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Nat hates weddings. She hates the way Taissa breathes out, “You made it,” as if divine intervention whisked Nat into the reception hall, rather than her own two feet. She’s wearing a dress from younger, happier times that doesn’t fit her right and heels that pinch. Her face, free of the usual greasy strands that hang over her eyes, feels naked. She can’t believe she’s done this to herself. It feels like a lie, to stand in front of all these people as this counterfeit version of herself. Taissa says, “You look nice,” and this doesn’t comfort her even a little bit.
“Shauna will be happy to see you.” They both know that’s a lie. Nat loathes this too, this big game of lying they’ve picked up ever since getting rescued. Can people only ever be real to each other on the brink of death? It’s a depressing thought. But Taissa’s hand grips her arm, desperately, like she needs this more than Nat does, like they’re still lost girls who only have each other to hold onto. “And I’m glad you’re here.”
Nat’s heart clenches a little. “Yeah, sure.”
Taissa guides her around the room, introducing her to her girlfriend Simone whom she met at grad school. She’s beautiful, and doesn’t have red hair. Watching them flirt shamelessly, Nat can’t find an ounce of familiarity in the way her friend drapes her arm around Simone’s waist or tucks a stray braid behind her ear. There’s an element of restraint to it, as if Taissa is cognizant they’re being watched, and is just doing all the right things. It’s nothing like the fervent way she would grab at Van in the woods, but perhaps that was just circumstance that fuelled their romance. Nat could probably say the same about herself and Travis.
She remembers the last time she saw him– two years ago– with the typical pills, slammed doors, tears, and shoves to the floor. Contemplative, she watches Taissa and Simone laugh without actually hearing it, thankful at least some of them aren’t doomed to repeat the same mistakes they made as kids, but also spiteful that she can’t be one of them.
Before she knows it, she is whisked away once more to greet changed faces from high school, ones that Shauna most definitely doesn’t like. As always, her ex-classmates are a bit too cloying at the opportunity to attach themselves to any of the Yellowjackets that came out of the woods, and Nat finds it no less grating than usual. Shauna’s wedding be damned, she’ll punch Randy in the face again if he gets too close to her.
“I’m actually Jeff’s best man,” he proclaims, as if Nat is supposed to give a fuck.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Allie says with a grin, lines appearing around her eyes that weren’t there when they played soccer together. “You clean up nice, Scatorccio.”
Not saying thanks, Nat takes a swig from someone else’s wine glass on the table. She doesn’t understand why she’s being expected to make conversation with these vultures, when there’s no way Taissa wants to be here either. That’s why none of them attend those stupid class reunions, because it’s unbearable standing amongst people (who for their own benefit) claim to know you and what you’ve been through.
“Bathroom.” Nat excuses herself, taking quick strides away that make her heels wobble, almost crashes into a waiter carrying an h'ordeuvres tray. In the sanctity of white linoleum floors, she finally allows herself to breathe. In and out, lungs feeling like they’re rattling around inside her.
That is, until she realizes she’s not alone, and there’s a petite woman applying lipstick in the mirror. Nat almost doesn’t recognize her at first. The blonde, curly hair is shorter than it used to be and her cheeks have lost some of their softness with age. Her eyes dart to Nat’s reflection in the mirror, and then she turns around.
“Natalie.” Her mouth curves into a sickly sweet smile.
Raising her eyebrows, Nat looks her up and down again to make sure she’s got it right. “Misty.” It’s her all right, looking at her with those eyes better suited for studying bugs under microscopes than being trained on humans. “How’d you get Shauna to invite you?”
“She didn’t. I found her wedding registry online.”
“Of course you did.”
“It’s not like I showed up unannounced, though. I sent her an email that I was coming.” Misty pushes her glasses up her nose in that way Nat has always detested. She’s wearing a weird dress that’s lilac and comes with a faux-cape that drapes over her shoulders. Some twisted imitation of a bridesmaid’s dress. “But enough about me. How have you been?”
“Fine.” It comes out stilted. “You?”
Clearly basking in the rare opportunity to talk about herself, Misty replies, “I’ve done alright for myself. I work at a hospital as a nurse, you know Monmouth Medical Center? Though I’ve been thinking of switching over to somewhere else because I really need my time off and big hospitals aren’t so good about tha–”
“I think I need to go now.” Nat’s forehead pricks with an incoming headache, which she tries her best to ignore as she stumbles outside again. She can’t do this. She can’t reconcile past and present like the rest of them seem to be able to. Misty was just the tipping point of something that had been building inside her this entire evening. Her feet snag on where the carpeted floor begins, and an arm reaches out to grab her right before she falls.
“Are you okay?” She hears Misty ask, her arms running up and down Nat’s in what she thinks are meant to be soothing motions. But it’s just too much in combination with the buzz of chatter, clink of cutlery and porcelain, muffled love ballad playing on the dance floor, faces around her like ink blots, and Nat has to rip the other woman’s hands away from her just to keep her head above water.
“Don’t,” she says through gritted teeth, “fucking touch me.”
Taissa materializes at just the right time, concern knitting her brow as she rushes over to Natalie. “Jesus, are you okay? I was just about to go looking for you.”
Nat preemptively flinches at her outreached arms, and Taissa hesitates before bringing them down to her sides. “I need to go outside for a second. Come with me.”
As her friend frowns, Nat already knows the answer is no. Taissa can’t afford to just up and leave with the crazy addict woman having a mental breakdown she was stranded in the woods with, because other people will notice and for some reason she cares about what they think of her. Nat can’t even find the energy to be mad at her, just spins on her heel and walks towards the exit. In her peripheral vision, she can see Misty floundering to catch up to her, and she doesn’t really care about that either.
“Nat, was it something I said?” Misty’s voice rings out like a bell in the cold air of the parking lot, higher than usual.
“Just leave me alone.”
“Let’s talk about this. The last thing you need is to be alone right now.”
That makes Nat wheel around to glare at her, at the woman who doesn’t look the least bit intimidated by her temper, meeting her gaze evenly. “You don’t know me, Misty. We’re not friends.”
“Maybe not,” says Misty. “But don’t prove to everyone in that room that they’re right about you.”
Stiffening at her words, Nat can’t come up with a suitably sarcastic, deflective response to that. She searches the shorter woman’s face for traces of its usual cruel mirth and deception, and finds nothing– just resolve.
Misty folds her arms. “They were all debating about it, you know. Whether or not you’d show up. They were even placing bets on it.”
“And what did you bet?”
“That you’d show up. And of course, they all laughed at that.” Misty’s eyes darken with anger, her brow furrowing, as if on Nat’s behalf. Or perhaps it was her own ridicule that she couldn’t stand. Maybe both. “Tai wasn’t sure either, even though she wanted you to. Shauna didn’t care one way or another.”
Snorting, Nat answers dryly, “No surprise there. She never gave much of a shit about me. I bet Taissa had to talk her into letting me come.” Her eyes flit down to get another look at Misty, who looks frazzled and cold, her arms wrapped around her sleeveless arms. Both of their breaths are coming out in little clouds under the fluorescent lights. “Go inside and bother someone else. I need a cigarette real quick before I come back.”
Misty blinks, a small victory smile spreading across her face. “Okay.”
“I mean it.” Fumbling around her purse in the half-dark, Nat closes her hand over a pack of Malboros she bought from Rite-Aid on the way here. Opening it, she puts one between her teeth as she searches in pursuit of a lighter next. “Leave me alone. I don’t need you in my ear bitching about how unhealthy smoking is the whole time.”
A small flame ignites in front of her.
“I’m not cold, Natalie.” Misty’s fingers are clasped over her own lighter, which she brings to the cigarette dangling from the other woman’s lips. Nat just stares at her longer than she should before taking the first drag, not understanding the feeling of alarm that stirs within her. Or is it something else? It’s difficult to ever know where she stands with Misty, but Nat doesn’t think she hates this strange woman. If the driver of a passing car turned to look at them, they would seem like friends at this moment, and the idea of it doesn’t send Nat’s stomach roiling with disgust.
Nat thinks her alarm might just come from the fact that Misty fucking Quigley is the only person today that has even remotely understood her, or at least made an effort to.
____
By the time they head back inside, the party has mostly cleared out. Jeff and Shauna are tucking into the leftover food like they haven’t eaten all day– they probably haven’t, Nat muses– and a few Wiskayok stragglers remain. She sees Taissa off to one side, thanking some leaving guests for coming, a strained smile on her face. For what is considered one of the greatest, happiest moments in a person's life, Nat thinks this is a pretty miserable sight.
“You’re here,” says Shauna, when she notices Nat coming up to her table. She doesn’t get up to hug or greet her, or acknowledge Misty behind her. Her face looks the same as always– tragic, dark eyes like a cow about to be slaughtered, a perpetually downturned brow, her red lips pulled into a tight line.
“In the flesh, yes.” Nat’s hands instinctively reach to hide themselves in pockets her dress doesn’t have. Things are always weird with Shauna, and not in the way they are with Misty and Taissa.
“Do any of you want some of these?” Jeff asks, sliding over a tray of fancy sausage rolls and with a jolt Nat remembers he’s there, that this is his wedding too. He looks different than he did in high school, but hardly. Him and Shauna make a striking couple in that sense– that in spite of all the time that crawls by, the same time that’s ruined Nat, they never change. When Nat looks at them, she thinks of all the times she saw them and Jackie getting into the same car after parties, shoving each other lightly and laughing.
“I’m good,” says Nat, just as Misty says, “Yes, please.”
And so Nat finds herself seated with them, listening to Misty and Jeff chat idly between their bites of bread and cheese, while Shauna just sits there looking exhausted out of her mind.
“Is it everything you hoped it would be?” Nat asks her, not intending for it to come out as mean as it does.
“The Taylors paid for everything.”
“Oh.” Now that she mentions it, Nat did see them here earlier, near the bathroom. It’s sick, the way Shauna and Jackie are intertwined like this still, after all these years. And marrying Jeff just sort of seals it.
“You know they hold a birthday brunch for her every year?” Shauna laughs, but it’s the cold, joyless kind. “So fucked up. And I haven’t missed a single one.”
Nat can’t say anything to that, doesn’t know why Shauna is even telling her this when she’s pretty sure the woman doesn’t even like her. But she understands the dull ache of separation from the most important person in your life, like a conjoined twin seeking the phantom of the other half of its body, the way grief stretches you out and leaves you empty and hungry forever. And the way that you’ll do anything just to feel a semblance of proximity to what you lost.
But Nat doesn’t say all this. Instead, she says, “It’s not your fault.” The words Nat herself has always needed to hear most, her entire life, but been deprived of time and time again. It isn’t their fault that bad things happened to them and they all turned out so fucked up; not quite adults but definitely not teenagers anymore, with some kind of chemical imbalance in the brain that makes them unfathomably different from everyone else. It isn’t their fault that they’re up to their knees in secrets that are eating them alive. It isn’t their fault they couldn’t save everyone they wanted to.
Shauna doesn’t say anything back, just looks everywhere except at Nat.
“Are we heading out soon?” Taissa appears to be finished wishing the other guests goodbye, her face lined with exhaustion. “I don’t have anywhere I need to be, just wondering.”
Nat gives a noncommittal shrug, and Misty shakes her head.
“I think,” says Shauna, dark eyes flickering, “I want to stay a while.” With you all, hovers in the air unspoken, like a flimsy ribbon of hope, desperation, and maybe a touch of delusion. Nat holds onto it for dear life.