Chapter Text
So come away me hearties, we’ll roam the mountains high;
Together we will plunder and together we will die!
- “The Ballad of Bold Jack Donohue”
Shauna doesn’t know jack shit about guns.
Her dad hated them. Went with all his sixties, free spirit, draft-dodger, commie bullshit. Guns were, said Shauna’s sage father: “The only tools humans have ever invented with no other use besides killing our fellow human beings.” Shauna thought that was kinda profound when she was eight, but like most of the shit her dad said, it was fucking dumb if you thought about it for five seconds.
Swords. Arrows. Missiles. Grenades. Guillotines. Duh.
Yeah. Shauna’s dad. Such a free spirit he couldn’t bear to be bound by a wife and child. Motherfucker.
Shauna flips open the glove compartment and draws out the TEC-9. It’s an ugly gun. Black, sleek, with a barrel shroud. The kind of pistol that really says, “MURDER,” in all caps. She’s gone into the woods by Dead Man’s Turn a couple times, just to shoot it at trees, make sure the damn thing works.
It better work, it set her back $200.
God, is it loud.
She sticks the pistol into her waistband and climbs out of the Honda. Slams the door shut.
The metal is cold against her skin. Biting cold, like a pair of serpent's fangs stabbing into the small of her back.
It’s kinda intimate, really.
When was the last time someone touched her there, at the spot just above the swell of her hips?
Was it Jeff? Jeff with his big, sweaty hands all over her body, grasping and groping?
No, no. It was Jackie. Jackie loves to touch her. To twist and pull and toy with her hair, to lie on the couch with her and play her svelte fingers over Shauna’s bare skin, over her thighs and her belly, to trace her ribs and draw invisible little patterns between her shoulder blades and upon the nape of her neck, until Shauna squeals, “knock it off, Jax!”
Loved to touch her.
Past tense.
Jackie doesn’t love to touch her anymore.
Jackie doesn’t love her anymore.
Jackie goddamn hates her.
And whose fault is it?
Well – it’s – it’s –
The house in front of her is a big, pretty white colonial. Two stories. Gabled roof. Quarter-round windows, like The Amityville Horro r. A neat green patch of lawn out front, discolored and dry in the stark winter cold.
God, the things Shauna said to Jackie.
She told her she was stupid.
(“You know why you had no clue I was fucking your boyfriend? It’s because you're dumb, Jax. It’s because you’re just not very bright”)
Shauna told her she was selfish.
(“You’re so fucking obsessed yourself. Everything always has to be perfect, everything always has to be just exactly the way you want it, it always has to be all about you, but the thing is, it’s not about you. You know why, because you don’t matter, because you’re so fucking shallow and vapid there’s nothing even there.”)
Shauna told her she hated her.
(“I’m so sick of you. I’m sick of your voice, I’m sick of hearing you talk about your stupid bullshit, I’m sick of your face .”)
There’s only one car in the driveway.
There’d better be. Shauna waited at the end of the street for two fucking hours until Mr. and Mrs. Sadecki left.
Shauna rings the doorbell. Waits.
Rings it again.
Once more.
The bolt unclicks. The door opens slowly.
Jeff: in a loose red t-shirt, basketball shorts. Barefoot.
His stupid face. His stupid, blankly handsome face. He blinks, like he doesn’t quite recognize her. He’s the most hateful thing she’s ever seen. Her mind is storming, bloody red. Hatred, hatred, blazing, furious, hellish, hatred. He – he - he –
“Shauna,” he says with a weak smile. “Hey.”
He steps aside to let her in. She bits back her rage and returns the smile. Better if he lets her in the house. Better to keep him calm.
The TV’s on. Monday night football. The who-gives-a-shits playing the I-dont-fucking-cares. God she hates football.
“You been alright?” Jeff asks. He closes the door behind them. “I heard you quit the Yellowjackets.”
“Yeah.” Of course she fucking quit. Why wouldn’t she?
“Sorry,” he said. “I mean, I know that was important to you.”
“No it wasn’t, Jeff. I don’t even like soccer. I told you about a hundred times.”
He sits back down on the couch. Rubs the back of his head. “Right. Right. Sorry. Um, do you want something to drink? Or like, a snack or something? Or–”
“I’m good.”
“So you’re just gonna stand there?” He laughs a little bit. “I’m actually glad you came cuz, I actually wanted to talk to you about…um…”
“About what, Jeff?”
“About, you know..."
"No, I don't. What do I know?"
"Well...like...us.”
“‘Us’? What’s ‘Us’?”
He shrugs. Like he’s a little frustrated. Like he needs her to meet him halfway. “Like, are we gonna–”
“Are we gonna what? Go out?”
“Well–” his brows tighten. Confused. Like it was a given. “Well, I just thought–”
“You thought what, Jeff? That you got bored of your old girlfriend, so you’d just get yourself a new one?”
He lets out a long breath and sinks back into the couch. “Look, Shauna. It was messed up for us to go behind Jackie’s back like that. Alright? I know that. I feel like shit about it. I really do. I know you probably do too, and believe me, I get it.”
“No you don’t, Jeff,” she seethes, and now the tears come, hot with fury, sizzling down her cheeks and into her mouth. “You don’t fucking know. You have no fucking idea. ”
“Shauna, it wasn’t working with us. How many fucking times did I tell you? Jackie didn’t – I mean, it’s like she was putting up with me. It just wasn’t going anywhere! But, I like you. And you like me. So–”
“Is that what you thought, Jeff? You thought I liked you?”
His face scrunches up, and he cocks his head like a dog trying to figure out where the treat went.
“Well…I thought you did.”
“Yeah, I bet you did. I bet you think lots of things, you empty-headed fucking moron.”
Jeff’s got a sharp, defined face. High cheekbones, a strong jaw. Nothing soft in his features. But he goes soft, now. Kind of woebegone. Hurt. Like no one’s ever said anything that mean to him before. “Jesus, Shauna. What the fuck?”
That’s it. She cracks. The volcano boils over.
Shauna draws the TEC-9 from her waistband, flicks off the safety, and points it at Jeff. His hands fly up. “What the fuck?”
“Shut up.”
"Shauna, this isn’t funny! Is that – is that a real fucking gun? Jesus, what–”
“Shut up, Jeff! Shut the fuck up!”
“What are you doing ?”
“You ruined my life!” It’s hard to talk. Her throat’s all raw and spasming. She can hardly see through the haze of tears, let alone aim a pistol. Her heart rolls like a war-drum in her chest. “You ruined everything. I don’t have anything anymore.” Which isn’t quite true. She has her mother, for whatever that’s worth. She has a comfortable, lower-middle class home on the east side of town. A bedroom full of Nine Inch Nails and European metal CDs and McCarthy books and icons of the Saints. She has a 3.9 GPA. She has Tai.
But she doesn’t have Jackie, and without Jackie the rest of it is just shit.
"Shauna, please put the gun down.” Jeff’s voice quavers with fear. The color seeps out of his face. “Just chill out, okay?”
“You took Jackie away from me,” Shauna sobs. Then she screams, with such cataclysmic fury that the words scorch her mouth: “She was mine and you took her away from me! She was mine! Not yours!”
"Jesus, you're out of your fucking mind."
"You think so?" She takes a few steps closer. Point blank, now. Two or three paces. She sticks the gun right in his face.
He takes a big, rattling wet breath, and raises his hands higher, like he's trying to extra-surrender.
“Shauna, please can you just put the gun down so we can talk? Please, we can talk about anything you want, we can–just please don’t point it at me anymore, okay?” His voice cracks on the last word, like a frightened little kid. His eyes gleam with tears.
This isn’t fair of course. Not really. Is Jeff guilty? Sure. He’s a shitty boyfriend, a stupid, selfish, short-sighted, horny jackass like most teenage boys. But she’s worse. Whatever Jeff deserves, she deserves a thousand times over. Because Jackie was Jeff’s girlfriend for three years. And Jackie was Shauna’s everything for thirteen.
That’s all true, sure. Shauna’s in a glass house throwing damned big stones. If this is all anyone’s fault, it’s hers.
But the thing is, right now, she really doesn’t give a shit.
She just wants to hurt somebody.
“Shauna, plea–”
Shauna shoots him. The gun bucks hard in her hands. But she’s gotten enough practice to control the kick. She grounds herself firmly, and the shock of the recoil travels through her arms, rolls down her spine and dissipates through the soles of her feet.
The round smacks into Jeff’s chest. He snaps back, jerked on an invisible string. It appears first as a little red circle on his shirt, just below his right collarbone. Then the circle spreads, red and hot and gushing. The blood pulses from the wound in time with the rhythm of his heart, soaking into the couch, dribbling down into the carpet.
“What the fuck?” he bleats in wild and disbelieving panic. “What the fuck? Oh Jesus, Shauna, what the fuck?" He's hyperventilating, and that just seems to make the blood flow faster and harder. "You gotta call 911. Jesus, you gotta gotta–”
She shoots him again. This one gets him in the throat, and God, his throat fucking explodes. Looks that way, anyway. Just this big, beautiful burst of rich scarlet, like smacking a water balloon with a baseball bat. Shauna feels it. Not just the actual spatter of blood over the front of her shirt, onto her hands, onto her face. But also this deep, incredible humming in her stomach that surges up through her chest, into the back of her throat, and down into her thighs, tingling in her toes and her fingertips.
It’s like getting off – except, wow, she’s never gotten off like that.
A dumb, weird smile steals over Shauna's lips. “Holy shit,” she giggles.
Jeff topples from the couch. He lands on the bloody carpet on all fours. The blood rushes from his punctured throat and cascades onto the floor. He tries to staunch the flow with one trembling hand. His desperate eyes roll up to meet hers, and it’s all there – a beautiful painting of pain and terror shock and he’s begging her, just begging her to please be merciful, begging God for just one more second–
Begging Shauna, begging God, begging Shauna, begging God – right now they’re the same thing.
That lasts five, ten seconds, that height of euphoria. Then she’s just tired. Like she’s just climbed a mountain. Forded a river, and really, she has. Her own personal Rubicon.
She flops down on the couch, right in the wet, sticky puddle of Jeff’s blood. He’s still kicking, curled up on the floor like a dying roach. Eyes rolling back in his head, back spasming, legs kicking; he’s not really pumping blood so much as leaking it now.
His heart’s giving out.
“Hey, Jeff.” She nudges him with the toe of her shoe. “Can you hear me? Fuck you.”
Shauna closes her eyes and lets her head fall back onto the cushion. She lays the TEC-9 in her lap, still hot, still murderous. Takes a few deep breaths. Opens her eyes.
The cops’ll be here soon, for sure. This is fucking Wiskayok, not New York City. Some neighbor probably called 911 within five seconds of the first gunshot.
Of all things, Tom Jones comes to mind. That song Shauna’s mom likes. “Delilah.”
Sooooo before, they come to break down the dooooor…
It all settles in Shauna’s stomach. The hate and the burning, crushing love, and the fleeting taste of godhood. She ought to do it now while she’s still worked up. Before she can start rationalizing, before she can start –
Shauna raises the pistol to her left temple. Its muzzle hovers a half an inch from her head, blazing hot against her ear. The AC rumbles somewhere. She squeezes her eyes shut again.
Fuck it. Fuck it. Just do it. Do it. Do it do it do it do it do it do it –
A car’s motor outside. Tires crunching on gravel. Her eyes fly open again. She knows that motor. She –
The car door slams shut.
Two, three seconds.
A knock on the door. A hard knock. A really hard knock.
“Jeff? Jeff I know you’re in there! Shipman? I know you’re both in there! I cannot fucking believe that you’re both…”
Shauna smiles again, lazily, and she speaks her name with worshipful adoration: “Jackie.”
Jackie Taylor is a nice person. Is it presumptuous to think of yourself as a nice person? Conceited? Maybe a little bit.
But goddammit, she is nice.
And sure, she isn’t perfect. Maybe sometimes she can be selfish. Maybe sometimes she can be rude, or petty. But she tries.
Jackie tries to be nice and kind. She’s nice to her teammates and her friends – she doesn’t snap at them, even when they kind of deserve it. She takes Allie Stevens aside day after day to give her friendly pointers, tips on footwork, and she keeps a nice smile on her face the whole time, even when Allie tells her to fuck off. She offers Natalie Scatorccio a ride home about once a week, whenever she finds the poor girl trudging along the highway after school, with her backpack bouncing on her shoulders.
Jackie’s nice to her parents. She gives mom and dad a hug and a kiss every time she comes home in the afternoons, even if it embarrasses her a little now that she’s eighteen years old. She tells mom her cooking’s good – and sometimes it is, but lots of times it isn’t, and she says it is anyway. If dad wants to talk her ear off about World War II or Grant’s Vicksburg campaign or the fucking Alamo, well she sits and she listens!
Jackie’s nice to her teachers. She doesn’t mouth off. She doesn't call Mr. Cooper – who's got half of his face covered in second-degree burns – “Mr. Krueger” behind his back like some other kids do. She tries at school. She really does. Even when it’s really, really fucking hard. She has a 3.1 GPA, and maybe that’s not the most impressive GPA in the world, but it’s not that bad, because she tries.
Jackie’s nice to her boyfriend. How could anyone ever say otherwise? She doesn’t really like jerking him off through his boxers, doesn’t really like the way his dick feels in her hands, doesn’t like his hot and sometimes not-great smelling breath panting against her cheek, doesn’t like his weight on top of her, sticky and sweaty and too-warm, doesn’t like washing semen off her fingers – it makes her fucking gag. But she does it anyway. Everybody knows that, because Jeff tells Randy and the rest of his dipshit friends all about it. She knows that, and she doesn’t even complain.
Because she’s nice .
Because why not? What does it cost her to be nice? She likes to be nice. She likes helping people, and making their days a little easier. It’s good to be nice, to make the world a little friendlier, a little warmer.
Except, maybe it’s not.
Because what happens when you’re nice?
What happens when you’re nice is your stupid cheating boyfriend and your stupid cheating best friend fuck behind your back, and they laugh about how you’re too dumb to figure it out.
Shauna was the one person Jackie never had to try to be nice to. Because Shauna, more than anybody else, made her feel nice. Made her feel sweet, and warm, and gooey, and giggly, and happy .
And how did she make Shauna feel?
Well, like shit apparently.
If you asked Jackie to write down a list of adjectives to describe Shauna Shipman, they would be things like: Brilliant. Witty. Funny. Shy. Creative. Thoughtful. Gorgeous. Adorable. Wonderful. Incredible. Sensational .
Not at all like the adjectives Shauna smeared her with last week: Stupid. Lazy. Selfish. Greedy. Whiny. Annoying. Vapid. Pathetic .
That was what “nice” got her in the end. It got her three days lying in bed, too weary, too heartsick to get up even for a shower, half-buried in a heap of snot-smeared tissues, mom running her fingers through her sweaty hair, sobbing and sobbing and wailing and wishing she would just fucking die, wishing God would just reach down and flick her light switch off, just so she wouldn’t have to feel so disgusting and stupid and worthless and pathetic anymore.
That was two weeks ago.
And she still feels like that, for sure.
But also, now she’s really, really pissed off. She's pissed off when she gets in her dad’s car, more pissed off on the drive over, and she gets about a hundred billion times more pissed off when she pulls up to the Sadecki house to find Shauna’s car in the driveway.
Of course. Why not?
They're probably inside fucking each other’s brains out right now, taking breaks to laugh at Jackie a little more.
Well she was going to go in there and she was going to – she was going to – she was going to – she wasn’t sure, but if she pounded on the door a little longer, she might figure it out.
“Open up! I know you’re in there! Goddammit Jeff you backstabbing piece of shit, open the fucking door! Shauna, you fucking traitor, I cannot fucking believe you!"
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
She tries the doorknob.
And hey, it opens.
Jackie storms in, fuming. Smoke rising out of her nostrils like a cartoon bull kind of fuming.
And – holy shit.
Shauna.
Shauna covered in blood .
It all dissolves. It all goes away in the merest instant. All the rage, all the hurt, all the shame. Because it’s Shauna! Shauna’s beautiful, sweet, elegant white face, and her big smokey black eyes, and her mane of raven hair, all clumped up and messy and Jackie just wants to push it back and cup her cheeks because oh my God, she’s covered in blood .
Dimly, Jackie sees that Jeff is lying on the ground, covered in even more blood. And he’s not moving. And oh fuck, he might be dead . But that only registers at the very fringes of her mind.
Because it’s Shauna, and now Jackie’s not mad, not even sad, just terrified. Because Shauna might be hurt. She might not be okay. She needs a doctor. She needs Jackie.
Jackie runs to her, grabs her gory hands, feels the blood already flaking in the lines of her palms. Hardly notices the pistol in her best friend’s lap. Looks into those huge dark eyes instead.
“Shauna? Baby? Oh my God. Oh my God, Shauna, what happened ?”
Shauna stares back at her: not hateful, not spiteful, not looking for a fight. A little distant, and very, very tired. Like she needs a nap. Jackie thinks as much in her weird, detached way. Shauna needs a nap. She needs to get some rest. She needs to just feel better .
“Shauna,” and she’s sobbing already. So fucking scared that something horrible happened, something horrible happened to Shauna, and Shauna won’t talk to her . “Shauna, please, please tell me what happened, please tell me you’re okay, please tell me–”
And now she really takes in the pistol. Does a double take, almost. What an ugly, sinister looking gun. Black, polyester and steel, the angles hard and vicious, the holes in the barrel shroud like a score of eyes, like a spider.
Jeff, on the ground. Eyes open. Blank and wide.
Something happened. Something went horribly wrong.
They were messing with the gun. Why? Shauna wasn’t stupid, and Jeff wasn’t that stupid. But they had to have been. They were messing with the gun. And it went off. That was what had happened.
Or maybe–maybe Jeff tried to do something to Shauna, and she had to defend herself.
Jeff wouldn’t do something like that. He was an asshole, but he wouldn’t try to hurt Shauna, or anybody else. But Jackie’s ready to believe it, more than some of the other things swirling in her brain.
But none of that answered the real question: why was there a fucking gun in the first place?
The life and vivacity flash back into Shauna’s eyes, and she smiles, and Jackie thinks only, insanely, what a beautiful smile. Shauna has such a pretty smile, she’s so pretty, so heartbreakingly beautiful. My Shauna.
And it makes Jackie smile, too, even while the reek of blood shoves itself into her nostrils and down her throat and makes her gag.
Now Shauna mumbles, like a dreamer awakened, “Yeah, I’m fine, Jax.”
She was about to kill herself. She was about to blow her goddamn brains out. But now she doesn’t have to!
Now everything’s just fine again. Why? Because Jackie’s here. Jackie’s crouching down in front of her, smoothing her hair, rubbing her hands, out of her mind with love and fright.
If she’d had any doubts at all about shooting Jeff Sadecki to death in his living room, she doesn’t know. Because it sure seems like it fixed everything.
Best decision of her life.
Jackie’s face, hovering a couple inches from hers. Jackie’s lovely, face. Her trembling pink mouth, her limpid hazel eyes watery with tears, the light dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose.
Close enough to kiss.
“Yeah, I’m fine, Jax,” she says. “I just shot Jeff.”
And then she understands, of course, nothing is fixed. It’s all fucked anyway. Maybe a different kind of fucked, but fucked nonetheless. That’s funny, isn’t it? She did the one thing that could possibly make Jackie forget about it all, make Jackie stop hating her, start loving her and touching her again.
But it’ll only last until Jackie realizes just what it is she did, and then she’ll hate her more than ever, and then Shauna will wish she had squeezed the trigger.
God, it’s all fucked up, isn’t it?
“Why ?”
“I just…uh…” Shauna can’t say anymore. Her head hangs. She stares at her lap.
Jackie doesn’t ask again. Doesn’t run for the phone in the kitchen to call 911. She gently helps Shauna to her feet and says, “Come on, Shipman. We gotta go.”
“Go where?”
“Just – we gotta go, we gotta go get you cleaned up, and then we need to figure everything out, okay?”
“But–”
“Jesus, Shipman, come on , how long do you think before the fucking cops are here? I can’t believe they’re not here already!”
True enough.
And when Jackie takes her hand, and Shauna can feel her friend's panicky heartbeat thumping through the silky skin of her wrist, it’s just impossible to say no to her.
They hop into Mr. Taylor’s car, the 60s Pontiac, the one Jackie probably shouldn’t even be driving. Shauna settles into the driver’s seat and only then realizes she still has the TEC-9 in her hands. She sets it back in her lap.
Jackie notices it as she peels out of the Sadecki driveway.
“Shipman, why do you even have a gun ? Since when do you have a gun ?”
Jackie probably knows a little more about guns than Shauna does, actually. At least a little bit. Mr. Taylor owns an M1911, though it rarely leaves its safe-box. But she stares at the weapon in her best friend’s lap like it’s an evil charm.
“You know Jim?”
“No?”
“Jim Cochran?”
“The guy from your mom’s work who’s like thirty and goes to high school parties?”
“Yeah.”
“He sold it to you?”
Shauna closes her eyes again. “No. He told me there was a guy in Newark who’d sell it to me, so I went to Newark and bought it.”
“That’s illegal, Shipman!"
“Thanks, Jackie, I'll keep that in mind.”
“This isn’t funny! Oh my God! Oh my God!”
Jackie almost gets them killed about a half-a-dozen times on the way to her house. Hairpin turns, dubious negotiation of red lights and stop signs, one very near brush with a pickup truck.
But the driveway at the Taylors' big, beautiful, columned and porticoed house is happily empty, so there's that.
“Where are your parents?” Shauna asks.
“Out. Doing parent shit. Whatever. Come on.”
Jackie drags her upstairs to the bathroom. She strips off her flannels, the grey t-shirt she has underneath. Her fingers scrape softly on the bare skin of Shauna’s arms, her stomach just above her hips, her shoulder blades. Then she helps her with her pants, until Shauna’s standing there on the linoleum in her underwear, Jackie dabbing away splotches of blood on her face and hands with a wet towel.
This isn’t the first time Jackie's undressed her. Sometimes Shauna’s felt like her doll. A toy. Something Jackie can dress up and decorate for fun.
But today is different. Today, even all but naked, she doesn’t feel vulnerable before Jackie, she doesn’t feel weak. Not even a little bit. And that's a good feeling.
Jackie balls up the bloody clothes and shoves them into the hamper. She runs out and comes back with a fresh set. Throws them at Shauna. A loose, blue t-shirt, the kind Jackie would never wear out of the house, and a pair of sweatpants.
Shauna dresses, while Jackie watches, wringing her hands, licking her lips.
It’s almost normal. Jackie sitting in front of the TV, Shauna by her side, with a Friends rerun playing. Like the last week of their lives never happened. Like the last ten hours didn’t happen.
Shauna half-lost in her big t-shirt, legs crossed, small, pale hands rested on her thighs. The buzzing light of the TV set draws out her profile; her high, straight nose and the dark, sad shade of her eyes and the downward tilt of her rosy mouth.
She looks so sad, so small, so harmless. She isn’t even watching TV.
(Shauna fucking hates Friends , anyway)
She looks like she just needs a hug, a kiss. Shauna stirs up that feeling in Jackie like no one else ever has, not even close. Call it a protective feeling, a hot something in her stomach that means she just wants Shauna to always be safe and warm and happy, to never have to be afraid or sad or hurt.
But maybe Shauna doesn’t really need her protection. She said as much the other night. And now –
The phone rings.
Jackie’s been coiled on the couch next to Shauna for an hour, tension building by the second, and she leaps up like a spring at the sound. Runs into the kitchen. Snatches the phone off the hook. “Hello?”
“Jackie! Hey! It’s me, Misty!”
“Hey…Misty!”
Sometimes she regrets giving Misty Quigley her phone number. Truth is, she doesn’t like Misty that much. She doesn’t not like her, and it feels mean to even think it, but she’s just…weird and nosy and kinda pushy. But Jackie’s nice to her, because if not her, then who?
“Did you hear?”
“What?”
“Jeff is dead!”
The gravity of it has dulled a little bit over the past couple of hours. Doesn’t feel quite so real. The way a word starts looking fake when you stare at it long enough. But hearing it from someone else rips the whole thing wide open again.
Jackie’s legs get weak. Oh God. “What?” she tries to feign shock, horror. And the horror is real, sure, but the shock? “Oh my God! Are you joking?” Jackie isn’t a very good liar, not a very good actress, she knows that much.
But Misty’s too excited to notice. Yes, she sounds excited . “They found him in his house!” she pants. “Somebody shot him! I heard it on the police scanner!”
“You have a police scanner?”
“My dad does!”
Why did it even take so long? It’s almost 10:00. Shauna – the whole thing happened a little after 4:00. The neighbors must have mistaken the gunshots for a movie, or a power tool or something. Which means – Jesus, dear God – which means, Jeff’s parents must have been the ones who found him.
“I – I gotta go,” Jackie stammers.
“Yeah, I know this is probably super hard for you to hear,” says Misty, sounding like she’s just won tickets to see her favorite band live in concert. The girl lives and breathes true crime. Ann Rule. Vincent Bugliosi. She’s probably bouncing off the fucking walls. “Just thought you should know.”
Misty hangs up first. Jackie lets the phone drop from her fingers. It dangles and bounces at the end of the cord.
Shauna’s standing at the threshold of the dining room, the t-shirt so big it bares her shoulders.
(It’s one of Jackie’s dad’s.)
Maybe Jackie should be a little scared. It would be rational to be scared of somebody who could just do – that. But this is Shauna, messy dark hair, brown puppy-dog eyes so big and expressive and sad, and she just looks so cute and sweet and beautiful that Jackie can’t feel anything except rushing affection.
“That was–”
“I heard,” Shauna says.
Jackie bows her head.
“Please tell me what happened, Shipman. Please. I just need to understand–” her voice gets watery and warbly. “I just need to know what’s going on here, because I’m really, really freaked out, okay?”
“I don’t know I just–” Shauna’s voice is kind of sticky, lips smacking together. “I was just pissed off, I guess.”
“‘Pissed off’? Shauna, you went to Newark and bought a gun . You planned this. That’s like…fucking…first degree murder! What the fuck? I mean, I thought you wanted Jeff. I thought that’s what this was all about? I thought–”
Shauna shrugs, like a little kid caught sneaking cookies. “I don’t know. Not really.”
“You can’t get away with this, Shauna. You realize that, right? Like we didn’t even – people probably saw us leave! And even if they didn’t, your fingerprints are on those fucking shell casings, because I didn’t pick them up, because I’m fucking stupid and oh my God–” Shauna’s got her thinking like a criminal. “And even if they aren’t, they’re gonna interrogate everybody at school, and–and–and–”
“I know, Jax,” Shauna says softly. “I’m not stupid, okay?”
Jackie touches her temples, the way people do when they’re thinking really hard in movies. “Okay. Okay.”
Her parents will be back by morning. In all likelihood, the cops will be here first. They might be at Shauna’s place already. Who knows? It all depends on a lot of stuff she doesn’t even know how to begin to think about.
But she does know one thing. This last week and a half without Shauna has been the absolute worst of her life. Worse than when she was eleven and she held Pepper’s little paw in her hand while the vets put him to sleep. Worse than when she totaled her first car a year ago (only half her fault, at worst) and dad said she couldn’t have another one until she could afford it herself, because she’d proven she couldn’t handle the responsibility. Worse than when her mom put her on 1200 calories a day for two months.
Because for all that stuff – at least Shauna was there. And whenever Shauna was there, that was enough to make it okay.
They’re coming to take Shauna away. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a week, if they're really lucky. But they'll come.
That’s the scariest thing in the world. Scarier than guns. Scarier than her ex-boyfriend’s corpse on his living room carpet. Way scarier.
Without Shauna, it’s all just black and horrible and pointless. Jackie can’t do another week like that. Let alone a year. Let alone decades. She just can’t. She'd rather drink battery acid, and it isn't even close.
“Come on,” she says.
Shauna follows her upstairs, but she stands there like a zombie while Jackie throws two suitcases onto her bed. Usually she’s real careful with packing, when it’s summer and the Taylors are off to Hawaii, or when it’s Christmas and they fly down to Florida to visit grandma. She folds everything, shirts in the bottom-left corner, pants and skirts in the top-right, underwear in the top-left, socks organized and stacked neatly by pairs, and then on top of all that, her Walkman and a makeup bag and whatever she happens to be reading at the time, all arranged from smallest to largest.
Tonight, she just starts tossing shit in. How much they’re going to need – she isn’t sure. Just until – until – until they figure it out .
She’s not stupid. She knows there is no way to figure it out. No good ending. Not really. But she can believe her own lies, at least for a little while. She’s had practice.
So in it all goes, shirts and socks and underwear and shorts and pants, in a big mountainous mess. She has to sit on the suitcases to get them to close.
Jackie takes another look around her bedroom, the one that’s been hers since she was five. Old soccer medals, girl scout ribbons, generations of teddy bears. Her middle school graduation certificate. Issues of Sassy and Seventeen scattered over her vanity, on her bedside table, next to her Phil Collins and Spice Girls CDs.
One last thing – she reopens her suitcase, tosses her diary in, and then closes it again.
Shauna’s still standing there, arms hanging by her sides, eyes gleaming in the dark. She licks her lips. “I love you, Jackie,” she says.
Jackie doesn’t say anything for a little while. Then she stands up and says, “Let’s go.”
Nat’s dad whips an AC/DC cassette at her head. She ducks. It smashes into the wall, and crumbles to the carpet in a mess of broken plastic and unspooled tape.
“Fuck you!” she screams, and then she turns and ducks out of the trailer before he can throw anything heavier.
(He has, before.)
“Bitch!” he roars after her, almost loud enough to make the door rattle in its frame. She dashes down the street, and what a shitty fucking street. Trailers painted flaking white, discolored by sun and rain. Grass overgrown, wild and tangled. The sidewalks fissured and broken, spewing dirt and flowers through their cracks. A dog barking somewhere. The pavement littered with half-crumpled soda cans and beer cans and Lifesavers wrappers.
God, everything sucks.
And yeah, that’s such a teenager thing to think, but in Nat’s case, everything really does suck.
She wanders the roads at the edge of town for a half hour, hands in her pockets, the half moon glaring upon her, white and brilliant. When she gets bored of that, she heads over to Kevyn’s house.
Wayne’s already there, hunched over Kevyn’s shoulder while he blasts demons in DOOM. Nat and Wayne are both poor as shit, but Kevyn’s family does alright for themselves. He’s got a computer after all, and enough spare cash for video games. He just likes slumming it.
“Dude, dude!” Wayne sputters. “Switch to the shotgun, switch to the fucking–”
Kevyn's up against two Barons of Hell. One of them flings a coil of green fire at him. He backtracks hard, retreats around a corner. The Barons follow.
“You have to get them over by the barrels,” Nat says. “And then–no, stay there!”
Kevyn emerges from cover. The Barons nail him with another bolt of hellfire. His health is at 5%. He switches to the shotgun. Too late. The next blow finishes him off. The screen goes red. Kevyn sags into his chair. “Nice.”
“You guys wanna go somewhere?” Nat asks. If either of them notice the red tinge in her eyes, they don’t say anything.
“Where?” Kevyn asks.
“I don’t know. Anywhere? Go smoke under the bridge?”
On the way to Greene’s Crossing they stop in at the Chevron gas station on the corner of Miller and Westbrook. It’s at the edge of town, going west. To the east you can see the dim, half-lit shadow of Wiskayok at almost midnight, a lowly built, humble little town, bland Americana: Dunkin Donuts sign glowing in the evening, a peeling blue billboard asking “IF YOU DIED TONIGHT - DO YOU KNOW JESUS CHRIST?”
The parking lot is empty, glowing a sickly yellow by the fluorescent bulbs mounted over the pumps. Wayne and Kevyn wait outside, while Nat goes in. They never card her here, but she figures one grungy teen will spook them less than three.
She grabs a big, two liter of orange-flavored Vodka out of the freezer and takes it to the counter. Nat goes up to the counter, heart going a little fast. The door opens.
In comes Jackie Taylor.
And she looks – well, not bad . Nat’s not sure it’s ever possible for Jackie to look bad.
It’s just, she’s usually always so put together. Makeup perfect, hair perfectly styled, outfit in perfect sync with itself. And tonight – well, she’s in baggy jeans, for one. There’s some weird stain on the fringe of her blouse, and her makeup is faded, a little smeared at the mouth and by the eyes. Her honey blonde hair’s a wild mess, like a lion’s mane.
(Honestly, it looks kind of good.)
And her eyes – well, she looks like she’s seen something she’d rather not have. But also, weirdly, relieved?
Nat shakes her head. She’s thinking about Jackie too much.
Jackie gets in line behind her, and fishes a crumple of dollar bills out of her pocket. Only then does she recognize her. “Nat! Hey!”
Her smile looks pained, sort of frantic.
“Hey…Jackie.”
And Jackie looks suddenly afraid. Panicked. She sucks in a breath. Almost flinches. Like she’s waiting for Nat to hit her.
“Um…you okay?”
“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine. I just–”
“You’re at the gas station…at midnight…on a school night. You…don’t we have practice tomorrow?”
Jackie licks her lips. “Yeah, well, you’re here, too.”
“It’s in character for me, though.”
The guy in front of them pays. The cashier says “Next!” and Nat goes up. Sets the vodka down confidently on the counter. He doesn’t even ask for the ID.
“$10,” he says.
Nat produces her money and – shit . She has one $5 bill, and she thought she had five ones. But she’s only got three. “Goddammit.”
“$10,” says the cashier, louder.
Nat counts the money again, like it’ll magically make the $2 she needs appear.
“How much do you need?” Jackie asks.
“It’s fine,” Nat says. “Kevyn’s outside, I just–"
“Here,” Jackie pushes a $10 bill into her hand. “Go ahead.”
“I don’t need this much.”
“Come on, Nat, I really gotta get some gas.” She laughs, a high and tight sound.
Nat shrugs and pays with the $10. The cashier hands her back $7 and a couple spare coins, and she gives them to Jackie. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Jackie doesn’t look her in the eye. She practically shoves her out of the way to get to the counter, and then slaps down a bunch of crumpled bills and says, “$40 on pump 5, please.”
Nat steps back out into the brisk and snapping night. Kevyn and Wayne are leaning against the wall, but they’re not looking at her. They stare across the parking lot, at the only car here.
It’s a nice car, a 60s Pontiac. And sitting in the passenger’s seat, not moving, staring flatly through the windshield like a crash test dummy, is Shauna Shipman.
“Check it out,” says Wayne. “I guess they’re friends again.”
Kevyn shrugs and giggles. “Maybe they decided to share Jeff.”
Nat squints across the parking lot. That’s not Shauna’s car.
(Shauna and her mom aren’t exactly poor, not the way Nat is, but no way they could afford a classic 60s GTO).
Which means it must be Jackie’s, except Nat’s never seen it before. Jackie doesn’t even drive, not since she totaled the BMW she got for her 16th birthday. Everyone knows that.
There’s something in the back of the car. At first, Nat thinks it’s another passenger. But she looks a little closer. Two suitcases, piled behind the driver’s seat.
The bell on the gas station door rings and Jackie comes hurrying out. She starts across the parking lot towards the car. She fills up quickly, almost drops the nozzle, swears, clanks it against the hubcap. Replaces it on the hook. Opens the driver’s side door to climb back in.
Nat calls after her. “Hey!”
Jackie whirls around. “What’s up?”
“Are you guys okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine, Nat. Seriously. We’re good. All good.” She does the ‘OK’ sign with her fingers.
“Um, you sure?”
“Yes, Natalie. Chill!”
“Well–where are you guys going ?”
Jackie deflates a little bit, like Nat’s punctured some private fantasy. She laughs. “I uh – I’m actually not sure.”
Then she gets back in the car, throws it into drive, and peels out so hard she leaves the air reeking like scorched rubber long after the GTO’s twin tail lights vanish on the turnpike going west.