Work Text:
“I look to my right, and do you know what this bitch says to me?” Jackie asked, the sound of chatter coming through Shauna’s speaker. Rutgers was just as shitty as Wiskayok. As if Shauna didn’t know that. “She says—“
Shauna heard Jackie begin talking to somebody else. Someone must’ve came up to her. Shauna knew what came next. It always happened.
“Shauna? Baby, I’ve gotta go, sorry to cut our conversation short!” Jackie told her, the sound of giggles coming through from nearby. "You’ve got this, and I love you, Shippy!”
“Yeah. I love you too, Jax,” Shauna said back, and she meant it. Even though she didn’t sound like she meant it. For a moment, she thought that Jackie might even ask about it, maybe she would get worried at how listless she sounded.
The beep cut Shauna’s hopes short.
The phone slid out of her hand, hitting the carpet with a dull thud. Her dorm mate had left ages ago, and Shauna had ignored her warnings, like she did every morning.
“Mr. Germain’s gonna get on your ass if you keep on coming in, like, half an hour late, if you come at all, dude. But, you do you.”
Shauna had thought that going to Brown would solve every problem she had. But it hadn’t.
Shauna had thought that walking the hallowed halls of academia that was Brown University would make her feel like she belonged. No longer would she be surrounded by a bunch of bumbling idiots. She would be around people like her. Smart people.
But she wasn’t.
Shauna had spent all of her life in books. Unless Jackie had held her hand through anything, she didn’t do it. But these people weren’t like that. They weren’t like Shauna at all.
They were smart. Some smarter than Shauna. And they had lives. They didn’t ignore every social event. They didn’t brush off somebody wanting to be their friend. They weren’t just smart people, but they were people, real, genuine people.
Shauna let her body go boneless against her mattress, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Sometimes, it felt like it didn’t matter. It felt like none of it mattered. And maybe it didn’t. Maybe Shauna would’ve been better off ignoring the scholarship and just going with Jackie.
Knock, knock.
A fist banged on the door to the dorm room. It made Shauna shoot up, suddenly leaving her reverie in exchange for panic.
“Dude!” Shauna’s dorm mate—Stacy—said through the door before she opened it, standing in the doorway, staring at Shauna like she had grown a third head. Or a second, for that matter. “What the hell! You skipped class for the fourth time this week!”
Shauna’s head quickly turned to her alarm clock, and she saw the time. Shit. It was almost ten.
Shauna went to speak. She attempted to explain, to lie, to do something, but no words came. They remained lodged in her throat. The words Jackie would’ve said, standing up for her, she still expected them to come. Even when she wasn’t there.
“I—I was, y’know, doing… I was doing stuff, Stacy,” Shauna fumbled, the sentence spilling out of her mouth without a hint of irony. In hindsight, she had wished she would’ve been able to put a little bit in, at least she would’ve had a defense then.
“You were flickin’ the bean for a whole hour straight?” Stacy asked, her voice completely without tact and blunt, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“No! That wasn’t— that’s not what I meant at all!” Shauna’s voice cracked, the embarrassment showing in the reddening of her cheeks.
“Fine, whatever. Not my business when you jerk off,” Stacey conceded, lifting both of her hands up in surrender, walking over to her own bed and sitting down. “Mr. Germaine wants to see you.”
“Really?” Shauna asked, slouching her posture slightly as she looked at the floor. “Did you defend me, or anything?”
“Defend you?” Stacey repeated, a scoff leaving her mouth when she did. “Why would I defend you? No offense, but I don’t know you for shit.”
Shauna went redder, the physical manifestation of her embarrassment spreading to her ears. Shauna had forgotten. She was used to only ever talking to Jackie. She wasn’t really sure how to talk to other people.
“Sorry,” Shauna apologized awkwardly, picking her phone and then standing up as she attempted to straighten her back, shuffling towards the door. By the time she could reach the door handle, she sprinted out of the dorm room.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket, her fingers tightening on the rectangle as she swiped it open, immediately pressing the icon to her messages.
There were some from Jackie. Like always.
jax (sent at 8:23)
i saw the cutest dog!! it reminded me of you SOO much shauna it was so freaky it was small and cute and it had huge cute eyes!! who does that remind me of LOL
Shauna saw that she had sent a photo of the dog, but she couldn’t look at that. It was a sweet moment. She wouldn’t let it be poisoned. She would look at it later.
Shauna slid her phone back into her pocket, taking a deep breath. She was avoiding the shaky breath she always made before she started crying. She was terrified of Mr. Germain. He was a good teacher, but a scary one.
Shauna walked across the campus, taking her sweet, sweet time with each stride she made. And when she made it to the lecture hall that Mr. Germain’s class had been in, she awkwardly shuffled to his desk.
“U—uh, Mister Germaine. Hi. Hey— sorry, uh— hello,” Shauna stammered, taking a deep swallow once she saw him look up from his laptop.
“Hello, Miss Shipman,” Mr. Germain replied, his voice that infuriating calm that all professors were legally required to master in order to be a professor. “That is your name, correct? I haven’t seen you enough to know your name, have I?”
“No, Mr. Germain,” Shauna mumbled, looking down at her shoes, doing yet another deep swallow. “I—I’m very sorry, I’ve just been— been— I’ve been doing a lot of things, and— and—“
“I don’t care,” Mr. Germain interrupted, looking through his glasses at her, his face unamused. “I don’t care what you’re going through, Miss Shipman. You were given early admission on both an athletic scholarship, and a 4.0 GPA. That tells me everything your words won’t. You can do better. And I expect better.”
Shauna’s heart throbbed in her throat. She nodded, silently, before turning to leave. Yet again, she expected him to stop her.
Her old teachers would’ve stopped her. They would’ve given some sort of a pep talk. Given her some sort of assistance, but Mr. Germain wasn’t a teacher at Wiskayok High, and Shauna wasn’t the smartest girl around.
She was a nobody. Surrounded by people she had thought to be her kind, she wasn’t special anymore. She was just another one of them.
She was just another nobody.
The second the cold air hit her skin, she felt something else. A wet sensation. Once. Twice. And then again, and again, and again.
It was raining.
Shauna’s palms went to her face after a few moments, and she stood in place. She didn’t make a sound, nor a move. She simply remained still.
Shauna had never felt more alone.
Every day that went by, it felt like she thought those words, but every day that went by, they became all too much truer. Every day that went by, she lost some sort of connection to herself. Even if she was limiting herself.
She wasn’t able to write anymore. She was too busy wallowing, constantly. She wasn’t able to journal, she simply couldn’t find it in her to write about how miserable she was. She couldn’t read anymore; she never had any space to read in.
As Shauna began walking through the rain, she forced herself to look at the ground. She had to make sure that every step she took wasn’t about to be into a gutter, or into someone’s torso.
Jackie would’ve helped her.
She would’ve reminded her to put a jacket on before she left her dorm. Would’ve given her a jacket in the rain. She would’ve done something, anything, and it would’ve made Shauna feel better. That was what Jackie always did.
And she was probably doing it for somebody else.
Jackie had probably made friends with tons of people at Rutgers. Knowing her, she had probably made friends with anyone with a pulse and working lungs. They were getting the treatment Shauna should’ve been getting.
The treatment that Shauna deserved.
Jackie was probably off having lunch with her friends. Laughing about inside jokes, thinking about how cool it was that she was unburdened by the nuisance she had to drag around for the last eighteen years of her life.
Shauna was glad she hadn’t gone to Rutgers. She didn’t need Jackie. She didn’t need a mediocre, shithole university that mediocre nobodies went to. She was at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Jackie was the one who wanted to go there, it was her fault that Shauna was alone.
The thought simmered in her mind, poisonous, and seeping through every memory she had.
The rain spattered on the concrete, and Shauna continued walking. The pain in her heart wasn’t soothed an inch. But the thoughts in her mind ignited further.
Perhaps she was better off.