excerpts - shauna's journal
PRE-CRASH:
LETTER I:
Dear Jackie,
You gifted me a new journal today. I hadn't quite ran out of pages on the former, but it seemed fitting to write in this one. I like the color you chose. It is a nice brown leather, almost as if you know what I like, but do you? You dig your claws into my skin and nick the surface, but you do not wait around to see how my blood flows. You only know and see the surface. I applied to Brown recently, but I have not yet told you. I don't think you will handle knowing I do not want to be your roommate at Rutgers. But is that fair, considering you've never asked what I want? Is it wrong I dream of more? You think I care about Nationals because I like soccer, but I only care about the achievement of winning. It will look good on my Resume. To you, I think it is just another prize to be won. Something shiny trophy to reminisce about when you become a boring housewife. I've seen the medals Mrs. Taylor proudly displays around the dining room, but I know there must be some regret in becoming the trophy herself. You will follow in her footsteps, just like you've talked about doing since you were younger. You were always satisfied for such a life.
This is not my dream. I wish to purse a different life. You will never ask me what I want, though, so I keep my mouth shut.
LETTER II:
Dear Jackie,
These are the words I write for I do not dare breathe them aloud. You looked soft in the moonlight glow of the party. Your lips were glossy and your face flushed from alcohol, but still, you looked at me across the room as if you had nothing else to stare at. It was only for a second. A lot happened in that second. You stared at me with an unwavering gaze, and I stared back as if entranced by your hazel eyes. Perhaps I had hoped for more. But it did not matter. You went back to being Jeff's perfect pristine girlfriend, and I left the room for it was suffocating. You did not notice, did not look for me, until after the party. But, by then, I was already drunk off cheap liquor and on a soaring high that enveloped me. It practically consumed me. The alcohol. The weed fuzzing around my brain. The way your hand grazed mine when I entered the car. At first, a soft touch. But then you squeezed my forearm, looked at me as if I was your moon while you leaned over to buckle me in, and I was speechless.
You sat in the passenger seat, giggling into Jeff the whole way home, and I watched from the back. Bitterly. This hatred encompassed me like Earth shadowed by the Moon during an eclipse. Yet I am the shadow in your presence. Your little sidekick that you dangle around and drag on a leash as if I am a dog. Like you have a rope around my neck, tugging and pulling until it is heavy and bruised purple. Perhaps you would think the purple is the color of love, and in a way it is. This lavender collar you keep tight around my neck is a symbol of my love, but also a devotion of my hatred. Yes, it would be foolish to say I do not hate you. It is a weird, incomprehensible line. You are my best friend, but someone who will never understand me.
I dance across this line often. Torn between loving and hating you. When you smile, it feels like I love you. Like I could never not love you. You are my entire world in those moments. But when you kiss Jeff and speak to me in hushed whispers about your adoration for the boy, I feel disgusted. Like there is something tugging at my heart. Dragged around by a string. How can you love someone who cheats on you? You do not know that, of course, but it is obvious. He isn't someone worthy of your love, someone worthy of your presence. He is merely a foolish incompetent boy. Yet, you're so happy to mold yourself into his hands. Like you were meant to be a Trophy Wife. That is your future, is it not? Do you not speak to me about college just being a decorative degree to collect dust on your shelf? Like you're a carbon-copy of your mother? Am I to collect dust on your shelf, too? Am I just your dog that you abandon when it grows old?
Yes, these are the reasons I think I hate you.
LETTER III:
Dear Jackie,
I kissed Jeff again and smudges of your lip-gloss grazed my face. I could smell your sweet perfume on his shoulders, on his jacket that I quickly tugged off his skin and threw onto the car floor. He tasted like strawberries, and I know it is the lip-gloss you often carry in your pocket. I dug my teeth deeper into his lips as if I wanted to consume him. I hate him. But when my eyes are closed, it's never that bad. I am able to ignore his sweaty hands that greedily wander. This is another thing we share, Jackie. We share clothing like it is nothing, so why should it matter when it is a boy? Would you not want to share with your dog? I kiss him harder, passionately, when I think of how upset it would make you. Yes, I do not care for Jeff. Regardless, I fuck him.
It becomes a routine. To grovel at your feet at parties. To shut my mouth and speak only what you think I should. I obey your unspoken commands on how a friend should act. On how I should be. But I fuck your boyfriend knowing that I hate you. And that there is a thrill in sharing. I think of you every time. How would you react, Jackie? Knowing I fuck him? Would you be more pissed at him or me? I know you can hardly stomach him. He is excessive acid in your stomach that makes you nauseous, but you keep him around like you want to parade him in my face. And everyone else's. Your perfectly sculpted image of yourself is more important than our friendship, and this is why I hate you. You're boring. You're insecure. You know that if you didn't keep Jeff around, no one would bat an eye in your direction.
But you know your dog is faithful. You know and snap your fingers and pull on that leash. Harder and harder each time, until it is like my neck is drowned in my blood. I can barely breathe. But this pull you have on me is out of my control.
I think I hate that I do care about you. But this hate is a calamity waiting to ruin us. If only I could speak. But akin to you, I am a coward. And it is our cowardliness that snaps us in place. Perhaps, if circumstances were different this would mean something else. But the year is 1996, and the world is so new to such ideas. I will never think of this again, it is only the liquor in me that denotes my bravery.
I still taste your strawberry gloss on my lips. In my pink-stained teeth that I have yet to brush. But when I do, it will just be a faded memory induced by too much to drink. So easy to ignore. For it is 1996, and you are my friend that I've begun to loathe.
I think I hate myself, too.
I never meant to become this person. But there is no going back.
LETTER IV:
Dear Jackie,
We fly out to Nationals tomorrow. I cannot bring myself to feel excited about our accomplishments. Frankly, when we get back, I intend to sever our ties. I will be going to Brown next fall, and this friendship cannot last the distance. Consequently, I spend each moment cherishing our friendship. I do hate you, yes, but my love also knows no end. Our friendship has always been complicated. This is why it cannot last. I assume after Rutgers you will marry Jeff and have children. Become nothing but a housewife as if that is your sole purpose. It is not your dream, we both know that, but you walk the plank anyway. I want more for myself. I want to go to Brown and become something. I want to be more than just your dog, Jackie. Is that too much to ask? I know you will not react kindly. So, it is one last parting gift that I give you Nationals and our friendship momentarily staying the same. We're bound to fade away as we grow up, and perhaps it is kinder if we snip it early to avoid the inevitable heartbreak. I do love you, Jackie, but it does not matter anymore. It never will again. I have outgrown you like you are an old sweater that no longer properly fits.
As I write this final letter you will never see, I look at my nightstand and see you. An old polaroid of us from Freshman Year. You're in your soccer uniform, and I am in mine, but we do not hold the weight of the future yet. No, I look to you and see someone I do not recognize. Your cheeks and face look younger. So do mine. This was back then. Back then when things were simpler. You had begged me to join the soccer team with you, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't happy you simply wanted to include me. It isn't quite as easy now. There's this heavy, crushing weight that consumes me.
I'll see you in the morning and pretend it does not take my breath away. I will allow myself this. One last time. But soon, you will be nothing. You do not matter, Jackie. I'm sorry. I love you, but I think I have begun to hate you more.
POST CRASH
Where are we? And what is to become of our team? How long has it been? What is the world saying about us? The trees loom for miles. It is an endless stretch of land that our eyes cannot perceive. There is no walking to civilization. No, we are the civilization. This is what is to become of us: a bunch of teenagers stranded with limited resources and nothing to guide us. There is no home but an old cabin that promises humans once laid their mark here. Yet, there is no telling how long it has been unoccupied. The skeleton gives me an idea. It has been ages.
We are doomed.
I am doomed.
There are bloody rags that indicate everyone else is getting their period. I am late. Tai glanced at me, and my stomach lurched from the realization. Yet I lied. I lied and said I started it.
I have not. I think I'm pregnant.
I'm pregnant and Jackie does not know. She cannot know. I have to end this life inside of me, even if it means I am to die, and it is terrifying. Tai is aware, but I cannot let her realize the full extent. This has to be done alone.
I couldn't go through with it.
If rescue doesn't come soon, I will surely die giving birth in the Wilderness.
Jackie is becoming useless. Everyone else is noticing, too. She doesn't fit in. Not anymore.
Laura Lee was doomed to be our failed savior. She exploded into an abundance of flames while the plane crashed into the lake. Lottie screamed with the explosion, and I numbly watched. I don't know how long she stood in the water, watching with anguish. My arm twitched. I wanted to help her, but I couldn't help someone who lost their friend. This grief was for Lottie alone. If it had been Jackie... I think I would have wanted to drown. But this is our reality. Any of us could die like the drop of a fly. Our lives are meaningless out here.
If there is truly a God, we have been abandoned.
Where are we? Where are we? WHAT IS TO BECOME OF US?
I don't know who or what we are turning into anymore.
My thoughts are screaming at me. With every day, they become less coherent. I fear if I write too much, I will run out of pages. I almost killed Travis. I don't know why, but I held the knife to his throat. I don't know what consumed me. It felt like my body was not my own. I wanted to cut into his skin and that terrifies me. Jackie and Nat are furious, but Jackie also fucked Travis. It disgusts me. I don't know what to think, and I am becoming increasingly more pregnant with each day. My head is reeling. For now, this is goodbye.
I will write again soon, hopefully with better news.
POST JACKIE:
Jackie is dead. And it is entirely my fault. I am sorry.
I am sorry.
So so so fucking sorry.