I cant make u love me
Fourth period is group work.
The kind where the teacher pairs them up arbitrarily but with just enough precision to feel cruel.
Shauna gets Jackie.
Jackie gets Shauna.
It’s Romeo and Juliet. Shauna already knows the ending.
They sit at the same desk but don’t face each other. Just the edges of their shoulders angled in, notebooks open, pens moving. The silence between them is sharp enough to write with.
Jackie taps her pen against the desk three times. Then stops.
Shauna pretends to read a line again, but she’s not really reading.
She’s waiting.
⸻
“What do you think about this part?” Jackie says finally, pointing at the scene where Juliet says she’ll cut Romeo into little stars.
Shauna blinks. “It’s intense.”
Jackie hums. “Dramatic.”
“You’d rather she wrote him a note?”
Jackie glances at her. “At least it wouldn’t get them both killed.”
Shauna shrugs. “Maybe that’s the point.”
Jackie doesn’t reply. Just writes something down in tight, angry cursive.
The sound of pencil on paper fills the space where a thousand other things should be.
⸻
Later, in the hallway, Shauna brushes past Jackie on her way to the vending machines.
Their shoulders almost touch.
Jackie doesn’t look at her.
But she slows down. Just barely.
Shauna notices.
⸻
By the lockers, Lottie leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching Shauna approach. There’s a bite mark on her collarbone, mostly hidden by her scarf.
Shauna blushes. Looks away. Smiles anyway.
Jackie sees it. From the end of the hall.
Pretends not to.
⸻
Practice is cancelled. The sky spits sleet. The air smells like rust.
Shauna doesn’t go home right away. She walks the long way.
Every crunch of her boots on gravel sounds like a heartbeat.
Every glance over her shoulder feels like it should mean something.