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It feels like months have passed since that first snow, and the ground hasn’t been clear of it since. Every single day since Jackie died the drifts have gotten deeper and their stomachs have gotten emptier.
Today is different, though. Two nights ago… they ate. Yesterday, they processed living with that. Today, his stomach still doesn’t feel like it’s going to digest itself.
He knows that a single meal can’t last forever, but he feels better than he has since the last time he saw Javi.
“You should be glad he’s not here, Travis,” Jackie’s voice in his mind tells him, “he doesn’t have to see you all like this. I bet you all have, like, a cannibal glow or something.”
“Not all of us,” Travis thinks back at her.
“Oh yeah,” Jackie says, “Coach didn’t eat me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What a gentleman!” Jackie crows, “how’s he doing, anyway?”
“Not great. He hasn’t left his room in like, four days.”
"What are you doing?" Jackie asks, "you don't have the gun. I don't think you'll kill much without it."
"Don't need it," Travis thinks at her, "it's just Lottie's prayer circle."
“Ah,” Jackie says, “a prayer circle! Lottie’s really just stealing all of Laura Lee’s stuff.”
“Laura Lee doesn’t own prayer circles,” Travis mutters.
“Wow,” Jackie says, “you really, like, believe, don’t you?” Travis doesn’t say anything. “After what they did to you?” Travis still doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know how to explain what happened: how he went from prey to part of the pack. How he's always wanted to be one of them more than anything-
Then he remembers that they didn't just hurt him; they hurt Jackie, too. Suddenly, Travis feels worse about believing the way he does. “I’m sorry, it’s just-”
“It’s fine, Travis,” she says, “you believe. Maybe I should have too.” She laughs that same, broken laugh from when they’d slept together.
“Can the others hear you in their heads too?" he asks. If this happened because they ate her, it would make sense if all of them are simultaneously talking to her.
“No-pe,” she says, popping the p, “just you. The others can’t hear shit.”
“Before we tried to cremate you, Taissa, uh- she said Shauna was talking to your body. Giving it makeovers and shit.”
Jackie cackles. “That’s” she takes a second to think, “I don’t even know what that is.”
“Fucked up?”
“No,” Jackie tells him. She takes a second to think before she settles on, "Validating.”
“Oooohhhhkkaaaayyyy,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to.
“Shut up,” she mutters. Then Jackie’s presence melts into the back of his mind.
She doesn't come back to the forefront of his mind until a few mornings later on the way back from an unsuccessful hunt for both game and Javi.
“Who are they gonna eat next, you think?”
“No one.”
“Come on, Travis. Winter’s long. You won’t stop starving overnight.” He ignores her. “Hmmmmmm. I bet it’ll be the outsider- whoever they think doesn’t matter.”
“Jackie-”
“It’s not you," she assures him, "You weren’t on the team, but you’re part of it now.” He feels something warm and pleasant wash over him. “Misty, maybe? No, she’s hanging out with Crystal now.”
“Yeah," Travis says. Even if Misty weren't hanging out with Crystal, he couldn't imagine the girls turning on her. Sure, they don't like Misty, but they appreciate her skills. She's too valuable to ostracize too much.
“Could be Shauna, but everyone’s like, creepy invested in her baby.” Travis bites his lip.
“Oh, I know!” Jackie declares, “it’s Coach! Sad sack hasn’t left his bed in weeks.”
“Jackie-”
“And he didn’t even eat me.” Then she laughs, “Hell of an initiation ritual you got, Trav.”
Okay, so yeah, Jackie’s comments about Coach have got him kind of worried. The next morning before prayer circle, Travis decides to talk to Coach about them.
The man doesn't seem happy to see him at such an early hour. He doesn't even sit up in bed or open his eyes, just shift underneath the covers. “What do you want, Travis?”
“You should go to prayer circle,” Travis tells him. The man’s eyes actually focus on him, then.
“You want me to what?” Travis fights off his insecurity and the way he wants to tear into the man for his tone, for acting like Travis is stupid.
“Lottie’s prayer circle,” Travis repeats, “you should join us today.”
The man’s lip curls into a sneer that reminds Travis of his dad: like head coach, like assistant. “You want me to come play pretend with you? Have a fucking blood tea party?”
The barb lodges right in with all the others: his dad, the kids at school, Bobby fucking Farleigh. “It’s not pretend, asshole.” Travis never got to have a tea party as a kid, even for pretend.
“Suuuureeeeee.”
“You know what’s “pretend”?” Travis demands, “thinking you needed all those condoms for a weeklong trip. Did you think every guy in Seattle would just be dying to sleep with you?”
Coach startles. “You know?” He’s scared now, ready to run out of the room at a moment’s notice. It reminds Travis of all the times he spotted Bobby Farleigh on the way down the hallway to gym class and decided he’d rather ditch and have his dad yell at him than have to share a locker room with the guy.
“Yeah,” Travis says, “I know you're gay. It's fine."
“Really?”
“Dude, of course,” Travis says, “Van and Tai are making out all the time. You think any of us have a problem with you being gay?” Coach bites his lip.
“I think you’re safer being gay here than out there,” Travis continues. If his dad had found out back home, or some of the other parents? They would have come after Ben like an angry mob with pitchforks and torches. But out here? They’d fucking clap for him. That is what they all did when Tai and Van came out.
The guy frowns at him, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. “You really trust them, don’t you? Even after they tried to kill you?” Sure, they hurt him, but then they let him into their group. Now that feels more like hazing than a murder attempt.
“Yeah,” he says, “I do.” Travis feels something, kind of like what his dad said he would feel the first time the guy made him join a soccer team.
Belonging. Community. Purpose.
It didn’t feel right back then. The guys laughed at him for how he moved, called him retard and sissy and fag-
He never even looked at their bodies; never wanted to look at them. It was always girls he wanted to look at, chasing after them, wanting to kiss them, wanting to be them.
“You shouldn't,” Coach tells him, “those girls… they’re monsters. They ate Jackie.”
“I ate Jackie,” Travis reminds him. For the first time since this conversation started, Travis can hear Jackie in his head. She’s laughing.
Coach flinches. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Travis says, “so if they’re monsters, so am I.”
The Coach sighs. “You know I didn’t mean that.”
Instead of calming him down, that just riles Travis up. “Maybe if you tried to understand us, you wouldn’t be so afraid! But you’re so busy imagining, like. Satanic rituals and shit to give us a chance!” Coach opens his mouth to say something. Then he closes it, probably thinking better than to say what he’d been thinking.
“We just… hang out in a circle. Listen to the breeze. Remind each other why we stay alive.” He feels the tears building up in his eyes, defending himself from taunts. Why do you do these stupid little magic tricks? Why do you want to hang out with girls? Why are you such a failure as a man?
“Okay,” Coach says. It’s gentle this time.
Travis digs his fingers into his palm, willing the tears to go away. “You should come.” It feels imperative, even though they're not going to eat anyone else. They're done with that- a one time lapse of judgement: a feast gifted by the Wilderness.
Coach’s voice is tired as he says, “Okay, Travis.” Travis makes his way out to the prayer circle. Coach Ben, unsurprisingly, doesn’t follow.
“Wow,” Jackie says, “he’s like, really out of it.” Travis doesn’t say anything. “You girls are all gonna eat him next. I’d put money on it.”
“You don’t have money,” Travis thinks back, "and I'm not a girl." Yes, maybe he's wished he was a girl. Maybe that's something he's thought about, wanted deep down in the secret corners of his heart, but that doesn't make it true.
Jackie's laughter chimes in his mind like a bell. "You aren't? Could have fooled me." Travis doesn't think anything back at her, instead trying to calm himself down before he takes his place at their daily ritual. Sure, everyone else promised to wait for him, but he doesn't want to be a burden. Not when he's finally one of them.
"Are you gonna tell them about me?" Jackie asks, "I bet Lottie'd have a field day with this." Travis doesn't grace that with a response as he takes his seat on the stump between Lottie and Akilah. He takes a deep breath, willing Jackie back into the crevices of his mind so that he can be one with the Wilderness and with the group.
It doesn’t work. It will keep not working, but he’s not going to stop trying.