Chapter Text
In life, there is a fine line between success and failure, and you can cross either side depending on mere choices. Sometimes, those choices are influenced by other human beings who should not have power over your life, and yet, you allowed them to do so. In a way, it’s still your fault, but sometimes, deep into self-victimisation, you choose to dump it all on someone else’s shoulders—Jackie tried to do this. She tried every way to blame Shauna for making her fall squarely into the loser category; but in reality, it's kind of 80% Jackie's fault.
It's not Jackie's fault that Shauna decided to fuck her boyfriend behind her back and get an abortion during Nationals. But it is ultimately Jackie's fault for building her life around Shauna and momentary things like a high school soccer team. Things that aren't forever, and that you shouldn't take for granted.
If she hadn’t, maybe she wouldn’t be so lost now—without the gratification she was given during school, for being the captain of the Yellowjackets and an excellent student; and without the one person she always had. Shauna.
Jackie had mapped out her life from a very young age. She was going to be the best student, and she was going to get to med school to honour her parents. She was going to marry Jeff Sadecki, her first and only boyfriend, and Shauna was going to be the maid of honour.
It was the perfect life. One that she would cherish and live the thrill of being successful—but none of it was real. It never was.
She might’ve been an excellent student, but she wasn’t the best. Shauna didn’t give a fuck about her feelings, apparently, and Jeff never loved her.
At 18, Jackie is lost in life. It shouldn’t happen for someone so young, but it’s her fault for not considering any second options when she had the chance.
“Give time to yourself, honey. Heartbreak can be a terrible thing–med school can wait another year,” it’s what her mom told her, and, in a way, Jackie is grateful for that.
It wasn’t easy for her to convince her parents to let her stay home another year to set her mind straight; but now, she wonders if it was really the best choice.
Perhaps if she had been brave enough to suck it up, she’d be in college now, with new friends and perhaps a new boyfriend. Her life would be good—and less lonely.
But then again, it is undeniably her fault. She made the bed she’s laying on. Shauna just helped choose the sheets.
She graduated 8 months ago; which means it's been exactly 8 months and 2 weeks since she last spoke to Shauna. 8 months of not having the slightest idea of what life was supposed to be, and what she was going to do now.
In 8 months, she dyed her hair 4 times, cut her ends, and bought 5 different bags of clothes to find a style that didn't reflect what Jeff liked most about her.
In 8 months, Jackie managed to lose all sense of self-understanding and identity.
Like now, as she stares in the mirror, she regretfully comprehends that High-School might’ve been the best her life was ever gonna get.
Shaken awake by three soft knocks, Jackie turns her head to her mother peeking her head into her—childishly colorful—room.
“Hey, honey. Are you okay?”
Jackie forces a smile to grow on her lips. “Yeah, mom. All fine.”
Her mother nods, but Jackie knows she doesn't believe a word she says. Hasn’t since High-School came to an end. Jackie is okay with it. She’d rather be silently read than to talk about everything.
“Can you stop by the market for me? I have an immense list of groceries, but I’m busy with work.”
Bullshit.
Her mom is never truly busy with work, not since the 1980’s at least, when she was still slightly relevant there. It’s simply an excuse to get Jackie out of her room. They both know it.
“Sure, yes. Of course,” she agrees, unable to do anything but resist the urge to jump into bed and pull the sheets over her head until life magically returns to its rightful place.
Coming prepared, her mom takes five swift steps into the room to hand Jackie a ripped page from her phone book. Her smile is soft, caring, and Jackie hates that she cannot return any of it like she used to.
“Can I buy chocolates for myself?” she asks, voice tight and shaky.
“Anything,” another smile Jackie forces herself to match. “You keep the change if you want.”
Jackie shakes her head. “No–there’s no need.”
In a way, what she's saying is: What the hell do I need the change for? What exactly am I going to spend it on? More clothes that I'm going to throw away 3 weeks later because I hate every style in existence in humanity, nothing fits me and I don't know who I am anymore?!
“Okay. Take care, hun.”
“Thanks,” she watches her mother disappear through the door, standing there staring at the large painted letters spelling out JACKIE'S PRINCESS HUT that she and Shauna made when they were ten.
Jesus, maybe she did need the money to redecorate her bedroom.
━━━
The cigarette filter burns Nat's finger as she swallows the saliva accumulated on her numb tongue. She was sober now, after hours sitting in the middle of the street, waiting for the effects to wear off so she could go home without Van and Mari suspecting anything.
It was easy. Something she had grown accustomed to ever since she moved in with them 4 months ago—Every now and then, she would go out, buy a bag of cocaine with the money she earned as a fucking supermarket cashier, sit in the middle of some abandoned building and get high by herself. She would even sleep so the effects would wear off faster; but only when she really needed to go home earlier than usual—That way, Van and Mari wouldn't find out that she hadn't kept the promise she'd been given right after Nationals, when they both managed to get her away from Travis and all the shit that almost made them lose the competition.
In all fairness, she wasn't as bad as she had been. She held on as best she could, working and smoking only cigarettes when she was stressed. But really, that was never going to be enough. Yet, there was still self-control, or at least that's what Nat convinces herself of as she drags her body back to their old, dirty, messy apartment.
She never really liked that place. The staircase to their floor was narrow and dark, smelling of dust and damp. The younger neighbors were in their sixties, and the apartment itself was too small, with thin walls—at least it was tolerable when Tai wasn’t sleeping there—, but, it was their place, and the best that three 18-year-old girls could do with the help of Mari's parents.
It might not have been the richest or most impressive home out there, but for someone who was used to sleeping in a trailer that reeked of alcohol, Nat didn't have much to complain about.
“Buzz, buzz, buzz!” it’s the first thing Natalie hears as she unlocks the door, being met with Van and Mari cheering as Akilah throws a chip in the air for Tai to catch with her mouth.
She doesn't question it as she drops her bag on the floor and goes to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. In a way, that was the least chaotic and most common scene to happen in that house—something had to keep them distracted from the harsh, sad reality of life, no?
“Nat, Nat! Do you think you can catch it?” Mari asks, turning her body around to hold the weight of her chin between her hands.
Nat snorts, “Nah. Not the best with head catching.”
“Bullshit, we’ve seen you heading.”
“Yeah, same team, remember?” Tai throws herself on the couch that stood far too close to the small kitchen island.
Shaking her head, Nat chugs on her bottle of water, trying to drown out the slight taste of coke remaining all around her mouth.
“Jackie was better at it,” she shrugs. “Besides, I’ve got work.”
“This late?” Akilah questions.
“Yeah, where were you all morning?” Van has that look in her eyes that gives Nat the creeps, the discomfort of maintaining eye contact when she knows Van can read her like a damn children's book. That worry that always leads her to discover things about Nat that she would bury six feet under.
However, after 17 years of being Van Palmer’s friend, she learned how to act unaffected by it—to decoy her from the truth, even if just for a little bit.
Nat swallows the lump on her throat, and turns around to return the bottle to the fridge. “With Misty.”
Poor Misty, she thinks, always being used as an excuse even when they haven’t actually talked in months. She’s somewhere in California, studying neuroscience to prove herself she’s worth something—and Nat is sure she’s doing damn great at it. But to everyone else, Misty is always around Natalie. They’re almost best friends now, in the reality she’s created in her roommates’ heads.
She's lucky that none of them care about Misty enough to actually want to see her, or she’d have a hard time explaining why she’s been on the other side of the country since August.
She watches how Mari’s face contorts. “So you’ve skipped lunch to hang out with Misty Fucking Quigley?” she says.
“Stop giving her a hard time,” Nat mumbles, turning around to lean against the counter. “She’s nice, y’know?”
“Yeah, nicely creepy,” Van snorts, earning a soft slap on the arm from Tai.
Mari, on the other hand, chuckles lightly. “Why are you two even so close now? We barely saw you interacting back at school.”
It’s true. Misty and Nat never really talked during school—except, of course, about soccer and the team.
Yet, she couldn’t say they were exactly strangers. Misty was weird, sure, but she wasn’t as bad as everyone made it look. In a way, Nat feels bad for her; after all, she knows what it is like to be an outsider in a place that should be your own.
After growing closer to Misty during Nationals, she’d learned that the only thing she wants is to be useful. At least, she never asked much from Nat.
“We started talking more in Seattle,” she shrugs, because at least that isn’t a lie. “After–y’know.”
Y’know being short for: When I almost overdosed the morning before the game and Misty had to keep me alive and conscious because Coach Ben was calling the ambulance and she was the only one who knew what to do.
Van pressed her lips onto a thin line. “Yeah,” she said, “makes sense.”
Mari frowns as she glances at Van. “Anyone else would’ve done it if we knew what to do.”
“But we didn’t,” Tai retorts. “Misty saved her ass, it’s normal to be grateful, don’t you think?”
There’s an awkward silence before Mari sighs; Akilah nodding along. “Misty would’ve been really great as a doctor. What is she studying now?”
“She’s, uh, helping her mother at her workplace for a while–to save for college,” she blurts out the easiest story to come to her mind, one that didn’t leave much questioning. “Well, I need to get ready for work, so you guys have fun throwing chips at each other.”
“Do you want me to give you a ride?” Tai asks, neck bending over the couch as Nat starts strolling to her room.
Looking over her shoulder, she shakes her head. “There’s no need, the bus stop is rather close.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, thanks Tai.”
“Alright,” she slowly nods. “Tell me if you change your mind.”
She nodded, despite knowing she wouldn’t—Taissa was simply trying to be nice, Nat was aware there was no malicious intent behind a simple gesture like those. Yet, there is always the feeling of feeling small that eats away at her every time. There is nothing wrong with accepting a ride, yet she cannot control the little worm inside her brain that makes her see that, deep down, people only offer good things because they think she needs them, like she cannot manage on her own.
After having everyone walking on eggshells around her, not knowing how to deal with her addiction without sounding rude and invasive, it’s pretty downright impossible to believe their help is not motivated by it anymore.
And, it’s unfair to be mad about it. They’re not doing anything wrong—but Nat doesn’t fucking need help or pity. She’s better. She became better on her own, without rehab; and that’s something to be fucking proud of.
“Hey, Nattie,” Mari calls. “Could you sneak those pre-made cheeseburgers for me?”
Holding onto the room’s doorway, Nat frowns. “There’s no pre-made cheeseburgers on a fucking regular supermarket, Mari.”
“Of course there is.”
“If there are, then they’re so shit no one’s buying it,” she snorts, and without waiting for a response, disappears into her room.
━━━
Wiskayok was nice. Familiar. Quite literally the only thing Jackie can hold onto nowadays—even if her life is falling apart piece by piece, she’d always be comforted by the feeling of home whenever she walks down every street she knows by heart.
Perhaps she’s simply falling into the same pattern of grasping the past for dear life instead of moving forward, but she really cannot imagine a life outside of Wiskayok. Doesn’t feel right; like she isn’t supposed to.
Because, what would she even do without all the memories and feelings attached to this small town? Without the story that was written off it.
Wiskayok was her heart. Even if she can feel Shauna’s heartbeat underneath her feet each time she steps outside.
With a shoulder push, she makes her way inside the closest supermarket to her house—not that there were many around—, head up as she pulls out the grocery list.
Now, Jackie hasn’t gone grocery shopping many times; her mother always did it for her. But, she’s an adult now. She can do something as basic as buying groceries.
So, the first thing she does is dive straight into the candy aisle to get herself two dear milka tablets so she’d have a place to start.
“Eggs–okay, eggs… Where the fuck are the eggs at?” she mutters to herself, dragging the small cart around. She looks both sides, standing between aisles.
It takes her around 5 minutes to find eggs. And another 20 to find another two items on that long ass list her mom made.
This is gonna take a while, she thinks.
And, well, it did take a while. Probably longer than it should have, but Jackie won’t give herself a hard time for it. She will learn how to properly grocery shop—eventually.
With a full cart, she strides her way to the checkout line, humming softly as she waits for the two people in front to give her enough space to start putting her things organised by size.
So endorsed by it, Jackie hardly notices when her time arrives, still taking things out of the cart. It’s only when she sees a pale hand with black polished nails removing the products she’d stack so beautifully that she finally looks up.
She moves to say Hey! Good afternoon, but her words die on her throat when she takes one look at the familiar blonde wolfcut with brown roots growing to take over.
“Nat?”
The—not so cheerful—cashier turns into her direction, as though she hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge her before.
“Jackie,” it’s a breath, eyebrows shooting up before coming together to a slight frown.
For the first time in maybe weeks, Jackie smiles without having to think before doing so. Her heart spins, and she giggles softly.
Nat. Fucking Natalie Scartoccio.
She hasn’t seen any of her old teammates ever since it all came to an end. Maybe it’s because she never looked for them, or stayed out of her house long enough to bump into one.
If she had seen a world beyond Shauna, maybe she would have made real, sincere friendships with the other girls on the team. Maybe the only thing connecting them wouldn’t be just school and soccer—maybe she would have known what their lives were like these days. But in the reality Jackie has created for herself, she is simply living a life completely separated from everyone else, believing she’d never see her old teammates again.
So, it’s inevitable to be shocked at the sight of Natalie Scartoccio working as a cashier in a local market.
“What a surprise! How have you been?” she presses her palms against the tight jeans surrounding her legs, trying to clean the sweat off them.
Nat opens and closes her mouth. “Uh, fine. Y’know, working,” Jackie nods. It’s awkward—they’ve never really been friends, let alone close enough to be anything other than teammates. Noticing the still vibe, Nat continues, “How ‘bout you? How’s Princess Jackie’s life going?”
Jackie snorts, diverting her gaze in quick shame. “Great,” she crosses her arms, “figuring adulthood out.”
Nat puffs, acid smile dancing around her lips as she gets her work done. Jackie has to tell her feet to move.
“I get the feeling–How’s Shauna been?”
Jackie freezes, gulping so loudly she is sure even people outside the store heard it.
She’s not talking to Shauna anymore—Nat knows. All the Yellowjackets know. It's kind of impossible that no one noticed when during the prom, neither of them looked each other in the eye. Hell, Jackie was with Laura Lee the whole night.
Still, she puts a smile on her face before replying, “We’re not friends anymore.”
Her voice is shaky, weak. It’s her first time saying it out loud to someone else other than her parents. These are the moments where shit actually feels real.
Nat stops for a split second. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. We–haven’t talked since June.”
“Oh,” there’s a shared look before she’s breathing out, “right. Sorry, it slipped my mind.”
“It’s okay,” she reassures, even if it’s not totally okay. “Life happens–and you? How’s… Van?”
“She’s doing fine,” Nat replies. “We’re, uh, living together now. Me, her and Mari.”
Jackie can’t help but feel slightly jealous. I mean, Jesus, that was supposed to be her and Shauna—their friendship was supposed to be as strong as Nat, Van and Mari’s. Instead, she’s now stuck with no friends and resentment.
“Cool.”
Silence. A deep, long silence as Natalie scans the products. There’s a pit on Jackie’s stomach as she throws everything into the bag she’d brought with her.
“What are you doing?” Nat asks, breaking the ice sharp tension. “I mean–in life. It’s pretty surprising to see Jackie Taylor in Wiskayok nowadays.”
Her lip curls softly as she stares at Nat. “Where was I supposed to go?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “New York city–big fancy school and all that.”
“No,” she laughs through her nose, focusing all her attention on gathering her things as fast as possible. “I–I’m staying home one more year. It’s been a rough couple of months.”
Jackie doesn't know Nat well, but when her eyes linger on her face, she can see the flash of discomfort in her eyes; as if she doesn't know if she should ask, or how she should ask. Nat has never been the most affectionate person, at least from what she’d let Jackie see.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Right. The kind of questions that come in the society's good manners manual; the things that are only said because it would be rude to ignore, but you don't really want to know.
Sucking it up in a big breath, Jackie thinks: I’m already here, so why not take some weight off my shoulders?
“Well, my best and only friend was fucking my boyfriend behind my back and got an abortion without me knowing, so, y’know, it’s pretty hard moving on.”
Laughter escapes your throat, but it’s not real. It’s the kind of laughter you use to control the bubble of tears rising rapidly through your system—the kind of laughter Jackie is more than familiar with these days.
Nat opens and closes her mouth, looks away, and scans the last product. “Uh, it’s fucked up. I mean–fucked up. But, if you ever need someone to talk to, I guess you know where to find me.”
Jackie stunningly blinks at Natalie, not knowing how to identify if it is genuine or not. To all intents and purposes, Shauna also used to say the same thing—I’m here. Always, Jackie—, and turns out, she was the last person she could count on.
Nat is not Shauna, though. So it would be unfair to compare the two—but then again, Natalie doesn't know Jackie well enough for her to really care. It could be, after all, just her being polite.
Still, Jackie shoots her a thankful smile. “Thanks, Nat.”
“It’ll be 89 dollars and 24 cents.”
“Oh, what the fuck,” it slips through her tongue before she can do anything about it. Damn it, why are groceries that expensive?
Nat snorts, watching Jackie with an amused grin as she pulls out her mother’s wallet to take out her credit card.
The good thing is that Jackie knows how to use a credit card—she might not be the best at grocery shopping, but she’d been in clothing stores frequently enough.
Suck it, losers!
“Hey, by the way,” Nat calls as Jackie turns away with two heavy bags, “Fuck Jeff and Shauna. You’ll find better people.”
Jackie didn't know she needed to hear that. She didn't know it could make her feel better—but it did. She smiles gently at Nat, almost as a "thank you" before turning and walking away.