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Shauna shudders awake.
Even though the weather has finally started to get warmer, the cold morning air is what wakes Shauna each day. Before, she would rise with the sun, but ever since they lost their cabin, Shauna has practically forgotten the meager warmth the rotted wooden walls provided.
It doesn’t really matter, though. It’s not like she manages to get much sleep, even before when they had the luxury of shelter. No, Shauna spends her nights lying on the half-frozen dirt, covering herself in one of the blankets they managed to salvage from the fire, staring at the thousands of stars above her.
Before, Shauna would have killed to see a sky full of stars, pointing out constellations to Jackie, who would roll her eyes and tell Shauna that she doesn’t get why she’s so obsessed with things that men from a thousand years ago had to say because they were wrong about almost everything, and Shauna would shrug off these comments because she knows that Jackie would be just as amazed as she is.
But it’s different now. Now, the starry sky is nothing but a reminder that she is not home and that she will never go home again.
Finally, sunlight begins to creep through the thick brush surrounding them, the black sky fading into a dark orange.
She gets herself to sit up, glancing around her. As usual, Shauna is the only girl awake at this time. The others are able to find moments of rest by huddling together for warmth, holding each other through nightmares — things that Shauna used to partake in with Jackie, but not anymore. Whenever one of the other girls tries to help her through the night, Shauna is only reminded of what she no longer has. And so she yells, because otherwise they won’t go away. It’s been a long while since one of them has tried to reach out to her. Perhaps Shauna’s finally screamed at them enough for them to get the message.
Her stomach grumbles furiously. It’s been days since they’ve eaten. On the rare occasion, Nat and Travis will end up finding some game scurrying through the woods. It’s gotten a little easier now that the snow has started to melt.
Letting out a shaky breath, Shauna manages to stand up, her torn-up boots barely sinking into the ground underneath her. She lazily throws her blanket, which has been slowly absorbing the melting snow, atop of her makeshift bed against the tree. She’s purposefully made her bed further away from the others.
She decides that she will make use of this morning to herself. It’s no use to mope around and Shauna doesn’t want to be near the other girls right now anyway. So, after taking one last look to ensure that no one else is awake, Shauna begins to venture off into the woods.
The light layer of snow crunches beneath her boots as Shauna drags one foot in front of the other, walking somewhere that only she knows, somewhere that if one of Lottie’s freaks found out about, Shauna would truly lose even more than everything she’s already lost. She huffs out a breath and walks right into the mist it leaves behind. Over the past couple of weeks, she’s been hearing the sounds of birds tweeting to each other. Another sign for her, she guesses, that the nightmarish winter is almost over.
As she walks, she lets her mind wander. If winter is over, that means that they’ve been out here for almost a full year. A full year of their families praying for their safety, a full year of rescue operations. She wouldn’t be surprised if civilization thought the Yellowjackets had all starved. Shauna thinks that would have been better than what they’d actually done to survive.
She wonders what she missed back in Wiskayok — not much, probably, but still. She hopes her mother has finally sold the junkie van they’ve had since before Shauna was even born, she hopes that her mother doesn’t spend too much time thinking about her, she hopes that her older brother has come home to look after her mother. She wonders about Jackie’s family. A part of her hopes she doesn’t make it out of this hellhole so she doesn’t have to face them. She can’t face them, not after what she’s done.
Suddenly then, the sound of snow crunching reaches Shauna’s ears from behind her instead of below her. Crap. Stupidly, she didn’t bring any sort of weapon with her — she figured it was still too cold for bears and there wasn’t much else out here that could kill her, but perhaps her exhaustion has taken quite a toll on her critical thinking, and now she’s going to be mauled alive by a bear.
She could scream. The girls would come running, maybe. Then again, maybe this is the wilderness’ way of giving her a twisted, quick way out. Maybe she should take the bait. The cold air around her seems to become warmer as she indulges in this thought, her breathing becomes softer, and finds a sense of peace taking over her. She wants the bear to take her to her son. To Jackie.
And so, Shauna carefully spins around, ready to agitate the creature behind her, only to see — not a bear, not even an animal at all — it’s Natalie, rifle slung over her shoulder, her brown roots beginning to peek through her bleached hair. At this, Shauna tenses again. Was she being followed?
“What the hell are you doing, Shauna?” Natalie asks her, remaining in her spot. Good thinking.
“Taking a walk,” Shauna says point-blank, because she is . “Why the hell were you following me, Nat?”
“I wasn’t ,” Natalie snaps. “You’re in my hunting path.”
“Where’s Travis?” Shauna asks. Travis always hunts with Natalie. They’re the only good shots in the entire group. It’s strange for him to let Nat go out on her own.
Natalie frowns, and Shauna knows why Travis is absent. Weeks ago, they were starving. They drew cards. Nat had drawn the queen, but Travis’s brother, Javi, got in the way.
They didn’t have a choice. The wilderness took what it wanted from them. It happened to be Javi.
Shauna doesn’t want to think about this any more. She looked after Javi as her own because Travis was always too busy screwing Nat. And then they made her deal with him after he died.
Returning the frown on Natalie’s face, Shauna turns back around and continues to walk forwards. She can hear Nat’s footsteps behind her, so it seems that she is going to be followed for the rest of her walk. If it was any other girl, Shauna would be defensive and tell them to just leave her alone, but Nat is different with her. Unlike Lottie or Tai, Nat actually knows when to just shut up — which around Shauna is all the time. She doesn’t care if Nat ends up following Shauna to her destination. She won’t tell.
The two walk in silence, Nat keeping her pace behind Shauna, occasionally stopping to check behind trees and bushes for any sign of game they can replenish themselves with. Nothing. Shauna hopes they won’t have to draw cards again any time soon.
More time passes with the two girls trudging alongside each other in silence until Shauna finally comes to a pause.
It seems that Nat has recognized the place immediately. Just weeks ago, all of the team stood here, watching their only shelter burn down to the ground. The giant pile of ash has dissipated by now, covered by the snow, spread across the forest through the wind. The place is quite eerie, being a large clearing in the middle of such a densely-packed forest. Now, it’s almost as if the girls had never been here at all.
A large evergreen tree lies in front of them, its branches so wide it shields them from the cold weather surrounding them. There is no blanket of snow underneath this tree, only dirt. Against the trunk lie three large stones, two stacked and the other right next to them on the dirt. Carefully, attempting to keep this dirt visible, Shauna kneels on the ground in front of the tree. She can feel Nat’s eyes on her from behind.
“Shauna, is this—”
“Don’t tell the others,” is all Shauna tells her.
“Of course ,” Nat says. “I won’t.”
Then, as if Shauna invited Nat to join her in her mourning, Nat kneels down next to her and awkwardly puts her arm around her shoulder. At this, Shauna flinches away immediately. She didn’t expect Nat of all people to try this kind of stuff with her.
“Sorry,” Nat mumbles. “Just— I know what it’s like. To lose someone that important to you.”
Shauna eyes her. She doesn’t want to hear Natalie Scatorccio try and sympathize with her right now. All she cared about before the crash was smoking and drinking, so Shauna doubts she was even close enough with anyone to know about loss. Nat continues, “Look, I know we don’t talk much, but—”
“Don’t you have to hunt?” Shauna interrupts, frowning.
Nat gives her a long stare before getting up. “I’ll see you back at camp.”
Shauna doesn’t watch Nat leave.
Finally, she is alone again. She looks at the makeshift graves in front of her. After her baby died, Shauna managed to take him and she dented enough of the ground with one of their shovels to place him in the hole. She had to do this at night, while the others were busy worshipping Lottie’s crazy wilderness cult, otherwise she would be chastised. According to Lottie, the baby’s death was a blessing, the wilderness had taken it as a sacrifice and that they would soon be rewarded. And so before the “celebration” that Lottie had planned, Shauna knew she had to lay her son to rest before the other girls got their hands on him.
“Hey, kid,” she says, touching the dirt below her. “It’s been a while.”
She doesn’t know why she’s expecting an answer.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe. I should’ve…”
Shauna doesn’t exactly know what she should have done. It isn’t really her fault that she was malnourished. She knows this, yet she feels like she failed her son. “You were mine. Not Lottie’s. Not the wilderness’. I — I’m sorry I let it take you from me.”
She leans forwards and touches the rock with her forehead. She still remembers how he felt in her arms, how he cried and slept. “I’m so sorry,” she says again. “You didn’t deserve this, Jack.”
“Jack?” a voice says, causing Shauna to jump in fear, instinctively wrapping her arms around her baby’s stone. It’s not Natalie’s voice — it’s not any of the girls’ voices from back at camp. Shauna feels a pit growing in her stomach as she sets the stone back down and looks to her left, only to see Jackie Taylor standing above her, arms crossed. “You named your baby after me?”
“What are you doing here?” Shauna ignores her, already feeling her throat closing up at the sight of her best friend. She’s dressed in the clothes she froze in — her yellow and blue baseball jacket with a yellowjacket sewed over her heart, her striped blue t-shirt, her dirty black jeans, and her necklace. Her necklace . Shauna’s eyes fixate on it, remembering when Jackie had given it to her on the plane as a good luck charm. It didn’t seem to work, did it?
“Isn’t this for me?” Jackie asks, gesturing to the two rocks stacked on top of each other, next to the baby’s grave. Shauna grimaces. There wasn’t a body to bury for Jackie, but she needed to honour her somehow — definitely not in whatever twisted way that Lottie wanted to — and so she’d made Jackie a grave as well. “Shipman?”
The nickname causes Shauna’s heart to pound. She doesn’t want to deal with Jackie right now. Maybe she’ll go away if Shauna just asks her to — this is the first time she’s seen her since… “Could you just leave me alone for once?”
Jackie scoffs. “You think I wanna be here, Shipman? The afterlife is a lot better than this. You wanted me to show up.”
“No I didn’t,” Shauna insists.
“Then I would be gone.”
Shauna doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look in Jackie’s direction. It’s hard to look at her, after what she’s done. Instead, she tries to focus on her baby, hoping that Jackie will get the message and just leave, like she did the night she died.
“You have some nerve,” Jackie says, joining Shauna on the ground. “Naming the baby you had with my boyfriend after me.”
“I didn’t name him after you,” Shauna lies, keeping her gaze fixated on the stone in front of her.
“And you didn’t sleep with my boyfriend either, right?” Jackie cocks her head playfully, forcing Shauna to look at her. Shauna glances at Jackie’s eyes and looks away immediately, feeling the pit in her stomach grow larger. “Just admit it. You’re obsessed with me.”
“I’m not,” Shauna grumbles, pushing Jackie away from her. She stands up, not wanting to ruin any more of her baby’s grave. Maybe it’s a good time to head back. “Just leave me alone.”
As Shauna begins to walk back to camp, Jackie appears in front of her. “No,” she says, giving Shauna a wicked smile. “We’re not done.”
Shauna tries to step around her, but Jackie shifts again, always reappearing in her path. “I mean, come on, Jeff? ” Jackie asks. “You just couldn’t resist what was mine, could you?”
“He wasn’t yours,” Shauna retorts. “You didn’t even like him.”
Jackie widens her eyes, taking mock offense at Shauna’s truthful words. “You just don’t want to admit that you stole him and got knocked up.”
Shauna clenches her jaw, suddenly feeling hotter in her bundles of sweaters. “It wasn’t like that. It just — it just happened.”
“Just happened?” Jackie rolls her eyes. “What, you tripped and fell on his—”
“Shut up,” Shauna says.
“No, I’m serious,” Jackie’s voice softens, almost as if she’s actually curious as to how Shauna even ended up with Jeff. “Was it just like — oops , and then suddenly nine months later you’ve got a baby named after me?”
“I didn’t name him after you,” Shauna repeats.
“Sure you didn’t,” Jackie says. “Just like you couldn’t stop thinking about me. Not even after you killed me.”
At this, Shauna practically snaps. “I didn’t kill you!” she wails, her voice cracking on every word. She sucks in a breath, the cold air stinging her nose as it fills her lungs.
Jackie raises an eyebrow, eyeing her intensely. “Oh, Shauna. Didn’t you?”
Shauna decides there’s no point in holding her breath. She doesn’t say anything to Jackie, because she knows that she’s right. She tries to swallow the lump in her throat.
“You let me walk out of there,” Jackie circles her, arms crossed.
“I didn’t know it was going to snow,” Shauna says — something she’s been telling herself since Jackie died.
“You watched me shivering from the window,” Jackie practically snarls. “You could’ve come get me. But you didn’t, did you? No, you just left me to die . And, for what? Jeff?”
“No!” Shauna shakes her head, struggling to hold herself together. “I — I didn’t — I don’t want Jeff!”
“No? But you sure as hell wanted me ,” Jackie yells, stopping right in front of Shauna, so close to her that Shauna can almost feel the chilliness radiating off of her skin, like she’s forever frozen. Shauna tenses, her heart absolutely pounding out of her chest. She falters — she hasn’t had enough nutrition to handle the panic she feels right now.
Shauna lets out a meek cry. “You’re wrong.”
Jackie sneers. “You really think I couldn’t tell? You looked at me like I was the goddamn moon, Shauna. But you couldn’t have me. Is that why you stole him?”
Shauna’s breath hitches. “Just — just shut up! I didn’t steal him! You — you’re not even real !”
“I’m as real as everything you did,” Jackie says, “everything you pretend you didn’t.”
Shauna grabs her own arms, holding herself together like she’s trying to physically keep everything inside of her. “You’re not real. I haven’t eaten in days, you’re not—”
“Not what?” Jackie interrupts. “Not saying what you’ve already thought a hundred times? You think I’m saying anything you don’t already believe? You made me up, Shauna. You made me say it .”
Shauna’s eyes snap to the snow beneath them. “Stop it.”
“You killed me. You stole my boyfriend. And worst of all,” Jackie tilts her head, coming closer to her, giving her an insulting pout, “you loved me, and didn’t even have the guts to tell me.”
Shauna turns around and heads back to the grave, thinking that if she brings Jackie closer to it, she’ll go back into it, or something. Instead, she finds herself on the ground, across from her baby’s grave again. Shauna grabs her hair. “I didn’t want any of this,” she says, starting to shake.
Jackie crouches down beside Shauna, lightly running her fingers across the stones marking her grave. “Then why did you do it?”
“I don’t know, okay!” Shauna shouts, her voice bouncing off the trees like the wilderness is repeating it back to her. “I — I was scared, okay? I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t even know what it was. I never wanted to hurt you.”
Jackie doesn’t say anything to her.
There’s a silence between them, one that stretches on for so long Shauna almost forgets that Jackie is there. A light flurry begins to fall around them. Then, Jackie speaks, not in the same mocking tone as before. Her voice is soft, warm, like how Shauna wishes she could go back to. “Do you miss me?”
Shauna swallows hard. “Every second.”
Jackie nods, satisfied. “Good.”
And then she’s gone.
Shauna brings her knees to her face, suddenly alone in the quiet, the grief crashing down all at once like the blizzard she let Jackie freeze in. Her breath catches in her throat, stuck somewhere between a gasp and a scream, and she can’t hold it in any longer. A sob rips out of her, raw, like it’s been hiding in her this whole time.
And then another.
And another.
The kind of crying that makes her keel over, that takes her whole body with her. It’s like she’s finally realizing that there isn’t any getting away from this — she can’t fight her way through it. There’s no solution, no way to make it better. Her baby is dead. Jackie is dead. And it’s her fault. All of it is her fault.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to herself. “I’m so sorry, Jackie. I didn’t mean for you — I didn’t mean—”
Her hands grip her knees tighter, trying to shield her face from the snowflakes now falling atop of the graves. “I’m so sorry I let you go.”
She continues to sob, managing to speak in between her hitched breaths. “I thought — I thought if I named him after you, it — it would mean something — that I could protect a part of you — but I couldn’t even do that .
“You were right ,” Shauna admits, a small part of her hoping that at this confession, Jackie will reappear to comfort her, but she doesn’t. “You were right about everything , Jackie. I’m a liar. I’m a coward. I — I don’t deserve to still be alive.”
There’s a crunch behind her. Shauna freezes, too exhausted to pretend like she’s okay. She doesn’t care who finds her any more, even if it’s Lottie.
“Shauna?”
It’s Natalie.
She hears a number of fast crunches behind her until Natalie is at her side, looking at her nervously. “Shauna, what — talk to me .”
Shauna shakes her head, tears still spilling down her face. “I don’t deserve to.”
Nat doesn’t flinch. “You think I haven’t felt like that before?”
At this, Shauna lifts her head to face Nat. Her face is red and blotchy, wet with her tears. “I killed her, Nat,” she sobs. “I let her freeze to death all alone. I — I watched her walk out of the door and I didn’t even try to stop her.”
Natalie awkwardly rubs Shauna’s back, trying to comfort her. “You couldn’t have known it was gonna snow.”
“She died thinking I hated her,” Shauna ignores Nat. “And — I did, sometimes — for — for being perfect, and for seeing through me, and — and for not loving me the way I loved her.”
Natalie’s expression doesn’t change at this confession. She just nods, like she understands. Because she does.
Shauna keeps going. “And now my baby’s gone, and I don’t know who I am anymore. I — I don’t know how to be a person anymore.”
“You don’t have to know right now,” Natalie assures her. She shifts closer, hovering her hand above Shauna’s shoulder, unsure whether to touch. “You just have to survive.”
Shauna leans into her, still trembling, her tears now slowing down. Natalie keeps her arm around her, steady even as Shauna isn’t. The snow continues to fall around them.
After a long moment, Natalie speaks.
“My dad accidentally shot himself when I was fifteen,” she admits.
Shauna pulls herself back to look at Natalie. Another wave of guilt washed over her at the realization that Shauna jumped too quickly to judge her. Shauna bites her lip apologetically.
“I — he was — not good to my mom, and I thought he was gonna do something, and he grabbed the gun from me and—” Nat sputters. “I hated him, too. For being drunk all the time, for hurting me and my mom. I still do. Grief’s weird like that.”
Shauna’s grasp tightens around her knees. “I see her. Jackie. Like she’s real.”
“She is,” Nat says. “To you, she is.”
“I keep thinking if I’d just went to get her,” Shauna cries.
“You can ‘what if’ yourself to death,” Natalie tells her. “Trust me. I’ve done it.”
Shauna presses her face into her hands again. “Everything I touch just dies .”
Natalie doesn’t respond right away. She looks at the trees, at the snow, taking in the silence around them. Then, she swallows and says, “That’s not true. You loved Jackie. Even when you hated her.”
“I loved her so much,” Shauna cries.
“I know.”
Again, silence falls between them. Shauna shakes every few seconds, Natalie rubs her back. “You didn’t kill her, Shauna. The cold did. The wilderness did. We — we’ve all made mistakes.”
Although she doesn’t quite believe it, Shauna nods slowly, her lips trembling. “I just wish she’d come back. Just for a second — so I could tell her.”
Natalie exhales. “I think she knows.”
Shauna turns her head, resting it on Nat’s shoulder. Her voice is barely audible now. “Does it ever get easier?”
Nat shrugs, her breath fogging in the air. “You learn to live with the hole. You don’t ever fill it — just learn to carry it better.”
For a brief moment, in the middle of their grief, their guilt, everything they’ve done, the two girls sit together in the snow. Two people who never asked for this, who never deserved it, and despite everything the wilderness has thrown at them, two people who are still here.
Still surviving.