LUCKY NUMBER SIX!

SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD JACKIE TAYLOR, FORMER CAPTAIN OF THE WISKAYOK HIGH SCHOOL YELLOWJACKETS, REPORTED STILL MISSING.

after being lost nineteen months in the wilderness, taylor's former teammates are still quiet on the details of their time in [REDACTED], including what happened to taylor, and several other former teammates -

a semi - plotted starter for @enr4ged,

SHE KNOWS, of course, that van was the instigator: that it was van who chose the turn of this night, who manoeuvred them all into roles they'd avoided with gravity for twenty-five years by way of shauna's escape plan. she knows that taissa was betrayed as surely as she was, though she doesn't know why, and she's content never to find out - content never to see van again as long as she lives, for fear of exacting retribution that will tear them all apart in any number of wretched, unforgivable ways. ( she pictures it - van's blood on her knife. the image shivers into callie, shaking with fear and maybe something else, training a gun on lottie. lottie remarking on her power. ) what do we do, taissa asks, and shauna knows all of this, and still can't help but think there is no we. not anymore.

" i'm going to go home with my family, " she says, quiet enough to be less vindictive than she wishes she could be, right now. " i'm going to go home, and cry, and call the funeral parlour, and then maybe i'll work on forgiving you but i'm not there right now, so i need you to step back, please. "

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS, INDEED; isn't that always the way, that they give and they give and it's never enough? callie is her mother's daughter in that she's starving, always, all the time - starving for things shauna can't give her, no matter how she tries. it's not something she likes to give much thought to, and she still doesn't now, swallowing the light pang of guilt in one fluid, well-worn move.

it's a kind of kinship she hasn't felt in years - hasn't felt with anyone, in fact, save her teammates-turned-clan, and isn't that strange, isn't that worth looking into ... maybe it's this farcical, ironic imitation of a pair of pta moms, only able to do the dance so well because they both had to study its every contour to pull it off in its proper context. maybe it's the fact that this only comes this naturally when it's a lie.

IT'S KIND OF IMPRESSIVE, how naturally this seems to come to this woman - but to a certain extent, that's a necessary condition of walking anywhere at night, and any deeper read of shauna's might well be more indicative of her own skillset's origins than anything else. sighing in what could easily be mistaken for sympathy, she lets herself look grateful.

SHE'S A LITTLE SLOW ON THE UPTAKE, brief knitting of brows as lips begin to form some kind of question, getting through exactly one syllable ( " wh - " ) before she catches on. carefully, she does not look behind her; it doesn't matter, she's well used to the sensation of someone, something, watching.

LOGICAL.

"Master manipulator, god, you're so good at what you do."

"Come for me like a savior, and I'd put myself through hell for you."

"Hear all the rumors lately that you always denied."

"I fell for you like water falls from the February sky, but now the current's stronger and I couldn't get out if I tried."

"You convinced me it was all in my mind."

"Now you got me thinking two plus two equals five, and I'm the love of your life."

"If rain don't pour and sun don't shine, then changin' you is possible."

"Love is never logical."

"You built a giant castle with walls so high, I couldn't see the way it all unraveled."

"All the things you did to me, ou lied, you lied, you lied."

"The sky is green, the grass is red, and you mean all those words you said. I'm sure that girl is really your friend."

"Lovin' you is lovin' every argument you held over my head."

"You brought up the girls you could have instead

"You said I was too young, I was too soft, can't take a joke, can't get you off."

"I know I'm half responsible and that makes me feel horrible."

"I know I could've stopped it all, God, why didn't I stop it all?"

GET HIM BACK!

"I met a guy in the summer and I left him in the spring."

"He argued with me about everything."

"He had an ego and a temper and a wandering eye."

"He said he's six-foot-two and I'm like, "Dude, nice try"."

"But he was so much fun and he had such weird friends, and he would take us out to parties and the night would never end. Another song, another club, another bar, another dance."

"When he said something wrong, he'd just fly me to France."

"So I miss him some nights when I'm feeling depressed, til I remember every time he made a pass on my friend."

"Do I love him? Do I hate him? I guess it's up and down."

"I write him all these letters, then I throw them in the trash, 'cause I miss the way he kisses and the way he made me laugh."

"I pour my little heart out, but as I'm hitting "send", I picture all the faces of my disappointed friends, because everyone knew all of the shit that he'd do."

"He said I was the only girl, but that just wasn't the truth."

"When I told him how he hurt me, he'd tell me I was trippin'."

"I am my father's daughter, so maybe I could fix him."

"I wanna get him back. I wanna make him really jealous, wanna make him feel bad."

"'Cause then again, I really miss him and it makes me real sad."

"I want sweet revenge, and I want him again."

"I wanna key his car."

"I wanna make him lunch."

"I wanna break his heart, then be the one to stitch it up."

" I wanna kiss his face... with an uppercut."

"I wanna meet his mom, just to tell her her son sucks."

LOVE IS EMBARRASSING.

"I told my friends you were the one after I'd known you like a month, and then you kissed some girl from high school."

"I stayed in bed for like a week when you said space was what you need."

"I waited by my phone like a goddamn fool."

"Now it don't mean a thing. God, love's fucking embarrassing."

"Just watch as I crucify myself for some weird second string loser who's not worth mentionin'."

"My God, love's embarrassing as hell."

"I consoled you while you cried over your ex-girlfriend's new guy."

"My God, how could I be so stupid? You found a new version of me, and I damn near started World War III."

"Jesus, what was I even doing?"

"I placed my bets and it's not worth anything."

THE GRUDGE.

"I have nightmares each week about that Friday in May."

"One phone call from you and my entire world was changed."

"Trust that you betrayed, confusion that still lingers."

"You took everything I loved and crushed it in between your fingers."

"I doubt you ever think about the damage that you did, but I hold on to every detail like my life depends on it."

"My undying love, now I hold it like a grudge."

"I hear your voice every time that I think I'm not enough."

"I try to be tough, but I wanna scream. How could anybody do the things you did so easily?

"I say I don't care, I say that I'm fine, but you know I can't let it go. I've tried."

"It takes strength to forgive, but I don't feel strong."

"The arguments that I have won against you in my head in the shower, in the car and in the mirror before bed."

"Yeah, I'm so tough when I'm alone and I make you feel so guilty."

"I fantasize about a time you're a little fucking sorry."

"I try to understand why you would do this all to me."

"You must be insecure, you must be so unhappy."

"I know in my heart hurt people hurt people."

"We both drew blood, but, man, those cuts were never equal."

"Do you think I deserved it all?"

"Your flower's filled with vitriol, you built me up to watch me fall

"You have everything and you still want more."

"I try to be tough, I try to be mean, but even after all this, you're still everything to me."

"I know you don't care, I guess that that's fine, but you know I can't let it go. I've tried, I've tried, I've tried for so long."

"It takes strength to forgive, but I'm not quite sure I'm there yet."

PRETTY ISN'T PRETTY.

"Bought a bunch of makeup tryna' cover up my face."

"I started to skip lunch, stopped eatin' cake on birthdays."

"Bought a new prescription to try and stay calm."

"There's always something missin'. There's always something in the mirror that I think looks wrong."

"When pretty isn't pretty enough, what do you do?"

"I could change up my body and change up my face, I could try every lipstick in every shade, but I'd always feel the same, 'cause pretty isn't pretty enough anyways."

"You can win the battle, but you'll never win the war."

"Fix the things you hated and you'd still feel so insecure."

"I try to ignore it, but it's everything I see. It's on the posters on the wall, it's in the shitty magazines. It's in my phone, it's in my head, it's in the boys I bring to bed. It's all around, it's all the time and I don't know why I even try."

"I bought all the clothes that they told me to buy."

"I chased some dumb ideal my whole fucking life."

"None of it matters and none of it ends, you just feel like shit over and over again."

TEENAGE DREAM.

"When am I gonna stop being wise beyond my years and just start being wise?"

"When am I gonna stop being a pretty young thing to guys?"

"When am I gonna stop being great for my age and just start being good?"

"When will it stop being cool to be quietly misunderstood?"

"I'll blow out the candles, happy birthday to me. Got your whole life ahead of you, you're only nineteen."

"I fear that they already got all the best parts of me, and I'm sorry that I couldn't always be your teenage dream."

"When does wide-eyed affection and all good intentions start to not be enough?"

"When will everyone have every reason to call all my bluffs?"

"When are all my excuses of learning my lessons gonna start to feel sad?"

taissa’s words aren’t surface level;  it’s not just about having a friend to rely on but a friend like her,  someone who can see through every single facade she wears so gracefully,  and the only person taissa wants to see her like that.  there are others she could rely on  —-  a wife who gives her all to everything she does,  including being the perfect mother and wife for her family,  or even her assistant,  who taissa’s far too hard on despite the lengths she goes to.  but these people,  despite spending every single day with taissa while she goes months or years without seeing shauna,  don’t see her the way shauna does,  and while that might be scary,  it’s refreshing now,  because if she’s learned anything about her sleepwalking since it started,  it’s that it always comes from trying to keep herself in one tiny box for too long. 

THE KIND OF TIREDNESS THAT PERMEATES TAISSA is one shauna associates mostly with caring for a newborn, which is to say unrelentingly miserable and worth blocking out wherever possible; a kind of rough sympathy scrawls across her features unbidden, but she certainly won't comment. she knows better by now. she tends to the eggs on autopilot, lifting pan off the heat without thought, and can't help a soft huff of laughter, weight in the air lifting on the back of taissa's dry wit.

she did, in point of fact, scare jeff out of here: it's strange, the way his nervous respect for taissa has recently leaned so much more nervous. one instance in particular comes to mind, involving a campaign ad over their car radio - he'd dipped into the next lane with the strength of his flinch and damn near wrecked them into the corner shop on south fairview. she doesn't know what's changed and doesn't particularly care; jeff's scared of her, too, was probably scared of jackie, even. it's his natural reaction to a woman at home in her power.

" we don't really ... talk about things like that, " she says, somewhat helplessly - thinking of the rabbit she killed in their garden, how he wrote it off for a joke because how could she possibly ...

with taissa it's easy, effortless, to let her hatred for her marriage bleed into conversation - it's not something she has to hide. it's nothing to keep the promises they made all that time ago when you and your spouse have three set conversations every day and that's the whole of it. she's never told him about what she lost, what they lost, even when the therapist they fail to see consistently asks and can you think of any reason why jeff might describe you as distant, shauna? ( it's occurred to her many times over the years, in an oblique sort of way, that the vows they took weren't actually meant to mimic a cage; that marriage is not actually meant to be something she wants to run from at every turn, but maybe that's just how it goes for people like her and tai. )

Once upon a time, there was a cabin that sat empty in the wilderness. And it waited, and waited, and waited. Until finally, one day, someone finally showed up in hopes of banishing the darkness away. But the thing about darkness is that when you spend so long trapped in darkness, you find that the darkness begins to stare back and threatens to consume you.

she wonders if the same is true for jeff and callie,  if they're able to make up for the love lost.   it's selfish, again, to only truly care about shauna. she wonders if shauna's only being dramatic now,   but a big part of her assumes she isn't  --  that this is real.  of course it is,  isn't it?   they don't make a habit of reconnecting unless something is really,  really off.

and still, no matter how much time has passed, no matter how often she swears to herself to leave the past in the past, she'll always be there for her.

" yeah, that - that sounds great, actually. " how long has it been since she's been to a bar? at least two years, probably longer with the way the months blur together these days. everything the same except the parts that hurt more, dull grey shot through with flashes of red that she almost comes to crave for their uniqueness. she knew what she was giving up; it wasn't as if she went into it unprepared, having spent countless sleepless nights mourning the things she could never do again ... or at least couldn't do again for another eighteen years. ( jeff likes boring. he likes it when things are in their proper place, wife and daughter there to greet him when he comes home from his nine-to-five, and the alternative to giving that to him was unbearable, unthinkable, and so ... )

part of her, quickly swallowed, thinks to apologise anew: sorry for putting this on you, sorry for putting you out, but there's no need for it and she doesn't lie well. the sum of it is that taissa is who she needs right now and this shot of something new will be good for her, too. it's never too long to doubt that she knows, in the deepest parts of her, what taissa is going through - and knows, too, how to lessen the ache for awhile. they're freakishly attuned in that way, a decades-long thing that she imagines will span the rest of their lives, even in spite of the stretches they might go without speaking along the way.