Silent all these years
Jackie isn’t talking.
Not to her, anyway.
Not in the way she used to, with that half-teasing, half-mean voice she saved for people she knew better than anyone. The way she’d ask Shauna about her weekend, then roll her eyes when she gave a boring answer. The way she’d mock Shauna’s book choices, but borrow them when no one was looking. The way she’d say “You’re so annoying,” but only when she really meant please don’t stop talking to me.
That version of Jackie hasn’t shown up in days.
Instead: clipped nods. Tight smiles. Not quite cold—Jackie doesn’t do cold—but muted. Like someone dimmed the brightness and forgot to turn it back up.
Shauna notices it in weird places.
During practice, when Jackie jogs next to her and doesn’t say anything.
At lunch, when Jackie laughs at Tai’s joke but doesn’t look her way.
In class, when Jackie passes her a copy of the worksheet without their fingers brushing.
It’s subtle. Barely a glitch.
But Shauna feels it like a bruise.
⸻
She tries to shrug it off.
Tries to lose herself in Lottie’s hands, in the lazy way Lottie traces the shape of her hipbone under the cafeteria table. In the way Lottie tugs her closer during scrimmages, muttering you’re mine like she means it.
But even there—Shauna’s mind drifts.
Back to Jackie.
To the shape of her silence.
It bothers her. It shouldn’t. But it does.
It feels like a challenge. Or a punishment.
She starts to test it.
⸻
“Hey,” she says one morning, sliding into the seat beside Jackie before class.
Jackie doesn’t look up from her notebook. “Hey.”
Shauna watches her. Waits.
Nothing.
“Your nails are chipping,” she says finally.
Jackie blinks. “Yeah, well.
Jackie just flips a page and underlines something hard.
Shauna’s stomach twists. Not in a jealous way. In a what the hell did I do? way.
But she doesn’t ask. Not yet.
Instead she leans back, crosses her arms, and watches Jackie pretend she’s not being watched.
⸻
Later that day, in the locker room, Shauna stands in front of her open locker, towel around her shoulders, dripping from the shower.
She sees Jackie glance over—just once.
Her eyes flick down her neck, catch on a faint smudge of purple, then dart away fast.
Shauna sees it. Sees the shift in her jaw, the way her mouth presses flat.
There it is, she thinks. Something.
But she still doesn’t know what.
⸻
That night, she pulls Lottie’s hoodie over her head and walks home with her headphones in, the Cranberries murmuring into the wind.
She doesn’t say it out loud, but the thought keeps repeating.
Jackie’s mad at me.
Jackie’s watching me.
Jackie’s not saying a damn thing.
And Shauna doesn’t know why, but it’s starting to hurt.