days, so it goes without saying that she’s having even more trouble working up an appetite now, after everything. Deb’s been doing her best, diligently bringing snacks throughout the day, believing it was better to eat a junky-something than nothing at all. Chips here, a package of mini-muffins there, and candy, right now. 

How is she ever supposed to do things again? It’s like she’s forgotten how to be a person. She was so unmotivated for even the most basic of tasks that brushing her teeth this morning felt like a victory. 

Just like yesterday, Jackie is spending her day glued to the couch, slowly decaying away, consuming every bit of reporting she can find. But also like yesterday, there are nothing more than theories, each stupider than the last. Mechanical Failure. Pilot Error. Act of God. 

It’s mind-numbing and depressing, but she can’t stop. If there is any sort of update, she needs to know immediately. The thought of being late—or worse, unaware , more ignorant than she is already—keeps her paralyzed in place. 

Deb drifts in and out of the living room throughout the day, alternating between sitting with Jackie in stagnant anxiety, and floating around the house in her socks, answering the phone anytime someone calls. She’s more restless than she was yesterday, Jackie can’t help noticing, but it’s not as though anyone could blame her. 

Four days is a long time to wait at the gates of hell. 

Ninety-six hours. The number throbs in her skull. 

When would this end? It couldn’t last forever. Something had to give. There had to be a break, some sort of news—something, anything. Except… for that. Jackie can live forever in this anxious ignorance as long as she doesn’t have to face the nightmare her mind refuses to name. 

It’s not so much a stroke of bad luck, as it is something to be expected, that the phone rings again just in time for Deb to disappear upstairs and miss the call. The shrill sound comes from the kitchen, but Jackie lets it go to voicemail. 

She’s put the call out of her mind before the ringing even stops and takes another bite from her Twizzler. However, her pitiful reverie jerks to a halt once the voicemail comes to life.

Beep. “Jackie? Or Deborah? Uh—it’s Cindy Taylor.” Jackie freezes, startled by the sound of her mother’s voice, with a stalk of licorice halfway in her mouth. Cindy continues in a high-pitched, rehearsed speech. “Just calling to check in. Jackie was supposed to call me sometime today, but… I haven’t heard from her yet. I wanted to see how she’s doing.”

Fumbling for the remote, Jackie turns down the television volume to more easily listen. 

“Anyway, uh, when you get this, just have Jackie give me a call. I hope you’re doing well. I’ve been praying for you. Well, erm, goodbye, then.” 

The machine clicks and goes silent. Jackie purses her lips. She won’t be able to avoid her mother forever, but she’s willing to bet she can get away with one day more.

Jackie deletes the voicemail. After jabbing an angry finger on the red button, she stares at the machine. 

She’ll have to answer for this, eventually, and sooner, more likely than later. But she can’t have another conversation with Cindy. Seriously, she can’t. Not today. No thanks. 

And as for when she plans to actually go home… Well, she’ll worry about that when the time comes. 

For now, the couch awaits. 

The rest of the day blurs into the same cycle: infomercials, investigative reporters, and the same goddamn discussions she’s heard a thousand times already. The phone continues to ring intermittently, but luckily for her, Cindy seems to consider the one attempt at contact more than enough for a day’s work. 

She doesn’t move until Deb forces her. 

Around dusk, she comes to cajole Jackie off the couch. “Let’s go, kid, it’s bath time.” 

Jackie complies with only a paltry amount of whining. After assuring Deb she would be fine on her own, she lowers her aching body into the water. The routine is mechanical now—shampoo squeezed onto the tub’s edge to scoop with her good hand, then awkward scrubbing, followed by dunking her head beneath the faucet, and then repeating the process all over again with her conditioner. 

It’s as baptismal as the first time, and over with far too soon. She dresses in yesterday’s clothes, avoiding the mirror until the very last second. 

Her reflection glares back at her: puffy, swollen eyes with rings of red along the edges, and dark, angry bruises around her temple and eyes, blooming like rotten flowers, spotted with crimson flakes of crusty scabs, and green and yellow on the outsides. She prods them, hissing at the sting, wondering how deep this jagged soreness goes. The pain is sweet, matching the ache in her heart. She presses harder, frowning at herself. 

Her appearance is a mirror to her mind. A sad, broken little thing. 

When she returns downstairs, Deb is hanging up the phone, her bun unraveling on top of her head. The stray hairs make a wispy crown over her forehead. 

Jackie slows, changing course to lean forward over the kitchen counter. “Who was it this time?” she asks, voice soft. 

“Marcia Selby—she’s… uh, Allie’s mom? I think.” Deb presses a tired palm to her cheek and slowly shakes her head. “There’s a vigil tonight on the high school football field. She wanted to know if I would be attending.” 

“Are you?” Jackie asks, wrinkling her nose. Standing on the 60-yard line, wracked with tears for everyone to see, is the last thing she wants to do. Respectfully, she would be skipping this one. 

Deb snorts, clearly picking up on Jackie’s distaste. “Doesn’t really sound like a fun time, does it?” 

“No, it doesn’t.” Fun was sneaking vodka into Gatorade bottles before a pep rally. Fun was cramming into a photo booth at the mall. A vigil? With people crying, lighting candles, and offering empty condolences? Her stomach turns at the thought. 

It’s a kind gesture, and she knows the community needs to grieve too, but they can do it without her. There is no place for Jackie and her torrential despair. Not there, not anywhere.

Deb wipes at her eyes with a crumpled paper towel, voice thick. When she laughs, it hiccups out into something wet. “Shauna would absolutely hate this, wouldn’t she?” 

“Totally. She’d call it stupid,” Jackie says, attempting to smile. “She’ll be super embarrassed when we get to tell her about it. I just hope they pick a good picture of her, or she’ll never stop complaining about it.” 

That makes Deb laugh again, and then it makes her cry. She inhales sharply, looking up to blink hard at the ceiling until the moment finally passes. “Well, stupid or not, I might go.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Just to… I don’t know. Be somewhere. Hell, it might even be good to see the other parents. Everything is all so…” she trails off. 

“Fucked?” Jackie provides helpfully. 

“Yes, exactly,” says Deb, chuckling. 

Neither of them put their heart into laughing, but it is still a pleasant moment in an otherwise awful day. 

“But… who knows,” Deb says, chucking her damp paper towel into the trash bin. “I might still skip the whole thing. If I do go, will you be okay here alone?” 

In truth, she doesn’t know. Yet, she can’t just expect Deb to remain locked away with her forever. Jackie is a broken little thing, yes, that’s true, but she is not so shattered that she would drag Deb down into the pit with her. Not on purpose, in any case. 

Jackie nods. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll just be… y’know.” She tosses her head towards the living room, where her butt-imprint on the couch was waiting for her. 

“What about that boyfriend of yours?” Deb asks, putting her hands on her hips. “Jake? Or, whatever his name is. I always forget.” 

“Jeff,” says Jackie, hardly above a whisper. 

The name lands like a rock in her gut. She hasn’t thought about him once since he dropped her off. Hadn’t wanted to, in truth. 

“Oh, oops. Well, him. You could call Jeff and have him come keep you company. I don’t mind.” 

“Nah,” Jackie says, too quickly. “I appreciate the offer, but I probably won’t take you up on it. But… still, thanks.” 

Deb raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t push. “Suit yourself.” 

They drift back to the couch together, the TV flickering with a commercial for some elite brand of storage containers for leftover food. Jackie gazes down at her empty cast, heavy-lidded. Stupid plane. Stupid vigil. Stupid Jeff. 

Deb’s knee bounces beside her. “You sure you don’t want me to stay?” 

“I’m sure.” 

Liar.

(Friday. May 24th, 1996.)

Jackie meant what she said. The last thing she wanted to do was invite Jeff Sadecki over. To Shauna’s house? No way. Not ever. 

Definitely a totally normal way to think of a boyfriend. Definitely. 

Except nothing goes the way it’s supposed to since… well, since five days ago.

The day starts off with another phone call from her mom. It’s shorter than yesterday’s, more to the point. Jackie ignores it again. 

“Hi, this is Cindy Taylor, calling again to check on Jackie. If you could have her give me a call as soon as you get this, that would be great. Thank you!” 

Her voice is bright and chipper, but Jackie hears the resentment underneath, the clenched jaw, the simmering annoyance over Jackie not jumping to attention when summoned. It makes her flinch.

Deb shuffles into the kitchen, bowl in hand, just as the voicemail starts, and Jackie braces herself for a lecture, or an order to pick up the phone and call back. But Deb simply stares at her, long and searching. Stirring honey into her oatmeal. Slow, quiet circles with the spoon. 

Jackie looks away first. 

If she’s being honest, her plan is to avoid her parents for as long as she can get away with. If she pretends hard enough, maybe they would both disappear. Shauna would’ve rolled her eyes. That’s not an actual plan, Jax. But she isn’t here to say it, and the hole where her voice should be feels like a sock stuffed down Jackie’s throat.

Five days. 

The implications do not go unnoticed. 

Try as she might, it’s impossible to stop her brain from venturing to the place she wants to visit the least. Shauna can’t be dead. Jackie didn’t feel it, so it can’t be true. 

But her brain keeps running in circles. 

Where are they? Are they alive? Hurt? Are they suffering and scared? What happened to Shauna? 

It’s been five days, the longest in her entire life. How are they still lost? 

She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to picture a scenario that returns Shauna to her rightful place at Jackie’s side. She can almost see it—Shauna in the wild somewhere, fierce and feral, spear in hand, hair tangled, toes curling into the soil under her bare feet. Shauna surviving. Shauna fighting. 

It almost helps. Until the image crumbles, leaving coals and embers that smolder at the bottom of her ribs.

“Does this look… okay?” Deb hovers in the doorway, looking uncomfortable, tugging at her sleeves like she wants to vanish into the wallpaper. “Is it too much?” 

“You look great,” Jackie says, rushing to assure her. She steps closer for a better look. “Seriously. I like the dress.” 

It was a knee-length, navy blue, which Jackie thinks is a much smarter color to wear than black. Black came with a certain context, an assumption that neither of them were in a rush to confirm. It’s conservative, muted, perfect for a vigil, wrong for a funeral. It’s exactly right. 

Deb grabs her purse off the entry table and tucks it into the crook of her elbow. “I must be out of my mind to go to this thing.” 

“It might help,” says Jackie automatically. Help you, she thinks. Not me. 

Pausing by the front door, Deb takes a deep breath and forces a smile onto her face. It’s like a rubber band that is about to snap. “Guess we’ll see.” 

There is a key hook next to the front door, made of wood, and painted a faded, sage green. There are little sunflowers covering its surface—red, yellow, pink, and orange. It’s rustic and homey and achingly familiar, enough to make Jackie’s heart clench. 

Shauna’s keys dangle from the first hook, attached to a red carabiner. They catch the attention of Jackie’s wandering eyes. 

Also hanging from the chain is a silly, little gas station souvenir she bought for Shauna last summer, when she was stuck in Connecticut for two weeks with her parents. They had forced Jackie to endure a grueling family reunion with her father’s side of the family. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but this had been one of the few trips they hadn’t let her bring Shauna along, and so logically, it had been nothing short of torture. 

It’s a little compass that doesn’t actually work, but Jackie thought it was cute when she saw it nestled among the nameplates and heart chains. She thought it was cuter still when she gave it to Shauna, who had laughed and clipped it onto her keys straight away. 

The door shuts behind Deb with a click. Jackie doesn’t move. She remains there, frozen, for minutes after the headlights disappear.

Her hand hovers, extending out as she fidgets forward. 

This is a bad idea. A terrible idea. 

Her brain screams as she closes her fingers around the keys anyway. She isn’t going to actually drive the car, on account of only having one working arm. It’s just… All she wants to do is climb inside, only for a minute. And she knows it’s not a good idea, but she’s going to do it anyway. 

She’s already opening the front door.

The porch light hits her face as she stumbles outside. It’s the first time since she’s stepped out of the house in days, she realizes, with a sudden halt. 

Turning her face up toward the setting sun, Jackie takes a slow breath. 

The air smells wrong. Too sweet. Like cut grass and sunscreen, like pool days, and buzzing mosquitoes. Like childhood. It’s a fool’s peace, shallow in its falseness. The weather is nice. It’s one of those blissfully clear days, with a light breeze and a gentle, wrapping warmth. The sunset bleeds orange and pink over the sky, mocking her. The kind of evening that makes children want to swim. It reminds her of scratchy sand speckling her thighs, of salt water and chlorine, of ham sandwiches and warm soda. 

The perfect summer’s evening.

It’s all wrong. 

The keys clink together in her trembling hands, a mourning jingle. 

A warm swirl of wind blows a strand of hair into her eyes, jerking her back to focus. Move. Before you chicken out. She takes a deep breath and marches to the curb. 

Shauna's car waits at the curb, paint chipped, bumper dented from that one time Shauna tried to parallel-park too fast. Her car. Jackie loves this car. It’s beat to shit, and it stutters going from first gear to second, but it always took them where they needed to go. 

What you might not be aware of is that Jackie was the first of them to get a car. 

There was an entire month where she was the driver between them, not Shauna. 

It was a harrowing few weeks, and it didn’t last for long. It came to an end when Jackie fucked up the—was it the transmission? She can’t remember. But she fucked up something one cold day in December of their junior year. There was ice on the road and she should have known better than to drive in those conditions, but whatever. She learned her lesson in the form of a high curb that seemed to materialize out of a sudden nowhere. Jackie was unhurt except for a few scratches, but her poor Volvo never recovered from its injuries. 

That put them back to where they used to be, resigned to their bikes or their own two feet, unless one of their friends felt generous enough to offer a ride. 

And then Shauna got a car. 

She was much better suited to playing chauffeur. Jackie spent so many lazy afternoons in the passenger seat, switching out the tapes, propping her feet on the dash, leaning over to smell Shauna’s perfume, and watching her. Always watching her. 

There’s no fob for this car, as Shauna often complained. Jackie crosses to the driver’s side and jams the key into the door, twisting left two times until everything is unlocked. Then, after pulling the keys free, she stomps back to the passenger side and throws herself into the seat.

The door thuds shut and silence swallows her. There is no sound, save for the buzzing in her eyes. No engine rumble. No Shauna elbowing her to stop changing the song.

The smell hits her first—vanilla lotion and that minty gum Shauna likes to chew—fuck, it smells just like her. It’s warm, and it’s sweet, and the way it washes over Jackie and envelops all of her senses is like walking into a room with a freshly brewed pot of coffee. Thick and fragrant. 

She’s absolutely gutted by it. 

The grief stabs her, as hot and vicious as a burning knife. Her stomach lurches. Five days. How has it been five days? 

Her wounds haven’t had enough time to heal. They open easily, and Jackie bleeds her sorrow all over the passenger seat. 

She stares at the steering wheel. The fake leather is cracked from summers spent baking in the driveway. 

(Last June, they’d driven to the boardwalk, and Shauna’s bare knees were knocking against the gearshift as she sang off-key to whatever garbage alt-rock tape she’s shoved into the deck. “Stop it, you’re embarrassing me,” Jackie had lied, with a grin on her face.) 

Now the air is thick, chunky. Her lungs shrivel. Out. Get out. But her legs are cement. Jackie grabs the front of her t-shirt. It’s a poor foundation. She’s left unsteady. This was a bad idea from the start, but what can she do about it now? 

It’s too late.

Rolling static fizzes under her skin, sloping down her chest to her stomach, hot and prickly and itchy. She wants to climb out of her skin. No, she shakes her head, no, but already the twisting tightness has returned, come to kill her again. The walls in her lungs rise, newly reinforced, to gatekeep the pitiful sips of air she manages to suck down her throat. Her ribs squeeze. Breathe, she orders herself. Breathe. But the bones only clench tighter. 

Why did I tell her to go? 

The thought stabs, a fresh wound. She just wants to understand what happened. Where did they go? Why did she have to break her arm? What possessed her to send Shauna away on the plane by herself? 

This is scary. Jackie is petrified. 

The dashboard blurs. Tears? Panic? Who cares? Her head swims. This time, there is no Deb, no soothing voice delivering gentle instructions. She is alone. And once again, the questions remain: can you suffocate from worry? Can you die of sadness? 

Her fingers stiffen, curling inward. Jackie’s vibrating. She’s fucking drowning , right here in the open air, and it’s a full-blown panic attack, all over again. Because it smells like Shauna, but Shauna is gone, and it’s been five days, and how the hell is she supposed to live like this? 

Everything is wrong. Which, duh, obviously, but this, specifically—sitting in this seat, breathing this air, it is viscerally incorrect. It makes her want to disappear. 

But she can’t run if she can’t move, and she can’t move if she can’t breathe. 

Jackie leans forward and drops her head between her knees. She shuts her eyes to turn off the golden rays of the setting sun that illuminates her shattering. 

The door handle jabs her hips as she yanks on it, stumbling out. Pavement burns through her socks, and she gulps air, sharp and too thin. Catching herself on the door, she clumsily slams it shut and forces herself to march back up the driveway, keys clutched tight to her chest. 

By the time she makes it back to the kitchen, she can almost breathe again.

The phone is heavy as a brick as she presses it to her ear. With trembling fingers, she stabs out a phone number before she can rethink it. The choice is straightforward. She doesn’t have very many people to choose from. 

It rings, and rings, and then it stops. 

A voice answers.

She’s sitting on the curb when a familiar car rumbles to a stop, parking right behind Shauna’s. Jackie sits, one arm wrapped around her knees, finally in control of herself. But just like before, she’s left ashamed, embarrassed, and exhausted. At least this time, no one is around to see the worst of it. 

Jeff climbs out of his car and approaches her, hands shoved in his pockets, letterman jacket on, covering a simple red t-shirt. He looks so very… himself. 

“Hey,” he murmurs, soft and careful. 

“Hi.” Jackie wipes her nose on her sleeve and looks up at him with big, wet eyes. “Thanks. For, um. Coming.” 

“Duh. Of course.” He plops down beside her, holding himself awkwardly, all stiff shoulders. “I meant it when I said you could call me for anything you need.” 

“Yeah, I remember,” she says softly, still staring ahead at Shauna’s car. “The problem is, I don’t know what I need.” Which isn’t exactly true. She needs Shauna. She just can’t have her. 

“That’s okay too,” says Jeff with a small shrug. “We can just sit here together. We don’t gotta figure anything out.” 

“But I’m fucking losing it,” she whispers. The words rise up, full of stress and bitters. “I keep freaking out. Over nothing. I’m just—I’m so messed up.” 

“Well, it’s a messed up situation,” he says. Astute observation, Jeffrey. He pokes at a grass stain on his jeans. “And it’s not nothing. It’s… everything.” 

Jackie squeezes her legs tighter. Why can’t he say the right thing? Why can't anyone? “I keep asking myself… like, how the fuck is this even happening? How is any of it real? And I can’t come up with any answer.” She laughs, almost hysterical. “And I keep freaking the fuck out like a lunatic, over the smallest things, and then afterwards, I’m—it’s… ugh.” 

“Is it just you here?” Jeff asks, jerking his thumb toward the house. 

Jackie knuckles her nose, wiping away snot. Very classy. “Yeah,” she sniffles. “Deb—Shauna’s mom—she’s at the thing… the vigil, or whatever.” 

“Oh. Right. The thing on the football field.” He scuffs his sneakers against the curb. “I saw them setting up a bunch of chairs. Whole town’s gonna be there, I heard.” 

“Why aren’t you?” The question slips out, and Jackie isn’t sure why she’s even asking. She’s not curious. Maybe it’s because she can’t think of anything else to say. Maybe because it was better to fill the silence than drown in it. 

“To that?” Jeff snorts, but it sounds hollow. “I mean, c’mon, you know better than me how much Shauna would hate it.”

“Other people were on the plane too. Not just Shauna,” Jackie mutters. It feels like a lie. Only Shauna matters. Everyone else are only faceless ghosts. She needs to remind herself—she’s lost more than just Shauna. 

Jeff hunches his shoulders. “Yeah, I know that. But I didn’t really know the others. I only ever talked to you and Shauna.” 

If Jackie was paying more attention, if she only looked up, she might have seen the strange expression on his face, or the odd flush in his ears and cheeks. Might have even noticed the splinter in his voice, breaking like a bad radio signal. But Jackie is too busy counting the cracks in the concrete, trying to stop herself from falling apart. 

“Good point,” is all she has to say back. 

They lapse into silence. Jackie keeps staring at the car. 

After a minute, Jeff glances at her, picking at the sleeve of his letterman. “So, you’ve been here the whole time? Since I dropped you off?” 

“Where else would I be?” The words taste bitter. “It’s better this way. You know how parents are… and you know how much me and Shauna—how much we—” she chokes on her words, not so much anxious as she is clumsy, as though there is a fog in her mind that makes her slow, and a little bit stupid. 

“I get it.” Jeff says, nodding quickly, as though he’d rehearsed it. He blows out a puff of air and runs a hand over the top of his head, messing up the gelled spiky bristles. “I know how you two are. Of course you’re here.” 

He says it so easily. Probably because it is easy. What else does she have to do except drown in Shauna’s car—losing herself in her smell, with her favorite mix tapes sitting in the center console, and that photo booth strip of them tucked into the passenger seat visor? It really is that easy. 

“Did I, like, interrupt you or anything? When I called?” Jackie asks, just to fill the silence. She doesn’t care about his answer, but the quiet sits as sticky as melted gum on a hot pavement. 

Jeff smiles. “Nah. Actually, you calling kinda saved me. Dad’s been on my case all day about mowing the lawn. So, you helped me escape.” 

Must be nice, she thinks, full of jealousy, to have normal problems. She’d give anything to worry about something as inconsequential as an unwanted chore. “Well, I’m happy I could be of service.” She’s aiming for sarcasm, but it lands somewhere flat. 

He scratches the back of his neck, avoiding her gaze. “Yeah, I owe you one.” He sounds almost nervous, still scratching, like he has a bug bite, or something. 

She doesn’t think about it for more than half a second. 

The silence returns. 

They’d never been good at this—quiet. It wasn’t something they did. They were never the type of couple to bask in the other’s presence. Which, that’s not what’s happening right now. Jackie is not basking. But she is, perhaps, commiserating. Their relationship was more along the lines of sloppy locker makeouts and whispered fights about something stupid during study hall. Quiet usually meant Jeff would try to kiss her, touch her, beg her for more, more, always more. Now, he sits a careful inch away, knuckles white on his knees. 

So, this is a recent development.

Jeff disturbs the peace one last time. He turns, and she can feel his eyes on her face, searching for something. She wonders if he finds it. 

“Jackie?” 

She swallows, uncomfortable with the rise of emotion in his voice. “What’s up?” 

“Can I… uhm—can I hold your hand?” 

Another surprise. Since when did Jeff ask? Especially for something in the physical realm. He usually just reaches out and tries for whatever he wants, hoping for the best. Perhaps it’s the bruises on her face that make him hesitate. She truly looks like a battered woman. Were the splotchy purple marks and red scabs tugging on some latent, repressed chivalry in Jeff Sadecki’s subconscious mind? 

There isn’t much Jackie enjoys about dating boys, but if she had to name one single thing, it was the expected gallantry. 

Holding open doors, offering her a coat, walking on the street-side of the pavement, and always making sure she was safely in her house before driving away. Those sort of things. She likes them. So, one can imagine her disappointment upon discovering the cold reality of dating in high school. 

So, it’s not the Jeff of it all, but rather, that question—can I hold your hand? 

She jerks her head. Yes. 

He holds out his palm face up and fingers spread open. Without looking at him, she places her hand in his, soaking up the warmth as he curls his hand around hers. His skin is slightly clammy, as satisfying as warm water on a hot summer’s day. Shauna’s keys are held between them, a metal barrier between their palms. 

Jackie is unaware of how big of a metaphor that is. 

They sit like that, not talking, Jackie and Jeff, two people who were never any good at sitting in silence. Jeff and Jackie, holding hands, never speaking, staring at the setting sky, at pink and gold and tangerine, until the streetlights buzz to life and the sky turns dark and blue. 

She doesn’t feel any better, but she also doesn’t feel any worse. That’s something. Pulling her hand away, she suddenly rises to her feet. 

“You should probably go,” she says, not unkindly. Just tired. Her voice sounds borrowed. “But thank you. I needed someone to sit with me for a little while.” 

He scrambles up, brushing dust off the front of his jeans. “Like I said. Anytime, okay? I’m serious.” 

She nods, already halfway to the door. When she turns to look over her shoulder, he’s still standing there, staring past her, up at the house. Jackie tilts her head, watching him. For the first time since she met him, she wonders what he’s thinking about. But she doesn’t ask. 

“Can, I uh—” He clears his throat, cheeks going pink. “Would it be alright if I called you here? Just… sometimes?” Then he rushes to get ahead of her, expecting what she’ll say next. “I promise I won’t bother Mrs. Shipman. Just a call every now and then, you know?”

Jackie hesitates, biting her lip as she grips the doorknob. “How about… you let me call you first? It’s just—so many people are calling, and there’s not, like, a second line or anything.” 

Jeff smiles sadly, but his voice is understanding. “I understand. It’s cool. But, uh, will you? Call, I mean? I’m worried about you, and I miss you, like, a lot. I want to be there for you.” He flushes a deeper red. “Sorry, I know I’m not very good at this.” 

He misses her? Like her, herself? Or does he miss the Jackie who’d let him grope her in the five minute passing period before class? The Jackie who always fake-laughed at his stupid jokes?

She’s unaffected and uncharmed, but she does recognize that he’s trying to be sweet.

“It’s fine,” Jackie says gently. “I’ll try to call you tomorrow, if I get the chance. I, uh, miss you too.” A lie. 

“Awesome,” he says, smiling boyishly, all relief. “I guess I’ll head home now.” 

“Drive safe.”

Jackie doesn’t stay to watch him drive away. 

So, yeah, she ended up inviting Jeff over. But who else was she supposed to call? Her mom? Yeah, right. That’s the last thing she ought to do, even as she desperately searches for something she’ll never find. 

Her spot on the couch is waiting for her when she returns to the living room. She sags into the cushion. If she keeps up this TV-side vigil, she’ll end up with bedsores, or worse. This house of cards is going to tumble down one way or another. Would it be with relief or despair?

She’s afraid to find out.

When Deb comes home, it’s late into the night. 

Jackie pretends to be asleep, mashing her face into the pillow. The TV volume is lowered to a quiet rumble, acting as white noise, a droning buffer between her mind and its worried thoughts. When she hears the door open, she pulls the blanket up to her chin, unsure if she should feign sleep, or go out to greet her.

Keys jingle and a light switch is flipped. A heavy sigh, followed by heavier footsteps. The fridge door wheezes open. Clink-clink. It’s a wine bottle, tapping against a glass. Liquid pouring. Then a sniffle, followed by a hitching breath, wet and shaky between gulps. 

Jackie curls tighter under the blanket. 

A sob cuts through the door. Sharp. Ugly. 

And still, Jackie doesn’t get up. 

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 25th, 1996. Wiskayok, New Jersey. 

Saturday

“Give me your foot,” Jackie orders, jabbing at Shauna’s knee with the butt-end of her polish brush.

“I don’t want my toes painted,” Shauna complains, even as she unfolds her foot out from underneath her knee. “You know how ticklish I am.” 

“Yeah, I’m aware, it’s why you never come with me when I get a pedicure,” says Jackie, patting her lap. “But, c’mon, please? I’ve had a horrible day. I promise I won’t judge you for your twitchy feet.” 

Shauna would say yes. She always did. Jackie watches her victory bloom in the iris of Shauna’s brown eyes and smirks as Shauna stretches her leg across the couch to rest over Jackie’s lap. 

“Fine,” Shauna mutters, toes brushing the inside of Jackie’s thigh, “but if I kick you, it’s your fault.” 

“Deal.” Jackie smiles, and then gestures at her caboodle, which sits open on the coffee table. A veritable rainbow of different color polish tubes stand side-by-side, ready for the choosing. “What color do you want?” 

“You pick,” says Shauna, shrugging. “I don’t have a preference.” 

That wasn’t true. Shauna always has a preference. The problem is she can never make up her mind. And even if she does decide, she never speaks up, which means Jackie is left to make guesses. She doesn’t mind, though. It makes her feel good to decide for Shauna, to lift the burden of choice from her shoulders and take it upon herself. 

Jackie is always trying to make things easier for Shauna. 

“Alright, then.” She grabs a shade of dark green. It’s a new color, and it will pair nicely with Shauna’s skin. She holds it up. “What do you think of this one? It’s Enchanted Evergreen.”

Shauna rolls her eyes. “Enchanted? What am I, a fairy?” 

“More like a troll.” Jackie unscrews the cap. “But I’m happy to be your fairy godmother.”

“Whatever,” grumbles Shauna, frowning slightly. “It’s fine. Pretty, I guess.”

“I thought of you when I saw it in the store.” Jackie smiles, dipping the brush into the polish. “You’ll be the first one to wear it.” 

“I’m honored.” 

“Good,” Jackie says, reaching out for her foot, “you should be.” 

Shauna’s twitches as soon as Jackie brushes her fingers against her toes. “Jackie—”

“Chill. I’ve got you.” She grips Shauna’s heel, thumb brushing along the bone. 

Shauna shuffles around, trying to get comfortable before she has to commit to her position. There’s a soft pink flush on her cheeks that Jackie observes with casual interest. She’s so pretty. Finally, a second later, Shauna settles, and nods at Jackie to begin. 

“You haven’t told me yet why your day was so horrible,” Shauna says, flexing her toe. “What happened?” 

“It’s not, like, anything major,” she responds, letting extra polish drip from the brush back into the bottle. Steadying her grip, she leans forward and starts on the first toe. It gives Jackie a nice excuse to avoid eye contact. “Just Jeff being an idiot again. What’s new, you know?” 

Shauna huffs. Jackie doesn’t need to look up to know that she’s also rolling her eyes. She always gets like this when Jackie brings up Jeff—all puffy and annoyed. 

“What did he do now?” 

Sometimes, Shauna’s disdain over her boyfriend gets on her nerves, but most of the time, Jackie likes it. It’s a sweet kiss to her ego, that latent jealousy. It’s nice, alright? Sue her. It’s just a bit of harmless narcissism. 

“Like I said, it’s not a big deal, but… he can be so… clingy. You know?” She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “I don’t understand why. We’ve been together for almost four years, and it’s like he expects me to hang out with him every single weekend.” 

“Oh,” says Shauna. 

Immediately, Jackie feels the urge to dissect her tone, but she resists, barely, and presses forward. “He came up to me after seventh period to ask if I was going to his game tonight. And then when I said no, I already have plans with Shauna, he got all pissy. He literally asked me to ditch you. For a baseball game.” Jackie shakes her head, as though the idea were ludicrous. 

Shauna goes still. “And?” 

“And I said no, obviously,” Jackie responds, looking up to briefly catch her gaze. “So, yeah, now he’s all mad at me.” 

“Well, that’s stupid,” says Shauna, turning to glance at the TV. A random movie is on, volume low enough as to not disturb their conversation. “Baseball’s got, what, half of the season still left? You can watch him another weekend.” 

“That’s what I said!” Jackie exclaims. Then, slowly, and watching for a reaction, she continues, “I think he’s, like, jealous over how much time we spend together.”

Shauna pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and chews. Jackie closely follows the movement. There’s a part of her brain that she keeps locked away in a box. It screams at her now, but she’s very practiced at ignoring it. Pretty, pretty, pretty. 

“I mean, maybe he should be jealous.” She shrugs. “He’s not totally wrong. We do hang out a lot.” 

“So what?” Jackie smiles. “He’s an idiot, and I’d rather be here, with you.” 

Was she being a little unfair to Jeff? Probably. Wanting your girlfriend to watch your game isn’t exactly clingy, even though it feels that way to her. For a moment, she feels guilty, until she recalls the grating sound of his whine: “You spent last week with Shauna, and the one before that. Geez, it’s like you never want to spend any time with me.” 

And if that isn’t clingy, then why does it bother her so much? Why does spending an evening with her boyfriend give her more dread than a dentist appointment? She tries to grab onto the annoyance, tries to pull it from its root so she can understand where it comes from. But then she decides there is nothing wrong with her at all, and it’s simply Jeff’s fault, for being so irritating about everything. 

When they argued earlier in the hall, Jackie had snapped at him, ordered him to stop being ‘so controlling,’ and of course, he’d argued back. It ended with them stomping away from each other: Jeff to his own car, and Jackie to Shauna’s passenger seat. 

She’ll apologize on Monday. She’ll kiss him and promise him her next two Saturdays, and bat her eyelashes prettily, all with a saccharine smile plastered on her face, because Jackie knows how to make settling seem sweet. 

“You know… you could’ve gone, if you wanted,” Shauna says, tensing her foot. “You don’t have to—be here, or whatever, not if you don’t want to.” 

“Don’t be stupid, Shipman,” Jackie retorts, perhaps a bit too mean. She frowns, bewildered, and a little offended at the lack of Shauna’s typical possessiveness. “If I wanted to be there, I would be. But I’m here with you. I want to be here. End of story.” 

Shauna’s eyes flash with something hot and fleeting, but the wall of fire is soon put out, hidden behind a shy and sheepish smile. “Well, good. I want you here too. Anyway, he’s probably over it by now. It’s impossible to stay mad at you. Jeff is stupid, but he’s not brainless. I think.” 

She isn’t so sure about that. This isn’t the first time they’ve argued about Shauna, and it wouldn’t be the last. But whatever. Jackie will say she’s sorry and let him put his hands down her pants until he forgets about everything.

Jackie laughs a little too loud. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She glances down, surveying her progress. “The game’s probably over by now, anyway. I bet he and Randy are already trying to figure out how to get their hands on a keg.”

“I know for a fact that Randy can get his older brother to buy a keg,” says Shauna, smiling. “He’s always talking about it.” 

“Everyone is good for something, I guess.” 

A familiar thrill races through Jackie’s chest as Shauna laughs, burning rubber around the limbs of her bronchial trees. It’s so easy to forget about Jeff entirely when she’s sitting across from her, with an entire weekend open before them like the yellow-brick road. 

“Quit squirming,” Jackie says, tightening her grip on Shauna’s ankle. “You’ll ruin my masterpiece.” 

“Jax, be careful, I told you,” Shauna whines, but her foot stays put. She never really fights Jackie. Not for serious. “I’m fucking ticklish.” 

“Don’t be a baby,” Jackie says, dabbing on another stroke. “Anyway, we can’t stop now. You’ll look silly with only three toes painted.” 

“Who cares? It’s the middle of February.” Shauna rolls her eyes. “There’s still snow on the ground. Who’s even gonna see them?”

“Me. Obviously.” Jackie grins. Always me. “But more importantly, so will you. And I told you—this color goes great with your skin.” She pauses, squinting at Shauna’s face, struck with a sudden inspiration. “Ooh, maybe I should do your fingernails too.” 

“No way.” 

“Lighten up, Shipman. I know for a fact your hands aren’t ticklish, so I don’t want to hear any excuses.” She amps up the flattery. “You’ll look so hot.” You always do, whispers her traitor brain. 

“Jackie, no—” 

“Please?” Jackie smiles. “I’ll let you pick the movie tonight. And I won’t even suggest Beaches, I promise.”

“Wow, you must really be serious,” says Shauna, smiling despite herself. She looks over at the shelf by the TV, filled with rows and rows of VHS tapes. “Can I pick something scary?” 

“Ugh, well now you’re just being greedy.” Jackie sighs heavily, playing the martyr. She taps Shauna’s ankle, a signal to switch her feet. “How about… if you also let me do your makeup, we can watch a horror movie. But if not, it has to be a regular genre.” 

Shauna grins. “Deal.”

“Awesome,” says Jackie, “because I bought this new mascara brush I’ve been wanting to try, and your eyelashes are way curlier than mine. They’re wasted on you, honestly.”

She finishes with Shauna’s toes while they iron out the details of their compromise. Even after, they continue to bicker and banter as Jackie does Shauna’s fingernails. It’s fun and sweet, one of those evenings that adults refer to when they’re getting existential about the good ole’ days. 

When they finish with the nail polish, Jackie starts on Shauna’s makeup, as the movie begins to play on the TV. 

This is how she ends up with her thumb on Shauna’s bottom lip. It slides slowly along a glob of lip gloss, blending it in, before darting away to clear a smudge from the corner of her mouth. She doesn’t understand why her heart is beating so fast in her chest. 

“You are so pretty,” Jackie murmurs, tilting her head. “Like, I can’t even stand it. If this were my house, I would kick you out of it. That’s how pretty you are.” 

The movie drones on behind them, some slasher flick Shauna picked for the gore, but Jackie doesn’t care. She’s too busy memorizing the flutter of Shauna’s lashes and watching the pretty, pink blush spread across her cheeks, pretending all the while that she’s just inspecting her canvas. 

“Thank you?” Shauna looks away, lips twisting. She was always ducking Jackie’s compliments, as though they were dodgeballs being chucked at her face. Jackie keeps throwing them anyway, because Shauna secretly likes it, and she knows it. 

Jackie tugs on her chin, turning her head until they were staring at each other again. The speeding thrill returns, shifting course from her lungs to drift and coast up the valves of her heart. Shauna’s skin burns hot. It’s precious and familiar. 

“I’m serious,” she murmurs, tapping her finger on Shauna’s nose to accentuate her point. “You’re like… wow.”  

Shauna squirms. “So are you. You’re the prettiest girl I know.” 

The compliment pools through her body, as warm as melted butter, adding a sweetness to Jackie’s smile. Teasingly, she taps Shauna again on the nose. “You’re going to make me blush.” 

“Yeah, well, it’s true.” Shauna says, looking down, a bashful look on her face. “I guess I can’t blame Jeff for wanting all of your free time when you look the way you do.”

She’s used to compliments. They’re given to her a lot. That’s not her being vain or conceited. It’s just the truth. 

But they sit differently when they come from Shauna, for reasons she can’t explain. 

“Well, I can blame him, actually,” says Jackie, unscrewing the cap from her mascara. She leans forward, looking over the gentle curl of Shauna’s lashes. “If my free time belongs to anyone, it’s you.” 

Shauna’s breath tickles her neck, warm and close. 

Goosebumps prickle up Jackie’s arms for entirely unrelated reasons. 

“But… why, though?” Shauna asks, quiet, as though she’s afraid of the answer. “Don’t you love him?” 

Jackie hesitates, unsure of the right answer. Love? She’s fond of Jeff, in her own way. Probably. How is she supposed to know when fondness becomes love, anyway? She was too young to notice the shift when it happened with Shauna, if there ever was a shift at all. As far as Jackie is concerned, she’s loved Shauna from the day they met. 

“I dunno. I guess?” And that makes her frown, because she does know enough to know love shouldn’t be a guess. “But it doesn’t matter. I spend my time with you because I want to. It’s that simple.” 

It’s unfair to compare what she feels for Jeff to what she feels for Shauna. Jackie doesn’t love anyone like she loves Shauna: intensely, obsessively, with so much devotion. 

They settle back against the couch after the makeover, side-by-side. Shauna rests her head on Jackie’s shoulder and their knees bump together. The silence is comfortable, broken only by the sounds of Hollywood screams and an eerie background soundtrack. 

Jackie thinks about Jeff, and how he’ll be waiting for her on Monday. She thinks about how he’ll kiss her, and how she’ll let him. But then Shauna shifts beside her, and Jackie tastes sweetness again, forgetting all about Jeff. She could do this every day. 

“Glad I get to spend the weekend with you,” she says, staring at the screen. 

Shauna hums. “Me too. I love you, Jax.”

“I love you too,” she says, and she means it—

                    — Oh, shit. What’s going on? 

Jackie sits up and looks around. 

There’s no movie on the TV. Only the same morning newscast that she’s suffered through the last few days. No caboodle open on the table. No spilled polish. Just an empty glass on the table that she was too lazy to return to the kitchen. Most importantly, there is no Shauna. No warmth or weight pressed to her side. No sweet blushes or teasing laughter to fill her senses with. 

A dream. A stupid dream. Is this all Jackie would have left of her? Shadows and memories? 

She bursts into tears. 

Most mornings have been like this, but today is especially hard. 

Her chest caves. The tears come fast, ugly, the sort that left her nose raw and her eyes swollen. She cries herself hoarse.

Jackie is so tired of waking up like this. She’s cried so much this week her ribs were beginning to permanently ache. When would it end? 

A quick glance at the screen confirms that there is still no news, which means today would again be a day like all the others. She turns her face into the couch and resists the urge to scream. 

What is she supposed to do with herself?

It’s the sixth day, and they still haven’t been found. She doesn’t want to lose hope, because it’s all she has left, at this point, but she can’t help but think: what if, what if, what if…? 

To not know after so many days… it’s viscerally wrong. Someone should be imprisoned for it, because it’s a crime, it has to be. She’s stabbed by it every morning, and today, she bleeds for it. Her head still rings with the distant music of Shauna’s voice, and that only makes her even angrier, because why did it have to be a dream? 

She rubs one eye with the heel of her palm and tries to prepare herself to face the day, when—

“Ugh, no.” 

The phone is ringing. 

Her first instinct is to ignore it, and she would, normally, if it weren’t so early in the morning. She can’t stand the thought of Deb being woken up before she was ready, so she forces herself up and drags herself to the kitchen, socks slipping on the linoleum. 

“Hello?” she croaks, all gravel and salt. “Shipman residence.” 

“Jackie? Oh, is that you? Finally!” Jackie’s mother snaps into the phone like a rubber band. Of course. Of all the rotten luck… “I’ve been trying to reach you for days! I was just about to drive over there, if you hadn’t picked up. What were you thinking , ignoring me? Why didn’t you call? And what’s going on with your voice? It sounds like you’ve been chain smoking.” 

The roll of her eyes doesn’t even come close to conveying the intensity of Jackie’s disdain. Chain-smoking? Really? 

“Yeah, Mom, it’s me.” She’s suddenly angry, though, perhaps it isn’t so sudden. Anger is easier to stomach than despair, as she is quickly learning. “My voice is raspy because I just finished crying my eyes out.” 

“Well, it sounds like you work in a bar,” Cindy snaps. Then she goes quiet. Jackie wonders if she meant to be so mean, or if it just slipped out by accident. Then, without skipping a beat, she continues. “But. Well. I’m… sorry… that you’re having a tough morning.” 

Jackie clenches her jaw and pictures her teeth shattering in her mouth. 

“What do you want, Mom?” 

“What do I want?” Cindy shifts right back into gear. “You can’t be serious. You told me you would call, but you never did, and then you go off and ignore me. We haven’t seen you since Tuesday!” 

“I know, I’m sorry,” Jackie says in a monotone, tilting her head up to glare at the ceiling. She’s trying to be diplomatic, but it’s getting increasingly more difficult to swallow her annoyance. “I’ve been upset, that’s all. And sleeping a lot because of my medication. But I should have called you. It’s just been hard.” 

“It’s been hard for us too, you know,” says Cindy, sniffing reproachfully. “I’m your mother. I’ve been worried about you—” It’s too much. Jackie pulls the phone away from her ear, cutting her mother’s shrill words in half to a low buzz. After a deep breath to steady herself, she brings it back, just in time to hear the tail-end of her mom’s sentence. “—will you be coming home?” 

“Soon.” Jackie says, sighing. “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but… I need to be here—I’ll come back home, but not yet, okay?” 

Can Cindy hear the exhaustion that is embedded deep down in Jackie’s roots, tangled in the foundation of her mind, like a thicket of invasive vines? How can she not? 

“Soon isn’t good enough,” says her mom, in her I’m-being-patient voice. “I don’t like the idea of you locking yourself up to wallow over there. It isn’t good for you.” 

“I’m not wallowing, I’m waiting. There’s a difference.” Her voice goes hard, full of flint and thistle, just waiting for a spark and some gasoline. It wouldn’t take much for her to burst into flames. All she would need is an excuse. “And I want to wait here, with Deb.” 

And really, is there even a difference in wallowing and waiting? Didn’t they both come down to want, or need, in the end?

“I’m worried about you. You should be around your family. People who care about you.” 

Jackie digs her nails into her palm. “I’m staying here.” 

“Jackie Taylor, you listen to me—” 

“No!” Jackie shrieks. The word bursts out, too loud. Good. Let her mom hear the crack in it. If her head wasn’t starting to pound, she would laugh. Just who, exactly, was she referring to? Who were these mysterious, caring people, because Jackie’s certainly never met them. “Deb cares about me! She’s going through something terrible, just like me. God, Mom, her daughter is missing. Or did you forget that?” 

“Don’t you dare—” Cindy sputters on the other end. “Of course I didn’t forget. I’m not heartless, no matter what you might think. I can’t even believe you right now.” 

“You don’t understand,” Jackie says quietly, and full of tears. “You never understand.” 

Her mom is silent for a long minute. When she responds, it almost sounds as though she’s crying too. “How am I supposed to understand, when you won’t let me in?” 

And that is far too much for her to get into at this exact moment. She closes her eyes and lets her head rest against the wall. “I don’t want to fight, Mom. I want to stay with Deb, and—and I’m going to.” 

“Fine. Do what you want, you always do.” Cindy’s voice is brittle, close to breaking. “But you need to come home soon. I’m serious. Your father will come to pick you up.” 

“Okay.” 

They hang up on each other without saying goodbye. 

She stands there for a minute, staring at the wall, muscles still tight with unreleased anger. When the minute ends, she takes a slow breath, and allows the tension to slip from her body. 

The couch swallows her up again, but she doesn’t return her focus to TV. She wouldn’t have the attention span, even if she felt like watching. All she can think about is Shauna; her laughter echoing from Jackie’s dream, the lingering smell of her on this blanket, her trophies gathering dust on the shelves. Shauna’s entire life swirls through this house and Jackie wants to drown in it. 

She doesn’t cry again, but she also doesn’t do much of anything. She just stares at the wall with glassy, unfocused eyes, and is that really any better? 

Deb interrupts her sometime later, shuffling in with two plates of toaster waffles. She looks as awful as Jackie feels, red-faced from crying, complete with dark bags that look like bruises, and the same hollow shadow across her face. 

“Eat,” Deb says. Not “You okay?” because she already knows the answer. 

Jackie accepts the plate. “Can we… watch something? Something that isn’t the news?” 

Deb pauses, waffle halfway to her mouth. “Like what?”

“It’s weird, but… what about a scary movie? 

Deb’s eyes flicker with the ghost of a smile. She knows. Of course she knows. “Sure.” 

“I’m warning you now,” Jackie says, “it’s pretty gory.” 

“Sounds good,” Deb murmurs, not asking questions. “Go ahead and put it on.”

Sunday, May 26th, 1996.

The plane crash is all over the news, but not because there are any updates, but because it’s been a full week since the disappearance. 

There is no need to bore you with more focus on the television. At this point, it should be quite clear that Jackie has no clue what to do with herself. I’m sure you can imagine how she must be feeling after seven straight days of no new information.

Our story today begins in the kitchen.

The coffee machine gurgles, too loud for 8am. Deb is in there, finishing up with a phone call, when Jackie, fresh out of the bath, comes to pour herself a cup. 

Deb looks up at her arrival, phone cord twirled tight around her finger. “I just got off the phone with your mother,” she says, by way of greeting. 

“My condolences,” says Jackie, grimacing as she reaches for the coffee pot. “What’d she want?” 

“Well, I actually had two phone calls this morning,” says Deb. “Before your mother, the school district called. They’re… going to award diplomas to… to all—” Her voice cracks, splitting between the words. “To the missing students.” 

Jackie feels, in real-time, her heart break into pieces.

She’d imagined graduation a thousand times, and always, without question, she had Shauna by her side. She used to fantasize about the fancy speech Shauna would give as valedictorian, because of course the title would go to her, the genius that she is. Jackie always planned to whoop and cheer loud enough to embarrass them both. And then after the ceremony was finished, she would throw herself right into Shauna’s arms, because they did it, they finally made it, together. 

That her fantasy has been ripped away… it’s nothing short of a robbery. 

This new reality is a paltry prize. 

What is the point of a diploma if there is no one to collect it, let alone use it? 

“Oh.” Jackie takes a sip of her coffee and lets it burn against her lips. 

“Yeah.” Deb sighs heavily. “So, there was that. Then I got a call from your mom. The district called her too. She said they were also awarding you your diploma, and exempting you from your final exams. You don’t have to go back for the last week of school, not unless you want to.” 

School. Finals. Like any of it mattered now. It’s a good thing they aren’t expecting her, because she has zero intentions of ever stepping foot in that school for the rest of her life. She’s spent four years memorizing dates and formulas and none of it taught her how to live through something like this. 

Do they expect her to be happy over this? Grateful? It’s an empty thing, this gift. Like, okay, yeah, school is over. So what? It’s a huge milestone checked off her list, but Jackie feels nothing for it. As far as she’s concerned, they could chuck her diploma straight in the garbage. She doesn’t even want to see it. 

“I’m not going back,” says Jackie. 

Deb sinks onto a stool, her hands trembling around her mug. “I figured.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Eighteen years… I spent eighteen years picturing her in a cap and gown, cheering for her when she graduated. She’s… she was always so damn smart, you know?” 

Jackie sits on the stool beside her and nods. “I do. Shauna is the smartest person I know.” 

“She spoke in full sentences by the time she was two years old. Two.” Deb’s eyes glaze over, sliding to the fridge, where a certificate of academic excellence bearing Shauna’s name was pinned under a magnet. “I always knew there was something special about her.” A tear slides down her face, dropping into her coffee with a loud plop. “I remember back—oh, I don’t know—sometime back in ‘79. I had a dentist appointment, but Greg was working, so I had to bring her with me. She was so little , and she would never shut up. She just kept chattering away, offering to hold my purse, trying to negotiate with me about getting a Happy Meal afterwards. You should have seen the dentist’s face—he couldn’t believe it.” 

A blubbering giggle slides out of Jackie’s mouth. She didn’t know Shauna back then, but she wished that she did, that they could have been babies together, so there was never a time where they didn’t know each other. 

Deb continues. “I was so damn smug about her. I bragged about her to everyone. Look, do you see how smart my daughter is? I was so sure she was going to be something amazing. And she was amazing—” Deb suddenly halts, hand fluttering to her throat, eyes going wide. “... is amazing.” 

It unsettles Jackie, that simple was. (No. It’s is, is, is. Not was.)

Pushing past her flub, Deb keeps going. “I have always been so proud of my daughter. Always.” Her voice takes on an almost savage tone, becoming something fierce. “And now—fuck. Now I don’t even get to see her walk the stage. I don’t even get that. It’s so unfair.” 

And then Jackie has to watch as Deb breaks apart, crumpling right in front of her. Her bottom lip wobbles, her shoulders start to shake, and Jackie has just enough time to wrap her one arm around her before the first crack hits and Deb dissolves in a tangle of tears and snot. 

Jackie cries with her. 

She’s lost count of how many times they’ve done this since she first arrived on Tuesday. Clinging to each other, feeling sorry for themselves. They stand like that, weeping, until their coffee grows cold and Jackie’s arm begins to ache. 

Pulling away, they look at each other with their red-noses and swollen faces. 

“It’s—it’s about time for your next round of medication,” Deb says, swiping at her cheeks. Practical. Straight back into Mom-mode. “I’ll grab it for you.” 

Jackie’s prescription is almost out, which according to Deb, meant she would have to switch to boring over-the-counter pain medication soon, unless her doctor allowed her more. That was probably for the best, anyway. She’d been relying on the numbing opioid effect for a week now, and she’d spent too long watching her mother stumble around in a daze to push it further. 

But God, she wanted to. Wanted to dissolve into that fuzzy numbness so she didn’t have to hear the echo of Shauna’s laugh in every room. 

And truthfully, the pain wasn’t so bad anymore. Her arm still hurts, but only when she hits it against something. It doesn’t throb for nothing like before, back in the hospital. She could shower without hurting herself, could zip her jeans one-handed. Practice makes perfect, sure, but Jackie would trade every ounce of peace and progress just to know if Shauna was okay. 

“Did my mom say anything about me going back home?” She asks, after swallowing down her pills. 

Deb rinses her coffee mug in the sink and shakes her head. “No, she just called about the diploma.” 

Bitterness floods Jackie’s gut, sharp as an ulcer. Typical. Yesterday, it’s I’m so worried, only for it to be radio silence today. All of that stink about being worried and she doesn’t even bother to check in about her well-being. It makes no sense for Jackie to be this upset over it, but she can’t help it.

“Whatever. That’s a good thing. I don’t want to leave, not yet.” Jackie frowns. “Unless you want me to.” 

Deb gives her a wobbly smile. “You can stay with me for as long as you like.” Her voice is soft, gentle. “It’s been nice to have company around. Or, as close to nice as anything can be right now.”

“Thanks,” Jackie murmurs. 

The clock above the stove ticks, signalling the dawn of a new hour. There is so much unsaid. It hangs thick in the air. Neither of them acknowledge that it’s been a week—a full seven days. But considering they’ve only just finished crying, it’s for the best. But still, the fact hangs there, heavy and thick and swirling through the room. 

At what point are they supposed to give in and give up? At what point does Jackie allow herself to plummet into true despair? Because if they don’t find Shauna alive, that is what is waiting for her. This week, awful as it’s been, is only a small glimpse of the chasm she teeters at the edge of. 

“What about Greg?” Jackie asks suddenly. “Is he, like, ever going to come and see you? It kinda feels like he should already be here.” 

“Well, you know how he is,” says Deb, with the voice of a woman who had long learned to temper her expectations for a man. Drying her hands, she purses her lips. “He called again yesterday, and said he’s working on it.” Her air quotes are loud and punctuated. “But… who knows with him. I definitely don’t.” 

Shauna’s father—Gregory Shipman—isn’t a terrible person, but the rule of opposites does not apply here, because he also isn’t a very good father. He moved out to California nine years ago, right after the divorce, and Jackie’s seen him a grand total of three times ever since. Shauna didn’t like flying out to see him, and Greg always had some excuse or another about why he couldn’t be the one to visit. Suffice to say, he and Shauna had very little going for them in the father-daughter department. 

“That’s bullshit,” Jackie declares. Where the hell is this guy? His own daughter was missing after a plane crash, and he couldn’t be bothered to show up? “If he wanted to be here, he would be.” 

Even Jackie’s own father had flown out to Seattle to pick her up, and that was just for a broken arm. He was emotionally distant, occasionally critical, but he’d been there. It isn’t a contest, but if it were, Jackie would shame Gregory Shipman for letting James Taylor, of all people, do a better job at being a dad.

“Oh, you’re right,” says Deb, with a fierce nod of her head, “but I learned to stop relying on him a long time ago. He’s a grown man. He can make his own choices.” 

“Grown man?” Jackie scoffs. “He’s an idiot.” 

“They’re not mutually exclusive. They usually aren’t, actually,” says Deb, smiling a little. “But you’re right, he’s definitely an idiot.”

That’s pretty much it for the morning. 

The day bleeds into evening, heavy and slow. Deb and Jackie continue their living room vigil, watching all of Shauna’s favorite movies, and checking the news in between. 

No new developments, imagine that.

Dinner is spaghetti; sauce straight from the jar. Deb stirs it listlessly, a glass of wine stuck to her hand. They eat in front of the tv, scraping their forks as the ending minutes of The Breakfast Club play out on screen. Afterwards, Jackie takes another dose of her medication, and then Deb hugs her goodnight, before retreating up the stairs. 

The house creaks, seemingly alive with ghosts. For a moment, Jackie hovers by the phone, Jeff’s number half-dialed, considering if it would be worth it to call him. In the end, she decides that it’s not, and puts the receiver back down. 

He wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would be enough. 

The same shadow that controlled her limbs and brought her to Deb’s house in the first place returns. It’s the same overwhelming specter that led her to grab Shauna’s keys off the hook. Now, it urges her up the stairs. 

The attic ladder taunts her from the end of the hallway. Deb’s been going up throughout the week to fetch Jackie more clothes, but Jackie herself has refused, thus far. 

Her legs move like she’s pushing through wet sand as she slowly makes her way towards it. She can hardly stand to be this close. She reaches out and grips a rung. Even this mere touch is enough to send panic roaring through her. Jackie takes a deep breath and tries to keep herself calm. 

The trap door is open, yawning above her. She cranes her neck and sees the sloping, wooden beams of Shauna’s ceiling. Shauna’s room. Something dark, invisible, and formless, despite feeling like a human hand, wraps around her throat and begins to squeeze. 

Jackie wheezes. 

Shauna isn’t up there. Shauna isn’t anywhere. 

When will she accept it? Never, never, never.

She stands there for a long time. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. 

There’s no point diving into every awful thought that crosses Jackie’s mind during those frozen minutes, because it’s all more of the same. 

More worry, more denial, and more scorching, desperate hope. 

Jackie turns around and runs away.

Monday, May 27th, 1996.

“Greg finally got his shit together. He’s flying in tomorrow night.” 

Deb spears a limp noodle, her fork screeching against the plate. The leftover sauce from yesterday had congealed into a rusty puddle, but neither of them cared. 

Jackie snorts. “Speak of the devil, right?” 

“Ha.” Deb laughs dryly. “Not sure what he’s hoping to accomplish at this point, but better late than never, I guess.” 

“Is he going to stay here at the house?” Jackie asks. 

“Oh, fuck no,” says Deb, quickly shaking her head. “He’s got a hotel for himself right outside of town, just off the highway.” 

“Good. That’d be weird.” Jackie fumbles with her left hand and the noodles on her fork slither back onto the plate. Stupid arm. 

“Weird doesn’t cut it,” says Deb, taking a bite, and looking off thoughtfully as she chews. “But I do want to see him. He’s her father—of course I want to see him. Obviously, we don’t get along much these days. But his face… it’s hers, you know?” 

And yeah, even though she doesn’t have the highest opinion of Gregory Shipman, she understands. She nods. “Did he say how long he would be staying?”

Deb shakes her head. “No, I didn’t ask. A few days, probably. I doubt it’ll be longer than that. He’s always busy with work, and now he’s got two more kids to worry about in California, so…” She shrugs. 

The boys. Jackie has never met Shauna’s little brothers. Shauna’s only met them twice herself. Once, when her youngest brother was born three years ago, and again last summer, on an awkward trip to Disneyland for her step-mother’s birthday. Jackie’s seen the picture in her bedroom—two toddlers with hair as dark as Shauna’s, and the same toothy smiles. They wore matching hats with Mickey Mouse ears, with Shauna standing stiffly in between them. 

Has Greg told them? Do they understand what’s happening? 

After dinner, Deb pours herself a tall glass of wine and starts on the dishes, while Jackie peruses the shelves in the living-room for a movie to watch. 

Last night, it was Reality Bites and Pulp Fiction. Tonight, she decides on Edward Scissorhands and Trainspotting. She rewinds the tape on the VCR and listens to the rhythmic background sound of a scratching sponge, scraping under running water.  

A little while later, Jackie settles on the couch, but she’s only half-paying attention. Her gaze drifts back and forth between Winona Ryder on the screen and the shifting shadows on the wall. She can’t explain why she suddenly needs to speak; it’s just a sudden jolt that compels her to break the hush. So many of her actions feel inexplicably thoughtless lately.

“How long are you going to be off work?” 

Deb takes a sip of her wine before answering. She shifts to face Jackie and pulls the blanket up around her waist. 

“I honestly don’t know,” she admits. “My boss said I could take as much time as I need, but there are only so many paid days off I can realistically take. I’ll probably have to figure something out soon.” 

Jackie nods, focusing intently on her own thumbnail as it presses into the fleshy part of her pointer finger. The faint sting helps ground her. “I don’t really know what to do with all this free time,” she whispers, eyes flickering to the television screen and then back to Deb. “Lately, it’s like… everything just seems kinda pointless, you know? I can’t care about anything.” 

Reaching over, Deb gives Jackie’s arm a comforting squeeze. “Trust me, kid, I get it,” she says softly. “Earlier today, I caught myself thinking about how everything seems so… fake—like worrying about my mortgage and car insurance. I don’t know how to do it.”

Jackie attempts a smile, though she’s not convinced she does a good job of it. “This has been the worst week and a half of my entire life.” 

“Preach,” Deb murmurs, before taking a slow, deliberate gulp of wine. Her hand trembles as she sets it back down. 

“This is gonna sound weird, so I hope it makes sense,” says Jackie, “but I’m glad we’re going through it together, you and me—but in, like, a good way. Do you get what I mean?”

“I do,” says Deb, managing a small, sad chuckle. The sound carries with it a sadness, and the nasally hint of tears being held back. “Believe me, I want Shauna to be okay, so badly. I—I want her to be found, more than anything. If I could, I would switch places with her in a heartbeat.” 

“So would I.” Jackie’s agreement comes out more forcefully than she intends, with a ferocious intensity woven between the words. 

Deb, however, shakes her head. “But I wouldn’t want you to do that,” she tells her. “I am so relieved you weren’t on that plane too, Jackie. I mean it.” 

That only makes Jackie feel like shit. 

In a flash, familiar tears are stinging the back of her eyes and Jackie wants to scream over it, because she’s so tired of crying. It’s all her fault, she tells herself again—Shauna’s probably dead because of her, because of the stupid choice she made. The blame rests squarely on her shoulders, and she truly wonders if she’ll be able to survive with all of this guilt churning a sore inside her. 

It’s too huge to handle and too sharp to ignore. It’s an arrow stuck between her ribcage, and she did it to herself.

“You don’t understand—” Jackie begins, trying and failing to wipe away her tears before they fall. “I’m the reason she got on that plane, Deb. It’s my fault that she’s…” Her words catch. That she’s what, Jackie? She swallows, and forces herself to finish her sentence. “…gone. I told her to go.” 

Deb opens her mouth to speak, but Jackie surges forward to cut her off before she’s able to get a word out. Her voice trembles, and she continues to blubber. 

“She wanted to stay behind. She really did—she had this plan all worked out and everything,” Jackie confesses in a blurted rush, “but I told her not to because of my parents—because I didn’t want her to have to put up with them. But I should have said yes. If I’d just said yes, she would never have been on the plane. But I didn’t.” 

Hatred toward her mother and father bursts so abruptly in her chest that it leaves cold and off-balance. It may just be her attempting to find some excuse to shift the blame off of herself, but she grabs at it anyway, latching onto her anger with greedy fingers and swallows it down easy. 

It’s her only lifeline. 

“I’m so sorry,” Jackie continues, voice trembling with an earnestness that feels raw. It’s the most honest she’s ever been before. “I should have said yes.” 

“Jackie, it isn’t your fault.” Deb’s response is so fierce that it makes Jackie worry for a moment that she’s crossed some kind of invisible line. “It is absolutely not your fault. This was a fucking tragedy—nothing more, and I know that’s hard to accept, that it feels impossible. You don’t think I feel that way too?”

“I know you do,” Jackie says, chin quivering. 

“Shauna is my daughter,” Deb reminds her in a low voice. “It’s like I’ve lost a limb. I’ve been a dead woman walking for days now. I know how much you’re hurting, Jackie. Are you listening to me? I need you to believe me when I say this wasn’t your fault.” 

Jackie pulls her arm away. “But it is,” she cries, the words nearly choking her. “And if my parents weren’t so—if they didn’t always freak out over every little thing… I wouldn’t have sent her away.”

“Sweetheart, if anyone deserves blame, then it’s me,” Deb counters, lips pressing tight before she speaks again. “I signed her permission slip, I’m the one who let her go. So you see? You can’t hold yourself responsible for everything.”

“That’s not—it isn’t the same,” Jackie protests weakly. 

“No,” Deb gently acknowledges, “maybe it’s not, but that still doesn’t make it your fault. I’m not sure if it’s anybody’s fault. Sometimes… terrible things just happen. But I do know it isn’t because of you. And it isn’t because of your parents’ either.”

Unfortunately, it isn’t possible for Jackie to believe her, not right now. 

See, she’s thought about it, turned it over in her head a thousand times, and she’s pretty sure she’s pinpointed the issue, where she really went wrong. It’s been biting at her for days, ghosting around the back of her mind like an elusive, mental mosquito, evading her in her most lucid moments. But she’s got it now. 

Frankly, it’s so obvious she wonders how she didn’t see it. 

She separated them, and all because of her fucking parents, of all things. She promised herself that she would never settle about Shauna, that she would never let anything come between them. Because it’s like this: Jackie and Shauna are a unit, two halves welded together. Are you following? They’re a single entity, a conglomeration, an amalgamation, the exact center of a venn diagram. 

Shauna belongs to Jackie, so what was Jackie thinking, sending her away?

More than anything, she needs Shauna to be found—alive, breathing, and not irreversibly broken—so she can apologize. So she can swear she’ll never do it again. So she can chain Shauna to her side forever and never let her go. JackieandShauna. She whirls it around in her head, reverent as a prayer. ShaunaandJackie.

“I’m so fucking scared,” she whispers, trembling, because it’s the truth. “Why haven’t they found her yet?” 

“I wish I knew.” Deb, like Jackie, is fighting off her own tears, but Jackie can see them swimming in front of her eyes—eyes that were identical to Shauna’s. “I don’t know what else to do except wake up every morning and try to keep—”

A very shrill and repetitive ringing splits the air, interrupting Deb mid-sentence just as Edward Scissorhands scrapes his bladed fingers over a metal surface. It startles them both to the point of comedy, the way they jump and gasp, faces screwing up in matching cringes.

It’s the fucking telephone. Again.

Her parents might have been onto something when they removed it from the hook entirely. 

Deb exhales, flashing Jackie an apologetic look, before stepping away to answer it.

She’s only been gone for about a minute when her voice carries through the house. “Uh, Jackie, it’s for you.” 

Immediately, a headache pounds at the front of her head. There’s a very short list of people this call could be from, and she’s not particularly eager to talk to any of them. Shitty timing is quickly becoming an ever-present theme in her life, and she would like it to stop, thank you very much. 

Heading into the kitchen, she takes the receiver from Deb, accepting it like a prison sentence. Deb offers her a sympathetic frown before slipping back into the living room. Jackie draws in a breath and shoves the phone to her ear, bracing herself for whatever the fuck this would be. 

“Hello?

“Jackie? Hi, it’s your dad.” 

Which—on her mental list of possibilities, her father was at the bottom. She’d been expecting her mother again, or Jeff, even. But not him. It makes her nervous. His attention on her always set off her nerves. She closes her eyes at the sound of his voice and watches bright flashes of color bloom against the darkness. 

“Oh. What’s up?” 

“What’s up?” James repeats, weary and gentle and disappointed all at once. “You know very well what’s up.” 

“I know—you want me to come back home.” Jackie exhales very slowly. “But I talked to Mom on Saturday and told her I wasn’t ready yet. I want to stay here with Deb a little longer. Mom said it was fine.” 

“I’m very aware of your conversation with your mother,” he says, sounding aggravated. Jackie wonders if he’s pinching the bridge of his nose. “Do you have any idea how much you’ve upset her? She’s been practically inconsolable since she spoke to you.” 

Translation: Cindy’s been making his life miserable, and he’s desperate for Jackie to come home, to accept her ire, to be a lightning rod made of flesh and blood. She feels her hatred reignite, bright and immediate. 

“Listen, I’m sorry that she’s upset, but I can’t just leave,” she says, teetering on the edge of tears again. 

Her father doesn’t miss a beat. “You seemed to have no problem just leaving on Tuesday, when you left my house with the water still running.” 

My house. Jackie hates when he does that—like he expects her to kiss the ring and be grateful for his magnanimity. 

She huffs, her frustration flaring. “And I’m sorry for that. I was upset. Geez, Dad, my best friend is missing. I wasn’t trying to—” she pauses, searching for the right words. “I wasn’t trying to insult you guys.” 

“And yet it was still pretty insulting,” James retorts. “You didn’t even turn the water off.” 

“I said I’m sorry—” 

But James barrels on, louder this time, cutting her off. “You scared us, Jackie! That’s the real problem. It’s not about some faucet. It’s about the fact that you don’t respect your mother or me enough to tell us where you’re going, or even that you’re going somewhere at all.” 

“Dad, you’re not understanding what I’m trying to—”

“Of course I don’t understand,” he interrupts, his tone turning so icy it makes Jackie shiver. “What you did was irrational. You disappeared without a trace or a note, and then you dodged your mother’s attempts to reach you. I’m disappointed, Jackie. Seriously. Really disappointed.”

It takes a lot of effort for her not to scream into the phone and tell her father how much she sincerely does not give a shit. 

“Can I just have a few more days, Dad, please? That’s all I’m asking.” It’s a blatant lie, but she hopes it’ll be enough to get him off her back, at least for now. 

A long sigh comes through on his end—heavy, worn. “Fine. I’m not sure what else to say to you.” 

“I’m sorry, Dad.” 

“You can stay until Wednesday,” he concedes, “but then I’m coming to pick you up first thing in the morning. Do you understand?” 

Jackie’s heart pounds, but she forces the words out. “Yeah. Wednesday is fine.” 

“Alright, then. I’m glad we have that settled. I’ll see you in two days.” 

“Yeah.” 

The line clicks dead without either of them saying goodbye. 

Tuesday Afternoon. May 28th, 1996

The television drones on, relaying the same grim updates Jackie’s heard for days: 

“In today’s developments, search and rescue teams continue their efforts to locate missing flight 3617 and its occupants. The operation is now on its ninth day.” 

It’s been a week and two days since Shauna’s plane vanished from existence. And it’s been a week since Jackie’s return to Wiskayok. It’s been the slowest nine days of her life, and yet, it’s as though no time has passed at all. It’s both, all at once. 

Someone has pressed the pause button on life. It’s forced her into purgatory, a deceptive truce, an anxiety-ridden armistice. As horrible as it’s been, this tense limbo is the only reason she still clings to a shred of sanity, because as awful as purgatory may be, it still holds the possibility of hope. Shauna is lost, but that means she can still be found. No one has actually said “no survivors” out loud. Not yet. Jackie suspects Deb is tiptoeing through the same dark thoughts, though neither of them dares to voice it.

Something big has to be coming. Jackie can sense it, can smell it like a storm in the air, and whatever it was, it was coming to knock her clear off her axis. 

Would Jackie notice when the moment arrives? And, oh God, Shauna—are you alive? The question is an ice pick to Jackie’s brain, a live autopsy, a morbid vivisection. 

Who would be the first among them to rip off the band-aid? 

She tries not to dwell on tomorrow’s big complication: her father’s arrival. 

He’s determined to haul her home, and she’s desperate to avoid that. All day, she’s been concocting future escape plans, desperate to remain here with Deb for a little while longer. 

Sure, her parents aren’t able to force her, not legally, but they do control her life financially. Not to mention, all of her shit is still at their house. It’s not as though she can tell them to fuck off. 

But at least she has one more night before she has to worry about it.

The impending arrival of Greg Shipman disrupts the routine they’ve built this last week. Deb paces restlessly around the kitchen until he finally calls to confirm he’s settled in his hotel room with a rental car. Jackie sits on a stool by the island and listens as they make plans to meet for dinner. 

“Are you sure it’s a good idea, having this conversation in public? You know… emotionally?” Jackie asks, after Deb hangs up. 

“No, not really.” Deb purses her lips, expression flat. “But I’m not sure it would go any better if we met privately. Greg and I have a knack for pissing each other off.” 

What will the two of them talk about?

Jackie’s not bold enough to ask, but the questions churn around in her head like an ice cube that refuses to melt. She goes morbid with it, wondering—would they discuss the worst-case scenario? Shauna dead, lost forever.

Her heart begins to thud in her chest. It’s never a good idea, allowing her mind to go there, but sometimes she can’t help herself. She takes a careful breath and swallows down her grief, shoving the awful thought aside into a box in the back of her mind to be opened another time.

Jackie wonders what Mr. Shipman is like these days. He was always pretty quiet when she was around, but she knew from Shauna that he could be plenty loud during his arguments with Deb. For his own sake, he better not try that tonight. If he upsets Deb, Jackie would snap, and Greg is a much more convenient target than her parents. 

“Are you hungry? I can make you some lunch.” Deb halts her restless pacing to face Jackie. “I need to do something with my hands.”

She isn’t hungry, not really, but it’s easier to nod and say, “Sure.” Besides, turning her down would only make Deb fuss until she changed her mind anyway. “Lunch would be great. Thank you.” 

Deb’s shoulders drop a fraction and relief comes to soften her features. “Sure thing, kid. How’s chicken? We’re out of turkey.” 

Jackie manages a small grin. “Perfect.” 

Deb pulls open the fridge and begins lining up cold cuts, vegetables, and condiments along the counter. With a practiced bump of her hips, she slams the fridge door shut.

“So,” says Deb, not looking up. “Any more calls from your parents?” 

“No, and thank God.” Jackie swings her legs back and forth, watching lazily as Deb sets out two slices of bread. “But they’re still gonna show up tomorrow and expect me to come home with them.” 

“They probably miss you,” Deb says gently. “You’ve been here for a week already.”

And damn if it hasn’t been the worst week in all of Jackie’s life. It’s not even a contest. But she shudders to think about how much worse it would have been if she’d been forced to spend it locked in combat with her mother back home. 

She was pretty sure that she would have burned through her entire prescription of pain pills by now, just to make it easier to be around them. 

“I really doubt they miss me,” says Jackie, forced and casual. She picks at a splinter in the stool, gaze down. “They’ll pick me up, drive me home, and go right back to acting like I’m not there.” Or, if they’re in a mood, they’ll criticize me instead, she thinks with some bitterness. 

For a moment, she wonders if she’s being harsh. It kind of feels like she is. 

Cindy and James Taylor, for better or worse, weren’t acting like anything other than themselves. They were who they’d always been. In fact, they were exceptionally in-character, even still. But is it unfair of Jackie to wish they could be different now? That they could be better, for her? It’s not unfair, right?

Does it even matter if she’s harsh, if she’s also right? 

Because she knows without a shadow of a doubt that they would end up leaving her to stew in her grief. And yeah, sure, Jackie knows they’re sad, or whatever, on her behalf. It’s the only reason they’ve let her get away with so much already. But they don’t know how to handle her. Her anguish makes them uncomfortable, more distant than they already are.

Deb wipes mustard off a knife and sets it down on the counter, looking at Jackie with sad brown eyes. “I hope you’re wrong about that.” 

“Me too,” says Jackie, even though she knows she’s not. 

“But if you’re not…” Deb glances up, weighing her words carefully. “Remember, you always have a place here. Okay?” 

It’s the tenth time Deb’s made the offer, and every single time, it makes Jackie go all warm inside. She flushes, giving Deb a small, grateful smile. “Honestly, that’s kinda been my master plan from the start.”

“Oh, really?” Deb laughs, slapping chicken onto the mustard-covered slice of bread. 

“I mean—duh?” Jackie says, smiling. “I haven’t decided how I’ll do it, but I’ll come up with something. You’re stuck with me.” 

Deb finishes putting Jackie’s sandwich together, adding the lettuce and tomato with a practiced hand, as though she’s done this a million times—which she has. Then she slides the plate across the counter to Jackie, who catches it with an awkward tilt of her hand.

“Don’t tell your parents I said this,” Deb says, with a conspiratorial tone that immediately piques Jackie’s interest, “because it’s probably wrong of me, as a fellow parent, and all.”

“Like I’d ever rat you out,” Jackie says, snorting. 

“You better not. But still,” Deb says, leaning back against the fridge and motioning for Jackie to eat, “I just hope you can come back soon. That’s all.” 

Jackie takes a bite, chewing thoughtful

Deb continues. “It’s been… good, for me—having you here.” Her voice catches a little, thick in the back of the throat. “I don’t know how I would have made it through this week without you, Even if all we’ve done is cry and watch movies on the couch. I’m grateful for it.”

Aww, Deb.

As one might expect, Jackie immediately bursts into tears. 

It’s an easier cry, more a gentle weeping, where the tears slip out in quiet waves. Not like the torrential sobs she’s grown accustomed to in recent days. 

She sets her half-eaten sandwich on the plate and swipes the back of her hand under her eyes, grateful that Deb pretends not to notice. 

“I… I really can’t imagine being anywhere else,” Jackie manages after a moment. What was it Jeff had said to her: where else would you be?

That makes Deb’s eyes glisten in response, and she has to take a second to gather herself. Jackie returns the favor by staying silent, nibbling on the corner of her sandwich even though her appetite is beginning to slip away. 

“Would you look at the two of us?” Deb laughs, voice watery and emotional. “We’re a couple of sorry souls, aren’t we?” 

Jackie nods, meeting her eyes. The sorriest, them. 

She eats as much of her sandwich as she can, which is really only a few more bites, and then she puts it down for good, before sliding off the stool to bring her plate to the sink. Deb stops her with a single raised hand, taking it from her. 

“Deb?” Jackie asks, sitting back down. She raises her voice just enough to be heard over the running water. 

“Hmm?” Deb says. 

There’s no reasoning involved on Jackie’s part when she asks her question, no thought or intent. It just sort of… slips out of her mouth. She doesn’t realize she’s even asking it until she already has. 

“Do you think she’s dead—Shauna?” 

A sharp rattle of glass on metal comes as Deb jerks at the sink, clearly startled, dropping her wine glass against Jackie’s plate. Her shoulders have gone all stiff, curling forward, and she gasps. 

“Oh—”

Immediately, Jackie feels horrible for asking. You’re the worst, the worst, the worst… She hates how the question still hovers in the air—bold, too bold, and irreversible too. She’s normally quite good at watching her words, but her brain is broken now, and she’s messing up left and right. What kind of horrible person…?

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out, rushing to fill the silence with any sort of explanation. “I—I shouldn’t have brought it up—”

“Hey.” Deb flicks the faucet off and turns to face her, giving her a measured look. “You don’t need to apologize. You caught me off guard, that’s all.”

Jackie’s cheeks burn hot. She’s embarrassed. “It’s a horrible question to ask.”

“It is.” Deb acknowledges gently. 

“But, like—it’s just been on my mind a lot. Especially today.” Her gaze drifts to the white plaster on her arm, where her thumbnail is scratching restlessly along the cast. “I didn’t want to upset you. You don’t have to answer. We can just forget about it.” 

For a second, it seems like Deb is ready to let the moment skip away. But then she runs a hand through her hair and sighs, clearly weighing what to say next. “The truth is, Jackie… I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for you.”

Jackie nods, murmuring, “Yeah. Neither do I.” 

“I know what I want to believe—that Shauna is alive, and okay, and coming home. I’ve never wanted anything more than I want that. Ever. But…” A deep sadness flickers across her face that makes Jackie want to cry all over again. “Nine days, you know? I can’t pretend my mind hasn’t gone there. I can’t even help it…” She swallows heavily. “So, yeah, I’ve thought about it. But it always takes me to a really dark place.” 

“I think Shauna is alive,” says Jackie, sounding more confident than she truly is, because she needs to believe it. 

“I hope you’re right,” Deb says, barely more than a whisper. 

“I can’t explain it—and, like, I know it’s probably stupid. And crazy. Definitely crazy.” Jackie bites the inside of her cheek. “But I can’t stop thinking I would feel it if she were… gone.”

“That’s not stupid,” Deb says softly. “Or crazy.” She turns away with a distant look in her eye, gazing off at nothing again. “I’ve thought the same thing. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking on our part. I don’t fucking know.” 

“But what if it’s not?” Jackie tries to organize her thoughts, but the words spill out in a hurry. “And, like, I haven’t felt anything. So… what if I’m right, and she’s out there somewhere, alive? Is it insane for me to have hope just ‘cause of… I don’t know, some… weird gut feeling?”

“Maybe,” Deb shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest, “but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Hope is a good thing.” 

“Or—fuck,” she twitches, digging her fingernails into her palm until small crescent moons make a line across her skin. “What if I’m wrong? And that’s why I didn’t feel anything? What if she’s already dead , and didn’t even notice because—”

Deb answers with a sharp intake of air that makes Jackie go silent mid-sentence, and then offers her an apologetic smile that definitely doesn’t reach her eyes. “I can’t go there,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, Jackie, but I just… I—I can’t.” 

Her cheeks flush again with more guilt. “I know. I’m sorry. That was—I shouldn’t have—”

“Stop apologizing, kid,” Deb interrupts gently. Her hand hovers, almost touching Jackie’s shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I just don’t have it in me to speculate like that. Not right now. It hurts too much, and I don’t want to be a mess when I go to meet with Greg.” 

Jackie nods, swallowing her next apology. “Okay.” But her mouth still is running laps around her brain, because a second later, she finds herself saying, “It’s just… I hate the not knowing. Like, what the hell is taking them so long? They should have found the plane by now.”

“Nine days is too damn long,” Deb agrees, nodding firmly. She frowns. “Hell, two days was too long. That’s the hardest part for me too. It’s torture being completely in the dark. Sitting around, waiting. Having no clue.” 

“I can’t stand it.” Jackie lets out a slow exhale, then glances nervously at Deb. “But at the same time… have you ever considered that like… I don’t know—aren’t you a little scared to find out? Not knowing is driving me fucking crazy, but there’s a thing about it. I don’t know if I’m making any sense.” 

“Trust me. I understand.” Deb laughs without humor. “There’s still some possibility if we don’t know. Ignorance is bliss, and whatnot.” 

“Yeah…” Jackie mulls that over, letting the concept circle around her head. Possibility. It’s the only thread she still has left to hold onto. Somewhere between all of her emotional baggage, she feels some relief. At least Deb understands. “I guess that makes sense—only… how long do we wait before we have to—if they don’t… find her?” 

“I really don’t want to find out.” Deb sighs, and within it, Jackie hears so much pain. Longing too. Jackie feels the echo of it in her own breath, gusty with wish and want.

The agreement between them goes unspoken—that’s enough talking for now.

Tuesday Evening. May 28th, 1996 

Jackie returns to her vigil, not expecting there to be any updates on the TV. 

She’s right. There aren’t any. It’s the same as before, so she settles down to resume her quiet watch. 

Deb is—well, actually, Jackie isn’t sure where Deb is at. 

Probably upstairs in her bedroom. Jackie doesn’t see her for the next few hours, but when she finally does, it’s as she’s getting ready to leave for her dinner with Greg. She shuffles into the room just as Jackie clicks off the TV.

“What are you up to?” Deb asks. 

“Bath time,” murmurs Jackie, lips twisting into a small smile. She nods toward Deb’s outfit. “You look nice.” It feels good to deliver an easy compliment—normal, even, more like her old self, if that girl even exists anymore.

It isn’t a particularly fancy outfit, but it looks good on her. Huffing a modest laugh, Deb tugs on the end of her navy blue blouse. “I’d much rather be in a pair of sweats, but I figure that might be too casual for tonight.” 

“I didn’t know the Applebee’s on Franklin had a dress code,” Jackie teases. 

Deb lets out a mock groan. “Shut up, will you? And to think, here I was, planning on bringing you back mozzarella sticks.” 

There is a fond smile on her face as she crosses the room to wrap Jackie in a quick one-armed hug. Jackie leans in as best as she can, but the cast on her arm makes the whole thing pitifully clumsy. 

“Tell Greg I said hello, I guess,” Jackie says, trailing Deb down the hallway to the front door. “And definitely bring back mozzarella sticks. Oh, and marinara too, please.” 

The keys jingle as Deb plucks them from the self. Jackie, unable to help herself, lets her gaze drift toward the red carabiner and the silly, small compass clipped to it.

She jerks her attention back just as Deb sends her a floating smile. “Sure thing. I’ll see you later tonight, kiddo.” 

Alone again.

The last time Jackie had been left to her own devices, it had been a sunny afternoon. The blue skies and the chirping birds were at odds with her own personal storm, taunting her. 

Today, she can’t say she’s any better, not in any true sense of the word. She exists outside the bounds of those labels now, stuck in purgatory as she is. Suspended, trapped between some before and after. Will she ever be able to answer good again, when someone asks how she’s doing? Maybe. Only if they find Shauna. Alive, alive, alive. But compared to Friday night, sure, yeah, she’s better. 

Less of a wreck, at least. 

For as long as such things can last. 

Now, at least, the world matches her mood—gray, restless, holding its breath. The sky outside is dark and foreboding. There’s no rain yet, but she sees the promise of it taking shape in the sideways bow of the trees as they bend before a quickening wind.

Jackie’s lips twitch. Shauna loves a good thunderstorm. 

That thought puts her into motion. She lunges for Shauna’s keys and snatches them off the hook. Her hands don’t shake this time. If you’re going to do it, she tells herself, then do it now, before the rain starts. The keys sound a mourning jingle as she wraps a fist around them and pulls open the front door. 

By the time she’s stepping off the porch, a sprinkling of rain starts to fall. Fat droplets tap her forehead, and within seconds, the trickle escalates into a downpour. She manages a half-hearted sprint to the passenger seat. In the second it takes her to yank on the handle, still unlocked from last time, the storm hits in full force, coming down hard. 

It’s not exactly cozy in the car—slightly chilly, if anything—but it’s dry, and even more importantly, it smells like Shauna.

Jackie inhales, deep and greedy, feeling like an astronaut that’s been returned to her ship, or a fisherman dragged back onto his boat. It’s… good this time. Sweet, she thinks, suddenly shy among her own thoughts. 

It’s so sweet, in fact, that it makes Jackie let her head rest against the seat, eyes shut tight.

There is still sadness, just like before, and it hurts. Of course it does. It’s jagged, serrated, barbed wire around her ribs, but it’s under control. This time, she isn’t choking. She breathes easily. In. Out. In. Between each measured breath, she focuses on the steady thump of her heart, allowing it to anchor her. 

The expected rush of panic never arrives, and slowly, Jackie allows herself to relax back into her skin. Okay, she thinks. This is okay.

It’s profoundly unnatural for her to go this long without seeing Shauna, without talking to her, whispering to her. Jackie misses her. God, she misses her so much. 

Jackie misses her the way a desert wants for rain, the way a rabbit longs for its burrow. 

They’d survived weeks apart before, like the three torturous weeks last summer, when Shauna went to visit her father in California. Jackie spent most of it miserable and bored out of her mind. She had filled her time with Jeff, at one party or another, allowing him to tuck his hand into the back pocket of her jeans as they moved through basements and rooms reeking of stale beer and weed. She hated it so much then, but she’d give anything to go back now, because at least Shauna had only been one long-distance phone call away.

This… is nothing like that. It’s completely different. 

She never truly understood what it meant to grieve until now, nor what it was like to yearn and covet , to be made helpless by circumstances out of her control. The knowledge has opened a door and it tastes tart on her tongue. She’d ripped open Pandora’s Box, swallowed down Eve’s forbidden apple, and because of it, she knew too much about existence, and now what? It’s bitter, the opposite of sweet, and disgusting too. She wants to spit it out of her mouth and rewind time. 

Shauna, Shauna, Shauna… 

Jackie leans over the center console and flips down the driver’s side visor. A thin strip of photo-booth pictures slips into her waiting hand, its edges creased from months of being tucked away. It’s four squares of glossy paper, worth two bucks at most, but she cradles it in her palm with reverence and awe, as though it were a holy relic

They took these when they went to see Sense and Sensibility for Shauna’s birthday.

Her fingertip traces over the first square: Shauna’s leaning in, head tilted to rest against Jackie’s shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed pink from the vodka they snuck in through Jackie’s purse, and she’s grinning, a little tipsy, but mostly just happy. 

“Let’s take a normal one first!” She remembers herself saying. 

In the next picture, they were doubled over laughing. Shauna’s eyes were squeezed shut as she bent forward. Jackie follows the line of her arm where it disappears out of frame, and recalls the ghosting touch of Shauna’s fingers gripping her knee. What had been so funny? She can’t remember. All she has is this sweet, breathless moment, captured in black and white.

The third frame is pure silliness, all crossed eyes and puckered lips. Jackie’s fingers sprout bunny ears behind Shauna’s head, and her tongue is out, poking close to Shauna’s ear. 

But it’s the last one that steals her breath away, lighting up her system like a drug, sending sparks that zap through her veins to electrify her blood and melt away her vascular tissue.

Shauna’s cheek is cupped in Jackie’s palm. She’s using it to tug Shauna closer, and there she is, pressing a sloppy kiss to Shauna’s cheek. Shauna’s reaching for Jackie too. One of her hands is caught mid-movement, brushing the side of Jackie’s neck, as though she’s halfway through wrapping her in a hug. The other hand rests comfortably on Jackie’s scalp, fingers tangled in her hair, nails lightly scratching. And Shauna’s eyes—so big and brown, as sweet as ever—are turned toward the camera, innocent and happy. 

Did I ever stop to be grateful? The thought claws at her. Why had she never taken a moment to cherish it—cherish them. Was she so arrogant as to think they would have all the time in the world, that she was immune to loss and heartbreak? Jackie had assumed there’d be a million more birthdays, an entire life of this. 

Jackie twitches and expels a throaty sob. 

She was sitting in this exact spot when Shauna first slid the photo-strip into the visor, a silly smirk on her face.

At the time, Jackie had basked in a glowing satisfaction, smugly satisfied that Shauna was having a good birthday. Now, the gesture seems weightier in the wake of everything, almost prophetic. It’s more meaningful now, evidence of their bond, of their bone-deep connection. 

What if that’s all she’ll ever have—evidence, and proof? 

Carefully, she tucks the photo into the waistband of her shorts, where it would be safe until she returned inside. 

An electric spark pulsates in her brain. She needs more. 

Jackie begins to search and tear and snoop through Shauna’s car, as though she were a fucking cop leading some career-boosting drug bust. 

The glove compartment is a natural first stop, and it creaks open atop her hand. 

It’s mostly what you’d expect—the vehicle registration, insurance papers, a yellow-stained manual for the car. Something sticky catches her finger as she paws through everything. Gross, she thinks, wrinkling her nose as she realizes it’s a burst packet of old ketchup. 

Aside from that, she finds drive-thru napkins, and loose change that probably shouldn’t claim the title loose, considering they were congealed and stuck together, probably by the ketchup. 

Next, she peers into the passenger door pocket. Here, she finds a bit of loot, retrieving a half-used tube of strawberry lip gloss—her own, lost months ago—along with a sheet of crumpled notebook paper covered in homework answers Shauna filled out for Jackie to copy. Nothing else.

Her gaze slides toward the center console. A tiny swell of curiosity sparks in her chest, and she chases after its warmth, yanking the console open. 

“So responsible…” she murmurs to herself, pushing a first-aid kit out of the way. Her voice cracks, splintered by an overwhelming affection. “Figures you’d keep one of these in here, the way you like throwing your fists around.” 

Her initial search reveals nothing unusual, save for more junk. Pens—an avalanche of them, as though Shauna had bought an entire pack for the sole purpose of dumping them in here—balled-up gum wrappers, more spare change mixed in with receipts, a stray lid from a fast-food cup, and dusty tubes of chapstick. But Jackie doesn’t give up. She keeps searching through the jumble until she strikes gold. 

There is a folded scrap of notebook paper at the bottom, folded so small that she almost doesn’t see it. Her fingers are greedy, snatching it, pinching around it as though it would disappear before she could see what is inside. She unfolds it carefully, poking the corner against the fleshy tip of her pointer finger, almost checking that it’s truly real.

It’s so simple, practically nothing—just a page of doodles. So many doodles. Hearts of many colors, small clusters of puzzle pieces; flowers and bees, butterflies and ladybugs with lopsided wings; smiley faces, and stick figures. Sprinkled all over the page were little stars, with a line of planets and moons streaking through them. There's even a rocket ship, trailing through with dotted lines behind it. There’s no date, no class title scribbled at the top. She has no idea when this was from. But it’s unmistakably hers and Shauna, because she recognizes the neat print of her own handwriting weaving across the paper with Shauna’s messy scrawl. 

She smiles. Her blood hums, and its hymnal ignites her nerves with a lightning strike of longing. Jackie welcomes the buzzing rush, lets it wash over her, like the storm growing outside. 

Jackie follows the line of planets to the bottom of the page. There, scribbled in Shauna’s handwriting: are you staying at my place tonight? Next to it is an arrow pointing toward a tiny cartoon flower, where Jackie had written out her response: duh shipman. are you ready to watch beaches with me again?

Below that, a frowning face. It’s been crossed out with a blue gel pen that Jackie recognizes as her own—and beside it, there’s another face, but this one is smiling.

So, maybe a person can’t die from overwhelming sadness, or suffocate with worry. But Jackie never thought to consider—what about devastating affection? Will that suffocate a person? Could you die from it? 

An hour later, she’s back inside, soaked to the bone. Her shirt is wet, her socks too, and the band of her shorts (where Shauna’s photo is) clingsto her skin. 

She didn’t care. For the first time in nine days, she feels alive . Her mind is running a mile a minute. 

On the kitchen counter, she spreads out her findings, staring down at them. As she stares down at them, something manic rises in her, a sharp contrast to the depressive blanket she’s been hiding under all week. She welcomes the roar, even if it mauls her. 

The stairs call out her name. Jackie tilts her head, following unspoken orders. She marches up. 

(Are you sure?)

No, she’s not sure at all. But, for the first time in days, she’s something like a person again. So, damn the consequences, and fuck the crawling panic that hibernates in her body, and the dark pit it threatens to pull her into. She’s going to push her luck. 

She grips a low rung on the attic ladder, scraping her cast against the wood, and starts her climb. 

It’s difficult, but remember, Jackie’s a varsity athlete. Yes, she may be injured, and sure, she’s high off a cocktail of medication, but she hasn’t lost all of her reflexes. She wouldn’t need both hands. 

One rung. Two. Fuck it. Up she goes. 

Shauna, Shauna, Shauna.

Chapter Text

Natalie. May 20th, 1996. The Wilderness. 

Something weird is going on with Lottie. 

Which, she ought to be more specific, considering they were in a plane crash last night. People died, lost limbs—not to mention the other injuries, or the lifetime of trauma they were building with every minute spent here. 

But… relatively speaking, Lottie is being weird. 

She hasn’t spoken in hours, not since she realized her suitcase was missing. She’s sitting cross-legged in the dirt now, staring off at the tree line with a frown on her face. Nat’s tried to cheer her up, but other than a couple thin, pacifying smiles, Lottie’s been immune to her attempts.

The others were too busy scavenging the wreckage to notice—or maybe they just didn’t care. But Nat does. As a general rule, she tried not to concern herself with the emotional state of her teammates. Still, she notices, because she has a functioning set of eyes and ears, and a brain that knows how to connect the simple dots. But she never worries about it, not really. It’s not like anyone’s ever worried about her , after all. 

But things are different out here. This place requires survival mode, and she knows it. So… Nat worries, and Nat notices. 

Across the clearing, Taissa is directing the others. There’s a politician's smile on her face, a bright confidence and a good act. Nat can see through the cracks, though—her stiff shoulders, her clenched jaw. She’s as scared as the rest of them. 

And then Travis, who is choosing to ignore his little brother in favor of following Taissa around, insisting that he do all of the heavy lifting and acting like he’s the designated Man of the group. His brother Javi is over by the fire, sitting next to Van and poking the fire with a stick.

Nat doesn’t even know Travis, not well, but she can still spot this for what it is: a charade. 

Travis and his misplaced chivalry, Taissa and her organized plans. They’re as scared shitless as the rest of them. This is just an attempt to feel some kind of control. 

Fine. She won’t fault them for that. It’s a good thing, she supposes. Whatever helps them get through it.

Van seems to be doing relatively fine. The burn on her face is minor, and she seems to enjoy having Javi sit next to her. Van has little brothers of her own, so they take to each other easily. Travis doesn’t approach him once. Nat doesn’t have any siblings, but if she did, she can’t imagine leaving them to deal with this shit alone. 

Not everyone is doing so well. 

Coach Scott, for one, is having a particularly rough time. His leg is gone. Not gone in the abstract sense, but gone, as in not there anymore. Shipman might be burned to bits, but at least she still has all of her limbs.

He’d woken them all at dawn with a guttural scream just as the sun was beginning its rise in the sky. Now he lays propped against a mossy log, his face ashen, muttering to himself. No one could go back to sleep after that. 

She isn’t trying to minimize Shauna’s injuries, though, because she was also in a lot of fucking pain. 

Nat hates burns. She always has. And she’s only referencing the small ones, the little bubble-blisters that came from brushing your hand on a curling iron, or holding a lighter incorrectly, or touching the side of a boiling pot. She would take a cut or a bruise anyday, thanks.

They weren’t friends, her and Shipman—and Jackie wasn’t really in the business of letting others get too close to her—but it still hits Nat hard to see her suffering like this. Shauna is all coiling rage and quiet grit, intense in that deep well of feeling sort of way, which she can respect. She’s also fucking crazy. It can make her frustrating to deal with at times, but it also makes her the toughest one among them.

So, when Shauna wakes up in the morning, sweating and crying from the pain, everyone knows it’s a big fucking deal.

The fire is long dead by then, fizzling out hours ago, but a few of them still linger around its corpse, gazing at the red coals. Shauna leans against Laura Lee’s suitcase with her eyes closed, her breathing a wet rasp. Lottie is there, sitting statue-still, staring at the ashy remains. Laura Lee is next to her, fidgeting, and biting at her cuticles. Nat sits cross-legged in the dirt, across from them all, and picks at a scab on her elbow. 

Laura Lee puts a hand on Lottie’s knee. “Are you alright?” 

Lottie’s expression smooths into something porcelain and vacant, like a doll. Neutral to the point of discomfort. Nat gets the feeling that if it were anyone else, Lottie would have told them to fuck off and leave her alone. But instead, she just shrugs her shoulders. 

“Nobody’s alright,” she says, voice flat. “But I’m no more not-alright than anyone else. You don’t have to worry about me.” 

“Why wouldn’t I worry about you?” Laura Lee blinks, undeterred. “You’re my friend. I worry about all of my friends.” 

Shauna snorts a derisive puff of air, opening her eyes to stare up at the trees. 

“You’re sweet,” says Lottie. Her smile is thin. “Really, I’m fine.” 

Yeah, sure. Nat digs her fingernail deeper into her scab, peeling it back until a tiny ruby of blood blooms to the surface. Then she smears it with her thumb. 

“What about you?” Laura Lee turns to Shauna, relentless. “How are you feeling?” 

Shauna grunts, obviously irritated with the question. “Not fucking great.” she snaps. “Clearly.” It’s rude, but Nat doesn’t blame her for it. She’d be the same if the burned shoe was on the other foot. 

Laura Lee is unfazed. She nods slowly. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you more.” 

Nobody says anything else. Before long—half an hour, maybe—Nat’s knees are aching and her skin starts to itch restlessly. She doesn’t normally have a problem with silence, awkward or otherwise. It’s the stillness, the way the forest presses in all around her. Deep in her muscles and tendons, she feels a pulse of kinetic energy. It stirs her to life, fills her with a desperate need to stay moving, like a land-walking great white, or a hummingbird. 

Or maybe she just needs to feel useful. 

She stands abruptly, dirt cascading from her jeans. “Who all can’t find their shit?” 

Lottie is the first to look at her. She blinks, slow and reptilian, but doesn’t say anything. 

“Me,” says Shauna through gritted teeth. “My bag is gone.” Then, muttering, she adds, “Not that I’ve looked.” 

Laura Lee points at her suitcase, the one Shauna is using as a backrest. “I have mine, but Robin and Mari are missing theirs. Akilah too, I think.” 

“I’ll round up some of the others to help me,” says Nat, glancing around. “My bag is missing too—so is Lottie’s.” She looks at the girl in question. “You stay here with Shipman while I go and look around.” 

With a shaky exhale, Lottie nods. “Okay. Thanks, Nat.” 

“Not like I have anything better to do,” Nat says gruffly, stuffing her hands into her pockets. She really does need to find her bag. She has weed stashed inside, and a little bit of alcohol too, plus those cigarettes. 

God, does she need one.

Nat still has cigarettes on the brain as she ventures off into the woods. The craving gnaws at her, a dull hunger in the back of her throat. 

Bag hunting becomes the name of the game that morning. She stalks into the woods, with her recruits fanning out behind her. They spread out in different directions, searching in the far distance surrounding the plane’s wreckage. 

How far could a suitcase even fly? Nat’s decent enough at math, but there’s no chance of her figuring that out without a little bit of scratch paper and a lot more information. She cranes her neck up at the trees, but they offer her no answers. 

In the light of day, these woods seem almost harmless. But she still remembers staring into them last night, and the crawling fear it raised on the back of her neck. They’d made her feel exposed and watched. God only knows what sort of shit lurked in a wilderness this remote.

Nat certainly doesn’t wish to find out, so with that in mind, she keeps her search radius tight, cautiously keeping her path to a one-mile maximum from the wreckage. 

The woods are beautiful, though, even with all of its unknown threats. There was sunlight illuminating the trees in vibrant green and gold, and soft moss everywhere she could see. It reminds her of the postcards Lottie used to send from her fancy ass summer camp, except this new scenic picture came with blood, corpses, blisters, burns, and amputated limb, all included, free-of-charge.

Her search gets off to a great start. She finds Shauna’s bag first, wedged between two trees. Ten feet away, Robin’s bag is flopped over face-down. 

Well, that’s two, at least. It’ll give Shipman something to smile about. 

Hopefully, anyway. 

An hour later, she finds her own bag resting in a puddle of mud. She wrestles it free, grumbling as she brushes off the dirt and leaves sticking to the surface. 

It smells like stale weed and nature.

That’s three bags now. 

It’s too many to carry around, so she leaves them underneath a tall pine tree and trudges deeper into the woods to continue her hunt. Unfortunately, Lottie’s bag remains elusive. The forest shrugs. 

Another hour later, Natalie accepts defeat. “Shit.” Her voice blasts through the silent forest like a meat tenderizer, all thick with gravel. “Sorry, Lot, I tried.” 

Resigned, Nat returns to fetch the other bags. By now, the sun is climbing higher into the sky, beckoning the afternoon forward. It’s glow breaks through the trees to dabble the soil in shimmering patterns, creating a leafy tapestry against the forest floor. It’s brown like Lottie’s eyes, like Shauna’s.

Flashes of color leap unbidden from her memory, leaving her with an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. She loses herself in thought, thinking… the forest, it kinda reminds her of the Hundred Aker Wood from Winnie the Pooh. Her dad bought her a VHS player for her seventh birthday—one of the few she can say was actually happy—along with a secondhand copy of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. She must have watched it a thousand times. 

Nat adjusts her grip on the suitcases as she trudges through the woods, feeling a lot like Eeyore, off to seek comfort from Christoper Robin. 

Back at the wreckage, she lobs Robin’s suitcase at her feet, and then marches over to Shauna, where she still rests at the blackened campfire with Lottie. 

“Here you go, Shipman,” says Nat, tossing the bag on the ground. She kicks the backpack closer. “I brought you a present.” 

“Oh, fuck—” Shauna’s eyes go wide and happy. She reaches for it, an eager smile growing on her face as she tugs it close. “I can’t believe you found it.” 

Nat drags her boot through the dirt and tries not to smile. “Yep, sure did. It was nothing.”

At least she could make someone happy. 

It’s at the moment she feels Lottie’s gaze brush over her face, soft as a feather touch, ghosting down from temple to ear to jaw. Nat sighs, turning to meet her eyes. As they look at eachother, the small but hopeful expression on Lottie’s face withers away in the wind. 

“I’m guessing you had no luck?” Lottie’s mouth twitches in resignation. She nods before Nat can reply, as though she both knows the answer, and expected it the entire time.

“No.” Nat frowns, awkwardly picking at the dirt under her nails. “I couldn’t find it anywhere. I tried. I looked all over, but—I mean… it’s a big fuckin’ forest, so…” she shrugs. “I’m sorry. It could still be out there. I’ll try again later.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Lottie says gently. She pats the ground, and Nat moves to sink down next to her, feeling the cold dirt through her jeans. Lottie reaches for her hand and gives it a squeeze, seeking to comfort Nat in spite of her own disappointment. “Thanks for looking anyway.” 

Nat gives her a hollow smile. 

There is a tension in Lottie’s shoulders, and a glint of subtle fear in her eyes. Nat considers asking—Lottie, are you okay?—but she doesn’t. Even if she did, Lottie wouldn’t tell her the truth. So, instead, she threads their fingers together and squeezes back.

“Shauna, I’ve just finished checking in with Coach Scott, so I figured I should come and check on you next,” says Misty, standing there with her hands on her hips. She squints, surveying the four of them, before turning her gaze square on Shauna. “Have you gone to the bathroom since the crash?” 

Shauna blinks, clearly caught off guard by the question. She flushes, eyebrows high on her face. “I—Misty, what?” 

Misty tilts her head, forever relentless. “Have you peed yet? Or made a bowel movement? It’s medically relevant.”

Lottie and Laura Lee make brief eye contact and erupt into giggles, perfectly synchronized. Nat watches them for a moment before turning to Shauna, who’s staring at Misty with a tight jaw and a thin sheen of sweat on her face. 

“Misty… what the fuck?” Nat asks, sighing. 

“What? Why are you all acting like it’s a crazy question.” Misty scowls and shakes her head disapprovingly. “It’s a legitimate thing to worry about! Bowel obstructions can be a serious problem if you’re already injured, which Shauna is, so—” 

“I’m not having bowel issues,” Shauna hisses, her cheeks a blotchy red now, instead of pink, as she glares at Misty. “I just—haven’t. Not yet. I can’t fucking walk, in case you hadn’t noticed.” 

Misty shrugs, looking unimpressed. “Well, obviously, someone will have to help you. In fact, I volunteer myself. I have some experience now after helping Coach Scott, and I certainly wouldn’t mind at all.” 

Shauna’s eyes flicker to Nat—help me. Clearly, Shipman needs a lifeline. 

It’s one thing to throw Coach Scott to the wolves—meaning Misty, of course—but it was another thing entirely to do the same to Shauna. She was one of them. A teammate. A friend, sometimes. That means something to Nat. 

Hoping she won’t regret this, but knowing she probably will, Nat waves a hand to catch Misty’s attention. 

“I can handle Shippy, Quigs. How about you just worry about Coach Scott? He needs more of your help anyway.” 

Shauna exhales, flashing her a look so full of gratitude that Natalie can’t stand to meet her eyes. It’s much easier to face Misty’s flared nostrils and sour expression. 

Nat’s always had better luck than most when it came to navigating Misty. Some of the time, Nat doesn’t even mind her all that much. She’s… earnest—and Nat likes that in a person, despite all of her bemoaning about it being lame, or cheesy, or sickeningly sweet. She’d sooner eat battery acid than admit it, but all of that heartfelt bullshit… It’s her guilty pleasure. 

The rest of the time, Misty gets on her nerves, same as she does everyone else. She was invasive, persistent, just… way too much. 

Like today. 

Misty considers the proposal, as though her answer held any kind of authority. She hovers, deliberating long enough to make Shauna’s eyebrow twitch, at which point Nat has to cut in with a pointed stare. 

“Fine,” Misty huffs. “But you have to promise you’ll let me know if anything is out of the ordinary—discolored urine, blood in her stool. Things of that nature. I mean anything.” 

Nat brings two fingers to her forehead in a silly imitation of a salute. “Sure thing, Doc.” 

The nickname does the trick. Misty flushes, retreating with a wide smile on her face.

The girls wait, breaths held, until she vanishes out of earshot into the trees. Then Lottie and Laura Lee collapse into laughter again, turning to each other and pressing their foreheads together, shoulders shaking in unison. Nat chuckles despite herself, and even Shauna cracks a smile, though it’s more of an awkward grimace than anything else.

“Blood in your stool? What the—” Laura Lee wheezes and presses a fist to her mouth. 

“My favorite was when she asked if you’d made a bowel movement,” Lottie crows, loud and alive, laughing for the entire world to hear. She’s not even trying to be subtle, but it’s a nice change from the haunted quiet from earlier. 

“Ugh, will you guys please shut up, and stop talking about my—my stool, and my fucking bowel movements,” Shauna snaps. 

That only makes them laugh harder. 

“Seriously, though,” says Nat, once she finally settles down. “Do you actually need to piss, Shipman? It’s, like—” she squints up at the sun, which has shifted west in the hours they’ve been awake, “already the afternoon, or something.” 

Shauna frowns. “Er, well… yeah, actually. I do.” 

Lottie and Laura Lee quiet down, looking more serious now. 

“Oh, well, that’s no problem,” says Nat, foolishly trying to keep the mood light. “Sure you don’t need to shit too?” 

The joke doesn’t land. 

“Nat,” Shauna scowls. “Can you please be serious?” 

“Right. I’m sorry. It was a bad joke.” Nat raises her hands in surrender. “I’ll, uh, go and grab the tarp Taissa found earlier. She said it might be easier to move you with that. Be back in a second.”

Shauna. May 20th, 1996. The Wilderness.  

“This is fucking humiliating.” 

Shauna’s face burns hot. It’s the indignity, the fact that she’s been reduced to a pathetic creature that needs assisting with the most base of tasks. 

Natalie is kind enough to turn around, but it offers only the illusion of privacy, and a pitiful one, at that. Still, Shauna clings to the gesture, appreciative despite everything. 

“You’re just taking a piss, Shipman. It’s fine. I’ve seen you squat at so many fucking parties. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Nat grumbles throatily. 

Shauna grits her teeth and glares at her ruined feet. “This is different, and you know it.” 

As if this were anything like squatting at a fucking kegger. This is excruciating, agonizing. Her toes are mottled and weeping, her ankles raw and blistered. Earlier, she’d attempted a crawl, trying to keep her feet up and use only her knees, but her shins kept bumping the ground, and the pain became so overwhelming she collapsed breathlessly into the dirt. 

Beyond the trees, Taissa and Flex are bent over, crafting a pair of stretchers from ropes and debris from the wreckage. It made no difference to Shauna. A stretcher, a tarp on the ground, or hands dragging her by her arms, it was all the fucking same. 

Painful. 

At the end of the day, she would still be a sack of bone and blister, a thing to be carried, unable to take her own shorts off for a piss. 

“Whatever, dude,” says Natalie. “It’s not a big deal.” 

“Easy for you to say,” Shauna snaps. “You’re not the one hanging your bare ass off a dirty, wet log.”

Natalie laughs. “Yeah, good point.”

Shauna’s jaw tightens, trying not to cry. She fixes her gaze on Natalie’s back. “It—it fucking feels like a big deal. Okay?”

Better to lean into her anger, better to cut and slice, than to feel the hot spill of tears, and the mortifying embarrassment that would accompany it.

Nat stills, folding her arms stiffly in front of her chest. After a minute, she replies, more somber now, each word weighted. “Yeah. I know.”

“Why did you even offer to do this?” The question escapes her, small and short, without thought. She hadn’t meant to ask, but there it was. “It’s not like you and I are super close, or whatever. You wouldn’t even let me defend you last week when Tai called you a slut in front of the entire party.” 

“That’s because I don’t need anyone to defend me,” replies Nat, quick and automatic. “Besides, you were wasted.”

“I wasn’t that drunk,” Shauna protests, but even as she says it, she feels the lie flapping loose in her chest. She had been drunk. She thinks back to the anger that churned in her gut on the drive home—the fury she’d felt watching Jackie trace her fingers along the back of Jeff’s neck, how it made her drink go sour on her tongue. 

It’s what made her decide to fuck him again. 

Natalie scoffs, kicking up dirt. “That doesn’t even matter. The whole thing is fucking stupid, anyway. Like… where do you think we are right now, Shipman? Summer camp?” Her voice cracks, fissuring with frustration. “We got into a fucking plane crash. We literally fell out of the sky, and now—dude, you can’t even walk! 

“Yeah.” Shauna rolls her eyes. “I’m aware of that, thanks.” 

“Oh, really, you’re aware? I hadn’t fucking noticed,” she says bitterly. Shauna can’t see her face, but she imagines her glaring at the trees. “I don’t need to be your best friend to want to help you. Jesus. You’re a fucking person. Call it a good deed, or whatever.”

Shauna opens and then closes her mouth, struggling to form a response. What can she even say? Finally, after a long second, she swallows. “Okay. You’re right. I’m being stupid.” 

“You are,” Natalie agrees, swift and merciless. “All the—all the bullshit high school drama… It doesn’t fucking matter out here. It can’t matter out here. Not when people are dead already, or hurt.” 

Dead already. The words land like a slap. Shauna’s cheeks burn, not only from shame, but from the absurdity of it all. When it’s put that way… yeah, none of it matters at all. 

She feels silly. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, pressing her back against the tree, using it as leverage as she shifts for a better spot. “Look, if it’s worth anything, I’m glad it’s you and not Misty.”

Natalie snorts. “Oh, wow, the highest of praise. Thanks so much. You really know how to make a girl feel special.” 

Shauna stares at her puckered knees. She hates needing this, and she hates the way her voice wobbles as she says, “It’s really good of you to help me, Natalie. I mean that.” A pause. How does she explain the rot festering in her chest? “The thing is—it’s like I’m this… overgrown toddler, all fucking helpless—you know? It would suck anywhere, but it’s especially worse out here.” 

I’m scared, and it makes me mean. The confession coils behind Shauna’s teeth, unspoken, tasing like blood and dirt. Natalie wore her anger like armor, and she wasn’t alone in that. I do that too. 

“Yeah, I bet it fucking does.” Nat sighs. “But… it won’t, not forever. And shit—at least you’re alive. That’s… that’s fucking lucky. We’re lucky.” 

Shauna thinks of Allie’s scream  just before the metal tore through her throat. Coach Scott’s leg, amputated, the leftover stump wrapped in someone’s blood-ruined t-shirt. The pilots, the flight attendants, all dead. Her body sags with the weight of the carnage, suddenly so very sad. 

“I hope you’re right,” Shauna mutters, not fully convinced. They were alive, but did that really translate into being lucky? 

Natalie crouches to help her with her shorts once Shauna finishes her business. It’s as awkward as it was when Natalie helped take them off. And it hurts—every twitch ignites a shock of heat that burns her from knee to toe—by the end, she’s bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood, and there are tears stinging her eyes. 

She doesn’t let them fall. 

After helping her back onto the tarp, Natalie begins the trek back to their makeshift camp, hauling her forward in slow, uneven steps. They make it a few yards over a sea of leaves and pine needles when Nat pauses, turning to glare at Shauna from over her shoulder. 

“And for the record…” Her voice is full of hard edges, but her eyes—are they softer? “We are friends, Shipman. Not best friends, which—honestly… I’m fine with that. I’ve seen you and Jackie, and yeah, no thanks. Your head is way too big to fit up my ass.” 

Shauna rolls her eyes. Jackie, her shadow, even here. Yet it still makes her smile. “Aww, Natalie, does that mean you care about me?” 

Natalie gives a short and rasping laugh. “Shut up, man. But also… yeah, I do. Or—I at least don’t want you to die.” 

“That’s touching.” Shauna smirks, gripping the edge of the tarp. “I care about you too, I guess. We can be friends. And, after all of this, we’ll probably end up being pretty good ones.” 

“But not best friends, right?” 

“No.” Shauna chuckles, though the movement sends pain lancing up her legs. “It’s like you said—your ass is too small for my head, but Jackie’s is just right.” 

Being dragged over the rocks, branches, and miscellaneous foliage isn’t any easier the second time around. Shauna focuses on her breath, deep and rhythmic the entire time. 

The deadened campfire awaits them. Lottie and Laura Lee are still sitting beside it, while the rest of the group is scattered, milling about. 

Shauna’s gaze darts to her backpack, which is still slumped against a log, right where she left it. It doesn’t look disturbed, but she makes a note to keep a better eye on it. She doesn’t think anyone would steal from her, but she definitely wouldn’t put it past a few of them (Mari) to snoop through her unguarded things. Her journal is in there, tucked away at the bottom, and though she’s hardly written anything inside of it, she still doesn’t want it to be found. 

Natalie drags her to original spot and moves to take her previous seat. Shauna doesn’t have time to reach for her bag, because Misty swoops in like a hawk, demanding to know how the bathroom trip went. 

“Everything was kosher, Misty, there’s nothing to worry about,” Nat assures her. 

“Did you inspect her urine for discoloration?” 

The most annoying part is that Misty ignores Shauna entirely, addressing Natalie instead. 

“Will you stop asking about my fucking pee?” Shauna snaps, face twisting in indignation. 

God, she’s loving this, Shauna thinks. Look—she knows Misty is all they have in terms of medical expertise, but does she have to be so fucking enthusiastic about it? Between this, and whatever the hell she has going on with Coach Scott, she’s almost bursting with happiness. Had she been grinning the entire day, from the very first moment they woke up to Coach Scott’s anguished screams?

Misty looks affronted. “It’s for your own good, Shauna.” 

Bullshit. Misty just wants to poke and prod, to carve her open like the frog dissection in bio. Shauna takes a hissing breath through her clenched jaw. Don’t yell. You need her. She holds herself back for practical purposes, because again, Misty is all she has. It probably wouldn’t be the best idea to piss her off. Not while she can’t even stand on her own.

“Everything is fine, Misty.” Her molars snap together, stiff with tension. “Nothing was discolored.”

Placatingly, Lottie lifts a hand and flashes Misty a serene smile. “Thank you, Misty. I don’t know what we would do without you.” 

“Of course.” Misty preens, rocking on her heels. “Anything for the team, right?” Her eyes flicker to Shauna, with something like an apology on her face. “So, I know you’re probably tired, but it’s been about twelve hours since I wrapped up your burns. We really need to take a look and see how they’re doing.”

Coiling around her feet and ankles are spiraling strips of patchwork cloth, acting as bandages, tied just above her calf last night by a frenzied Misty. Most of it is clothing taken from Allie’s suitcase, repurposed for this. Sorry, Allie, but it’s not like you’ll need that shirt again. The fabric clings like a second skin, threads already welding to her blisters. 

Admittedly, Shauna’s curious to see how it looks underneath. The last time she caught a glimpse, the world was still all chaos. All she remembers is a raw, screaming red. Would the color be different? Were they already healing, or was rot beginning to grow? 

However, more than anything, Shauna’s terrified. So scared she could vomit. It will hurt like hell to take off the bandages, and that’s enough to banish all of her curiosity. 

Lottie catches her gaze, nodding slow, as though she’s able to sense Shauna’s resistance. They keep the connection going for a second, before Shauna sighs, defeated. 

“Okay. Fine. Just… just be quick about it. Please?”

“I’m going to need some fresh cloth to re-wrap it with,” Misty says, scanning the group. 

Laura Lee stands, dutiful as ever, and scurries off. When she’s gone, Lottie slides into the dirt beside her, knees brushing Shauna’s upper thigh. Her hand reaches over, warm and sweaty. Shauna grips back harder than she means to. 

Natalie remains still, watching with her arms locked around her shins. 

Misty kneels down and pinches the edge of the knot tying everything together. With confident fingers, she pulls, and the first layer peels away. 

It fucking hurts. Worse than the clean slash of a knife, or the dull throb of a sprain. It’s something worse. She’ll never be able to do it justice, because it’s a pain beyond words. 

Shauna grunts, but the sound catches in her throat, curdling into a whine that bursts through her lips, leaving saliva slick on her chin. Each tug of cloth is a pulse of searing torment. Why couldn’t they just knock her out? Shauna can handle pain, but her body turns traitor—her raw, blistered nerve endings scream together in a chorus she won’t be able to take for much longer. Every part is screaming: this is wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Her eyes flick down to see the damage. Misty has peeled away enough to reveal the ruin. What she finds makes her stomach lurch. 

Her legs, once pale and unblemished, are now a grotesque tapestry of red, orange, and yellow. Amidst the mottled canvas are patches of white, milky blisters. Some had burst already, surrounded by a translucent, glistening sheen. Others were still in wait, bulging with a clear, gelatinous fluid. 

Long story short: it’s fucking disgusting. 

By the time Misty pulls away the final piece, Shauna has long dissolved into tears. They fall hot and fast, streaming down her nose, salting her wounds. Lottie doesn’t say a word as Shauna clutches at her hand, digging and pinching with her nails. This is the worst she’s hurt so far. More even than the fire itself. 

“Fuck—I can’t—” she gasps, spittle spewing forth, a rabid animal. It’s like a thousand needles pricking. Another sob tears loose, ragged and ugly. 

“I know.” Lottie’s voice is thick. Is she crying too? “I know, it hurts. But the hardest part is over.”

Laura Lee rushes back with an armful of freshly-torn clothes held to her chest. “Hey, I’ve got them! Mari helped me rip them up.” She hands them off to Misty, and moves to sit next to Natalie. 

“Hmm,” muses Misty. Her glasses slide down her nose as she leans in for a closer look, all business. “Looks like I was right. These are definitely second-degree burns. See—you can tell from how the blisters look. Which, that reminds me,” she points at Shauna. “Try not to pop those. It’ll hurt, and it can increase your chances of infection.” 

“Misty…” Nat warns, after catching the horrified expression on Shauna’s face. 

“I’m sorry if that grosses you out, but it’s sound medical advice.” Misty sighs dramatically, rolling her eyes. Sound medical advice—as if they weren’t stuck in a gravepit forest. “It’s unfortunate that we don’t have antiseptic, but… I suppose we’ll make do. Laura Lee, would you mind grabbing a water bottle so we can give her legs a rinse? It’s the best we can do for the time being.” 

“Sure, I’ll be right back.” Laura Lee’s eyes pool with pity as she looks at Shauna. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get rescued any day, and you’ll get some real help from a real doctor.” 

Liar, Shauna wants to say. At the same time, Lottie frowns. 

After Laura Lee bolts off again, Shauna glares up at Misty. “Is this going to hurt?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” Misty says, tilting her head and considering for a moment. “Honestly, it might even be relieving, but I suppose you’ll find out in a second, right?” 

The moment water hits her skin, she erupts in an onslaught of contrasts. 

First, it’s all bitter shock, like licking a battery. It suddenly attacks her raw skin in a rush of icy needles, jarringly cold with its bite. Shauna gasps, digging her nails deeper into the back of Lottie’s hand. But then, slowly, the cold seeps deeper, smothering the fire. Water slides down her calves, then her ankles, then finally, her feet. The relief is sweet, but fleeting. 

Too soon, it’s over with. 

Misty sets the empty bottle aside and wraps her legs in fresh rags, loose enough to allow some breathing room, but tight enough to protect her from the dirt and grime. When she finishes, she looks over her work one more time, before scampering off to check on Coach Scott again. 

Shauna sniffles and wipes her tears away with a grimy fist. 

“All done,” Lottie murmurs. “You did it.”

Did what? Endured? Suffered? That brings her no comfort. Twelve hours from now, she’ll have to do it all over again.

It takes a long time for the pain to subside back into the dull ache it’d been at the start of the day. A few hours at least. 

By the time her world has regained its edges, the others have scattered—Nat marches off with a small crew of the junior girls to search again for missing bags, Taissa and Flex continue to organize all of the plane debris into small piles, and Javi hovers nearby, stuck to Van’s side. Van has a hand on his shoulder, and they talk quietly together as they watch. 

Lottie and Laura Lee disappear into the trees to use the bathroom. Ten minutes later, they return, and take a seat underneath a tall tree, away from everyone else, whispering with their heads bent together. 

Shauna doesn’t normally watch the other girls so closely. Usually, her eyes were stuck on Jackie, always lingering where it hurts the most. But these are special circumstances, and she’s bored and unmoored. For an hour, she busies herself with this, people-watching, but even that gets old. When she can’t stand it a second longer, she turns away and fumbles for her backpack.

The leather journal is cool on her palms. The weight of it feels good. She flips it over, feeling something like joy. 

It’s new, mostly empty, other than the two entries she’d scribbled down when they were in Seattle. Her eyes run down the length of the cover. It’s nondescript, something generic she’d bought back at home, two days before boarding their flight.

Jackie and Shauna were set to share a room at the hotel, so Shauna had thought it prudent to not bring her usual journal, considering she’d written all about her moments with Jeff, as well as every angry and bitter feeling that led her to such a place—and of late, there were many. 

The last thing she wanted was for Jackie to somehow find it in Shauna’s bag while trying to borrow a pair of shorts, or something.

The pages were filled with her betrayal, bitterness, and resentment. She’d written it all—vicious, spiteful words, and terrible deeds she still doesn’t fully understand—scrawled in frantic handwriting. How she’d kissed Jeff first, because she could, because he wanted her, and because he and Jackie were broken up, even though she knew full well that Jackie was going to get back together with him before the weekend ended.

She’d waxed poetic about the chap of Jeff’s lips, the fumble of his hands, and spent a paragraph describing the stupid, wet groan from his throat he’d made when he pushed himself inside of her, and then wrote two more detailing the ugly scrunch of his face as he made a mess on her stomach. 

(“I’ve never seen him look more like an idiot. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what Jackie sees in him. He couldn’t even make me come. I had to do it all myself, and of course, he was absolutely no help. Though, he was more than happy to watch…”) 

So, rather than pack that ticking time bomb away, she shoved the journal into a box at the back of her closet, and drove herself to Office Max to buy herself a new one. 

She sets it down in her leg, open to a fresh page, and then shoves her arm into the backpack, rummaging through granola wrappers and hair ties until her fingers brush the stiff line of a pen. 

“Thank god,” she mutters. If nothing else, the last few days had, at least, given her plenty of material to work with. 

But where to begin? 

Her fingers press against the push of the pen. The familiar clicking comforts her. Jackie’s face flashes in her mind, bringing with a concoction of love, resentment, and intense desperation. After falling out of the plane and managing to survive, these feelings are all the more vivid. 

Biting her lip, Shauna presses down, and begins to scrawl:

Jackie, 

I’ve never actually done this before—write to you, directly. It’s weird, but a lot has happened, and I’m sitting in literal dirt, so screw it. You’re not here, obviously. I keep trying to imagine you next to me, in the mud, and the fire.  

Our plane crashed. Like, actually crashed. Not metaphorically. Not like that time you said your life was “literally over” because you were two hours past curfew. We actually fell. 

We haven’t been rescued yet, but I figured it can’t hurt to write everything down while we wait. It will help me remember once I’m back home. I know you’re going to want to know every detail, but that’s because you don’t understand yet. This is a very sad story.

Allie is dead. 

A metal pole went flying at her during the crash and impaled her to her seat. From what we can tell, she didn’t suffer, so… silver lining? I still haven’t decided. 

Let’s see… What else?

Coach Scott lost a leg, but that’s not even the craziest part about it. You’ll probably think I’m lying, but I swear this is the truth: Misty cut off his leg. Misty. Can you believe it? She used an emergency axe from the plane. (Did you know they kept axes on planes? Because I didn’t. Guess it makes sense, though.) 

It was insane, but it saved his life. 

Here’s another joke for you: I’m burned. 

The plane caught on fire after the crash. Van was stuck in her seat, so I went to help her, but in the middle of pulling her free, there was an explosion. Like, full on action-movie style. I went down, and then it got me. I was actually on fire. Or, my legs were. If it weren’t for Van, I think I would have died like that. I guess that makes us even, her and I. 

It doesn’t seem real as I write it down, but I promise it really happened. I’ve got the burns to prove it. I wonder how they’ll look after they scar.

Being on fire is nothing like the movies. It’s so much worse. It’s the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me. 

I should stop. You’re probably upset enough, reading all of this. But that only matters if I ever actually planned to show you this. And trust me, I don’t. 

I’ve been worried that Jeff is going to use this as an opportunity to tell you what we did. I don’t want you to ever find out, but if it has to come from anyone, I want it to be from me. Not him. I’ve been wondering if I would confess to you, if you were here too. I don’t know. Maybe? Probably not. 

The thing is, Jax… I don’t even like him. I fucked him, but I couldn’t care less about him, or his feelings. Does that make me a monster? A villain? He wanted me, and when he looked at me—not you!—it felt good. So I took him from you. I took him for myself, and that felt good too. 

We’re supposed to share everything, aren’t we? Why not Jeff? 

Shauna ends the letter to Jackie abruptly and slashes a line beneath the final sentence, marking the end of that bit, and the beginning of something new. 

The next entry that follows is more traditional, starting with a report of her injuries. She writes in ugly detail about the intensity of her oozing blisters and peeling skin. Then she writes about her mom, wondering: is she going out of her mind with worry? The thought carves a cavity in Shauna’s chest—deeper than grief, sharper than fear. Her mom must be terrified. And her father too. What about Jeff? 

And, because it always comes back to her in the end, Jackie? 

The pen slips from her fingers and nestles between the pages. She snaps the journal shut and shoves it back into her backpack. 

All the while, the twisting edge of Jackie’s splintered elbow flashes like neon in her mind, backdropped by the cutting memory of her scream.

The sun sinks below the treetops, dragging the light with it. Their first day, done. Shauna counts the hours not in minutes, but in the slow pivot of shadows moving across the clearing, watching the others move around and watching the little she can see of the clouds. 

Van and Mari partition out their meager dinner—pretzels and peanuts—as Taissa approaches, with Flex trailing behind her. They’re both hauling something shapeless. Seat cushions bound with duct tape, Shauna realizes. A crude, makeshift mattress. 

“To keep your legs and feet out of the dirt,” Taissa explains. They help lift her onto it. The cushion is soft against her hips, and the ground’s damp chill retreats. “The other one is for Coach Scott.” 

Travis is the one responsible for bringing Coach over. It’s more difficult than expected. He comes with Laura Lee, Misty, and Van in a procession of grunts and hissed instructions. Luckily, they manage it without causing a new medical emergency. 

It’s the first time Shauna’s had a chance to see his missing leg. She stares. 

She can’t not stare at the shiny, mottled flesh. Cut her some slack—she’s never seen an amputated limb before, other than in movies and a few blurry photos in the newspapers. Her nose wrinkles. 

Better burns than that, she thinks, because if she had to pick between the two, she picks herself every time. At least her legs will heal one day. 

Coach Jaw clenches as they set him down. He breathes slowly through his teeth, wincing. Watching him makes Shauna’s heart arch. None of this is right. None of this is fair. 

Misty arrives to fret over them soon after, but Shauna quickly tunes her out. Nat isn’t here to distract Misty, and so she has to put most of her effort into keeping her shit together.

She has a close call. 

Misty tugs on her bandage just a little too hard, and a white-hot wire yanks through her flesh. Shauna’s hand twitches, fingers already curling into a fist. I’m going to hit her, Shauna thinks with a dangerous, giddy clarity. Misty babbles apologies, but they may as well be static for all she listens. 

But then Coach Scott coughs: a wet, rattling sound that hijacks the moment. Misty pivots like a hound that catches the scent, and Shauna sags against her cushions, her fury dissolving into the air.

His eyes meet hers. A nod—small and weary. Shauna holds it, this thread of solidarity between them, and vows to return the favor. 

Coach certainly gets the worst of Misty’s buzzing, that’s for sure. Every time she suggests something that would be deranged in any other context, he looks over and catches her gaze. They don’t quite laugh, but it’s something like amusement. As close to it as either of them can muster. 

When they aren’t making fun of Misty, they sit side-by-side on their mattresses, silent, not needing to speak. It helps the hurt, but not much. Shauna’s pretty sure it’s the same for him too.

After dinner, everyone huddles around the fire, watching as Natalie tries to coax it back to life. She bends low and blows softly against her lighter’s flame until it finally catches against the collection of needles, sticks, and dried leaves. 

It starts to burn, smoldering under the heavier logs, providing light to their circle. 

Shauna finishes her food quickly and leans back into Lottie’s lap, licking the crumbs still sticking to her palm. The frenzy of the night before has dulled into a numb inertia, no more adrenaline to go around. No one is happy that an entire day has gone by without rescue. Twenty four hours. No sirens, no choppers. Just them. 

Wearily, Shauna closes her eyes. What’s taking so long?

She isn’t the only one exhausted. All of them are, but no one seems ready to sleep yet. Van picks up on that, and—ever the entertainer—offers to explain the plot of the movie Twister, which had come out just days before their Nationals trip. Javi, still plastered to her side, watches her talk with a quiet interest. Taissa is on her other side, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. 

“Okay, so get this,” says Van, after clapping her hands to call them all to attention. She clears her throat with a theatrical flair and looks over all their faces. “There’s this crazy storm-chasing couple, a man and a woman, and they’re, like, the It Couple of meteorology, just running around after wild storms together. Only, they’re about to get a divorce. I know—it’s the classic rom-com setup, but trust me, folks, this story comes with a twist.” 

A beat. 

Van grins, leaning forward. “Or should I say a twister? Get it?” 

A chorus of heckles and groans erupts. Mari chucks a pinecone across the fire, but Van dodges it, laughing. “That was cheap, I know, but I had to do it. Anyway, Bill—the man—brings along his new fiance, Jill, to convince Jo—the original woman—to sign the divorce papers, which… not the smartest move, Bill. Anyway, he says to her…” 

Mari jabs a stick into the fire, sending sparks fleeing upwards. “I don’t understand why you’re all angry about Bill and Jo getting their happily ever-after.” 

“Because they’re terrible for each other, dude.” Natalie shakes her head. “Classic Hollywood.” 

“Preach,” says Van. 

“It’s called passion,” Mari retorts, rolling her eyes. 

Van scoffs. “What do you know about passion?” 

Before anyone has a chance to continue arguing, Rachel speaks. Her voice is soft, fractured, barely audible over the crackle of the fire, but still shuts down the others. 

“You know,’’ she murmurs, finally speaking for the first time since the crash. “I was actually planning on seeing Twister in Seattle. With—with Allie.” Her words hang there. “We never found the time, because we ended up winning every game, but… we probably would’ve gone to see it back home if we never crashed.”

Silence. The fire hisses. Each of them settles under a cloud of something sad and somber. Van’s hand drifts toward Rachel, tentative, as she gently says, “I think she would’ve really liked the movie. We, uh… used to talk about them sometimes after practice. You wouldn’t think it looking at her, but… she really knew her stuff.”

“Her big brother is, like, a major cinema freak. And she’s—she was… really close to him,” Rachel accepts Van’s offered hand and sniffles loudly. “No one ever really knew that about her.”

“I didn’t know that,” Van says. “You know, one time, she told me she’d seen every single Jackie Chan movie at least twice? But for most of them, she said it was three times.” 

Rachel laughs a pitiful sound. It’s filled with tears that burst out between a nasally sob. “Yeah. That sounds like Allie. I—I can’t believe she’s just… dead.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “I hope that—that… that it was quick, at least. That she didn’t—that it happened fast.” 

Natalie leans forward over Van’s arm to look Rachel in the eye. “She didn’t suffer. I was sitting in the row behind her. She… it—it was fast. I don’t think she ever knew what was happening.” 

Rachel lets go of Van’s hand and folds inward, locking her arms around her knees. Her tears fall soundlessly. She doesn’t say anything else after that.

“I think,” says Taissa. The others all look in her direction. “I think we’re going to need to bury them, Allie and the others. Soon.” 

“I agree,” says Laura Lee firmly. “We shouldn’t leave them out like this for much longer. It isn’t right. Everyone deserves a funeral.” 

“But… like, won’t they just… dig them up?” Melissa looks around nervously, her angled features highlighted and sharp against the orange glow of the fire. “You know… when they come to rescue us?”

Mari nods. “That’s a good point.” 

“We don’t know how long that’s going to take,” Taissa points out. 

Melissa wilts, shrinking back into Gen’s side. 

Mari pokes at the fire again, a touch of desperation in her voice. “But it can’t be much longer, right?” 

“I hope not, but… they should’ve found us by now.” Taissa wrinkles her nose. The admission lands like a stone in still water, rippling out in waves of unease. “I know nobody wants to consider it, but there’s a nonzero possibility that it might be longer than a few days. We should… I don’t fucking know—make an actual plan for it?” 

Taissa is right, but no one wants to consider it. The small mention of it makes the circle shift uncomfortably. They all look away, avoiding her eyes. All except for Natalie, who smirks at her from across the circle. 

“Wow, Tai, you’re really taking your position as the new Jackie very seriously. Good for you.” 

Tension grows thick in the air, making the atmosphere even more halting and awkward than it already was. Taissa narrows her eyes, preparing to snap back, but before she gets the opportunity, Van jumps in to try and diffuse the situation.

“I, for one, welcome our new overlord. I stand with you, Taissa. You’ll make a fantastic new Jackie. Keep up the good work.” 

This is met with a small round of giggles, but Taissa isn’t amused. She straightens her spine, gaze sharpening. “Stop playing around. I’m not kidding.”

Van says nothing, raising no argument against Taissa. 

The mentions of Jackie have a few faces glancing in Shauna’s direction. She can feel their curious eyes poking at her, waiting to see if she’ll give a reaction. She lets her eyelids flutter shut and shuffles around to get more comfortable, head still resting in Lottie’s lap. Let them stare. They can look all they want, but she doesn’t have to watch them do it. She doesn’t have to feed them with her feelings.

“This is fucking serious, you guys,” Taissa continues. Her voice rises up to join the high branches, impassioned. “We need to treat it that way. People are fucking dead, and I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” 

“She’s right,” says Coach Scott, exhausted, but still trying to act like their teacher. “Take it from me and Shauna… we don’t want any more injuries. So… let’s not forget how dangerous this situation is.” 

“And we’re burying those bodies. Soon. In two days, if we aren’t rescued before then.” Taissa’s decree is clipped, woven with a tired determination. She puts her hands on her hips. “It’s the right thing to do. If—if it turns out that we’re rescued, and we buried them for no reason, so be it. Allie was our teammate, and we are not going to leave her stuck to her seat like that.”

“I can help,” says Nat, staring at the ground. 

Rachel follows suit a second later. “So will I.” 

“Great.” Taissa surveys them all, a challenging look in her eyes, almost like she’s daring them to oppose her. “Does anyone have a problem with that?”

And… as you might expect, none of them do. They all shake their heads, and agree. 

Ten minutes pass. By then, their conversation has returned, once again, to Jackie. 

“What do you guys think she would be doing if she were here?” Gen asks, voice hushed as though she’s whispering something secret. 

Shauna’s eyes snap open. I’ve been wondering the same thing. It’s been a constant thought since everything started, since her legs were on fire, flames burning her calves to cinders. 

“Probably the exact same shit we’re doing right now,” scoffs Natalie in a deadpan voice. She rolls her eyes. “She’s not a fucking superhero.”

Shauna finds herself silently agreeing with that. 

Theoretically, she can imagine Jackie here, trying to take charge of the group and come up with plans and ideas to keep them busy and optimistic until rescue arrives. She was good at stitching hope from thin air. But even being generous, Shauna knows that’s a stretch. Jackie hates the rugged outdoors, the scrape of branches, the stink of being unwashed. She always has. She had quit Girl Scouts after a single year, claiming she had no intentions of ever being away from civilization, so there wasn’t any point. 

If she were here, she would need help. Shauna would’ve borne it—would protect Jackie, look out for her. What a strange departure from their regular dynamic it would be. But… then again, with her legs a smoldering ruin, that would probably be impossible. Someone else would have to watch over Jackie. 

For the millionth time, her stomach flips with sheer gratitude over Jackie’s absence. Better this scorched solitude than watching Jackie crack like a porcelain cup. 

The worst case scenario floats through her thoughts. Jackie despairing, Jackie wounded, and worst of all, Jackie dying, Jackie dead. 

“How about you, Shauna?” Mari prods, interrupting her train of morbid thought. “How do you think she’d be handling everything?”

She shuts her eyes again. Shakes her head. “No.” The word is a stone in her mouth. “I don’t want to talk about Jackie.” 

Mari huffs. “God, you’re boring.” 

Shauna shrugs, not caring in the least. Let Mari seethe. It wasn’t her job to keep her entertained.

“I kinda wish she was here right now,” murmurs Crystal, all sad and wistful. “She’s just so good at making everyone happy. I think we could use that.” 

Shauna’s eyes flare open again, locking onto Crystal with a sudden rage. Happy? Her throat tightens. “Why would you wish that?” She snaps, blades in her voice. “Like… what? Are you fucked in the head? This is fucking life or death, and you would wish it on Jackie, because she’s… what? Bubbly? That’s actually insane.” 

Crystal recoils, panic immediately flooding her voice. “Wait, no—I didn’t mean… I only meant that she’s—you know—a really nice person. I don’t want—I would never, I swear—” 

“It’s alright,” Lottie cuts in, low and soothing, voice dipped in cool honey. “We understood what you meant. Shauna’s in pain right now. Let it go.” 

Then she looks down at her lap to lock eyes with Shauna. Lottie doesn’t seem irritated, only passive, which makes Shauna flush with annoyance, feeling as though she’s being treated like a whining child needing to be hushed. 

Van jumps in again with a second attempt at calming the situation, clearly worried that Shauna would open her mouth again—which, she wasn’t going to, by the way. 

“Uh, I just want to say… I take offense to the entire premise that we need someone else around to keep people happy. Like, hello, excuse me. What am I, chopped liver? Didn’t I just spend the last thirty minutes entertaining you with a comedic description of the movie Twister?” Van scoffs, as though she’s aghast over their betrayal. “If you didn’t like the way I explained the movie, Crystal, you could have just said so. We don’t need to deify Jackie Taylor. That’s taking things a bit too far for my tastes.” 

This time, the deflection works. 

Laughter rises through the circle, uneven, but alive. Shauna watches it ripple from person-to-person until her eyes land on Taissa. She has a sweet smile on her face, lips quirked as she watches Van, who hasn’t noticed yet. 

“What? No!” Crystal protests. “Van, you know I love the way you explain movies. You have a Shakespearean gravitas!” 

“Yeah, yeah, she’s pretty good,” says Taissa dryly, still smiling. “But everyone, please shut up about it. Her ego will become insufferable.” 

“Too late.” Van grins. “The damage is done.”

Javi leans over to tentatively tap his finger against Van’s shoulder. “Do you think you could do one more?” 

Van straightens, grinning even wider. “For you? Of course. Is everyone else okay with that?” She looks around, but when no one protests, she turns back to Javi. “You got a particular movie in mind?” 

“Have you seen The Sandlot?” He asks, glancing briefly at Travis, who is ignoring him in favor of watching the fire. 

“Is that the baseball one with the little boys?” Natalie asks. 

“Yep,” says Van. “And yeah, I’ve seen it. We can do that one.” She leans back on the palm of her heels. “Alright, so this movie starts with a full-on 60s’ suburban nostalgia reel. Like—the whole nine yards. Do you guys know what I’m talking about?” 

“Like… kids on bikes, fresh cut grass?” Melissa asks. 

“Where everything is sooo great and nobody is racist?” Mari says to a fresh round of laughter. “Oh, and apple pie on the windowsill.” 

“Exactly!” Van nods. “You guys get it. So, the movie starts, and we meet our man—Scotty Smalls. He’s the new kid on the block, and he doesn’t know the first thing about playing baseball. Which, that’s not good, since the entire movie is all about baseball…” 

Sometime later, Shauna dozes off into a fitful sleep, lured into unconsciousness while listening to Van explain to Gen that ruining a baseball that had Babe Ruth’s signature is, in fact, a very terrible thing.

Shauna wakes up to find that she’s lying on her back. 

Her body feels healthy and restored, as though she’s just had a full night’s rest on a very comfortable bed. Like her legs aren’t burned useless. There’s no sear, no puckered flesh. She shifts around. The grass is cool, tickling her calves. But it doesn’t feel like real grass. There’s a plastic quality to it. Turf? Confused, she opens her eyes and blinks around. 

Above her is a goalie’s net, wide and white. Sunlight seaves through, casting her skin in a pattern of geometric shadows. She’s lying directly under it, in the middle, facing the clouds the way she’s seen Van do a million times over during slow moments in practice. 

She sits up and looks herself over. 

Not only is she healed, but she’s also in a new outfit. Her uniform. It’s as crisp as the day she first wore it. 

Panic pricks at Shauna’s throat. Had she forgotten to set the clock back at the hotel? Is she running late for a game? 

Swallowing the fear beginning to pool in her throat, Shauna takes a harder look at her surroundings. The soccer pitch is pristine and perfect. It’s almost identical to how it looked in Seattle, only, instead of ending, it stretches on forever. It’s as though the distance between the two goals is endless, eternal, infinite. 

Then, suddenly, it is so bright. The sun swells in the sky, bleaching the world around her in sudden white. It forces her to squint. 

The goal post looming over her begins to start sweating. It’s such an odd thing to happen to a piece of plastic. Impossible, even. Shauna stares, unable to look away. Something about it is wrong. She shuffles up onto her knees and scoots closer. 

A glob of white moisture runs down the crossbar. It’s fat and slow, almost like paint. 

She knows she shouldn’t, but Shauna reaches out anyway and touches it. 

Cold. Clammy. It’s wet, thick like mucus. Cringing, she looks down, and gasps when she finds that her finger has been stained the deepest of reds. The strange substance clings to her finger, disappearing under her skin, and blooming there, spreading a crimson that creeps down her finger to pool at the base of her knuckle. She tries to fling it away, but her hand remains frozen, suspended in the honeyed light. 

The red stain pulses, almost alive, and she can’t look away. 

Saliva pools in her mouth, and though she doesn’t understand what brings her to do this, Shauna finds herself tilting her head and bringing her finger up to her mouth. Her tongue flicks out from between her lips, curious, so curious, when she suddenly hears with blinding clarity: 

“Shauna!” 

Jackie? Shauna freezes. 

Recognition floods her brain, and she forgets all about the red stain, and the white sweat. She spins around blinding, searching, whirling. Distantly, in the exact center of the field, Shauna sees something. It’s a figure—shrouded in gold under the too-bright, heavy beaming sunlight—seated on the green, manicured turf. 

What is this? 

Where am I?

The sky dims, bruising into a deep purple. Shauna feels deeply unsafe, like she’s not supposed to be here. But then the grass shifts under her feet, and she’s flying. It surges her forward down the field, and she doesn’t even have to take a step, because it’s all one big conveyer belt. Wind screams in her ears. She gets closer, close enough to realize that the figure surrounded is yes, yes, yes, it’s Jackie. 

And then Shauna isn’t scared anymore. 

Remembering that she’s not injured anymore, she takes off in a sprint. Her legs—whole, fierce, and alive—pound the turf, and Shauna smiles at the sweet burn in her muscles. She moves faster than ever before.

Finally, Shauna skids to a stop. 

Jackie is waiting for her in terribly, gory glory. 

She sits cross-legged, serene as a saint, looking exactly as she had on the field after her injury. Bone juts from her forearm, which is bent in the wrong direction. Her face is bleeding, bruised, and swollen. Dirt clings to her knees, and grass strains smear her shins. Yet, instead of wailing the way she does in Shauna’s memories, Jackie is calm. She’s smiling, it’s beatific, as though this were a regular picnic. 

“It’s alright,” Jackie murmurs, tilting her shattered face. “It doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it looks.” 

“Jackie—I—I don’t understand. Where are we? Are we in Seattle?” Her voice is fractured. 

“Sit down with me, Shipman,” is all Jackie says. Using her good arm, she pats the spot next to her and gives Shauna a pointed look. 

Shauna kneels, lowering herself, scooting close enough for their knees to touch. Had she died in her sleep or something? What is this? 

They face each other. Jackie’s eyes are bright with some kind of knowing. “Do you remember when we used to sit like this?” 

“Yes,” Shauna whispers. Intense nostalgia wages war in the bloody chambers of her heart. They used to do this ten years ago, back in their peewee days, when practice only involved showing up. They would finish their drills and sit just like this, criss-cross applesauce, knee-to-knee, smile-to-smile, passing a Capri Sun back and forth, unbothered by their sticky fingers. “We’ll never be those girls again, will we?” 

“No,” Jackie says, looking suddenly sad. “We won’t.”

Shauna trails her eyes over Jackie’s mangled arm, up to the dirt and dried tears mixing with the blood still running from under her eye. She’s smiling again. It’s horrific, like a monster in a horror story. But Shauna is helpless to do anything except to smile back. 

“Are you sure your arm doesn’t hurt?” She asks, voice hushed. 

Jackie ignores the question. She leans in, eyes bleeding with affection, until their foreheads were touching. “Do you miss me?” 

Her breath blows warm over Shauna’s face. The rasp of Jackie’s voice makes her chest rattle. Leaning in, Shauna takes a slow breath and smells something metallic—blood, Jackie’s blood—and is overcome by her terrible beauty. 

“I do.” Shauna nods, never blinking. “But—but it’s okay. You aren’t here. You’re safe.” 

Quickly, Jackie rears back and pitches forward to sit on her knees. Resting on her haunches, she stares, with her broken arm dangling uselessly at her side. Cold rushes in at her withdrawal. Shauna feels hollow. Sensing her distress, Jackie scoots close again and reaches out to touch Shauna’s knee. 

“I miss you, you know. So much.” She leans in again. “I think you’re dead. I won’t admit it to myself, but I think it. I don’t know how I’ll survive without you, Shipman.”

“But… I’m not dead,” Shauna insists, confused. “I’m right here with you. Unless… are we both dead?”

She glances around at the field, considering the possibility. It’s certainly not the worst afterlife she can imagine. 

 “No, we’re both alive.” 

Shauna frowns. “But… is any of this real? Are we?” 

“You’re real,” says Jackie, giggling softly. She traces a lazy circle on Shauna’s knee. “I’m not sure about me. I’m probably not, which is why my arm doesn’t hurt.” 

Shauna stares again, fascinated and disgusted by the viscera, all at once. It’s Jackie, unmade, and she can’t look away. It’s her skeleton, her bones, the insides of Jackie that she’s never been able to see before. 

“I don’t understand,” Shauna whispers.

Jackie curls her nails into Shauna’s knee. It’s a sweet sort of sharp, and small beads of blood begin to spring up. Shauna doesn’t flinch, and makes no effort to move away. 

“Shauna,” Jackie chides. “You’re staring.” 

Shauna jolts, suddenly guilty, and entirely ashamed. “I’m sorry—”

“Shh, hey, it’s okay.” Jackie presses a forceful finger against Shauna’s lips, shutting her up. “It’s alright. You can stare if you want to. I like it.” 

Heat pools in Shauna’s belly. It flips. Her head swims, and she feels something treacherous pulsing from deep between her thighs. She nods, and presses a kiss to the tip of Jackie’s finger, soft as a ghost. 

Jackie retracts her hand, smiling triumphantly. She looks up at the sky, as though she’s considering what to say next. Then, with a snap of her fingers, she points directly at Shauna. “Oh, wait… I know exactly what you want.” 

“You do?” Shauna asks, breath itching. At least someone does. 

“Mhm.” Jackie hums. She smirks, smug and teasing, but not malicious. Playful, perhaps? “You, Shauna… you want to touch.” 

She blinks, pretending she has no idea what Jackie means. Because, in truth… she’s thinking: yes, yes, yes. 

“W-what?” 

Reaching around her body, Jackie grabs her broken elbow and twists it back, cradling her arm. She arranges the mangled limb in her lap, humming quietly. It’s a fucking horrific sight, straight from a scary movie. It’s incorrect angles and fleshy insides on display. Jackie grins, presenting it to her as a gift, the way a boy might with a corsage before prom. 

“It’s okay that you want to,” Jackie informs her. “I want you to want it.” 

“I, but—what do you… really? You do?” Shauna’s throat tightens. She gazes at Jackie’s beautiful, bleeding face. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Remember? I can’t feel the pain.” Jackie takes Shauna by the hand and gives her a look so loving, she feels it like a palm pressing against her heart. “Go on. I know you, Shipman. I know you want to, so do it. Take what you need.” 

“But—what if—” 

“Stop worrying . It’s me. Jax. Anyway, since when do you care about hurting me?” Jackie runs a thumb over the back of her hand, stroking gently. She laughs, as though she’s amused with Shauna’s intentional obtuseness. “You’re allowed to take. Besides, I thought you already knew that. You do know that, right?” 

Shauna freezes, looking up from their hands. She stares into Jackie’s eyes and sees her own reflection glinting back between the hazel and black. She sees her own skirt hiked up to her thighs, sees her teeth biting into Jeff’s neck, and her hips grinding forward and down, searching, searching for something greater than herself, searching for something she knows she’ll never find here in his lap. 

“Okay,” Shauna gasps, choking. 

She reaches out to touch—to take—and sees her red finger again. Then she remembers the goal, and the white sweat, and the blooming crimson. 

She touches. 

The surface of Jackie’s bone isn’t smooth, not like the plastic material of the goalie’s pen. It’s bumpy, pitted and gritty in a way that takes Shauna off guard. 

And just like before, the touching is a stain. 

Dark, swelling red collects at the tips of her other four fingers. It begins to drain down her hands, becoming a scarlet, bloody glove. She stares, watching the rivulets drip down her wrists, feeling something like rapture inside of her as she touches Jackie’s bone again. This time, the stain spreads. It jumps from her finger to Jackie’s elbow, painting her skeleton with red smoke. It’s a vivid, terrible color. It’s perfect. 

“That feels good,” Jackie sighs, tipping her head back, as though she were being caressed. 

Shauna presses harder. 

Her hands will be stained with this moment for the rest of her life, of this Shauna is sure. But even if it’s a mark she’ll wear forever, she finds that she doesn’t care. Let it seep into her marrow. Let it crust beneath her nails. She smiles. There’s no need to worry or panic, not here in their own special Eden. Why should she worry about stains? 

It’s never going to come out anyway.

Shauna wakes up in the middle of the night, gasping.

Chapter Text

Natalie. May 24th, 1996. The Wilderness.

It’s been two days since they buried their dead, but the dirt under Natalie’s fingernails still smells of rot. 

When Taissa stood before the group and asked for volunteers to collect the bodies, she was met with a silence as thick as the forest surrounding them. Natalie watched all of their faces blanch, her own included. 

The prospect of touching a lifeless corpse—Allie’s corpse, at that, the body of a girl she used to know—makes her stomach spin and churn. But someone has to do it. Someone always has to do it. And even though she doesn’t want to at all, Natalie grits her teeth and thrusts her arm into the air. 

Tai’s eyebrow rose, but she doesn’t seem all that surprised to see Natalie volunteering. Nat wonders what that says about her, and what the team thinks of her. She’s the only one here with experience seeing a dead body, but that doesn’t mean much. She’s as unprepared as the others. The mere idea makes her palms go sweaty. 

Even days after the burial, she still thinks of it with a remnant disgust. 

(At least her death isn’t your fault, baby girl. Keep your chin up. You’re taking one for the team!)

Rachel is the next to volunteer, one moment after Nat. “Allie was my friend,” she says, sniffling, eyes glazed with a hollow kind of grief. “I want to help.” 

It’s such a simple choice—choosing a seat. Mundane, so very casual. Yet, in the case of Natalie and Allie, it proved to be the difference between life and death. Allie was one seat ahead, and one seat over. Any small difference, and she could be alive. Or, conversely, Nat could be dead. There’s no sense or reason to it. It’s hard to wrap her head around. 

Disentangling Allie from her seat is the most challenging part of the entire ordeal. 

Her corpse resists. Rigor mortis has fused her to the chair. Relax, Nat wants to tell her as she pries Allie’s fingers away from the seat-rest. Y ou’re dead. You can let go now. 

It takes the combined strength of her and Rachel to pull the metal beam from her throat. It’s the most gruesome sight Natalie’s ever seen, and she’s including the time her dad splattered his brains all over the porch. 

Rachel is the first to vomit, and Natalie quickly follows. 

Allie’s remains had endured days of exposure and the decomposition had already started to take its toll. There was a pervasive stench surrounding her, almost worse than the morbid sight itself. It was that skin-crawling sort of rot—replete with decay, something sharply sour, and sickly-sweet. Her once unblemished skin was now pallid and gray, robbed of its vitality, devoid of any living warmth. 

It takes ten minutes to free her. 

As they drag her body into the aisle, Natalie finds herself wondering: did her father’s hands look like this, stiff and unyielding? Had his fingers locked in a death grip around the barrel of the gun he used to kill himself?

(Don’t you remember, sweetheart? I dropped it. Come on now, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already? It wasn’t even that long ago.)

Later that evening, they put on their best imitation of a funeral. 

The graves are shallow, five raw mouths gaping where the earth had been split. Taissa and Travis spent hours digging them, and now everyone stands in a circle around them, hands clasped, while they listen to Rachel say a few words on Allie’s behalf. 

“It was really intimidating to be the new kids on varsity,” she says, anxiously fiddling with one of the rings on her middle finger. “We were the outsiders, so we ended up stuck together for most of our practice drills. That’s how our friendship started.”

After the tribute, Laura Lee urges them all to bow their heads in prayer. Natalie believes in God in a vague, I-was-raised-to sort of way, and it’s been a long time since she prayed. But, all the same, she does it, and maybe she even believes it, if only for a minute. 

“The Lord is my salvation…” 

As far as makeshift, stuck-in-the-woods funerals go, it’s decent. It doesn’t lift their spirits, but they all know it needed to happen. 

Lottie, in particular, withdraws into herself afterwards. It’s not entirely a surprise. She’d been speaking less and less, except for a few rare moments. Nat tries asking her what’s the matter, aside from the plane crash of it all, but she only insists that she’s just stressed, same as everyone else. So Nat bites her tongue, and prays for Lottie too. 

It’s a perfectly valid answer, but Natalie doesn’t believe her, and she can’t explain why. Serpentine tendrils of worry weave and wind their way up and through her body, but she does her best to try and ignore them. 

It’s as though all she’s done is watch the team fester in their fear. It’s been exhausting. 

Natalie is tired. 

She’s tired, she’s worried, and she just wants to go home, because even her sad trailer park life is better than being stuck out here, with death hiding around every corner, lurking beneath the shallow mounds of the deceased. A sad row of five. Her life might be shitty, and her mom may be a sharp-tongued, bitter bitch, but Natalie misses her in spite of their recent and frequent fights. They were happening more and more these days, but she chalks it up to the loss of her dad. Everything went to shit after he died. 

But then she remembers everything was shit before that too, so what does she know?

She finds herself missing things she’d sworn she hated. Kevyn’s dumb cologne, Rich’s shitty mixtapes, Mrs. Clay—her history teacher, and one of the rare individuals outside of the team that ever gave a damn about her. Hell, she even misses Coach Martinez, or, at the very least, she misses the steady routine that came with him. 

And though she has zero intentions of ever saying so out loud… Natalie also finds herself missing Jackie Taylor and her predictable brand of optimism. But only a little. 

It seems that being forced to face her own mortality in the face of likely death in a vast, untamed wilderness made her unexpectedly sentimental. 

It’s a shitty situation all around, and everything fucking sucks.

“We’re down to a week’s worth of food, if that,” says Van, two full days later. There’s a palpable anxiety on her face as she and Mari move around the campfire to distribute their meager breakfast. 

A chorus of worried whispers rise from the group, punctuated with hushed questions, such as “What are we going to do when we run out?” and, for the thousandth time, “Why haven’t they found us?” 

No one has an answer to either. The collective worry becomes so great that Natalie refrains from talking, instead retreating into the confines of her own thoughts. 

She hasn’t succumbed to despair—far from it, actually. An unyielding resolve to escape has taken root within her. There’s no point in dwelling on their bleak odds. All it will do is make everything seem futile. Yes, the specter of thirst, starvation, or a fucking animal attack continues to loom over them. Sure, death became more of a possibility with every passing hour. But whining about it wasn’t going to help any of them.

Or maybe she’s being naive.

She’s never been in the business of getting her hopes up. If life has taught her anything, it’s that beneath its superficial sheen, hope is merely uncharted disappointment. 

Optimism is a con, but fatalism is worse. So, nevertheless, Nat tries to keep her hope alive. And she’ll keep trying every morning they wake up in the damned forest, no matter the terror coursing through her veins. Her survival demands it. 

So, when Mari decides to go all doom-and-gloom by asking, “We’re all going to die out here, aren’t we?” Natalie can’t remain silent anymore. 

“Dude,” she interjects, swiveling around to slap Mari with a look of disdain. “Nobody wants to hear that shit right now. Knock it off.”

“I’m just saying—we might,” Mari protests. Her face puckers, contorting into a frown, as though Natalie is the one being unreasonable. “I’m just trying to be realistic.” 

“Well, stop it, because it’s not helping anyone.” 

“Okay, and? So what?” Mari scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. She still has a half-empty bag of pretzels pinched between her fingers. “Just because nobody wants to hear it, doesn’t mean it’s not true.” 

“But it does make you an asshole,” Nat says. 

Mari’s nostrils flare. Good. Let her seethe. Nat hadn’t meant to say it so viciously, but after the last week, she’s tired of the constant negativity. 

“Wow, okay. Seriously? You’re such a—” Mari begins, but whatever she was about to insult Natalie with is cut in half, stopped by the stern slice of Taissa’s voice. 

“Cut it out, both of you.” 

Nat rolls her eyes, unimpressed. In this, she and Mari seem to be in agreement, mutually irritated with Taissa’s attempt to play the captain. They glance at each other, and share a brief, colluding glance before looking away again. 

“Whatever,” Nat grumbles, looking down at her own bag of pretzels. 

Mari opts for silence, scooping another handful up to her mouth. She crunches down hard, as though she were grinding bones, saying everything and nothing at all. 

“Listen, you guys.” Taissa rises up from her log. Her shadow stretches long and thin over the dirt. “Nobody else is going to die. Okay?” 

“How could you possibly know that?” Shauna suddenly asks.

Earlier that day, while they were in the middle of a bathroom excursion, Nat asked Shauna if she was in any pain. She did so every morning, without fail. So far, it didn’t look like her burns were healing. They were still covered in blisters, raw and red. According to Misty, the stagnation is normal for these sorts of burns. They would take a long time to get better.

“They’re probably going to look really gross for a while,” she’d said, looking down through her glasses at Shauna’s legs. “But they’re healing, I promise. It’s just hard to tell.”

But, honestly… What did Misty know? There was no amount of red-cross training that could prepare a person for injuries of this scale. She was as blind as the rest of them. The whole ‘team doctor’ schtick was probably her way of coping, though, and Natalie couldn’t blame her for that. 

Who was she to judge?

“Because,” says Tai, staring at Shauna, “I have a plan.”

Nat can almost hear the gears turning in her head, can see Taissa’s rising determination. 

Shauna scoffs, propping herself up onto her elbows. She winces only twice. “Oh, really? What’s this grand plan of yours?”

“I’m going to find drinkable water,” Tai declares, lifting her chin. “I’ll take a group to explore the area. We’ve barely looked around.” 

“Your big plan is to… form a fucking search party?” Shauna rolls her eyes. “You’re not fucking MacGuyver, Tai.” 

“Got any better ideas?” Tai retorts. “Because I’m more than happy to hear them.” 

Before Shauna has a chance to respond, Van awkwardly raises a hand, interrupting. “Uh, I’m with Shauna on this one. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for us to split up. What if something happens?” 

Taissa is considerably more patient when replying to Van, and Shauna notices that, if her irritated huff is any indication. Wearily, Taissa rubs at her forehead. “It’s not like this is something I want to do, but—come on, you guys, unless anyone else has another idea, I don’t see any other way.” 

“Yeah, but wandering off into the woods is insane,” says Van, glancing over at Shauna for support. 

But instead of reiterating her point, Shauna remains quiet. She gnaws on her bottom lip, gazing off thoughtfully at the trees. Then, a second later, she says, “Well, I don’t know… Taissa makes a good point.”

“Oh, come on,” says Van, frowning at the betrayal. 

“What? She’s right.” Shauna shrugs. “I don’t have a fucking clue about what we should do.” 

Taissa pounces on the opening. “We can’t keep sitting around and waiting for something that might never come. We need to find water, and we need to find it fast.” 

Laura Lee clasps her hands together. “I agree with Tai,” she declares. “We should be proactive.” 

Akilah glances between Taissa and Van, frowning. “We explored at least a mile out while we were looking for our bags, and we didn’t see any water.” 

“Then we’ll have to look even further,” Taissa says.

“What, like four miles?” Melissa asks. 

“At least.” Gen nods solemnly. “Probably closer to seven.” 

“Seven miles?” Melissa says, wrinkling her nose. “Yeah, that’s pretty far.” 

Van crosses her arms, still staring directly at Taissa. “It sounds dangerous.”

Clearly still vexed by Taissa’s earlier dismissal, Mari enthusiastically nods at Van, as though she wasn’t also emphasizing their imminent doom two minutes ago. “I agree.” 

Whatever. Natalie scoffs.

Taissa is quick to counter. “What’s the alternative, then? Sit here and die of thirst?” 

“I don’t know,” says Van slowly. Her eyebrows stitch together, two gnarled knots making a length of worried rope. “I just… I don’t like the idea of you—a group of you—wandering off into the woods.” 

“There’s no other option,” Taissa reminds her gently. 

“Yeah, I get that,” Van responds, going surly, “but I don’t have to like it.”

“I’ll go with you,” says Laura Lee, primly raising her hand again, as though this were merely a project at school, and not an actual life-or-death expedition. 

Travis, who has been silent until now, also raises his hands. “Count me in too.” 

This grabs Javi’s attention. His arm twitches upward, but before his elbow can even clear his ribcage, Travis harshly shuts him down. “No fucking way, dude.” 

“But I could—” 

Travis shakes his head. “You’re staying here.”

“It’s just walking. I can do it,” Javi protests. 

He looks over at Van with hopeful eyes, but she firmly shakes her head no. Then he looks over to Shauna, but again, he receives the same answer. Realizing he has no allies, Javi slumps his shoulders and goes quiet again. 

“So—” Taissa sweeps her gaze over the group, moving past Javi’s disappointment with ease. “Travis and Laura Lee are in. Are there any other volunteers?” 

Van takes a step forward and grips Taissa’s arm. “If you’re going, then so am I.” 

An odd expression flashes across Taissa’s face. Her eyes dart around without reason, before settling again on Van. “You should stay here. You’re still injured. We aren’t going to be gone long. We’ll be back before dark.” 

Van squints. “I don’t know.” 

“Please?” Taissa lowers her voice. “I would feel better knowing you were here resting.”

Pursing her lips, Van stares at her for a long minute. “You promise you won’t be gone long?” 

“As much as I possibly can promise anything.” Taissa offers her a smile that Natalie thinks is intended to be casual, but very much isn’t. 

“Alright.” Van relents. 

Taissa turns to face the others. “So, who’s coming with me? 

In the end, four people decide to leave with Taissa: Travis, Laura Lee, Akilah, and quite surprisingly, Mari. It earns her Natalie’s begrudging respect. Credit where it’s due. It is much easier to tolerate someone’s shit talk when they’re actually willing to back their bullshit up with action. 

Van stands rigid beside her, breath shallow as a sparrow. Together, they watch the group disappear into the trees. They stay there until they can’t see them anymore. 

They’re capable, she tells herself. All she can do is hope they’ll be okay, but the dread still pools among everyone left behind anyway, oily and hard to wash off. 

Javi and Van are the most visibly worried. Javi paces around, kicking rocks, while Van chews her thumbnail into a nub. 

Contrary to everyone else, Lottie seems unperturbed. She watches them leave with a calm detachment, which makes Nat wonder if she’s even paid any attention to what’s going on. Once they’re out of sight, Lottie turns away, drifting gracefully over to Shauna to settle on the ground beside her. 

Shipman seems to appreciate the company. She even goes so far as to scoot over, making room for Lottie to join her. They rest their heads together on the mattress, not speaking. 

Natalie watches them for a few seconds, until the prospect of being caught staring becomes too much, and she has to look away. Her skin prickles. Feeling like a voyeur, she walks away to find herself a tree to sit under. 

It’s far away from the others, and she collapses against it, resting her head against the bark. Then she sighs, exhausted down to her bones.\

The day oozes forward at a sluggish pace. The sun carves its path overhead. When it begins its westward descent, their absent teammates remain that way—absent. By dusk, there’s still no sign of Taissa and her crew. Their worry begins to grow. 

At the start, Nat wasn’t worried, but you can scratch that now. 

Van haunts the treeline, pacing restlessly back and forth. Every thirty seconds—Nat counted—she snaps her head towards the woods to stare, but every time… Nothing. 

Javi, more subdued, hunches near Shauna and Coach Scott. He fiddles with his shoelaces, tying and untying with a hard focus. Natalie watches him loop the string around his finger and pull, creating a blood-constricting coil. He holds it until the tip bulges purple, and then he releases. Loop, strangle, release. He repeats the process over and over again, silent in his fear. 

And still, Lottie remains serene, if not a little lethargic. 

She’s since migrated from her spot next to Shauna over to the center of the clearing. She was lying there on her back, staring blankly at the sky, as though she were auditioning for the role of corpse. The dirt, grass, and bugs don’t seem to bother her in the slightest. 

Because she has fuck-all else to do, Natalie ambles over. “Mind if I join you?” 

Lottie waves a languid hand. “Go right ahead.” 

Natalie lowers herself to the earth and arranges herself into Lottie’s opposite—head by Lottie’s shoes, her own boots brushing against a stray lock of Lottie’s hair. Above, the pine needles sway like fingers scratching at the clouds. 

“How are you feeling?” Nat asks, voice flat. “I figured you’d be super worried about Laura Lee and the others.” 

“No.” Lottie says with such simplicity, as though Natalie had merely asked if she liked pickles on her sandwiches. 

“No?” Nat repeats back. 

“I know it’s weird,” Lottie murmurs, tone conversational, “but I’m really not worried.” 

“How are you not worried?” 

Lottie’s shoulders lift into a shrug so casual, it almost borders on obscene. “I’m just… not. I don’t know how to explain it.” 

Natalie frowns at the canopy, where a clot of leaves hang above her. “But it’s getting dark out.” 

“Yeah, it is,” says Lottie slowly, but untroubled. “Do you know what phase the moon is in tonight?” 

Nat blinks. “What?” 

“The moon,” Lottie repeats. Her ankle brushes against Nat’s shoulder. “Do you know what phase it’s in? It’s hard to see with all of the trees in the way, but it kind of looks like a waxing gibbous, don’t you think? But it could also be in first quarter.” 

“Lottie, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the phase of the moon.” 

“Damn.” Lottie sighs, theatrical, as though she were counting on Natalie having an answer for her. “I bet Misty would know. Or Crystal.” 

Natalie props up onto her elbows. “What the fuck are you even talking about?” 

“It’s fine. I can ask around.” 

“Lottie.” 

That’s when Natalie notices it—the slight tremble in her calves, and the giggle snagged in the back of her throat. This is hardly the time to be silly, but Natalie finds relief in the absurdity. She knocks a playful fist against Lottie’s leg, pressing with her knuckles. 

“Bitch, I was trying to have a serious conversation with you.” 

“Sorry, sorry,” Lottie laughs, and puts her hands behind her head. “Go ahead. I’m listening. I’ll be serious now.” 

Nat mirrors her, cradling her head with her hands too. “What do you mean you’re not worried? They aren’t back yet, and they said they would be.” 

“I just… know they’re okay. I have a good feeling about it.” Lottie shifts, crossing her ankles, as Natalie observes her from the corner of her eye. “They’re going to come back.” 

Natalie can’t help but be skeptical of Lottie’s confidence. She won’t be able to relinquish her worry until Taissa and the others return safe and sound. Preferably with some water. 

Perhaps she’s jealous over Lottie’s ability to find confidence in her own prophecy. 

“I hope you’re right,” Nat says.

The moon hangs low now. They both gaze up at it. A beat of silence precedes Lottie’s response. But, finally, she speaks. 

“Me too.”

Shauna. May 24th, 1996. The Wilderness. 

Shauna is angry. She’s been angry for days now. (For weeks, perhaps? Or months?) 

It’s as though the anger lives inside her now, a furnace stoked by the matchstick that was her skin. She simmers in silent rage, a fire quietly burning. It is an accurate metaphor in more ways than one. The thing is, though, Shauna wouldn’t label herself as an inherently angry person. Sure, she’d lost her temper on the soccer field a few times, and earned herself a fair share of red cards. But, in her defense, she isn’t the only one. Her teammates could be just as angry. They just didn’t wear it on their sleeves like Shauna did. 

For the most part, she sails on much calmer waters. Content, if not quite happy. Or, that’s how she’s perceived it anyway. But now her pond has frozen over, and beneath the ice, something claws. 

Her rage used to come in short, rare bursts. But ever since the crash, she’s found herself slow-roasting in a pot of her own bitterness. 

It’s the pain. It never ends. The burns are alive, insidious with their torment. 

From the very beginning, she’s suffered through without medicine or real bandages. As a consequence, she’s been forced to marinate alongside her wounded flesh. She feels every pulse with every nerve ending. 

Shauna is as tough as they come, but she wouldn’t wish this pain on her worst enemy.

It’s the pain, but it’s also the helplessness. She’s been forced to rely on others for her most basic needs. Nat has to help her use the bathroom. Akilah has to help her change her bandages. Taissa and Travis had to help lift her onto her mattress. And then there’s Misty, always watching for signs of infections, and never forgetting to remind Shauna when it’s time to rewrap her burns.

She was used to carrying her body like a weapon, all muscle and velocity. Now, she’s no better than a doll, ripped of her own autonomy. 

It’s the pain, it’s the helplessness, and it’s also the gnawing fear that Jackie will stumble upon her journal. 

Two days ago, she couldn’t have cared less, because rescue would be coming. But now, with every passing night, her hope drains and her worry mounts. 

Jackie has to know about their disappearance by now. There’s no way she hasn’t heard. And with the time ticking steadily by, the assumption that Shauna is more dead than alive has to be seeming more and more plausible. Missing, they would say. Then it would be presumed dead. 

If Jackie and her mother—oh, her mother—start to believe Shauna’s truly gone, then it is only a matter of time before they begin to sift through her things. 

All it will take is Jackie finding the box tucked away in the back of her closet. It would lay bare all of her messiest secrets. The mere thought, the fact that the possibility exists, makes her sick. Let it burn, she thinks. Let her journal char to ash in Jackie’s hands before she can read the truth. 

Who wouldn’t be angry in Shauna’s shoes? 

Who wouldn’t be angry with such pain, such helplessness, such dread hanging over them, every minute of the day? 

The team tiptoes around her. Only Lottie and Natalie venture to come close. They don’t flinch from the stench under her bandages, and they don’t cringe from the ugly sight of her legs unwrapped. Even when she snaps, it seems to only make them more determined to stay at her side. 

Lottie spends most of today lying with her on her mattress, but after Taissa’s departure, she gets up, drifting away to go and lay in the dirt, for reasons unknown to Shauna. 

She doesn’t protest, and she doesn’t watch Lottie go. 

The tension among the others is a mirror to her own inner turmoil. The sun sets, but still, no sign of Taissa and her group. Shauna presses her palms to her temples, as if to stanch the seep of worry. To dwell on it would be to pour salt in her own wounds, but her mind is a traitorous thing, gnawing at shadows. The last thing she needs is to spiral into an abyss of what-ifs—it’s cruel to her own mind, but stopping it is easier said than done. 

“What if something happened?” Akilah asks, hunched over her knees as they sit around a newly-lit fire. 

Crystal clutches her own elbows, and chimes in, “Yeah, what if they were attacked by, like, bears, or something?” 

“We should go and look for them,” Van declares, with a subtle tremor in her voice.

Melissa adjusts the brim of her cap and peers at Crystal. “But what about the bears?” 

Van casts her a withering glare. “There aren’t any bears. Don’t say that.” 

“It’s a forest,” Melissa persists, frowning. “That’s where bears live.” 

“Enough about the bears, my god,” Van snaps. 

Shauna clenches her teeth. Her skull pulses, as if each sentence is a pickaxe against her brain. “Will you guys keep it down, please?” She says, a deep frown on her face. “It hurts to be awake, and you’re keeping me up.”

Immediately, Melissa turns, contrition all over her face. “Oh, right. I’m sorry.” 

“Me too,” says Crystal. 

Blessedly, they fall silent. Van however, remains unimpressed and unswayed. She shoots one final glare at Melissa before standing up from her log to march over to Shauna’s side. Dirt puffs up around her as she plops down on the ground. 

“Aren’t you scared?” 

“Of course I’m scared,” Shauna murmurs. Her voice sounds oddly soft to her ears, existing in stark contrast against her anger. It is a welcome discrepancy. “But it’s only been dark for a couple of hours. They might have decided to camp somewhere. Y’know, to avoid getting lost on the way back.”

“Taissa promised she would be back before dark.”

“Have you considered the fact that Taissa might have no idea what she was talking about?” Shauna suggests, arching a questioning eyebrow. “She’s not exactly a survival expert.” 

“That is exactly why I’m freaking out!” Van’s hands flutter, bird-boned and desperate. “I should have gone with them.”

Shauna sighs. Her newfound understanding of Taissa and Van’s hidden relationship makes it easier for her to keep her patience. She reaches out and places her palm over the cap of Van’s knee, squeezing softly. 

“Want my opinion?” 

Van nods, jaw clenched. “Sure, I guess.”

“Taissa probably noticed the sun was setting, but decided to keep on looking, anyway. It’s… well—you know how focused she could get over soccer, and this is life or death.” Shauna withdraws her hand and places it flat on her stomach, staring up at the trees. “I’m sure everything is fine. She’s tough.” 

“And if they’re not fine? If we’re wrong, and—and we’re just sitting here? Everything else has gone sideways, why not this?” Van groans. 

Shauna doesn’t have a reassuring answer. Her tongue goes thick in her mouth. Pep talks had never been her strong-suit; that was more Jackie’s territory. Nevertheless, she sucks in a breath and tries to give it a shot. 

“Not everything has gone wrong,” she points out, shifting to face Van despite the protesting scream from her legs. Ignoring the pain, she exhales, forcing the rising fire within her to settle down. “We didn’t die in a fire. That’s something.” 

Admittedly, it isn’t her best attempt, but the corner of Van’s mouth twitches into a small smile, drawing Shauna’s attention to the faint burns dusting the right side of her face. They were a light pink and would be healed in less than two weeks. Not like Shauna’s. 

“Yeah, but… you can’t walk,” Van grumbles, “and you’re in a lot of pain. I wouldn’t call that going right.” 

Shauna laughs dryly. “Well—we’re alive, so…”

“I mean… yeah, we are, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying about what happens next.” Van’s voice cracks and she looks away, twisting the hem of her shirt. 

“There are four people with her, alright? She isn’t out there alone. Maybe they went too far, and they’re still walking back now. Or maybe they got spun around in the dark.” She tries to force a steadiness into her tone, but she knows just as much as Van. They seem like the most likely options, but all she has to back her statements up is a flimsy hope. “It’s nighttime now, okay? There’s nothing we can do, at least not until the morning. You guys can go and look for them as soon as the sun comes up.”

Van stares into the fire. “What if they’re hurt?” 

“You can’t think like that,” Shauna murmurs.

“I can’t turn the worry off,” Van says, looking down at her tennis shoes. “It doesn’t work like that.” 

True enough, that. 

If Shauna knew the secret to switch off fear, life would be a whole lot brighter. Or at least easier. She might have confessed to Jackie about taking the spot about Brown. She might have told Jackie about everything, all of her terrible secrets. She bites her lip, unsure what else to say. Thankfully, she’s interrupted by an approaching voice before she has a chance to make herself sound stupid. 

“Taissa is fine, Van.”

It’s Lottie, strolling up to the fire with Natalie trailing behind her, hands stuffed into the pockets of her leather jacket. Clearly, they’ve finished their chat in the dirt. There’s dirt streaking across Nat’s cheek, and Lottie has pine needles sticking out of her hair. 

They sit down around the fire as Van frowns at them. “There’s no way you can know that for sure.” 

Lottie smiles, placing her hands in her lap. “I have a good feeling about it.” 

Nat rolls her eyes and says in a dry rasp, “Yeah, and I’ve got a good feeling I’ll win the damn lottery.” 

Over the last few days, Shauna had noticed Lottie drifting around like a sleepwalker, teetering between solitude and comfort. She would spend hours alone, only to place a soothing hand on Rachel’s shoulders, or to bring Shauna a handful of cool moss to help relieve her burns. It was a razor-thin line between helpful and unsettling. 

“I want to believe you,” Van murmurs, wringing her hands together. “But I’m going to worry about them no matter what. I appreciate you guys trying, though.” 

Lottie shrugs. “You’ll see.”

Van squints at her. “How can you be so calm about this?” 

“I don’t know,” she says simply. “Call it a hunch. I have a feeling they’ll be back before the morning.” 

The moon hangs above them, splintering the tree branches and leaves with bright rays of light. When Van tilts her face up to look at the clouds and stars, she looks younger than she is, and full of melancholy. 

“Yeah, well… I hope you’re right.” 

Shauna isn’t the superstitious type, so Lottie’s uninformed optimism doesn’t carry much weight for her. 

Still, there’s a reassuring confidence to her unwavering belief that brings comfort to the others. Shauna lets herself hover at the edge of that warmth, allowing the quiet delusion to bring her hope. 

Shauna’s scared, hurt, and longing for something she can’t name, so whether or not Lottie is just spinning tales is irrelevant. For the sake of her own sanity, she lets herself believe, however falsely, that Taissa and the others are okay. It helps her fall asleep that night, lulled into a much needed slumber. The fire’s crackle blends with Coach Scott’s uneven snores, a lullaby for the damned. 

Around her, the others maintain their vigil.

Rachel spends the night kneading her hands raw until her knuckles bloom pink in the firelight. Melissa sits worthlessly beside her, offering a shoulder that goes unused. Van ignores them all to focus on Javi. She coaxes him through the plot of Jumanji, which apparently, they’re both big fans of. Eventually, Javi’s eyelids flutter and his head droops against her arm. After that, Van stares silently into the dark, her jaw quietly working. 

It wouldn’t surprise Shauna if she spent the entire time practicing arguments to hurl at Taissa upon her return. 

The night turns silent, and the forest exhales. 

Lottie falls asleep back-to-back against Natalie, and no one speaks. Four hours later, her mysterious feeling is proven correct. 

A twig snaps. 

“Guys, I think I heard something—”

“Oh my god, is something out there—”

“—what if it’s wolves—”

“They hunt in packs, don’t they—”

“Everyone, be quiet.” 

Van’s whispered command slices through, rousing Shauna. She lurches upright onto her elbows and sees the others crouched around her in a circle. 

“What’s going on?” Shauna croaks, her throat dry from sleep. 

Van glances over, a cautious hope in her eyes as she nods towards the treeline. “There’s something out there making noise.” 

“Something?” Shauna repeats back, twisting as much as her battered body will allow. She squints into the murky darkness. The darkness yawns back, indifferent. She doesn’t see anything, but the back of her neck prickles. “What do you mean something?” 

“Don’t know yet,” Van murmurs, eyes hard. “Hopefully not a wolf.” 

“Shut the fuck up, right now. All of you.” Nat steps forward. Her voice cuts through their frenzied whispers with a surgical precision. She’d just woken up, but she was already standing at full attention, a grim stare etched on her face. “I’m trying to listen.” 

No one argues. 

Together, they wait in fearful silence for something, anything, to happen. 

Shauna listens to their breathing—Van’s is shallow, Melissa’s is erratic. Her own is jagged. The waiting begins to grow so intense that Shauna starts to wonder if they hallucinated it all in the first place. But then: a snap, a new one. Shauna freezes, fingers clawing into the dirt. Please don’t let it be a wolf. She can’t crawl away, let alone run. 

She’s never feared the dark before, or the creeping unknown. It’s a new experience to her, and it leaves her unsettled. 

Pivoting, she ignores the fire in her legs and searches for a better view. She needs to see what is approaching, even if there is nothing she can do to escape it.

“Hey, I think I see something,” Melissa hisses. “Over there?” 

“Where exactly?” Nat whispers back, harsh and demanding in a way that Shauna’s never heard from her before. 

“There,” says Melissa, pointing into the trees. “See? Over by the tip of the plane. Look.” 

In unison, they all turn their attention. A shadow emerges from the wilderness, human-shaped. 

“See? I told you they would be back before the morning,” Lottie says, voice lilting with a surprise, no longer bothering to whisper. 

“Told who what?” Melissa inquires. 

Gen glances at Lottie. Her eyes begin to round into huge saucers. “Wait, do you think it’s—”

But Misty suddenly rises up, lurching forward. “Guys, I think that’s Taissa!”

Shauna can’t make out who it is. She sees only a silhouette. But that’s enough for Van, who is already sprinting up from the ground as though this were a forty-meter dash. 

She’s gone in seconds, screaming, “Tai!” 

“Yup,” Melissa confirms, as the shadowed figure takes off in a mutual run. “That has to be Tai.” 

The rest of the group surges off after Van, running as a flock through the grass to welcome back the others. Shauna watches, obviously unable to follow, and frowns. 

Natalie stays put. “Wow,” she murmurs, nudging Lottie with her shoulder. “Lucky guess. I’m glad I didn’t bet against you.” 

Lottie smiles back. “I’ve always thought I would do really well in Vegas.”

Misty puts a hand on her chin, watching the distant reunion. “Hmm, I should go and ask why it took them so long to get back.”

Shauna watches Misty’s retreating form, before shifting her gaze to the others. 

Taissa and Van are the first to reunite. As soon as they reach each other, Van flings her arms around Taissa’s neck and pulls her into a tight hug. It’s frantic, almost like when Taissa found Van after the plane crash, equal parts relief and reproach. Nearby, Rachel brushes leaves from Akilah’s hair. Their embrace, while not quite as bone-crushing as Taissa and Van’s, is equally warm. 

Flex, on the other hand, greets his brother somewhat standoffishly. He grips Javi by the shoulder and then pulls him against his side for a brief, one-armed hug. 

Watching the reunions triggers an ache in Shauna’s chest, an emotion she doesn’t quite comprehend. Before she’s able to swell on it for long, she spots Laura Lee, who is suddenly much closer than Shauna realized. 

“Hi, guys,” she says, approaching the fire. “Sorry that took so long.”

Nat snorts, shaking her head in astonishment. “You say that like you were just late about finishing your errands. You scared the shit out of us, dude.”

Lottie holds out her hand, palm up. “I’m glad you’re back.” 

Laura Lee hesitates, then takes it. She sits down in the spot next to her. “I hope you weren’t too worried.” 

“Trust me, Lottie took it like a champ. She kept insisting that you were fine, and that you would be back before morning.” She leans over and offers a fist. “But, seriously, I’m glad you’re still in one piece.” 

Laura Lee bumps her fist and then smiles at Lottie. 

Everyone gathers around the fire. That’s when the questions begin, the first being did you find water? And all the others after being some variation of did you find anything else? 

Taissa gives them a triumphant smile. “We found a lake.” 

Mari leans in, a huge grin on her face. “It’s huge. Took us hours to walk around the whole thing.” 

Laura Lee sighs. “We thought there might be a ranger’s cabin somewhere around the edge.” 

Akilah nods. “Yeah, but there wasn’t. Only more trees.”

“But still—we found a lake,” Taissa declares, choosing to focus on their victory. “Which means we have drinking water. And we can bathe. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m fucking covered in dirt.”

“Yeah,” Van says, taking an exaggerated sniff from her armpit. “I’m getting pretty ripe myself.”

Excited chatter breaks out through the group. It’s a welcome break from their pitiful streak of horrible luck. 

Even Shauna can’t help but perk up at the mention of a bath. It’s been a day and a half since they last had water to run over her burns, a soothing luxury she’s already forgotten. Shauna understood the importance of preserving the little water they had left, but she misses it dearly. 

At least she won’t have to wait for long. 

Taissa quickly announces that they would be marching to the lake at first light. 

Not a single person objects. 

When everyone falls asleep that night, it’s with a bit of weight lifted from their shoulders. They’re still lost, seemingly abandoned and running dangerously low on food, but at least they had water. It was an improvement, if nothing else. 

Shauna finds herself lying awake far longer than she’d like. There isn’t much to do except stare into the dark and listen to the others breathe around her. Her gaze lingers on Taissa and Van. They’re facing each other as they sleep, foreheads almost touching. She remembers Taissa bursting from the smoke to grab Van, and pictures the way they’d pressed together into a desperate embrace, lips moving furiously against one another, and how tightly they each clung. 

Then she thinks of Jackie. The ache in her chest begins to hemorrhage. Jackie’s laugh, her hand on Shauna’s wrist, the sparkle in her eyes when they stared at each other a second too long. Quite simply, Shauna misses her person. She misses Jackie. 

Shauna is surrounded by people dozing quietly next to someone they love. 

She can’t help but feel like the odd one out.

When morning comes, Shauna’s loneliness still clings to her like a second skin. In fact, if anything, it thickens as the group buzzes around her. Their plans, chatter, and laughter blur together in a sea of voices. Shauna floats outside of it, a ghost in her own body. 

Using all sorts of shit from the wreckage, Taissa and Travis manage to cobble together a stretcher to put her mattress on. It’s decided that Shauna would be brought down first, on account of her injuries having a more pressing need of water. 

Unsurprisingly, Misty happily volunteers to remain behind with Coach Scott until they return for him. Shauna gives him a sympathetic look as she’s hoisted up, but mostly she’s just relieved it’s not her. 

Before they leave, Shauna presses a tube of lipstick into Lottie’s palm and nods toward the plane. “Leave a message telling them where we’ve gone.” The likelihood of rescue seemed more slim every day, but she still wanted to leave a record behind, just in case. 

The journey is grueling for everyone involved, but for Shauna, it’s pure agony. Every root, every stumble vibrates through the stretcher into her bones. Van’s grip slips once, and Shauna’s knees slam against the frame. She bursts into tears, unable to help herself, as Van rushes out a series of whispered apologies. Just get me there, Shauna wants to scream. But she locks her jaw, counts her breaths, and watches the canopy blur above. 

The others trade roles every so often, and that’s hard too, the shifting of hands. She never wants to do this again, not unless she’s being carried off to an actual hospital. 

When the lake appears, it’s so beautiful that Shauna almost worries she’s hallucinating. 

It’s nestled between a wide circle of trees, a bright summertime blue. Seeing it brings her a profound sense of relief. 

They stumble down a bank of sand and thorns and arrive at a beach strewn with smooth, gray stones. They form a weathered, lump mosaic before the water’s edge. Her teammates waste no time in scattering. Mari strips to her bra and dives; Akilah wades in slowly, cupping water to her lips; Van immediately dunks Tai under the water and is promptly scolded a second later. Without any context, it almost looks normal, this deceptive veneer, a carefree summer day.

Just like camping. 

For a moment, Shauna almost fools herself into thinking that’s true, but her fantasy doesn’t last for long. Shauna likes to imagine she’s a pretty good liar, but she isn’t that good. 

They deposit Shauna next to the shore, close enough to allow her to submerge her legs. The cold is a shock, then a balm. It’s the most peaceful thing she’s experienced in days. Digging her hands into the sandy rocks, she tries to ground herself against the urge to weep. She closes her eyes and breathes in the pine-scented air. It rejuvenates her. Each full breath is a collision of cool mountain air against her latent anxiety.

Shauna lets the lake numb her legs and basks in the sun’s unobstructed rays. For an hour, she sits like this, breathing slow. 

Before too long, Taissa herds everyone back to shore and announces it’s time they went back to the plane to fetch Misty and Coach Scott. There’s a small argument about who would get to stay behind with Shauna. 

None of them even bother to ask her opinion on the subject, and so she cuts in swiftly. 

“I pick Natalie.”

They grumble and complain, but Shauna doesn’t waver. 

During the horrible trek here, Shauna found herself thinking about Natalie—how she faithfully hauled Shauna away every time she needed to shit or piss, how she’d been the first to volunteer to help with the corpses. 

Natalie, who was willing to do what no one else wanted to. 

It seems only fair, then, that she gets the chance to stay behind and rest. 

After everyone leaves, Shauna trails her fingers through the water, watching Natalie float on her back in her underwear and bra. 

Her loneliness returns. Jackie claws her way back to her thoughts. Of course. 

The feeling of being apart is as unsettling as it is perplexing. Obviously, Shauna’s been craving distance for a while now. She wouldn’t have applied to Brown otherwise. But this was not the separation she’d imagined. With every passing day, the likelihood of Jackie thinking she was dead increased. Shauna doesn’t want that. 

There is, admittedly, a selfish part of her—very deep down—that wonders how Jackie is taking the news, how she’s coping. Perhaps it’s not very deep down at all. 

Surely, Jackie is miserable. And no doubt, she’s making it the entire world’s problem. 

It’s so easy for Shauna to picture her in their school’s auditorium, the perfect embodiment of beautiful sorrow. Would she give a speech before the student body to eulogize her missing, but presumably dead, teammates? Would she wear black, would she reference their inside jokes? Would she cry on Jeff’s shoulder? Would she seek comfort in his embrace? 

And the worst possibility of all: would she find the journal in the closet? 

She wanted distance, but not like this. 

Shauna wanted to go away to college and prove to the world—and herself, perhaps most of all—that she could be more than Jackie’s sidekick, more than a mere appendage. She’d pictured herself immersed in the vibrant colors of a New England fall, where she would engage in passionate discussions about moral decay in the context of whatever Victorian literature novel she and her like-minded peers were reading in class. She’d wanted to be seen, not just free. 

Instead, she’s here, confined to the fucking wilderness, with only Natalie Scatorccio for company. 

Which, it’s not so bad as she’s making it out to be. In fact, it’s actually rather nice. 

This isn’t the first time Natalie and Shauna have been alone together.

No, the first time was back in eighth grade, when Mr. Tiller—in a fit of madness or whimsy, she couldn’t say which—paired them together for a science project. 

She can still remember Jackie’s petulant face when Natalie drew Shauna’s name, and she’ll never forget how it soured into grief when Jackie reached into a mason jar to draw her own partner, only to read off Randy Walsh’s name from the little slip of paper. Shauna had seethed too, equally as upset. But to her surprise, she and Natalie could actually work well together, if they put in the effort. 

Natalie’s hands were steadier than Shauna’s, far more coordinated. They built Saturn’s rings from wire and paint, and they’d made an A.  

She wonders what their younger selves would think of them now.

Natalie’s been the most consistent of Shauna’s helpers, rarely complaining. She was always quick to make sure Misty didn’t go too overboard. “I’ve got this, Misty, trust me. I’ve watched you change her bandages, like, ten times already.” 

Somehow, her humiliating situation was made more bearable with Natalie, though she couldn’t pinpoint why. 

Maybe it was because Natalie is an outsider herself. Maybe it’s because she always has been. 

Things are different out here. 

In the wilderness, Nat’s been a necessary level-head, the master of pragmatism, and a counterbalance to Taissa’s boldness. Back home, things were different. Natalie was a distinct other. Lottie knew her better than the rest of them, or Van, maybe, but she wasn’t exactly best friends with either of them.

She usually kept to herself, or spent her time with her other friends, those boys—Kevyn Tan, and the other one whose name Shauna was always forgetting. Rich, or Ricky, or something like that. She would see them together at parties sometimes, usually outside, where they would stand in a circle and smoke their cigarettes and their joints. 

So, yeah, Shauna and Natalie weren’t close before. 

Now, circumstances have changed. 

It’s difficult not to form a bond with the person who sees you at your absolute lowest. Perhaps that’s why the silence between them is comforting, and never awkward.

Natalie comes to sink into the water beside her, stretching her legs out too. 

“So,” she begins, with a note of hesitant curiosity in her voice. “How are the burns?” 

Shauna studies her wounds. Angry red blisters still swathe her skin. They don’t look as gruesome beneath the water, but there’s no mistaking the pink, mottled flesh. 

“Crispy.”

Natalie chuckles. “Ah, yep. I think you’re right.”

“Unfortunately.” 

The silence returns, thick enough to be a third presence among them. Natalie curls forward and hugs her knees to her chest. The only sounds are those of nature; the wind moving through the trees; the repetitive clap of water washing over their stomachs; the low whisper of their own breath. 

It’s Shauna who shatters their quietude. She fixes her gaze on the far side of the lake. She doesn’t know what possesses her to say it. The words just slip from her lips, unbidden, and without thought. 

“What you did for Allie the other day… It was really kind. I’ve never seen a dead body up close before,” she admits. “It was my first time.” 

“I think it was the first time for all of you,” Nat replies, anchoring her gaze to the stones in the water. 

“But not yours?” 

Nat stills. “No. Not mine.” 

“Was it… your dad?” Shauna asks, though she knows the answer. Wiskayok wasn’t a big town, and news travelled fast. 

Their eyes meet. Natalie frowns. “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“I know.” 

A wave of remorse washes over Shauna. She grimaces, digging her nails into her palms. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I shouldn’t have brought it up.” 

“It’s whatever. Don’t worry about it,” Nat says, dismissing the issue, sweeping the gravity of this conversation under a rug of nonchalance. “I know you didn’t mean it in a bad way. 

“No,” Shauna affirms earnestly. “I really didn’t.”

Natalie’s voice dips to a low murmur. “Dead bodies are weird up close. They don’t look like themselves. Even the ones that aren’t all fucked up from a steel beam. Or a gunshot.” 

Shauna’s throat tightens. “I’m sorry you had to be the one to do it.” 

“Someone had to,” Nat says. “And it wasn’t just me. Rachel helped.” 

“Still.” Shauna’s fist clenches under the water. “I would have helped you myself. If I could.” 

Nat shrugs. “Thanks, Shipman. That means something.” She grabs a rock from underwater and holds it tight in her palm. “I just want all of this shit to be over with.” 

That’s definitely a sentiment Shauna can relate to. She leans back on her elbows and shivers as the water creeps further up her torso. “Tell me about it. I would kill to see a doctor. Or my mom.” 

Or Jackie, but she doesn’t say it out loud.

Natalie’s next words come unexpectedly. “I wonder if my mom even misses me.” 

Shauna’s first instinct is to reassure, though she’s never actually met Mrs. Scatorccio. “Of course she misses you. She has to,” she says, unable to see how any parent wouldn’t worry about their child in these kinds of circumstances. 

“You’d be surprised. My mom is a Grade-A cunt,” says Nat with a brittle laugh. “But… I don’t know, maybe she does.” She moves her hand through the water, creating mini-waves that lap against her inner thighs. “We’re not close. We fight all the time. It’s been worse since my dad died. We’re always at each other’s throats. I’m pretty sure she blames me for what happened.” 

Shauna flinches. That’s not something she could relate to, mostly because she didn’t fight with her mom, or at least, not like that. 

Their arguments were minor, more accurately categorized as bickering, and always over something trivial, like a missed curfew, or a mouthy attitude. In general, Deb was pretty laid back. Jackie, on the other hand, was always fighting with her mom. 

“What do you fight about?” Shauna asks. The question slips out by mistake, and she realizes suddenly that it’s probably too personal. She hunches forward. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I’m just… bored, I guess.”

“It’s fine. It’s not like we have anything else to do,” Nat remarks. She lets her hands still, and then leans back, stretching out to match Shauna’s pose. She tilts her face up and closes her eyes against the sun. “We fight about everything. Or nothing. Just stupid shit. The milk’s expired. The bathroom is dirty. Or how I’m just like him.” Her jaw tightens. “It’s basically routine at this point, and we’re good at it, but not all of our fights are so bad.” 

“Are there ever any good fights?” 

Nat barks out a laugh. “Aren’t you, like, infamous for how many games you’ve been tossed out of?” 

Shauna is quick with her retort. “I never said those were good fights.” 

“No shit.” Nat shakes her head. “But… I don’t know. Maybe? I think there can be good fights. Or, necessary fights, I guess. Not that me and my mom ever have them. I just mean… I’m used to them, or whatever.” 

“I’m sure she misses you,” Shauna offers, despite having no proof to assert this claim. “No matter how much you fight.”

“I guess I’ll find out once we’re rescued,” Nat says. “What about you? I bet Deb is out of her mind about you being gone.” 

Shauna blinks. Water beads on her lashes. “You know my mom’s name?” 

“Everybody does. Jackie talks about her like they’re the best friends.” Nat pitches her voice into something saccharine, a pantomime exaggeration of Jackie’s usual cadence. “So, I was talking about this with Deb the other day, and she said…” 

She can’t help the grin that spreads across her face. It isn’t the perfect Jackie-imitation, but for a fleeting moment, she feels almost normal, like a silly teenager that didn’t get into a plane crash. Unfortunately, this normalcy is short-lived. As her smile dims, so does her fleeting joy. 

Thoughts of her mother and Jackie cloud her mind. Were the two of them together right now? It wouldn’t surprise her. 

“I know she does. Miss me, I mean,” says Shauna, feeling the weight of this now more than ever. “But I try not to think about it too much. It hurts.” 

“What about your pops?” Nat glances at her. “I never hear you talk about him.” 

“There’s not much to talk about. I don’t see him often. He lives in California with his new family,” says Shauna, with a shrug. “He sends birthday cards and tries to call once a month. He’s… Well, he’s not a bad guy, he’s just not there. I’m sure he’s worried too.” 

It’s surreal to consider that her mother and father likely believe her to be dead. Have they discussed it, the two of them? Have they seen each other? Shauna struggles to recall the last time they were in the same zip code, let alone the same room. It must have been some time before he moved to California.

“I wonder what everyone is going to say when they find out we’re alive,” murmurs Nat. 

Shauna leans back to wet her hair. “My mom is going to freak out about my legs, I know that much.”

“Can’t blame her.” Nat glances at her burns. “They look fucking gnarly.” 

“She’s a nurse,” Shauna says, with a fleeting smile. “She’ll probably come up with a super intensive custom treatment, or something.” 

“My mom works at a gas station,” Nat deadpans. She smiles sardonically. “Maybe she’ll give me a discount on fuel, so I can drive everywhere, and avoid airplanes forever.”

“I’ve always hated flying. Guess I had a good reason,” says Shauna musingly. “I hope you get that gas discount.” 

“Me too.” Nat smirks. “At least you can tell your mom you were in really good hands.” 

“Whose hands? Misty’s?” Shauna barks out a laugh. “Sure, the best hands, all around.”

“I was talking about me, you fucking asshole.” Nat laughs softly. “But, yeah, now that you mention it… Misty too. She’s not so bad. Just… eager.” 

“Let’s ask Coach Scott and see what he thinks about her eagerness,” Shauna murmurs. 

Nat frowns. “Chill. If it weren’t for her, Coach Scott would be dead.” 

Shauna sobers, looking down at her lap. After a pregnant pause, she sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. I know. It’s just… she makes me cranky.”

“Are you playing the ‘I have second-degree burns’ card to excuse being a bitch?” 

“Yes, I am.” 

Nat laughs. “Makes sense. I’d do the same thing if I were in your shoes.”

“You’re right, though. I should cut Misty some slack.” Shauna gazes at the water washing over her blisters. “She’s better than nothing. Plus, she’s probably the only thing standing between me and dying of infection.” 

Nat says nothing. A minute passes, and then, “Hey, Shauna…” She trails off, with a hint of something pointed in her voice.

“What?”

A smirk blooms over Natalie’s face. “Do you want to share a cigarette with me?” 

“You have cigarettes?” Shauna gasps. 

She’s never been huge on smoking. Only when she’s drinking, and even then, it was usually because of Jackie, who always had a cigarette in her hand once she’d had some alcohol. But, out here…. the normal rules didn’t apply.

Nat’s smirk widens into a grin. “Yep. I brought a secret stash.”

Shauna nods eagerly. “Yes, please.” 

Nat rises to her feet and scampers off to grab her bag. She returns a few seconds later, with a single cigarette pinched between her fingers like a trophy. “I’ve been hoarding these bad boys. Seems like right now is as good a time as any, since everyone is gone.” 

“You know those will kill you, right?” Shauna asks, laughing. 

Nat snorts. “I sure hope so. Do you want to light it?” 

Shauna holds out her palms. “Hell yeah. I was just about to ask.”

After they finish their cigarette, they spend the next three hours sitting side-by-side, until Shauna finally grows too wrinkled, and asks to be pulled from the water. 

The team returns in the late afternoon, sweaty and exhausted. They hold a stretcher aloft between them, with a sweating Coach Scott lying on top. They set him down somewhere comfortable, and then everyone is rushing back into the water all over again. 

As the day continues to slip by, Shauna takes a nap on the rocky shore. She doesn’t open her eyes until Lottie, who until now has been adrift in her own world, suddenly shouts from the water. “Guys! Look!” 

Everyone scrambles to see what she’s pointing at. Shauna strains to see too, but she can’t, not from where she’s sitting. Whatever it is, it gets everyone moving. After a mad scramble back to shore, they emerge from the water, talking in a rush about something from the top of the hill. 

No one is able to say for sure what they saw, but it’s quickly agreed that they ought to go and investigate.

This time, Shauna is forced to remain behind with Coach and Misty too, a fact she isn’t very happy about, no matter what she said earlier about cutting any slack. Luckily, Misty seems exhausted after helping carry Coach to the lake, so she doesn’t fuss too much. Before long, the others are returning, rushing back across the stony beach with news to tell. 

“A cabin?” Coach Scott repeats. “Seriously? Does it look like there’s anyone living there? Is there a radio—or… a map? Anything?” 

Taissa shakes her head. “No, nothing like that.” She frowns. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s stepped inside in over a decade. It’s covered in dust.”

“What about food?” Shauna asks. “Or any kind of supplies?”

“Does rotten, canned fruit count?” Nat makes a face. “There was a bunch of slimy old food in the pantry. Not exactly my idea of a good meal.”

Ugh. Well… that sucks. Shauna sighs. 

Van pauses halfway through helping Coach Scott onto his stretcher. “Hey, don’t forget all of the vintage porn magazines.” She grins. “I would call those valuable supplies.” 

“I’m sure Flex would too,” says Mari teasingly, smirking at Travis. “Don’t act all innocent, I saw you steal a souvenir, you perv.” 

“So what if I did?” Travis retorts. “Better than listening to you run your mouth all day.” 

“That’s enough,” Taissa barks. “Let’s stay focused.”

With some effort, they manage to hoist Coach Scott back onto the stretcher. This time, Shauna volunteered to stay behind, figuring it was only right. Anyway, she doesn’t mind. It gives her more time to savor the lake’s cold kiss before having to suffer through another hike— uphill, this time. 

Once again, she asks Nat to stay behind. 

After she agrees, Shauna whispers a quiet thank you; Nat responds with a shut the fuck up, Shipman. 

As soon as everyone is gone, she fetches another cigarette. They pass it back and forth in silence, and pretend for a little while longer that everything is alright. The sun begins to set, painting the sky in strokes of orange, pink, and red. They don’t talk. It’s comfortable, and Shauna begins to wonder why they never thought to be friends sooner. 

By the time they return to fetch Shauna, night has fallen. She suffers through the journey uphill until eventually, they arrive at a dimly lit cabin. 

Once inside, she realizes that Taissa’s initial statement is correct. The cabin is covered in dust, and it stinks to high hell. 

As soon as they cross the threshold, Shauna’s struck with a wave of stench and decay. She grimaces and wrinkles her nose. “It smells like something died in here,” she complains, louder than necessary. 

Taissa doesn’t glance up, her hands busy adjusting a blanket for Shauna to rest on. “Beats sleeping out in the dirt,” she says, wiping sweat from her brow. “It’s no five-star hotel, but it’s all we’ve got.” 

Nat collapses beside her, burying her face in her blanket. “Hey, I’m not complaining. It’s a five-star shithole, is what it is. But at least we have pillows again.” 

Everyone carves out a spot for themselves throughout the cabin’s ground floor. Van and Tai by the hearth, Misty in the corner tracing dust spirals on the floor. Mari and Akilah in the center of the room. 

They are still low on food, which is a problem they’ll need to deal with soon, but in the meantime, at least they have this; water, shelter, and a fire’s warmth. Things could be much worse. Things had been much worse.

“I wish I could sleep in an actual bed,” Melissa murmurs wistfully. “Coach Scott is lucky.” 

“When Misty cuts off your leg with an ax, you can have the room,” Mari says. She snickers. “I bet she would do it too, if you asked.” 

Misty lifts her head from her pillows and frowns reproachfully. “I would never amputate your leg without due cause, Melissa.” 

“Thanks, Misty, I appreciate that,” says Melissa.

“And besides,” Misty adds, sniffing, “if anyone is next in line for the room after Coach, it’s Shauna.” 

Shauna, half-listening, waves a limp hand. “I’m doing just fine over here.” 

“Yeah, guys.” Nat’s head lolls against hers on their shared pillow. “She’s fine over here.” 

The room drifts back into separate conversations, but Shauna decides to let her eyes sag shut, sinking deeper into the pillow. She focuses on the rise and fall of her own breathing, relieved to finally be indoors again. It helps that she’s slowly becoming nose-blind to the cabin’s rotten smell. 

As she drifts to sleep, she listens to the others, lazily switching her focus between the many conversations, with the gentle pressure of Nat’s arm against hers helping her remain grounded.

At some point in the coming hours, she knows Misty will come to wake her up for the unpleasant task of changing her bandages. It will feel like torture, and she’ll be miserable, but at least for now, she’s safe and comfortable. Safe from being attacked by a bear, or from catching a cold. 

It’s as relaxed as Shauna can possibly get. 

Nat quickly falls asleep, and Shauna is just about to follow after her, when she spots Taissa moving through the cabin with a troubled expression on her face.

“Has anyone seen Lottie? I can’t find her.” 

Come to think of it… no. But, then again, Shauna hadn’t thought to look for her. The others murmur similar sentiments, which only deepens Taissa’s frown. But just before the mood can descend into full blown panic, Javi lifts his hand. 

“I, uh, think I saw her go outside.” 

“Outside?” Taissa says in disbelief. She lowers her voice, muttering as she slips through the door. “What the fuck, Lottie.”

True to Javi’s word, Lottie slips into the cabin minutes later, with Taissa trailing right behind her. Her eyes dart around the room suspiciously, as though she’s bracing herself for a trick. Shauna watches her, curious about this strange reaction. Lottie’s been acting odd for days, but now she seems truly troubled. 

“Have you been outside the entire time?” Mari asks, eyeing her suspiciously. 

Lottie stiffens, defensively snapping back, “Why do you care? Mind your business much?” 

“Okay. Wow.” Mari rolls her eyes and flops back onto her blankets. “I’ll just fuck off then, I guess.” 

“No fighting,” Akilah chides gently, nudging Mari’s arm. 

Van sits up. “Everything okay, Lot?”

“Yes,” Lottie whispers. Her sharpened edges soften. “I just… don’t like the energy here. It’s wrong. Gives me a bad feeling.”

Gen sniffs, wrinkling her nose. “I know what you mean. It reeks like dead dog.” 

Van, however, seems to take Lottie’s remark more seriously than the rest. She looks up at the ceiling, as if searching for some visible imperfection. “What do you mean? Wrong how?” 

Mari smirks. “Maybe it’s haunted.” 

“It’s not haunted,” Taissa snaps, shaking her head. 

Lottie doesn’t say anything. Instead, her gaze locks onto Shauna’s like a flare in the dark. She crosses the room silently and drops down, shuffling around until Shauna is pressed firmly between her and Natalie. 

Shauna turns her head, careful not to disturb Natalie, who is soundly asleep.

Meeting her eyes, Lottie whispers, “How are your legs?” 

“Still burnt, but they’re better than yesterday.” It’s not a lie, but it’s not a truth either. They still hurt. They never stopped hurting. She might go insane from the constant pain, actually.

“Does Misty know how long until the pain will go away?” Lottie asks, seeing straight through her. 

Shauna shrugs. “Could be up to two weeks, but who knows.” 

“That blows.” 

“Yeah,” Shauna says softly. “But hopefully I’ll be able to ditch the bandages soon. According to Misty, the burns need to breathe.” 

“Do you ever wonder if she’s making it all up?” Lottie asks quietly. 

“All of the time, trust me,” Shauna says. “But… I don’t know—she’s been pretty right so far.” 

“Could be intuition,” Lottie whispers. 

Shauna frowns. “What about you? Are you sure you’re alright?”

Lottie puts her hands under her cheek and blinks at her through the dark. “I’m fine.” 

“What did you mean before, about the cabin giving you a bad feeling?” Shauna asks. 

Lottie takes a moment before answering. “I can’t pin it down. I just don’t like it here.”

This seems overly cautious to Shauna. It’s just a rickety old cabin, after all. Musty, abandoned, in the middle of the wilderness, yes… but a cabin all the same.

Hours later, Shauna wakes up to a scream that splits through the night. 

She jolts upright, looking around. Lottie is gone. Natalie is still beside her, sitting up with a slow confusion. Meanwhile, Van launches up from the ground like a rocket, already steps ahead of the rest, and vaults across the room, stomping across half of the others in her charge. 

“Taissa!” Van screams. “What’s wrong?” 

The cabin erupts into a frenzy as the team grumbles up from sleep, rushing after Van into the pantry, where there is a ladder leading up into the attic. 

Shauna is forced to wait in anxious confusion, listening to the hushed chatter from above. But, thankfully, Lottie returns a few minutes later, with a freshly serene expression on her face.

“What’s going on?” Shauna rasps, bewildered. “Where did you go?”

“I found a dead body upstairs,” Lottie says, with a smile that’s hard to read. “I knew there was a reason this place gave me the creeps. It’s just like I told Nat—I would kill it in Vegas.”

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 28th, 1996. Wiskayok, New Jersey.

Her legs wobble. The room sways. Or maybe it’s just her. 

When she’d first stood up, her knees buckled so fast she almost face-planted onto the floor. Perhaps it is all of the pain medication she’s on, or her strenuous climb up the ladder, or simply the soul-engulfing smell of Shauna’s bedroom. Whatever it is, her head spins and throbs, as though someone were pressing a forceful thumb to her temple, trying to dig straight into her brain. 

The manic rush that had carried her up here in the first place is fading fast, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that sends her stumbling forward to catch herself on the wall. She doesn’t even know why she’s up here. It’s like something inside of her insisted, demanding she climb the ladder. But now that she’s here, all she feels is heavy, tired, and achingly sad. 

Jackie inhales a deep breath of the quiet and takes her first real look around the room. Slowly, carefully, trying to soak in every detail. 

Shauna’s bedroom has always been her oasis. Was it still? 

She lets her eyes wander. 

There are bits and pieces of the two of them scattered all around in every corner—countless trinkets bought and given over the years, the friendship bracelets they’d made in fifth grade, pictures tucked into the mirror frame. There’s even their growth chart, etched into the frame of the closet door. The pencil lines climb higher year after year. Jackie can practically feel herself shrinking as she stares at them, going from adolescence to childhood, to the tiny, giggling girl she used to be. Jackie - 4’8”, Shauna - 4’9”… all the way up to last summer. 

Shauna had finally outgrown her. Just barely, Jackie had teased, like it mattered. 

Jackie remembers everything; the sleepovers, the late-night secrets, the countless movie nights where they would share popcorn and talk about their friends from school. It added up to more than half her life and all of her heart. 

Remembering makes her chest tighten. An awful asphyxia in action. 

The room is cleaner than usual. Shauna must have straightened up before they left for nationals. Jackie pictures her rushing around, folding her clothes, arranging her books, expecting to return to a tidy, comfortable space and a gold metal around her neck. 

Now, the question remains—would Shauna ever return at all? 

Jackie pushes herself away from the wall and drags her weary body toward Shauna’s bed, so tired she could curl up and sleep for a year. The bed is neatly made, perched in front of the window. The nightstand, usually crowded with half-empty cups and water bottles, is spotless. Even the books Shauna always had scattered around in piles around the room are now stacked neatly, perfectly in place on the shelf. 

It feels wrong. She finds herself missing the clutter. She finds herself missing everything. 

Flopping onto her back, she lies there for ten minutes. She doesn’t move, barely blinks. Still, silent, unmoving; the creeping dead, a zombie from the cheap and cheesy horror movies Shauna liked to rent for a dollar. 

Empty. 

A husk. 

It is so hard to exist in this horrible life, to just be here, in this room, to be a person with a body.

Her eyes dart around the room from memory to memory, landing on Shauna’s dresser, where she sees the faded paper wristband from last year’s State Fair taped to the side.

Jackie never understood why Shauna enjoyed roller coasters so much. For Jackie, they were a stomach-dropping torture, but Shauna swore that feeling was the whole point. Jackie always wanted to feel that way too, to feel the rush with her, but most of the time, she just felt sick. 

But she bought the tickets herself, using her own spending money. 

A peace offering after a dumb fight about… what was it? A misplaced sweater? An accidental insult? Who even remembered now. They drove to Augusta with the windows down in Shauna’s brand new (to her) car as they sang along—loudly and terribly—to Tupac and Alanis Morissette. Jackie’s throat was raw by the time they arrived, but she didn’t mind. 

Once inside the park, Jackie had forced herself to climb aboard the rickety, wooden coaster. She’d been so terrified she couldn’t even scream, gripping Shauna’s hand until her knuckles went white. But she clearly remembers Shauna’s laugh, bright and fearless, in her ear. 

What a good day that was. 

Her gaze slips over to the closet door, which is peppered with Lisa Frank stickers—bright and glittering unicorns, dolphins, and kittens—that Jackie stuck onto the wood a few days before eighth grade began. Shauna had rolled her eyes and pretended to be annoyed, but she never scraped them off. Even now, after five whole years, they were still there. 

Jackie can’t help but laugh, but it’s more gurgle than giggle. 

Shauna could be so sentimental. It was one of Jackie’s favorite things about her. 

She was so observant, so mindful, so skilled at spotting the beautiful little details about life that Jackie herself often let go unnoticed. That’s probably what she filled her journals with—small and poetic observances, little windows into that too smart, always wrapped up in itself, big brain of hers.

Next, Jackie scans over the mirror. 

It’s crowded with smiling photos—homecoming pictures, polaroids from pool parties, goofy snapshots of them with their cheeks squished together, mid-laughter.

Jackie can’t help thinking that she’ll never smile like that again. It feels impossible, wrong even. Jackie is safe, present, and whole; three things that Shauna is not. The unfairness aches from deep within and the girl in the photo becomes a stranger that wears her face.

Memory lane is littered with razors and broken glass, but Jackie crawls through it anyway. Damn her hands. Damn her knees. 

She would give anything to go back in time. If she could, somehow, she would go back and make sure they lost at states. Or better yet, she would undo it all, starting with soccer itself. She would pick anything else. Art, choir, theater, or even volleyball. Anything to stop Seattle from happening. 

Lest Jackie forget, it was at her insistence that they even tried out for the team to begin with. She’d been convinced it would be fun and exciting, something they would always share. 

Even more evidence that Shauna’s absence now is all her fault.

This hurts too much. Jackie rips her eyes away, barely breathing, and hides in darkness. 

Somewhere along the way, she falls asleep, sinking deep into Shauna’s pillows, surrounded by her ghost. She doesn’t mean to, doesn’t even realize it’s happening. She simply drifts away into unconsciousness. 

Jackie sleeps soundly. There are no dreams, no nightmares. There is only a peaceful, lovely black. 

It’s the best rest she’s had since this all began. 

She sleeps for ten hours straight.

Deb. May 28th, 1996. Wiskayok, New Jersey.

Shauna has Deb’s eyes and her dark hair, but the rest came from him. 

Greg’s nose, the stubborn ridge of his brow, Greg’s cheeks, and his full lips too. Deb knew this, had always known it. She’d traced those features in the quiet hours when Shauna was asleep, trying to find traces of herself in her new baby’s face. Now, she finds herself doing the opposite—staring at him, but searching for Shauna. It startles her, just how much it hurts to see him those first couple of seconds. 

He is waiting already when she arrives at Applebee’s, sitting at a table in the far corner, back straight and familiar, wearing a navy-blue coat. She moves toward him, heart a frantic drummer in her chest, dizzied and undone at just seeing him, this man with her daughter’s face. 

It hurts to look at him, and when he raises his head to meet her eyes, it becomes unbearable. Like staring straight into a spot of sun-glare on the water. He’s older now. There are new creases in his face and fresh silver threading his hair. But the relieved smile he flashes her way is all Shauna. Looking at him makes the past come rushing in. She only hopes she doesn’t drown.

Greg stands and greets her with a short, uncertain hug. “Deb,” he said, tone wobbly and unsure. “I’m glad you could make it.” 

Then he presses a glass of wine into her hand, which she takes gratefully, hands trembling around the stem. “Hey,” she said breathlessly. “Of course I’m here.”

Their marriage had ended in flames; yet Greg, even in his betrayal, even in all of the missed dinners and silence and the other women whose names she could still remember, was still the one person who knew her better than anyone in the world. He knows the fault lines where she might split, and though he was no longer the boy she loved so fiercely at seventeen years old, he still remembers her tender places, and knew that she would need some sort of liquid courage to get through this dinner alive. 

She drains the glass in one long swallow the moment she sits down, and Greg, without a word, simply leans forward and fills it again. No words. None were needed. 

When had they last sat this close, this quiet, without the silence curdling, turning sharp as knives to slice the peace between them? Years? Decades? It must have been a very long time ago, because she can’t remember, couldn’t reach far enough back through time and thought. 

Their divorce had drained them both, bitter and slow, leaving them both empty-handed and searching for a freedom away from each other. They’d gnawed each other to the bone and spat out the gristle. 

Deb hated him for so long, allowed her resentment to ferment—for his broken promises, for his lies, the affairs. And for California, and his new wife, and the two new babies he made without her. 

Once upon a time, they’d been young. 

Deb married him with girlhood still clinging to her hips, full-hearted and eager. She tried so hard to make things work, she really did, but it was as though he never tried stepping toward her, never once reaching out enough to meet her halfway. He’d stolen years of her life, pocketing her youth like a thief, snatching days, months, and years, until all that remained was a lonely woman with a lonely life and a lonely job. 

Even now, after all these years, the hatred still welled up inside her, strong and sour, especially on nights where she had nothing but her glass of wine and television to keep her company. 

They sit quietly at first, each caught in the hush of so many things still unsaid. 

Deb twists the stem of her wineglass between her fingers, sipping the drink more slowly this time around. Greg watches her, his eyes soft with something that might have been patience or guilt, or some wearied blend of both. 

How does one even begin the sort of discussion they had to have? How is she supposed to shape her words around a pain so raw she can hardly stand to think about it?

She hates Greg more than she loves him most days, but he would always be Shauna’s father, and that is a truth stronger and more lasting than ‘till death do us part had ever been. 

Greg clears his throat, looks down at the table, then up again. “Should we… should we talk about what happens next?” 

Immediately, Deb hardens, bristling against what she is sure he is about to say. “No. Not yet.” 

“I don’t mean that,” he says gently, holding up his palms soothingly. “I just mean the practical things. Like maybe hiring a lawyer, someone who knows what they’re doing—someone who can help us figure out what we’re owed. Someone to help us get some answers.” 

She breathes in slowly, frowning at the table. “You really think a lawyer’s gonna help us find our daughter?”

“I think,” Greg replies, careful now, “a lawyer might help us hold someone accountable. Maybe even push the government to do more than they’re doing, or at least tell us what they’ve found, or not found, because right now—right now, we basically know a whole lot of nothing.”

Deb looks away and stares at the muted lights outside the window, where the sky had darkened to indigo. “I won’t talk about her not coming back,” she says finally, voice too heavy. “I won’t talk about Shauna like she’s already gone. I can’t do it.” 

Greg reaches across the table as though by instinct, stopping short of touching her hand. “I’m not asking you to. Believe me, I—I can’t handle that either. But we have to face the fact that we might not get the answers we want, at least not soon.” 

She sighs, taking another sip from her wine. “We’ll need someone ruthless, then. Have you talked to anyone yet?” 

“There’s a woman in Trenton. She helped my cousin through his bankruptcy. Apparently, she’s a shark.” Greg pulls his hands back and drums his fingers lightly across the front of the menu. “I was going to call and schedule a meeting sometime in the next couple of days, if you want to come with me.” 

“Yeah,” Deb says, trying to swallow down the fresh surge of grief rising inside of her. “Go ahead and give her a call.” 

As far as one-on-one conversations with Greg go, the evening is gentle, almost sweet, as though the war between them had finally burned itself out. No harshness cutting through their words; no voices rising to scrape against the other’s nerves. Instead, a shared sorrow moved between them like a soft, meandering river. 

Greg’s thumb brushes across her knuckles, tentative, as if afraid he’ll spook her. Deb doesn’t pull away. She can’t. 

Their fingers intertwine, not in love, but in the desperate cling of shared ruin. 

“She would find it so weird,” Deb whispers, shaking her head slowly. “Seeing us like… this.” 

Greg’s laugh is a quiet, wet thing. He swipes at his face with his free hand, smearing tears into his stubble. “Getting along for once? She’d tell us to get a room. Roll her eyes. Slam her door.” 

“Then she’d play that godawful music,” Deb hiccups, half-laugh, half-sob. “The sort with the whining and the yelling. But she would secretly be happy about it.” 

“Deb, I—I just keep thinking about how I should’ve been here more. For her,” he swallows, as though a rock were lodged in his throat, “and for you too.” 

She closes her eyes briefly, taking in a soft breath. “You weren’t here, yes,” she agrees, “but even if you had been, she’d still be gone, she still would have played soccer. It doesn’t matter now.” 

“It matters to me,” says Greg. “It matters because I know it matters to you. I’m sorry.” 

She gazes down at their intertwined hands. When had they last touched each other like this? When had they last shared something tender? She can’t recall. “Greg, I don’t know how we ended up here,” she manages after a few seconds. “Shauna, she’s—what if?—I’m… I’m so fucking terrified.” 

“Me too,” he murmurs, gripping her hand tighter. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen.” 

Deb feels a sob bubble up, breaking through the tightness in her throat. “I can’t stop thinking—what if she never comes home? What if we lose her?” 

Greg’s eyes go wide. “Hey. Deb. Don’t do that.” His voice cracks. “Don’t let yourself go there.” 

“I’m trying not to,” she whispers, as tears begin to spill down her cheeks. “But it’s so hard. Every minute she’s not here, I feel like I’m losing my breath. I don’t know what to do.” 

“Deb,” he whispers again, more forceful this time, squeezing her hand tighter, as though anchoring her to him. “I know it hurts. I feel it too. But you—you don’t have to carry it alone. Let me share some of it. Please.” 

At that moment, their waitress approaches, cautious and hesitant. “Hey, you two. Sorry,” she says, apologetic and obviously picking up on the fragile air surrounding their booth. “Just wanted to check in—can I get you folks anything else?” 

Deb grabs a crumpled napkin and dabs gently at the corner of her eyes. “Uh, yes, actually,” she murmurs. “An order of mozzarella sticks, to go, please. I promised Jackie I’d bring some back for her.” 

Then Greg clears his throat, offering the waitress a thin smile. “Then the check.” 

As she walks away, Deb chuckles. “She probably thinks we’re insane.” 

“We are insane,” says Greg, lifting his glass. “Cheers.” 

Deb lifts her back, close to tears all over again. “To insanity. 

They drink. The wine is potent, expensive, and it brings her warmth and comfort. When they finish, they’re both crying again, lips stained red, both of their glasses empty. 

For once, they are on the same page. For once, they seem to understand one another in a way that was always impossible before. 

It only took the single greatest tragedy of their lives to make it happen. How fucked up is that? 

When the bill arrives, Greg takes it in hand. He slips a sleek, black credit card into the waitress’s waiting book. 

The sight of it makes Deb’s eye twitch—expensive, shiny, proof that he’d paid too little in child support, proof that Shauna had grown up with less than she should have. But Deb forces herself to quickly swallow the bitterness. Tonight was good, it had taken some weight off her heart and eased some of the pressure in her soul. She doesn’t want to be the one to shatter their fragile peace.

After pocketing the card and signing off for the tip, he clears his throat softly, looking up to meet her eyes. “Deb, let me drive you home. Or, if you’d rather, at least let me pay for your cab.” 

She hesitates, watching him carefully. He’s older now, carrying different worries on his shoulders. She doesn’t know him like she used to. But despite everything, he is safe. Familiar. Better than riding home with a stranger. She sighs, offering him a faint smile. “I’ll take the ride.” 

“You sure?” He asks gently. “I don’t want you to feel obligated.” 

Deb chuckles. “Gas is cheaper than a cab, and it’s on the way to your hotel.” 

He nods slowly, accepting that as enough. 

It’s late and the roads are quiet. Deb leans back in her seat and listens to the hum of the rental car’s engine, watching familiar streets glide past her window. Her vision is blurred by all of the wine and tears. She’s grateful for the alcohol, for how it softens the edges of her grief, how it allows her to breathe just a bit easier. 

When he pulls the car into her driveway, he shifts into park, hands lingering on the steering wheel. The headlights cast a bright light onto the garage door that brightens their faces and highlights the long mark of time passed between them.  

“Deb,” he says after a long stretch of quiet, his voice uncertain in the hush between them. “Are you—are you sure you’re okay to be alone here tonight? I don’t mind staying a little longer. Keeping you company.” 

She frowns, studying him through narrowed eyes. There is a hesitant edge hidden just beneath his words. “You already paid for your hotel. You don’t need to waste money on my account.” 

“I know,” he says, shifting in his seat. He runs his palm nervously over his jaw. “But I wouldn’t mind. It’s not a big deal. Really.” 

Tilting her head, Deb feels the slow stir of suspicion beginning to rise. What is he getting at? “I told you earlier—I’m not alone. Jackie’s here with me.” 

“Oh,” he breathes softly. There’s something tight and bruised in the hush of his words. Disappointment, perhaps. “Right, Jackie’s here. Forgot you said that.” 

She continues studying him. She knows this tone. It’s one she’s heard before, in the years when there was still love between them, exciting and young and new. She shifts uncomfortably, but curiosity keeps her rooted in place, waiting to discover what it is he’s trying to say.

“It’s okay, we talked about a lot,” she murmurs softly, trailing off with the quiet dodge of a woman who knows better. 

Greg turns his face toward the window, eyes lifting slowly, searching the shadows of the house. “The offer still stands. I promise to be quiet. Just one more drink—something to ease the nerves, you know? It’s been so long since we talked like this.” 

There’s a familiar fluttering in her chest at the sound of his boyish uncertainty. It used to charm her to bits, but she’s older and wiser now, and she recognizes the subtle shift in his posture, the hopeful lean over the center console, and his lingering eyes that beg her permission to stay a while longer. 

Ah. I see.

The thing about marriage is that it teaches a woman many things. The thing about divorce is that it teaches a woman even more. She thought she had learned all of his patterns, only to discover in the end that she’d actually known nothing about him at all. 

Greg, she came to learn, was terrified of solitude the way children feared darkness. He never was very good at coping by himself. He only knew how to self-destruct, usually in the form of too much booze, or money wasted playing cards, or, as she knows far too well, women.

Strange now, to sit on the other side of it, to watch his silent grasp for destructive comfort unfold right before her eyes.

“It’s just—it’s a lot, Deb. The last week, tonight, everything we talked about. I… I don’t want to be alone in that hotel room.” He turns away, staring through the windshield. 

Exhaling, Deb replies slowly, trying to balance her compassion with her wary suspicion. “It’s late, Greg,” she says gently. “Besides, Jackie’s been sleeping in the living room and I don’t want to wake her up. She really needs the rest.” 

“Right. Jackie.” Greg nods, disappointed again. He looks at her again, fingers drumming restlessly on the wheel. “Like I said, I can keep quiet. Just one drink. That’s all. I—I promise I’ll leave if she wakes up.” 

There it is again. 

The careful maneuvering, the easy charm he wields so skillfully, easing his way back into her mind. She catches sight of a glint of gold encircling his finger, representing the promise he’d made to someone else, and finds herself sighing. 

The sight of it cuts through her wine-softened heart. His poor wife. 

Deep down, there is still a small, traitorous part of her that whispers sweet lies and urges her toward his warmth, and the fleeting comfort his presence would bring; the tender lie of being held again in his arms. 

She could lean into him, close her eyes, and pretend for a moment that their grief holds something beautiful and lasting. But she knows better. It wouldn’t be right. She knows just how empty the morning would be when she woke, cold and aching, left with nothing but regret and the ghost of him in her bed. 

Her responding smile comes slow and gentle, but filled with an old knowing. She shakes her head. “Greg, I don’t think so. I don’t want to risk it. She needs rest. Real rest.” 

Greg stares back at her for a long moment, disappointment flashing briefly across his features before he nods, pulling back into himself with a defeated slump of his shoulders. “Of course. You’re right. I shouldn’t have—yeah, I shouldn’t have asked. That was out of line. I’m sorry.” 

Deb shrugs. “It’s okay. I get it. Tonight’s been hard on both of us.” 

“Yeah. It has been,” he admits quietly, running his hand over his face. This allows her to see his wedding ring again. It stares at her like an accusation, reminding her of all the reasons she’d learned to let him go. 

“But thanks anyway,” she says quietly. “For offering, I mean.” 

He nods slowly, eyes full of an old ache. “I meant what I said, Deb. If you need anything, anything at all—” 

“I know,” she whispers, unbuckling her seatbelt. “You’re a phone call away.”

She gathers her purse and reaches for the door handle. 

Almost desperately, Greg adds, “Seriously. Anything. I’ll call you tomorrow once I talk to the lawyer.” 

“Goodnight, Greg.” 

“Goodnight, Deb.” 

He waits until she makes it safely to the porch, like he’s hoping she may change her mind at the very last minute. Fat chance of that. She pauses at the threshold, turning back once to watch him leave. Then she heads inside, willing herself not to cry. 

Jackie. May 29th, 1996. Wiskayok, New Jersey.

There are birds chirping right outside the window when Jackie opens her eyes on Wednesday morning. The sunlight is soft, sneaking through Shauna’s curtains just enough to fill the room with a gentle warmth. 

She blinks slowly, still fuzzy-headed, caught somewhere in that strange space between asleep and awake. It’s nice. Better than nice—it’s amazing, actually. She feels almost over-rested, as though she’s finally caught up on the sleep she’s been missing for weeks. Which, in a way, she really has. This wasn’t the groggy, medication-induced fog she’s been trapped in before. This was real sleep. The sort that made her brain feel less like a tangled knot, even if she had no idea how she’d pulled it off. 

With a happy yawn, Jackie stretches out her good arm and smiles softly. It’s as though she woke up covered in Shauna—the smell of her bedsheets, the lumpy pillow under her head, the quilt Shauna’s grandmother had stitched her for her eleventh birthday. 

It’s like being hugged, like being wrapped in something that didn’t hurt, something she hasn’t felt since… well, since before. Before the hospital, before the crash, before everything turned into a mess she had no idea how to fix.

For a moment, she almost forgets about everything. 

But then her stomach growls, loud and demanding, and the aching pulse in her arm begins anew—meaning it’s time for a new round of pills. 

She uses her good arm to push herself up, wincing as the mattress creaks below her. “Okay, okay,” she whispers to no one but herself, letting out a small, reluctant groan. “I’m moving.” 

That’s when Jackie realizes she isn’t alone. 

There is a person on the floor. A Deb-shaped person, curled up awkwardly on the ground next to Shauna’s bed. 

Immediately, a twisting, worried feeling takes root in her stomach. 

Deb’s makeup is smudged, her blouse wrinkled, and she is still wearing the same shoes she’d worn to dinner last night. She’s hugging herself, clutching tight to nothing. Next to her head, Jackie notices a white Styrofoam container, unopened and forgotten. She doesn’t have a blanket, just a small throw pillow tucked beneath her head. 

Oh my God. Did she sleep on the floor all night? 

Jackie’s stomach tightens. 

Was it Greg? Had he said something awful? Did he do something he shouldn’t have? Maybe the dinner didn’t go so smoothly. Maybe he made her cry. 

A fierce and violent heat flares in Jackie’s chest and rushes up her throat. 

She feels suddenly protective, like Deb is hers to look after. 

Deb is the only reason she’s managed to stay alive. She’d given Jackie somewhere safe to go, and not only for this awful last week, but for all of Jackie’s life. If Shauna’s dad had upset her, or worse, done something to hurt her… Jackie would have to do something about it. 

She isn’t sure exactly what yet— maybe I’ll key his rental car —but it would be something loud and big. 

The thought fills her with an odd excitement that hums deep in her muscles. It would be a chance to finally let out her pain and rageful confusion. It would be fun. 

Gently, Jackie slides off the bed, careful not to let her cast clunk against the frame or the floor. She lowers herself down until she is sitting criss-crossed beside Deb’s sleeping form. With a slow stretch of her arm, she reaches out to softly tap Deb on the shoulder. 

“Deb?” She whispers, nudging twice, trying to wake her without startling her. “Deb, wake up.” 

It takes a lot of gentle prodding for Deb to finally wake up. At first, she resists, squirming away from Jackie’s fingertips, screwing up her face and mumbling protests. Jackie doesn’t relent and patiently continues with her slow pushing. 

Finally, Deb’s eyes snap open, red-rimmed. They dart around the room and as she gasps, disoriented. “Wha—what’s going on?” 

“Sorry! Sorry,” Jackie says quickly, pulling her hands back, feeling guilty for waking her even as a quiet relief rushes through her. “It’s only me. I just—I got worried seeing you asleep here.” 

“Oh. Right.” Deb blinks, deflating. She pushes herself up, smoothing down her wrinkled blouse with the palm of her hands. “Jackie, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.” 

“Are you okay?” Jackie asks, voice softening. 

“I’m fine,” Deb murmurs, rubbing at her eyes, still adjusting to being awake. “I just had a long night.” 

“I bet.” Jackie leans back against the bed, crossing her legs. “Why were you sleeping on the floor? Did everything go okay with Greg?”

Deb takes a moment to answer, reaching up to yank a bobby pin from her hair. She stabs it back into place and begins to smooth away strands of hair. Her bun from last night had mostly come undone. “I didn’t exactly plan on it,” she admits. “Dinner was fine. Hard, but fine. But when I got home and didn’t see you on the couch… I panicked. Convinced myself you’d run off to join the circus.” 

“The circus?” Jackie raises an eyebrow. “With this?” She gestures at her cast. 

“Hey, a clown is still a clown, even with a broken arm. It adds backstory.” Deb sighs, rubbing the back of her neck. “By the time I found you up here, I was too wine-drunk and drama-queen tired to move. Figured the floor was as good a place as any to drop.” 

Guilt punches her right in the gut. Jackie’s eyes go wide. “Oh shit, Deb, I didn’t even think—I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Hush.” Deb holds up a hand and shakes her head. “You don’t have to apologize, kiddo. I’m a grown woman who chose the floor over a perfectly good bed of her own. Blame the Merlot.” 

Jackie frowns, scratching idly along her cast. “Still. I wish I hadn’t fallen asleep. I wanted to wait up for you. Ask how dinner went. But I… I just crashed.” 

“Good,” Deb says firmly, “you needed it. You looked dead to the world. Like that time I caught you passed out after you and Shauna broke into my wine coolers last year.” 

“That was one time!” Jackie grabs the throw-pillow resting a foot away and tosses it at her face. She misses on purpose. 

Deb catches it anyway and hugs the pillow to her chest. “Anyway, I was happy to see you felt comfortable enough to come up here. I’ve been wondering when you’d finally do it.” 

“It just felt like the right time,” says Jackie. “I’m glad I did.” 

“Did you sleep okay, at least?” Deb asks, groaning quietly as she stretches out her stiff legs. “No nightmares?” 

“Honestly?” Jackie smiles shyly. “Yeah. I slept… amazingly. It was like my brain finally shut up.” 

Deb’s lips curl into a soft, knowing smile. “I get it. Makes me happy to hear.” 

Jackie nudges the Styrofoam container with her toe. “So. I see you remembered my mozzarella sticks…?” 

“That I did.” Deb chuckles. “But they probably taste like rubber after sitting out all night.” 

“Well, it just so happens that microwaved fried cheese is my favorite breakfast ever.” She leans forward and gives Deb’s knee a playful slap, making them both smile again. “Wanna split them with me and tell me how dinner went?” 

“You’ve got yourself a deal. But first,” Deb rubs a palm over her face, smearing some of her mascara, “I need to shower and make myself look a little less like a hot mess. I’m way too old to be sleeping on the floor.” 

“My dad’s picking me up later,” Jackie reminds her, eyes flickering downward. “I—I guess I’ll pack up my stuff while you do that.” 

Deb sighs. “Today’s the day, huh?” 

Jackie nods. “Yeah. I’m not happy about it.” 

“Me neither,” murmurs Deb. She reaches out and places a gentle hand on Jackie’s shoulder. “But, like I said… you’re welcome to come back anytime you want.” 

“Thanks, Deb.” 

“Sure thing, kid. Now—I’m going to wash off last night’s makeup. You get your stuff ready, and then we’ll meet in the kitchen and rip into these cheesesticks.” 

Jackie brushes at her eyes and smiles. “I can’t wait.”

“Wow,” Jackie says, pulling a mozzarella stick apart with a thoughtful look on her face. The cheese doesn’t stretch like it’s supposed to, not like it would have last night while still fresh. Instead, it snaps into two little cold pieces. She pops one into her mouth and takes a firm chomp as she considers everything Deb has just told her. “So… you’re really going to hire a lawyer?” 

Deb shrugs, tracing circles along the condensation formed around her glass of water. She looks tired, Jackie thinks, worryingly so, even after a shower. 

“I think we are. At least, Greg seems pretty sure we should. Says having a lawyer might help get some real answers from the authorities. Someone who actually knows how to handle all of the complicated stuff.” 

Jackie tilts her head, chewing slower now. Lawyers, the government, the authorities—none of it makes any sense to her, but she tries her best to understand anyway. “Do you think it will actually make a difference?” 

Deb sighs, resting her elbows on the counter top. “Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, it probably won’t hurt. There will probably be some sort of lawsuit. Greg says there could be a lot of money waiting if we push hard enough. But as far as getting real answers about Shauna…” Her eyes flutter closed and her voice trails off softly. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” 

“A lawsuit?” Jackie lifts an eyebrow as she dunks another stick of fried cheese into marinara sauce, swirling it around. “Really?” 

“Maybe.” Deb says, brushing a stray hair behind her ear. 

“You should sue,” Jackie says fiercely. “I mean, people make a ton of money from falling down in a Walmart even where there are big warning signs right there. And this is obviously way worse.” 

Deb chuckles. It’s a small, sad sound, but real. “True enough.” 

“I’m serious,” Jackie continues. “Sue the airline. Sue the government. Go ahead and sue God, while you’re at it. Take their millions.”

“God’s broke, kiddo.” Deb crumples her napkin and sets it down on her plate. “But as for the airline… Yeah, Greg thinks we have a shot. We’ll have to get the other parents on board, though.”

“Well, you definitely deserve something. You all do.” 

Deb nods. “You’re right. And the money would really help. I wouldn’t have to rush back to work. I could stay home and, I don’t know, keep looking for answers. Or at least have some time to figure things out.” 

Money isn’t something Jackie’s ever had to worry about before, not in any true sense. Her parents had always taken care of everything. Her dad had a high-paying job and her mother came from a wealthy family. She could ask them for new soccer cleats or concert tickets all without having to think twice. She was used to asking and receiving without issue. 

She knows she’s lucky. Jackie isn’t oblivious, despite what others sometimes thought of her. 

Shauna’s life had been different. She never asked for much. Deb and Shauna didn’t have the luxury of being careless about money, especially after the divorce. Jackie was beginning to understand that better with every year she grew older. 

“I’m sure you’ll win,” Jackie says, glancing at Deb. “And if there’s any way I can help… you know, like testify or whatever they do in court, I totally will. I can cry on command and everything.” 

Deb laughs. “You’re sweet. Thanks. I’ll definitely keep your Oscar-winning performance in mind.” 

Jackie can’t help but smile back, glad to see some brightness from Deb, even if just for a moment. “You should. I’m excellent at melodrama. Everyone says so.” 

“Oh, trust me,” chuckles Deb. Some of the tension in her shoulders eases by an inch. “I believe they do.” 

Jackie hopes they bankrupt the government. She hopes they get every single cent they ask for, and more than that too. It’s the absolute least the world owes them after everything they’re going through. Money won’t bring Shauna back, but at least it might make things easier. 

“My dad knows, like, a billion lawyers. Fancy corporate ones.” Jackie shrugs, trying to sound casual in spite of the helpless confusion swirling through her head. She wishes there was more she could do. “If Greg’s lady sucks, I’ll make him call you. I’ll bug him every minute until he picks up the phone.” 

Deb smiles again, but it never quite reaches her eyes. “I appreciate that.” She reaches for another mozzarella stick, pinching it firmly between her fingers. “Speaking of your dad, how are you feeling about going home today?” 

Jackie glares at her plate. A familiar knot begins to tighten again in her stomach. “Pretty fucking shitty.” 

“I’m sorry,” Deb says gently, eyes softening. 

Jackie shrugs, trying to appear unbothered even as a fierce frustration begins to well inside of her. “I just don’t understand why they’re making such a big deal out of this. It’s not like we’ll suddenly become a happy family that spends all of our time together. I’ll probably just be in my room while they ignore me, same as always.” 

Only now, she wouldn’t have Shauna to call. There would be no one to rescue her. 

“You never know,” says Deb softly, reaching out to place a gentle hand on Jackie’s wrist. “Maybe they’ll surprise you. Parents do… sometimes. Maybe having you safe and back home is exactly the wake-up call they need.” 

She desperately wants to believe that’s true, more than she’d ever admit to anyone, even herself. But hope seems impossible right now. “Maybe,” she mutters, frowning deeper, “but I really doubt it.”

Deb squeezes her wrist, her voice tender and warm and maternal. “Hey, no matter what happens at home, remember you can always come back here. I mean it. You’ve been a lifesaver, Jackie. Truly. Having you here has kept me going. I can’t express that enough.”

A warmth spreads through Jackie’s chest, filling a space that’s been hollow and hurting since she left Seattle. To her surprise, she doesn’t burst into tears. Maybe she’d used them all up, or maybe her heart was just finally too tired. Whatever the reason, she keeps her composure and meets Deb’s eyes with determination. 

“I’m going to come back.” Her voice is firm, almost defiant, as though saying it out loud would make it real. “I don’t know how or when exactly, but I’ll find a way.” 

“You know where the key is.” Deb pulls her hand away and reaches again for her water. “Come back whenever. Even if it’s 3AM. Even if you just want to… I don’t know, organize my spice rack, or watch a movie. You’re always welcome.” 

Jackie tries to put on a brave smile. “I’ll be back before you can even miss me.” 

Deb’s voice is thick as she shakes her head. “I doubt that.”

The knock on the door comes all too soon. Three raps. Polite, but impatient.

Her stomach instantly drops, making her wish she’d skipped the mozzarella sticks entirely. She isn’t ready to see her dad yet, but there is nothing to be done about it. Deb is already slipping quietly out of the kitchen, heading for the front door. 

Jackie sits very still, twisting around on her stool, holding her breath and straining her ears, waiting. At first, it’s just Deb’s footsteps, soft and careful down the hallway. Then comes the turn of the knob and the creak of squeaky hinges, followed by Deb’s quiet, cautious voice. 

“James, hello,” she says politely. “It’s good to see you.” 

There is a brief but noticeable pause before she hears her father’s deep, familiar voice. It’s steady and careful, the voice of someone who knows he doesn’t belong here. “Hi, Deb,” he replies, “Same to you. I wish it was under better circumstances.” 

“Is that for me?” Deb asks suddenly, her voice lifting with genuine surprise. Jackie imagines her smiling in that polite, grateful way of hers, making everyone feel appreciated for the smallest things. “That’s very kind of you.” 

“Oh, it’s nothing,” James quickly answers, sounding embarrassed by the praise. “Cindy insisted, actually. She thought—well, it’s the least we could do.” 

“Please thank her for me,” Deb murmurs with a touch of relief in her voice, as though whatever her mother sent really did mean a lot. “It’s been hard to find the time to cook lately. This really helps.” 

“It really wasn’t any trouble,” her father says, clearing his throat. Jackie wonders if he’s standing stiff and proper in his Wednesday suit, his dark hair carefully combed to hide his thinning hairline. “Especially after taking Jackie in for the last week—I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.” 

Deb answers immediately, raising her voice a couple notches, as though she knows Jackie is listening and wants her to hear every single word. “Not even a little bit. I don’t know how I would have made it through the week without her. She’s a wonderful kid. You should be proud.” 

“She is,” James agrees, speaking with a softness that Jackie rarely hears from him. He sounds so earnest that she almost believes him. Almost. “She always has been. And I know she loves you too.” 

Jackie scowls. How would he know anything about how she felt? He barely knew anything about her at all, let alone who she loves and why. Her irritation spikes, painting her cheeks a splotchy pink. 

“Here, let me take that from you,” Deb says, cutting through their awkward silence. There’s some shuffling noises, probably Deb taking the food her mom had sent along. “Jackie’s just in the kitchen. Come on, I’ll lead the way.” 

The sound of their combined footsteps coming closer sends Jackie spinning back around, desperately trying to hide the fact that she’d been eavesdropping. It isn’t easy considering she has nothing to occupy her hands. She almost wishes she had one more mozzarella stick to pretend to nibble. Focusing her stare on the wall, she tells herself to act natural. It’s easier said than done. 

“Hey kiddo,” says Deb from the doorway, breaking her pretend trance. “Your dad is here.” 

Slowly, Jackie turns around. 

Deb is standing where the hallway meets the kitchen, holding a glass casserole dish covered with a sheet of aluminum foil. Jackie recognizes it immediately. Broccoli and cheese, one of her mother’s specialities. It was her signature “I Care (But Not Enough to Visit)” dish. 

They catch each other’s gaze. Deb flashes her a small, apologetic smile. 

Then she sees him. 

James Taylor hovers in the doorway. She expects to see him dressed stiffly in his work suit. It’s the middle of the week and he likely has meetings to attend. Instead, her eyebrows lift in surprise. He’s dressed casually—tan slacks and a light blue polo shirt neatly tucked beneath a leather belt. No suit. No tie. Country-club loafers. It startles her. 

“Hi, Jackie,” he says gently, stepping forward slowly, as though he isn’t sure if she’ll allow it. His expression is softer than usual, almost emotional, which is weird. That isn’t a word she’s ever used to describe him. She doesn’t know what to do with the feeling. 

“Hi, Dad,” she says, looking down at her feet. Her voice is tight, distant. She isn’t going to make this easy for him, even if he seems to be earnestly trying. 

His eyes dart across her face down to her cast. “You’re looking a lot better since the last time I saw you,” he says, as though he’d practiced it moments ago in the car. 

Better. Jackie instinctively touches her cheek, careful not to press too hard. It’s true. The last time he’d seen her, her eye had been swollen shut and as purple as a rotten plum. The swelling around it had gone down significantly, and she could finally open it fully again, which is something she wasn’t able to do before. The bruises are still there—a gross yellow-green with splotches of fading purple mixed between—but they’re better. Even the deep fracture beneath her eye feels less angry, less painful, so long as she was careful about touching it. 

She wonders if he can see the improvement in her arm. Her movements are less awkward, less foreign. She’s learned to maneuver around it. 

“Deb’s been doing a good job nursing me back to health,” she finally says, after a long pause. She doesn’t want to give her dad any credit, doesn’t want to reward him for the basic act of noticing her, but she does want him to feel indebted to Deb. If nothing else. 

He nods, fiddling with his car keys. “Your mom and I… we’re grateful to her. For being here for you.” 

Grateful. Jackie tries not to scoff. The word is sticky, like gum on her shoes. Two days ago, he’d harped about her reckless choices over the phone. Now he was Mr. Gentle. Probably because Deb is watching, she figures. Jackie knows the act, the Perfect Family Protocol, and she doesn’t trust it for a second. 

Still, it’s nice that Deb gets some of the recognition she deserves. 

“You really don’t have to thank me for anything,” Deb gently reminds him. She pulls open the drudge door and carefully slides the casserole tray inside. “Like I told you, Jackie is always welcome here. I love having her around.” 

Jackie watches her closely, noting how tight her shoulders are, how her posture stiffens as if bracing for something painful. Her face is drawn and controlled, while her hands tremor as she wipes them against her jeans. Jackie feels a sudden ache in her chest, a sharp stab of guilt for leaving Deb behind. It’s unfair, even cruel, to leave her in this empty house. She knows better than to argue with her dad now, but she makes a silent promise to herself—one way or another, she’ll find a way back.

Her father seems to notice Deb’s discomfort too, though Jackie isn’t particularly impressed with him for it. It doesn’t take a genius to see Deb is struggling with the idea of Jackie leaving. 

James shifts his weight and awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. He clears his throat softly, searching Deb’s face as though he’s trying to find the right words, but clearly struggling to do so. 

“I, uh—I know there’s nothing I can say to make any of this easier,” he murmurs quietly, glancing briefly at Jackie. His eyes are wide, as though he’s checking with her to make sure he isn’t saying something wrong. “I… we can’t imagine what you’re going through. But if you need anything—groceries, errands, yardwork… anything —please don’t hesitate to ask. We’ve all been praying for you. So has our entire church congregation.”

Deb flinches. It’s just a little, but Jackie spots it in the subtle tightening around her eyes. The mention of church is well meaning from her father’s end, and Jackie knows it, but it isn’t the comfort Deb needs right now. She wonders if he even thought about that before he said it. 

Jackie doubts it. 

“Thank you, James,” Deb finally says in a quiet, painfully polite voice. She looks away from him, eyes sliding to a picture of Shauna displayed on the front of the fridge. “I appreciate that. I really do.” 

A rush of protective tenderness towards Deb washes over Jackie. She wants to shield her from the awkward, meaningless comforts of people who can’t possibly understand what she’s going through. But all she can do is silently promise to come back, to fill this empty space again soon. 

A heavy silence settles between them.

It’s uncomfortable—stiff and wrong—not at all like the peaceful quiet she and Deb have gotten used to over the past week. Jackie resents her parents deeply for breaking the calm they’d built together, hated them even more for stealing her away from the only safe place she had left. 

“Well, uh—I suppose I’ll get your bag loaded into the car,” says James, breaking the silence. He steps forward to grab Jackie’s backpack that rests on the ground by the counter. “I’ll give you two a minute to say goodbye. Just… come out to the car whenever you’re ready.” 

Jackie nods, barely whispering. “Will do.” 

She remains rooted to her stool until she hears the front door shut after him. Then, without hesitation, she pushes herself up to her feet and launches herself forward. Deb is already there, arms open and ready. 

They meet in the middle of the kitchen and wrap each other in a fierce hug. Deb’s hug is so tight it makes Jackie’s arm ache under cast. She doesn’t care. 

“Make sure you stay on top of your medication,” Deb whispers. There is a tremble in her voice, a terror that makes Jackie want to chase her father away, to tell him to never come back. “And don’t be a stranger, okay?” 

“I promise,” Jackie says immediately, squeezing tighter with her good arm, and trying to pour all of the love and grief she feels into the embrace. “I swear I’ll call. I wish I could stay here.”

“So do I, honey,” Deb murmurs, smoothing Jackie’s hair back with gentle fingers, like she used to when Jackie and Shauna were small. “But maybe—maybe try giving your parents a chance, okay? They love you, Jackie, even if they’re not so good at showing it.” 

Jackie bites back the urge to argue. The concept feels pointless, impossible even. Still, she doesn’t dare to disagree with Deb, not now. Instead, she nods. “Okay, I’ll try. I swear.” 

She isn’t sure how much of a lie that statement is. She supposes she’ll find out. 

They hold onto each other a minute longer, neither wanting to be the first to let go. But eventually Deb steps back and puts a hand on Jackie’s shoulder. 

“Come back soon, okay?” she whispers, voice warm and aching. 

Jackie swallows a lump in her throat. “As soon as I can.” 

And then she goes.

At first, Jackie figures her father’s strange warmth was only because Deb was around. But even after Jackie climbs into the front seat of his car and shuts the door behind her, he keeps it up. The gentle tone, the careful questions—they make her stomach twist nervously. She can’t help but feel suspicious over it, confused by this inexplicable shift. 

The car is quiet for the first few minutes. They drive through Shauna’s neighborhood without a word between them. But as they turn onto the main road, her father decides to break the silence. 

“Your room is cleaned up and ready for you,” he says in a carefully casual voice. “Your mom asked the maid to put on fresh sheets and blankets.” 

Jackie stares straight ahead and presses her lips into a thin line. “Nice.”

He gives her a sidelong glance, fingers tapping steadily against the steering wheel. “We also bought a few of those candles you like. Your mom thought they might help you relax, help things start to feel normal again.”

Normal? Nothing was normal. Nothing would ever be normal again. She huffs out a small breath. “Cool.” 

James frowns, clearly waiting for her to say something else. Jackie, however, isn’t in the mood to make anything easy on him. A long pause follows. Each second stretches uncomfortable into the next until he finally tries again. 

“Maybe we could grab lunch before heading to the house?” 

She shakes her head. “Not hungry.” 

And then it was quiet again. 

Jackie leans her head against the car window, focusing on the vibrations of the road. Hopefully they’ll finish the remainder of the drive in silence. Maybe her dad would finally give up and catch the hint. But just as she starts to relax, he speaks again, careful, almost hesitant. 

“So…” he begins, awkwardly clearing his throat, “how’s your arm?” 

“Still broken,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. 

With a frown on her face, she watches her breath fog against the glass, wishing she could fold her arms and glare at him. But her cast made that impossible.

He doesn’t say anything at first, just shifts a little in his seat and tightens his knuckles around the steering wheel. Finally, he speaks again, but this time, his voice is edged with a new frustration. “Is that all I’m going to get from you today? One-word answers?” 

Unbidden, a smile replaces her frown. She doesn’t mean to, not exactly—it just appears; quick and sharp and unexpected. Staying with Deb had been calming, gentle even, but it didn’t erase the restless anger bubbling beneath her surface. Suddenly, Jackie realizes her father makes a pretty convenient target for all of the fear and grief bottled inside of her. She isn’t normally in the business of intentionally provoking them, but maybe, just this once, she’ll let herself be the sort of teenager they accused her of being all the time. 

“Yup,” she says, popping the ‘p’ loudly, almost challenging him to get angry with her. 

James clenches his jaw and shakes his head, but to Jackie’s annoyance, he doesn’t rise to her provocation. Instead, he takes a slow breath. 

“Fine,” he says, irritatingly calm. “If that’s how you want to do this—I’ll stick to yes-or-no questions. Think you can handle that much?” 

“Sure,” says Jackie in a flattened tone. She keeps her eyes fixed stubbornly on the blurred world outside her window.

He clicks on the blinker and glances out through his side-view mirror. For a moment, they’re both quiet again, each watching the world go by. But, once again, her father breaks the silence. 

“Are you angry with us? Your mother and I?” 

Jackie rolls her eyes toward the ceiling of the car, not even bothering to hide her blatant attitude. “Yes.” 

“I see.” He nods slowly, as though he’s finally cracking some sort of complicated riddle. Then, seemingly content with the new direction of their conversation, he continues. “Is it because we’re making you come home?” 

“Yes,” she snaps immediately. Then, after a slight pause, she adds—almost unwillingly, “And no.” 

A small, victorious smile flashes across his face. He glances her way, watching her for a brief second as they come to a stop at a red light. “Wow. I got three whole words out of that one.” 

Jackie frowns, shuffling further down in her seat. “Whatever.” 

“Back to the original rules, then?” he says, looking back at the road.

“Yes.” 

“Gotcha.” He pauses, clearly pondering his next question. “You really don’t want to be at home with us, do you?”

“No.” 

James goes quiet. He’d been enjoying the game up until a few seconds ago, but now her answer hangs heavy in the air between them. His expression shifts. Surprise first, then confusion, and finally, something that looks like genuine hurt. It almost feels like the car is slowing down, even though Jackie can see that speed remains steady.

He opens his mouth, closes it, and then after a painfully long minute, he sighs. “Ah. I see.”

“Yeah?” Jackie eyes him skeptically. She’s certain he doesn’t see anything at all. 

“Well—maybe not. I don't know.” He exhales, pursing his lips. “Why does it feel like we’re enemies right now? What are we doing wrong?” 

“Dunno,” she says in a dull voice. She doesn’t know how to answer that question.

“We care about you, Jackie,” he says softly, almost sadly. “We love you. Do you believe that at all?” 

Jackie hesitates, caught off guard by the foreign sincerity in his voice. “Sometimes.”

James shakes his head and lets a bitter little snort escape from his nose. “Sometimes,” he repeats quietly. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I just want what’s best for you, sweetheart. Even if you don’t believe me.” 

Once again, Jackie rolls her eyes, feeling a familiar annoyance creeping back in. Her reply is thick with sarcasm. “Sure.”

The thing is—if this moment was happening at any other time in her life, she would have been thrilled. Her mom was always too curious, poking around in places Jackie desperately wanted to keep private, while her dad was usually more interested in his own life. She spent years avoiding Cindy’s endless questions while secretly wishing James would just ask one. 

But that was then, and this is now. Everything is different, worse, upside-down, and Jackie just wants to be left alone. 

Unfortunately, James doesn’t seem to pick up on that. 

“It won’t always feel like this,” he says, glancing at her briefly before looking back at the road. “I know I’m—I know I’m not great with stuff like this. But if you ever want to talk… about the team, or—or about Shauna, then—”

The moment she hears Shauna’s name leave his mouth, something sharp and painful explodes in Jackie’s chest. It’s white-hot and it burns her nerves raw. Her entire body stiffens. Her spine straightens with a surge of blistering anger. How dare he bring her up so casually, as though talking about her would be easy, if it’s even possible at all? 

Without thinking, she whips her head around to glare at him. 

“Can you please just—just shut up?!” Her voice cracks pathetically halfway through, breaking into a pitiful squeak. She can’t stop herself, can’t hold back the bitter words that continue to spill out. “I don’t want to talk to you. Not now, not ever, and especially not about Shauna. You’re giving me a fucking headache.” 

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she knows she’s crossed several lines—one, interrupting him mid-sentence; two, openly telling him to shut up; three, swearing directly at him. Normally, she’d be bracing herself for a lecture or worse: a grounding, threats of a talk with her mother, coupled with the dreaded, disappointed stare he reserved for angry occasions. 

But this isn’t normal. Nothing is, remember? 

Unsteady of yelling, or scolding, or even sighing with disappointment, James remains quiet. 

For once in her life, her father listens. 

He grips the steering wheel tighter, until his knuckles go white, but he doesn’t say another word. He doesn’t even glance at her again. 

Jackie slumps back against her seat, breathing heavily. Her anger remains, but a numbing confusion comes to join it. The car remains silent, tense, filled only with the sound of the engine hum and tires turning on the road. 

Neither of them speak for the rest of the drive. 

The car finally slows, pulling carefully into their driveway. Jackie gazes through the window and feels her heart sink into a pit of quicksand at the base of her chest when she sees her house. It looks exactly the same as the day she fled it. 

Her father shifts the car into park and lets out a slow breath, staring straight ahead. For a long minute, he doesn’t say anything. He just sits quietly with his hands on the steering wheel. Jackie doesn’t move either. She doesn’t want to. 

But eventually, he speaks. “Your mom is inside. She’s waiting for you.” 

Jackie closes her eyes. 

Fuck. 

Chapter Text

Jackie. May 29th, 1996. Wiskayok, New Jersey.

It’s funny how her own house can feel like a stranger’s. Walking inside is even worse now than it was the last time. 

Jackie steps into the entryway and pauses, letting her eyes trail up the staircase, and then down the long hallway stretching alongside it. The kitchen sits at the very end, door slightly ajar, just enough to allow a small ray of light to shine through. She hears dishes clink and water splashing. But just as quickly, it all stops, and a thick silence rushes in to swallow her up. 

Shuffling footsteps startle her. From behind, she hears soft leather loafers coming up the walkway. Her dad. He steps up beside her, holding her backpack loosely in his hand. At the same time, her mother’s slippers come click-clacking from up the hallway. Cindy appears then, twisting a dishrag nervously between her hands.

They stare at each other. Jackie counts the silent seconds, and already, she feels an angry heat begin to creep up along the back of her neck. 

In that tiny instant, her mother’s eyes sweep over her figure from head-to-toe, taking inventory. Jackie can practically hear her running through a mental checklist. 

“Jackie,” she finally says, quieter than usual, almost hesitant. She twists the rag tighter and Jackie notices the movement immediately. Why does she seem so nervous? It’s strange. Jackie doesn’t like it. “It’s good to see you. Are… are you hungry?” 

The question needles at her. Her hand, which so far had been hanging uselessly at her side, curls into an uneasy fist. Jackie knows what she ought to do: shake her head, offer a polite no, force a smile, and make some small-talk. 

But she ought to do all sorts of things that she would rather not, and this becomes one of them. 

Her face stiffens into something hard and unfriendly, and she draws in a breath, willing herself to remain steady. “I’m fine. I’m going up to my room.”

Cindy’s eyebrows rise. Her mouth opens and closes as she looks to James for backup, rescue, or any sort of assistance against Jackie’s sudden hostility. 

But Jackie doesn’t wait around to hear her dad clear his throat or offer something posturing and meaningless. Before he has a chance to open his mouth, she snatches her backpack from his hands—a bit rougher than she intends to—and stomps up the stairs, not bothering to quiet her thudding shoes. Let them be irritated. Let them know how angry she is to be here. Let them know this is all their fault. 

A luckier girl might have parents who knew when to step back, when to leave her alone and allow her to breathe. Jackie isn’t so lucky. She barely makes it halfway up the stairs before two voices chase after her. 

First it’s her father’s voice, drifting up behind her in a faded, distant fashion as he stands uncertainly beneath the frame of their opened front door. 

“Jackie! Hey, not so fast, wait a minute—” 

She ignores him. 

So, apparently, does her mother. Her voice cuts in a second later, sharp and close behind. “It’s fine, James, let me handle this.” Then, raising her voice to carry up the stairs, “Jackie, please wait!” 

But Jackie doesn’t wait. Why would she? They have nothing to say that she wants to hear. Nor does she slow down. She only pushes harder, rushing more quickly, feeling every stomp in her chest as she races to the relative safety of her bedroom. When she finally makes it, Jackie throws open the door and slams it shut behind her. 

The frame rattles. 

Leaning against the door, Jackie sucks in a rapid series of ragged gulps. Her body reacts as though she’d run clear across town rather than up a single flight of stairs, with her heartbeat pulsing wildly in her ears and her legs trembling. 

Angrily, she flings her backpack aside. It skids across the floor, where it comes to a halting knock against the ottoman at the end of her bed. 

It’s the first time she’s been in her own room since she’s been back. 

It’s strange. Wrong. Too quiet, too still. 

The last time she was here, she only saw the guest bathroom and nothing more. The thought of being here in this room, surrounded by all of her memories and her things, it had been unbearable. That’s why she’d gone straight to Deb’s. One reason among many.

Her eyes dart around, tracing the familiar shape of her bedroom, passively observing everything that is the same and noting anything different. 

Jackie was always a neat enough person by nature. Never messy, but usually tidy. 

This is beyond tidy. The room practically sparkles, as though someone scrubbed every inch to make it seem untouched, almost unlived-in. The soccer trophies on her shelf are freshly buffed, shining proudly next to a picture of her and Jeff from last fall’s Homecoming. The dust from her windowsill is gone, and the smell of floor cleaner lingers faintly in the air. Her bed is made, covers tucked in tight enough to please even the most critical of drill-sergeants. 

Her dad hadn’t lied. The maid had gone full Cinderella on the place. But why? It wouldn’t fix anything, wouldn’t make anything better. 

She knows the truth: the maid always came, every other week, like clockwork. 

This isn’t special. It is an empty gift. Another way for her parents to show they care while not really having to do much of anything at all. 

Still. There is one small saving grace. It doesn’t sting as much to be here, or at least, it doesn’t sting as much as she would have expected. 

Maybe it helps that she’s already faced the hardest thing—Shauna’s room. That was worse by every conceivable metric. Shauna’s things had been scattered everywhere. Her presence (or lack of) haunted every corner, every drawer. 

At least here, in Jackie’s room, Shauna is more like a visitor and less of a haunting ghost. 

Her gaze travels over the walls, pausing on pictures, mementos, magazine clippings. All the little bits of an old life that is irretrievably gone. Eventually, her eyes land on her desk. Or, more specifically, the chair tucked beneath it. 

Draped casually over the back is a dark blue flannel shirt, worn soft and faded a bit at the elbows, and woven with hints of gray and green. Jackie knows it instantly. Her breath hitches painfully in the back of her throat. 

It’s Shauna’s. Of course it is. 

It’s the one Jackie borrowed last month after spilling red Gatorade down the front of her own shirt. “You’ll give it back, right?” Shauna had asked, watching her from the bench in the locker room. 

Jackie remembers smiling back at her, cheeks high and eyes bright. “No, I think I’ll keep this one.” 

At the exact moment she notices the flannel, she also hears her mother’s voice again from behind the door. 

Shrill, demanding, intrusive—or maybe that’s just how it sounds to Jackie’s ears right now, at this very moment. Maybe if she actually chose to listen closely, she would hear Cindy’s fear, her worry, her utter confusion. Maybe she would realize her mom has no idea what to do. But Jackie isn’t interested in the maybes, especially not now. It’s easier to make her mother the villain in her own mind. And with everything as painful as it is, easy feels safest. 

“Jackie?” Cindy calls out, tapping her knuckles gently against the door. Each knock sends a small jolt through Jackie’s skull. 

She steps away from the door quickly, moving across the room to sit on the edge of her neatly made bed. 

“Yeah?” she replies, voice flat. Can her mother hear the exhaustion in her voice? The cracks in her tone? Does Cindy realize how broken she is? How ruined? 

There’s a short silence. Then, “Can I come in?” 

Jackie blinks, surprised. Her mother isn’t typically the asking type; she’s more the barge-in-without warning sort of parent. Maybe she hopes that politeness will earn her Jackie’s attention. Well, fat chance of that. If her mom thinks she’s about to soften now, she has another thing coming. The joke is on her if she expects a bit of good manners to reward her with a friendly daughter. 

“I’m tired, Mom.” Her voice comes out hoarse, like she’s swallowed a handful of gravel. Fighting a yawn that escapes anyway, Jackie rubs at her eyes. At least she’s telling the truth, at any rate. “I don’t feel like talking right now.”

“Please?” Cindy’s voice rises just a bit, thin with a needy desperation that Jackie isn’t used to hearing from her. “I haven’t seen your face in a week.” 

Something snaps inside of her. 

Just like earlier in the car, she’s past politeness and far beyond respect. All she has left is a hot anger, sharp and boiling, that melts her from the inside-out. With a slow breath, Jackie gathers every bit of snotty, petulant attitude she can muster and spits it out into the open air. “Just go away! Leave me alone!” 

But, again, just like her father in the car, Cindy doesn’t take the bait. She doesn’t push back, she doesn’t burst through the door. Doesn’t scold, doesn’t lecture Jackie about her poor manners. And somehow, that’s worse. Jackie almost wishes that she would, that she’d do something—anything to show she cares. Instead, she only sighs. 

“Alright, then. We’ll talk tomorrow. You should rest.” 

And then she’s gone. 

It’s never been so easy to push her parents away before. Jackie can’t decide if she’s relieved or furious over it. All these years of craving space while they hovered around her relentlessly. Now, when she’s shattered into a thousand jagged pieces, they suddenly give her the distance she’s always craved? Why did they wait for her to become a broken shell of her old self?

But even as she asks herself the question, she already knows the answer. It’s easier.  

Jackie listens carefully, counting each of her mother’s fading footsteps until they’re gone completely. When she’s certain she’s truly alone, she pushes herself off the bed and crosses the room, reaching out with trembling fingers to grasp Shauna’s shirt from where it hangs over the back of the chair. 

She lifts it up gently and presses it to her face, breathing in until her lungs sting, allowing Shauna’s scent to fill up her empty spaces inside. Her eyes flutter closed, and even though her chest aches, no tears come. Maybe she really has cried herself empty. Maybe there aren’t enough tears left to convey how she really feels. 

She needs to sleep. Desperately. 

Without thinking too much, and before she seriously tries to smother herself, Jackie wrestles the sleeves over her arms. 

The fabric catches on the rough plaster of her cast, forcing her to undo the buttons at the wrist. Stupid thing. Eventually, she manages to clumsily pull the flannel over her shoulders, tugging it tightly around her body. 

With Shauna’s shirt and scent wrapped securely around her, Jackie kicks off her sneakers and climbs onto the bed. She doesn’t have the energy to loosen the tightly-wound blankets, nor does she bother with changing into something more comfortable. None of it matters right now. 

All she can do is lay down. 

Curling into her side, Jackie stares blankly at her wall and lets her mind drift. She pretends she’s somewhere else. 

No, that’s not quite right. 

Not somewhere else, but rather… some -when else. 

Whatever strange impulse had made Cindy respect Jackie’s boundaries yesterday has clearly vanished by morning. 

By the time the clock rolls just past eight, Jackie hears the careful creak of the door swinging open, inch by slow inch. No knock this time. So much for that. She stiffens, curling her fingers into the sleeve of Shauna’s flannel. 

“Rise and shine!” Cindy chirps, bubbling into the room way too bright, as though pretending everything is normal might actually make it true. “It’s time to—” She pauses, smile faltering. “Oh. You’re already awake…” 

Jackie looks up and stares at her mother. She’s propped against the headboard, her cast elevated awkwardly on a large pillow at her side. She’d been up since six, after waking up sweaty and tangled in Shauna’s shirt, needing desperately to breathe. In the early darkness, she’d managed to peel off her jeans, but chose to keep the flannel on. Now she sits there with it hugged so tightly around her it almost becomes a second skin. 

If she could vanish into it entirely, disappear forever into the soft, familiar thread, she would. But she can’t. 

Instead, she’s trapped here with her mom still hovering in the doorway. 

Cindy shifts uneasily and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Her mouth tightens a little, and a short frustration flickers across her face before being swallowed back into the practiced calm Jackie knows all too well. She starts again, but this time, her voice is more careful and controlled. 

“Did you—” she smooths a hand over the front of her blouse, hesitating for only a moment. “Did you get enough rest?”

Jackie shrugs. “Yeah. I’m fine.”   

The words fall heavy between them, but after a moment, Cindy nods, seemingly satisfied with Jackie’s brief response. “Well, that’s good.” 

After that, Jackie remains silent, keeping her eyes fixed stubbornly on the wall. 

Her hope is that if she ignores Cindy long enough, she’ll take the hint and go puttering back from where she came from. But even after thirty long seconds, Cindy doesn’t move an inch. She keeps watching Jackie, waiting and inspecting, and Jackie’s irritation swells with each passing moment. 

Finally, she can’t stand it any longer. “What, Mom?” she demands, unbothered by the harsh edge in her voice. “Did you actually need something, or were you just planning on staring at me forever?”

Cindy visibly recoils. Her mouth twitches again, betraying a flash of hurt at Jackie’s sneering tone, but she recovers fast and hides it behind a poised and practiced smile. “I’m making breakfast downstairs,” she says softly. “I thought you might want pancakes. Or maybe French toast? It’s your choice.” 

Jackie draws a slow, impatient breath. “I don’t care. Both are fine.” 

“Well, you need something in your stomach for your medicine, right?” She twists her fingers into the sleeve of her cardigan. “You shouldn’t take it on an empty—”

“I already took my pills,” Jackie interrupts sharply. “Half an hour ago.” 

She blinks, clearly caught off guard. “You did?” 

“Yep.” Jackie resists the urge to roll her eyes.

“Oh.” Cindy deflates. Her gaze sweeps over the room as if searching for proof, and lands on the bedside table. A small prescription bottle stands beside a half-empty plastic water bottle, its crap loosely screwed back on. Her shoulders slump. “I didn’t know.” 

Jackie shrugs again. “I’m perfectly capable of taking my medicine, Mom.” 

“Of course you are,” Cindy replies. Her tone is infuriatingly placating. Then she takes a step further into the wound, slow, like she’s approaching a wounded animal. Which, in a way… she is. “I just thought you might appreciate a little help. 

She clamps down on her molars, fighting off the urge to scream or throw something. Anything to make her mother feel even a fraction of what she’s feeling. “I don’t.”

“Well, alright,” she says. “I just thought… Well, never mind. I’ll—I’ll finish breakfast. Do you want me to bring you up a plate?” 

Jackie shakes her head, firm and decisive. “I can come down and get it myself.” 

Her mother’s eyes widen, filling with a hopeful brightness. “You want to eat downstairs with us?”

Ugh. She should have picked her words more carefully, should have prevented giving her mother such an opening. 

“No,” she says swiftly, and more sharply than she intends to. Softening only a bit, Jackie flattens her voice, taking care to keep it empty of anything resembling emotion, good or bad. “I meant I’ll just come make my own plate. I want to eat up here.”

At that, Jackie watches her carefully, waiting for Cindy’s patient mask to finally crack. There is only so much disrespect a person can take, and her parents weren’t built for this sort of understanding. Soon enough, she’s sure, their kindness will crumble, and they’ll fall into a vicious fight. Part of Jackie hopes it comes sooner than later, if only to let out the raw fury festering in her veins.

Instead, Cindy keeps going, fruitlessly trying again. “Jackie, please. I just want to help. I know this is hard for you, but shutting your father and I out won’t help.” 

Jackie scoffs. She certainly begs to differ. “Do you really think pancakes and some orange juice will fix everything? Shauna might be gone. Forever. But, yeah, sure, let’s have a family breakfast. That’ll do it! Great idea, Mom.” 

“I know breakfast won’t fix it, Jackie. Nothing can.” Cindy purses her lips. “But I—I’m trying to help you get through the day. I’m trying to make things a little easier—” 

“A little easier for you, you mean,” Jackie snaps. “You hate when things aren’t perfect, when I’m not perfect.” 

Cindy shakes her head. “That isn’t fair. And it isn’t true. I’m your mother. I love you. It hurts me to see you like this.” 

Defiantly, Jackie meets her gaze head-on. “Maybe you shouldn’t look, then.” 

That makes Cindy’s expression fall even further, as though Jackie has slapped the air right out of her. Jackie almost feels sorry. Almost. But the burning anger inside her is stronger than sympathy, stronger than shame, stronger than guilt. 

“Alright,” she murmurs, glancing briefly at the floor. Her voice trembles. “If you change your mind, or need anything, let me know. Okay?” 

“I will.” Jackie says. 

But they both know the truth. She won’t. 

A moment later, her mom gently closes the door. 

Jackie stares at it, wishing she’d slammed it shut instead.

Jackie sits on the edge of the stiff hospital bed and lets her eyes wander restlessly around the sterile room. 

Everything is too white, too bright, too clinical—the walls, the counters, the painfully clean tile floor. The whole place smells sharply of antiseptic. The smell of it twists her stomach into tight knots. Hanging on the wall opposite from her is a framed print of a landscape painting. It’s probably an attempt to make the room feel more comforting. Jackie gives it a failing grade. She stares at it with a blank expression on her face. 

The door opens quietly, and Dr. Mitchell steps in, dressed impressively in his pressed white coat, complete with a navy-blue tie peeking from underneath. 

He’s about her father’s age, with thinning sandy hair combed neatly over the top of his head. Behind wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes are warm but cautious, creased at the corners from years of practiced smiles. 

Jackie figures he’s supposed to be someone she trusts. He’s a family-friend, after all, a regular churchgoer, a fixture of their insular community. But right now, Jackie only feels resentment bubbling hot beneath her skin. 

Mounted high in the corner is a tiny television. A news anchor is discussing the missing plane, but it’s nothing Jackie hasn’t already heard before. 

“...have expanded their search radius into the Canadian Yukon, but officials admit the rugged terrain and weather are hampering efforts. According to a report from—”

The screen suddenly goes black. Jackie swivels her head in search of the culprit, and sees Dr. Mitchell set the remote down on the counter with a polite, half-apologetic smile already in place. 

“Let’s give that a rest, shall we?” he says gently. “Good morning, Jackie. Cindy.”

Her mother stands quickly from the plastic chair and smooths down her skirt, before offering her hand out to Dr. Mitchell. She’s smiling, but it looks forced and tight. 

“Good morning, Paul,” she says. “I appreciate you taking the time to see us. I know you have a very busy schedule.” 

Jackie bites her tongue. Of course her mother appreciates it. Cindy always appreciates things, especially if it means she gets to look like the perfect, concerned mother in front of someone else, someone she respects. 

From her spot on the stiff, paper-clad examination bed, Jackie mumbles, “Hi.” 

It’s barely loud enough to be heard. Why can’t they just get this over with? Being here—it’s suffocating, sinking her mood deeper into the trenches with every passing second. 

Dr. Mitchell smiles back at her mother with a flash of easy charm. “It’s no trouble at all. I’m happy to help.” 

He moves briskly across the room, flipping through the stack of papers he’s carrying. Carefully, he pins her latest x-rays to the illuminated wall panel. Jackie tries to avoid looking, but her eyes drift over anyway. She doesn’t quite know what she’s seeing, but her bones in the image look small and fragile. Exactly how she feels. 

“All right,” he says, pointing to the image. “I have some good news. The plates and screws are doing their job. See that faint cloud around the break?” He taps a milky-white ring surrounding her fractured bone. “That’s new bone starting to bridge the gap. Exactly what we want by day thirteen.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful to hear,” Cindy breathes, clasping her hands together in relief. 

Jackie almost groans. For Cindy, it’s all about putting everything back in its proper place again. Jackie knows it’s about more than her bones. Cindy wants everything fixed, neat, and normal. But the thing is, broken bones heal; broken lives do not. 

Dr. Mitchell turns to Jackie. His tone is warm and reassuring. “Your swelling has dropped by about half, and your bruises are fading nicely. I don’t see any sign of infection, either. How’s the pain?” 

She shrugs, glancing at her cast. What does he expect her to say? Everything hurts. Just not in the way a doctor can fix. “Depends,” she finally says, quieter still. “It hurts if I bump it into things, but I just… try not to move it.” 

He nods sympathetically. “Fair enough. Keep your ibuprofen close by. Take it every six hours. I’m also prescribing you some codeine, but only take that if the aching breaks through. And if you do, make sure you have a meal with plenty of fiber. Trust me.” 

“Done,” Cindy jumps in before Jackie can even open her mouth to reply. “I’ll make sure she stays on top of it.” 

Jackie stiffens. The look she shoots her mother is quick and blistering. Her lips twist into a spiteful sneer. Does she really think Jackie can’t handle taking her own medication? Does she truly believe Jackie will let her stay on top of it, as though she’s a helpless child? 

She bites down hard on her tongue and forces herself to swallow the angry words bubbling dangerously in the back of her throat, a boiling pot threatening to overflow. Not here, she tells herself. Not now. But her rage continues to roll, bitter and heavy, smothering her voice. 

Oblivious to the storm brewing within her mind, Dr. Mitchell continues in his steady, reassuring voice. “The cast will need to stay on another four to five weeks. Make sure to keep it dry. As for your fingers and wrist, try to wiggle them at least once every hour when you’re awake. Once your cast is off, we’ll fit you for a brace and start discussing physical therapy.”

Jackie shrugs again, feigning indifference, but in truth, the thought drags her even deeper into her despair. 

Four to five weeks. That may as well be four to five years, for all it means to her. By then, everything could change. Or worse, everything might still be the same. Shauna might still be lost, unreachable— dead. Would Jackie even care about anything by then? Would she even have the will to live? 

“Now, about your eye,” he continues. “The fracture didn’t shift, so the bandaging did its job. That means no surgery. Your vision is sharp, and the muscles around your eye seem fine.”

Cindy nods vigorously beside her, soaking in every word, every detail, like the doctor is her preacher and he’s delivering the sermon of a lifetime, providing the secret answers about the universe. Jackie wants to smack her. 

“Is there anything we should be watching out for?” She asks earnestly, leaning forward as though missing a single word will result in catastrophe. 

Jackie curls her fingers into a fist, fighting a sudden, ugly impulse to shove her mother away. To scream that nothing the doctor says matters at all, because nothing will ever matter again. 

“Yes,” Dr. Mitchell answers, calmly. “Watch for fever above 101, fingers turning blue. If she experiences sudden double vision, or a nosebleed trying to blow her nose—head straight to the ER and call me while you’re on the way.” 

Cindy immediately reaches into her purse, producing a small notepad a few seconds later. She scribbles out her notes quickly, and each scratch of her pen grates even harder against Jackie’s nerves. 

“Now, the hard part.” Dr. Mitchell’s voice shifts into a gentler tone. He pulls a rolling chair close and sits directly across from Jackie, looking her straight in the eye. She shifts uneasily, feeling cornered by the proximity. “I’d like to talk with you about your mental state.”

Jackie recoils. In a single instant, her budding irritation morphs into outright anger. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she snaps. 

The last thing she wants is him, or anyone for that matter, poking around inside of her head. Especially not while her mother is watching, analyzing, ready to dissect her every word and thought. 

“Jackie…” Cindy warns, dropping her voice into a motherly pitch; gentle and condescending, trying to keep Jackie within carefully drawn lines. 

She whips around to face her directly, eyes blazing. “Mom.” 

Dr. Mitchell raises a hand in an attempt to settle them both, but Jackie doesn’t want to settle. There is a darkness inside of her, and it’s slowly rising, turning each of her thoughts into a stabbing blade. Maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible if her fingers turned blue, or her vision blurred. Maybe she would even let it happen, maybe she wouldn’t even think about picking up the phone. 

“It’s alright. You don’t have to say anything, I just need you to listen for a minute,” he says, lowering his voice in a pitiful attempt to sound comforting. He looks between them, before continuing in a careful, measured voice. “Jackie, what you’re going through right now is… enormous. I can’t even imagine. But broken bones heal on a timetable. Grief does not. What you’re feeling—it’s normal.” 

A savage twist of her internal organs has her leaning forward. She almost laughs. “You don’t know the first thing about what I’m feeling,” she whispers. 

But just as quickly as it flared, her anger ebbs, disappearing into a wave of helplessness. She feels like a child, and she hates it. 

“I’m not saying that I do,” he responds, measured and diplomatic. “I just want you to be aware of your options. I can connect you with a trauma counselor who works specifically with adolescents. You don’t have to decide today, but the offer is open.” 

Jackie looks away and finds a tiny speck on the wall to glare at. “Whatever,” she mutters. 

There is not a person on this earth who has words powerful enough to pull her from the empty pit she’s falling into. 

Cindy, however, answers for her in that cautious tone Jackie is quickly growing to despise. “Yes, of course, we’ll look into it.” 

Jackie scoffs under her breath. We. As if her mother would be the one forced to sit in a stuffy office while a stranger picks apart her pain and grief. 

No, Jackie will be alone. Like always. 

Dr. Mitchell continues, either not noticing or carefully ignoring the blatant hostility radiating from Jackie. “Good. Two more things. I’m going to have my secretary schedule your next follow-up for two weeks from now, same time as today.” He pats the front pockets of his white coat, fumbling slightly, until he retrieves a small card. He holds it out toward Jackie. Reluctantly, she takes it, fingertips brushing along the edges. “This is my direct phone line. If you have any questions, call me. I know every trick in the book. Here’s a tip for you—if your cast itches, use a hair-dryer on cool. Please don’t use a fork.” 

Despite herself, Jackie almost smiles. Last night, the itch had been so unbearable she’d considered exactly that, a fork. At least now she knows. 

“Any questions?” Dr. Mitchell asks, looking between them expectantly. 

“No,” Jackie mumbles, gazing down at the laminated card in her hand. Questions? Sure? Could he make her parents less insufferable? Could he make this all go away? 

“We’ll manage,” says Cindy, gathering her purse. “Thank you, Paul.” 

Dr. Mitchell nods gently. “Of course. Call if you need anything.” 

Jackie sighs. The card seems to grow heavier in her hand. She tucks it into her pocket anyway, more out of habit than any true hope.

The car rolls slowly down Main Street, past familiar shops and tidy brick storefronts that seem unchanged, untouched by the tragedy wreaking havoc on Jackie’s life. Boring. Familiar. Like everything else in Wiskayok. Jackie stares out the window, eyes scanning the town center she’s known forever, but she doesn’t see anyone she recognizes. 

Nothing feels real. 

Even the summer sunlight that spills onto the sidewalks seems distant. Fake. How can life still go on?

“So… it’s been awhile since I had a chance to talk to you,” her mother says softly, breaking the careful silence they’ve been weaving since leaving Dr. Mitchell’s office. 

Her mother had been quiet as they left the doctor’s office, quiet in the elevator, and quiet in the parking lot. But now, with the road stretching ahead with no chance to escape, now she decides to clear her throat. Of course. 

Jackie isn't surprised. She knew this would be coming, and had felt her mother’s tension building from the moment they climbed into the car. Clearly, she was waiting for the right moment, and with Jackie trapped in the vehicle beside her, that moment is now. Honestly, the most shocking part is that she’d waited so long. 

“Yeah, well,” Jackie deadpans, turning her head slightly to shoot Cindy a withering stare. “I’ve had a lot going on.” 

“Like what?” Cindy asks. Her voice carries an innocent curiosity that Jackie doesn’t trust for a single second. It’s too light. She’s trying too hard. Jackie can practically feel her trying probe at the edges of her mind, eager to pry loose the thoughts Jackie doesn’t want to share. She can see the shovel in her eyes. “You didn’t attend the vigil at the school last week. I looked for you there.” 

Jackie scowls. 

She curls her hand into a fist and presses it against her knee. Of course her mother would bring that up. Of course she’d use it against her. Her head buzzes with a surge of irrational anger. It’s unfair, but it’s sharp enough to slice clean past any logic she might still have. 

“Duh, I didn’t go. Why would I want to—” She stops suddenly, blinking hard. A realization prickles. Then it finally lands, hitting her like a slap. “Wait, you went to the vigil?” 

“Of course I went,” Cindy says, frowning. Her eyebrows pull together into that tight, pinched look she gets when she’s confused. Like Jackie’s the weird one for asking the question. “The entire town was there. Why wouldn’t I be there too?” 

Annoyance coats the back of her throat in a hot and sour paste, bubbling from somewhere deep in her gut. She pictures her mother standing there at the vigil, face carefully arranged into a quiet sympathy, offering condolences to the other parents—families whose girls may never come home again. The coating in her throat thickens. It’s ugly and raw, and it won’t go away, no matter how many times she tries to swallow it down. 

“Doesn’t—doesn’t it seem rude to you?” Jackie finally asks. The words tumble out before she can stop them, each wrapped in a barbed wire she doesn’t notice until the scrape over her tongue. 

Cindy’s eyes widen in genuine surprise, as though the idea is entirely foreign to her. “What? Why would it be rude?” 

Jackie can hear the defensiveness creeping into her voice. Good. Squirm. Her jaw tightens. 

How does she explain what seems so obvious to her? Her mother, standing safe at a memorial, surrounded by grieving parents who have no daughter to bring home. All the while, her own daughter wanted nothing to do with, instead choosing to hide away at Deb’s house to mourn away from her. Doesn’t she see the sick irony? The horrible joke? 

“Like—didn’t it feel like you were flaunting it to the other parents?” She snaps. Her voice climbs, rising in volume as her anger spills freely now. “Their kids are missing. I’m not. You—you shouldn’t have gone. It wasn’t right.” 

“Jackie,” Cindy says sharply, hurt coloring her tone. She presses her mouth into a thin line. “It wasn’t like that at all. I was only there to support the community. They’re our neighbors.” 

Liar. 

She scoffs, turning to stare fiercely out the window, not even bothering to hide her blatant disgust. She wrinkles her nose. “Okay, yeah. Sure you were.”

The sarcasm drips freely off her tongue. She savors the harsh taste, hoping that her mother is feeling a fraction of the hurt storming through Jackie’s body. 

“Jackie, listen to yourself!” Cindy’s voice strains as it rises higher, buckling beneath her failure to remain composed. “Do you really think I was there to—to show off? You really think I would do something like that?” 

Yes. No. Maybe? 

She grits her teeth and decides: yes. Because she knows. She knows her mom. Cindy Taylor doesn’t do things out of pure kindness. She does things because they look right. Always had, always would. Because they fit the image of the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect family. And Jackie knows her mom is twisting her words, knows she’s trying to make Jackie feel like the unreasonable one. 

“It’s not about you,” Jackie says, hollow and drained from the inside out. “Why do you always make it about you?” 

Even if her mother genuinely believes she’d been there to support the other families, Jackie sees straight through her. Her mother standing solemn-faced, but secretly basking in every hushed whisper about how lucky the Taylor’s were. She probably wore her most tasteful pearls, clutching them in her hand as she shed just enough tears to convey her sadness. 

Just enough, but never too many.

Cindy’s breath hitches. She’s suddenly wounded and watery, acting as if Jackie had physically struck her in her face. “I don’t know when you started thinking I was some sort of monster,” she says in a wobbly voice. “But it’s not true, and I don’t appreciate it.” 

Jackie squeezes her eyes shut to block out her mother’s wounded expression. She hadn’t called her that, but she’d admit, only to herself… it was implied. And maybe a part of her wants her mother to believe that Jackie thinks that. Still, a small flicker of guilt burns at her like the wisping flame from a candle. Jackie tries to smother it. No, her mother can’t play the victim. Not this time. Don’t feel bad. She’s fine.

But Cindy’s hurt feelings still loom heavy in the air between them. They press at Jackie’s chest and make it harder for her to breathe. She draws in a slow, shaking breath, finally forcing out a sentence she doesn’t fully mean.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters. 

The apology is little more than a whisper. It’s foreign on her tongue. 

It’s not real. It’s the sort of sorry a person says just to shut someone up, the kind that doesn’t mean anything except I don’t want to talk about this anymore. But it works. It’s just enough to make her mother back off. 

Cindy goes quiet, tightening her hands around the steering wheel. She presses her lips together as though she’s holding herself back from saying something else. Maybe she’s afraid to fight. Maybe she’s just tired. Either way, Jackie takes it as a small victory. 

The wheels of her mother’s silver Mercedes glide quietly down smooth, familiar roads. Jackie watches the buildings on Main Street blur together into a memory reel of her own small-town life. The grocery store parking lot is bustling, filled with shoppers pushing carts and children trailing behind. She watches one little girl tug on her mother’s shirt, carefree and laughing. Jackie feels a world away from her. 

Then her eyes catch on the sandwich shop at the corner, the one Shauna worked at sophomore year, her first job. A fleeting memory surfaces: the two of them giggling as Shauna hands over a free meatball sub. Jackie was breaking her calorie limit, but she hadn’t even cared, too focused on feeling like a VIP in the small, dingy restaurant. 

Swallowing hard, she forces the image away. 

Then comes the high school. 

It sits where it always had, tall and imposing. Flowers still crowd the front steps. Dozens of bouquets sit wilting, left by countless mourners. Posters and handmade banners flutter softly, nestled between teddy bears and messages of hope and sorrow. Right up front is the marquee sign. It blinks back at Jackie in tall, blocky red letters: 

PRAYERS FOR OUR YELLOWJACKETS! 

She sighs and turns away. 

Neither of them speak again, not until Cindy turns the car smoothly onto their tree-lined street. They pass a long row of neat lawns and carefully trimmed hedges, accessories to the big houses and their picket fences. It’s so neat and orderly. Safe. The exact opposite of everything she feels right now. 

“I was planning on making a nice dinner today,” Cindy says, her voice bright and falsely cheerful again. It’s as though their previous conversation had never happened. “All your favorites.” 

Jackie stiffens, bracing herself for something worse. “Thanks,” she mumbles. 

She knows her mother is trying. She can hear it. Her desperation is painfully obvious, threading between each carefully chosen word. But somehow, that only makes everything worse. 

“I would really appreciate it if you came down to eat with us,” Cindy presses, keeping her voice soft. She sounds hopeful, but careful, like she’s afraid Jackie will leap from the car if she speaks too quickly. “You don’t have to talk if you’re not up for it. But I think it would be good for us to spend some time together as a family.”

What is this? A fucking Christmas movie? 

“I don’t know…” Jackie says, fighting to keep her voice steady, willing herself not to snap. “I’m just—I really don’t feel like being around people right now.” 

“We’re not just people,” Cindy says. She shakes her head. “We’re your family.” 

That’s worse. How does she not understand that? Jackie would tell her so, would explain why it feels so wrong, so exhausting to be in their vicinity. If only she actually possessed the words.  

“I’m really not up for it,” Jackie says flatly, staring at the dashboard clock as though it holds all the answers to her problems. She hopes that if she keeps her voice empty enough, her mom will finally get the message. 

She does not. 

“When will you be up for it?” Frustration bleeds again through Cindy’s carefully curated tone. 

Jackie blinks, astonished, and turns sharply toward her mother. “I don’t know!” she bursts out. “I don’t know anything right now!” 

It is, perhaps, the most honest thing she’s said to her mother so far. 

Does she understand how lost Jackie is? How fragile her insides are? 

Probably not. 

“I just think it’s important for you to try, sweetheart,” Cindy pleads, sucking in a vulnerable breath. The car pauses at the stop sign, giving her a chance to face Jackie directly, eyes burning a hole through her face. Jackie immediately turns away. “I’m not asking you to be okay. It’s… I’m only asking you not to lock yourself away in your bedroom. It isn’t good for you.” 

Jackie almost laughs. She can say she isn’t asking for Jackie to be okay all she wants, but they both know the truth. 

Anger bubbles in her chest as her throat tightens uncomfortably. “I wasn’t locked in my bedroom when I was with Deb,” she whispers accusingly, turning slowly back to glare at Cindy. “You shouldn’t have made me come home.” 

Her mother’s expression hardens by just a fraction. “You need to be with your family,” she insists firmly, like repeating it will make it true. 

She snorts, shaking her head. “I was.” 

Cindy’s face goes blank, slackening into something neutral. All of her arguments crumble behind the facade, replaced by a flicker of renewed hurt. 

It gives Jackie a small, cruel rush of satisfaction. 

With a heavy sigh, Cindy presses down on the accelerator again. Their house comes into view. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,” she says quietly, accepting defeat. 

Jackie rolls her eyes. “Good to know.”

The phone cord twists tight around Jackie’s finger, turning the tip an angry red. She watches her skin change color, but doesn’t loosen it. 

“How did your meeting with the lawyer go?” she asks. 

A long pause stretches between them. She can almost see Deb standing in her kitchen, leaning against the counter with her eyes closed. Finally, Deb lets out a soft sigh, expelling out the weight of the world in a single breath. 

“It went fine, I think. I don’t know,” Deb says quietly, sounding far away. “I feel like I blacked out for most of it. I barely remember a thing. Greg took notes, thank goodness, because I wasn’t really there. Mentally, anyway.” 

Jackie stretches out her legs across the bed. Her knees pop from stiffness and disuse, but the relief it brings to her cramping calves is nice, like releasing a tension she hadn’t realized was building. 

“Well,” she murmurs, “at least you finally got it over with. One less thing to worry about, right?” 

“I suppose so,” Deb says. Static catches on the line, muffling her voice a tad. “But honestly… I think it just made me feel even worse. Like we’re already giving up hope. Does that make sense?” 

“Yeah,” she says, nodding. “It totally makes sense.” 

Of course it does. Jackie’s been feeling it too. The creeping hunch that the worst is still yet to come. She won’t say it out loud, but her brain is a traitorous thing, and she isn’t able to control her thoughts. 

Deb clears her throat. “I hope it helps, though. The lawyer, I mean. I just want some answers, you know? I’m at my wits end. Waking up every morning… it’s impossible. I just—I don’t know how long I can keep living like this.” 

“Me neither,” Jackie whispers back. “I… I don’t know how to be a person anymore.” 

Her eyes drift reluctantly toward the television set perched near her dresser. The screen flickers in silence. The news anchors on the screen are mouthing words she can’t hear and doesn’t want to. It’s muted, not that it matters. She knows exactly what they’re talking about. Or, more accurately, what they’re not talking about. 

The headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen isn’t about Shauna. It isn’t about her missing teammates. Instead, there’s something vague about a new conflict across the world, which is completely irrelevant to her crumbling life. 

How dare they? How dare the world move on? 

Today marks two weeks since the Yellowjackets disappeared. 

Two weeks, and already the conversation has shifted. It’s like the entire world has collectively decided they are gone, lost, finished. It’s a betrayal. A cruel and deliberate dismissal of everything she holds most dear. 

It was only a week ago that the reporters spoke passionately about hope and possible rescue, showing all of their maps and radars and search parties in bright orange jackets. But that hope is shredded now, cut to pieces around her, now trampled into muddy fragments at her feet. Even with the television on mute, Jackie feels the shift. 

They don’t discuss survivors anymore, only remains. They speak of providing closure to the families, comfort in their darkest times. 

Ugh. Closure. As if there could ever be closure for someone like Shauna. Shauna, Jackie’s Shauna, who had a life and dream and secrets. Shauna, whose smile Jackie can still see if she tries hard enough, whose scent she can still breathe from the flannel shirt safely tucked under her pillow. 

It’s enough to make Jackie’s stomach churn with violent nausea. It’s like someone has squeezed a lemon over the open wounds of her emotional baggage. 

They aren’t dead. She thinks it defiantly, viciously. They can’t be. 

But even as she clings desperately to the thought, Jackie feels her own belief begin to falter. It slips through her fingers like sand, her resolve crumbling grain by terrible grain. 

She hadn’t had a panic attack since returning home, but that thought—the idea that she was starting to agree with the doomsayers—sends her careening straight into one. She’d clutched at her chest, feeling her heart begin to hammer relentlessly against her sternum; an unforgiving blacksmith. Her breath began to slip away next, surging into a burst of ragged gasps as darkness seeped around the edges of her vision. Like always, she worries that she’ll die. For a lovely moment, she really believes she might. 

It’s an entire fifteen minutes before she could calm down enough to have control over her own hands. 

Bit by bit, her breathing steadied. Eventually, Jackie was left trembling and exhausted. 

She curled into herself, terrified that it would happen again, that the darkness would come to smother the air in her lungs. 

She needed to do something, talk to someone. Someone to ground her, to anchor her back to her awful reality. 

And it sure as hell wouldn’t be her fucking parents. 

So… she called the only other person who would understand exactly how deep this wound ran, the only other person she trusts enough to share in her grief. Deb. 

Just hearing Deb’s voice again felt like being thrown a lifeline after days adrift at sea. The moment she picked up the phone, Jackie found herself rambling, her words tumbling out half-choked by hiccups and tears: apologies for taking so long to call, desperate admissions of missing being there with her, confessions about thinking of her constantly despite her lack of contact. Deb had let her talk it out, offering quiet reassurance until Jackie could finally breathe again. 

And then it was Deb’s turn to share snippets from her days alone. 

It comforted Jackie, and still does, to know they were both stuck in the same sinking boat. Sad, lost, and aching for Shauna in a way words would never fully describe.

“How has it been for you? Being back home?” Deb asks gently, pulling Jackie from the endless rumination of her own thoughts. 

Jackie chews on her lip, wondering how truthful she ought to be. If it were anyone else, she’d deflect. But this is Deb—who always knew when Jackie lied anyway. She sighs, deciding on honesty. “It’s been shitty. Honestly. I’m fucking miserable here.”

“Aww, really?” Deb clicks her tongue sympathetically. “I’m sorry, kid. I hoped things might be a little better.” 

“It’s whatever,” Jackie murmurs reflexively, even though it’s definitely not whatever. Not by a long shot. She adjusts the blanket of her legs, resting her head against her pillows. “I expected it to suck.” 

“Have you tried talking to them at all?” Deb asks carefully. 

She snorts, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. “Not if I can help it.” 

“Jackie,” Deb chides gently, sounding half exasperated, half amused.

“What?” Jackie replies, deliberately innocent. A tiny smile tugs at the corner of her lips despite herself. 

“You should consider opening up to them, you know,” Deb says softly, but firmly. The gentle authority in her voice brings Jackie back to countless afternoons in Shauna’s kitchen where she received years of calm, but uncompromising advice. “They’re probably desperate to talk to you.” 

Anyone else—anyone but Deb—saying something like this would send her right into a defensive rage. But Deb’s gentle prodding never quite manages to trigger anger. Instead, it makes Jackie feel… cared for. Understood. The exact opposite of what she feels talking to Cindy and James.

“Maybe I would,” Jackie says stubbornly, “if I didn’t know exactly how annoying they’d be about it. They don’t even really want to talk. They just want everything to go back to normal again. They hate anything complicated.”

“They love you, kid,” says Deb with a quiet certainty. “They’re just scared. They don’t know what to say, how to help you.” 

Jackie scowls at the ceiling. “Well, that’s their problem,” she insists. “If they had just given me more time—” 

“Oh, come on.” Deb interrupts her sharply, but not unkindly. “Don’t bullshit me. You had zero intention of leaving anytime soon, and we both know it.” 

Jackie shrugs even though Deb can’t see her. The corner of her mouth lifts into another reluctant smile. Like she said before: Deb always knew when she was lying. “Guess I’ll never know now.” 

“You’re such a brat,” Deb huffs, clear affection in her voice. 

Jackie’s smile widens, just a little. “Am not.” 

Deb chuckles. “Are too.” 

Then she hears the faint, but familiar sound of liquid pouring into a glass. Probably Deb reaching for a fresh glass of wine. Jackie almost teases her about it, but stops herself. She doesn’t want to make Deb feel judged for her coping mechanisms. 

“Okay, enough about your parents,” Deb finally sighs, shifting her tone to something lighter now. “What else have you been up to? Please don’t tell me you’ve been spending every waking second in your bedroom.” 

“Not every second,” Jackie admits. “But mostly, yeah. I did have a doctor’s appointment a couple days ago, though. Apparently my arm is healing like it should, so there’s that.” 

“Really?” Deb’s voice perks up in genuine interest, the nurse’s curiosity in her coming to life. “Who was your physician? Maybe I know them—the medical community around here isn’t exactly huge.” 

Jackie scrunches her nose. “Paul Mitchell? He’s friends with my parents. From their church.” 

“Oh, Paul,” Deb says warmly, her recognition immediate. “Yes, I know him—a very good doctor. You’re in good hands there.” 

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “I guess.” 

Deb’s tone softens again as she returns to her gentle probing. “Are you managing your pain?” 

Jackie takes a slow breath. “Mostly. Ibuprofen helps. Codeine if I really need it. It’s just frustrating. I wish everything would hurry up and heal already.” 

“I know, kiddo,” Deb says knowingly. “Some things just take more time than others.” 

Jackie sighs, reaching under her pillow to grab Shauna’s flannel, rubbing the soft fabric between her fingers. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “You’re right.” 

But she can’t help but wonder—what does a person do for a wound that will never heal at all?

Today is Sunday, and for the first time since coming back home, Jackie has the entire house to herself. 

That alone is strange. 

Jackie hasn’t attended regular Sunday services since her sophomore year, not since she’d started coming up with excuses: weekend practices (real or imaginary), birthday parties, school events she pretended were too critical to miss. Her parents never truly believed her. She could always tell by the subtle tightening of her mother’s lips, the quick shake of her father’s head, and the small, shared sigh they thought she couldn’t hear. Still, they’d eventually agree, allowing her to skip, just not before throwing her a few passive-aggressive comments and disappointed looks for good measure.

But today, Jackie doesn’t even have to pretend. 

When she makes her way down to the kitchen, Cindy and James are already seated in the breakfast nook, sipping coffee from matching porcelain cups, dressed impeccably in their literal Sunday-best. Her mother’s blouse is a quiet shade of pink, her father’s tie perfectly straight, his pants ironed. They are as crisp and perfect as ever. 

She watches them for a minute, hovering awkwardly in the doorway, waiting for one of them to say something. But nothing comes.

“Morning,” she finally murmurs, stepping toward the stove. She feels out of place.

“Good morning,” her father replies. 

Cindy echoes the greeting in an overly polite and carefully empty voice. Jackie expects her to clear her throat any minute now, to pointedly ask about her plans for the day. But she remains silent, sipping her coffee like there isn’t anything unusual going on at all.

Jackie’s fingers tighten around a wooden spoon as she scoops scrambled eggs onto her plate. She keeps waiting for the catch, the trap to spring—surely they’ll say something, ask her a question she doesn’t want to answer, or something equally annoying. 

But the room stays oddly, painfully quiet. 

It makes her chest feel tight. 

Is this what she wanted? To be left alone completely? She thought so. 

It should feel good, this sudden trust or resignation, whatever it is, but it doesn’t. Instead, it feels strange. Wrong. Like she’s merely a ghost, invisible and unheard, floating quietly around their perfect kitchen with them none the wiser. 

She adds a piece of toast to her plate and tries to breathe away the knots forming at the base of her stomach. 

They tell her goodbye as she pours herself a glass of orange juice. Then it’s the soft thud of the front door closing and the fading sound of the car pulling out of the driveway. Only this is enough to calm her growing anxiety. Her chest loosens and she exhales a shaky breath. 

She doesn’t do anything crazy with her newfound solitude, nothing wild or rebellious, or at least not that wild or rebellious. 

Before, this wouldn’t feel special. It wouldn’t feel like anything at all. 

On a normal Sunday, she’d already be exactly where she belongs—pretending to laugh at one of Jeff’s stupid jokes, meeting Lottie somewhere for coffee, or most honestly and completely, at Shauna’s side. 

But this isn’t before. Now, Jackie doesn’t have anywhere she’s supposed to be. 

There is no one waiting for her arrival, no one to laugh with, no afternoon plans to be made. She’s just… here, alone, sitting quietly in a big, immaculate living room. 

It’s strange to be downstairs. 

Jackie sinks deep against the couch cushions and crosses her legs, staring blankly at a ray of sunlight streaming in through one of the opened curtains. It’s been days since she’s allowed herself to spend any real time out of her bedroom. It’s a punishment demanded by no one, but enforced by Jackie all the same. She is judge, jury, and executioner, and isolation is her sentence. 

Her own guilty verdict for being the one left behind. 

But today, with her parents finally out of the house, something shifts. 

She’s tired of punishing herself, at least for this single second. Fuck it, she thinks. She’s going to enjoy the couch. She deserves it. 

And for a while, she does enjoy it. 

The news looks different on her parents’ enormous television; larger, clearer. It’s one of those sliding-box sets, new and tall and expensive. Great for bragging rights, but not very practical. It took three men to bring it into the house. 

Jackie leans back and kicks her feet up onto the coffee table. This is much better than squinting at the tiny screen in her bedroom. 

She takes a long sip from the beer she snagged from the fridge. Yes, it’s still morning, and she has an entire plate of breakfast still to eat, but who cares? Her parents are gone, and she’s on break from punishing herself. 

The beer swirls in perfectly with the medication she took earlier—specifically the codeine—to create a soft and gentle haze that melts away the tightness in her muscles. It’s warm, fuzzy. Nice. 

So nice that she wonders if she might fall asleep right there on the couch with her half-full plate still resting on her lap. Or maybe she does fall asleep. She’s not exactly sure. Maybe it’s the liquid state of in-between, where her brain seems alert, yet doesn’t notice that hours are passing by like minutes. 

It must be that, because the next thing Jackie knows, familiar voices pierce through the fog in her head, accompanied by the jingle of keys and footsteps on the porch. 

Her eyes snap open in sudden awareness. Are her parents home early? Or had she really lost track of the time? 

Jackie jerks upright, barely noticing the plate tipping sideways off her lap. Scrambled eggs go tumbling into the crack between the cushions. She can’t even muster up the energy to care. 

For a moment, she’s frozen. Does she stay put, feet up on the table, beer bottle empty and proud? Or does she bolt for the stairs to pretend she’s been in her room the whole time? 

Why is she even panicking? She didn’t do anything wrong, and even if she did, what did it matter? 

Finally, she makes a clumsy decision and lands on the middle-ground. 

With the empty beer bottle in hand, she hurries into the kitchen to hastily dispose of it into the recycling bin under the sink. It doesn’t leave her enough time to make it up the stairs, only to the foyer, which is where she’s standing when her parents open the front door. 

Cindy is the first to sweep inside, chattering about something or another while she slips off a coat she didn’t need to wear, but chose too anyway, because it’s expensive and couture, and made from a fabric so expensive that most people wouldn’t even know the name of it. James lingers behind her, balancing the door with one elbow and a stack of mail pressed to his ribs. 

At first her mother doesn’t notice Jackie. She hangs her coat, midway through a sentence— “...so I told Margaret we’d have to compare the costs, because honestly, I think her yard-man charges too much for hedge trimming, and—” when she finally lifts her head and locks eyes with Jackie. “Oh— Jackie!” 

“Uh, hey,” Jackie says back, slowly edging closer to the staircase. 

Cindy’s voice is an octave too high, bright and brittle. For a heartbeat, she glances at James, who answers her with a small, almost-invisible nod. The silent exchange sends a prickle of unease down Jackie’s spine. “I was just about to come up and talk to you, actually.” 

Jackie squints. “About what?” 

“Do I need a reason to talk to my own daughter?” She asks lightly. The smile on her face is too careful, like she’s testing the ground before each step. 

“Guess not,” Jackie mumbles. “So… talk.” 

Her father tugs on his tie, looking between the two of them, but never directly at either. The silence stretches. Jackie watches them warily. She has no reason to feel as suspicious as she does. Perhaps it’s merely intuition, or maybe she’s more connected to her mother than she’d like to admit, but she knows there is something going on beneath the surface. She does not know if she wants to find out what. 

Finally, Cindy clears her throat. “Something arrived for you in today’s mail.” She tries for nonchalant, but the words land between them with a resounding thud. 

Jackie blinks, suddenly dazed. Mail? For her? She can’t possibly imagine who might be writing to her. 

Her brain suddenly abandons all pretenses of logic and deduction. Instead, she swerves off the road of reason and into pure wishful thinking. 

What if it’s from Shauna? 

She can imagine it so vividly, can almost picture the paper pressed between her fingers, can practically see Shauna’s messy, slanted handwriting. It’s a foolish hope, a whimsical dream. Jackie, it’s me. I’m alive. Please help us. It’s ridiculous. So insane that it’s nothing less than a fairy-tale. 

But grief isn’t exactly logical. 

Her chest goes hot, then weirdly floaty. It must show on her face because her mother’s brow pinches with confusion, and her father edges forward, a frown on his face. He plucks one of the letters from his stack and passes it to Cindy. Their eyebrows do that silent-parent Morse code thing again. 

“It’s from Rutgers,” Cindy says at least, holding the envelope up between two manicured fingers. “I think it’s your orientation letter.” 

Oh. 

The disappointment floods her system. It drowns her from the inside. Orientation. College. Dorm assignments. Those were all things that belonged to before.  

Her pulse, which had leapt at the fantasy of Shauna, tumbles back to earth and lands somewhere around her shoes. 

Stupid, she scolds herself. Of course it isn’t from Shauna. She’s an idiot. A stupid, hopeful idiot. 

This is worse.

Cindy extends the envelope and Jackie takes it. Her fingers are suddenly clumsy. The paper is thick, official, and expensive. The flap is still sealed, which comes as a surprise; Cindy usually opens everyone’s mail under the guise of sorting. But today, apparently, she’s decided to respect Jackie’s privacy. Yay. 

Honestly, just this once, Jackie wishes she’d just gone ahead and opened it. 

Do I even care what’s inside? Jackie wonders. Whatever it is, it’s part of a future that no longer exists, at least not for this new version of her, the one who lost half her heart somewhere up in the sky. 

Swallowing, she presses the envelope flat against her chest, frozen. If she moves, she might cry or scream or pass out. It’s easier to stand very still, to be very silent. 

“Well,” Cindy murmurs, fitting her palms together like this is something exciting, and not another terrible tragedy, “go on, open it.” 

“I—” Jackie starts, but the syllable snags in her throat, as sharp as a fishhook. Her tongue is suddenly too big for her mouth. The words can’t pass over. She clamps her mouth shut as her pulse begins to steadily rise, pounding a bass line in her ears, the buildup to a terrible chorus. “Uhm. I… I think I’ll wait, actually. I’m really tired.” The words come out spongy, like someone else is talking. She gives a jerky shake of her head. “I’m going to go to my room.” 

She shifts the envelope beneath her arm and starts for the stairs. Each of her steps is syrup-slow. Her legs are clunky. Her joints have been replaced with wet sand. Maybe it’s the codeine in her system, maybe it’s the single beer, but deep down, Jackie knows better. The letter in her hand is an awful anchor, a reminder of everything she’s lost and of everything she’ll never have. 

Jackie braces one hand on the bannister, knuckles straining from the intensity of her grip. Just get upstairs, she tells herself. The letter continues to burn against her side, hot as molten metal. 

“Are—are you alright, sweetheart?” Her mother calls from behind. 

Distantly, Jackie can detect the genuine pitch of worry in her voice, the lack of polish that proves Cindy truly is concerned. But most of her awareness is drowned out by the rush in her ears. 

“Tired,” Jackie croaks, choking over the single word. She doesn’t trust herself to turn around. So she keeps on climbing, one step and then another. 

Halfway up she realizes no one is following. No creak of loafers, no clack of her mother’s low heels. It seems that all of Jackie’s pushing and shoving has finally worked. Her wish has come true.

They let her go. 

Somehow, she manages to end up in her bedroom. She hardly remembers crossing the hall, or cresting the top of stairs. Only the dull roar of rising panic, and then—blink—she is sitting on the edge of her bed, the envelope staring up at her, taunting her, daring her.

It’s as though the last sixty seconds has been surgically cut from her brain, spliced aside and then tossed away. A minute forever lost in time. 

Then there is a cracking in her head. It’s like dry ice snapping, and her awareness comes rushing back in, hot and prickling and horribly uncomfortable. 

Her hands won’t stop shaking. Just do it already. 

She ticks one corner of the envelope between her teeth and pulls. The paper rips; the taste is bitter. Then she slides a finger under the flap, tears the rest, and eases out a single folded sheet.

Jackie Taylor, 

Congratulations once again on your acceptance to Rutgers University. We are excited to welcome you to the Class of 2000!

We would like to invite you to attend our New Student Orientation program. This program is designed to help you get the best start into your university life. Activities planned include meetings with academic advisors, registration for fall classes, campus tours and social gatherings with fellow incoming students, and more. 

To confirm your attendance, please complete the enclosed form and return by… 

Her eyes skid across the words, and then she stops reading. 

A sharp breath catches in her throat. With all of the chaos over these last two weeks, she’d completely forgotten that there was still a future waiting for her. It’s alien. Like reading a language from a planet she’s never been to. 

This isn’t how things were supposed to go.

Orientation was something she was supposed to do with Shauna at her side. College was too. 

They were going to share a dorm and shove their beds together. It was something they’d planned for years now, whispering to each other about mini-fridges and matching posters and late-night pizza. They were going to study together, party together, grow into the next phase of life together just as they always had done. They must have talked about it more than a thousand times. 

And now that too has been ripped away from her. 

Jackie isn’t sure if she can handle anymore cruelty. 

An emptiness hits her so hard, it might as well be physical. Someone may as well swing a bat at her ribs. The feeling would be the exact same. She presses a trembling hand to her chest, trying to hold all of her pieces together.

Something jagged tears from her chest. It’s half gasp, half cough, hiccups made of heartbreak. When will it end? How many more times will she have the ground ripped out from under her feet? 

With a swift crunch of her fist, the letter crumples into a ball. One more hard squeeze, and then she hurls it across the room. It hits the wall with the saddest little plip and drops uselessly to the carpet floor.

Fuck Rutgers. College is out of the cards. Her mind has room for exactly one subject and its name is Shauna. She is no longer suited for classes or electives, no sororities, no equations or learning. Just Shauna: missing, gone, existing only in Jackie’s memory. Rutgers represents a future that no longer fits, and Jackie has no plans to try and squeeze herself into it. 

Her whole body trembles as she sinks backward against her pillows. Shauna’s flannel lies waiting. She drags it to her face and presses it greedily to her face.

Then she closes her eyes, imagines dark brown eyes, and begins to mourn a dorm room colored with pink and green.