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Shauna hadn’t spoken to Melissa for a couple of days now. It wasn’t like Melissa particularly minded the cold shoulder. She preferred to be away from the girl when she was being broody about something (and that happened a lot nowadays). It was just irritating how that cold shoulder came with lasting stares that shied away whenever Melissa looked back.
Although the emotional distance was there, it was hard to physically get away, considering they literally lived on a makeshift campground. So, despite the building tension in the air, Shauna and Melissa still did their chores together (preparing the game, fixing the teepees, etc). The tension finally broke on the third day, while they were fixing the dinner for that night (Gen had caught another duck).
Melissa knows what it’s like to be in comfortable silence. This was not it. Fed up with Shauna’s sudden vow of silence, Melissa spoke up.
“So like, why’d you choose to be the butcher?”
There was a beat of silence before Shauna processed that she was being spoken to.
“...what?”
“Well, Nat was the hunter because she can shoot, Mari’s the cook because she knows how. So why are you the butcher?”
Shauna blinks, answering with a hint of irritation in her voice, “Because someone needs to. Because otherwise, we’d all starve. Because no matter how good anyone in this place is at hunting, the food wouldn’t be prepared without me.”
Stumped at the straightforward, boring answer, Melissa continues, “Right. I was just wondering if you, like, had experience or something,”
Scoffing, Shauna retorts, “Yeah, because the days we didn’t have practice, I spent my time at the butcher shop on 1st Street,”
Melissa felt herself growing increasingly angry at Shauna’s own anger, slamming the meat back on the cutting board.
“Sorry for wanting to make conversation since you’ve refused to talk to me for days,” she shoots out bitterly.
She almost regrets it. Shauna isn’t someone you want to anger, Melissa (along with the rest of the team) knows that. But she’s fallen back into old habits. Back in Wiskayok, it would’ve been perfectly fine to confront someone like this, even Shauna. But Shauna was not the same, and this wasn’t Wiskayok.
She doesn’t regret it though. Not after seeing how Shauna reacts. She sets the knife down and turns to face Melissa. Surprisingly, there isn’t any rage present on her face. In fact, she looks vaguely impressed. She looks Melissa up and down, eyes stopping briefly at Melissa’s cargo shorts. Melissa shifts, feeling judged for her outfit choice.
Shauna finally speaks up, her voice calmer than it’s ever been, “Sorry. We can talk tomorrow, yeah?”
Caught off guard, Melissa takes this olive branch and runs with it.
“What about tonight?”
Shauna’s eyes flash with something, coming and going before Melissa can decipher what it was. She nods curtly and focuses her attention back on the duck. Understanding the moment is over, Melissa also gets back to work. She doesn’t want to push Shauna very far. They aren’t close enough for that. Yet.
The day goes by fast. Maybe the fastest it’s ever gone since the crash. Dinner is served without issue, Mari and Shauna keeping to themselves for once. After a brief delegation of the chores for tomorrow (which doesn’t apply to Shauna or Melissa because Shauna is always the butcher and Melissa is always assigned to Shauna), everyone heads to their teepees to sleep. But not Melissa. Melissa goes with Shauna to her tent (which is her personal tent because everyone else is too scared to sleep with her). Ignoring the curious glances Gen and Akilah give her, Melissa steps into the tent and closes the door.
They sit across from each other in silence. Melissa expects Shauna to break it, but it stretches on. Eventually, when it’s clear Shauna will not be leading the conversation, Melissa speaks up.
“So, about what happened the other day…did I, like, scare you off or something? I mean, I know Wiskayok, New Jersey isn’t exactly the best place to be gay, so if it’s about that, then I’m sorry I misread–”
“Stop,”
Melissa’s mouth shuts immediately at the command. She doesn’t really know what she’s saying, Why didn’t I plan this out beforehand? , but she just wants Shauna to know that, even if she’s not gay (Which Melissa is quite certain she is, considering they made out for like half an hour that day), Melissa still wants to make sure they were on alright terms.
Shauna speaks again, breaking Melissa from her train of thought, “It’s not the gay thing that’s the problem. I’m fine with that, the team’s fine with that, Jack-” she pauses, “ Everyone would be fine with that here. It’s just…”
Trailing off, Shauna looks more timid than she has been in months. She glances up from the floor, eyes darting to Melissa. She seems to be looking for something in her. And she apparently found it, as she continues speaking.
“The gay thing is fine,” she reiterated, “But it means that I would have to admit that–”
Her voice gets caught in her throat, face scrunching up in a way that Melissa might have found cute, if not for the circumstances.
“It means that I would have to admit I was in love with Jackie.”
The words rush out of Shauna, like a flood she had been holding back for ages. Melissa blinks. Okay, she’s no expert on love or anything. She’s never even been in a relationship. But she still has eyes. And her eyes told her that Shauna and Jackie were head over heels for each other. The entire team knows that. So how would Shauna not know? Melissa reaches a mortifying thought, Did Jackie not know either?
“Melissa?” Shauna’s voice sounded weak and vulnerable. Was she embarrassed?
“Sorry–sorry, I was just, um, thinking,” Melissa stammers out, “About you and Jackie.”
Taking a risk, she continues, “Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but, I thought you and Jackie were, like, already a thing?”
Shauna furrows her eyebrows. “No? She had a boyfriend. Jeff, remember?”
“Right, I just thought he was like her beard or something…” she trails off, realizing she sounds kinda stupid now.
“No. They were a couple, a real one. Jackie and I were never together. She loved me, but not the way I love her,” Her voice is insistent, like she’s trying to convince herself.
It also isn’t lost on Melissa how Shauna says love and not loved .
“Okay well. I know I didn’t really know her, but to me, it seemed like she loved you the same way you did,”
Shauna looks even more crushed at that revelation. She curls up into a ball, letting out broken cries. Melissa takes that as her cue to leave (she’s never been very good at comforting people). Bidding an awkward goodbye, she leaves the teepee.
It isn’t until she’s in her bed, next to Gen, that she realizes they didn’t really talk about the kiss at all. Just Jackie.