Chapter Text
Shauna lay next to Jackie, their bodies intertwined. In this moment, the feeling of Jackie’s house being a second home to Shauna came flooding back. She hadn’t felt it in forever, and it felt deliciously refreshing. Jackie leaned in closer to Shauna, their noses just centimeters apart.
“I love you, Shipman.” Jackie breathed, and Shauna could feel the adoration on her lips as the words rolled off her tongue.
“I love you too, Jax.” Shauna replied, butterflies working overtime in her stomach. Jackie climbed over her, settling in a straddle over Shauna’s waist, and she planted a soft kiss on Shauna’s cheek. “If I could do it all over again, I would pick you in every universe.” Jackie muttered, pressing more kisses to Shauna’s open and inviting lips.
“So would I.” Shauna said, without pausing to think about what she was saying. Her body fit with Jackie’s like the last pieces of a puzzle, and everything about being with her felt right. Everything about kissing her felt right. It felt like home.
“Promise me you’ll love me forever.” Jackie whispered, breath hot on Shauna’s ear. “I’ll love you forever.” Shauna vowed, loving the feeling such a heavy promise gave her. She had given herself away. She was Jackie’s, and Jackie was hers.
“You’re my candy cane, my sugar blossom. I want to write you love letters every day.” Jackie laughed, melting into Shauna like a popsicle in the height of summer. “You’re my caramel apple jelly bean, and I want to write you love letters every day.” Shauna replied.
Shauna closed her eyes, feeling the sensation of Jackie’s feather-light touch ripple throughout her body.
“Open your eyes, Shipman.” Jackie hummed, laying a tentative finger on her cheek and caressing it.
Shauna’s eyelids fluttered open, but instead of sweet Jackie on top of her, it was Jeff.
“Hey, Shipman. Why the fuck are you thinking about my girlfriend that way?” Shauna jumped, and screamed so loud that Jeff faded away and she woke up in a cold sweat, pajamas and sheet drenched.
She sat up, desperate to catch her breath, and kicked off the covers frantically, gulping down the glass of water on her nightstand in only a few seconds. Her mind begged to process what she had just seen, but she refused, and pushed everything about her dream deep down.
Barely recovered, Shauna stumbled over to her bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, wiping it off with a towel along with the sweat on her forehead. She tied her hair back and was just about to eat breakfast when the doorbell rang.
When she opened the door, none other than the co-star of her dream stood in front of her.
Shit.
“Uh, hey, Jeff.” Shauna said awkwardly, not able to shake the memory of opening her eyes to his face on top of hers. She was worried she would never be able to look at him again.
“Hey, Shauna. So, Jackie and I are going to the movies on Friday, yeah?”
“Well, yeah. That’s what it said in the note.” Shauna said, confused. “I know, I just….” Jeff trailed off, leaning against the door frame in a desperate attempt to appear casual. “Can you tell me what to say to her so that she’ll want to be my girlfriend?”
Shauna took a step back, not expecting this from Jeff at all. He seemed so confident, is this what he was really like? Awkward and unsure of himself?
“I mean, she likes you a lot, Jeff. Just say whatever, leave me out of it. I already wrote that stupid note for you.” She was about to shut the door in his face, but he held it open with a firm hand.
“Come on, Shauna. Just tell me what she likes and stuff. And stuff I can talk to her about. Please.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll give you a list of some talking points tomorrow.” Shauna grumbled, turning to shut the door as Jeff walked down the front steps. “Appreciate it!” He yelled as he headed down the driveway.
Did he though? Did he appreciate all of Shauna’s time that she was wasting writing stupid notes for Jeff so that Jackie would believe him to be someone he’s not? Jeff didn’t deserve Jackie. He couldn’t even come up with one thing to talk about with the girl he supposedly loved so much. Asshole.
***
On Friday, Shauna showed up at Jackie’s house just as she was coming out of her house, the evening light hitting her perfectly again. For a moment, Shauna let herself believe that she was picking Jackie up so that they could go on a date together. She thought of her dream.
Jackie slid into the passenger seat, ejecting the cassette tape Shauna was listening to. Shauna almost pouted, but she let Jackie have her way. They were heading to her date, after all.
“Thanks for driving me.” Jackie spoke, re-applying lipgloss in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, for sure. What are you guys going to see?” “I don’t know yet. Jeff said he’s surprising me!”
Shauna thought back to the list she had given him, and hoped he had taken note of Jackie’s awfully mainstream taste in movies. Not like Jeff would pick anything weirder than Jackie would like anyway. “Let me know how it is.” Shauna said, before the ride descended into silence again, only the faint sounds of Jackie’s cassette of choice in the background.
“Hey, Shipman?” Jackie said, hesitantly, like she was scared of what Shauna might answer. “Yeah?”
“Why has everything been so awkward lately?”
“I don’t know.” Shauna answered honestly, picking at the rubber steering wheel cover. “Do you…” Jackie trailed off. “You don’t… you don’t like Jeff, do you?”
Shauna stopped, so appalled she started laughing and almost ran a red light. “No, I definitely do not like Jeff.”
Deep down, she wished she did. It would be such an easy reason for the tension between her and Jackie. “Okay.” Jackie said, fidgeting with the strap of her purse. “Good.” She quickly added, as if she didn’t know what to answer.
Both girls were still after that.
***
One hour and forty-five minutes had never felt longer than it did as Shauna sat in her car, patiently waiting for Jackie to emerge from the theater. When they had arrived, Shauna had watched as Jackie ran up to Jeff, who was waiting at the box office, and as he draped his letterman jacket around her shoulders as they walked in. She was growing bored, and the quiet car left her alone with her thoughts. She hadn’t bothered to load a tape.
Shauna closed her eyes and tried to immerse herself in the alternate timeline she created earlier. In this timeline, she walked up to the box office with Jackie, and they ask for two tickets as Shauna offers her own letterman jacket to Jackie, who happily accepts it. They walked in, ordered one pail of popcorn and one coke to share, and they took turns dipping their fingers in the bucket and pressing their lips to the straw, their respective lipglosses mixing on the tip of it. If it’s a comedy, they laugh together, if it’s a romance, they hold each other’s hands endearingly, and if it’s a horror, squeamish Jackie leaps into Shauna’s lap at a particularly startling jumpscare. She stays in her lap for the rest of the movie, and some old man in the row behind them would tell them to get a room. They’d giggle about that, and reference it as an inside joke for ages.
Is Jackie inside right now, making those memories with Jeff that should be Shauna’s? Shauna felt pathetic, sitting there in the car, single and all alone otherwise, dreaming about a ‘date’ that would never happen. Maybe Jackie was right, maybe she should find a boyfriend. If she had a boyfriend, they could go on double dates with Jackie and Jeff. But that wasn’t really what she wanted.
What did she want?
Eventually, Jackie emerged from the theater, holding hands with Jeff and grinning ear to ear. Jeff waved goodbye to her as she walked towards Shauna, opening the passenger door and getting in. She leaned back against the seat, looking tired but on cloud nine.
“How was it?” Shauna asked, pulling out of her parking spot as Jackie buckled herself in.
“Really good,” Jackie said, cheeks still glowing as she buckled herself in. “Good,” Shauna replied curtly, pressing her lips into a smile and keeping her eyes fixed on the road. “He gave me his jacket, isn’t that romantic? He said I could keep it until his game on Tuesday.” Jackie beamed. Shauna hadn’t even noticed Jeff’s letterman jacket tied around her waist until then. The blue and yellow showing Wiskayok Yellowjackets team spirit clashed with the pink and red of her dress, but she was too giddy to notice. Shauna couldn’t get over it.
Jackie was wearing her boyfriend’s letterman jacket. Jackie had a boyfriend.
“Hey, are you okay?” Jackie suddenly spoke, turning away from the open window and towards Shauna. She let her eyes fall closed for a moment at a lazy red light, the crisp air washing over her as she avoided answering Jackie’s question.
“Yeah, I’m just tired,” Shauna said, contemplating faking a yawn to prove her point. She probably was tired. She stayed up late trying to finish a project, and was torn out of sleep by that dream. It made perfect sense.
“Wanna sleep over?” Jackie asked, reaching her hand out of the window and letting her fingers run wild against the breeze. “My parents are out of town. Unless you’re too tired.” Jackie let the last words roll off her tongue with an air of disbelief. Like she knew something Shauna didn’t about the real reason she felt off.
“Yeah, sure,” Shauna murmured, reaching the intersection just in time to turn towards the Taylors.
***
To her surprise, being back in Jackie’s bedroom felt more like her dream than it had the day she had gotten Jeff’s phone call. The girls lay lazily on Jackie’s floral bedspread, both of them still in their clothes from earlier, even though it was already eleven.
Jackie seemed peaceful in the silence between them, eyes flitting between open and closed absentmindedly. Shauna’s, however, felt like they were stuck open, eyelids glued to brows, watching as Jackie fell asleep. Shauna slowly got up, tiptoeing over to the lightswitch on the other side of the room, trying not to wake Jackie’s sleeping figure.
“Shauna?” Jackie mumbled, stirring as the lamp clicked off.
“Yeah?” Shauna replied, standing frozen at the wall instead of returning to the bed.
“Jeff tried to kiss me during the movie.” Shauna blinked at the darkness, eyes barely adjusted, only Jackie’s outline visible.
“Oh?” Shauna croaked out, not knowing what else to say. What did she expect? People kissed each other on dates. Whatever.
“It was like, so weird,” she continued. Even though Shauna couldn’t see her face, she knew the expression she was making, her eyes getting wider and her mouth forming a smirk. “Like, do you remember when we used to make out with the guys on our posters?” She let out a sharp laugh. “And we thought that if we did that, we’d be prepared for real boys?”
Shauna could barely force out a nod.
“We were, like, dead wrong. Because, you know, the poster guys can’t kiss us back. We could just do whatever we wanted on them, and it’s not like they could tell you if you sucked at it. But Jeff wanted to lead, and he wanted to do stuff to me, y’know, and it was just different.” Shauna hummed, trying to force disinterest so she would change topics. She wanted to stop talking about Jeff and kissing and all the topics that were becoming all too common in Jackie & Shauna land, and go to bed. Fall asleep next to Jackie and wake up next to her and pretend for nine hours that they were little.
“God, Shipman, I’m trying to talk to you here! It’s crazy how it took me having a date with a guy for us to finally talk about boys.” Shauna could hear the squeaking of the mattress and the ruffling of the duvet as Jackie turned onto her side, facing the wall. Shauna sighed, and walked back over to the bed, tucking herself in and then turning towards Jackie.
“Sorry.” Shauna whispered, sliding lower into the bed so that only her head peeked out the top. Jackie turned back around, stony faced. “I just want advice.” Jackie finally spoke, looking down at her feet.
“Come on, Jax, you know I’m not the person you should be asking about shit like this. I’ve kissed about as many guys as you have. Ask Nat or something.” “But you’re my best friend, I just thought.. I don’t know, you could, like, help me practice or something?”
“What do you mean, help you practice?” Shauna stuttered, her stomach freezing and the frost spreading to her face. Flashbacks of her dream played in her mind; Jackie’s legs straddled over her abdomen, her soft fingertips on her cheek, every word coming out of her mouth sounding like a dream. “Like, I don’t know, I could kiss you, and you could tell me if I’m as bad as Jeff thought?” The words came out of Jackie’s mouth quick and breathless, her cheeks heating up as she pushed the covers off her shoulders.
Before Shauna even got a word in, Jackie interjected. “I mean, no, that was really dumb. I don’t know why I said that. Sorry.” She desperately tried to evade Shauna’s gaze as she turned around to face the wall again, leaving Shauna with her thoughts. Should she say something back?
“No, that wasn’t stupid, Jax.” Shauna might say, resting a hand on Jackie’s shoulder, waiting for her to turn back around and do what she said she would do to her. Waiting for her tentative lips to meet hers, just like in her dream, trying to remember each detail, just for her to tell Jackie she was a good kisser either way. To tell her that if Jeff didn’t see that, didn’t feel that, then he was a dick. God, Shauna would love any excuse to call Jeff exactly what he was to someone else. And then Jackie would agree, and she would be all hers, forever.
On this note, Shauna fell into an uneasy sleep.