Chapter Text
Staring at Nat is like staring down the barrel of a gun.
Shauna’s body is alight. Too hot for sweat to do anything, though it drips off her in litres anyway. Her sense of self-preservation had never been strong, but now it’s abandoned entirely because this is her last chance to tear into something, and to Shauna Shipman, that is living.
Across the net, stretching her hips to relieve tension as she always does, is Natalie Scatorccio. The game changer. Isn’t that what they’re calling her now?
It almost makes Shauna laugh, or jump across the court to bludgeon Nat to death with her racket. What does Shauna care if the game changes? She doesn’t. Tennis is a job to her, the one thing she was born good at, and most importantly, it was the least boring path she could’ve taken. Nat’s lucky enough that she gets both tennis and the alternative. She gets a W-2. Nat gets fucking everything and always has, so why does she get to change the game too?
As Shauna bounces a tennis ball against the ground in preparation to serve, everything she knows about Nat rushes back to her. Her love of chocolate. Her oh so tragic backstory. The smell of her clothes back when she used to launder them herself. The way she used to wear her eyeliner.
Shauna shakes her head a little. No, not that stuff. She’d wanted something she could take advantage of. She wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t exploit.
Nat’s a baseliner. Yes. Nat’s backhand is never consistent. Nat always slows her swing on her second serve.
The sun beating down seems to start buzzing, and so do the cicadas, and so does everyone in the stands. Shauna’s vision goes blurry, her hands fill with static.
There’s a split second where she isn’t here at all. She’s young, and she’s at some party or other, celebrating the success of Natalie Something from the tennis club. And Natalie Something comes up to her, tells her that she’s good. Not too much of a counter-puncher, not burning too hot, not in desperate need of a real job. Just good.
And Shauna didn’t buy it then, doesn’t now. She knows she’s running on fumes. That she may only be here now because it’s Nat and because all her life Shauna has had something to prove, and here it is, in the now-brown hair of Natalie Scatorccio.
As if Nat’s flattery could ever have proved anything. She probably just said that to make Jackie, who was at Shauna’s hip, smile. And God, did Jackie smile.
Shauna bounces the ball one last time. Looks to the stands. Predictably, yes, Jackie’s there, right in the middle.
Shauna doesn’t know how many years it’s been now, but it always strikes her how Jackie doesn’t seem to change, even when she does. Her hair is longer. She only wears designer now, having long done away with patterns and pastels. She smiles less. The only reason Shauna knows Jackie used to smile at all is that she’s developing lines by the sides of her mouth.
But her eyes are the same. Hidden by a pair of Ray-Bans, but looking away from her, as they always used to. This time, she’s looking at Nat. Of course. Shauna’s the one serving, and Jackie’s looking at Nat. It’s enough to make her want to smash this racket against the ground, but Nat would love the satisfaction of seeing her penalised, wouldn’t she?
And then, she does almost get penalised. The umpire warns her because she’s taking too long to serve.
Nat sees this. She stands straight for a moment. Spreads her arms wide as if to say, What?
Shauna can’t tell if that’s really a smile on her face or a trick of the light. She finds Jackie again without meaning to. Briefly wonders what she’s trying to prove, if she’s already lost Jackie, and if, together, Jackie and Nat have everything in the world.
But then, as if it’s a glint of the light, Jackie frowns at her. It breathes life into Shauna that she hasn’t had in years. Suddenly, she doesn’t care what Nat has. It’s the fact that in the entirety of their career, Nat could never beat Shauna, and now she’s daring to talk to her at all.
Game changer. Shauna scoffs under her breath. Sure, she is.
She serves. Wide. To backhand.