Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Jackie Taylor and Shauna Shipman weren’t doing anything wrong.
And yet, they constantly felt like they were.
Behind closed doors, curtains drawn, hidden from prying eyes - places where they were safe. And still, guilt always lingered.
But why..?
How could something so right feel even slightly wrong?
The soft intertwining of their fingers, the tender brush of lips meeting lips, the way their eyes lingered on each other’s bodies, shy but longing,…
Nothing they did was wrong.
Shauna was sure of it.
Shauna knew it since it started.
It happened one late-summer night, in Shauna's bed, without warning. When Shauna stopped waiting and Jackie didn’t pull away.
Their first kiss.
Shauna remembered it like it had happened yesterday: that fluttering anticipation low in her stomach, Jackie’s eyes a mix of uncertainty and desire, the moonlight illuminating her parted lips, letting her minty breath escape.
How could she resist such beauty?
They never spoke about it.
Words made things real - too real.
And reality demanded courage, sometimes more than they could summon.
Shauna had tried. Jackie had always avoided. So Shauna had resigned herself.
They didn’t need words to know, anyway.
Their love existed elsewhere, beyond public recognition: in the way Jackie couldn’t sleep unless Shauna was nearby, in the way Shauna arranged her days around Jackie, as if the world began and ended with her smile. Small gestures, perhaps even cliché, but gestures that made their relationship real in their eyes. And theirs alone.
They rarely fought. And when they did, they always found each other again. They shared everything: secrets, clothes - mostly Jackie borrowing Shauna’s, given their different sizes - and sometimes even half-formed dreams.
Though they did not talk about the future. They couldn't. Living a day at a time was the best that I have.
It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t a truth either.
It was a protected intimacy.
“It’s ours, Shaunie. Nobody can take it from us. But it has to stay ours,” Jackie had said, her voice firm and sure.
And of course, Shauna kept it. She didn’t care who knew or not, really. But she also knew that her girlfriend couldn’t live as freely as she wanted. Not yet.
Maybe never.
In high school, they were best friends. That had been a fact since elementary school. A convenient, acceptable, reassuring label - one everyone assumed without consulting them: wherever Jackie was, Shauna was. Whatever Shauna did, Jackie did too.
Never one without the other. That’s how people talked about them. And they liked it.
But no one could ever see how hard they tried. The distance they - mostly Jackie - put between them to maintain this delicate balance, to keep both roles stable. To separate the best-friend from the girlfriend. A balance they seemed to have found.
For now.
At parties, they always arrived together but often kept a small distance, following a silent choreography born of caution.
But they always left together.
Once safe - Shauna’s home being their safe place - they acted like a couple: small daily gestures, shared routines, tenderness so sincere it bordered on painful.
The brunette never doubted Jackie’s love. It slipped into every subtle action: a stray hair tucked behind her ear, a detail remembered, a kiss hidden from view, a gaze lingering where it shouldn't, a touch held just a fraction too long.
And Shauna loved it.
She loved Jackie - especially this Jackie. The one she had for herself, and herself only.
What she hadn’t seen coming - and wouldn’t understand until too late - was the quiet influence of the outside world on her girlfriend.
Expectations. Norms. Fear.
And with Jackie’s fears came Shauna’s.
But where did one end, and the other begin?