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When Jackie went, Shauna felt herself go with her.
Part of her detached. Those little weavings of Jackie, stitched into her brain from childhood, started Pto unthread. They ripped from her, leaving a thoughtless hole where Jackie should be. She was always there. Holding her together. Threading the unsteady parts of her heart into one, steady, pulse, a pulse that beat faster when Jackie looked at her, when Jackie touched her.
Jackie was the centre of her orbit, the sun of her inner solar system, the warmth of the world, always there . When Shauna had fallen off of her bike in the fourth grade and skinned her knees, Jackie had been there to kiss them better and stick Disney Princess plasters over the grazes. When Shauna had made out with a boy for the first time at Randy’s stupid party in the eighth grade, Jackie had been there to cheer her on from the sidelines. When Shauna’s acceptance letter for Rutgers had tumbled through the letterbox, Jackie had been there to rip it open with her and skip around her room and run to the park and get drunk on celebratory beers while Dreams by The Cranberries hummed from the crackling cassette player, even though she was still waiting for her own letter to arrive.
And now Jackie was gone. And Shauna felt herself falling.
She wasn’t sure where she was falling to, but it felt far. Felt cosmic and out of space and time, somewhere up in the sky with the stars. Jackie had always loved the stars. They’d gone star gazing, once, on a camping trip in the tenth grade. Lied on the grass until their backs were damp from the late night dew of the grass and their eyes spun from the moving sky, until dawn broke and the sunlight washed Jackie’s skin amber.
And Shauna had kissed her, then. Just once. Just lightly, on the corner of her strawberry balmed lips, feather soft and tentative. Testing the waters of Jackie’s love, to see if she’d let her swim.
But Jackie had let her dive.
She’d reciprocated with hunger, taking Shauna for all she was worth. Jackie had kissed her until Shauna’s mouth burned, until her lips were scarlet dark and blood puckered. She’d held her around the hips and clutched her waist and left dark crescent moons that lingered for the next week, and Shauna had learned the taste of her tongue and the pearl of her teeth. They didn’t say a word, but they didn’t have to. Shauna felt I love you lodge behind her solar plexus and then, it had been enough.
But the morning broke and they did too, and they never spoke of it again.
And now Jackie was cold. Jackie was gone.
They fucking ate her, and in that way she’d melded into Shauna in ways that the mortal realm forbade. But she still felt farther than ever, and the only way that Shauna could feel her was to sneak out of the cabin in the night, a raggedy blanket pulled around her shaking shoulders, and sit down on the front porch to look up at the stars. She’d find the ones that Jackie taught her to find on that sacred night: the constellations, the map of the sky, the sprawl of history immortalised in light. And sometimes, on the coldest of the frosted nights, Shauna would find the North Star and hold a hope. Just a little hope, a spark enough to stop her from burying herself face down in the snow and following Jackie into death. She’d look up at it, gleaming brighter than the others, and think of Jackie’s bright white smile and hope that she was up there too.
And sometimes, when she was feeling brave, bigger than her years, bigger than the whole sky, she dared to voice out loud what she hadn’t before. Dared to let the words blossom from her solar plexus and brain and wind their way to her mouth. Dared to let the universe know.
“I love you, Jackie. And I’m sorry ,” she spoke, and it felt like half-way to absolution.