Chapter Text
1.00 am.
It had been an hour since Shauna Shipman's twenty-first birthday had ended. Which meant that Jackie had only been staring at her phone for two hours.
Jackie had managed to stop herself from looking like the needy desperate girl who still called Shauna Shipman every year on her birthday. She should have been celebrating her display of willpower; something that had always been lacking when it came to Shauna.
But Jackie had made it her New Year's resolution to stop deluding herself about Shauna Shipman.
The sad reality was she had been staring at that damned phone for the past twenty five hours and it still wasn't long enough. She needed more time where she was allowed to think about Shauna.
Jackie couldn't be the pathetic loser who never stopped obsessing over someone who had left her behind to rot years ago anymore.
That was also a lie. Shauna had been as successful at leaving Jackie behind as Jackie had been at allowing herself to be left behind.
Their birthday calls had devolved into a bi-annual reminder that the umbilical cord that failed to strangle them at birth, had been replaced by a red string stretching across state lines that were slowly cutting off circulation to their brains. Or at least that's how she remembers Shauna phrasing it the last time they spoke.
Jackie could make her sanctioned Shauna time last longer if she stopped herself from calling for another hour, so the best course of action was to keep dragging this out.
Her mind drifted as her eyes stayed locked on the pink handle of her phone. None of their friends had been asked about Shauna's big twenty first birthday plans so she deserved at least another hour of obsessing.
The first birthday call the summer after everything erupted had been unintentional. Neither of them had made a move for months, and Jackie had not been expecting to hear from Shauna ever again. Certainly not while she was being forced through birthday celebrations with her parents during an unfortunately timed mid-term break.
Her mother had taken great joy in the absence of the ‘constant talk’ about Shauna. She was so glad to finally have distance between the two of them that Jackie got a slice of birthday cake, as a twisted reward for removing the dead weight.
Would her mother have been happy to know that the split had been caused by ‘Darling Jeff'? What he had done to Shauna and her was the reason that Jackie was never going to let Jeff within her presence again-no matter how many times her mother brought him up.
Who was she kidding, her mother would have sacrificed Jeff on an altar if it would have guaranteed Jackie's separation from Shauna.
Except her mother hadn't had to, had she? Shauna had been all too eager to make Jackie roadkill on her escape to Providence. As usual her mother had manifested everything she wanted through sheer negative energy, or so she had thought until the house phone rang.
The part of Jackie that was always on the lookout for Shauna reacted with joy until the rest of her quashed it. Long experience with reality and the sense of crushing disappointment from Shauna's abandonment had taught Jackie not to get her hopes up.
She no longer felt a pang at every door that opened without Shauna in front of it or every car in her driveway that didn't rumble and spew out noxious fumes.
That phone call was not for her and it was not Shauna.
Somehow, Jackie was wrong on both counts. Mrs. Shipman's voice warmly wished Jackie a happy birthday, followed by the questions about her life at Rutgers that should have come from her own mother.
It had been so nice to sink into the comfort of someone who just wanted to know how Jackie was doing until Shauna's voice appeared with little warning.
The soft ‘Happy Birthday, Jackie’ coming from the line stilled her. She could picture Shauna hunched over and nervously biting at her lip just from the slight pause before her name.
Jackie wasn't sure if she had frozen out of shock because Shauna had finally spoken to her or because her entire being was torn between yearning and rage against her traitorous best friend.
The silence stretched out between them.
She knew that she should respond in some fashion but she couldn't bring herself to slam the phone down or to speak. Either way she stood there dumbly until she heard an uncertain ‘Jax? Are you there?’
No one else had called her Jax in months, because no one else was allowed to call her that. Being called Jax by the same voice who had always stayed on the line until Jackie's mind could be put back into order and lulled to sleep was too much.
There was no resistance possible when Shauna Shipman asked for her, no matter how much she hated herself for her lack of self respect. But that didn't mean the Jackie that came on the phone had anything pleasant to say.
“Did you mean it when you wished me Happy Birthday Shauna? Do you actually want me to be happy?”
For the life of her Jackie could never remember the rest of that call. Every single time she made another birthday call she tried to recall their first conversation, only to find that it was all a blur of hurt and spiteful words leaving both of them dissatisfied and angrier than when the call started.
The only thing she remembered clearly was the end, because it was the last part of the call that had doomed them to this unending loop.
When they had been almost too worn down to speak another word Shauna had asked if Jackie would let her visit Rutgers on Shauna's birthday or if they had seen one another for the last time.
The dignified, mature option would have been to say that everything between them was done, that they weren't anything anymore and that this was the last time they would speak until their high school reunion.
Except there was no universe where Jackie was capable of that, not even in a fit of spite, anger or jealousy. Not after months of life without any prospect of Shauna.
And yet, the fact remained that Jackie could not allow herself to actually see Shauna Shipman.
Don’t get her wrong, Jackie Taylor was gifted with tremendous amounts of self-control and always stuck to her guns. When her mother had bought her Homecoming dress a size too small, Jackie had sucked it in and sucked it up with a diet of exactly 800 calories for two weeks.
Her only lapses had been due to Shauna's big doe eyes, made even bigger with worry. She had crumbled every weekend or lunch time Shauna had showed up with Jackie's favourite foods pleading for her to eat something.
That was exactly why there was no way she could stand to be in physical proximity to Shauna. With the jumble of thoughts and emotions surrounding them, Jackie would either end up strangling her or throwing herself at Shauna begging for her to stop leaving.
The only thing to do was to manage their interactions until Jackie could speak to Shauna without spinning out. A limited ration of Shauna was survivable; phone calls twice a year had to be better than nothing at all.
If it was just that and nothing more every few months, then she could get her fill for the rest of the year. One thing was certain though, Shauna was not allowed to take the wheel.
She would drive them both off a cliff.
“You don't get call me Shauna, but I will call you on your birthday. I'll be the one calling on my birthday as well.” Now she knew that Shauna hated it when Jackie made decisions for them, but tough shit.
Jackie could not give up control to Shauna after what she had done. If Shauna really wanted to speak to Jackie, she would do it on Jackie's terms or not at all.
She needed to be the one in charge of whatever this was and it had worked for their last three birthdays. She wondered if they should thank Mrs. Shipman or curse her for starting this macabre celebration of their dead friendship.
2.00 am
Another hour spent going down the rabbit hole that was Shauna Shipman. Actually it was more like a wormhole, which Jackie always exited colder and with a larger headache than her own thoughts should give her.
If Jackie called now after waiting twenty six hours, how many rings would it take for Shauna to pick up?
Would she pick up on the first ring to let Jackie know she had been desperate to speak to her, or would she let the phone ring out so that Jackie was forced to call her again and again.
Jackie knew what she would have done if Shauna had left her to stew for so long. She would have waited until Shauna dialed and redialed her number, and the phone rang at least twenty six times just so that she could prove to herself that Shauna needed her as much as Jackie did.
Maybe it would be better if the plan was not followed for once in her life and they didn't speak. She scoffed at the very idea before picking up the phone and pushing the buttons for the stupid Rhode Island number burned into her brain.
“Hello?” One ring.
That meant that Shauna still wanted her. She kept silent so she could hear her name pass through Shauna's lips.
“Jackie? Is that you?” Jackie allowed herself to audibly exhale and lean back against her headboard as she let Shauna's voice roll over her. No one ever said her name the way that Shauna did, with a soft exhale that sounded like Jackie was always just on the tip of Shauna's tongue.
“Happy Birthday, Shauna.”
“Thank you Jax.”
Shauna sounded sober, which was exactly as Jackie wanted her.
She hadn't gone out with her new best friends on a rowdy bar crawl to commemorate turning twenty one today. There was a slight pang of guilt for taking joy in Shauna being by herself in her room, but it was nothing compared to the satisfaction of knowing nobody else was around.
She obviously didn't want Shauna friendless, however, if she were honest with herself, Jackie felt a thrill run through her at the idea of Shauna not being with anyone else today. Shauna had spent her day thinking about Jackie in anticipation of her call just like Jackie had Shauna.
Suddenly a disturbing thought crawled through her mind, what if Shauna hadn't actually spent her time in her room alone? Maybe Shauna had celebrated her birthday by shacking up in her room with a new boyfriend.
“Did you go out with anyone for your birthday?”
“It’s a weekday Jackie, I just went to the library then did some light reading in my room.”
The sense of relief was immeasurable because today, just for today, Shauna was entirely Jackie's again.
“That sounds good.” Jackie allowed herself to indulge in Shauna’s quiet steady breaths for a moment.
It had been so very long since she felt anything close to peaceful around Shauna and she needed more. “Can we act normal today Shauna? I'll believe every word if you tell me everything is fine.”
“Would you like me to lie to you again?”
Jackie was so tempted to allow herself to be pulled into a fantasy but she had promised herself the truth. “No, I guess not. Okay then, tell me why you did it, Shipman? Why did you fuck Jeff and fuck off to Brown?”
That question had been asked twice a year for the last three years. Jackie's mother's therapist had told her exposure therapy would decrease the emotional trauma of her father's repeated affairs in addition to copious downers that the shrink provided.
Her mother's speech had been garbled when she had tried to explain it to all, mainly because of the alcohol she'd used to swallow those pills, but the term ‘repeated exposure' had gotten through.
That little tidbit had proven useful throughout high school and during parts of her relationship with Jeff. Jackie had grit her teeth and gotten on with things until she no longer felt like an exposed nerve or she could run to Shauna to feel normal again.
It had been five birthdays and five different answers, and yet each explanation had only ripped a new hole in Jackie's heart. There was no comfort to be had from Shauna when it was Shauna's hands covered with Jackie's bloody insides.
“I used to think you were a plastic bag over my head obstructing my view of the world. You only allowed me to see the world through you and constrained me at the same time.”
Shauna's soft, dreamy voice only made the daggers wrapped in her words stab deeper. She should have recoiled from such harsh accusations, yet Jackie only hung on to every word.
“Ripping myself from your side was an attempt to free myself, but it was too late. Somewhere along the way you became my oxygen mask and now the only days I can breathe without gasping for air are our Birthdays.”
Jackie closed her eyes, hating herself for enjoying the little tales that Shauna weaved for her when this particular yarn was knit with poisoned darts aimed at yours truly.
She prompted Shauna to continue. “So you’re saying I suffocated you?”
“No. It's so much worse than simple asphyxiation. It's like I'm tied to you by a line of pure oxygen.” Shauna chuckled bitterly and paused as if trying to grab hold of something with her words.
“If a bubble of oxygen is injected into the bloodstream it will be carried all the way to the lungs. Then the body either develops a pulmonary embolism and dies or suffers a stroke. Worse still, if the oxygen line springs a leak, any spark will blow the entire goddamned place to smithereens.”
Sounded about right, except Shauna was so selfish that she forgot that she hadn't alone in the explosion. Jackie's lips twisted sourly with a hum of agreement. At least this was a comprehensible metaphor that applied to utter destruction they wrecked on each other.
“So we're either going to murder each other or everyone around us.” The tremble in her voice reappeared, and Jackie cursed herself for allowing herself to be so affected by something as stupid as words even after hearing variations of the same thing so many times.
She was so tired of going through this cycle of being hurt by Shauna all the time, and worse, of hearing how terrible she made Shauna feel. “Is that why you needed to get away from me? Because you hate me?“
“No, but I always thought I hated him when really I loved him.” Beaches.
Jackie's upset melted away exactly as Shauna had intended.
Shauna always rolled her eyes whenever Jackie made them watch that ‘schmaltzy mess of a movie’ but she always let her and apparently she still knew enough of it to use on Jackie.
“Don’t try to distract me by quoting Beaches.” Wait. “That quote was about a dog! Are you comparing me to a dog?” The snort from Shauna at her indignation should have infuriated her but the sheer ridiculousness of that scene amid the best cinematic reunion ever always got to her.
Shauna always knew how to make Jackie laugh in the weirdest moments- just like Beaches.
“You forgot the end of that quote.” Jackie scrunched up her face as she tried to recall what followed but Shauna hurriedly cut her off. “Besides, I'm not the one who threw out references to Beaches mid-argument. Didn't someone say I was ‘so jealous I couldn’t breathe’?”
“Well, not all of us can just come up with snappy insults.” And just like that, the pendulum swung back from happiness to irritation. She knew letting Shauna take the lead was going to give her whiplash.
“You told me you felt sorry for me because I’m a weak, tragic, boring insecure little princess. Don’t forget about the part where you told me high school was the best my life was ever going to get.”
Just repeating those words set her teeth on edge and took down whatever levity Shauna had been trying to inject into her birthday call.
This was why it was so hard to stay on an even keel when Shauna was involved.
Jackie had tried to forget those words and dismiss them as another one of Shauna's drunken or high ramblings but they had seared into her and become part of her mantra during sleepless nights.
There was a heavy sign on the line then a period of silence so long that Jackie checked the line to see if Shauna had hung up. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”
A rueful laugh that Jackie didn't recognise erupted from her mouth. “I remember everything about you. There was a time when I thought that was a good thing, but all it does now is remind me that I just don’t know you anymore.”
“Jackie, I'm doing my best to tell you but you still don't understand anything. It's like I'm trying to write the letter H and you keep trying to tell me 1-1= 0.”
Why did Shauna keep speaking in riddles then blame Jackie for not being able to solve them? Shauna knew that Jackie didn't deal well with languages and the abstract. Her frustration boiled over at Shauna once again trying to turn this back around on her.
It was completely ridiculous that she could claim Jackie wasn't listening when all she would do was speak in metaphors and quotes from movies. “You know what, if you believe I'm so dumb why are you even speaking to me?”
“You called me at 2 am in the morning after my birthday, Jackie.” Shauna allowed her to slice into flesh without her usual defensiveness. She sounded just as tired as Jackie felt and Jackie started to feel guilty for making Shauna wait all day.
No.
She couldn't just roll over and let Shauna get away with everything. This wasn't Shauna and that was not what Jackie needed from her. Jackie's anger needed to be whetted against Shauna's rage or all there would be left was a whole load of nothing between them.
“If my calls are such a problem then hang up. No one told you to pick it up in the first place.”
“Of course I’ll pick up. I can’t stop myself from paying all the attention in the world to you Jackie.
Ugh how could she keep using Beaches against her? That bitch was always pushing the envelope. Again there was no anger, worse there was just sweet Shauna feeding Jackie her favourite lines.
They weren't even her words, but Jackie was still so pathetic that she lapped it all up.
“In Beaches it was so easy for them to get back to being best friends. They divorced their ex-husbands and they went on like nothing had happened.” Shauna hummed in what sounded like agreement, so Jackie continued. “I never even liked Jeff. Why can't we just forget about him and go back to being Jackie and Shauna?”
“I barely remember anything about him but life isn’t a movie Jax, our minds don't work like that. No matter how much we want to, we can't just forget about what happened between all of us.”
The flyer that Jackie on stuffed in her bookbag reappeared in her thoughts; if she was honest with herself, it had been in the back of her mind all day. This was going to be the last time speaking to Shauna where she felt like this.
There were tools at hand to fix things; all Jackie had to do was wipe the slate clean of the mess Jeff had made.
“Where there's a will there's a way.”
“Jax what?”
“Happy Birthday Shauna.” The goodbye was a little abrupt, but it had to be done. There was a lot to prepare if Jackie was going to get them back on track before Jackie's birthday.
It was her new New Year's resolution that the next time she spoke to Shauna her plans would have been completed and they would be back to normal.
Jackie laid sleepless in bed while her brain went into overdrive trying to figure out which part followed Shauna’s quote about the dog in Beaches. “No, but I always thought I hated him when really I loved him. There was no time for me to show him any affection. He never knew how much I cared.”
Sleep finally came when the mystery was solved, and as an added bonus, Jackie received more evidence that she was taking the right course of action .
Everything would be fine once she erased all memories of Jeff tomorrow.