I need to go crazy go stupid go aaaaaAAAaaa about Yellowjackets ShaunaJackie for a second forgive me. (I’m also on mobile so forgive the long post.)
Shauna’s been getting ready for this break up for awhile.
Her crush on Jackie has soured into resentment. All the things she used to love are the things she hates now. Things she thought belonged to her turn bitter in her mouth.
She knows. She knows that Jackie will never love her. She knows that it’s one-sided, and that she needs to grow up, move on, leave Jackie in that rear view mirror. She was gonna travel, write, and break hearts wherever she went.
Jackie is in love with Shauna. She doesn’t know how to articulate it. She probably doesn’t even know the extent. She just knows that she likes the power and attention of boys, but not boys themselves. She likes Shauna. She has plans for Rutgers involving some wine coolers and a shared room. (Oh my god, they were roommates.) She doesn’t know she was getting dumped.
Shauna was gonna do it at graduation. After nationals. Just bear down through the victory lap, then like ripping off a band-aid. “I’m not going to Rutgers, Jackie. I got in to Brown.”
And she’d get to leave before having to deal with the brunt of it.
Then the plane went down and that conversation stretched ahead in the unknowable future. A liminal space. Being trapped in the wilderness and being trapped in the death throes of queerplatonic romance. Slowly unstitching herself from the quilt of codependence while still in a situation that requires comfort. Jackie is Shauna’s teddybear. She’s comforting when allowed. Embarrassing around mixed company.
Jackie’s so annoyed. She was waiting. Waiting until college to cash in that virginity pact with Shauna in a wine cooler excuse. Now that two day rescue has stretched into months and Shauna and everyone are being weird. All the ways she used to comfort Shauna “You’re my best friend”, “You’re always there for me”—the whispered sleepover confessions, don’t seem to work anymore. She doesn’t understand that her attention doesn’t feel special to Shauna anymore. It’s just another reminder of an uneven affection. Thing is, even when she is always there for Shauna. Feeding her the last ration she has, putting her health first, it’s on the other side of a chasm of everything that’s gone unsaid.
Shauna deserves someone who sees her outside their own shadow. Shauna deserves someone who puts her on the pedestal. Lets her shine for her brilliance.
Jackie flips all her compliments into digs. “I love the way you look when you move” becomes “You’re a terrible dancer”, “Stop drinking by yourself and spend time with me” becomes “You can’t hold your liquor for shit”. It’s acceptable this way. It’s easier this way. Shauna’s never told her it hurts.
There was an alternate future. One of seeing each other on Thanksgiving the first—maybe second year of college and talking. In the car. About things. Always talking around it. Never speaking it aloud, but each reaching the conclusion that whatever it was wasn’t in the cards for them. In that future, at the tenth, maybe the twentieth reunion, Jackie shows up with a brilliant girlfriend and confesses over a shared joint that she had such a crush on Shauna in school. Maybe then, they give it a go. It’s probably too late though.
This was the future Shauna intended to have, when she went to bed angry, cold, and stubborn that night.
She thought they’d be rescued and Jackie would be the spotlight girl of the team. Outshining everyone before the camera and earning more resentment of the team. She thought they’d get to have that conversation once things died down.
She thought she’d have more time. But they never did. And Shauna’s still sitting in that car, waiting for them to be through.
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