Chapter Text
After taking Jackie's call from the telephone on the landing, Shauna turned on her heel and mounted the steps to her room. The passage about the staircase was narrow and did not feed out until she came before the door to her bedroom. There, a small alcove had been installed when the attic had first been renovated and past it was a miniature window. If it had been Jackie in her bedroom, it would have been open, only Travis disliked the breeze - he claimed that the wind somehow slid into the attic and Shauna found she couldn't disagree with him entirely, especially now that it was Winter. Similarly, the door to her bedroom would have been open, though Shauna preferred it closed and so did Travis. On the eleventh, it was closed and as Jackie was leaving for Greece by the twenty sixth, Shauna imagined that it would remain closed until her return in early January.
When Shauna pushed open her bedroom door, she saw Travis still laid out on her bed, head propped against the end of it's framing. She walked first to her dresser, taking the sheet of writing he had given her and then laid down next to her, propping her head against a pillow rather than the jutted out frame. Beside her, Travis had finished the writing she had asked him to review for her. It was mostly unconnected poetry, all of it somehow written about Jackie and with varying opinions of her - envy; love; adoration; several times again, love.
Travis waited until she had finished his own writing - a section of a novella - and then traded sheets of paper with her. Both of them wrote in ink and in varying scrawls which were difficult to read, very much so. "I liked the poetry," he said.
"Which piece?"
"All of them." Shauna tilted her head and let Travis go on, fairly satisfied with herself. "I'm not as good as poetry as I am writing," always, it was only ever Travis who seemed to be capable of writing any kind of fiction, hence several novellas that only Shauna had been permitted to read, "so I can't say I picked up on too much of the meaning."
"Oh?" Shauna was unoffended, but she enjoyed how Travis felt he needed to go on. If he was worried, she would have stopped him, but he was only trying to get his point across. It was good for him, if he would ever speak a girl, much less kiss her. Perhaps, if he did the same for Shauna, then both of them could say what needed to be said and, in her case, get what she needed: Jackie Taylor.
"It's good in a way, of course," Travis muttered. "If I can enjoy poetry that much without any idea of how to write it, or what the meaning may be, then it's a good piece of poetry, very good." He paused for a moment and said later; "I can guess at the meaning though: Jackie."
Shauna groaned. Any hope she had of showing any of her writing to Jackie - she had been asking Shauna for weeks for just a sample, and it was becoming impossible to deny her anything - went out the window. "Was it that obvious?"
"Any time I saw the word 'she,' I got ready to hear about doe eyes and what only a woman can give her." Travis put up his hand in the air, protecting himself. "Said in the most beautiful way, of course."
"Fuck my life," she murmured. "Did I tell you that she's been asking to see some of my writing?"
"Can't you just change some of the words? He to she."
"I could." She sat up and reached for a pen from her bedside dresser. "Only," the pen was placed back into her drawer along with the sheets of writing, "if I change he to she, then I think Jackie will just figure I'm trying to fuck her brother that doesn't exist. That, or like I know she will, Jackie will put two and two together." Shauna fell back onto the bed, recalled what she had been told on the phone and still didn't feel all that much better, even if it was news she had been waiting years for. It had come to late and, perhaps if she had more time, more could be done, but that was out of the question.
"Did I tell you," Shauna said, without much of a tone at all, "that Jackie is going to Greece right after Christmas day?"
For a moment, Travis was silent and then he let out a low, down tuned whistle. Shauna groaned again, this time deeper and much more pained. He would find some way to comfort her eventually, he usually did, but in the meantime he meant to torture her. In some ways, as she enjoyed being teased by Jackie, it pleased her to no end to know that Travis wanted to see her laugh, and that she was worth that much. Her enjoyment of them were each for their own reasons, both entirely different in how they pleased her, though she found that she loved both Jackie and Travis in a way. It was Jackie whom she wanted, and who pleased her, because the idea of being in Jackie's thoughts, even if she was only thinking of ways to tease her, was the closest thing she could have to Jackie's love, not just personal, but romantic. It was Travis, meanwhile, who kept her grounded and in some way independent. He reminded her that was she was not just a toy for Jackie to tease and use, usually whenever she was broken up with Jeff. Perhaps he didn't tell her this directly, but he supported her through all of Jeff and Jackie's breakups, and it was that support which reminded her at times that Jackie was not her whole world, not entirely. Still, however, it was Jackie that Shauna wanted and however much she came to resent some of the control she had on her, she gave back willingly whatever freedom she earned for herself throughout the years. Despite Jackie never letting her wear a single flannel, or even leggings to keep her lower half warm, it was Shauna who begged her before each party to help her pick an outfit.
If she had known about Greece, Shauna would have found a way to be invited. Usually, Jackie asked her parents personally to bring Shauna and they relented. Jackie asked very little of them and bringing Shauna was usually such a small request that it was agreed upon before the flights were even booked. For years, Shauna had taken it for granted and thought of it as her own place of honor. Greece, however, was different. It hadn't been Jackie's parents who had planned it, but a grandfather whom was flying them out to visit him in his retirement. Seeing as it wasn't even her parents decision to make, Jackie had felt it fit to not to mention it to Shauna until early December. By then, any amount of conspiracy wouldn't have gotten Shauna to Greece, so she had largely accepted it. She had been depressed since the phone call, only now brightening that much more.
"Was that what she told you on the phone?" Travis asked her, having switched onto his side to speak to her more clearly.
It hadn't been. "You know, I speak to more people then Jackie, right? Especially on the phone."
"I'm right beside you and your mom is downstairs."
"Go fuck yourself."
"You know," Travis said reproachfully, in the tone which Shauna liked and of which he was aware, "I can come over if you like? I'll led you a few of my novels even when I can't be. Beaches with me, novel, beaches alone. It'll be better than waiting for Jackie to come back."
Shauna nodded her head, albeit slowly. In Jackie's absence, she would notice that she'd have more free time and freedom and enjoy it. It would last until, in one crazed moment, she would turn to tell Jackie just how pleased she was, only to recall that she was pleased only because Jackie was gone. Afterward, she would be ashamed and call Jackie until it had all but faded away.
"Call me and I'll be there," Travis told her and he smiled softly. Shauna smiled back at him and, unlike Jackie, she doubted that there would ever be a time that she wouldn't miss Travis Martinez when he wasn't around.
It had been a long time ago now that Travis and she had first spoken. They'd been familiar prior to high school, enough so that they had been to one another parties when growing up, only they hadn't so much as held a conversation until Freshman year. It was only when they were placed into the same English class and so compared pieces during a creative writing assignment, as was mandatory, - Jackie had been in another class - that she and Travis finally clicked. There were other things that she valued about him, several in fact, and for much time she may spend with others, Travis Martinez was her only friend besides Jackie. He was the only person who seemed able to sit beside her, ask about a novel or a Lynch film and seem interested when she asked about another piece in return. When she had realized that she in fact loved Jackie Taylor, Travis may have just become her best friend, amid several acquaintances.
He was the only person she thought that she could bear to spend the holidays with that wasn't Jackie. She certainly enjoyed being around the Yellowjackets, but they always paled in comparison to Travis or Jackie. With them, she could only think about what was missing and what was not, and eventually she would rather an hour with one of them then a day with even Taissa or Van. Afterall, it had been Travis who had been there for her each time that Jackie and Jeff had gotten together again, and it had been Shauna who had been there for him when things had fallen through with Natalie. If she was to be alone and having kissed no one, or so much as been with anyone for her life, she would be alone with Travis and vice versa. He was overly masculine at times and spoke about very strange topics with her, and still Shauna loved him and his company.
"Thanks, Trav."
"Anytime. Will you say that I should go fuck myself again now?"
Slower, Shauna repeated herself. "Go fuck yourself."
They both lowered themselves onto their backs again and stared up at the slanted ceiling. To the sides of the renovated attic, there was a gradual crawl space where the slant began to ascend in an upward tilt. There were no rafters in the renovated attic, though there had been prior to the renovation itself. It had been a much smaller chamber overhead from Shauna's old bedroom, now the guest room, and shot up with wooden crates and paintings in broken frames.
"Shauna," Travis said, sounding as if he was unsure if she would answer.
"Yes?"
"What did Jackie say on the phone, you never said."
Now, some excitement was boiling inside her again. For as much heartbreak that came afterward, hearing about it never failed to bring some kind of queer satisfaction to Shauna. "Oh, nothing too important," she said calmly. "Are you see you want to know?"
"Well, now you have me curious."
"Curious?" Shauna was ecstatic and thinking of the film beaches of all things. "It's really not that good a thing."
"Please, tell me."
"Jackie and Jeff broke up."
They both went silent. Slowly, Travis started to articulate himself while Shauna was beginning to laugh right beside him. She didn't quite believe it herself. All the while, they looked up at the roof as though in examination of it. "Holy shit, when was the last one?" Travis paused and thought of another question, but the latter Shauna decided not to answer. "How did it happen?"
"A year ago."
"Holy shit."
"You said that already." Shauna was pausing between her words, highly amused.
"Oh my god, he must have fucked up so badly to make them break up before Christmas." Travis started to chuckle out of disbelief. It was a slow, deep sound that Shauna found that she very much liked. Even her mother found herself fond of it and equally so of Travis himself. "What the fuck did he do?"
Her own laugh was much softer and it took Shauna quite some time before she could force out everything. "He crashed his parents car and blamed her."
Travis scrambled up onto his elbows, and so did Shauna. They stared at each other in disbelief. "He did what?"
Laxly, Shauna began to speak. Her tone didn't change until the entire story had been told. Of the story, she spoke in mostly broad terms that wasn't as effective as her writing, but it was certainly close to how she wrote her dialogue. It was characters talking about others, not with too much realism, but in ways grounded. They were very skilled conversationalists, though in different accents and gender. "He crashed it on it's own. Did I tell you about the party that me and Jackie were invited to?"
"You did."
She knew that she had told Travis, and usually that she invited him to come as well. Shauna only wanted to test something briefly of which she had been so suspicious. She had mentioned Natalie was going, doing so by mistake, and was surprised to see that it didn't register in his mind or he didn't so much as care. Why he could miss her name, or so much as ignore it, after what happened between himself and Natalie, Shauna was unsure. It was only thereafter when she mentioned another Yellowjackets name that she began to understand and why exactly, though they had been alone together, that Travis and Natalie hadn't so much as kissed nor spoke.
"It's the same story as usual: Jeff got drunk and drove home even though we told him not to. Frankly, he can drive drunk pretty damn well. I've been hoping that by letting him do it so many times that he would fuck off and crash." Travis had known that Shauna loved Jackie since their Junior year. When she had told him, he had shrugged his shoulders and asked whether they would watch a Lynch film or talk instead until he had to leave. Thereafter, he had listened patiently to every single word that she ever had about Jackie, and especially of Jeff. "Turns out, he did after the party. It happened right outside his neighborhood, so he had something to work with. No one saw him, hell no one else was even there, - he drove into a tree - so he got the idea to blame someone else; he told his parents that had told him he was sober and crashed it anyway." Now that the humor of it was gone, and she knew that she could enjoy two weeks without him, Shauna found that she also wanted to kill him, albeit slowly. "Jackie only found out when a bill was sent to her house and it all spiraled from there."
"Did the asshole get caught for it?" Travis asked humorlessly. Surprisingly, he was relatively close to Jackie of all people. It had happened a few times that Shauna liked to believe that he hated Jeff quite as passionately as she did, but he was too sincere for that. All he cared about what was whether Jackie was upset or not.
"Right away. It was mostly because of me, but they didn't even so much as need to call me to prove it." Travis raised an eyebrow and Shauna continued. He never interrupted her, only gave a small signal whenever he was confused. "Jackie's parents would have denied it to hell and back if they didn't so much as have proof, but their porch camera caught my car pulling in with Jackie not five minutes after we left the party. Can't leave a party in one car, crash it, phone a friend and then change into another within five minutes, only six." "And Jeff's parents? What did they say after the porch camera was pulled up." "They demanded to see the footage." Travis motioned his hand and urged her to continue. "After, they knew that it wasn't any use trying to bring the case to court. For as stupid as the entire Sadecki bloodline is, believe me," Travis chuckled, and so did Shauna herself, "they knew from the beginning that bringing any of it to court was useless. Jeff has the look of a lying asshole written in his face and most of everything he said, though that's less the look of a lying asshole, and the cadence of one in that case. The best they could have done was try to force some cash out of Jackie and her parents, and that was useless as soon as the porch camera was brought up. Jeff lied; Jackie hadn't done a thing; the entire case wasn't even suitable for a courtroom."
"Then I guess they're done for Christmas, aren't they?" Travis asked. There wasn't much more of a story to tell. Once her parents had stopped yelling at her for letting Jeff drive when drunk, she had called Shauna to tell her what had happened. For her part, despite the satisfaction, Shauna had tried to comfort her however she could.
Shauna found some satisfaction in it again. "Mhm."
"And that means?" Travis smiled, but it was waning already. He knew as well as she what it meant, but he would still ask and he would be there to comfort her in three weeks, perhaps four.
In order, Shauna said; "Jackie will be mine for three weeks, maybe four. I'll enjoy it as long as it'll last and nothing will happen, no, not a fucking thing." Feeling small again and realizing just how much time she spent in her room, Shauna fell back onto the bed. Beside her, Travis laid back as well. "Later, she'll get back with Jeff and we'll be back here, reading, writing and probably thinking about fucking." She laughed to herself, wishing that the breakup hadn't happened at all, and later Travis joined her.
"Oh Shauna," he said softly, "I'm sorry."
"I know, Trav."
"I know you love her, Shauna." It went mostly unsaid between them.
"I know, Trav."
"Explain it all to me, one more time, that's all."
"Why?" Shauna asked. It wasn't quite a denial nor did she intend it to be.
"It makes you happy."
She started to talk about Jackie. It wasn't in the same drawl as her characters, in fact, she very much so sounded like Jackie. It was likely that she had picked up some of her mannerisms over the years, after all. "What can I really say? She makes me who I am. Maybe she isn't quite so bad as how she was when we were younger. Then, I felt like I couldn't so much as exist my own person, not with Jackie near me. How I figured that, I'll never know. Jackie makes me happy and she makes me able to breath. Without her, I couldn't write, I couldn't read and I doubt that I would even so much as enjoy soccer in my own very minute way. I used to hate to admit it," to Travis, she had said it hundreds of times, "but I need Jackie to live. Let that be as pathetic or desperate as it sounds, but it's the truth. How can I enjoy life without Jackie? There's no way. We're melded together really and I think I couldn't bear anything else, no, not at all."
They were both quiet for a time.
"What do you think of Mari?" Shauna hesitated to ask.
Travis didn't reply and she knew that she had overstepped. If he wanted to talk about her finally, he would have mentioned it. Travis only looked out toward the window, noticing snowfall and the graph of white atop gray and blue from the afternoon sky. It was a slow stream of it and Shauna doubted that much of it would stick to the ground. For at least another day, they would have miniature floods and overflown sewage drains across the streets.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't of asked," Shauna murmured.
For a moment, Travis seemed as if he had something to say. There was a brief interval between the phone ringing on the downstairs landing and from when Shauna last spoke that it looked as if some idea come to him. There was still an impression of it on his face as Deb called from below, saying that the call was for him, - it was from his father - and he walked downstairs to get it. Whilst he was gone, Shauna looked out at pictures of Jackie on her wall and wondered how anyone, especially someone quite like Jackie, could have such low standards as Jeff Sadecki. When she couldn't bear to think about Jeff any longer, Shauna instead wondered what it would be to kiss Jackie.
After some time, Travis reentered her bedroom and sat cross legged on the edge of her bed. Shauna was still strewn across the duvet and tilted her head to look at him. "Mari and her family are coming to my house for Christmas Eve apparently." Mari Ibarra, the very same name that had made Travis more desperate than anything else. It made Shauna crane her neck to look up at him, seeing the same expression as before, only this time stronger. "I have an idea."
Shauna slowly picked herself up and sat cross legged opposite Travis. One of them was considerably larger, but they were as dark as the other, albeit in different shades. "An idea?"
Suddenly, Travis told her; "Fuck this."
"What?"
"Fuck all of this." Travis put out his hand and slowly encircled her bedroom. He had so shocked her that she listened to everything he had to say without a word. "I love you Shauna, but I'm not spending another Christmas here, not a goddamn chance of it." Since Freshman year, she and Travis had spent their Winter evenings somehow in her bedroom. There had been brief stints into other things, but most of the time they read together in the small alcove surrounding her curved window. It was though they were missing something to make them want to even so much as stand up. For Shauna it had been Jackie, and for Travis it had been Mari all along. Whether the tradition would go on forever or not, Shauna was unsure, but she somehow expected to still spend her late December evenings with Travis Martinez, reading or writing in thought of Jackie Taylor. "This is our chance, Shauna, don't you realize?"
"Realize what?"
"To finally be with who we want. You know I want her, Shauna, it's obvious." Frankly, it had been for some time. Even when they were just children, Shauna thought she could remember Travis staring off into the distance, only to realize in recent years that he had in fact been looking over at Mari. "I want Mari, enough that I don't think I could stand anyone but her touching me." She understood the feeling. "I want Mari Ibarra and you want Jackie."
Still, Shauna couldn't see his finer point. "Yeah, but what are we going to do about it?" Travis was fairly handsome and she believed that she was pretty to some minor degree, but they paled in comparison to either Mari or Jackie. There was then Jeff and Greece to worry about. She herself had as much as two weeks to work with, and Travis a single night that he would be guaranteed to even see Mari in person. "Hell, why are we doing this?" Plainly, Travis answered; "Why wouldn't we? This is a golden opportunity after all, isn't it?" Shauna couldn't see why, but Travis was gripping her about the shoulders so tightly that she found it impossible to interrupt. "Mari is coming to my house for Christmas, and she's been single for a long time." Shauna hadn't ever considered Mari Ibarra's love life, but now her mind was racing to do so. It was now Travis' after all, and he had been invested in her own without so much as a complaint. "Jackie is single." She rejoiced at the reminder. "What other chance do we have but now? This is our senior year, Shauna. There won't be another one after this." Shauna was aware. She'd been trying to avoid thinking of it since September. She would hold onto Jackie, that much was clear. Whilst there was resentment at times, - she felt as though she were a doll at times, but more often, she was just unsatisfied that Jackie didn't love her in the way she wanted - and dreams of Brown, she had forgotten about them. Shauna would follow her into Rutgers after the Summer, likely with Travis in tow, but what was to happen when there wasn't only one Jeff, but multiple quite like him, was something Shauna couldn't comprehend. She only knew that when it was time to face it, Jackie would more than likely only repeat the cycles she had done with Jeff, this time in college and dormitories that she and Shauna shared. Shauna would need to watch first hand as they kissed Jackie and whispered to her the things which Shauna wanted to, and that she could say better. "Now?" She asked after a long pause. If more time could be dragged out, she would. "What could we even do, Travis?"
"Everything we can," Travis answered. "I realize now that this isn't helping." It very much so wasn't, especially if Jackie would never read her poetry. Suddenly, Shauna wondered if all of Travis' novella's had been for Mari rather than just Shauna to read. "I realize it and I'm sick of it. Fuck it if I get a worse nickname than Flex by going after Mari, and you and Jackie don't confess one fucking thing to each other. Do you wanna spend another Christmas like this?" Gently, Travis gripped her shoulders. "Either we risk it now, or we don't. Can the universe be giving more of a hint? We have two weeks before Christmas. Jackie is due in Greece by the twenty sixth, and I won't see Mari until January after this party." He shook her somewhat, knocking into her more and more sense that would either save her or damn her. "We make a pact right now."
Shauna slowly slipped her hand away from her side and into Travis' own. They shook hands twice before stopping.
"We're going to talk this out," he said, crazed, "and we're going to give this our best shot. Shake on it?"
Shauna thought about Jeff, Jackie, Travis, of Mari and then of Jackie again. Even if she said nothing in the end and all they did was dream for two weeks, it would be better than dreading when Jackie left for Greece and abandoned her until January. She shook Travis' hand for the third time. "Okay," she said simply.
Everything began thereafter.