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The wind howled like it was mourning too.
Mari pulled her coat tighter, slipping out of the cabin before anyone noticed. No one was paying attention anymore— not really. Everyone was either huddled together pretending to sleep or sitting in front of the cold fireplace, staring at nothing.
The snow crunched under her boots as she made her way to the meat shed.
She didn’t know why she was doing this. It wasn’t like they were friends. Jackie had barely looked at her most days. Too busy with Shauna. Too caught up in her queen bee routine, even out here, where prom queens were meaningless and survival was everything.
But still… Mari found herself here.
She paused at the door, hand hovering over the rough wood. A part of her wondered if she’d find Shauna already inside, curled up beside the frozen body again. But the cabin had been full, and Shauna was still in it.
Mari pushed the door open.
The smell hit her first— stale cold and rot beneath the frost. Jackie was just a lump under a makeshift blanket, her blond hair tangled and half-frozen. Her lips were blue, her skin pale and cracked from the cold. She didn’t look like Jackie anymore. Not really.
But Mari stepped inside anyway.
She sat down beside the body, arms wrapped around her knees.
“…You were kind of a bitch,” she said, voice too loud in the stillness. “But I guess that doesn’t matter now.”
The shed creaked.
“I hated how you talked to people. Like you were always performing. Like we were your little audience or something.” Mari hesitated, staring at the frost forming on Jackie’s lashes. “And you never saw me. Not really. I could’ve been anyone.”
A long pause.
“But I saw you.”
Mari’s throat tightened. “I saw you trying. To hold it together when you knew everything was falling apart. I saw the way you looked at Shauna when you thought no one else did. Like you were already grieving her, even before she picked Jeff.”
Mari glanced away. “And I guess… maybe I got that. That kind of hurt.”
The wind outside shrieked.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Mari said, after a long stretch of silence. “Except maybe I just needed to talk to someone who wasn’t gonna talk back. Everyone else is losing it. Or already lost it. Shauna talks to you like you’re still here. Maybe she’s not totally wrong.”
She looked at Jackie again, this time softer. “Did you ever think about me? I mean, at all? Or was I really just part of the… background?”
Silence.
Mari exhaled and leaned back against the cold wall. She stayed there a long time, listening to the creaks of the shed and the ice groaning in the trees.
As she stood to leave, she looked down at Jackie’s body one last time.
“I thought about you, you know,” she said quietly. “Back before all this. Even now.”
And then she was gone.