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Shauna finds Jackie curled up against a wooden beam on the porch of the cabin. It’s dusk and some of the others are tired, relaxing, or pretending to, and Shauna hasn’t stopped moving all day. Maybe if she stays useful, she won’t fall apart. She’s holding two blankets but she only needs one.
“Hey,” Shauna says, voice barely above a whisper. “I found a couple extra blankets, if you want one.”
She holds one out. Jackie doesn’t move at first, and for a second Shauna thinks she won’t take it. Then she reaches forward and their fingers touch.
“Thanks,” Jackie says. Shauna sits beside her, leaving a space between them that feels more like a crack in something. She remembers seeing Jackie earlier, watching her fake a smile for Laura Lee. Jackie, who can command a crowd with a laugh, captains a team with just a few “nice things about each other.” Now she looks like she’s drifting. Adrift, even. It hits Shauna then, sharp and cold: Jackie doesn’t know what to do, and maybe she never did.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, okay?” Shauna says. “I have no idea what’s right or wrong out here. I just went with my gut. So we wouldn’t die of thirst.”
Jackie doesn't respond, but she doesn’t turn away either.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m really scared,” Shauna admits. “They should’ve come for us by now. What if… they’re not going to?”
She doesn’t mean to reach for Jackie’s hand, but her fingers twitch like they might. She stops herself, just about.
“I just need my best friend right now,” she says. “I really need us to be okay.”
It’s true, but there’s more she’s not saying. Like how her heart aches in strange ways when she looks at Jackie, who sometimes feels like safety, and sometimes feels like danger. Right now, she’s looking at her, and in that glance, something shifts. Her expression softens.
“Come here,” Jackie says, and opens her arms.
Shauna hesitates, guilty for only a second before folding into her. Jackie wraps her up in her warmth, the smell of her. Her heart is beating so fast. Jackie’s hand is on the back of her head, fingers brushing gently through her hair. She could stay here forever.
“The worst is behind us, okay?” Jackie murmurs, voice steadier now. “We survived a fucking plane crash. We’re gonna be fine.”
Shauna closes her eyes and lets herself believe it, just for a breath longer. Inside, the wind is trying to scrape against the wood of the cabin like it wants in, but out here, it’s strangely quiet.
“You’re shivering,” Jackie says softly.
Shauna shakes her head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Jackie pulls one of the blankets tighter around both of them, her hands lingering at Shauna’s back like she’s not ready to let go. Then, gently, “Do you wanna lie down? You haven’t really slept.”
Shauna hesitates. She wants to say no. She wants to say you should sleep, or it’s fine, I’ll go back to the others. But instead, she says, “Could I…?”
Jackie shifts and pats her leg. “Yeah. Here.”
Shauna’s heart stutters. She lies down slowly, uncertainly, her head settling into Jackie’s lap. Jackie adjusts the blanket over her shoulders, one hand absently moving to her hair again.
“Comfortable?” Jackie asks.
“Yeah,” Shauna murmurs, eyes fluttering closed. “This okay?”
“Mhm.”
A long pause, Jackie’s fingers in her hair, slow and thoughtful. It doesn’t feel like a friend trying to soothe another, it feels… different, like she doesn’t want to stop touching her.
“You used to do this when we had sleepovers,” Shauna says, her voice almost lost in the night air, as the moon starts to make its appearance. “Remember?”
Jackie hums. “Yeah. You’d pretend to fall asleep during Beaches just so you could—yeah.”
“I wasn’t pretending. I hate Beaches.”
“You were. You were always pretending.”
Shauna opens her eyes, stares up at the sky. “Maybe.”
Jackie’s fingers pause for a moment. Then they keep moving, tracing circles near her temple.
“You scared me today,” Jackie says finally. “Siding with the others like that.”
“I didn’t think you’d care.”
“Well, I do.”
Shauna turns her head slightly, just enough to glance up at Jackie’s face in the low flickering light. Jackie’s looking down at her. That same look from earlier, worried, something tender. Jackie’s hand is still in her hair when Shauna speaks again, voice low and slurred like she’s halfway to sleep.
“You and Mari looked cozy today. At the lake.”
Jackie stills. Shauna watches the way the shadows shift across the porch instead. Jackie’s fingers resume their motion, slower now. “She was being nice.”
“Sure.” Shauna’s tone is suddenly flat. She hopes it sounds tired. Not irritated. Not jealous.
Jackie doesn’t reply right away. “You could’ve come over.”
“I was busy not dying of thirst, remember?”
Jackie exhales through her nose. “Touché, asshole. You know that’s not what I meant.”
Shauna doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. She imagines the the sun glinting off Mari’s shoulders, Jackie laughing louder than necessary.
Jackie leans back against the log beam, her hand stilling in Shauna’s hair. “I guess I just… didn’t know where we stood today.”
Shauna turns her head slightly so her cheek is resting against Jackie’s thigh. She stares at the wood floor near Jackie’s foot. There’s a beetle dragging something twice its size.
“Yeah,” she says. “Me neither.”
“I didn’t mean for it to be weird.”
Shauna finally looks up again. Her neck aches at the angle, but she wants to see Jackie’s face.
“You didn’t mean to try and make me jealous.”
Jackie blinks and her expression flickers with hurt. “I wasn’t.”
Shauna doesn’t press. She just watches her, waiting. Jackie’s mouth opens, then closes again. She looks away.
“…Okay. Maybe a little.”
Shauna lies back down without saying anything, but there’s a half-smile pulling at the corner of her mouth, just out of sight. She closes her eyes and listens to Jackie breathing.
“You remember that party at Mari’s house?” Jackie asks suddenly.
Shauna furrows her brow. “Her birthday?”
“Yeah.”
“You made me wear that awful plaid skirt, like, the one from Clueless.”
Jackie grins. “You looked hot.”
Shauna glances up at her. She only looks hot when she wears the clothes that Jackie wants her to. Jackie keeps going. “Some guy kept trying to talk to you while I was doing shots with Mari and Van. What was his name?”
“Brian something?”
“Yeah. You pretended not to hear him.”
Shauna shrugs, playing it off. She wonders, privately, where Jackie is going with this. Probably nowhere. She likes talking for the sake of it. “I didn’t like his whole shtick, or whatever.”
Jackie smiles, faint and knowing. “It was a good excuse.”
Shauna’s shoulder brushes against Jackie’s stomach. The contact sends a little jolt through her.
“Why are you bringing that up?” she asks, and her voice cracks a little.
Jackie looks down at her. Her hand has gone still in Shauna’s hair. “I don’t know,” she says. “Just thinking.”
Shauna swallows. “About what?”
Jackie hesitates. Then. “Sit up.”
Shauna blinks. “What?”
Jackie’s voice is quiet. “Just… sit up.”
Shauna starts to move, starts to get off Jackie’s lap entirely, pulling the blanket aside, unsure, but Jackie reaches out and forces her hand round Shauna’s wrist, shakes her head once.
“No. I mean—” Jackie gestures, voice barely more than breath now, “like, here. On me.”
Shauna freezes. She looks at Jackie and sees the way her cheeks have gone a little pink, the nervous tension in her jaw. On her. On her lap.
Shauna doesn’t speak, doesn’t joke, doesn’t move. Jackie doesn’t look away, so Shauna does what she’s told. Slowly, carefully, she shifts her body. Her legs fold beside Jackie’s and she eases herself upright, her weight settling onto Jackie’s lap now. Her hands are trembling slightly as she resettles the blanket around them.
“This okay?” Jackie asks.
Shauna nods. “Yeah.”
It’s more than okay. It’s terrifying. They sit like that, tangled up, and Shauna doesn’t know where to put her hands.
Jackie’s fingers move in quiet rhythm through Shauna’s hair again, scratching at her neck. The world’s taken a step back and given them this moment, this strange pocket of warmth inside all the cold and dirt.
Shauna’s in Jackie’s lap, arms loosely folded around her, trying not to notice the warmth of Jackie’s hands on her thighs, or how steady her breath is. She’s trying not to acknowledge what they’re doing, or not doing. Because this isn’t new, is it?
It’s happened before—at sleepovers, usually late, under covers or behind closed doors, giggling with too much soda in their bloodstreams and boredom in the air.
“We should practice,” so they kissed, and it was a game, a thing to get good at, just in case. Shauna remembers the burn in her stomach afterward. The hours she’d lie awake, heart hammering while Jackie snored beside her.
“Hey,” Jackie says now, pulling her gently back to the present. “You’re getting in your head.”
Shauna blinks. “Sorry. I was just… uh, thinking.”
Jackie tilts her head. “Good thinking or bad?”
Shauna hesitates. “I—we used to do this. Remember?”
Jackie smiles, not surprised. “Yeah. I remember.”
She lifts her hand, slow and tentative, fingers brushing a strand of hair from Shauna’s cheek.
“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Jackie says, like she’s either warning her, or asking permission.
Shauna nods. “Okay.”
Jackie pecks her lips and it’s cautious at first—barely pressure, just breath and the press of familiarity. Shauna blinks as she pulls away, then forces her lips back onto Jackie’s because that wasn’t enough. She deepens the kiss slowly, until it feels like muscle memory, like exhaling. Like stepping through a door she’s been standing in front of for years. Jackie’s pressing a hand into Shauna’s waist, pulling her just a little closer.
Jackie’s lips are warm by their fourth kiss, a little chapped from the cold. She tilts her head slightly and her thumb is now brushing along the curve of Shauna’s jaw, then curling under it. It’s intimate in a way that startles Shauna, even though she was expecting it. Jackie doesn’t tease or pull away or crack a joke, just tilts her chin up and sighs into her mouth. Shauna’s hands come up—one clutching lightly at Jackie’s shoulder, the other sliding into the space between them, unsure of where to go. She feels shaky, a little dazed, like her whole body is trying to memorize this.
Jackie shifts beneath her, drawing her in with both arms now, one sliding around her back. Her palm settles between Shauna’s shoulder blades, fingers splaying gently like she’s anchoring her there, like she doesn’t want her to float away. Shauna parts her lips slightly, and Jackie kisses her again, more assured this time. Her nose bumps Shauna’s cheek, then her hand starts to move. She pulls back slightly, eyes flicking up to meet Shauna’s, her mouth still inches away.
“I’m gonna—uh…”
Shauna nods before Jackie can finish. She’s not sure what she’s saying yes to, maybe just: you can.
Jackie swallows, then slides her hand under Shauna’s loose plaid shirt, still a little damp from the lake. Her palm is cold and clumsy, fingers brushing over Shauna’s stomach first, then higher, hesitating, then moving again. Shauna gasps into her mouth, a sound she doesn’t mean to make, and Jackie stills, but doesn’t stop. Her fingers trace the curve of Shauna’s waist, slow and hesitant, like she’s memorizing it. She grazes the bottom edge of her bra with her knuckles, and her other hand tightens around Shauna’s back.
Shauna exhales shakily, her forehead pressed to Jackie’s. She’s never let anyone touch her like this, not Jeff, not really. Shauna closes her eyes. She thinks she’s supposed to feel scared, or embarrassed, or at least just weird, but she doesn’t. She just feels Jackie’s hand, and the way her body reacts like it remembers this too, all the times they got close and stopped just short.
Then Jackie is sliding her hand, cautiously, under Shauna’s bra, and Shauna groans, raggedly. Her thighs press into Jackie’s hip bones. Jackie freezes.
Shauna feels it, and pulls back half an inch, her lips slick and swollen, breath catching with embarassment. Her voice is a whisper. “Sorry, you—”
“I didn’t mean—” Jackie starts, her cheeks flushed, her hand already retreating.
“No,” Shauna says quickly. She grabs Jackie’s wrist before she can pull away completely. “It’s okay. Just—” She searches Jackie’s face. “You can keep going.”
Jackie huffs out a nervous laugh. “Okay.”
Shauna’s mouth opens, but she doesn’t know what she’s about to say, so she kisses her again instead. Jackie’s fingers curl around the back of her neck, pulling her closer again, but Shauna hesitates. She doesn’t know why. It’s not that she doesn’t want to keep kissing Jackie. It’s that something in her is holding back, like this could be the moment that things change for real. She feels exposed.
The sound of the cabin door creaks open, and for a split second, Shauna’s heart stops. There’s a voice, clear and bright and totally unwelcome:
“Hey, Jackie. I saved us a couple spots by the window.”
Shauna jerks back, her pulse racing as she pulls away, but Jackie doesn’t immediately react. She’s still looking at her, a little breathless, her lips parted. Shauna can see the flash of confusion cross her face before she registers the voice. Mari’s standing there, at the edge of the porch, completely oblivious. She glances at Jackie, then over to Shauna sat on her lap, shirt hiked up, who feels like her whole face is burning. She tries to adjust herself, pulling her knees up and clambering off awkwardly.
Jackie, still breathing a little fast, doesn’t seem nearly as rattled. Instead, she flashes Mari a girl next door smile, almost too blinding in its brilliance. “Oh, I told Shauna she could sleep next to me tonight.”
Shauna’s stomach drops. She can feel her heartbeat. She doesn’t know if it’s because of what Jackie just said, or the fact that she’s pretty sure she’s going to die right here on the porch.
Mari shrugs, not catching the undertones at all. “Alright, cool. I’ll save the best spot for you guys.” She pauses, then adds, “Not sure what kind of game you’re playing with that whole ‘next to me’ thing, though.”
Jackie’s eyes widen, but she recovers quickly. “Definitely reading too much into it.”
Mari doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, she just grins. “Whatever you say.”
She turns and heads back inside, the door swinging closed behind her, leaving the two of them alone again. For a moment, neither of them says anything.
Shauna finally exhales, almost relieved. “That was close.”
Jackie runs a hand through her hair, chuckling nervously. “Yeah. Well. I wasn’t planning on being that obvious.”
Shauna smiles, though her heart is still pounding in her chest. “I think you made your point.”
Jackie looks at her, her face softening. “I meant what I said, though.”
Shauna’s breath catches. She can’t tell if that’s the thing that’s just keeping them on the edge, or if Jackie’s words mean something more now.
“Yeah?” Shauna asks.
Jackie nods, a small, almost shy smile tugging at her lips. “Yeah. You’re gonna sleep next to me tonight. If that’s okay with you.”
“Okay,” Shauna says softly, her voice almost a whisper. “That’s… okay.”