Chapter Text
“For the last time,” Melissa starts, yanking the front door open without particularly caring whether whoever’s outside catches the whole sentence as she braces herself for the imminent flash of cameras. “Nothing fucking happened out there, we were just-” The rest of the words, however, die in her throat at the sight in front of her.
There’s no nosy asshole reporter standing on her porch with a microphone shoved in her face, asking the same invasive questions they’ve been bombarded with ever since the rescue, as the cool evening air comes rushing in. Instead, there’s Shauna Shipman.
While obviously not a reporter herself, she looks just as wary of the possibility of being caught on camera, with how low she’s pulled her hood over her eyes, most of her face swallowed by shadow. If it weren’t for the very prominent bump stretching the fabric of her hoodie tight across her middle, Melissa might not have recognized her at all. And even then, even with the evidence so very much there, it takes a hot second for her to comprehend what she’s seeing, and that it really is Shauna standing on her doorstep in the middle of the night.
It’s not that Shauna looks especially different, aside from the stomach Melissa is fairly sure has grown since the last time she saw her. That had been the day they were released from the hospital, when they first encountered the swarm of reporters who still won’t leave them alone to this day, trying to make headlines with their stories. Oh, and one of the surviving girls turning up pregnant had made headlines all right.
Melissa hasn’t seen or heard from Shauna since.
Sure, she’s wondered about her. Quite a lot, actually, because it turns out there isn’t much to do between pity graduation ceremonies —the diplomas they all got despite missing finals and the last few months of senior year— and the mandatory doctor’s appointments Melissa has taken to attending alone. Sometimes she catches glimpses of the others there, usually flanked by family. Shauna, though, is nowhere to be found. The point is, Melissa has spent a lot of time wondering what happened to her after they got back; she’s just never had the chance to find out, with her staying away from every obligatory event and appointment the rest of them still get dragged to. Hell, Melissa doesn’t even mind the unearned diploma or letting doctors poke and prod at her weekly, but it was Shauna on her mind throughout all of that, selfishly looking for her wherever she went.
Pathetic, perhaps, considering they were hardly ever friends.
There’s also that ridiculous crush Melissa has been harboring since fucking junior year of highschool, and having this much time to think definitely hasn’t helped, yet for her lack of initiative, even that never made them anything more than teammates. They were friendly around each other at best, occasionally irritated at worst, and that is exactly why it makes zero sense for Shauna to be standing on Melissa’s porch right now.
It has her peering beneath the hood twice to make sure, even though after nearly five months of sharing a cramped cabin, she could probably recognize her teammates blindfolded. Finally, she blurts, “Shauna?”
The girl Melissa is already fairly certain is Shauna pushes the hood back so that her face can catch what little light spills out from the hallway behind her. “Hi,” says Definitely-Shauna.
Huffing in disbelief, Melissa drops her hand from the doorknob. “Uh, hi,” she parrots, instinctively glancing past her to check both sides of the road.
Some of them, Melissa included, have had to learn the hard way that it’s better not to take chances with these reporters. They usually don’t come this late, but maybe tonight is the night they get creative after realizing she won’t open the door during the day anymore and decide to try their luck after dark. Aside from the neighbor’s porch light flickering across the street, however, there’s no movement Melissa can detect, so she turns back to Shauna.
“You can’t…” There are far too many ways to finish that sentence, none of them good, and besides, it is very obvious that Shauna can, considering she’s already here. Defeated, Melissa steps aside and pulls the door open wider. “Jesus, just- get inside.”
Shauna doesn’t need to be told twice. She slips past and over the threshold in a rush, leaving Melissa to shut the door behind them and lock out the cold. The air outside feels freezing for mid-October, and a shiver runs down her spine as she turns the key, imagining how cold it must be out there. Melissa locks the door twice for good measure before turning back to Shauna, who stands motionless in the middle of the hallway.
Seeing her in her space feels, frankly, fucking weird, and although Shauna looks at least as uncomfortable as Melissa feels, that only makes it stranger that she willingly put herself in this situation. Her hands are buried deep in the front pocket of her hoodie, gaze drifting over the picture frames on the wall. Anything to avoid looking directly at Melissa, if she had to guess.
Following her line of sight, she regrets both letting her in and never bothering to take those pictures down sooner, because the girl she’s spent the better part of high school pining after is currently getting an excellent overview of Melissa’s childhood through various stages, from four year old Melissa with a horrendous bowl cut, to pictures of eight year old Melissa grinning around the gap where both front teeth used to be, a backwards hat already slapped on. Heat rises to her cheeks, and before Shauna can keep staring, she blurts, “What are you doing here?”
Finally, that makes her lift her head. “I needed…” Shauna presses her lips together, searching for the right words. “I needed somewhere to go.”
It doesn’t exactly make her choice of here make more sense, but that seems to be all she’s willing to offer. Only when Shauna faces her fully does Melissa realize that it’s her turn to speak. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Okay…Cool?”
It’s not even close to the strangest thing that’s happened to her these past few months, and even if it was, Melissa sure hopes that letting a fellow survivor in this late at night is the least she could do. Hopes, too, that Shauna would do the same for her if the roles were reversed.
“Did...” She clears her throat. “Did something happen, or..?”
Shauna doesn’t bat an eye at her stuttering, only stands and stares around the hall some more while gritting her teeth and keeping her arms crossed over the bump. “No.”
“Right, okay, cool.” Melissa rocks back on her heels. “...You’re not gonna elaborate on that at all?”
The fabric of her hoodie pulls taut across her shoulders. “No.”
In retrospect, Melissa isn’t even sure what answer she expected. Shauna looks uncomfortable enough as is, and while some explanation for why she suddenly appeared at Melissa’s house would be nice, she supposes there are objectively worse things that could be happening to her. “Great,” she nods. “Yeah, cool, cool, cool.” Still nodding her head, like that stupid plastic figurine glued to the dashboard of the truck she’d inherited from her brother, wobbling along every bump in the road, Melissa glances toward the living room.
She’d left her usual evening setup on the table: a cup of tea and a magazine she’d been flipping through before the knock at the door. Normal, boring stuff, Melissa would’ve killed for out there, where they had access to a grand total of six porn mags that had lost their novelty after the third flip through. She’d kill for it now, too, she realizes. At least then she would have something to do with her hands besides letting them hang at her sides, stuck in uncomfortable silence with Shauna. Five months trapped in that cabin, and now her fucking hallway feels too small for them.
In the corner of her vision, Shauna moves again and rests a hand atop the small curve of her stomach. Melissa doesn’t mean to stare, but Shauna catches her anyway, narrowing her eyes until she looks away. “Well, you’re here now, so-” Melissa mumbles. “Kitchen’s this way. You can sit if you want. No offense, but you look like you’re about to pass out.”
“None taken,” Shauna mutters, more tired than offended. She nods for her to lead the way, and with nothing better to do, Melissa turns and obliges, fingers twisting together in front of her as she walks ahead, hyperaware of Shauna following close behind.
A version of Melissa from before would’ve lost her mind over the prospect of inviting Shauna Shipman into her home. Present-day Melissa, on the other hand, feels herself shrinking inward at the involuntary house tour she’s suddenly forced to give, put on the spot as she leads her past the wall of embarrassing childhood photos and into a living room she would’ve cleaned up properly if any of this were happening on her terms.
She flicks the light on as they pass through, trying very hard not to see her space through a guest’s eyes. If Shauna notices anything of the mess (the dishes she forgot to bring back to the kitchen after dinner, or the shoes kicked off by the coffee table), she thankfully doesn’t comment on it. “You can–” Melissa nudges one of the kitchen chairs away from the table with her foot. “You can sit.”
Much to her surprise, Shauna actually makes her way over and lowers herself into the chair with an exhausted exhale. Once seated, the silence threatens to settle over them again. Not willing to let it, Melissa drops into the chair across from her and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: “Does anyone know you’re here?”
Shauna shakes her head once, the whole refusing-to-look-at-Melissa situation unchanged.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay, uhm-” Her fingers start drumming against the tabletop.
“Can you not?” Now, Shauna is glaring, but only at her hand.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Actually,” her eyes turn to the clock, ticking away above Melissa’s head. “My mom should be back home by now.”
“Night shift?” offers Melissa, who also remembers her own mom doing those, a really, really long time ago.
“Yeah.”
That’s something, at least. Or, rather, one more thing she’s gonna have to figure out, at some point, especially if Shauna keeps offering information in single word answers like that. As little as Melissa actually knows about her home life, the last thing she needs is more people showing up here looking for her, and the others from the team (survivors, she still can’t quite get used to calling them that) will probably be the first people Shauna’s mom contacts to find her daughter.
“Okay,” she says again. If someone had asked her yesterday, or last week, or even an hour ago, what she thought Shauna Shipman was doing tonight, Melissa can say with absolute confidence the answer would not have involved sitting at her kitchen table. “Do you…want to talk about what’s going on?” she tries, tentatively.
Shauna breathes out through her nose, nostrils flaring. Once again, her gaze drifts around the room, taking in everything with so much attentiveness that it makes Melissa squirm in her seat. “I already told you,” by the time she answers, her eyes land on the crossword still open on the table. “I needed somewhere to go.”
“Yeah,” Melissa agrees. “I just figured there’d be… more to it? I don’t know, an explanation, or something?”
Shauna’s mouth tightens into a hard line. “I only just got here, Melissa.”
And this is my house, Melissa would say if it were literally anyone else sitting there in her living room. But this is Shauna, and even if it weren’t Shauna, it would still be a pregnant girl, looking like she hasn’t slept properly in days, and even though reducing her to that is probably fucked up, Melissa can’t kick out a pregnant woman, can she? “Sorry,” she says instead. “This is all a little…out of nowhere.”
“I know.” That, at least, sounds as genuine as Shauna seems able to muster right now, finally looking in Melissa’s direction.
Looking at her like this, it occurs to Melissa that they’ve never really held eye contact that long before. Usually, she had done most of the staring, all from a safe distance, and when their eyes ever did meet, she’d written it off as pure coincidence, convinced that Shauna had looked right through her. Shauna had her people. Jackie, mostly, until...Melissa swallows and pushes that thought away. At least it’s no surprise she didn’t go to Jackie.
“Look,” she says, “you can stay. You’re already here, so…” Shauna huffs softly, and Melissa adds, “I’m not gonna kick you out or anything,” but doubts Shauna thinks she’s capable of that anyway.
For a couple of seconds, she only stares back blankly, but then Shauna nods, agreeable enough, and what’s a little sleepover between teammates (because, again, they are far from friends), anyway?
“So,” Melissa says, forcing some movement back into the room, “do you want anything? Water? Food? I already had dinner, but I can probably make something, or we could order-”
“Water is fine.”
“Okay.” That, she can do.
Melissa stands in a hurry and retreats into the kitchen under the excuse of getting some water, escaping the weight of Shauna’s stare. She rummages through the cupboards clumsily, searching for something clean to pour it into. After their time in the wilderness, you’d think she’d be used to being around Shauna like this, and yet here she is, hands shaking over a cup.
It could’ve been worse. Much worse, in fact. Melissa distinctly remembers watching a movie about a plane crash with her brothers when she was younger —a rare night she’d been allowed to stay up past her bedtime—where the survivors started a whole cannibalism…thing after not being rescued for a couple of months. Compared to that, watching teammates, two pilots, and one of their coaches die (and another lose his leg courtesy of Misty Quigley and an axe) all seems rather tame.
Anyway, it’s not what she should be thinking about while she’s standing in her kitchen, pouring water for a very pregnant (is she very pregnant? or is this still more of a mid-pregnant state? Just from looking at the bump, Melissa can’t tell) Shauna. “I still don’t get it,” she says, back still turned as she unscrews the bottle cap and fills the glass she’s found. “Why— why me?”
“That’s wrong.”
“Hm?”
“The word, Melissa.” When Melissa glances over her shoulder, Shauna is holding up the magazine, tapping a finger against the page. “Nine across. Causes serious impairment of strength. You wrote debiliting.”
Frowning, she sets the glass down in front of her and grumbles, “There’s an A in there.”
“If that’s an A,” Shauna says, not convinced. “It’s still in the wrong spot. Here.” She reaches for the pen Melissa left on the table, crosses out the answer, and rewrites it as debilitating.
Now it makes sense why she hadn’t been getting anywhere with this before Shauna showed up. “That’s why the rest didn’t fit,” Melissa mumbles under her breath.
“Probably.” Shauna is already moving on. She fills in two more clues Melissa had been stuck on, writing down Ion and Enigma before she finally says, “I knew you had a place.” It takes Melissa a second to realize she is answering her question from earlier, eyes still on the crossword. “Plus, I knew you lived alone.”
I knew your mom died and you had a house, is what that translates to, but Melissa knows better than to bring that up. Everyone in Wiskayok knows about her mom, having at the very least heard about it, back when she was pulled out of elementary school for those months afterwards, and while the house technically isn’t hers alone, it may as well be in the eyes of most of the town. Thinking about it now, that’s also the first time Melissa remembers meeting Shauna:
Her oldest brother had answered the door that day, taking charge of the endless condolence visits, but Melissa had watched from the landing as Shauna and her mother stood in the doorway with a casserole dish between them, Ms. Shipman telling Dean how sorry she was. Eventually, curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she joined them down there, hovering behind him while the adults droned on about god knows what. Melissa can’t remember what they actually talked about, but what she does remember is Shauna: Small, with hair cropped shorter than it is now, visibly unhappy about being dragged along in the first place, standing right behind her mother. She kept rocking on her heels until Ms Shipman rested a hand on her back and nudged her forward. “Shauna,” Melissa remembers her saying. “Why don’t you go say hi?” She also remembers feeling immediately embarrassed for both of them.
Shauna had eyed her suspiciously, but managed a shy “Hi.”
Melissa, meanwhile, had wanted nothing more than to head back upstairs before another person she’d hardly ever met before let her know how strong she was being. “Hi,” she’d mumbled back, edging closer to her brother’s side. Neither of them said much after that. Melissa mostly remembers staring at their shoes, waiting out whatever it was that Dean and Ms Shipman had discussed that day.
Thankfully, the visit didn’t last long before Deb announced they should probably get going, and she didn’t see Shauna again until years later, when she and Gen walked into soccer tryouts. That day marked two important discoveries: first, that Melissa was actually decent at soccer despite frequently tripping over her own feet, and the start of what would turn into her year-long crush on the other girl.
Shauna doesn’t mention any of that, though (Melissa is honestly not sure if she even remembers), only glances up at her to add, “I just...Couldn’t stand staying there.”
That part, at least, Melissa understands. She can’t relate, by any means, but she can sure as hell imagine that being nineteen, pregnant, and stuck around the boy whose child you’re having and the girl whose boyfriend you fucked must fucking suck. “What about Taissa?” The crossword seems to be a neutral middle ground and as good a distraction as any. “You two were…” She shrugs. “Around each other, out there.”
“Tai is at law school,” Shauna replies, eyes trained on the page. “Putting that settlement money to some good use, I guess.”
For a second, Melissa catches herself wondering why Shauna isn’t out there, too, at some fancy school she definitely could’ve gotten into if things had gone differently, but then she remembers the bump, and immediately feels bad for even considering it.
“Broken piece, five letters?”
The sudden shift throws Melissa off. “Fuck, I don’t-” Shauna glances at her from over the edge of the magazine. “Splinter?”
“That’s eight,” she says, pen tapping against her chin. “Chip is too short…”
Melissa shifts in her chair. “Shard? That’s five.”
Pleased, Shauna notes it down, and it hits Melissa then that if she wants answers about anything, she’ll probably have to cooperate with the stupid crossword first. “What about your mom? Isn’t she worried?” she asks, “You can stay, but maybe you should let her know where you are, Shauna.”
“I doubt she’ll notice before tomorrow morning.”
“But what if–”
“Something up to date or moving.”
Melissa stares at her. “Seriously?”
Shauna only raises her eyebrows, pen poised above the page. How is it, Melissa wonders, that they’re in her house, yet it’s Shauna who, without having made much conversation with her before, has the upper hand?
“Come on, something up to date or moving, Melissa.”
“I–”
“The third letter is an R, if that helps. Seven letters.”
“Current?”
“Current. There we go,” she notes that down, too, the tip of her pen pausing above the paper afterwards. Melissa’s turn to ask a question again.
“What– What about Jeff?” It’s the wrong thing to ask, and she knows the second it’s out: Shauna goes tense and sets the magazine beside her untouched glass of water. “I know, I know,” Melissa adds quickly. “That was– I don’t know, it’s probably none of my business, but after your mom, he’s probably the next person who’s gonna care about where you are and, no offense, but I really, really don’t want Jeff Sadecki showing up at my door tonight, so–”
“Jeff is…” Shauna sighs, and Melissa has to give her that, because she wouldn’t know how to finish that sentence either. “Jeff.”
“Right.”
“Don’t do that, Melissa. I don’t want your fucking pity.”
“I wasn’t-”
“I know this is weird, okay?” Shauna cuts in, acknowledging it for the first time. “And if you don’t think this’ll work, I’ll-”
Sensing she’s about to stand, Melissa surprises herself by lunging across the table to catch Shauna by the wrist. Their eyes drop to where she’s holding her arm, both of them equally startled. Melissa snatches her hand back. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “You can stay, Shauna. It’s okay.”
To her relief, hearing that does seem to make Shauna less tense, and she sinks back into her chair.
“I guess we can talk about everything else tomorrow.” Melissa relents, nodding at the unfinished crossword between them. “What’s the next clue?”
“Next clue…” Shauna picks the magazine back up, looking grateful, given her situation. Given both of their situations, since, for whatever reason, this is now Melissa’s business too. “It may start something big,” she reads. “Five letters.”
She brightens. “Oh, I know that one. Is it spark?”
They migrate to the couch at some point. Melissa can’t quite pin down when it happens, only that one second they’re still hunched over the crossword at the table, and the next she’s watching Shauna carefully lower herself onto the cushions before collapsing beside her a whole lot less gracefully.
From there, it doesn’t take long for Shauna to start drifting off. Comfortable as Melissa knows her couch is (having fallen victim to it one too many times herself, only to wake up with a stiff neck and a backache in the next morning), she still can’t help watching it happen. It’s weird, like Shauna said earlier, seeing her like this: Somewhat openly vulnerable, all five fingers spread across her stomach while her other hand props up her head, elbow slipping against the armrest every few seconds as her eyes grow heavy and fall shut. It’s also really fucking cute, the way Shauna’s breathing evens out while the rest of her body still twitches now and then, losing its fight against sleep.
As soon as Melissa moves to get up, though, she instantly jolts awake. Her eyes fly open and frantically dart around the room, disoriented by the unfamiliar space. “Shh, hey, it’s just me,” Melissa whispers, relieved when some of the alarm drains from her expression. “It’s just me, it’s okay. I’m just getting some water. You can…go back to sleep.”
Thankfully, Shauna complies without protest. Calmer, she lies back down, still propped against the armrest as her eyes flutter shut again. It makes Melissa wonder just how exhausted she must’ve been when she showed up here, if she’s falling asleep this easily. With one last glance at her, she heads into the kitchen and, instead of the cupboard, reaches for the telephone. There are only a handful of numbers she still knows by heart, and this is one of them. She presses the receiver to her ear as it starts to ring. It rings and rings, much too long for comfort, and Melissa starts shifting her weight from one foot to the other, glancing back to the living room where Shauna is still fast asleep. By the sixth ring, she’s about to hang up when, finally-
“Jesus, Melissa, do you know what time it is?”
Wincing, she pulls the receiver a fraction away from her ear. “Yeah, sorry, it’s late. I know. It’s an emergency, I think?”
They’ve taken up calling late into the night since the rescue, especially when there’s an emergency. Usually, it’s the strange panic Melissa has developed ever since getting back home, but having her best friend on the line has gotten her through it countless times already. And while this isn’t one of those cases, Melissa momentarily wonders what she would do if she didn’t have Gen.
There’s rustling on the other end of the line, which she assumes is Gen hastily sitting up in bed. “Are you okay? Do you need me to come over?”
She doesn’t like talking, or even just thinking about it, but there had been one incident, not long after she convinced her brother she was fine staying here alone again, where Gen actually had needed to come over, her voice over the phone not enough to calm whatever the fuck it was that happened that night.
“No, no, it’s not like that, I promise!” she quickly assures.
“Jeez, Mel, don’t scare me like tha–”
“Shauna’s here!”
That shuts Gen up. “What?”
Lowering her voice so she doesn’t wake her, Melissa repeats, “Shauna is here.”
“No, I got it the first time, just…what the fuck?” Gen says, and now she sounds fully awake. “Shauna, as in Shauna Shipman?”
“Do you know any other Shaunas?” Melissa asks, deadpan. “Yes, Shauna Shipman. In my house!”
“How–How did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” she hisses. “She just kind of…showed up? She’s asleep on my couch right now.”
“Okay, I’m gonna need a bit more than that. People don’t just randomly materialize on your couch, Melissa.”
“Well, she basically did!” Melissa shoots back. “She showed up a couple hours ago and…hasn’t left, I guess.”
“Did she say why?”
“No! I don’t know!” she glances over her shoulder again, but Shauna still hasn’t moved, curled against the armrests. “What do I do?”
“What do you mean, what do you do?”
Melissa groans, running her free hand through her hair. “Now you sound like me. Fuck, Gen, you’re supposed to help me think. There’s a pregnant Shauna Shipman asleep on my couch!”
Gen has the audacity to giggle at that.
“Are you laughing right now?”
“I’m sorry,” she says through another laugh. “I’m sorry! It’s just…”
“Yeah,” Melissa mutters. “I know.”
“Well, Melissa,” she continues, an all too familiar, teasing tone creeping into her friend’s voice. “Last I heard, you wouldn’t shut up about Shauna for reasons that are honestly beyond me. And now you’re telling me the same girl you’ve basically been in love with since, what, middle school, just showed up on your doorstep?”
“Okay, first of all, that was not middle school!”
“Melissa.”
“It was high school, thank you very much, and also-”
“Junior year,” Gen interrupts, “Anyway, what do you think you’re supposed to do here?”
“I- I don’t know…”
“Oh my god,” she groans. “Have some faith in yourself! You can survive one sleepover with your dream girl!”
Melissa presses her forehead against the kitchen cabinet. “I don’t even know why I called you.”
Gen wisely ignores that. “So she wants to stay?”
“For the night,” Melissa says. “That’s what she told me. She wouldn’t really explain much beyond that.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Still Shauna then, huh?”
She stares at the floor tiles. “I’m serious, I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.”
“Look,” Gen says, gentler now, clearly having caught the helplessness in Melissa’s voice. “She showed up at your place. Specifically yours. That’s got to count for something.”
“Maybe it’s just convenient,” Melissa mutters. “She said it herself: I live alone, no parents or anything. That’s two fewer people on average she would have to explain herself to!”
“You don’t have to figure it all out tonight,” Gen goes on, “She also said she just needs a place to stay, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then let her stay for the night,” she says simply. “And tomorrow, after she’s slept for like twelve hours, you can still ask your million questions.”
“Hey!”
“Tell me I’m wrong! You’re already doing it, Mel! Just don’t freak her out tonight, okay?” Gen adds. “Whatever’s going on, she didn’t go to Tai, she didn’t go to Jackie–”
“She can’t exactly go to Jackie, can she?”
“She could’ve! And honestly, if it bothers you that much, she probably will end up back there eventually. This is temporary, Mel. But right now, she came to you.”
“Yeah,” Melissa sighs. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Also,” she snickers, right back to teasing now that she’s said her piece, “try not to stare at her while she sleeps like some kind of creep.”
Melissa rolls her eyes even though Gen can’t see it. “Fuck off.”
“I’m serious! You are so not subtle.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m hanging up now.”
“You go do that,” Gen says, making exaggerated kissing noises into the phone.
“Goodnight, Gen.”
“Goodnight, Melissa.”
After she hangs up, Melissa lingers by the telephone for another moment, only willing to go back after taking a few deep breaths and trying to take Gen’s advice. Then, finally, she pushes herself off the counter and heads toward the other room, carefully avoiding the creaky floorboards. At first, she thinks Shauna is still asleep, lying exactly where she left her, but then her gaze wanders up to her face and meets a pair of dark eyes already wide open, and she pauses mid step. “Oh, uhm, hi.”
Shauna blinks slowly before hoisting herself up to sit straighter against the couch’s armrest. “Hey,” she echoes, “Who were you on the phone with?”
“No one,” Melissa says, alarmed, wondering how much of that conversation Shauna heard. “That was just– Uh, just Gen. It’s nothing.”
She purses her lips, frowning, and Melissa really does expect her to push further, yet Shauna only mutters, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“Oh, no, you’re good. You looked like you really needed that.” Melissa remains rooted to the spot, still watching Shauna as she did before, only now with Gen’s voice nagging at the back of her mind.
She went to you.
“Hey, um…” she starts, hoping this is at least somewhat in line with what Gen had meant. “You should probably not sleep on the couch.”
Shauna scowls. “I’m fine.”
“I figured you’d say that,” Melissa mutters. “But, like…I really don’t think you are..?” That earns her nothing but a long, unimpressed look from the girl on her couch. “Not in a–” Melissa backtracks. Maybe opening with you seem physically incapable hadn’t been the best strategy. “I just mean, the couch probably sucks for your back, and your-” Her gaze dips south. “-Whatever. Point is, I should take it.”
“I’ve slept on worse.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Melissa snorts. “We all have. Doesn’t mean you should keep doing it now that you don’t have to.”
To both her relief and surprise, Shauna actually seems to consider that, studying her from where she sits. “Where would I sleep, then?” she asks eventually.
It’s not like the house lacks spare rooms: all of her brothers’ old bedrooms still line the downstairs hall, unused except as storage for old furniture and stuff Melissa doesn’t know what to do with, boxed up and stacked against the walls until one of them announces they’re planning on visiting, giving her time to prepare and clean up for them.
Then there’s her mom’s room, but Melissa doesn’t go in there. Hasn’t at all since… well, since. The door stays permanently shut, everything behind it preserved exactly as it was a decade ago. Surely that habit can’t be healthy, but she learned it from her brothers, each one inheriting the house before eventually moving out and passing it down the line until only Melissa was left. Anyway, this isn’t something she is interested in unpacking at two in the morning with Shauna sitting on her couch, so that only leaves-
“My room.” Melissa says.
Shauna’s brows pull together. “Melissa, no.”
“No, it’s fine! I’ll take the couch.”
“That’s stupid.”
“The couch is fine! I fall asleep on it all the time anyway.”
“You shouldn’t be giving up your bed.” Shauna insists (seemingly remembering that she’s the guest here), trying to push herself up further, though the effort it takes only proves Melissa’s point.
“And you shouldn’t be sleeping on a couch when you’re–” Melissa stops herself. “You know.”
“Pregnant?”
She looks down at her feet, embarrassed.
“You are not subtle.” Shauna chuckles, repeating what Gen already said on the phone.
“I’ve been told.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “I don’t need-”
“I know you don’t need,” Melissa interrupts, “But you’re my guest, and I’m offering.”
“You don’t even…” Shauna trails off with a sigh. “You don’t even know me.”
Melissa’s shoulders drop, hearing her verbalize what she’s been thinking all along. “Hm?” she croaks. That is still miles better than admitting that she probably does know more about her than Shauna expects her to.
“We weren’t exactly friends.”
“It’s alright. You said it’s only for a night, right? I mean…” Shauna has made it clear she doesn’t want her pity, so she says the next best thing, knowing damn well it’s not true: “You’d do the same for me.”
Shauna looks up at her for a long moment, then, before she finally relents, if only to avoid the awkwardness of having to admit that, no, she probably wouldn’t. “Fine,” she mutters, “I’ll take your room.”
Relieved, Melissa nods. “Come on, then,” she says, tilting her head toward the hallway as she steps back. “Your room’s up there.”