ALWAYS, FOREVER :: JACKIE TAYLOR
⏝ི ✿ 𝓢𝗬𝗡. a tender chronicle of two souls intertwined through secret languages and stolen kisses, as they shatter beneath society's frost only to thaw into truth under courage's warm light.
[cw.] — a narrative shaped by Spring Into Summer by lizzy mcalpine; an au where the crash never occurred. jackie, constrained by compulsory heteronormativity, navigates the complexities of longing and self-discovery in 1996’s quiet ache.
jackie taylor was born in december, a winter child with snowflakes in her hair and frost on her eyelashes. you could see it in her eyes—hazelnut blonde, wide and unblinking, framed with lashes so thick they cast shadows on her cheeks—the innate understanding that beauty was both weapon and armor. she resembled a wide-eyed doll come to life, porcelain-perfect and untouchable, a girl who learned early how to smile just right, how to laugh at jokes that weren't funny, how to hold herself with the straight-backed posture of someone who knew she was being watched.
you were born in april, a spring child with pollen dusting your shoulders and petals unfurling in your lungs. your curls were the color of soil after rain, rich and earthy, framing a face that was all soft planes and curious eyes. you had lips that naturally pouted, as if perpetually on the verge of asking another question. while jackie stood straight, you moved like water finding its way downhill, following currents invisible to others, bending but never breaking.
the first time you met, you were both four years old, playing in a sandbox that was really just a glorified cat litter box behind wiskayok elementary's pre-k building. jackie had a plastic shovel and a determination to build the perfect castle. you had nothing but your hands and an imagination that transformed each grain of sand into universes.
"you're doing it wrong," jackie said, watching you pat formless mounds with your palms.
you looked up, squinting against the late summer sun, and replied, "there's no wrong way to play."
jackie considered this with the serious expression of a child contemplating philosophy for the first time. then she handed you her extra bucket.
"here. now you can make towers."
instead, you filled the bucket with dandelions and placed it atop her meticulous castle like a crown.
that was how it began—the bunny and the doe, an unlikely pair bound by the mysterious gravity that draws children together before they learn to question why they like who they like.
in the arithmetic of childhood friendships, you and jackie defied every equation. she was all clean lines and planned adventures; you were smudged margins and spontaneous detours. she collected friends like trading cards, carefully arranged and displayed; you collected stories and kept them pressed between the pages of your mind like wildflowers.
jackie's house was a showcase of suburban aspiration—gleaming hardwood floors that her mother polished every sunday, furniture arranged at perfect right angles, family photos in matched frames documenting their collective perfection. the refrigerator door was a museum of accomplishments; jackie's straight-A report cards, certificates of achievement, newspaper clippings of her youth soccer victories.
your house was a labyrinth of books—stacked on stairs, teetering on tables, forming makeshift furniture of their own. your father, an english professor, believed in the sanctity of the written word; your mother, a nurse with the soul of a poet, believed in the healing power of stories. they gave you a childhood scripted by dickens and alcott and austen, letting you run wild through fictional worlds when the real one seemed too constrained.
in jackie's bedroom, everything had its place. trophies on shelves, stuffed animals arranged by size, clothes sorted by color and season. you spent countless afternoons lying on her pink carpet, watching her organize her life into perfect compartments while you read aloud from whatever book had captured your imagination that week.
"don't you ever get bored?" jackie asked once, sitting at her vanity, practicing french braids on her own hair. "reading about other people's lives instead of living your own?"
you looked up from your dog-eared copy of "anne of green gables" and said, "i'm not reading about other people's lives. i'm living a thousand lives in addition to my own."
jackie's expression flickered between confusion and fascination. "i don't think i could ever be like you," she said finally.
"why would you want to be?" you asked. "i already have me. the world needs you to be jackie."
she smiled at that, a rare genuine smile that reached her bunny eyes and made them crinkle at the corners. "you're so weird," she said, but she said it like it was a compliment.
in your room, books formed a fortress around your bed. posters of the cranberries and your favorite french movies covered the walls. your dresser was a archaeological dig of half-finished stories written in notebooks, fragments of poems on loose paper, quotes copied from favorite books onto index cards.
"how do you find anything in here?" jackie would ask, perched primly on the edge of your unmade bed, afraid to disturb the creative chaos.
"i don't find things," you'd reply. "things find me when i need them."
she'd roll her eyes but submit to the ritual of lying beside you on the floor, heads close together, while you pointed out shapes in the textured ceiling and spun stories about cloud kingdoms and star wars, years before either of you had heard of george lucas.
between your houses lay wiskayok itself—a town too small to hide in but too big to truly know everyone. you navigated its streets like parallel rivers, sometimes converging, sometimes diverging, but always flowing toward some shared, unnamed sea.
the summer before sixth grade was the summer of secret languages. twelve years old, teetering on the precipice between childhood and something more complex, you and jackie created ways to communicate that no one else could understand.
it began with a simple code—replacing letters with numbers, leaving notes in each other's lockers, giggling when others couldn't decipher them. then came the elaborate hand signals, each flick of a wrist or tap of fingers conveying entire sentences. by july, you had developed an entire vocabulary of facial expressions, able to conduct silent conversations across crowded rooms.
it was also the summer jackie's body began its betrayal, developing before yours in ways that drew new kinds of attention. boys who had pulled her hair in fourth grade now found reasons to stand close to her, to brush against her in hallways. girls who had been friendly rivals now measured themselves against her, finding themselves wanting.
you watched this metamorphosis with a scientist's curiosity and a poet's heart, cataloging the changes in your best friend like phases of the moon. the way she started wearing her hair down instead of in the practical ponytail of her soccer-playing days. the careful application of lip gloss where once she'd just slathered on cherry chapstick. the measured pace of her walk, slowed from its former eager bounce to something more deliberate, more aware.
"do you think i'm pretty?" she asked one night, both of you lying on the trampoline in her backyard, the august sky a tapestry of stars above you.
"you know you are," you answered, turning to study her profile in the dim glow of distant porch lights.
"no, but do you think i'm pretty?" her voice had an urgency to it, a need that transcended the typical reassurance-seeking of preteen girls.
you propped yourself up on one elbow, looking down at her face—those wide eyes reflecting pinpricks of starlight, that perfect nose, those lips now slightly parted in anticipation of your answer.
"i think you're the most beautiful thing i've ever seen," you said, the truth spilling out before you could filter it through the appropriate lens of girlhood friendship.
her face changed then, softened and opened like a night-blooming flower. "show me," she whispered.
and there, beneath the indifferent gaze of distant galaxies, you leaned down and pressed your lips to hers in a kiss that lasted three heartbeats—one for courage, one for discovery, one for a revelation neither of you was ready to name.
when you pulled away, jackie's eyes remained closed for a moment longer, her lashes dark crescents against her cheeks. when she opened them, there was a new language being born between you, one with no words or gestures, one written in quickened pulses and hitched breaths.
"we should practice," she said finally, pragmatic even in this uncharted territory. "for when we kiss boys."
"for boys," you agreed, though even then, you knew no boy's lips would ever fit against yours the way jackie's did.
that became another secret language—kisses stolen in the shadows of her basement during movie nights, in the back corner of the library behind the reference section, in the equipment shed after soccer practice when everyone else had gone home. always under the guise of "practice," always followed by giggles and performance reviews, as if you were merely rehearsing for some future that required this skill.
by the time school started again, you had become fluent in each other, able to translate the slightest change in breathing, the smallest shift in posture. it was a dictionary written in skin and breath, a grammar of touch and taste.
a language destined to become a dead one far sooner than either of you could have imagined.
eighth grade arrived with the subtle seismic shifts of tectonic plates—imperceptible to most, but you felt the tremors beneath your feet. jackie joined the advanced soccer team, began spending weekends at tournaments in neighboring towns. you joined the literary magazine, disappearing into the cocoon of the newspaper office during lunch periods.
the kisses became less frequent, though more intense when they happened. there was a desperation to them now, as if jackie was trying to memorize the feel of you before something took you away from her.
"jeff sadecki asked me to the harvest dance," she told you one october afternoon. you were lying on your stomachs in her bedroom, algebra homework spread before you, though neither of you had written anything for twenty minutes.
"are you going to go?" you asked, carefully keeping your voice neutral, tracing the edge of your textbook with one finger.
"i think so," she said, watching your finger move. "my mom would literally explode with joy. she's been hinting about me and jeff since his mom and her started that book club."
you nodded, understanding the invisible architecture of expectations that had been built around jackie since birth. good grades. soccer excellence. student council. and now, the perfect boyfriend—handsome enough, smart enough, from the right kind of family. jeff sadecki with his easy smile and varsity jacket already as an eighth grader, being groomed for high school glory just as jackie was.
"he's nice," you offered, because it was true, and because you knew that was what jackie needed to hear.
"yeah," she agreed, not meeting your eyes. "he's nice."
that night, when she kissed you goodbye at your front door—a risky move given the well-lit porch and curtainless windows—there was a finality to it that made your chest ache.
"just because i'm going to the dance with him doesn't mean anything changes with us," she whispered against your lips.
but you were the reader of stories, the one who could see foreshadowing in everyday moments, who understood the inevitable trajectory of narrative arcs. you knew an ending when you tasted one.
"nothing ever stays the same, jackie," you said, pulling back to look into those bunny eyes, now shining with unshed tears. "that's okay. that's how life works."
she shook her head, suddenly fierce. "not us. we're different."
you wanted to believe her. for a moment, standing there with her cold hands framing your face, you almost did.
the fault lines continued to spread throughout that year. jeff became jackie's boyfriend in the official, going-steady sense. you started spending lunches with lottie, who shared your interest in astrology and tarot, and laura lee, whose fervent christianity somehow complemented your more pagan sensibilities rather than clashing with it. different lunch tables became different social circles became different weekend activities.
the last time you and jackie kissed was the night before high school started. she had come to your house, unexpected, climbing the tree outside your window like she used to do in elementary school when her parents were fighting and she needed escape.
"i'm scared," she admitted, sitting cross-legged on your bed, looking smaller than she had in months.
"of high school?" you asked, closing the book you'd been reading.
she shook her head. "of everything. of not being good enough. of being exactly what everyone expects and nothing more. of—" she paused, looking down at her hands. "of how i feel when I'm with you."
the confession hung between you, heavier than any silence you'd shared.
"how do you feel when you're with me?" you asked, though you knew. of course you knew. you felt it too—the rightness, the completion, the sense of coming home that no other friendship or relationship had ever given you.
"like i'm real," she whispered. "like i don't have to pretend."
you moved then, crossing the small distance between you, taking her face in your hands as she had held yours so many times. "you never have to pretend with me."
the kiss that followed was different from all the others—not practice, not play, but promise. a vow written in the press of lips and the tangle of tongues, in the way her hands fisted in your shirt and yours threaded through her hair. you tasted salt and realized she was crying, or maybe you both were, tears mingling in the seam where your mouths met.
when you finally broke apart, breathing hard, foreheads still touching, jackie spoke words that would echo through the empty corridors of your future;
"i can't be this. i'm sorry, but i can't."
"this?" you gestured between you. "you mean being friends?"
"you know that's not what i mean." her voice dropped to a whisper. "the other stuff. it has to stop. it's—it's not right."
the words landed like a slap. "not right?"
"it's disgusting," she said, but her voice wavered on the word, betraying the lie. "i'm with jeff now. i think i love him."
you stepped back as if burned. "you don't mean that."
"i do," she insisted. "we're not kids anymore. it's time to grow up."
high school dawned crisp and clear, a perfect september morning that felt like a mockery of your shattered heart. the hallways of wiskayok high were wider than those of the middle school, the ceilings higher, the social hierarchies more rigidly enforced. by lunchtime on the first day, everyone knew their place—or at least, knew where they were supposed to aspire to sit.
jackie slid effortlessly into her predetermined role; freshman soccer star, girlfriend of sophomore football player jeff sadecki, potential homecoming court material despite her young age. she walked the halls with a confidence that looked genuine to everyone who hadn't spent a decade learning her tells—the slight tension in her shoulders, the too-wide smile, the way she checked her reflection in every available surface.
you found your niche in the spaces between expectations. too smart to be dismissed, too pretty in your unconventional way to be entirely outcast, too unapologetically yourself to be fully embraced by any single clique. you spent your lunch periods in the library or the courtyard with lottie and laura lee, an unlikely trio bound by your shared appreciation for the mysteries that existed just beyond the veil of everyday life.
lottie, with her dark eyes that seemed to see straight through pretense, never asked why you flinched when Jackie and her soccer teammates passed your table. laura lee, whose faith gave her a compassion rare in the gladiatorial arena of high school, simply passed you extra cookies from her immaculately packed lunch on the days when jackie and jeff were particularly demonstrative in the hallways.
you watched from a distance as jackie became more polished, more perfect, more packaged for public consumption. her natural grace on the soccer field translated to a carefully choreographed performance of ideal teenage girlhood off it. by sophomore year, she was captain of the jv team, dating the varsity quarterback, maintaining a gpa that kept her solidly in the top ten percent without threatening the true academic overachievers.
you bloomed differently—unfurling rather than constructing, growing toward whatever light called to you rather than the one you were expected to seek. your essays won state competitions. your poems were published in literary journals that usually only accepted college students' work. a short story you wrote about two childhood friends who communicated through a secret language earned you a summer workshop at the state university, where professors spoke of your voice as "astonishingly mature" and "hauntingly authentic."
for two years, you and jackie enacted an elaborate performance of polite distance. you acknowledged each other with nods in hallways, exchanged bland pleasantries when mutual activities forced interaction. to outsiders, you were former friends who had drifted apart as childhood companions often do. only you knew the truth of what had been lost.
until junior year, when the fault lines that had been dormant suddenly ruptured.
it happened at shauna shipman's halloween party, one of those high school gatherings that seemed destined for disaster from its conception. parents out of town, a house too nice to risk trashing but too tempting not to use, alcohol flowing freely despite most attendees being years from legal drinking age.
you hadn't planned to go. parties were jackie's domain, not yours. but lottie had insisted, claiming the veil between worlds was thinnest on halloween, and what better place to observe the unmasking of true selves than at a costume party?
so there you were, dressed as ophelia in the depths of her madness—flower crown askew on your curls, vintage nightgown artfully torn and stained with watercolors to suggest river water, eyes dramatically lined to hint at beautiful despair.
"bit on the nose, isn't it?" lottie commented when she picked you up, herself resplendent as some pagan goddess with antlers woven into her dark hair.
"literature is always on the nose," you replied. "that's why it hurts so much."
you didn't plan to stay long—just enough to appease lottie, maybe talk to a few people from your ap literature class who might appreciate your costume's details. what you didn't plan for was jackie, three drinks past her usual limit, dressed as a playboy bunny—an outfit that played up both her soccer-toned body and the nickname you had given her so many years ago.
she saw you from across the room, those wide eyes growing impossibly wider. for a moment, the carefully constructed mask slipped, and you saw your jackie—the girl who had handed you a sand bucket, who had let you read aloud for hours, who had kissed you beneath a canopy of stars.
then jeff's arm slid around her waist, and the mask snapped back into place.
you retreated to the relative quiet of the kitchen, hoping to find water or perhaps even a quieter exit. instead, you found yourself cornered by travis, a quiet boy from your calculus class who had been working up the courage to talk to you for weeks.
"your costume is amazing," he said, sincerity evident in his voice. "you actually look like you stepped out of a pre-raphaelite painting."
you smiled, genuinely surprised by his art history reference. "thank you. i wasn't sure anyone would get it."
"i did a project on millais last year," he explained, then launched into an enthusiastic if slightly nervous discussion of victorian art that was actually interesting enough to distract you from your desire to leave.
you didn't notice jackie watching from the doorway, her bunny ears askew, her eyes narrowed with an emotion too complex to name.
later, you would piece together what happened from fragmented accounts and your own blurred memories; jackie, drunk and emotional, confronting jeff about some perceived slight. jeff, equally intoxicated, saying something careless. jackie, storming off to the bathroom. you, excusing yourself from travis to get some air on the back porch. the paths crossing in the hallway.
"having fun with travis?" jackie's voice had an edge you'd never heard before.
"he's nice," you said, echoing her words about jeff from so long ago.
"nice," she repeated, almost sneering. "is that what you want? nice?"
"what do you think i want, jackie?" the question came out tired rather than confrontational.
she stepped closer, close enough that you could smell the vodka cranberries on her breath, could see the smudge in her otherwise perfect eyeliner. "i think you want what you can't have."
"that's rich, coming from you."
"what is that supposed to mean?"
"it means you're the one who walked away, not me." the words came out sharper than you intended, years of carefully contained hurt suddenly finding release.
jackie's face contorted, a kaleidoscope of emotions shifting too quickly to track. "you think i wanted to? you think i had a choice?"
"we all have choices, jackie. every day."
"easy for you to say." her voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "you get to be you. free and artistic and not caring what anyone thinks. i don't have that luxury."
"it's not a luxury. it's courage."
she recoiled as if slapped. "so i'm a coward now?"
"you didn't have to." jackie's eyes filled with tears that she angrily blinked away. "you've always been so fucking superior, haven't you? so sure you know everything about everyone's heart."
"i never claimed to know everything," you said quietly. "just yours."
something broke in her expression then—the final wall crumbling. "you don't, though. you don't know what it's like to feel like you're rotting from the inside out. to know that everything you're supposed to want, everything you've been raised to chase, feels like ash in your mouth compared to—" she stopped abruptly.
"compared to what, jackie?"
"compared to one minute with you," she whispered, defeat and revelation mingling in her voice.
what happened next was inevitable as gravity—her hands finding your face, your bodies colliding against the hallway wall, mouths meeting with the desperate hunger of the long-starved. it was nothing like your childhood kisses, nothing like your tentative teenage explorations. this was excavation, archaeology, mining for something precious thought lost forever.
and like all such desperate digs, it caused a collapse.
jeff's voice shattered the moment. you broke apart to find him standing at the end of the hallway, face twisted in confusion and dawning anger. behind him, a small crowd had gathered, drawn by the promise of drama.
jackie froze, her face draining of color. you watched as her eyes darted from jeff to the onlookers, saw the exact moment when panic overtook every other emotion.
"it's not—she just—i was trying to get her off me," jackie stammered, stepping away from you as if burned.
the words hit like physical blows. you stared at her, unable to process this ultimate betrayal.
"jesus, i always knew there was something weird about her," someone in the crowd murmured.
"fucking dyke," someone else said, not bothering to lower their voice.
jackie looked at you, naked terror in her eyes. "i'm sorry," she mouthed silently.
but you were already moving, pushing through the crowd, ignoring the taunts and whispers, running from the house with flower petals from your crown scattering behind you like ophelia's sanity breaking apart on the current.
the aftermath was as brutal as high school could make it. for you, at least. somehow, jackie emerged relatively unscathed—the popular girl who had been accosted by her strange former friend, the victim rather than the participant. jeff, after initial anger, took her back. her soccer teammates closed ranks around her. the story morphed in the retelling until you were the predator, she the innocent prey.
lottie and laura lee stood by you, fierce in their loyalty. travis, surprisingly, became another ally, walking you to classes when the whispers grew too loud, sharing his notes on days when you couldn't face the hallways. but high school was still high school, and the weight of being suddenly, unwillingly visible was suffocating.
winter came early that year, november bringing snow that usually waited until december. you watched it fall from the window of your bedroom, wondering if the universe was mocking you with its metaphors—jackie's season descending before its time, burying the world in cold silence.
you didn't see her outside of classes you couldn't avoid. she kept her eyes down when forced into proximity, her face a mask of practiced indifference. only once did you catch her mask slip—in the girls' bathroom during fifth period, when she thought herself alone. you entered silently, saw her gripping the sink, staring at her reflection with such naked self-loathing that you almost went to her, almost reached out.
then she noticed you in the mirror and the mask slammed back into place. she left without washing her hands or saying a word.
december brought holiday preparations and the temporary reprieve of everyone being too busy with exams and family obligations to maintain active torment. you threw yourself into writing, producing a series of poems that your english teacher described as "disturbingly beautiful" and urged you to submit to collegiate competitions.
january crawled by, february a blur of gray skies and slush-covered sidewalks. you survived by disappearing into books, into words, into the worlds you created where endings could be rewritten and love didn't collapse under the weight of expectation.
and then came march, with its false promises of thaw, its teasing glimpses of sun between snow flurries. you were sitting in the library during lunch, lost in sylvia plath's "ariel," when a shadow fell across your page.
jackie's voice, so familiar yet strange after months of silence. you looked up to find her standing awkwardly before you, clutching the strap of her backpack like a lifeline.
"i don't think we have anything to say to each other." your voice came out steadier than you felt.
"please." one word, but it contained oceans.
you gathered your books slowly, giving yourself time to rebuild the walls her presence immediately threatened to crumble. "fine. where?"
"the old equipment shed? after school?"
the location choice wasn't lost on you—the site of so many of your secret meetings in earlier days, now abandoned as the school had built newer facilities closer to the main fields.
"i'll be there at 3:30," you said, not looking at her. "i won't wait long."
she nodded and left quickly, as if afraid you might change your mind.
you told yourself you wouldn't go. told yourself it was masochism, not closure. told yourself there was nothing she could say that would matter now.
but at 3:25, you found yourself walking across the still-frozen field toward the shed, your breath clouding before you in the march chill.
jackie was already there, pacing the small interior, her varsity jacket pulled tight against the cold. she stopped when you entered, her eyes wide and uncertain.
"you came," she said, as if she couldn't quite believe it.
"i said i would." you remained near the door, unwilling to step fully into this space so laden with memory.
jackie took a deep breath. "i need to apologize. what i did at the party—throwing you under the bus like that—it was unforgivable."
"yes," you agreed. "it was."
she flinched but continued. "i was scared and drunk and stupid, but that's not an excuse. i've been a coward for years, and that night was just the worst example."
you said nothing, waiting.
"the thing is," she continued when you didn't speak, "i've been thinking a lot about what you said. about choices. about courage." she paced again, unable to stay still under the weight of what she was trying to say. "i don't want to be a coward anymore."
"what does that mean, jackie?" you were tired, suddenly, of riddles and half-truths.
she stopped pacing and looked directly at you for what felt like the first time in years. "it means i'm in love with you. i think i have been since we were kids. and i've been running from it because i thought there was something wrong with me for feeling that way."
the words hung in the cold air between you, crystallizing like frost.
"you hurt me," you said finally. "not just at the party. every day since eighth grade when you decided i was too dangerous to your perfect life."
"i know." her eyes filled with tears. "and i will regret that for the rest of my life. but i'm here now, telling you the truth, finally. for whatever that's worth."
"and jeff? the soccer team? the perfect jackie taylor life?"
she swallowed hard. "jeff and i broke up last week. the rest... i don't know. i just know i can't keep pretending. it's killing me." she took a tentative step toward you. "i don't expect you to forgive me. i don't expect anything. i just needed you to know that you were right—about me being a coward, about me making choices. i'm trying to make better ones now."
you studied her face, looking for signs of the old jackie—the girl who would say whatever was necessary to maintain appearances, to keep her world spinning on its prescribed axis. but all you saw was raw honesty and fear.
"i don't know what to say," you admitted.
"you don't have to say anything. i just..." she wrapped her arms around herself. "i miss my best friend. i miss the person who knew me better than i knew myself. i miss you."
the simple truth of it cracked something in your carefully maintained armor.
"i've missed you too," you whispered.
jackie's eyes lit with cautious hope. "really?"
she took another step toward you, then another, until she was close enough that you could see the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, could smell the familiar scent of her shampoo.
"i can't promise i won't mess up again," she said softly. "i can't promise i'll be brave all the time. but i want to try. with you, if you'll let me."
you reached out slowly, touched her cheek with fingertips that remembered the feel of her skin from years of memorizing it in secret moments.
"i don't need you to be brave all the time," you said. "i just need you to be honest. with yourself, most of all."
she turned her face into your touch, eyes closing briefly. "i can do that."
outside, a tentative sun broke through the clouds, sending shafts of light through the shed's dusty windows. somewhere in the distance, a bird began to sing—the first herald of spring's approach.
"it won't be easy," you warned, thinking of the world waiting beyond this momentary shelter.
jackie opened her eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "nothing worth having ever is."
she leaned forward then, hesitant, giving you every chance to pull away. you didn't. when her lips met yours, it felt like recognition, like remembering something essential you had tried to forget.
it felt like spring melting winter, like currents too strong to fight.
it felt, at last, like truth.
spring came late that year, but when it arrived, it came with a vengeance—green exploding across the landscape, flowers erupting from soil that had seemed dead only weeks before, the world renewing itself with reckless abandon.
you and jackie moved cautiously at first, relearning each other in stolen moments between classes, in weekend hours spent in the sanctuary of your book-filled bedroom, in long walks through forests just beginning to wake from winter's dormancy.
the rest of junior year unfolded in unexpected ways. jackie quit the soccer team, causing a minor scandal that was soon overshadowed by prom drama and graduation preparations for the seniors. she joined the literary magazine staff, revealing a talent for photography that complemented your words in ways that surprised you both. together, you created a series of photo essays that won the publication its first national recognition.
lottie and laura lee welcomed jackie into your lunch table circle with minimal skepticism, though lottie made it clear in her eerily perceptive way that second betrayals would not be tolerated. travis became a friend to you both, his quiet intellect and complete lack of interest in high school politics making him a safe harbor in still-turbulent waters.
there were still whispers, still sidelong glances in hallways. but as spring progressed into summer, as junior year gave way to the promise of senior year and beyond, those voices seemed to matter less and less.
on the last day of school, you and jackie returned to the equipment shed—not out of secrecy now, but out of sentiment. you brought a blanket to spread over the dusty floor, a small basket of strawberries and chocolate, a bottle of sparkling cider smuggled from your parents' fridge.
"do you remember the first time we came here?" jackie asked, lying beside you on the blanket, her fingers intertwined with yours.
"seventh grade," you said. "after you scored the winning goal against westfield. you were so pumped up on adrenaline you practically dragged me in here."
she laughed. "i told you i wanted to show you something important."
"and then you kissed me."
"and then i kissed you," she agreed. "best impulse i ever had."
you turned to look at her, at the face you had loved in so many different ways throughout your shared life. "we took the long way around, didn't we?"
jackie's expression softened. "maybe we needed to. maybe i needed to understand what i'd be missing if i kept making the wrong choices."
"now i know." she shifted onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow to look down at you. "i know that nothing—not popularity or parental approval or some cookie-cutter future—is worth giving up what i feel when I'm with you."
you reached up to brush a strand of hair from her face. "and what do you feel when you're with me?"
"real," she said simply, echoing words from a night years ago. "like i don't have to pretend."
you pulled her down to you then, a kiss that tasted of strawberries and possibility, of winters survived and springs renewed.
outside, summer was asserting itself—the sun high and hot, the world lush with life. inside the small shed, time seemed suspended, the past and future collapsing into a perfect present.
later, walking home with your hands swinging between you, unafraid now of who might see, jackie stopped suddenly.
she was looking at you with an expression of wonder, as if seeing you for the first time. "i just realized something."
"im happy," she said, sounding surprised. "actually, genuinely happy."
you smiled, feeling the truth of it in your own chest—a lightness that had been absent for too long. "me too."
as you continued walking, you thought about the cycles of seasons, how winter always gives way to spring, how spring inevitably yields to summer. how nothing is permanent except change itself.
𝒢𝜚 💭 ࣪ ✸ 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞 ∿ yuri is life :3 who missed me?
