Chapter Text
It’d be easier, probably, if the realization had slammed into Jackie all at once. If it had been accompanied by a lightbulb going off above her head, or even hit her like a slap in the face. If she could’ve looked over at Shauna one morning, grinned at her and watched her grip the steering wheel with two hands and just thought to herself, Oh. It’s you.
But things are more complicated than that, and it’s all muddied and made messy by the fact that it’s always been Shauna, and not in, like, a weird lezzy way—not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just… not who Jackie is, obviously—but in the way that they’re just going to spend their lives together forever, just like they always have. Two boys at their sides (not Jeff or Randy, but hot college ones, eventually), ideally living on the same street, forever intertwined, raising their kids to be best friends and eventually sharing those caramel old lady candies in rocking chairs on Jackie’s front porch.
So it doesn’t come all at once. It’s in stages, a slow creep that Jackie can’t quite pinpoint the start of, can only look back on and find the steps scattered haphazardly across her lifetime:
Shauna decking two boys for calling her “bug eyes” during recess in elementary school and Jackie feeling like a princess out of one of her favorite Disney movies, all light and fluttery and beaming as Shauna, her hero, had angrily sent them crying back to their teacher, tiny fists clenched, upper lip curled into a snarl.
The time she'd fallen off of the monkey bars during a playdate and injured her wrist, and Shauna had held it in her hands during the drive to the hospital, and then kissed it better so softly in the lobby while they waited for a doctor to see her.
At eleven years old, getting ice cream together and watching Shauna accidentally get a spot of her vanilla cone on the tip of her nose, then getting the sudden urge to lick it off and just acting on it, not getting nervous about it afterward but just feeling a sense of utter joy when Shauna had sputtered blushingly at her and then acted like she’d committed some cardinal sin by touching Shauna’s nose with her tongue.
Shauna kissing a boy a whole year after Jackie already had, but still too soon, always too soon; Jackie hadn’t been ready for it even though it hadn’t meant anything to Shauna, apparently born from a stupid dare in a game Jackie hadn’t been around for. She hadn’t been prepared for the way her stomach had twisted and swooped unpleasantly when she'd found out, and she’d told herself that he hadn’t been deserving of Shauna’s first kiss, that he just wasn’t good enough.
Jackie getting ready in her bedroom for her first date at Funcoland with Jeff, Shauna sprawled out on her bed, shirt riding halfway up her stomach in a way that had made Jackie’s gaze catch before she’d distracted herself with I bet Jeff looks nice without his shirt off.
Stealing her parents’ old, forgotten bottles of wine at sleepovers, drinking, giggling and reaching out for Shauna just to have her hands on her, because it had always felt nice and right and easy to touch her.
Jeff’s fingers in her with another sleepover on her schedule afterward during sophomore year, and how she’d closed her eyes, waiting for it to be over so that she could go to Shauna’s and gossip about it and cuddle, and then how thinking about the comforting press of Shauna’s body against her own had made his fingers slide a little easier—not enough to get her off, because it still had never felt good, but enough that it hadn’t quite hurt anymore.
That night junior year when Jackie had jokingly told Shauna to look nice for her after they’d decided to try a new place for dinner together, and then Shauna had shown up with so much makeup on and Jackie hadn’t been able to breathe correctly when she’d first laid eyes on her.
Shauna’s mouth when she smiles. Shauna’s laugh when Jackie finally says something that can pull it out of her—a real one, not the shorter, appeasing one she does thinking Jackie won’t notice the difference. Shauna’s intense expression when she scribbles into her journal, her eyebrows and lips pinched tight.
Shauna’s lips. Shauna’s chest, her hips, her thighs, and the way Jackie looks at them as they develop and thinks Ugh, she’s got such a better body than me and hates it, hates that boys are going to notice Shauna eventually (instead of her, she tells herself) but then Jackie’s the one who keeps noticing Shauna most of all.
Randy. Randy, who is perfect, because they can double-date and that will make going out with Jeff better, because adding Shauna to anything makes it better, and who is also perfect because Shauna doesn’t like him that much (which means he can’t break her heart and he’s the ideal practice boyfriend for her) and he also knows Jackie will rip his balls off if he does anything Shauna (or Jackie) doesn’t want him to—Jackie makes sure to tell him so. But then Shauna doesn’t date Randy anyway, and it’s another sign in hindsight that Jackie is simultaneously happy and sad about it, and that the sadness is mostly because what if she finds someone she likes better instead? Better than Randy. (Better than Jackie.)
It’s all of it, over the course of a decade, and then in the middle of the first semester of their senior year it still doesn’t happen like a lightbulb going off; Shauna’s just up late studying on Jackie’s bed, cross-legged and hunched over while Jackie reads a magazine, and Jackie looks at her mouth for the dozenth time tonight as Shauna bites at her pencil, feels the same buzz in her stomach that studying Shauna’s lips—and how much nicer they are than Jackie’s, because that’s allowed; girls are jealous of their friends and complimentary of each other’s features all the time—always makes her feel, and something in her brain just goes: You should kiss those.
It’s still not a massive revelation. The thought almost makes her laugh, even. How funny would that be? Passing a bottle back and forth on one of their drunken slumber party nights, Shauna still so inexperienced with boys, Jackie still trying to figure out why Jeff is so bad at it all, and maybe offering that they help each other out. It’s a normal idea. It doesn’t even faze her that she’s thinking about it.
It doesn’t faze her that the idea lingers, or that when Shauna pulls her close at sleepovers Jackie starts to acutely notice all the little points of contact between their bodies, especially where Shauna’s hips are pressed to her own, because she’s always noticed how nice Shauna’s hips are and this is just an extension of that.
She kisses Jeff and thinks about kissing Shauna during, because her mind’s gotten preoccupied with this idea of mutually beneficial practice kissing. She kisses Jeff and thinks about kissing Shauna, who is probably better somehow because Shauna’s just good at so many things without trying. She kisses Jeff and thinks about kissing Shauna because… because. She kisses Jeff and thinks about kissing Shauna.
She watches Shauna stretch on the ground on the soccer field with her legs splayed out in a wide V, and while her brain would’ve thought something like yep, there’s Shauna before and maybe sent a small amount of endorphins coursing through her because she’s looking at Shauna, now it’s been infected with a parasite that thinks Shauna’s legs are spread and Jackie feels wrong and gross even though she’s just making a factual observation.
Shauna takes her shirt off in the locker room after practices and stands there in a sports bra, and Jackie used to look like it was nothing, but now she looks like it’s nothing and feels like she’s hiding something as she does it, and worries someone will somehow notice that there’s a difference in her she can’t even name but knows exists.
The infection grows—and maybe it’s always been there, just dormant or half-asleep or somewhere Jackie hadn’t quite been able to take hold of it, because Shauna’s shirt rides up in the privacy of their bedrooms when she moves a certain way and now Jackie’s eyes jump straight to the bare skin and she doesn’t think of Jeff shirtless anymore.
It could all be normal; something girls just don’t talk about. The body comparisons. The curiosity. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.
Except Jackie wants Shauna’s tongue in her mouth.
She dreams about it once, just a month after You should kiss those, in vivid detail: Rolling on top of Shauna in an imaginary bed that doesn’t belong to either of them, flirty and giggly, and Shauna is shy but nods and lets Jackie’s mouth descend on hers, and Jackie wakes up after what feels like so many long minutes of frenching Shauna and listening to her weak little moans, and what’s supposed to happen between her thighs with Jeff has happened so intensely that she hadn’t even realized her body could do… all of that.
It’s somewhere around then, looking back—in November of her senior year—that she finally starts to get it just a little bit.
-
The panic lasts a full month. Jackie is insanely good at hiding it, after years of tailoring her personality to the people around her; so good she almost scares herself.
Right away, she’s back on Randy, even though she doesn’t want to be, but just for the cover of it all. “He really likes you,” she pushes, usually before they go out to a party where they know he’ll be, and Shauna will scoff dismissively and roll her eyes and Jackie’s heart will go Yes! and then her brain will tell her Fuck, stop, you want her to like him, dumbass! and Jackie will pout at Shauna and say something like, “I just think you should give him a chance,” and Shauna will scowl and Jackie’s heart will leap all over again.
She makes it through the rest of the semester staring and wanting and worrying about getting caught and rocketing from emotion to emotion like she’s hitting puberty for the first time again: lust, shame, yearning, fear, affection, guilt, more lust.
She knows she definitely likes Shauna the way she isn’t supposed to like her, but she doesn’t even know how any of it’s supposed to work. She doesn’t want to figure it out, either, because that’s a whole can of worms she cannot open. So in a perfect world, they’d do all of the same stuff they were always going to do with their lives, only maybe their future husbands would think it’s hot if Jackie and Shauna were just allowed to finger each other occasionally or something, since hand stuff wouldn’t even count. And maybe, also, it’d be nice if Shauna’s husband could put in his wedding vows that he understands Shauna will always love Jackie the most, and then hopefully both of their husbands could work very long hours so that it’d just be Jackie and Shauna and the kids most of the time.
(She really doesn’t know how any of this is supposed to work.)
New Years hits, eventually, and Jeff drives them out to a house party, and it goes the same way it usually does: Shauna makes it incredibly obvious that she doesn’t want to be there, and avoids Randy, and skulks around with the same adorable broody scowl as always while Jackie tries to pump her up so she’s not so fucking miserable for once.
But then Jeff drags her away to put time in with his obnoxious friends, and she figures she’s doing Shauna a favor by not making her come along and socialize with them, so she gives her a quick wave goodbye and then loses track of her in the crowd. Jackie’s still half-thinking about the red lipstick she had talked Shauna into applying before they’d gone out and how good it had looked on her lips when the New Years countdown begins. She chants the numbers with everyone else, dreading hitting one, and Jeff crushes his mouth to hers at three, tasting like beer and using too much tongue, like always.
Shauna wouldn’t use too much tongue, Jackie thinks, but even if she did, it’d be okay.
She finds Shauna maybe fifteen minutes later, Shauna’s hair looking a little messier, which makes sense because she tells Jackie unprompted, too quickly, that she just stepped outside for a few minutes, and Jackie just hooks their arms together, says, “Okay,” and doesn’t make a comment about how windswept her hair looks. “So who’d you kiss, Shipman?” she jokes instead, because she knows there hadn’t been anyone, obviously, but Shauna balks and then looks nervous.
“What?” she asks Jackie. “I—I didn’t—“
“I know,” Jackie laughs out, pulling her along, ready to find Jeff again and turn in for the night. “I was kidding. Like you’re gonna kiss some stranger for New Years.”
“New Years,” Shauna echoes. “Oh. Yeah, no.” Jackie feels her relax. “I didn’t even hear the countdown. That’s such a lame tradition.”
“You think everything popular is lame,” Jackie teases, because it’s painfully true.
“Not you,” Shauna teases back, bumping her affectionately, and Jackie’s heart feels full and warm.
Later, as they’re peeling their clothes off and changing into their pajamas in Jackie’s bedroom, Jackie looks at Shauna’s face so that she won’t look at her body in her bra and underwear and realizes, “You took your lipstick off?”
Shauna falters, confused for a moment, and then her eyes dart away to avoid Jackie’s. “Oh. Yeah. I wiped it off in the bathroom.”
“It looked nice,” Jackie reassures her. “Better on you than it does on me.”
Shauna forces a laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“Really.” Jackie doesn’t push harder because she doesn’t want to give herself away, but there’s always a perpetual dilemma there: act normal but worry she’s telegraphing her feelings, or act differently and leave Shauna wondering what’s changed. Shauna’s smart. Too smart to hide from for too long.
She should just ask for it. Just look at Shauna and suggest they practice kissing each other. Shauna does most things Jackie wants. Maybe she’ll push back on an outfit or two, and Randy’s still a bust, but mostly she’ll offer a half-hearted complaint at worst and then just follow Jackie’s lead.
So, if Jackie sells this the right way, she’s pretty sure she can get Shauna’s mouth on hers all without even showing her how much she wants it. And Jackie’s pretty sure she’s a good kisser anyway—Jeff says so, though she’s not sure if he’s a decent judge given his own lack of prowess—so it’s not like she’d be torturing Shauna. Right?
So, her first order of business is to shove down the guilt and gather the courage to take what she wants. But her second order of business is to make sure that Shauna enjoys it too, so that she’ll get to do it again.
And then… and then Jackie still doesn’t have a plan, but making out with Shauna on the regular feels like a good thing. It can only improve her life, ultimately, so long as her parents don’t find out about it, and even if they do she’ll just save face by telling them the truth about it being for fun, for practice. Because it mostly is, even with—It just mostly is.
She spends a month trying to find the right moment: the right sleepover, where Jackie has enough guts and doesn’t keep stopping herself with thoughts about being a perv or taking advantage of her docile best friend.
If she puts it off until they’re cuddling, it doesn’t happen, because Jackie gets lost in thoughts about Shauna’s body and feels gross and predatory and winds up talking herself out of it.
If she waits until Shauna yawns and says she’s tired and reaches for the lamp, they’ll be cuddling before she knows it, and then she’s stuck in the same dilemma.
But if she asks too early, they’ll kiss a little and then be wide awake for too long afterward, and Jackie doesn’t want to have to sit with all of that, at least not for the first time, when she’s not sure about how well she’ll be able to play it all off.
Because she is going to play it all off. She’s going to lie her fucking ass off if she has to. Anything to avoid unpacking things that don’t need to be unpacked, to go beyond I like Shauna more than I thought I did and I just wanna explore it, is all.
No commitments. No labels, for them together or especially for Jackie as an individual; she thinks about Shauna in ways she shouldn’t but she’s not a—
It’s just. One thing at a time. Dipping her toe in. Just to see what happens, and what Shauna says and does about it all.
-
On the night they finally kiss, Shauna’s facing Jackie with her journal propped up against her knees, scrawling almost frantically into the pages, and Jackie sits with a fluttering in her stomach as she steals glimpses at her and plays with her pink Tamagotchi (Shauna has a matching green one, naturally), wondering if Shauna’s writing about her.
They’d spent the whole day together at the mall. Jackie had talked Shauna into buying a new top that Shauna had hated at first, but Jackie had spent a full twenty minutes explaining all of the ways it was perfect for her—the fit, the color, the neckline, the flattering way it hugged her waist—and in the end Shauna had placed it into her bag along with two flannels and a new pair of chucks.
Moments like those are some of Jackie's proudest. They make her feel useful, like she’s needed, like she’s not just someone Shauna keeps around because they’ve just always been together. Like she’s a good friend.
She wonders often if Shauna writes about her a lot. If she ever scribbles down the kinds of things that bounce around in Jackie’s head without an outlet. She’s been aching to read an entry for years, just to get a glimpse into Shauna’s brilliant mind for just a moment.
She has this theory that Shauna could be really romantic if she ever wanted to be. Aren’t writers supposed to be? Maybe she secretly wants to try this kissing thing too. Maybe she’s as curious as Jackie, and she scrawls down lines about Jackie’s lips or her shiny hair or any of the other things boys are always complimenting Jackie on.
Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t that be the biggest, most flattering compliment to have ever been paid to her, so much more everything compared to Jeff Sadecki leering at her and telling her she looks hot? Shauna would probably find some magical way to convey it all, if she ever wanted to, with bigger words that the boys at their school haven’t ever even heard before.
Jackie checks the clock. It’s a good time; not too early, not too late. Her hands are already starting to sweat but she wipes them off on her shorts and keeps her breathing steady. It’s just Shauna. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.
She tosses her Tamagotchi aside and practically lunges at Shauna, beaming, grabbing her knees and greeting her, “Hey.”
Shauna jumps and slams her journal shut, then shoots Jackie a half-alarmed, half-withering look that almost stops Jackie in her tracks.
“Sorry,” Jackie rushes out flippantly before Shauna can complain. She has to be perfect in her execution of this. Thread the needle. Stay aloof. “I just got an idea.”
She’s losing her fast; she can tell. Shauna still looks annoyed with her, and Jackie sees her eyes flicker to the lamp.
It gives her another reason to rush through this, beyond ripping the Band Aid off, and so she just says it. “We should kiss.”
Shauna’s expression loosens almost to the point of blankness and then she blinks twice, like she’s not sure she’s heard her correctly. Then she laughs—forced, tight. “Sorry, what?”
Jackie has no clue what to make of that reaction. All she can do is power forward. She lifts a brow, smiles, plays it cool. “Are your ears broken, Shipman? You. Me. Kissing.”
Shauna blinks again, lips parting. Then she just asks, dumbly, “On the mouth?”
She’s so cute. Jackie nods eagerly at her. “Yeah. I was thinking—You literally haven’t kissed anyone aside from getting slobbered on a couple of times in middle school. Let me do you a favor.”
There’s a flicker of something across Shauna’s expression, just for a millisecond, that Jackie wants desperately to be able to read and just can’t. She’d trade her entire collection of Ralph Lauren dresses to know what it means. But it’s gone as soon as it had appeared, and then all that’s left is Shauna, walls up, confused, and studying her like Jackie’s the enigma here. Jackie swallows and prays she won’t be seen through, but the fear of it is palpable with Shauna’s piercing eyes on her.
So she tosses the red herring between them like bait, giving up a little to hopefully get a lot more. “Okay, so Jeff sucks ass at it,” she reminds her, because she’s complained about him in this way before, and in plenty of other ways too. “He’s hopeless. So I was thinking that if you kiss me, I can teach him, and then everyone wins.”
Shauna’s expression smooths over immediately, still hard to read, but Jackie thinks she can kind of see the acceptance there, the slight annoyance. Those are both good things. Shauna believes her.
But then she says, “That’s so dumb,” and Jackie feels her hopes fall. Shauna won’t look at her, suddenly. “You already know how to kiss.”
Fuck. She has talked up her own skills over the years. It’s coming back to bite her.
She huffs, crossing her arms, thinking quickly. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to teach. And if I want him to be good, I have to practice with someone who is. If I kiss you and you’re bad, I can practice teaching you to be good first, like tutoring a B student for practice before I tutor an F student. And if you’re good, it’ll help me figure out what I need from him.” She grins, internally patting herself on the back. “Plus, you get to kiss a good kisser, Shipman. You should be grateful.”
Shauna’s lip gives a brief twitch at her final sentence, and she looks away again. Then she sets her journal aside and something in her seems to deflate. “You’re just gonna keep bothering me until I do it anyway.”
Jackie’s smile falls. She sits back on her calves, putting some more distance between them, her stomach churning unpleasantly. “No,” she insists softly, feeling the comment like a gut punch. “I—I’d never make you. I just thought…” She can’t finish that. Can’t tell Shauna she’d assumed she’d just be down for it because she usually just wants whatever Jackie wants. That she’d just assumed they’d be on similar pages about this because they are about almost everything.
Shauna watches her falter, watches her stumble, and then sits forward out of nowhere and takes Jackie’s hand, swallowing hard. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t,” she blurts, and then gulps again like she’s not sure if she’ll regret her own words.
Jackie bites her lip, studying her, and the churning fades. Butterflies are replacing them, and they’re strong, and Jackie has to stop herself from just grasping Shauna’s face and going for it then and there, both because she doesn’t want to spring it on her and doesn’t want to seem overeager. “So you will?” she pushes gently.
Shauna gives an obligatory eye roll, and Jackie bites back a smile. “I… I guess. If, like… it’ll help you out.”
Jackie nods eagerly, then shuffles around and sits up against the wall next to Shauna, bringing her knees up to mirror her. Shauna’s so tense next to her, staring straight ahead, everything tight from her jaw to the hand that’s still clutching Jackie’s.
“Okay,” Jackie starts off quietly, and something drops low in her gut at the sound of her own whisper. The reality of it all seeps into the air, making it feel thicker, heavier, as Jackie turns her head to Shauna and then Shauna slowly mirrors her. Bodies twisted half-toward each other, Jackie’s left knee touching Shauna’s right, Jackie goes on, “Just close your eyes and sort of… relax your mouth a little.”
She almost thinks Shauna won’t do it—not with the flicker of hesitance in her darkened eyes, with the way her jaw still hasn’t loosened and she almost looks angry. Except she couldn’t be angry, because it wouldn’t make sense, because they wouldn’t have gotten to this point if she were.
But then Shauna’s eyes flutter shut and her jaw unclenches, and then her lips part and her tongue wets them, and she’s exhaling soft puffs of air and Jackie is staring at her mouth.
She should lean in now, but her heart’s thudding out of rhythm in her chest and she hadn’t truly processed what she’d been asking for, not even after so much time imagining and dreaming about it. None of it had prepared her for the real thing.
She’s taking too long, and Shauna’s eyes pop open out of nowhere and she flushes angrily. “What’re you—?” she starts, and Jackie cups her cheek and leans in to cut her off, and Shauna melts against her instantly.
Shauna’s mouth is like heaven. Jackie eases off after the initial pressure, ignoring her instincts, trying to keep herself together. She makes it tentative and featherlight at first, a gentle brush of their lips, and then it’s Shauna who comes to life out of nowhere, tilting her head, pressing forward, readjusting and closing her mouth around Jackie’s bottom lip.
Jackie’s whole body wakes up for the first time. Her skin feels hot and yet she can tell she’s covered in goosebumps. Her heart’s pumping a mile a minute. Her brain isn’t working, her stomach is tingling, and her hand is grasping Shauna’s cheek too tightly.
She puts every effort she has into not making a sound and then breaks the contact between their mouths, but only so she can part her lips and do it all again: the meeting, the movement, the feel of Shauna’s jaw working under her hand. Again, and again, and they’re maybe on the edge of making out and she has no idea how Shauna knows how to—
She pulls away, regaining control as best as she can, breathing unsteady, and reins herself in long enough to manage a whispered, “Oh, you’re good at that, Shipman.”
Shauna’s eyes flutter open and she licks her bottom lip, cheeks a faint pink, and just mumbles, “Thanks.”
A few more breaths, and Jackie has enough composure to fake it again. “Well, now we can both say we’ve kissed a girl,” she jokes. “And now I know what I’m working with.”
“Right.” Shauna’s unreadable now, looking away, eyes darting to her journal like she wishes she could go back to writing in it.
Had that been it for her? No big deal? Just a short interlude, an annoyance? Jackie interrupting her journaling with her pathetic little request; Shauna indulging it momentarily so that she can get back to what she really wants to be doing with her night?
The thought of it is unbearable. Before she can second-guess herself, Jackie reaches for Shauna’s cheek again and turns her head, and then leans in swiftly to capture her lips again. Shauna stiffens, but then sinks into it, and it’s a little faster, a little more confident on both of their ends, but it only lasts for a few seconds before Jackie pulls away again.
Shauna’s beet red this time, and the satisfaction Jackie reaps from that is almost as good as the buzz of the kiss itself.
“Just keeping you on your toes,” Jackie teases, because she doesn’t know what else to say to justify it, and Shauna exhales harshly through her nose and then manages a half-hearted roll of her eyes.
“If you’re done ambushing me, can we finally go to sleep?”
It’s so easy. Jackie should’ve known it would be. Everything is so easy and natural with Shauna. “Yeah,” she says, softening, wondering if she’s being too obvious with the fond, wanting way she’s looking at Shauna now. “You have to cuddle me, though.”
Shauna doesn’t say she won’t, and when Jackie turns the lamp off and they settle in, Shauna is there, pressing firmly against her like always, and Jackie still feels the phantom slide of her mouth even with her eyes closed.
This hasn’t sated her appetite for Shauna; it’s just given her a taste and made her more ravenous. She doesn’t think she can sleep. Every breath Shauna exhales against the back of her neck is an unknowing attempt at making Jackie shudder against her. Every press of her fingertips to Jackie’s stomach is a reminder of where they could be if they just slid a little lower, to where Jackie suspects she might be ready in a way she’s never been for Jeff, to where she is thrumming and pulsing and warm and damp.
Whatever it all means, whatever she has to say or do to make sure it keeps happening, she needs to kiss Shauna again.