Chapter Text
The thing about Jackie’s new “job” is that apparently it’s a full-time position.
Shauna doesn’t mean to keep track, but she does. She can’t help it. She notices how Jackie is always—always—doing something for someone.
“Jackie, can you fix this?”
“Jackie, Javi won’t eat unless you sit with him.”
“Jackie, my blanket’s drafty—”
Jackie does it. Every time. Not with enthusiasm, exactly, but with this stubborn determination that makes Shauna want to shake her and tell her to stop.
And every time Shauna catches herself feeling that way, she bites down hard on the inside of her cheek.
Because… why does she care?
The first time Shauna feels the jealousy bloom, it’s small.
Javi is curled up against Jackie on the cabin floor, his head tucked under her chin like she’s his sister, or maybe even his mom. Jackie absently runs her hand through his hair, focused on mending one of his socks.
Shauna stares too long. Long enough that when Jackie glances up and catches her eye, Shauna snaps her gaze away like she wasn’t just—what? Staring at Jackie holding someone else close?
She tells herself it’s nothing.
The second time, Akilah interrupts them.
Shauna and Jackie are finally—finally—sitting together, half-whispering about some stupid inside joke from school that no one else would understand. It feels almost normal, like the cabin walls aren’t pressing in, like the snow outside isn’t waiting to swallow them whole.
And then Akilah plops down right next to Jackie, holding up a knife.
“Jackie, can you show me again how to cut carrots without slicing my thumb off?”
Shauna is halfway through saying she’s busy before she stops herself. Jackie’s already taken the knife, already shifted into “Cabin Mom” mode, already forgetting the thread of the conversation.
Shauna swallows the sudden heat in her chest.
By the time Mari starts leaving “grocery lists” on the table—little piles of berries and sticks with scribbled notes—Shauna is simmering.
She tries to frame it as annoyance. Jackie’s letting them walk all over her. Jackie’s wasting time. Jackie’s acting like she’s their… housewife or something.
But deep down, Shauna knows it’s not about that.
It’s about the fact that Jackie isn’t hers anymore. Not fully.
One evening, the feeling boils over.
The cabin is loud—Van and Mari bickering, Travis poking at the fire, Laura Lee trying to read something from the Bible while no one listens. Jackie is at the center of it, dividing up bowls of stew like it’s her sacred duty.
When she finally sits down, it’s next to Javi, who immediately leans against her. Jackie smiles faintly and adjusts her blanket so it covers him too.
And something in Shauna just—snaps.
“Do you ever get tired of it?” she blurts.
Jackie blinks at her.
“Of what?”
“Being everyone’s… I don’t know. Babysitter. Maid. Mom.”
The words come out sharper than she intends.
The cabin goes a little quieter. Tai raises an eyebrow. Van smirks like she's in on some joke nobody else knows about, Tai responds by elbowing her to stop.
Jackie’s face tightens.
“Well, someone has to keep things from falling apart,”
Jackie says coolly.
“Yeah, but it’s like—you let them treat you like you’re… like you’re not even—”
Shauna cuts herself off. She doesn’t even know what she’s trying to say. Not without saying too much.
“Like I’m what?”
Jackie demands.
Shauna’s mouth goes dry. Her pulse is hammering in her ears.
Like you’re not mine anymore.
But she can’t say that.
So instead she mutters,
“Like you’re not you.”
--
Later that night, Jackie corners her outside. The air bites cold; their breath fogs between them.
“What was that about?”
Jackie asks. Her voice is sharp, but underneath it there’s hurt.
Shauna stares at the snow, at the endless dark beyond the treeline.
Shauna can’t explain it—not the ache in her chest when Jackie laughs with Akilah, not the way she grits her teeth when Javi curls up against her. So she shakes her head, helpless.
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
Jackie studies her for a long moment. Then, softer:
“Maybe you do.”
Shauna looks up at her, startled. Jackie’s face is unreadable in the moonlight, but her eyes linger, searching.
And Shauna feels that heat again, the one she can’t name, the one that tastes like jealousy but burns like something else.