cait /eddie

“when the cabin burned, did you think coach scott did it?”

natalie falters. she can’t help but look to misty for help, like somehow, her sort-of friend will be able to save her.

but misty is silent. just like everyone else.

nat presses her hands into her knees and shakes her head. her thoughts are becoming too jumbled and she can’t focus in this sticky heat. there’s a fly buzzing around her —loud and incessant— and she just wants to go back to her hut.

“i thought anything could’ve caused it. um…” frantic eyes go back to misty. they don’t mean to — she knows misty isn’t her ally right now — but the movement is instinctive.

still, when nat sees the expression misty wears, so inexplicably angry, she can’t help the way her stomach twists.

“a spark from the fireplace…” she tries. “a candle falling over…”

“but not coach scott? you never wanted to ask him?”

taissa cocks her head to the side. her brow is raised and nat’s throat is starting to grow tight.

“i couldn’t.”

“why not?”

nat swallows. her eyes are watery; she knows she can’t let herself cry.

“because he wasn’t around to ask.”

she gets the words out as quickly as she can yet taissa still manages to interrupt.

“but you knew where he was!” she exclaims. her volume is raising, tone escalating, and for a second, natalie is six years old again.

she’s standing in the trailer with her dad looming over her and in the dim fluorescent light, his tall form is morphing into something beastly.

it reminds her of the book she’d read with the library aid at school, where the wild things are. the monsters there had been a comfort; they’d told nat that she wasn’t a bad kid. they showed her that scary things don’t have to be so cruel — sometimes their claws and fangs are just for show.

but as natalie trembled beneath fiery eyes and an anger that no one ever bothered to contain, she knew it couldn’t be true. some monsters are exactly as they seem.

“what?” someone whispers.

murmurs begin to spread from the crowd.

nat’s heart pounds — vicious and fierce against her chest — and she swallows once more.

“you’ve know this whole time!” taissa is yelling at her now. “misty figured that out.”

van is exchanging glances with akilah and misty is starting to object.

“you didn’t just see him before the fire. he saw you, right?”

nat blinks. the tears in her eyes are threatening to spill and the hot air on her cheeks is burning her skin.

“you spoke to him. that’s how you know he was leaving. you knew where he was going but you gave orders not to search for him anyways.” taissa leans in closer with every word and nat can’t help the way that she flinches. “you’ve been lying to us to protect him, and this trial was just another desperate attempt to for you to let him off the hook! you can stop me anytime i’m wrong.”

“okay!” nat cries.

she can’t take it anymore — the gesturing and the vitriol — the heavy black oil seeping through her to stain every inch of her guts and flesh with misunderstanding. it’s going to tear her apart and maybe it already has.

but as nat sits there, trembling through the body she’s clenched so tight, all she can think is that none of them would get it. the truth doesn’t give room for compassion and nat knows this more than anything.

she knows it like she knows bad men. dangerous men — the kinds she’s lived with. she knows them the way that she knows coach scott couldn’t possibly be one.

because if he was, he never would’ve done the things that he did.

he wouldn’t have cared when natalie was fifteen and he found her an hour before practice started, sitting beneath the bleachers alone.

she’d been playing with her lighter — turning it on and off to watch the flame flicker. the image of it blurred from the tears in her eyes but something about the orange and yellow stayed grounding. natalie knew if she needed something to overwrite the ache in her chest she could —

“natalie?”

she’d looked up — startled at the sound of her name. a few feet away, the coach she’d known for all of three weeks was standing with his gym bag and a stack of cones to set up drills.

“are you okay?”

natalie sniffed.

she knew she was supposed to say yes. she’d tell him to fuck off then storm away because she had better things to do then spend her saturday playing some meaningless game for a team she’d never even wanted to join.

but the tear stains on her cheeks branded her sadness to the world and perhaps natalie didn’t want to keep pretending she didn’t care.

she was tired. so fucking tired.

as coach scott set the cones back on the floor, nat shook her head. it made the bricks she’d been trained to carry on her back start to waver and for once, she wasn’t scared to let them fall.

no — all nat could think about was the weight of them growing and growing atop her cracking bones and aching muscles. they were going to crush her one day and she knew it. they’d grind her into dust — they’d already started — and natalie wasn’t sure an escape would ever be in sight.

so she’d take this risk. she’d let herself break in front of her coach and maybe that would crush her too, but at least the process would be faster.

“i don’t…” natalie choked, shaking her head. “i- i can’t.”

her lips trembled, tugging down into a frown, and fresh tears began to fall. they were silent — they always were — but for the first time in years, they were seen.

“it’s okay… it’s uh…”

coach scott lowered himself to the ground. he didn’t move any closer, just sat where he was.

“i know it’s a lot,” he said, his voice unsure. “but you’re not… you’re not going through any of it alone.”

nat shook her head. she’d gasped for breath — holding back her sobs with everything she had.

because she was alone. she was trapped in a home with a mother who chose her dead asshole of a husband over the daughter who’d just wanted to protect her. she was stuck in a school with kids who labeled her a psycho and a murderer and boys who’d call her crazy then still try to get in her pants. and she’d say she didn’t care, she’d say it didn’t matter — she still had a few friends, though kevyn had pulled away ever since the incident — nat was strong enough to brush it off.

but it was heavy.

and it hurt.

and a person could only take so much before that pain started to become unbearable.

so nat was alone. she’d been alone her entire life and —

when she looked up, there was a blue gatorade and a granola bar in front of her.

“look, i’m sorry, i’m not — i’ve never been great at dealing with this kind of stuff,” coach said. despite his hesitance, his voice was soft. “but when i was a kid and i’d get upset, my grandma would always have me drink something. she said you can’t cry when you’re drinking so it— it would force me to breathe, i guess.”

nat nodded. she reached like a sheltered animal who’d been kicked one too many times, slowly for the bottle.

“i know i can’t fix any of this. i wish i could, i mean… you seem like a really great kid and i’m sure you deserve better than what’s going on. but i do mean it when i say you’re not alone in this. not anymore.”

nat sniffed and shook her head. it was another empty promise, she told herself. it had to be.

but after practice, coach called her over again. he asked her how she was doing and if there was anything she needed. he told her she could come to the field early or stay late if things were bad at home. his office was open if she ever wanted to talk.

as nat’s gaze shifts now, her eyes finally meet the ones she’s spent this entire trial trying to avoid. they are filled with sorrow and depletion — the same exhaustion she’d felt that day two and a half years ago.

“i knew he was out there. but he didn’t want anything to do with us… i knew that we could just let him live in peace bec…”

the words stick in nat’s throat. she looks from taissa to ben — desperate for a pause or understanding or some kind of defense — anything.

because how can natalie hold the fate of his life in her hands when she’s still six-years-old inside: red-faced and sobbing in her trailer with two fingers in her open mouth, needing anyone at all to hear her?

“because he wasn’t any kind of threat.”

nat wants it to mean something. it has to mean something.

but as soon as the words leave her lips, shauna is shooting up to yell at her. the others are following — their voices clamoring and layering —louder and louder and nat can’t take it anymore. tears are falling without her permission and the need to cry is getting harder to swallow. she’s trapped in her skin, paralyzed, and all anyone around her can do is fight.

“order!” misty yells. “order! order!”

but nobody listens. they never do.

nat’s heart pounds as she tries and fails to catch her breath. it’s too loud and too much and it’s getting worse by the second.

taissa leans in with a condescending smile and tells nat that the prosecution now rests. nat can’t remember what that means, all she knows is that she needs to get out. she needs to run. so she stands from her spot — eyes darting around the scene — and makes a beeline for her hut.

there, nat finally collapses.

she lays in a heap in the dirt, curled up on her side, and lets her body release the sobs it can no longer contain. they’re all heavy and completely consuming — shaking her body and pressing her face into the dirt.

she wants to go home.

it’s all nat can think — she doesn’t know where that is but she needs it. she needs to be away from the yelling, away from the anger, away from the violence. she needs to be held the way she was supposed to be when she really was a child. maybe then, she wouldn’t feel this way now — too small for her body and too weak for a world that seems so desperate to chew her up and spit her back out.

nat doesn’t realize that fingers have found their way to her mouth, but she knows that she lets them stay. she knows they feel nice there — that they distract from the snot pooling on her upper lip and hair sticking to her sweaty skin.

with her last bit of awareness, natalie leans into the heaviness and sinks into herself until the world around her begins to fizzle out. the fogginess that embraces her is usually so scary but today, it’s exactly what she needs.

it’s a warm embrace. a promise that softness still exists, even in its ephemerality.

as the sobs leave her, nat stays in her ball. she holds herself in a loose grasp with knees tucked into her chest — finally feeling as small in her body as she does in her mind. she’s drifted far enough that the chaos is dissolving. it’s miles and inches away — close enough to reach for, but far enough that it knows it can no longer touch her.

deep within the most gentle crevices of her mind, natalie is safe.

Shauna sat at the end of her bed, legs swinging anxiously under her. “Only if you’re comfortable,” Jackie was explaining softly - stroking Shauna’s messy brown hair. “I know we agreed it’s best, but you just tell me if you don’t want it?” Shauna nodded, swallowing roughly. She just wanted this part to be over. They’d decided it was time Shauna started wearing protection when she regressed. Nothing had changed. The accidents weren’t new, the wet sheets weren’t new, the suggestion wasn’t new. It was something Shauna had spent months trying to make herself comfortable with. The idea that she needed help, that she was allowed help in that way. It had been nerve wracking to come to terms with. She’d been so sure when she’d first told Jackie she was ready to try - during another middle of the night shower where Jackie stood guard with her back to Shauna. But when it actually came time for it, Shauna realised it wasn’t something she could handle alone. So Jackie was here, holding powder and a diaper and looking at Shauna so gently that it all felt easy. Except it wasn’t - and Shauna was trying to worm out from underneath the fog of regression and anxiety to pretend differently. It wasn’t like Jackie had never seen before - they’d changed in front of each other their whole lives, and Jackie had been right there through Shauna’s entire labour. So it was nothing new, technically - but it felt like it was. Because Shauna wasn’t the same. In the way that her body had never gone back to the way it was before her baby - her hips wider, her skin stretched. But more than that, she’d changed with the scars which Jackie knew of but that Shauna had never let her see. The thick and orderly ones which had grown in number between rescue and moving into the house. They were healed now, shiny white raised lines on the front of her thigh. A memory, nothing more. “Nothing to be ashamed of,” Jackie hummed, kissing the top of Shauna’s head. “Just lay down and we’ll be done in a second.” Shauna lay back, because everything felt too scary and she really did just want Jackie to make everything better.

Jackie knew what to expect, in theory. It didn’t stop the silent hitch in her breath when she saw Shauna’s thigh for the first time. Not out of disgust, not out of fear, but from the absolute heartbreak she felt at the reminders of her baby’s pain. “You’re doing so well for me,” she cooed - not wanting her silence to allow any anxieties to spread in Shauna’s mind. She carefully slipped Shauna’s underwear off, making sure not to touch any of the scars as she went. Shauna whined a little, cold air hitting her skin. “Poor girl, Mommy’s going to make this quick. Can you lift your hips up for me?” Shauna obeyed quietly and Jackie unfolded the diaper and laid it out under her. She gently patted some powder over Shauna. It smelt soft and gave Jackie something to focus on other than the scars. She should’ve noticed earlier, should’ve helped more. Neither of them had been doing well back then, but Jackie was overwhelmed with guilt that she hadn’t been able to fix it. She taped up the diaper snugly over Shauna’s hips, running her fingers under the waistband to make sure it wasn’t too tight. “How does that feel?” Shauna wiggled a little, testing the new sensation.

It crinkled as she moved, a soft sound which made Shauna blush deeply. But it felt good, soft and thick against her skin. Safe. “Feels ok,” she whispered, chewing on the collar of her flannel.

“I’m glad,” Jackie praised. She let her eyes trail back to Shauna’s thigh once more. Her mind was working over time to glue the two pictures together. The soft white diaper which told such a story of innocence and ease, next to the rough scars which were a reminder of all the pain and suffering her baby had known well beyond her years. It was painfully juxtaposed in the most heartbreaking way. Jackie tried not to fixate on it too long, tugging Shauna’s pyjama pants on gently. They were a light brown, teetering on the edge of yellow, with little brown bear faces all over them. They matched perfectly with Shauna’s Winnie the Pooh sweater. “All bundled up,” she cooed, tucking her hands under Shauna’s arms and helping her sit up.

Shauna studied Jackie’s face - trying to catch her out. Any hint of disgust, or judgment. There was nothing. Jackie’s eyes were soft and shimmery as if tears were looming but not close by. Her lips were pursed and her cheeks flushed but none of it was worrying. She wasn’t scared, and wasn't angry. She was just Jackie. She ran her fingers through Shauna’s hair. “Let me braid your hair then you can have your bottle.” Shauna shuffled around so Jackie could sit behind her. The diaper shifted between her thighs. It was thick beneath her pants and Shauna knew if anyone saw they would know. But it was only Jackie here, so she didn’t mind. Jackie settled behind Shauna and wordlessly began brushing through the tangles in her hair. She tied it off expertly into two braids - making Shauna feel even smaller.