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She’s kissing Melissa again. Shauna has her pinned against a pine tree, one hand fisted in the girl’s hair, the other braced against the trunk. Above them, sunlight creeps through the leaves. It’s midday, hours before Shauna has to return to butcher the night’s meal. There’s time to slow down, be gentle.
Shauna tightens her grip on Melissa’s curls. The bark catches her knuckles and she grins at the sting. Nothing about this is gentle.
— — —
“You can talk to me, you know. If something’s going on.” Taissa stirs the rabbit stew, tilting her head at Shauna. “I can keep a secret.”
It’s true. She kept Shauna’s once, in those early days. Before the snow and the blood and the hunt.
“I’m done with secrets,” Shauna says, frowning at the fire below the boiling pot. “You need to stir the bottom, it’s going to burn.”
Tai raises an eyebrow, but does as she says.
— — —
Every time but the first, Shauna has initiated. It’s a ritual now, a game. They find themselves away from the group, alone in these woods, and Shauna makes her move. Corners Melissa, backs her against a tree without saying a word. Without touching her, even. It just takes a glance, her eyes flicking sideways, and Melissa obeys.
If Shauna cared, she’d be worried Melissa feels pressured into this. But Shauna doesn’t care. She’s not worried. Not worried, and certainly not relieved when Melissa meets her gaze every time with a knowing, satisfied smile.
So it keeps happening. Shauna: the butcher, the knife to a beautiful girl’s throat. Melissa: the follower, the unexpected, the unafraid.
— — —
“When Van kissed me for the first time, I freaked the fuck out.”
“Okay?” Shauna furrows her brow, concentrating on making a clean cut.
“And then she kissed me again, and I realized… That’s what it’s supposed to be like.”
Shauna looks up at Tai, then back down at the goat leg she’s prepared. “Are you really bragging about Van’s kissing prowess right now?”
Taissa snorts. “No. Maybe.”
There’s silence for a moment, as Shauna wipes off her knife. She tucks it away (into the sheath Melissa made, messy and beautiful), then glances at Tai. “Was she your first kiss?”
“Yeah,” Taissa says softly. “First, only, last.”
“Jesus, Tai.” Shauna laughs, but her voice breaks a little. “You really love her that much?”
“Till death do us part,” Taissa says, crossing her heart and grinning.
— — —
Shauna keeps her eyes closed when they kiss. Presses them shut so tight she can feel the tension in her jaw.
If Melissa wonders why, she doesn’t ask. Just accepts the tightness in Shauna's kisses, trails her fingers along Shauna's clenched jaw.
(Once, Shauna opened her eyes mid-kiss. Heard a twig crack, looked up with her heart pounding.
And over Melissa’s shoulder, she saw a girl. Pale blue skin, hair dusted with snow. A sad, knowing smile pulling at the corner of her painted lips.
Since then, Shauna keeps her eyes shut tight.)
— — —
“Van has a cousin who likes both.”
Shauna plucks a berry from the bush, tosses it into her mouth. “Both what?”
“He likes girls, but he likes boys, too.”
The berry is gritty, sour against her tongue. “Weird.”
Tai shrugs. “We’ve seen weirder.”
— — —
This thing with Melissa is nothing like kissing Jeff. With him, it was a performance. Gasp and blush and moan at the right times. She’d kiss him and think of practice the next day, of the essay she was avoiding, of a dress she’d seen at the mall. He wasn’t a bad kisser. It wasn’t his fault he was an awkward teenage boy. And sometimes her gasps were real. Sometimes she kissed him and felt something. Sometimes.
Here in the woods, with Melissa and her witty quips and her adoring gaze, it’s different. Wilder.
Here, Shauna buries her fingers in another girl’s hair and nips at the soft skin behind her ear. She comes alive at the sound of Melissa’s shaky breathing, feels her blood race as Shauna presses her teeth to her throat.
— — —
“So,” Tai says. “Anything you want to talk about?”
Shauna rolls her eyes and tosses another branch on the fire.
— — —
Melissa kisses her first, this time. Out in the open- no people around, but no trees to hide against either.
“You’re so hot.” Melissa says, breaking the kiss to whisper against Shauna’s mouth.
Shauna butchered a rabbit today. There’s still blood on her sleeves. It’s under her fingernails, these drying flecks of red.
“It’s so cool, what you do for us. You’re incredible.” Melissa curls her hand around the back of Shauna’s neck. “Everyone wants you, you know.”
(“Everyone’s scared of you, you know.”)
“Shut up and kiss me,” Shauna snaps.
Over Melissa’s shoulder, a frost-speckled figure shakes her head.
— — —
“Hey Shauna, did you-” Tai cuts herself off. “Oh.”
Shauna shoves herself away from Melissa, and places her hand on her knife. "You didn’t fucking see that."
Tai raises her hands in surrender, but there’s a glint in her eyes. “Gotcha. Nothing to see.”
"Good." Shauna strides away. She doesn’t look at Taissa. She doesn’t look back.
— — —
“Shauna.”
“No.”
“I just want you to know-”
“Fucking drop it, Taissa.”
— — —
They haven’t kissed in days. Melissa has stayed away, skittish after Tai’s interruption. Shauna could make a move, of course, but come sunset she’s sitting in her shelter alone.
Shauna doesn’t know how to feel. Taissa knows now (or did she always know?) what Shauna’s done. It’s all happening again. Summer is fading into winter and Taissa knows a secret stuck in Shauna’s throat.
— — —
“Melissa really likes you, you know,” Tai says softly.
“I don’t give a fuck about Melissa.”
“Jesus, Shauna, okay.”
— — —
They’re kissing again, and it’s so good. Hands in her hair, a warm body against Shauna’s. Melissa’s hands are on her waist, and Shauna feels like she’s burning. Like every touch is embers on her skin. It burns, and Shauna wants, and Melissa pulls her closer.
She wants to sink her teeth in, feel the pulse of blood inside this girl, hot and wet and burning.
Melissa feels like wildfire. Like something Shauna cannot outrun.
— — —
Van still doesn’t know. Taissa hasn’t told her.
Shauna has no idea what to make of that.
— — —
“It’s not what you think.”
“Hello to you, too, Shauna.”
“It’s not- it’s not real.”
Taissa turns to face Shauna, her gaze steady. “What’s not real?”
“What you saw.” Shauna looks away, spots a flicker of frost stepping out from behind a tree. She faces Tai and doesn’t look away again.
“I’m not like you and Van. I’m not gay.”
“I never said you were.”
“This thing with Melissa, it’s just. It’s stress relief, you know?"
“Okay, Shauna.”
Shauna grits her teeth. “Okay.”
— — —
(“I need to practice,” Jackie said once. “For Jeff, you know?”)
— — —
None of this is right.
Shauna Shipman isn’t meant to be trapped in the Wilderness with these girls. She’s not supposed to be kissing Melissa and laughing with Tai and chasing Mari through the woods.
Shauna Shipman was supposed to go to Rutgers and live in a pink and green room. (Shauna was going to go to Brown, but that doesn’t matter anymore). She was supposed to date horrible boys and get drunk at parties and come home every night to Jackie Taylor.
Instead, Taissa kisses Van in the middle of camp and Melissa twines her fingers with Shauna’s in the quiet sunset hours.
— — —
They’re kissing, and then Shauna is pressing her open mouth against Melissa's neck.
“Fuck,” Melissa gasps, clutching at Shauna’s back with sharp nails. “God, Shauna.”
Shauna grins against the soft skin, then bites down until she tastes blood. It’s salty-sweet, warm against her tongue.
— — —
Tai doesn’t believe her, Melissa looks at her with yearning, but Shauna knows better. It’s not real. It isn’t.
Taissa doesn’t get it. She has Van and their stupid, perfect relationship.
Shauna isn’t dating Melissa. She’s not in love with her. This isn’t real and Melissa doesn’t matter and Shauna isn’t doing anything wrong.
— — —
Shauna stares into the fire. It crackles, shoots an ember into the air. She doesn’t like girls. She doesn’t, because if she did…
(“It doesn’t mean anything,” Jackie said, before slipping her tongue into Shauna’s mouth.)
If Shauna has liked girls this whole time...
(“Don’t worry, Shipman. It doesn’t count.”)
But she doesn’t. So everything is fine.