Chapter Text
Melissa knew Jackie wasn’t really there.
Jackie was a bag of bones nestled somewhere in the forest—Nat had refused to disclose the exact location, likely afraid that Shauna would dig them up and make necklaces out of her fingers or something—but she was out there.
Still, Melissa saw her often. First in dreams, which she chalked up to the guilt that comes with eating another human being’s decomposing corpse. Dream Jackie was silent and observant, eyeing the blonde with a curious softness that left unease in her chest each morning when she awoke. Melissa had tried to call out to her once, but the air died in her lungs, leaving her sputtering in quiet tension. She swore she saw Dream Jackie crack a smile at that.
But then she wasn’t dreaming, and Jackie was standing in front of her. Melissa yelped, stumbling back until her heels met an overturned log. She closed and opened her eyes rapidly, hoping to blink away this newfound manifestation of remorse, but the older girl remained, illuminated by the moonlight, head tilted to the side in amusement.
“You’re not real,” Melissa breathed out, her voice shaky and uncertain.
Jackie laughed at that—a deep, breathy chuckle that sounded unnervingly alive. She parted her lips as if to speak but said nothing, her eyes scanning Melissa’s own.
“You’re not real,” Melissa reaffirmed, more to herself than the other girl, closing her eyes and willing the hallucination away once more. When she opened them, Jackie remained.
“Stop it,” Melissa croaked desperately. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t—” her voice cracked, “I don’t know what you want from me.”
The older girl stopped laughing then, the grin on her face slipping into something solemn. She shook her head softly, taking a step forward and extending a cautious arm toward the blonde. Melissa froze, her body tensing up instinctively as the girl’s hand settled over her own, her touch soft and warm and real. Her breath hitched as Jackie’s fingers trailed along the length of her arm, delicately tracing over fresh and old bruises, eyes fixed on Melissa’s with a knowing look that left her feeling exposed and raw. Her fingertips faltered atop a particularly deep bite mark on the younger girl’s shoulder, and she let out a soft sigh, squeezing it gently.
Melissa ripped her arm away, scrambling backward until enough distance had been created between the two. She swallowed thickly, attempting to speak, but she suddenly felt as though she were back in her dreams, the words crawling up her chest and dying before they could meet her tongue. She let out a strangled mix between a gasp and a cry before turning on her heel and running into the night.
The trek back to camp was less than a mile but felt like ten with the way Melissa ran, her breaths coming out in sharp, ragged heaves by the time the huts came into view. She slowed down as she approached, taking note of the smell of smoke and not wanting to alarm the others with her urgency. She offered Gen a weak smile as she passed the bonfire, continuing on through camp until she arrived at the last place on earth she needed to be.
Shauna’s hut.
She couldn’t stop to think about it because the logical part of her brain would tell her off. Instead, she stepped forward, pushing aside the blanket draped over the hut’s entrance, and stumbled inside. She hovered in the doorway unsurely, gnawing at her bottom lip, her uncertainty growing as the seconds passed, until a gravelly voice bit through the silence.
“Thought you weren’t sleeping here tonight.”
“I wasn’t,” Melissa shot back immediately, eyes wandering Shauna’s unmoving form on the makeshift bed. Neither of them spoke. After a beat, “I’m not.”
“No?” Shauna mused, still facing away from the other girl, but Melissa could hear her smirk. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Melissa sighed, shuffling slowly toward the bed like a dog waiting for permission. Her voice was soft and pleading. “I can’t—do this right now,” her voice broke. “Can we just—go to bed?”
Shauna didn’t answer, allowing Melissa to bask in the humiliation and shame of her own request. But then she huffed, exaggeratedly so, before moving over slightly, offering up a tiny portion of the bed, her back still turned. Melissa took this gift with haste, sliding into the bed, careful not to touch the other girl, settling under the covers on her back.
“Knew you’d come back,” Shauna murmured, her sleepy state doing nothing to negate her usual snark.
“Yeah,” Melissa breathed, her eyes fixed on the hut ceiling. Silence enveloped them before she continued softly:
“Saw your girlfriend today.”
Shauna said nothing.