Chapter Text
Jackie Taylor
Okay, fine—I’ll admit it. I get a little sloppy when I drink. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? To shed my skin for a while, to stop being the curated version of myself and just be . Free. Unfiltered. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of alcohol and me mixing is that the concept of men becomes instantly repulsive. Boring. Like, painfully boring. Which isn’t exactly ideal considering I came to this party with my boyfriend.
Jeff Sadecki has this one vein in his forehead that pulses when he’s pissed. Right now it’s throbbing so hard it looks like it’s trying to escape his face. He’s saying something, but all I can do is stare at it in horrified fascination, like it’s a third eye threatening to open and judge me.
“I’m taking you home, Jackie.”
There it is. I frown, steadying my red cup on the edge of the deck railing like it’s the only thing keeping me grounded. “I don’t want to go home.” I knew I was being difficult— bratty , even, as people like to say—but honestly? I didn’t care.
Jeff’s hands are on his hips. Classic. I almost laugh—it’s such a ridiculous pose, like he’s about to scold a toddler. “Jackie, come on.”
“Jesus, Jeff. Leave me here, okay? I want to stay. I’ll get a cab. It’s the last summer of parties before school starts.” I wave him off, my eyes fixed on the endless dark sky. The stars don’t care if I’m being stubborn.
“I’m not leaving you here.”
I groan, leaning dramatically against the railing like I’m in some tragic play. Maybe I am.
“This is really annoying, Jackie,” he says, craning his neck to look me in the eye.
“I bet it is,” I mutter with a little laugh. Not exactly girlfriend-of-the-year material, I know. But I didn’t start out this way. And maybe— maybe —this wasn’t all Jeff’s fault.
We’d been together for a year. I liked the idea of a boyfriend. I liked the dinners, the shared milkshakes, and the convenience of a body next to mine when I walked at night. The illusion of safety. Even though, let’s be real, Jeff wouldn’t be able to stop anything if something did happen. I let him touch my boobs sometimes and just stared at the ceiling, wondering what on earth was supposed to feel good about it.
Lately, though, it had all started to feel like a very lonely game. Especially now that August was ending and he was getting weirdly intense about college—mostly because I refused to apply to the same school as him. I mean, seriously? Apply to a college just for a guy? Just to break up three months later and find myself stranded at some sports-centric hellhole?
I enrolled at Rutgers. Forty-five minutes from the College of New Jersey, where he was headed. Not exactly across the country . Still, he was panicking about some frat guy swooping in and stealing me. As if any guy has ever actually won me over. As if I’ve ever even wanted that.
Suddenly, it all felt unbearable. I couldn’t pretend anymore. I couldn’t sign up for a life that looked like this: weekend visits to Jeff’s smelly dorm, endless conversations about his communications major and baseball scholarship, and smiling through it like it didn’t feel like a slow death. I hadn’t even lived yet, and I was already stuck in someone else’s idea of what my life should be.
It was performance art gone bad. Date Jeff Sadecki. Smile on command. Don’t say how you really feel. Go to parties and absorb the insults like they’re just part of the scenery. Pretend to have friends, even though most of them whisper behind your back the second you leave the room.
And the future? God. I could see it already. A roommate who hated me silently. Passing each other in a dorm like ghosts. Walking across campus alone, surrounded by people but entirely unseen. That kind of loneliness? That kind of invisibility? It’s unbearable. I've always had people around me. But it’s suffocating, too, how none of them really see you. None of them even try .
“Jeff, I think we should break up,” I say, still staring out at the trees, the stars, anything but him.
His voice tightens. “Jackie, you can’t be serious. We can make long-distance work!”
“It’s not even long-distance. It’s forty minutes .” I rake a hand through my hair, suddenly aware of how tired I feel.
“Then why?”
I turn to him, slowly. “Jeff. Name five things about me.”
He blinks. Puzzled. It takes him a good thirty seconds to start.
“You like the color pink. Christmas is your favorite holiday. You play soccer. You like a lot of sugar in your coffee. And... you’re dating me.”
I flinch. It’s like he recited a Teen magazine quiz summary of me. Nothing real . But how could it be? I never really let him see anything real. I never let anyone see me. The idea of someone actually knowing me? Understanding me? It makes my stomach twist.
“Jeff, I can’t do this anymore,” is all I manage to say.
His face contorts—not just with frustration, but with something deeper, more wounded. He looks up at the sky like maybe it’ll offer him some kind of answer. Some permission to understand. “Just like that? After everything?”
I sigh, feeling the weight of it all in my chest. The silence between us is too loud, too sharp, so I lean forward and kiss his cheek. Not out of love—out of mercy. “I’m sorry. You deserve someone who makes you feel alive. Do I do that for you?”
It’s the most I’ve ever seen Jeff think . He pauses, and for a second, I wonder if he’ll lie to save himself. Instead, he says, “Yeah… when I win a game and I come to the stands and the prettiest girl in school is cheering for me? I feel pretty alive.”
There it is. Not me , but the image of me. A trophy. A symbol. A confirmation of his own worth. He liked the idea of being with me—the way it looked, the way it sounded, the way it made other people nod in approval. I was something shiny in his story, not a person with her own.
Well, fuck that. I don’t choose that anymore. I never really chose it to begin with. That version of me? She’s gone. I need to burn her down and rebuild something real. Something raw and honest.
He swallows. His voice is quieter now. “Do I… do I make you feel alive?”
My heart twists. Because Jeff—whatever he lacked in depth or imagination—he wasn’t mean. He wasn’t cruel. And not many men can say the same.
“You made me feel safe,” I say gently. “And sometimes… sometimes that’s better.”
He looks like he’s going to say something else, but I cut in, needing to finish before I lose my nerve.
“Listen, Jeff. This will be better for you. For both of us. I’ll call a friend, get a ride home. You go. Get some sleep. It’ll be okay.”
He studies me for a long moment, like he’s trying to memorize something he knows he’ll lose. Then he shakes his head, more to himself than at me, and turns—slowly—walking toward the driveway.
And I did the one thing I hadn’t expected.
I started to cry.
Natalie Scattorcio
The dying sounds of a party felt like a warm hug. There was something comforting about the slow, lazy chatter of the people who stayed too long—like they weren’t quite ready to let the night go. Red plastic cups littered the floor like relics of chaos, a reminder of the ones who were here just hours ago. The loud, sweaty mess of people who got drunk, hooked up in closets, and puked in the bathroom had finally cleared out. What was left behind was softer. Quieter. More interesting.
I liked this part. I always found the most human moments in the dying embers of a party.
It helped, too, that it wasn’t my house. I wouldn’t have to deal with the aftermath. As if I could even fit forty people into the sorry excuse for a house I lived in. Not that anyone would come. Not that I’d had a real friend set foot in that place in my entire pathetic life.
Truth is, I didn’t have any friends. I had guys who liked to say I had “an edge.” Like I was some kind of drug. Something to feel for a while before they disappeared. I had guys who fucked me and never spoke to me again. But not friends. Never friends.
As I wandered through the thinning crowd, I saw the little cliques that had survived the night—two or three people in circles, laughing too hard over things that probably weren’t funny. I watched them like I was behind glass. That’s when it hit me again, like it always did: how truly alone I was.
I needed air. And a cigarette. I needed something before I started screaming.
So I let my feet carry me outside, desperate for a moment of peace. The party noise, once comforting, now felt like it was mocking me. A reflection of how no one ever really saw me. Men wanted something. Girls thought I was dirty, slutty, or weird.. Maybe they were right.
I slid open the porch door, fingers trembling as I dug through my busted tote bag for the pack of cigarettes I’d stolen from the bathroom earlier. My hand wrapped around it like a lifeline. I pulled one out, stuck it between my lips, and reached for my lighter—
Then I heard it.
Soft sobs. Sniffling.
Fuck me.
My eyes scanned the porch. There, just a few feet away, sat a girl curled in on herself like a dying star, shoulders shaking, head in her hands. A quiet, crumbling mess. Misery made me squirm. It was too familiar. Too close . I almost turned around, figured I’d just smoke in the driveway where it was quiet.
But then I thought about how I felt when I was like that. When I couldn’t breathe and needed something— anything . Sometimes all it takes is a cigarette and someone who doesn’t ask questions.
So I walked over and tapped her gently on the shoulder.
She flinched and turned, clearly startled.
Big brown eyes, wide and glossy, with gold flecks that caught in the porch light. Freckles scattered across her nose like constellations. Her pouty lips were trembling, and mascara had drawn soft black rivers down her cheeks. She looked like something out of a painting—tragic and breakable.
And for a moment, I forgot about my cigarette entirely. She looks up at me, eyes wide and waiting—expectant, like she’s hoping I’ll say something to make it all less awful.
I clear my throat, suddenly hyper-aware of how weird I probably seem. “Oh. Uh—hey. Sorry. I just… I saw you were upset. Obviously.” I wince at myself and keep going. “I’ve got a cigarette, if you want one. Y’know. To feel better. Or… not feel worse.”
She doesn’t say anything right away, just blinks at me through the tear streaks. I hold the cigarette out like some kind of peace offering, a small gesture from one wreck to another.
She blinks again, like she’s not sure if I’m real or just some weird nicotine fairy sent by the universe in her time of emotional crisis. Then, slowly, she takes the cigarette from my hand. Her fingers brush mine for just a second—cold, trembling.
“Thanks,” she whispers, voice hoarse from crying.
I nod and flick my lighter, shielding the flame from the breeze as she leans in. She cups her hands around the cigarette like she’s done it a hundred times, but her inhale is shaky. Rookie. Or maybe just rattled. Either way, I don’t comment.
We stand there in silence for a beat. The kind that’s not awkward, but heavy. Like the air knows something just happened.
“You, uh…” I glance sideways at her. “You want to talk about it? Or should I just stand here and chain-smoke in solidarity?”
She lets out the softest laugh—watery, broken, but real. “I just broke up with my boyfriend. But I’m not… sad about it.” She pauses, blinking like she’s trying to catch up with her own feelings. “Okay, well—obviously I’m crying. But it’s not him I’m crying over. It’s just… any ending feels sad, you know?”
I notice her cigarette starting to droop dangerously, ash growing too long. Wordlessly, I reach over and gently tap it against the railing, letting the ash fall. She watches me do it, a little surprised, but doesn’t pull away. Just exhales smoke with a shaky breath.
I feel a twinge of guilt watching her. Like I’m corrupting someone who maybe should’ve stayed untouched by all this. A pretty, sad girl post-breakup didn’t need nicotine as a consolation prize.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I murmur, softer than I mean to be.
“It’s okay,” she says, with a shrug and a half-smile, tucking a piece of honey-blonde hair behind her ear. “It expired a long time ago.”
I nod, taking a slow drag. God, I hated how warm I felt at the way she was just talking to me. Like it was easy. Like I wasn’t someone to be avoided or side-eyed or dismissed. She wasn’t sizing me up or looking for an exit.
She laughs again—low, a little raspy—and it shoots straight through me. “I clearly, and embarrassingly, have never smoked a cigarette before,” she admits, glancing at the one dangling awkwardly between her fingers. “Just trying to be someone new, I guess.”
“I would’ve never known,” I lie. Her grip on the cigarette is all wrong, like she’s holding a pencil for the first time. But the effort’s kind of charming, in a trainwreck sort of way.
I tilt my head, offer a small smile. “I’m Natalie.”
She grins then, a little less sad this time. “I’m Jackie.”
“So did the shitbag just strand you here or something?” I ask, flicking ash over the edge of the porch.
She shakes her head, the corners of her mouth tugging up in something between a grimace and a smile. “No. I told him to leave. Said I’d call a friend to come pick me up.” She pauses, then gives a small, breathy laugh that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Then I realized I don’t really have any real friends to do that. Hence the sob show.”
“I find that hard to believe,” the words leave my mouth before I can think too hard about it. Jackie was honest, witty, beautiful. Why would anyone not want to be friends with someone like that? Unless, of course, they were threatened by it.
And just like that, something clicks— understanding blooms in my chest. The way people look at her, the way they orbit her like she’s some perfect sun and they’re just trying not to burn too close. I can see how lonely that must be.
Jackie sighs and tucks her knees to her chest, resting her head on top like the weight of it is too much to hold upright anymore. “I guess I always have people to hang out with. Go to the mall. Get food. See a movie. But not… sleepover friends. Not the kind you tell your darkest secrets to, or laugh with until your stomach hurts and you can’t breathe.”
Her voice goes quiet for a second. “That’s what I really want. Someone who makes me laugh and cry.”
The honesty of it punches me in the gut—not in a painful way, but in that rare, aching way that only happens when someone unknowingly says something you’ve never had the courage to admit out loud.
“And now,” she takes a deep breath. “I’m leaving this fucked up town soon and going to college and I never even got a chance to live a teenage life. Then next thing you know I’m working a nine to five and coming home to an empty one bedroom apartment.”
I am honored by her admission. I can tell by the way she is talking that she’s never spoken these words out loud. I’m honored to be the one she chose, even if it was in some drunken confession on a porch.]
“My house is a few streets over. You can crash there for the night if you want.” What I don’t say is my moms out of town on some bender and my dad has been dead for a year. Or the fact it looks like an episode of hoarders in certain areas and it honestly smells a bit like wet wood. I realized immediately that she was the first girl I’d ever invited.
I’m honored by her admission. There’s something in the way she speaks—as if these words have been locked inside, never shared with anyone before. And somehow, in this quiet, half-forgotten corner of the night, she’s chosen me to hear them. Even if it’s just a drunken confession on a porch, I feel the weight of it.
“My house is just a few streets over,” I say softly. “You can crash there for the night if you want.”
What I don’t say is that my mom’s out of town on some bender, that my dad’s been dead for a year, and that parts of the house look like an episode of Hoarders —dust collecting in the corners, a faint smell of damp wood lingering like a ghost.
But none of that matters right now.
She looks up at me, surprise flickering across her face.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to be annoying.”
I grin and wave her off,
“I’m sure. I’m not leaving you stranded here—especially when the guy who threw this party is a freak.”
Her shoulders relax just a bit, and for the first time tonight, I see something lighter flicker behind her eyes.
“Alright then,” she says, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. We head down the porch steps together, the night suddenly feeling less heavy, less lonely. In that quiet moment, I realize something important—I’ve finally invited someone to my house.