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There isn’t anything Shauna Shipman wouldn’t give to go back in time. On the off chance that one day scientists managed to invent a time machine, and given she’s still desperate when that time comes, she would give them whatever they wanted for a spot in the long line of people trying to right their wrongs. Parents trying to mend relationships with children who’ve grown distant, helpless lovers hanging on to a relationship that ended years ago, junkies who wish they’d never gotten hooked in the first place.
Perhaps her old soccer teammates would be in that line too. Looking to go back and never get on that damned plane, or even better, throw the state finals game so Nationals was only a distant dream of theirs left to mull over in their late thirties when thinking of all of their failures in life.
Shauna would still do it all the same. Her legs would still burn with the exertion of the game, sweat soaking through her sports bra and into the fabric of her Wiskayok girls soccer team jersey. The team would still win, bleeding passion and want all over the pitch. That familiar burn in her lungs would go nowhere, the feeling of Jackie’s hands on her arms and her waist and her neck as the team cheered loud enough to shake the walls of the locker room.
Nationals would still be close enough for them to taste.
That morning, the one that any sane person would want to erase from their timeline, she would wake up to her alarm and throw on her favorite flannel. The one Jackie sometimes curled her nose at, the same one that found its way in a ball on her bedroom floor plenty of times and never made it into the washing machine. Her toothbrush would hang limp from her lips, her mouth full of minty foam and hands working to slide on her worn down shoes. And just as she had always done, she would swing by the Taylor residence to pick up her best friend. Jackie would do as she had always done too, sliding into her shitty car like the cloth seats had been molded to fit her perfectly upon production. Well manicured nails would tap against her knee before plucking the cassette out with a thousand watt smile, so bright Shauna would flinch backward from the radiance of it all.
The plane would still go down.
No, Shauna was no better than those helpless lovers in line. She would go back to that party in Holmdel, back to right when the cops showed up and everyone started running. Contents sloshing over red solo cups and onto the already sticky floor. Bodies of her high school peers scattering in search of escape like the droplets of rain on Jeff Sadecki’s windshield when she invaded his personal space and pressed their lips together. Clawing at the front of his shirt, heedlessly searching for Jackie in the wetness of his mouth. Hoping for a hint of her cherry lip gloss or the taste of her drink of choice (rum and coke, diet if they had it). Like a needy kid clinging onto the scraps of her favorite stuffed animal, ragged with age and a love only a child could possess. Had it gone her way, Jackie would not have left her side for the entire night.
If Shauna Shipman could go back in time, she would’ve never kissed Jeff Sadecki, and the things that followed too would’ve been nonexistent. Unfortunately, the years that came after the crash brought many things with them and time travel was not on that growing list of escapades.
Her urgent departure from home was, however, one of the most important things to ever happen to her. Far more noteworthy than anything Jackie ever considered a milestone in their combined timelines — first kisses, first times, prom, the color of their shared dorm at Rutgers.
She isn’t Shauna Shipman; an all-star athlete, loyal friend, on track to be their graduating class's Salutatorian.
She is Shauna Shipman; a backstabbing home wrecker, plane crash survivor, searching for her repentance in Rhode Island with a bunch of people pursuing something more in life. The large stone buildings that makeup Brown University are a glaring reminder that she is not who she was two years ago. She’s sure the others have been looking for that same relief from the grief they’d all felt out there.
As far as she knows, they’d all split the first chance they got. Van had been the first to leave, almost as if she had been a blip in their lives, a ghost shifting through the land of the living and the dead. The second their feet hit the ground back in Wiskayok she had bolted to an unknown plane of existence and she didn’t ever look back.
Lottie disappeared all the same, there one second and not the next. The rumors were that she had some mental crisis her parents couldn’t control, though this was no surprise to anyone who was out there with her. Gone was the girl who stole clothes from T.J. Maxx and wore mini skirts to bonfire parties.
Taissa departed in early January to make something like a home in New York while she waited for term to start at Columbia. If Shauna didn’t know any better, she would say this was what Taissa had always planned. But Shauna did know better, so she knew that Taissa had really gone in hopes of catching sight of familiar tresses of red hair and features dancing with endless freckles — an impossible feat, like a conspiracy theorist searching for a UFO.
Unsurprisingly to no one, Natalie left that same month. Leaving behind an empty void of a lousy mother and all of her belongings, save a couple of mixtapes and a bag of clothes. Shauna imagined her rummaging through her closet, ripping fabrics from hangers hunting for some hint of herself again. Morsels of who Nat had been before the world tilted on its axis and took everything with it.
Honestly, Shauna had been expecting her to go first, and maybe that’s why she didn’t even flinch when Misty fucking Quigley showed up unannounced at her door asking if she had any clue where Nat might have gone. Something like unease or deep longing drifting in her eyes beyond her glasses and a weak smile. Nobody knew where the hell Natalie went. Certainly not her.
There were whispers from the older ladies in her mother's Saturday night book club that Travis left too, gone in the dead of night with only the clothes on his back. Shauna saw his mom at the grocery store not too long after, Javi clung to her like she was the last lifeboat in a cold, blue abyss and he was close to being completely submerged. A sad reality for a boy who had not yet even wandered the pits of hell that they called high school.
Shauna went next, boxes lay stacked in the corners of her room for weeks before she left. Rolled up posters held together with rubber bands stuck out of a box that also kept several already filled out journals she couldn’t bear to part with, and a singular framed photo from some time long ago. The girls staring back up at her were unrecognizable. One shorter, with rounded cheeks that had not yet shed baby fat and choppy dark bangs swept across her forehead. One taller, an overbearing arm slung around the other, and blonde hair tinged with shades of red and caramel.
Across town, in a far more affluent part of Wiskayok, she imagined Jackie tracing her thumb over the expensive material of her favorite dresses before folding them neatly and placing them in one of the many boxes meant to head to Rutgers come August.
Since she left, Shauna wasn’t sure where the others went. She hadn’t spoken to anyone from New Jersey besides her mother in over a year. Her first year faded behind new routines and long hours at the library. Her second year would be the same, she could feel it as August bled to September which seeped slowly into October. Until her twentieth birthday was just out of reach and Rhode Island looked beautiful drenched in shades of red and orange and yellows.
Tamara is her overzealous roommate, who spends half of her time ranting about the impact large corporations have on the environment and the other half using enough hairspray to destroy the ozone layer herself. But Tamara is nice and she inquires about her day after classes and she never asks about the crash when she talks to her, so Shauna doesn’t entirely hate sharing a space with her.
Most importantly though, she doesn’t remind her of Jackie at all. Her hair is far too red, her eyes far too brown, and she likes Weezer. All are key differences.
“You could take a break.” Locks of deep ginger hair pour around her shoulders, reminiscent of a girl with a face full of lifelong scars Shauna fears she will know only by memory now.
The end of her pen freezes, her dark eyes darting down to where her roommate's hand rests on her upper arm before she gains her senses again and settles the pen against the paper. She had no words for the things she felt before coming to Brown. Higher education was full of hippies and progressives alike, some more performative than others.
Back at home, boys didn’t kiss boys and girls didn’t kiss girls. There was this unspoken rule that everyone abided by. Her life had been planned out for her the second she made her grandiose arrival on a dreary, cold November night. She was designed to rot and die in Wiskayok, where she would marry young to a man she hardly loved and live out her life as a housewife to kids she probably would come to resent. None the wiser to the joys of life that had never been offered to her.
The first time she saw a girl kiss another girl, she stumbled in on Taissa and Van back at the cabin. After the mock seance led to Lottie’s mental breakdown (possession, she briefly remembered Laura Lee correcting) no one had wanted to set foot up there again.
Until Taissa had enough of their bullshit and decided that’s exactly where she would set up her pile of blankets. Shauna followed because Taissa shouldn’t have to sleep alone in the creepy attic. Van came shortly after, settling in beside Taissa closer than what should’ve been appropriate. Jackie eventually followed suit, in spite of her hesitation. The four of them had gotten comfortable with their own section of the cabin.
Journal clattering to the floor, eyes wide and consuming the sight in front of her eagerly. The two broke apart like a hair tie pulled so tight it snapped. But the sight of feminine lips locked were still fresh in her mind. When Taissa grabbed her far too roughly and insisted it wasn’t what it looked like, all she could see was those same hands dipped just below the waistband of Van’s sleep shorts. Searching for some compelling release that Shauna had only ever dreamed of in the comfort of her own bed back home. Eyes squeezed shut as she tried her hardest to imagine the things she was sure other girls imagined too.
It was to no fault but her own when her mind slipped into uncharted territory. Thoughts of bikini lines and floral perfume, an expensive gold Tiffany necklace in the shape of a heart hanging just out of reach. It was a dirty, rotten thing to do. Equally worse to have enjoyed it the way she did.
Even then, Shauna did not know what to call it. Her desire, once a small flame at the center of her chest, ruptured into untamable chaos inside of her. Then diminished all at once when she promised Taissa that she hadn’t seen a thing. Worried glances, lips tugged between teeth nervously, tears collecting at the corners of Tai’s eyes threatening to spill over and down her cheeks. Resembling a frightened child or maybe just a teenage girl, Shauna had yet to learn the difference.
Taissa never did have to force her to promise not to tell anyone. Words that did not need to be spoken for them both to understand. I’ll keep yours, you keep mine. An oath between girls was stronger than most.
A distorted memory of freshman year biology bubbled to the surface, back when Jeff and Jackie were only infatuated with each other but not yet an item. Jamie Hoffman was loud and obnoxious as most fourteen year old boys were. Randy Walsh was too, but he was much more vulgar about it all. Jokingly they’d shoved one another around, volleying hurtful words back and forth until one stuck like a nail in wood — faggot . Randy had launched forward, no longer laughing as he shoved Jamie into a desk. His face red with fury as he threatened to shove his foot so far up his ass he would regret ever calling him that.
The second time she saw a girl kiss another girl, she was drunk at one of those ridiculous frat parties that she willingly attended with Tamara on a whim. Somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear Jackie scolding her, “You have to live a little, Shipman. Promise you’ll go to all the parties with me at Rutgers?”
When Tamara had asked her, she had refused at first. Awaiting the begging and the manipulation that was sure to follow as it always had with Jackie. She was surprised when Tamara said it was fine if she didn’t go. Only once she was in the thick of it all would she realize this was the first party she had gone to that she actually wanted to attend. None of those back in high school counted, she’d been practically dragged to every single one of them.
The parties at Brown University were not like the parties back home. They reeked of alcohols Shauna had never tasted and other questionable things she was sure would develop lasting issues. This was also the first time Shauna had been offered a line of coke, but that was beside the point. Tamara never wandered off like Jackie did, she guided Shauna around with a careful hand. She later learned that Tamara was the oldest of four girls, therefore she had inherited a natural ability at birth to care for others.
“What’s that?” Shauna had asked, unsure of the words even as they poured from her mouth and into the tight air around them.
Tamara peered over her shoulder with curiosity before her face changed shape into a shrill laugh. Not one of those laughs that Jackie used to do, the one that made Shauna feel a little stupid for even asking. A well versed apology died inside of her throat. She had been practicing sorry’s for almost as long as she had been alive. When to say it, the right tone to use, it was a skill she had refined.
“That’s making out,” Tamara hadn’t stopped smiling. “You have made out before right?”
Gnashing teeth in the back of a car that was not hers, those haunting gasps for breath with every thrust, the feeling of pure revulsion afterward as she stood in front of the mirror naked. Shauna could only shake her head, “But they are-”
“Girls? Yeah, it’s called being a lesbian.”
They didn’t kiss like Tai and Van. There was no diligence behind the movement of their lips. It didn’t look as tender, not as well thought out. Every move was jagged and sharp to the touch. There was no bitterness behind the word either, not like how Jamie had spat that word at Randy with enough animosity to banish the entire classroom into a formidable silence.
“I have to finish this book report before Monday.” Shauna speaks finally, sounding eerily like she had all throughout high school. The pen is lifted once more as she attempts to connect literary devices and real world experiences to the words of Virginia Woolf.
Tamara nods with understanding, “It would just be one night. Mateo is driving us to New York for some hot spot he and the guys like to go to. They asked if you would want to go.”
Mateo was Tamara’s boyfriend, and at first, Shauna thought it might've been too harsh a reminder of Jackie and Jeff. Hours spent riding in the back middle seat as the two argued or shared jokes she wasn’t sure she was allowed to laugh at. Mateo was a lot taller than Jeff though, with thick dark hair and tanned skin and not a rowdy bone in his body. The type of boy Jackie would’ve looked at and called a no good burnout.
Third wheeling had been so ingrained in her life that she never even questioned it that first time she hung out with the couple outside of class. She knew her place and when to insert herself in the conversation and that she should always take Tamara’s side no matter what. Except when her hand curled around the back door to Tamara’s car that first time, she found it knocked away by a wrist covered in bracelets that clanged together. Tamara sent her a funny look as she pointed a firm finger to the passenger side door, informing her that she was going to ride up front so they could listen to good music and not whatever trash Mateo listens to.
It is that odd feeling of acceptance and something close to friendship yet so different from what she knows that makes Shauna tuck The Waves back into her bag, an unfinished report following suit seconds later. It is that feeling of Tamara not having a clue who she is on the inside, because a year at Brown isn’t enough for her to know all of her deepest darkest secrets, that makes Shauna lace up her Converse like a soldier heading to battle.
It is her selfish desire to search endlessly for parts of herself that Jackie has never seen or touched or heard of that lands her at a questionable nightclub in New York City at two in the morning on a Saturday.
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The club is so loud that she can feel the floor trembling beneath her as they push their way through the thick crowd of people and toward one of the many booths that line the wall. Adam is behind her, resting a hand on her shoulder and she does the same to Tamara ahead of her, as they try to find an unoccupied table. Shauna suddenly feels small in her jeans and flannel, overly aware that a lot of the girls dancing around them are wearing skirts and tops that would give even her open minded mother a heart attack.
Hungry brown eyes wander over flushed skin, sheen with moisture as they fully indulge in themselves. She’d only been to the city a couple of times when she was much younger.
Every single time had been in the company of the Taylors, though she had a strong inkling that Mrs. Taylor wasn’t very fond of their trips. She always had this squeamish look on her face like she was waiting for a rodent the size of Texas to jump out at her around every corner and she never really let her or Jackie do anything considered worthwhile to the middle school aged girls. If they weren’t sitting in the hotel room they were bored out of their minds at Mr. Taylor’s fancy work dinners or at Yankee Stadium just as unamused.
This was different though.
This was New York City without the Taylors, which meant eating greasy pizza with cheese that looked ready to slide right off of the crust and grimy subway seats that felt itchy even through her jeans and a club she knew Jackie would’ve grimaced at.
Tamara clamps a hand on her wrist sometime after they’ve downed enough shots to turn her insides warm. And Tamara doesn’t suggest a singular thing about Adam or how he keeps shooting her longing looks from across the small booth the four of them squeezed into, despite the fact she’s pretty sure that’s the entire reason they dragged the awkward boy along.
Because Adam is exactly the type of boy she used to fabricate in her journal with Jackie. Back when they played MASH and designed their futures side by side. Homes right across each other with white picket fences, kids the same age so they could be friends too, wine nights after dinner. Adam was an artist, smudges of paint adorned most of his clothes but he didn’t seem to mind. His soft brunette curls framed a boyish face but his patchy beard and mustache showed otherwise.
The perfect man in every sense of the word. Except Adam isn’t who she wants at all, talking to him is more like talking to a good friend than someone she should be romantically interested in. They talk about books and poetry, though she thinks he might just be pretending to like Jane Austen. Jackie used to tell her she was scaring the boys off with all of her talk about feminism and equal rights. Not because Jackie disagreed, but because men didn’t like that sort of thing.
If Adam were a girl, Shauna is sure she would’ve been enamored. She tries to imagine him with a softer jawline free of hair, eyelashes painted in mascara, and hands still smattered with paint but less rough. But it’s not as easy as it was with Jeff because Adam has never kissed Jackie, let alone ever met her. There would be no remnants of Jackie in Adam that Shauna could cling onto in order to make herself feel better about what she was doing.
So, she lets Tamara sweep her away from the table to bring back more shots for the four of them without so much as a glance back at him. It was so crowded near the bar area that they had yet been asked to provide any form of identification, though Tamara reassured her several times that even if they decide to ask she has a fake in her purse.
Carrying two shot glasses back to the table is much harder than she thought it would be, especially without Tamara latched onto her wrist like an eager child in a candy store tugging her every which way. Shauna is so focused on where she’s planting her feet and the back of swaying red curls that she just barely misses the flash of acid wash blonde and black leather.
Shauna is lost again and the club has vanished into the wilderness with such intensity she gets whiplash. The trees are towering over her, so much taller than the skyscrapers in the city. She is doused in a cold that goes bone deep, snow sinks beneath the soles of her shoes, and her breath escapes her in a cloud of vapor. Once more she is seventeen and the woods call to them gently, coaxing them into hunger and anger. Had they not been saved that day, she isn’t sure they would’ve made it out mostly intact.
Some of the spiced rum splashes hazardously on her hand and she huffs out a curse, catching her balance before she can slam her entire weight into someone dancing just in front of her. The trees and the snow melt away into flashing lights and the smell of questionable bodily fluids.
Who she thought she saw is gone, evaporating like smoke hidden in the depths of an isolated mountain peak. Slightly irritated and not nearly drunk enough to deal with memories of her past, Shauna keeps pushing forwards to where she knows the table and her friends are waiting for her. Where she knows she will fall into a comfortable pace of conversation, smirking at whatever stupid joke Mateo cracks and seeking reassurance in the fact that Jackie Taylor is nowhere to be seen other than the crevices of her mind.
Jackie. Everything was about Jackie. She was like a nagging fruit fly, her voice a low and constant buzz, swarming in the deepest parts of Shauna.
She’s beginning to think not even the separation of state borders and the severance of their lifelong friendship would rip Jackie from her thoughts. She’d grown like a malignant tumor, wedged in every direction Shauna turned and spreading to the places Shauna hadn’t known existed yet. Was that even possible? For a person to be a cancerous growth capable of mass destruction?
“Shipman?”
The voice is so distant she thinks she might have imagined its raspy exterior and the odd mix of New Jersey-Italian undertones. It’s the voice of a girl who has smoked enough cigarettes to turn her lungs an ash color and downed enough beers to give her liver damage before she turns twenty-one.
Memories of steam filled shower rooms that felt overcrowded despite the fact Shauna kept a generous amount of space between her and the other girls ambush her. Almost clear as day she can see hair once a deep brown bleached white from a convenience store box dye the cherry on top of a melting sundae of soft porcelain, glinting at her in taunting as she scrubbed the filth of the days scrimmage from her skin.
“Natalie?”
It really should be no surprise to anyone to find Natalie Scatorccio in a nightclub in a slightly shady part of New York City. Even less to see she’s wearing a leather jacket, an old tee of some obscure band most wouldn’t recognize, and ripped up fishnets under a yellow plaid skirt. Definitely not to Shauna, who not only played soccer with her for the entirety of their high school career but also took a surprise crash course lesson on survival alongside one another.
But this, right here in the city in this club she drove to with the people she’s gotten to know after leaving home, this was supposed to be just hers.
Mossy green eyes that remind her of the endless trees she spent months staring at shine with mirth, “What are you doing here?”
“It’s a public building.” Shauna feels like leaving, evacuation of the premises effective immediately. She should probably leave the entire state as well. “I didn’t realize I needed to have your permission to be here.” It’s snippier than she intended but she really wishes Natalie would go away.
“Didn’t take you for this sort of scene is all.” Natalie hasn’t changed since the last time she saw her getting off the plane at the hospital in Washington. They’d all been tucked away in those big zip up jackets the rescue team gave them, and the flashing bulbs of cameras didn’t help.
Natalie gives her a shrug that could mean a million things but Shauna desperately wants to take it as the end of their awkward conversation. But Natalie’s mouth is open again before she can turn away, “How have you been?”
The million dollar question they’d all been asked hundreds of times since they landed back in Jersey.
Everyone wanted to know how they were doing, if they were sleeping okay, if they felt guilty for those that didn’t make it. The latter would send them into a scramble to correct their choice of words with a half-assed speech on survivors' guilt and how none of them were to blame for what went down. Shauna never had the courage to tell them that she didn’t feel guilt of any kind anyway so they didn’t need to hammer it in.
Natalie isn’t them though. She was there for it all from start to finish and Shauna accepted that as a good enough reason to be as truthful as she could muster, “I’m fine. How are you?”
The shorter blonde can only manage a nod before they are interrupted by a friendly face, “Shauna, what’s taking so long?” If her hands weren’t still occupied with the shots, she would’ve grabbed Tamara by the shoulders and pulled them both away from Natalie.
“Oh! Do you know each other?” Leave it to Tamara to jam the puzzle pieces together. Shauna rolls her eyes, Natalie is the only one that notices.
It’s all an awkward affair that leaves Shauna grasping at straws to end the interaction. Before she knows it Tamara is complimenting Natalie on her t-shirt and leading her back to the table, where she introduces Natalie to Mateo and Adam. Fate had been cruel to her, yes. It had dealt her a vicious hand of cards that felt like misfortune after misfortune.
Being in love with her best friend? She managed that well enough before it got all screwed up. Crashing in the Canadian Rockies and watching her friends die? Piece of cake. Losing both her best friend and the byproduct of her biggest regret in life? Well, she wasn’t sure she walked away unscathed from that one but she was still standing. But having to watch someone from her past mingle with those in her present, watching two parts of herself that had never come in contact finally meet in a head on collision? She wasn’t positive she would make it out alive.
Introductions are made and Shauna knows better than anyone how it probably looks since it’s been said out loud.
Poor Shauna Shipman, once again trotting behind a friend and their boyfriend like a lost puppy dog. Only Shauna is so adamantly sure that it's not like that this time around. Ready to jump to her own defense, she watches Natalie’s face carefully. Anticipating the quirk of her brow and the twitch of her lip. A jest of how she must not have learned her lesson the first time. Rather, how she must not have gotten enough of it the first time and obviously was so fucked up in the head she craved this hurt.
It never came.
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Mateo hasn’t shut up since they sat down. On most occasions, Shauna would not mind his senseless rambles. He could go on and on about the corrupt government for ages and Shauna would never find it in herself to interrupt. However, tonight he had started treading dangerous waters the second it dawned on him who exactly Natalie was to Shauna.
“I mean, who knows what awful things would’ve happened if you guys were out there long enough.” Mateo chimes, Shauna blames his sudden interest in their shared trauma on the fact he’s downed enough rum to be one shot away from a hospital bed getting his stomach pumped. “Shit like…those guys in that Andes plane crash. Not that anyone would blame you for it.”
Tamara looks embarrassed enough for the both of them, leaning forwards and tugging at his shirt with a tight lipped smile. “Mateo, I need a cig.”
Mateo looks confused for a moment, “You said you were quitting?” When Tamara raises a perfectly penciled in brow, he pulls the familiar red and white carton from his pocket, only to be met with a scoff.
“We can’t smoke inside.” Tamara’s tone has an annoyed edge to it now, and Mateo must not be as drunk as Shauna suspected because he stands almost immediately. Adam nervously follows, though he looks expectantly at Shauna as if waiting for her to come too. When she doesn’t so much as shift in her spot he continues towards the exit.
The second the seats they inhabited become empty, Natalie plunges in with impatience. Eyes all wide and teeth shining through parted lips that Shauna most definitely doesn’t pay any mind to. “What an interesting crowd you rock with nowadays, Shipman.”
The implication was there, Shauna hadn’t had many friends back when they wore jerseys like armor. Shin guards stuffed under dirt stained socks warding off rogue kicks, bruises decorating knees and thighs in a mosaic of purples and greens. Back then things were never as hard as they made them out to be though, and Jackie Taylor had been all she really needed before their lives shifted into something straight out of a therapist's wet dream.
“Do you want a hit?” Natalie asks, tugging a wrinkled baggy from the pocket of her leather jacket. Inside a scratched up pink lighter mingles with a white stick, similar to a cigarette but not quite the Marlboros she’s used to. It takes her all of four seconds to realize Natalie Scatorccio is offering her a joint.
Natalie must recognize her pending resistance because she delicately pulls the joint from the bag along with the lighter, showcasing it for Shauna to examine as she wishes. Shauna nods despite her inner monologue running through all the times Van joked she would never smoke whatever the hell Nat had ever again because it always hit like a truck going eighty on the interstate. She was used to weed that tasted like lawn clippings and a buzz that faded quicker than it came on. The watered down shit that didn’t leave behind a strong smell she had to hide from her mom or Jackie, but still made her feel cool.
“It’s not gonna bite.” Natalie informs her.
She refrains from a snappy remark that obviously the inanimate object isn’t going to bite her. Instead, she focuses on the way the smoke slowly curls up in the air between them. Natalie must be growing impatient because she nudges the end of the joint closer to her lips.
Without thinking, or maybe she had subconsciously known all along what she was doing, she lets her lips wrap around the end of the joint and inhales sharply, not bothering to actually take it from where it hangs between Natalie’s pointer and middle.
Through half-lidded eyes she watches the way Natalie draws in a deep breath, watches her nostrils flare sharply from the intake. She holds the smoke in for a second and feels it crawl down her throat before releasing it. Her lungs burn and her vision grows blurry as she starts coughing hard enough to bring on the floodworks. Natalie laughs at her but reaches around the circle booth the best she can to clap a hand on her back anyway.
Her lungs are strong and healthy from years of being an excellent athlete and having a nurse for a mother but they still struggle to suck in air after the recent assault inflicted against them.
“What have you been up to?” The question hangs in the air between them, Shauna trying her hardest not to cough again and Natalie focused on tracing the rim of her empty glass with her finger while dragging in another impossibly long hit.
It really is a ridiculous question. Invasive even, given the fact that neither of them had ever been particularly close. Unless you counted sometimes huddling side by side underneath one of Taissa’s large blankets at team bonding sleepovers a rite of passage into sisterhood. They played on the same team for over three years and spent a little over five months isolated in the vast mountains of Canada sharing clothes and trauma like trading cards. Neither of which made them friends, let alone confidants.
Natalie answers anyway, which shouldn’t be some grandiose revelation to Shauna. Because despite how little she knows about Natalie, she knows her enough to know she grits her teeth and takes what’s been given to her with as much courage as a girl could hold. She knows that Natalie doesn’t talk about her mom and she especially doesn’t talk about her dad.
Their right midfielder, no bigger than the tallest freshman on junior varsity, but strong enough to knock a baseball player on his ass at senior homecoming when he got a little too handsy with that sophomore player.
“You know,” Natalie waves a hand around them as if that is answer enough. “My band is on a hiatus and we figured this shithole state would be perfect to relax.”
She doesn’t sound like she believes herself, so Shauna doesn’t believe her either, but she doesn’t say as much. Instead, she clears her scratchy throat and nods towards the joint, “Can I?”
The smoke goes down easier this time and Shauna prides herself on only having to cough a couple of times to break up whatever imaginary bubble has formed in her chest. For the most part, Natalie looks a little proud of her too if her lazy smirk and squinted eyes are anything to go by. Natalie had always been cool like that — some otherworldly thing Shauna would never get the chance to graze her fingers along. All leather and changing hair colors and easy going laughter.
“You’re taking it like a champ.” Natalie comments when Shauna takes in a deeper inhale than the last two times, not even flinching at the aftertaste that clings to her tongue and the roof of her mouth like glue.
As if it had never even been there in the first place, a figment of her disoriented imagination, the joint dwindles down to nothing but what Natalie informs her is a roach. She flicks it back and forth like a white and black checkered ball on a pitch before tossing it in her glass and out of sight.
“You gonna tell that kid you aren’t interested or are you a sadist who likes to see others suffer?” Natalie jokes, the toe of her boots accidentally bumps against Shauna’s calf beneath the table.
It does not take a genius to recognize she is talking about Adam. For a small moment, Shauna forgets who she is speaking with and she feels threatened, found out, spotted while trying her best to blend in. Then she remembers that of course Natalie knew.
The entire team knew all the gritty, disgusting things about her now. Shauna found her cover blown and her secrets were being dumped out one by one at the hands of her supposed best friend. The girl she spent nearly every day of her life since age six beside because where Jackie was Shauna was also. They’d practically been stitched at the hip, inseparable.
No catfight or teenage girl gossip wielded a scalpel sharp enough to tear them apart. All it took though was one Jeff Sadecki sized blade and enough of Shauna’s inner turmoil to put the driving force behind it.
“What else could there possibly be, Shauna?” Jackie looked offended, wide hazel eyes searching her face as though they did not recognize her even after all of this time, “What could ever be worse than the fact you slept with my boyfriend and you were carrying his baby and you’re in love with him?”
The floor had opened up and swallowed everyone else whole — Taissa was no longer behind her with a supportive hand at her back, and Mari had dissolved from her peripheral. Now that she thought about it she never did remember where Natalie was when the whole thing went down.
How do you tell your best friend that the only thing worse than sleeping with their boyfriend and getting knocked up is you didn’t even enjoy it at all? That you did not ever want his fucking baby and you didn’t fucking want him. That somewhere between sitting beside Jeff and laying underneath him she had realized she wasn’t doing it for fun or attraction, but something entirely different and more fucked up.
You just say it. Spit it out and be rid of it, the weight will be lifted from your shoulders and you can see the world clearer. ‘I’m a queer, Jackie. That’s what else.’
Except it comes out a little different; “I don’t fucking love him! I never have, Jax.” The nickname slips out with ease, neither bother making a correction.
“So, what? You slept with him just because? Oh yeah, that’s right, you don’t love anyone but yourself!” Jackie scoffs, the sound is so childish and it reminds her of all the times they talked shit about Becky at lunch in middle school.
“That’s not true,” Shauna snaps her jaws shut before she can utter the unbearable truth — I love you. No, that comes out differently too.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand, being the perfect little princess that you are,” Shauna takes a deep breath and dives head first into the icy lake water without a life jacket or a raft. “But not everything is about Jeff or hooking up with boys. I’m not like you.”
“What?” Jackie looks like a child who's been told they aren't going to get their way. Or a girl who just found out her best friend is a complete stranger. Either way, Shauna wants to take it all back, stuff it so deep inside of herself it will take another eighteen years to find it again, tie an anchor to her ankle, and jump over the edge of a bridge so she can sink with the weight of it all.
“I don’t like…boys, like that. Not like you do.” Shauna grounds out through the uncomfortable gnawing at the lining of her stomach. Jackie’s feelings aside, it was somewhat a relief to say it out loud to more than just her reflection.
“You’re gay?” Jackie’s voice went soft around the edges and she shuffled closer for a second before retreating back into herself as if suddenly unsure how close she was allowed to be, “How long?”
For life, I think I crawled out of the womb fantasizing about the soft comfort of a woman being the only thing I could love. She knows that is the truth, she knows how fast her heart used to beat when they were kids and Jackie wrapped her arms a little too tightly around her neck in a close embrace. “I realized last year.” Liar.
The thing about being friends with Jackie is she can usually tell when Shauna was omitting the entire truth. Jackie was just selfish in a way that was not as obvious if you weren’t paying much attention. Like how she knew Shauna loved pickles but let her deny it and say she didn’t anyway so she could take them for herself. Maybe she knew about Shauna and Jeff all along, and maybe knowing Shauna’s mouth had been there too made kissing her boyfriend feel a little more enjoyable. Maybe Jackie knew a lot of things she ignored for her own benefit. And even then, stranded in the wilderness losing hope for rescue, it flashes across her face. Liar.
“Fuck you.” Jackie manages to hurl out as she grabs her flimsy pillow and thin blanket from its spot in the corner. “Fuck you Shipman, you don’t get to- that’s not even fair. You sleep with my boyfriend and then expect me to feel bad for you cause what? You like girls and have shit you need to work through? I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Or maybe you never did.”
The cabin door slams behind her. Shauna contemplates marching out after her to continue their argument, but instead, she turns sharply in the other direction, avoiding the other girl's eyes as she climbs the ladder to the attic.
Natalie is frowning at her now, she retracts her boot from Shauna’s calf and her shoulders tighten up from their usual lazy slouch, “You okay? Disappeared there for a second.”
“You know how it is.” Shauna comments, searching her smooth face in search of recognition. When it does hit, it feels like bitter understanding.
“Sure.” Natalie nods along solemnly and Shauna can tell she’s aching to ask something. Finally, she gives in to the urge, “Have you heard from Lottie?”
For a second, Shauna contemplates lying. Because Natalie ditched town so soon after they came back and she knew about just as much as the rest of them — Charlotte Matthews hardly existed anymore. She was just as the others had become, a stranger. A discolored photo stuffed in the back of her dresser drawer back home along with a stack of others containing soccer photos, team hangouts, sleepovers, and memories that made her grow sick when thought of.
She supposed though, things were different for them. Much like Jackie and herself, Natalie and Lottie were not just photos and trinkets to be hidden away in a box out of sight. Tucked on top of a forgotten shelf in a closet or a storage unit miles away from home.
Lottie had no doubt planted herself firmly inside Natalie’s ribs, taking root and intent on growing there for the rest of their lives. And much like Shauna, Natalie would water her so every spring she could bloom, keeping her alive until every late fall when she would wilt into something terrible and decaying.
Sometime before the crash, Shauna was sure she could collect memories of Natalie and Lottie — lingering touches in passing, longing glances at the hem of a skirt far too short. Albeit, Shauna had been looking too so who was she to judge?
The lie dies at the tip of her tongue and she swallows the carcass down with a shake of her head, “No. But no news is good news.”
Natalie must take some comfort in her response because her shoulders relax again and she leans into the cheap booth seats. The maroon takes to her like a sponge to water, soaking her frame in and making her seem even smaller. Her boot taps against her calf again, Shauna directs her eyes somewhere else in hopes of not overthinking her old teammate trying to play footsie with her.
“I spoke to Van the other day.” The music threatens to devour her voice, Shauna dares to lean in a little closer until her forearms are flat on the table and her gut presses into the edge of the metal.
Shauna freezes a little, she tried hard not to think of Van Palmer. Thinking of Van meant thinking of that night they had to carry her limp body back to the cabin, covered in so much blood Shauna was smelling iron for days afterward. When they stitched her face back together in a sorry attempt to mend what was broken, her muffled screams echoed in the back of Shauna’s skull like a fading drum roll during Friday night football games. It also meant thinking about the aftermath of the plane, the carnage and the hopelessness. The feeling of Van’s nylon seatbelt not giving in to her no matter how hard she pulled. Jackie’s fingers digging into her arm so hard it left bruises as she yanked her off the plane and away from Van who was still pleading for help.
Natalie doesn’t wait for her to recover, “She’s in Portland. She asked about you.”
They’d all asked about her, and on the off chance they hadn’t, they at least thought about asking about her. Natalie wants to ask about her too. More specifically, they all wanted to ask how she was handling things now that they were back in civilization.
The big It (she can hear Lottie’s dulcet voice stating with confidence that It was a boy, the wilderness told her so), the one thing she refused to even scratch down in her journal. Her mother didn’t know, Jeff didn’t know. They all knew though, they’d been there when she woke up in pain clutching the small bump that had taken up three months of her life and consumed all of her shame upon conception. Until It became another something to be memorialized.
“Good for her.” And it is, Van loved meeting new people and she spoke fondly of Oregon. Or any place where Vicky Palmer didn’t exist. Shauna dismisses the second statement.
Her foot bumps against her calf for the umpteenth time, only this time it doesn’t disconnect. It distinctly reminds her of Taissa digging her sneakers into her leg, kicking her awake to the sound of multiple voices and flashlights shining through grimy cabin windows. All that was missing was the bright orange rescue teams windbreakers, shock blankets being shoved around them like the shiny plastic material would wash away their suffering, and Shauna worried that Jackie froze to death because she couldn’t remember if she ever came back inside the night before.
“Are you going to Brown?”
Half of her is startled by her old teammate even bothering to remember what college she had gotten into, let alone being correct in her assumption that Shauna would decide to go through with it. Jackie was so self-assured that she would chicken out and chase after her to paint their shared dorm pink and green. Even if she never verbalized that particular opinion, Shauna had known her long enough to know that’s what she was positive would happen. That was why Jackie hadn’t even bothered to be all that upset over Brown when she started bringing up all of Shauna’s secrets.
The other half of her isn’t shocked at all. Natalie had always cared more than she let on. There was no reason she wouldn’t remember what college Shauna got into. And no reason for her to assume Shauna would fall through with her plans to attend.
“English language and literature.” Something tells her Natalie already knows, but she confesses anyway because people usually wonder. She waits instead for the all too common disparaging comment. A sly remark about what sort of jobs that would offer a young woman looking to make her way in the world, followed by a frown and a list of ideas for a backup plan — nurse, teacher, stay at home mom.
Except there is no ruthless quip or even a superior huff signifying Natalie might think she needs to rethink her major.
She begins to rub lazily against her jeans, a slow up and down motion that stirs something in Shauna. If she had to guess, she would say that Natalie was purposefully teasing her now. Still, the girl sitting across from her looks the perfect picture of unbothered. It must be a mix between too much alcohol and one top of the line joint because the room is swaying a little and she’s leaning in closer until all that is really separating them is the table. One of her hands crosses enemy lines, tracing the cold metal of one of Natalie’s many silver rings that decorate her fingers in pretend interest.
To her surprise she leans in too, her lips tugging upwards back into that playful grin she wears so well. Shauna could not say for certain who was provoking who. It’s an unspoken invitation, just as they had always done when they played as a team. None of them needed words to know what the other wanted them to do. Systematic and connected in a way that not many would understand.
Shauna slides around the circle booth, and not for the first time that night she’s thankful she isn’t wearing a dress or a skirt because it’s uncomfortably hot and she doesn’t think she would survive the embarrassment of her legs getting stuck to the seat. An insatiable hunger grows inside of her that she hopes Natalie can quell. It feels like a sick prank, a game of truth or dare between lascivious youth tempting boundaries, and Natalie accepts her like she’s been waiting all night for this opportunity.
This isn’t a child’s game though, and they aren’t helpless kids. They are young adults, they are college students and traveling band members, they are survivors. Shauna can say for certain she is the one that dives forward first, another coupling in the well oiled machine that made up their team. Only it is just the two of them and Shauna wonders if Natalie can taste her green apple Lip Smacker chapstick, or if the rum has washed it away by now.
She misses Jackie. She misses her strawberry scented shampoo, her wide hazel eyes, all the times she spent with her hand tucked into hers as she gently painted each nail a color Shauna really disliked but went along with anyway. Partly due to Jackie swearing it would look good on her, but mostly she savored any physical contact her best friend would allow from her. Only Jackie is at Rutgers, and she and Jackie aren’t talking anymore. In fact, Jackie would probably recoil at the sight of her childhood best friend shoving her tongue desperately down the throat of Nasty Natalie. Not because Jackie loves Shauna or even because the jealousy would cause her stomach to turn, forcing her to throw up her lunch. But because Jackie is unwaveringly, undeniably straight. And Jackie thinks things would be easier if Shauna was too.
Shauna wonders if it had always been written across her forehead in thick sharpie. If she had been asking for this since she started playing soccer and wearing nothing but flannels, her lack of interest in fawning over the boys her female peers had ticked down under the ‘would fuck’ section was just the icing on the cake. A brightly colored, rainbow icing on top of an equally multicolored cake batter.
Maybe Jackie had seen it before she had, and that was why she used to grow so red in the face when Robbie Delgado or Becky Parish whispered about how Shauna Shipman was a rug muncher. Then again, Jackie was just as upset over the insinuation that sort of statement gave all girl soccer players. Accordingly, defending Shauna’s honor was suddenly much more valuable to the entire team too.
Natalie’s fingers find purchase where her waist meets her thigh to pull her closer, closer, closer until they are so close Shauna thinks they might melt into one. She smells like cigarette smoke and musk, and for a brief moment they are stranded out there again. Surrounded by thick trees that seem to lure them in further and tease them when they can’t escape.
The lake water laps at her bare thighs, freezing but relieving all the same. Water splashes around her where Melissa attempts to wrestle Gen into the water and both are giggling so ferociously that it makes her forget for just a second they might be doomed. Natalie is ripping her shirt from her body like it’s on fire. Underneath it a plain red bra keeps her breasts hidden from wandering eyes.
When she runs into the water with her arms extended outwards she looks a lot happier than she ever did on the pitch. Tufts of coarse dark brown hair dangle unshaven from the hollows of her underarms, far too long to have sprouted in the few days they’ve been out there. She briefly remembers a time she tried to grow her armpit hair out too, a fifteen year old Shauna inspired by the riot grrrl scene and maybe a little by Natalie too but it was so long ago it was hard to tell. Jackie had made a face when she saw the prickly brown hairs during one of their many sleepovers. Not bothering to listen to Shauna’s explanation of feminism or how body hair is natural, “It’s unsanitary, and you know you sweat a lot during games!”
Shauna wondered if Natalie still was unbothered by those sorts of things. The things Shauna wishes she wasn’t so worried about. What others thought about her, what Jackie had always thought about her.
Her hands are icy cold against the warm expanse of Natalie’s stomach, fingers just barely brushing the peach fuzz under her navel. A low hiss from the girl beneath her stirs something primal inside of her. That flame of desire is ignited once more in her chest, and the feeling of Natalie pressing her palm into the crotch of her jeans is like tossing gasoline over the fire. Blonde crowns her face like a halo under the flashing neon lights.
Natalie was nothing like Jeff. Where rough teenage stubble and unsteady hands should’ve roamed, there were soft caresses and gentle tugs.
She’s selfish, and maybe she always has been even if she never noticed it. Greedy like that time she ate two whole ice cream cones and Jackie had asked Mrs. Taylor if she could have another one too, to which she had reminded Jackie in front of her entire ninth birthday party that one was far too many anyway. Greedy like taking the ball under her control at sectionals freshman year when she should’ve just passed it to Taissa, costing them the win and an enjoyable after game dinner at the pizza parlor. Greedy like-
Natalie nips at her bottom lip, testing the durability of her soft pink tissue with her sharp incisors. As if she was anticipating Shauna to break their point of contact. Putting an irreparable distance between their bodies and scream at her for being a sinner like one of those bible thumpers they knew back in school. This would remind them both of silky blonde hair, floral patterned dresses that safely brushed pale ankles, a teddy bear tucked to an unmoving chest, and a violent explosion of debris mid-air.
“Shauna.” Nat’s voice is hoarse and something between a whimper and a growl. A deeply animalistic sound, raspy and guttural, hidden behind smudged charcoal liner and black nail polish and unbelievably elaborate rumors of giving unnamed boys blowjobs behind the bleachers.
Her hand stills, wrist bent at an odd angle between them. Shauna fears she will rip her hand away with a regret to heavy to handle. Harboring a crooked smile, Natalie does pull her hand away from her zipper but does not push her from her lap. Her other hand is still planted firmly under the hem of her shirt keeping her steady on top of her.
“Follow me.” Natalie says. Shauna does because she has always been the type of girl to obey those she finds herself dedicated to.
There is nothing else to do anyway, Natalie has convinced her so completely. A moth to a lamp, Shauna stumbles behind her without a second thought. The bathroom isn’t nearly as clean as the booth. The stalls are painted a bright red color and chipping away in several large chunks revealing rusting steel beneath. Tiled floors carry a sheen layer of grime hidden beneath the overly bright fluorescent lights above. Natalie makes quick work of latching the stall door shut, turning so they are nose to nose. Shauna is a little bit taller but Natalie makes up for it in her doc martens, laced with purple.
Natalie's grin is back again and Shauna wants to trace the outline of her dimples with her teeth and her tongue. “Bear with me, Shipman. I’m out of practice.”
Her brow ticks in confusion, out of practice for what — oh, Shauna relaxes a little. Her delicate kisses along her jaw sink low to her clavicle, brushing the tops of her breasts through her striped shirt. Two hands roam upwards till they are dancing under the edge of her bra. One hand slips under the wire like it had been born to do so, or more like a dog trained to sit. Shauna takes in a deep breath of air that is a little shaky with excitement and nerves.
“Fuck.” Natalie murmurs, Shauna suspects she wasn’t supposed to hear it. Briefly she wonders if this is a bad sign. She had gained some weight since they’d been back. Not anything she’d been particularly ashamed about, right now she was uncertain though. The insecurity disintegrates quickly when Natalie begins to knead the heavy tissue, her tongue darting out to wet her lips with eagerness.
She suppresses a groan when Natalie digs into the flesh a little harsher than necessary before tracing a circle around her hardening nipple. Experimentally, Natalie lets the pads of her fingers brush the sensitive spot before twisting it gently between her thumb and pointer. The corners of her lips tug up smugly when Shauna’s back arches towards her until their chests attempt to press together with only their clothes and her hands acting as barriers.
Then she is dipping down to her knees until her bare flesh hits the dirty floor, but when has Natalie ever cared about that sort of thing? Shauna can’t even comprehend what is happening before the button of her jeans is popped open and Natalie’s warm hands are cupping her thick hips in what she would later recognize as admiration.
Denim and unflattering black panties pool at one foot, the free leg thrown hazardously over Natalie's shoulder. The leather sticks to her skin and for a singular second, she is open, exposed, raw.
Bleach blonde shifts to honey tones she had memorized in her childhood. Long nights spent threading strands into a sloppy braid the other girl would eventually tug free before bed. She almost waits expectantly for Jackie to turn her face up at her, laughing at her for thinking she would actually do that to her. She wonders if Natalie is doing something similar, but instead of Jackie, she is imagining sun kissed skin several shades darker than her own and long fields of black hair and a forehead scar.
But then teeth graze the patch of curly hair and a slim finger slips into the wet heat to pull her apart for the world to see, and Shauna is brought back to reality. She is in a dingy bathroom in the city and Natalie is delicately tracing her most sensitive parts with her tongue. Her head makes a loud thud sound as it falls back to the stall and Natalie huffs out a sound of amusement. Not at her, but at the situation in general.
The giggles die quickly, replaced with the almost grotesque sound of Natalie wrapping her lips around the throbbing bundle of nerves and Shauna’s loud gasp. She is an eager lover, she pulls Natalie closer with a less than gentle handful of her hair.
A constant back and forth motion makes her knees buckle, supported only by Natalie who lets her green eyes flicker upwards through dark lashes. She looks heavenly even in the bathroom's dim light. No longer shrouded by strobe and neon, Shauna can tell she hasn’t aged a day.
Sure, they all came back looking a little older than when they left. A little more worn down, a little broken, a little different. But Natalie looked just as she always had, and Shauna whimpers when she lets out a soft grunt below her, sending vibrations through her core.
Ring clad fingers dig into the meatiest part of her thighs to hold her still, Shauna hadn’t even noticed she had started bucking upwards in chase of her touch. Her finger curls upwards, brushing a spot she had never been able to find when exploring her own body. Her whines come out like howls to a shining moon far above the ground.
She’s grown pathetic for Natalie.
Was this what it would’ve felt like had she died back then on the plane? A bright flashing light like finding God, or whatever the hell Lottie Matthews had sworn was out there with them all along. She slackens her grip on Natalie’s hair in favor of one of her hands that had slid up to hold her hip in place. Their fingers intertwine, and Shauna isn’t sure who squeezes harder.
Her mind wanders to what Mateo had said earlier about the survivors of that plane that crashed in the Andes. Surely, none of them would’ve stooped so low as to eat the bodies of their friends. She couldn’t imagine them like that, not even the starvation would’ve convinced her.
Would it feel as good as this though? Would it have been easy to deny temptation if it came wrapped like this? Perfectly packaged in breathy moans, wanting fingers, and an almost uncomfortable wetness. Consuming Natalie didn’t seem all that hard to think about.
Natalie brings her a release she had yet to find by the efforts of her own hand. It is sticky and embarrassingly quick, but Natalie doesn’t mind as she pressed tender, open mouthed kisses to each thigh. Her lips take several detours on their way back up to her mouth; her hip, the pouch of extra flesh she used to be deathly mortified over, her collarbone, just under her ear. Till finally, they mesh together as one again. Shauna attacks her like they are still stranded and she is starving. Her mouth waters at the thought, she wants to hear all of the pretty sounds Natalie can make.
Just as her hand trails up the fishnet covered thighs to explore the unknown, the bathroom door swings open with a loud bang against the wall, no doubt leaving behind another dent. They don’t fly apart like two girls sneaking around in a public bathroom should. Instead, Natalie presses a benign kiss to her lips again, a stark contrast to how they had been on the verge of devouring one another just moments ago.
The intruder throws a stall door open a few spaces away from them and the sound of intoxicated mumblings filter through the air, along with the sound of a baggie being torn open and a harsh, one nostril inhale. Natalie pulls away, dipping at her waist to help Shauna push her jeans back over her Converse and up her legs, affectionately rebuttoning them for her. She is so focused on Natalie that she doesn’t flinch when the stall door is roughly opened again.
The smell of alcohol and something distinctly similar to vomit is poignant in the air, but neither move from the stall. The running water has long stopped and whoever disturbed their intimate moment has stumbled out of the door and back to presumably get even more fucked up than they already were. With a practiced aloofness she must have perfected long ago, Natalie pulls a carton of cigarettes from her pocket, offering one to Shauna.
“We shouldn’t smoke in here.” Shauna offers languidly, she still slides a cigarette from the box. Natalie smiles, her teeth look much whiter now in a different light.
“No one's gonna care. Your friends only said that earlier so we could kiss and make up.” That same pink lighter produces a flame for both of their cigarettes. Natalie leans in close to light hers too, and Shauna doesn’t bother to tell her she’s perfectly capable of lighting her own.
“What are you doing after this whole college thing?” Natalie questions, flicking the cigarette butt into the open toilet. Shauna can clearly picture a slightly younger Natalie doing the same thing in the school restrooms in between classes.
Shauna lets their shoulders press together in the small space. “I want to write books.” Or articles for big shot newspapers like The Wall Street Journal. As long as she gets to write and the world gets to read what she has to say, she thinks she’ll be happy.
Natalie nods, “Do it. You were always good at that writing shit.” Shauna puts her finished cigarette out against the wall, tossing it to join Natalie’s in the murky water. “Hell, do you remember that time you helped Van write that essay on World War II? She’d never gotten an A+ on a paper before. It was like…the greatest moment of her life.”
Shauna waits until the fond memory passes and Natalie’s smile begins to fade again, watching the deep dimple that decorated her cheek slowly grow invisible. “What are your plans?” After the band gets off their hiatus, after they part ways from this club. She knows what she wants to hear but she also knows life isn’t fair. At least never to her.
“I could go to California.” Natalie snorts, “Or backpack Europe. I’ve read great things about French women.”
They both go a little quiet at what is left unsaid. Natalie says Europe and she thinks of Switzerland so by virtue she thinks of Lottie. Natalie says French and they both think of an attic in the woods and a stupid child’s game (and Lottie).
“How long have you been in love with Jackie?” Natalie asks softly, catching Shauna off guard with the sudden seriousness.
“Forever.” She admits and it feels like barbed wire is tightening around her throat, it’s hard to swallow. Most truths are. Natalie nods, as though she knew that answer already.
“How long have you been in love with Lottie?”
Natalie doesn’t answer that one, and Shauna thinks she might know the answer to that too so she doesn’t pry. She just lets their hands intertwine between their bodies. It doesn’t hang around them like a terminal illness or grow like a seasonal flower destined to wither. It is homely and instinctual, a baby deer learning to walk on teetering legs that have not yet traveled the uneven terrain.
“Are you gonna be in New York for a while?” Shauna sets her eyes forward to feign interest in the graffiti.
Natalie’s hand twitches in her own but doesn’t pull away, Shauna can feel every inhale and exhale. “I heard Rhode Island isn’t so bad.”