Aeroplane
Jackie doesn’t slam her bedroom door.
That would be dramatic.
And she doesn’t want to be dramatic.
She just—needs a minute.
A second.
An hour.
The door shuts gently behind her. The house is quiet. Her parents aren’t home. Her mom’s probably at book club or Pilates or whatever other version of “staying busy and ignoring everything” she’s into this week.
Jackie stands in the middle of her room, fists clenched.
She can still see it. Shauna’s legs straddling Lottie’s hips. The sheet slipping just enough to see skin. Lottie’s hands in Shauna’s hair like she belonged there.
Like Jackie never had.
⸻
She moves on instinct—grabs her notebook off the desk, rips it open, flips past cheer routines and outfit drafts, and scrawls across a fresh page in black ink:
“You’re not allowed to do this to me.”
Then she stares at it for a long time.
Scratches it out.
Then she rips the page out and throws it in the trash.
⸻
She gets on the computer.
Waits for the dial-up to groan into place. Clicks through her AOL homepage. Checks her email. Nothing. Refreshes. Nothing. Goes to her buddy list.
No one interesting is on. Nat’s away. Mari’s probably doing her nails. Tai doesn’t log on until after dinner. Shauna—God, Shauna.
She hovers over Shauna’s username.
Offline.
She used to always know what Shauna was doing.
Where she was. Who she was talking to. What she was eating for lunch, whether she had cramps.
And now?
Nothing.
⸻
Jackie opens AIM again.
Clicks into a chat room. Some girl-on-girl space. The username is “RainBowzRUs” or some shit. It’s mostly girls sending song lyrics and strangers pretending to be girls. It’s all corny. All a little pathetic.
She fits right in.
JackAttack16: f/17/jersey. anyone around?
LilacHeartxx: hey!
Jessilicious88: you sound cute
JackAttack16: what does cute sound like
Jessilicious88: like someone with issues
Jackie types:
JackAttack16: lol
Jackie logs off.
⸻
She lies back on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Her posters feel stupid now. The Leonardo DiCaprio one. The wall collage of Cosmo Girl cutouts. All those shiny images of who she thought she was going to be.
She’s supposed to be the main character.
She’s not supposed to be the one standing in the doorway, watching her best friend choose someone else.
Worse: watching her best friend choose someone who isn’t her in a way she never even thought to be.
⸻
She replays the moment in her head on a loop.
Not just the now—not just Lottie, shirtless, calm, the kind of calm that made Jackie feel like a child—but all the way back.
Shauna in her bedroom in eighth grade, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, telling Jackie her secrets like they were sacred.
Shauna in her kitchen last year, making grilled cheese, calling her “a pain in the ass” but with that tiny smile she only used when no one else was around.
Shauna at that party, brushing her hand against Jackie’s arm and pretending it was nothing.
Jackie could have done something.
She could have said something.
But she didn’t.
She never did.
She wanted Shauna to say it first. To admit it. To chase her. To make it easy.
And now she never gets to know if she would’ve said it back.
⸻
She picks up her phone. Dials Shauna’s number.
Then hangs up before the first ring.
⸻
She opens her closet. Stares at her outfits. Her trophies. Her whole curated existence.
Then slams the door shut.
⸻
Jackie lies down on her floor, cheek against the rug, arms splayed out.
She wants to feel something.
She wants to scream. Or puke. Or cry.
She does none of those things.
She just stares at the ceiling, blinking, trying to remember when it got so quiet inside her head.
⸻
Because it’s not just that Shauna’s kissing someone else.
It’s that she’s kissing someone else, and Jackie doesn’t know what it would’ve felt like to be chosen back.
And that terrifies her more than anything.
⸻