Chapter Text
Jackie wakes up the feeling of Shauna ripping apart her bedroom while also trying to be quiet about it. She’s kneeling on the floor with a toppled over stack of books strewn around her, tossing a pair of socks matched together that don’t actually belong together-a pink ankle sock and regular black gym sock- over her shoulder. Jackie pries herself up from the mass of pillows and squints at her uncertainly. This is very Shauna, total destruction of order. She used to haul her furniture around at one in the morning weekly to try positioning the bed in different ways, tiptoeing while pulling bits and pieces around as her mom slept downstairs.
“Redecorating?” She asks sleepily, scrubbing her left fist across her eyes.
“I lost a library book,” Shauna says tersely. “Late fees are owning my ass right now.”
Oh. Guilt spikes through her. She had forgotten about that wayward copy of Virginia Woolf. Orlando. Her stomach does a sour little flip, book definitely stashed in her closet back home, and Jackie remembers the events of last night. Of Nat calling her name, of stumbling away, her feet blindly finding her way here. She kicks aside the heavy blankets and feels the gentle breeze swirling from the nearby fan. Heat pools inside the attic like an oven but it isn’t so bad right now, door cracked ajar and curtains drawn to avoid the sun’s total glare.
“Maybe I can help you look,” Jackie says pathetically. She’ll have to find some way to slip the book back into Shauna’s bag later.
“Don’t bother. It isn’t here,” Shauna grouches. “I’ve searched this room three times now. My locker at school, at work… I don’t know where it went.” A cinnamon flavoured ChapStick rolls across the floor.
“Could’ve fallen out of your bag somewhere.” Stuffing some money into the book will make it obvious that she had it all this time. Next time Jackie’s sitting in Shauna’s car, she decides, she’ll accidentally drop some cash onto the floor for her to find, making up hopefully for whatever the late fees are.
“What’s with the impromptu sleepover? Not,” Shauna emphasizes, probably seeing Jackie’s expression slip a smidge, “that I’m complaining.”
“I missed my best friend,” Jackie tells her. “I figured if we couldn’t hang out during daylight hours, we could at least be unconscious together.”
She laughs a little. Somewhere in this room Shauna has a whole treasure trove of best-friends-memorabilia that Jackie’s offloaded on her over the years. Half heart charms, matching woven bracelets in pink and green. Dozens of flowery Valentines that Jackie has written with her best pink gel pens. She’s not a poet, not like Shauna is, but she likes trying to write out how much Shauna means to her in the month dedicated to celebrating love. Jackie’s never been shy with gift giving.
This room just feels like a safe place. It is dark blues and plaids, the evolution of Shauna strung around the place by glow in the dark stars and the tubes of lip gloss across the vanity. She can still see the bits and pieces that her best friend has outgrown, the things she hasn’t gotten rid of yet. Under this very bed, Jackie knows with certainty, is a box of diaries. The many thoughts of Shauna Shipman scrawled down in pencil and pen. The early diaries are pink and fuzzy, locks glued to the side to prevent anyone from casually flipping through. Lately she favours composition notebooks, the cheap kind, constantly stopping by the store and buying a new one.
Slowly she settles back down into the pillows and smells a lingering sting of chlorine pressed into the pillowcases and sheets. Shauna’s lucky her hair is so dark. At this rate it would be turning green if she were blonde. “Wanna do something today? You know,” she wiggles her eyebrows playfully, “awake?”
A distraction would be good. Thinking about last night makes her a little sick. But Shauna doesn’t perk up any. “I’ve got work, Jax.”
“You always have work.”
“Yeah, well, work doesn’t go away just because you wanna hang out.”
“Can’t you call in?”
“I’m not sick.”
“Pretend that you’re dying of the flu,” Jackie tells her. A sliver of impatience creeps into her voice. “You’ve got a fever, you can’t see straight. You absolutely cannot come in today because people will drown.”
“My work has an insane attendance policy,” Shauna tells her. “I have to keep a 98% record or else I’m on probation.”
“This is a summer job. You act like they run your life.”
Shana rolls her eyes. “I need the money. They kind of do run my life.”
“Okay, fine. Whatever.” She flips onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. Deb stuck all these stars up on a weekend Shauna was supposed to be at her dad’s, but he flaked. Instead Jackie and Shauna sprawled out on the floor while Deb dragged a ladder all around the room, sticking each one up patiently, trying hard to assemble proper constellations.
Somewhere up there is a set of stars positioned for Lepus, the hare. Jackie’s got a fondness for rabbits. She tries to figure out the rough lines and how they shape the ears while Shauna stares at her in frustration. Deep down she knows she isn’t being fair. It isn’t Shauna’s fault that she isn’t spritzing Sprite across a hot grill and serving shitty burgers for minimum wage, a job so cheap it would be easy to flake on it.
“What if,” Shauna starts slowly, “I just call in sick?”
Immediately Jackie bolts upright. “You’re calling in?”
She hacks out a fake cough. A grin slashes across Jackie’s face.
They go downstairs together and find Deb slumped over on the couch, the light of the TV playing over her weary face. A cup of coffee has gone cool beside her. Shauna immediately peels off for the phone in the kitchen, dialling a number and speaking to someone in a low, private voice. That’s something that makes Jackie feel a little jealous, that Shauna has a private life that Jackie cannot breach. Coworkers, people at the club. They see the place differently. Jackie just knows the pools and the saunas, the red carpeted rooms. Shauna knows the people working there by name. Jackie’s grown up eating in the formal dining room with her parents, mahogany woodwork and gold glitzing off the fine details everywhere, and Shauna grew up visiting her mom in the kitchen, big metal pots steaming from the stove.
Lobsters on a plate. Lobsters with their claws tied together in a container in the back to prevent any scurrying away for freedom. They come from the same town, the same places, but they each know it differently.
“Surprised you aren’t with Natalie today,” Shauna says as she comes out of the kitchen, dropping her voice down low to avoid waking her mom. She must’ve worked a later shift.
At the mention of Nat, Jackie squirms a little internally. She blew her off at the record place. She was probably mad about it. No, she reconsiders. Fucking furious. They were just hanging out and Jackie went from normal to crawling out of her skin to get away. Whatever was happening to her brain had to chill out so things could go back to how they had been. Just thinking about Nat was bad. That record spinning, plastic disc engraved with the shape of sound, needle finding every pitch, every harmony, Nat’s cool face studying her as the music played.
Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s. It was Tuesday. This was going to be a good day. Jackie wouldn’t ruin it by plunging into whatever was going through her mind.
She shrugs, mutters something, watches as Shauna snacks on a granola bar in six fast bites. She makes do with a stick of sugar free gum, chewing at it wearily as they tug on their tennis shoes, Shauna for some reason hauling her large bag with her.
Coffee. Jackie decides on this quickly and Shauna follows willingly. They go to a cute spot a few streets over. This part of the town is visually interesting, she thinks. They walk down the empty, quiet streets, looking at the old Victorian houses that have been gutted and turned into apartments, the smaller homes hunched over in their red bricked shadows. People are still probably asleep. It is early, heat a low buzz on her skin, and there’s something sad and small about the sun above them. It is a white prick of light in the perfect blue. By noon this whole place will be blistering over. Dead lawns grimace at them. Brown grass, bald spots. A car sags on worn tires nearby, patches of rust on the doors like fish scales.
Van’s working at this place. The realization hits Jackie dully that even the goalkeeper has a job for the summer. She flashes them a lazy smile right as another barista chastises her — you can’t keep burning the milk just because you like the sound it makes— and Jackie cannot help but smile back. Van’s warmth is infectious. It pours out of her. She’s sunshine, the kind that doesn’t scorch.
“What do you want?” Van half drawls as she leans against a cash register. Her apron is tied loosely at her waist, unlike the sharp knot her coworker has done to herself, giving her a razor sharp waistline. Van instead is loose and easy, Hawaiian shirt half done up, white muscle shirt peeking out from below.
“You have to go off of the script,” the other girl hisses at her, already stomping away to the back. "-hi, how can I help you, this drink is our special of the month..."
Shauna and Jackie exchange looks and smother a laugh. They order an iced peppermint mocha and a sugar free vanilla, soy milk latte. Already Jackie knows she won’t finish her drink. It feels massive in her hand. She gets a little shaky when she looks at the display case of pastries, glazed donuts and oversized muffins, quietly saying she isn’t hungry. Shauna quickly agrees that she also isn’t hungry, opting just for the drinks, and Jackie pays quickly before it can be a thing.
Immediately Van pours a healthy amount of milk into a silver jug and shoves it under the steam wand of the espresso maker, making the whole thing scream as the heat rips through the milk, frothing it up to Cappuccino levels. Their drinks are hastily assembled by the other girl who slams ingredients around like she’s been personally wronged.
This is something Jackie’s always imagined growing up. Her and Shauna together, doing basic, boring things. Coffee dates seem more interesting when it is Shauna with her. She has a vision of their entire life, walking side by side down grocery store aisles, running errands together. She picks a corner table that has a big window beside it. Outside the town is struggling to wake up under the spell of heat. Someone has pinned a big reminder of heat wave friendly activities to consider on the community board by the door of the shop. She sips her drink and taste the plastic-like sting of sugar free vanilla before the harsher bite of espresso.
This place doesn’t mark down the calories on the menu. She squirms as she tries to judge the drink for how much it will set her back today.
“Are you going to Mari’s party?”
“I don’t know,” Shauna tells her. They’ve had this conversation twice already and Jackie’s hoping the answer has changed somehow. “I’ll have to see my schedule.”
“Everyone is going.” She wedges this argument out cheerfully, hoping Shauna has the same fear of missing out. “You should wear the red dress,” she adds, thinking that she needs to stop thinking about how pretty Nat is. “I could buy a red dress and we could match.”
“You have a million dresses,” Shauna jokes as she swirls her straw around her drink, jostling the ice cubes around. “I don’t think you need a million and one.”
“My closet has room for more,” Jackie lies. The doors need extra force to snap shut. The smart thing would be to purge some of the excess and drop it off at a charity bin.
“I don’t know,” Shauna says again. “Mari’s… Mari.” She flips her hand a little like it translates Mari’s spiky personality. “I just— do you ever get tired of it, the same people every single day? Literally nothing ever changes here. We do the same thing again and again,”
She doesn’t know what Shauna’s saying exactly but she bobs her head up and down slightly in agreement. “I mean, college is literally next year. That’ll be different,” Jackie says, hoping she’s said the right thing.
Shauna exhales and shrugs. “Do you think it’ll be that different?”
“We’ll be doing fun college things. How much different do you want it to be?”
“I don’t know. What if we don’t go to the same college?”
A coldness that defies this heat wave strikes Jackie through the chest. This isn’t something she’s ever imagined. They aren’t just Jackie-and-Shauna but Jackie&Shauna. The whole world is a grey place. What she knows is that Shauna eats cereal without milk on weekends because she doesn’t like when the texture turns soggy. Shauna collects bookmarks like they’re going out of style but still fishes up an old receipt from her purse to use to mark her place. That Shauna keeps spare shoes in Jackie’s closet, that Jackie’s cardigan practically lives under Shauna’s bed until the right cold day to fish it out. She’s blind to everyone else, completely stuck on the brown eyes across the table. It has always been Rutgers. There is no part of Jackie’s future that she wants if Shauna is not intimately part of all of it.
What she wants now is to lurch across the table and grab onto Shauna’s hands to keep her there. She has dry hands, especially in winter, and Jackie carries vanilla scented hand lotion in a tiny tube because of it. Shauna’s hands are beautiful to look at, long, slender fingers made for playing the piano or flipping knives the way Deb does in the kitchen. Jackie wants to hold onto Shauna’s hands now because she’s going to fly over the edge. This idea, this concept of them stepping off into the world separately has her unraveling, a braid without an elastic—
Rutgers really will be different, she suddenly realizes. There will be no script. She turns her face to look out the window, swallowing nervously, and catches a glimpse of a slight reflection of herself there, her face against Wiskayok, and her fingers tug at the collar of her shirt. People always like her, and why not? She’s the one hauling beer to parties. She’s the mastermind behind every legendary sleepover. When people think party, they inadvertently think Jackie Taylor. She’s the gift giver of matching pink satin sleep sets, whipping up bowls of face masks with mashed bananas and oatmeal, ready to laugh for every joke said. Golden girl, prom queen. Team captain, and she’s popular… everything about her has been so easy until now.
But the real world is not Wiskayok. The same rules will not apply there. She’s one person and there’s going to be a whole sea of people who won’t know her by reputation.
Who is she, really? The only person capable of really liking her is sitting at this table. The terror of not being with Shauna is intense enough that she could rip out of her own skin, completely vanish into nothing.
She looks at her washed out reflection. Looks lower, the lace collar of her shirt. This one came from a catalogue earlier this summer. It looked pretty on page, but now Jackie wonders if it looks boring. If she looks boring. Her stare slides away from the pale outline of her body and down to her hands in her lap, flexing her wrists as she judges. Being thin has always been a priority. That’s how she thrives. Jackie controls her plate at every table. Earns her spot on the mantle.
Shauna gives her a look from across the table, oblivious to the feverish fire swirling around inside her brain. “Where’d you go? You look like you’re a million miles away.”
“We’re going to Rutgers, just like we always said,” Jackie manages to say coherently. “That’ll be good. You and I against the world, right? No matter how different it is there. We’ll just— I guess get the applications and send them together for luck. You’re an ace for the English department. It’ll happen.” She bypasses any talk of loans and support forms. She needs the cotton fuzz of a dream to lift her out of this pit. “We should just plan for our dorm room now and start shopping,” she tries, speaking through a dry mouth. “That way we have to coolest room when we’re together. Do you think there’s a form or something we have to fill out to room together? There is, right?”
Her straw jabs through the ice, sloshing chocolate coloured milk over the rim of her glass. “Yeah, there’s a form. You write down if you want to live with someone specific.”
“Great,” Jackie beams. “We fill that out and nothing has to change.” Between them, anyways. The rest of the world will be thrown to the wayside, but she’ll always have Shauna for support. Inhaling sharply, she thinks about sororities and how long it will take before she’s recognized as a good player for the soccer team, bumped from bench riding to running the green grass ragged. She’ll figure out a careful diet to keep her going, do whatever it takes to make it work. No more Taissa, no more Jeff.
“Do you not want to be a different person? Like, change?” Shauna tries. She spins her straw again through the ice. “Isn’t college about redefining yourself?”
“I think college is supposed to be about beer kegs. What do you even want to change about yourself? You’re basically perfect.”
“What do you love about me?”
Her stomach turns hot. Surely her face is bright red. Jackie traces her fingertips over her jaw and looks down at the table. “You’re like, my best friend.”
“Right.” Shauna’s voice drops lower. Something shatters behind the counter and they both flinch. “College.” She’s probably already thinking about student loans. That’s the only explanation Jackie can think of for the grim expression on her face. “You and me and— what, Jeff? Are you going to haul him around across the quad there? Trophy from back home?”
Trophy from back home? The way Shauna says it makes it unclear if she’s talking about her or Jeff being the trophy. “God, I don’t think you’re supposed to take your high school boyfriend with you into the real world,” Jackie jokes weakly. “He and I are always going to have a connection,” she says, trying to sound diplomatic even as the words asshole and jerk ping around her brain. “But I don’t think he’s future material. He’s just… Jeff, you know?”
Shauna’s mouth fixes itself into a small smile. “You really don’t give a shit about him, do you?”
“Please. He’s just a boy. You and me? We’re forever,” Jackie swears. She means it.
“You say that until you decide you want him again.”
“God. He’s so not my type.”
“You ditched me all spring because you had to go to every single one of his baseball games. Seems like he’s your type when you want him.”
“Yeah, well. I don’t want him now,” she says very clearly. “He threw me off of a roof.”
“Didn’t you jump from the railing?” Her brow furrows.
“That’s so not what happened,” Jackie snaps, face heating up. “He just went all cave man and dropped me into the pool. Not exactly the world’s greatest love story.”
“Right.” Shauna doesn’t sound convinced which is fair. Rumours have swirled around the whole town already. Apparently in one version of events Jeff gave her a promise ring right before jumping. Nobody was talking about Jeff having to take a hose to wash off the runny streaks of egg yolks from the windows of his car, the bits of egg shell stuck to the shitty paint job. “Can I tell you something? And please don’t hate me.”
“You? I could never,” Jackie says mock indigent.
“I didn’t actually call in sick. I told work I’d take the later shift. I can’t actually hang out today.”
That explains the bag. This surprises her. She never knew that Shauna could lie to her. Her smile fades. “Oh.”
“I chickened out.”
“Okay,” she says. “That’s fine. I guess I’ll see you later. My mom has a bunch of magazines we can look through for inspiration for our room, figure out a colour scheme.”
“Sure, yeah. I just— I just like, feel like a snow globe sometimes?” Shauna’s standing now, drink clutched so tightly in her fist that the plastic is contorting. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Jackie blinks. “No.”
“Forget it,” she snaps. She fumbles her way out of the coffee shop, ramming that bag into three different chairs, and hits the door like it has personally wronged her somewhere. It feels like Jackie’s sitting in the aftermath of a tornado.
And, like the universe wants to spit on her, Taissa Turner waltzes into the coffee shop. She’s relaxed, boyish jeans matched with a white tee shirt that actually looks really good, golden hoops swaying per every step she takes. She heads right for the cash register and leans close, studying the menu directly behind Van’s pinkish face. Another mug slips through Van’s hands and they laugh together, speaking quietly and fast, the nearby barista scoffing loudly as she waits to assemble a drink.
Of course Shauna leaves her sitting her alone. She looks friendless. It doesn’t matter that Jackie is team captain, that she’s popular and pretty. Every single encounter between her and Taissa was being slashed across a scoreboard.
This table meant for two? Jackie sips her drink miserably and sits by herself. She doesn’t even have a book to try and hide behind.
Ordering a drink isn’t rocket science but Taissa manages to draw the whole affair out for fifteen minutes. She grits her teeth and debates bolting for the door, but this is already pathetic. She isn’t sprinting for cover.
Finally Taissa turns her head and looks over the shop, gaze sweeping across abstract paintings hanging on the walls, and finds Jackie. They lock eyes and embarrassment swells up inside her chest. Does she smile? Tip her head slightly? Jackie never knows how to handle Taissa. There’s no guide book to social interactions to the one girl on the team who acts like she personally wants to take a knife to her. Instead her mouth presses into a line, a second from sneering or smiling, expression an inheritance from her own mother when speaking to service people. Taissa’s whole face hardens, warmth vanishing.
They compete for everything. It doesn’t even matter that they’re rushing for the same gold trophy on the same team. A win for Jackie is a loss for Taissa.
Van rolls her eyes as she slaps a drink down on the counter. “Don’t bitch fight when I have to work,” she tells them both.
Automatically Taissa picks up the plastic cup. Matcha and coconut milk. Now Jackie feels self conscious about the drink she ordered that she doesn’t even like. “Hey,” she manages.
“Hey,” Jackie winces out in return. Sips her bitter brew. Thinks stupidly about Nat fetching her a cold coke and how good it tasted.
Nope, she thinks quickly. Don’t get into that.
The polite thing would be to offer a seat. She doesn’t. Taissa could leave. She doesn’t. Instead she crosses the room and throws herself down in the chair that Shauna’s vacated.
“So… you’re just hanging out here? I didn’t think you could wake up this early.”
That’s fair. Jackie usually rolls up for their away games half asleep with a velvet sleep mask hitched up like a headband, ready to nap on the bus while everyone else bitches and moans. “I wanted coffee.”
“Right.” Taissa jostles her cup like she’s proving her superiority. “Coffee.”
“Shauna was literally just here.”
“Okay.”
“She had to go to work,” she says diplomatically even as she suddenly hates pools, life guard towers, and every pay stub that separates them.
Taissa flicks a cool look at her. “You get a job yet?” That yet sounds loaded.
“Please. I know you aren’t clocking in and out.”
“I volunteer,” she says crisply. “I’m filling out my hours for college applications. They like candidates who contribute to their communities.”
“Wow. Of course the only way you’ll do charity work is if you get something out of it,” Jackie jabs back. “Very altruistic.”
“Please,” Taissa scoffs. “Nobody is actually altruistic. That’s a myth perpetuated by Christmas movies.”
Regrettably that makes Jackie laugh. “You sound like Van.”
“She’s not wrong,” Taissa mutters. She then takes a sip of her drink and looks cooler for it, the matcha iced latte clinking slightly in her hand as the ice cubes swirl around.
They don’t say anything for a beat. And then—
“Are you going to Mari’s party?”
“Obviously. Literally everyone is invited,” she tells her with a sting of acid.
“Jesus Christ. Why do you have to say it like that? Just because everyone got the invite doesn’t mean everyone wants to go. Plus I’m pretty sure Mari didn’t invite Misty.”
“Nobody invites Misty. She just shows up anyways. I’m pretty sure she doubles as the Grim Reaper in her spare time.”
“That’s so mean,” Jackie laughs despite herself. Kindness doesn’t cost her anything but the secret to staying tight with the other cool girls around school is to know when someone is at the bottom of the food chain. Better to laugh than to be laughed at. She looks out the window and is surprised to see Vera walking up the street with a bag of cans in hand. That makes sense, Jackie realizes, because today is Tuesday. Her mom goes out. Usually brings her empties over for cash at the beer store on Tuesdays. That’s what Van had told them all. “I didn’t know she was back.”
“Who?” She peers out the window and Jackie has to tell her that’s Nat’s mom. “That’s sad.”
It is, actually. Vera has a slight shuffle, grimacing like the early morning bright is hurting her eyes. She’s hauling empties in one hand and has a cigarette lit in the other, trailing ash all over town. She looks hungover and half dead. By noon that sun is going to fry her up to a crisp.
Now she wonders if that’s why Nat was out late the other night. If that’s why her face was bruised.
Shit.
She’s supposed to be blanking every single thought of Nat from her mind. Maybe she needs to call Laura Lee up and get a number for a priest.
It is not normal to want to kiss your teammate. Get your shit together, Jackie.
But that’s the problem. Jackie could’ve kissed Nat out on the street. She’s sure the girl would’ve tasted like a rush of smoke, mouth still warm from the tease of a flame from her lighter. How easy it would have been. Just lean forwards a smidge, risk a few inches… her mouth had been so close to Jackie’s face.
Her face heats up and she cringes inwardly. This isn’t normal. Girls don’t kiss girls. Something inside her brain is broken, she’s sure, because she’s never felt this kind of desire for Jeff. They’ve held hands and kissed, but that was like fulfilling an obligation. If a boy buys flowers? The girl is supposed to kiss him back.
She just couldn’t get it right. Jeff always got excited in a matter of seconds. Her? Nothing.
But Nat?
It was like swallowing a swarm of butterflies. All that nervous energy fizzing around inside her chest, the sheer wanting of it. Nat was like a bottle of Coke pulled from the freezer and Jackie needed Diet Coke, the limited sweetness.
“You’re lucky you have Jeff to go with to the party,” Taissa tells her quietly. She’s watching Vera walk still.
“I’m so not going with Jeff.”
“Whatever. At least you have somebody to go with.” Exasperation laces her tone.
Now Jackie is surprised. She looks at Taissa. “There’s at least a dozen boys in our class who would cut their leg off to go with you anywhere.”
“Who says I want to go with any of them?”
“Not my problem you are antisocial as hell,” Jackie bites out. “Just go with Van. Make it a girls night.”
Taissa chokes on her drink, sputtering unattractively while Jackie helpfully mops up matcha latte with a napkin. “Sure.”
“You always look like you’re having fun together. I didn’t know you guys were hanging out.”
“I didn’t know you and Natalie were hanging out,” Taissa sniffs back, grimacing a little. “Guess we’re all mixing up the team’s social hierarchy.”
Hanging out. Those felt like magic words. A limp olive branch, a desperate plea, a firm hand grabbing her by the hip. “Who doesn’t love a bit of chaos?”
Sitting here is a tiny bit easier and she’s almost sad when Taissa stands up. “I have to go build houses for the people who don’t have houses,” she informs her. “You should consider some charity work for your college applications. It really does look good.”
Not a terrible thing to consider, actually. If she can do anything to ensure she gets accepted into Rutgers? She needs to lock down her future with Shauna. “I’ll go through my closet and pull out anything I don’t wear anymore so I can drop it off at your house? Is that considered charitable enough?”
Taissa scoffs out a laugh and leaves her.
The movie rental place is buzzing with activity even on a Tuesday night. She hears the whirring of an air conditioner trying hard to compete with the constant opening and shutting of the door, people pressing in tight to the shelves as they lift movies to inspect plot summaries. Jackie’s alone, Shauna working a double shift, and she’s browsing slowly.
There’s no rush to get home, after all. Just a tiny glance out the window reveals people driving down the street. Always just a driver, no passengers. She spots the old trucks that rev loudly for every stop sign, the classic family cars. Empty seats, faceless drivers. She watches casually before returning to a shelf, politely sidestepping a woman trying to appease three children at once with one movie option.
Jackie gathers up Bleachers for comfort’s sake. She even snags the movie Van recommended. Two films that’ll tide her over until hr willpower crumbles and she rewatches Color of Night. She’s just starting to amble her way to the counter when she hears a familiar rough laugh, Nat leaning against the snack bar with her hip, talking to a boy with heavy eyeliner.
She stops dead in her tracks and feels like a rabbit for it. Jackie clutches the films to her chest and tries to figure out her breathing.
Light dazzles across Nat’s face. She pulls of the choppy layers better than anyone Jackie knows. Her hip leans against the plexiglass display case of overpriced chocolate bars and bags of buttery popcorns and she laughs again, swiping her hand out to slap Kev away from an open bag of liquorice. “Get your own,” she snaps. “I don’t share.”
“You can’t just hang out in here and eat in front of me and not share,” Kev argues loudly, taking a card from someone and swiping it through the scanner to check their movies out. “Don’t be an asshole.”
“Don’t be sensitive,” Nat starts to say. Someone nudges Jackie forward irritably and she stumbles a little, off balance, and clutches tighter to the movies. Nat's mouth wouldn't taste just of smoke, she realizes. Candy sweet. There's a red vine laced between her fingers where she's used to seeing a cigarette.
Both her and Kev look at Jackie in surprise.
Nat straightens. She’s oblivious to Kev finally snagging a strand of candy from the open bag on the counter. “Jackie,” she says, blinking. “What are you doing here?”
The words dry up in her mouth. And Jackie—
“I have to go,” she manages to spit out before bolting.
She slams out the door, slams into the heat, slams down the street, slams over empty yards until she finds home, nearby lawn Gnomes flinched back another few inches, and practically rips the door off the hinges trying to get through it.