You dont know how it feels
Jackie doesn’t look back when Shauna walks away.
She wants to.
God, she wants to.
But instead, she smooths down the edge of her skirt, closes her notebook, and smiles like her chest doesn’t feel like it’s wrapped in barbed wire.
They talked. Technically.
Two minutes of Shakespeare and sarcasm. One near-touch. A whole novel of tension that never left the page.
Jackie breathes in. Breathes out. Doesn’t cry. Doesn’t explode.
Just sits there, heart racing like she ran a mile uphill.
⸻
In the hallway, she sees them again.
Shauna and Lottie.
Shauna’s biting her lip. Lottie’s whispering something into her ear, slow and low and deliberate. There’s a hickey just below Lottie’s scarf. Jackie’s sure of it. It’s not just a shadow. She knows that mark.
Jackie keeps walking.
She pretends not to notice. Pretends she didn’t flinch. Pretends her palms aren’t sweaty in the sleeves of her stupid cable-knit sweater.
⸻
She skips dinner. Says she has cramps.
She doesn’t. Not really.
She lies in bed with the lights off and the radio playing some sad acoustic thing she doesn’t know the name of. Her room smells like winter and old perfume. She stares at the ceiling and tries not to remember how Shauna used to doodle on her notebooks. How she once braided Jackie’s hair during a sleepover and didn’t laugh when she cried about Little Women.
Stupid.
⸻
She opens her closet. Finds the flannel Shauna gave her last year when she forgot her jacket after practice. It still smells like old laundry and pencil shavings.
Jackie almost puts it on.
Then doesn’t.
⸻
She lies back on her bed, staring at nothing, replaying the moment in class when Shauna almost met her eyes. Almost.
Like they were on the same page.
Like they wanted the same thing.
But maybe they don’t.
Maybe Jackie’s the only one stuck.