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Chapter Text

Jackie Taylor never was one for messiness, her room back at home in New Jersey is perfectly polished to every last exact detail. Everything is a mix of a gorgeous, shell-pink colour and a shimmering lily white, even her books have home-made leather covers with silver text slipped onto them to match her aesthetic. China figures are slotted carefully onto the shelves with fairy lights intertwined between them, illuminating them in a captivating glow and posters of her favourite musicians and video games are hung on the wall behind her king-sized bed, framed pristinely.  

So when she eventually walks into her Rutgers dorm room after an extremely long day of being stuck in mountains of rush-hour traffic she is not expecting to see what seems to be the remnants of a war-zone. 

There are pitch-black cigar burns on almost every single piece of cheap college furniture as well as scratches running up and down the walls revealing the bricks underneath.  A pale-skinned, freckled girl with obnoxiously green facial piercings in almost every single place imaginable and very obviously home-dyed, neon purple hair has a cigar with the stench of weed wafting from it, placed between her middle and index fingers. She sits with her back against the stained wall, scrolling through TikTok at a deafeningly loud volume and occasionally letting out a chuckle at whatever funny video she comes across. Jackie gawks open-mouthed and wide eyed at the sight of where she will be living for the next year. 

'Oh my god…' She mumbles under her breath, placing her blood red Urban Outfitters handbag on one of the metal hooks on the hardwood door. 

The girl looks up disapprovingly at Jackie and visibly grimaces as her eyes scan the mahogany denim jacket and dress combination the sandy-blond had decided to wear that day. 

'Who are you?' The unnamed girl grunts, her voice hoarse from the blunts she had continuously been smoking all day.

'I'm Jackie, Jackie Taylor.' She apprehensively responds, glancing around the room in fear as if something was about to burst out the walls.

'Nice name. I'm Lindsay.' The alternative-looking girl answers back, turning her phone off and chucking her used cigar into the plastic bin, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.  

Jackie slowly backs away from the reeking remnants of the cancer stick and sits down cautiously on the stiff mattress opposite Lindsay which has a mysterious yellow stain she makes sure to avoid. 'So,' she begins, 'Why does the dorm room look like this?'  

Lindsay snorts in laughter, 'Oh you're one of those girls are you?' 

'What do you mean 'one of those girls'.' Jackie questions, puzzled at what the girl is implying and partially offended, 'I'm not like that, a priss if that's what you mean. I just like neatness.' 

Lindsay rolls her hazel eyes whilst simultaneously standing up and revealing torn fishnet tights and one of the shortest leather mini-skirts Jackie has seen in her life, 'Sure Jackie,' she says sarcastically, opening the door. 'Listen, I'm going down to the student bar if you wanna come.' 

Jackie considers the kind gesture for a second but her eyes then lay on the teetering stacks of cardboard boxes filled sky-high with her belongings that need to be unpacked, 'Maybe later? I need to empty all these.' She says gesticulating wildly in the direction of her possessions. 

Chuckling, Lindsay closes the door 'Like I said, one of those girls.' her voice echoes from the hallway. 

Jackie hovers over the packages, ready to be opened. 'Priss. I'm not a priss.' Jackie angrily murmurs to herself, lifting up the top box that has the word 'posters' messily scribbled onto its side in black sharpie. 

'Who is she to say I'm a priss?' She frustratedly continues, now aggressively ripping open the duck tape to reveal a Stardew Valley poster she had ordered the previous year from Etsy. 

'I am not a priss.' Jackie repeats as if it was one of the positive affirmations she was always told to constantly say out loud to herself in health class. Jackie spots a sheet of paper that says 'Morning routine' in obnoxiously teenage girl highlighter writing, she sighs. A part of her wants the normalcy and routine of highschool back but she quickly forgets as the corner of her eyes notices Floofums - her childhood teddy bear poking out from another box - she gently places him on her bed. 

Jackie now applies blue-tack (although for some reason her wad of blue-tack is white) in the four corners of the poster and places it precisely over a muddy water stain leaking through the wall. She wants this place to feel like her childhood bedroom; familiar, calming and unchanged. 

The repetitive motion of placing her collection of hobby and music posters brings her back to the humid summer break of seventh grade at Wiskayok middle school. Her and Shauna were in Shauna's new bedroom after her parents divorce, giggling about a stupid inside joke they had made between them the year prior as they hung up posters and polaroid photos of them on her new teal walls.

'Shauna you can't say that!' Jackie had ironically said through fits of laughter, clutching a David Bowie painting Laura Lee had drawn for Shauna in art class.  

'I know but it's just so funny!' Shauna responded, cackling whilst slotting Lord of the flies onto her bookshelf. 

Jackie grinned mischievously at Shauna from across the room, positioning an arctic monkeys poster in a maple wood frame, 'Shauna, how many books do you have left?' She asked, making her way over to the stacks of literary material. 

'I'm not sure, should be done in around,' She checked the maroon, heart-shaped watch Jackie had gifted her for her twelfth birthday, '10 minutes?' Shauna said back, now placing a coverless book onto the bottom shelf. 

'Ugh fine, but I'm bored.' Jackie complained, flopping down onto Shauna's wicker double-bed with a gorgeous emerald green quilt, 'I finished putting up all your boring dad music posters.' She ended, raising her hands in the air on the word all. 

'Hang on, weren't you doubling over in fits of laughter less than a minute ago?' Shauna wondered, reaching for the last stack of books. 

'I was, I'm versatile.' She counters back, staring at the glow in the dark stars hanging off Shauna's ceiling. 

Shauna chuckles, her brunette hair swaying as she moves her head to look at the disinterested Jackie who was currently kicking her feet against the bed frame. Suddenly, an idea appeared inside Shauna's mind, she sneakily walked over to Jackie, trying not to let the floorboard squeak and grabbed one of the shaggy, lime cushions that were lining her bed. 'What are you-' Jackie began, then cut off by a pillow smashing into her face, leaving her stunned, 'What the hell Shauna!' She irritably yelled back, then grabbing another pillow and hitting Shauna down in outrage.  Shauna managed to dodge the blow and retaliated back, knocking Jackie off the bed making her crumple into an oddly shaped position at the foot of Shauna's chest of drawers. She almost immediately sprung back up and wacked Shauna over the head but somehow continued to stay in place and not be swayed like Jackie was. 

Shauna burst out in giggles and slumped to the ground in hysterics, 'You should've seen your face when I hit you.' 

Jackie joined in on the guffaws, 'I thought you were trying to kill me!' 

'Who says I wasn't?' 

Jackie sighs to herself pessimistically as she observes the wall of posters she finally completed after an hour - which felt more like 10 due to being alone. 

I can't believe Shauna isn't here to help me with this. Jackie complains internally, missing the brunette who she spent so many years of her life with.

No Jackie, you can do this by yourself, you don’t need Shauna. Jackie reminds herself, praying Rutgers and what it has to come is kind to her and doesn’t leave her in despair like their friendship did. 

She needs a distraction.

She can't be thinking about Shauna right now. 

So that's how she ends up in the student bar in a ruby hued, sequined dress revealing most of her cleavage, chugging bitter tequila shots and multiple pints of beer with Lindsay on her first day of college.

'This tastes so bad.' Jackie slurs, her head resting on the marble counter while clutching an almost empty alcohol glass. 

Lindsay drunkenly laughs, meanwhile filling her glass to the brim with Vodka Coke, 'You nearly finished it.' 

'It still tasted gross as fuck.' Jackie replies sourly, waving her hand around wildly, hoping to catch the distracted bartender's attention. 

'No. No more drinks for you, you've been here all night.' The barkeeper instructs, walking towards Jackie and Lindsay. 

'Please, I want more.' Jackie begs. 

'No, if you have any more you'll be blacked out in the emergency room.' The bartender commands, polishing Jackie's glass and carelessly lobbing it inside the open dishwasher, making a crashing sound as it clashes against the other glasses. 

Jackie let out an exasperated breath but complied to the order she viewed as unfair. She turned her body around, now facing the tables of friends becoming more intoxicated by the minute. Their conversations echoed around the room, becoming a loud mass of indistinguishable noise as they yelled and reminisced with each other. 

She spots a pair of girls, who seem around her age, sitting at a table in the far left corner, holding glasses of red wine and cracking up at everything the other person says. They remind Jackie of her and Shauna back in senior year at high school on valentines day - when they went to a new chinese restaurant together and everybody thought they were dating. Except these girls begin kissing. 

So not like her and Shauna. 

Jackie feels a sharp, violet nail tap her shoulder, 'C'mon priss, we're going home. Quit staring at the lesbians.' 

'I- I wasn't staring.' Jackie deflects while blushing a tomato shade, hoping she doesn't seem creepy. 

'Sure. Now let's go before it gets too late.' Lindsay grabs the strap of Jackie's dress and pulls her up and off the barstool. 

Jackie peers over her shoulder to have one last look at the female couple as the bar door shuts behind her, leaving her wondering about them forever. The sharp September air hits Jackie and causes her breath to show in a cloud of steam from her nose. She shivers, she has no coat as she wasn't prepared for the vast difference of the sunshiny weather during the day and the almost snow-inducing temperature of the night. Her skin turns reddish as the freezing atmosphere affects her circulation, she wraps her arms around her torso hoping to maintain some body heat.  Lindsay then grabs her hand and drags her through the campus so the extremely inebriated Jackie Taylor doesn't get lost between various parked cars and dormitories.  At around 1:00 am they arrive back at their hell-zone of a bedroom and flop down on the stiff, single-beds in synchronicity and fall into the depths of sleep almost immediately. Jackie sprawls out across her cherry blossom imaged duvet, still in her seductive dress from the bar and rhinestone heels. 

Never go to class hungover was a message Jackie Taylor learnt in sophomore year in high school. 

Her and the yellowjackets had been at one of the biggest parties of the year at Lottie Matthew's mansion the night before - when Jackie had arrived inside the Wiskayok high school gates with a pounding headache and the most intense nausea she had felt in her entire life, she threw up her guts inside a hedge next to the science block. Shauna held her hair back and took her home in her rusty Volkswagen, Shauna didn't care that she would get detention for being late to social studies, Shauna only cared about Jackie. 

Stop thinking about Shauna. Are Jackie's first thoughts of the morning as she wakes up and opens her eyes. The world is blurry for the first few seconds until the memories of last night kick in and the brutal hangover symptoms hit her all at once, her mouth as dry as the sahara desert and queasiness coursing through her veins; sweat plastering her body to the mattress. She sluggishly lifts her head up and reaches for her nightstand to grab the plastic cup of water left just with arms reach. How did that get there? She ponders for a couple seconds before swallowing the water down within one swift gulp. 

'Morning priss, you slept late. It's 10:00 am.' Greeted Lindsay, 'I got you that water, thought you'd need it with how hammered you looked.' She nods her head and retrieves the smash-poof cup from Jackie.

'Wait? It's 10? Shit.' Jackie briskly clambers out of bed, clumsily stumbling over her own feet in the process. 'I have class in like 15 minutes.' 

'Oh wow you're fucked.' Lindsay unhelpfully utters, sitting calmly on her bed, 'Need my help?' 

'Thanks for the input and no I do not need help.' Jackie responds, unzipping her dress and pulling it off then throwing on an azul blue and white striped jumper with khaki cargos. 

Her half removed makeup from last night and uncurled, greasy hair will have to do or she'll risk missing the entire lesson. 

'You look like shit.' Lindsay says, being unsupportive as she scrolls through social media.

'Why thank you.' Jackie murmurs under her breath sarcastically whilst tying up her sunflower converse, pissed off but not willing to show it. 

The door slams loudly and Jackie rushes to class while being the most hungover she's ever been. The fluorescent Rutgers lights burn into her eyeballs and the feeling of being about to vomit pounds inside her stomach, the chatter between students is not helping her concentrate on keeping the contents of last night from coming up. 

After five wrong turns, ending up in the drama department (a romeo angrily yelled at her to leave) and accidentally walking into an advanced math class Jackie finally makes it to 'intro to psychology' in room 223 appearing like she got dragged through a hedge backwards. She stumbles through the door and over 100 eyes plaster on her. 

'You're late.' A male voice grunts from in front of her, he has a snow white hair and beard with silver strands streaking through it and chunky, black framed glasses. 

'I- I know. I'm sorry! I can explain!' Jackie pants, out of breath and desperately trying to avoid a public scolding from the professor. 

'You also reek of alcohol.' He approaches his desk and checks a clipboard, 'Miss Jackie Taylor.' 

'Do I? Well that's not the point. I got lost, sorry for being late. This university is like, hella big.' She makes her way to sit down at one of the single person desks placed at the front of the classroom.

'Fine but miss Taylor, you better not be late to any more of my lessons.' He sternly instructs, turning away to face the board that was currently projecting the words 'Families' boldly in comic sans.

Jackie gulps in anxiety, she didn't like this teacher already - he had made her entire class think she had a problem with alcohol within less than a minute of entering. She wasn't Natalie Scatorccio. As she unpacked her bag she could feel everybody's eyes etching into the back of her skull as they whispered about her lateness and telling-off. She was not off to a great start. 

'So. Now that Jackie has made her very public entrance we can get on with the lesson. This segment is families and as you can tell by the name we will be learning about the psychology behind them.' He points an electronic stick at the screen and switches the projected slide to a diagram of poorly drawn stick figures; some in skirts and others without, there are red hearts between them to signify love. 

'Now as I'm sure we all know, well I hope you know if you're in my classroom. There are different ways families can present, man and woman. Man and man. Woman and woman. Man. Woman.' 

Jackie tenses up and receives goosebumps at the mention of woman on woman relationships, although she has no idea why. She doesn't mind that stuff, in fact she supports it but she would never join the community - she just doesn't like girls in that way. An annoyingly grating voice starts to call out from the desk behind Jackie, she shifts her head back to see who is speaking. 

It's a latina boy with glasses and a curly, auburn mullet, 'But sir, gay relationships aren't real families.' He objects. 

The professor chuckles, spit flying from his chapped lips, 'I know, but they make me put all this woke gay agenda stuff in the lecture son.' 

Jackie's nervous system freezes up, it's her first day of class and she's already made her way into a far right class. Everybody around her is laughing their heads off apart from her, she sticks out like a sore thumb as she sits with a blank expression on her face and the stench of alcohol surrounding her. She's the most uncomfortable she's ever been and her heart rate begins to rapidly quicken. 

She can't be here.

Everything is wrong. 

Without another moment's thought, Jackie springs up and out of her chair and sprints across the class so she can exit through the door. She doesn't have a second to relax in the freedom of the class as the moment she collides with the freedom of the hallway she gags. And then gags again. 

She rushes for the trash can helpfully planted next to a fire engine red bench a few metres away from her. As she spews up the contents of her intestines an intense rush of unwanted homesickness hits her like a punch in the guts.

I thought Rutgers would be a new beginning.

I hate it here so much.

I want Shauna. 

Jackie wipes her mouth with the now-ruined sleeve of her sweater as she sits cross-legged on the terracotta tiled floor with her back to the dusty wall, she lays there for a couple minutes, alone with her thoughts, before standing up and deciding to leave the space and progress towards her dormitory. 

She feels tears well in her eyes as flashbacks of the very public and embarrassing exit explode in her head.

Why did I care so much? Is the question that pounds through her brain as she climbs the metal stairs that lead to her and Lindsay's place. 

The noise of her own footsteps pressing against the wooden floor gnaw into her skull, she hates every sound and every thing that makes its way into her eyesight. 

I can never go back to that class. Almost every single anxiety possible swirls through Jackie whilst she pushes open the glass, double door leading to the student accommodation. 

Everybodies going to think I'm an alcoholic lesbian. Jackie tells herself with false certainty, metres away from her room. 

Jackie pushes open the door, thankfully Lindsay is nowhere to be seen. 

She lets everything out and just screams and screams and screams. She screams like there is no tomorrow. She screams like she'll never be able to scream again. Tears cascade out her eyes like the niagara falls and she falls to the floor. She punches the floor in despair, wailing and wailing and wailing. Teardrops cover the carpet and the furniture. She screams more. She tears the cardboard boxes that previously stored her belongings. She kicks her childhood stuffed animal. A sheet of paper falls from one of the boxes, it reads 'Morning routine' in pastel pink highlighter. Jackie yells an agonising yell as the list reminds her of the normalcy she misses. She scrunches and tears it and kicks it and shatters it into a million pieces. She lets out one final ear-piercing screech and curls herself into a tight, safe ball in the middle of the room. 

She wants to go home. 

Chapter Text

The early morning wake up angered Shauna to a new degree. She did not need Lottie Matthews breathing in her face at 5 fucking am so they could go on a 'road trip' together to Brown University. Her mother had constantly warned her that if she left it to the first day of class it would be hellish, she always responded 'I'll be fine' but she is very much not fine. In fact she is the opposite of fine, it is 11 o'clock in the morning and they had barely reached the outskirts of New Jersey. Apparently everybody had left arriving at university to the last minute with the amount of traffic blocking their car in every single direction. Lottie was keeping herself entertained sprawled across the back seat watching Glee with empty packets of Lays crisps sprinkled around her and a pillow propped against the edge of the car. Shauna on the other hand was smashing her palm into her horn aggressively, as if that would do anything to move the rusty Volkswagen across the motorway. 

'Jesus christ, Shauna stop that.' Lottie complained, with the same tone she would use when talking about Allie Stevens after a match. 

'No! Our first class is in 2 hours and at this rate we'll miss, like, the entire first week.' Shauna exclaimed, stress visible in her facial expression and hand gestures. 

'Yeah I know but beating up the car like it's a punching bag will not help.' Pointed out Lottie, sticking her head through the two front seats to see Shauna. 

Shauna playfully shoves her back whilst rolling her chocolate coloured eyes, 'Fine, but can we get fucking moving.' She yells, now sticking her head out of the stain-covered car window. 

Like an entity from above heard, their lane starts moving - slowly, but still moving nonetheless 'Wooo! Yes baby!' Lottie calls cheerfully out from behind Shauna. 

'Finally.' Says Shauna, with hints of happiness and relaxation as she grips the steering wheel, ready to turn off the road. 

The car indicates and turns left towards an overgrown side path, Lottie reaches down into the crowded boot and squirms her hand around for a few moments before turning around disappointed, 'Shauna. We're out of food.' 

Shauna heavily breathes in and out in anger, staring straight ahead with her eyes wide open, 'Lottie, are you seriously telling me you ate 6 packets of chips.' She aggressively complains, now driving on another main road. 

'No shit Sherlock Holmes, who else would it have been? The chip fairy?' Lottie says sarcastically, sounding way too chill for the current situation. 

Shauna seems as if she is about to explode, her eyes scrunch up and her grip tightens on the steering wheel leaving fingerprints imprinted on the dark material. Lottie senses Shauna's extreme rage and shuts her mouth that was probably about to say something that would make the situation a thousand times worse. 

'Lottie. We are 2 hours away from Brown. It's almost 12 and we haven't eaten since 5:30 in the goddamn morning. I am gonna kill you.' Shauna exclaims in frustration - yelling the last part - stamping her foot down on the pedal and making the mile per hour metre reach 70. 

'OK, Jesus sorry. We can literally just stop at a Mcdonalds.' Lottie shrugs, slotting her wired apple headphones towards the inside of her ear and blasting Laufey.

Shauna internally screams but instead rolls her eyes, pondering colliding the car with one of the upcoming trees. 

I am not going to Mcdonalds . She stubbornly decides, the satnav now updating and saying Brown University is an hour and a half away. 

The last time Shauna Shipman willingly hung out in a Mcdonalds was during a sleepover at Jackie's house after their junior year homecoming. Shauna was the drunk one for once as she usually had to stay sober to be everybody's ride home after rendezvous. Her and Jackie had walked through the Mcdonalds (although Shauna more stumbled due to her tipsiness) and sat down at the only available table because for some peculiar reason everybody wanted to be at a random Mcdonalds in Wiskayok at 2am. She doesn't really remember much from that night, but she does have the memory of her and Jackie laughing so much her sprite erupted from her nose all over Jackie's expensive Tiffany's dress. She doesn't think Jackie has forgiven her for that even after 2 years. 

Jackie.

Shauna misses Jackie. 

Although almost as soon as the thought of the sandy blond involuntarily appears in her head, she pushes it away. Jackie was probably already moving on so Shauna should as well, right? 

After another hellish almost 2 hours on the road that consisted of immense amounts of yelling, an almost car crash and Lottie being left at a gas station for 15 minutes before Shauna realised she was missing. Shauna and Lottie eventually arrive at the brick gates of Brown University. The sun shining violently in their eyes and students gossiping around the campus; catching up after a summer of isolation from each other. Lottie sprints off to find a group of friends she had previously made on a tour day back in June, leaving Shauna all alone surrounded by strangers. 

I can do this . She reassures herself, trying to build up motivation to make her way to the dormitory. 

She begins walking across the concrete path, avoiding flying frisbees and various different soccer balls from multiple directions with quick dodges. 

The glass hallways in Brown are so massive they look like they might swallow Shauna whole, she stares in awe at everybody moving around the gaping rooms, eating overpriced food at the cafe across from her and entering one of the many libraries towards her right to do god-knows-what. She can be one of those people, she can have a new beginning. Nobody here knows her apart from Lottie (who will probably go off and do her own thing - they were never that close). She doesn't have to be overshadowed by somebody's shadow anymore; she can discover who she is away from being Jackie's metaphorical twin. She's free to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants.

Shauna hates icebreakers, despises them. She can't think of anything she would want to do less than telling people she's never even met in her life 'interesting information' about herself. She guarantees that nobody there gives a single fuck how her summer went, what she did in high school and what music she likes. She hardly even gives a fuck about those things herself. So as she sits at her desk planted neatly at the back of the claustrophobic classroom, the introduction getting closer and closer to her she can't help but panic. 

Do I tell them I play guitar? No, too basic.

I won nationals? No, it'll seem like I'm showing off. 

My favourite colour is green? Jesus christ Shauna that's preschool level. 

When it is eventually her turn to reveal her personality she blurts out a random combination of word vomit, 'HiI'mShaunaShipmanIplayguitarandmyfootballteamwonnationals.'  Shauna cringes at her own jumble of words, looking apprehensively around the room for any form of judgement being shown on somebody's face. She seems to be in the clear. 

'No way? You're a yellowjacket?' An amazed voice calls out from the front desk, a girl is staring Shauna down wide-eyed as if trying to memorise everything about her appearance. 

'Well yeah.' She replies and a slight smile creeps up on her face, a spark lighting up inside of her at thought of being someone else's shero. 

A murmur of approval begins around the room, people turning their heads to view Shauna better. Smugness overwhelms her and she can't stop blushing at all the positive attention, Brown is off to a great start. 

Well it was off to a great start until Shauna butted-heads with her self-absorbed new roommate. She gingerly enters her dormitory that was unhelpfully all the way on the east wing - the opposite side of the University to her 'intro to journalism' class - she saw things nobody should ever have to see on the hike over through the music block. 

A very obviously fake blonde sits politely at a vanity, dabbing expensive concealer on her face and perfecting her eyeliner. Shauna doesn't think much of her silence as she sits across from the mystery girl at her own desk, opening her battered laptop she's had since High School with stickers of various different fandoms plastering it. After the screen glitching almost 6 different times, Shauna finally manages to load up Life is strange for the first time in weeks; packing for college was a new level of stressful, she barely had time to eat breakfast let alone play a video game. 

After multiple minutes, she feels somebody's eyeballs burning into the back of her skull, 'You seriously play games? On that crappy thing as well?' Shauna's new unamused roommate scoffs. 

'Yeah? You have a problem with that?' Shauna responds, turning around, pissed off and ready to fight.

'No, no. Just a bit strange.' She side eyes Shauna and continues adding mountains of blush onto her almost-all-makeup face. 

Kill me now.

Chapter Text

Jackie's third day of Rutgers came faster than expected; thankfully she was finally hangover free so she could go to class without spewing up her guts and having a marching band practising out-of-key notes inside her head. 

She wakes up at 5am, sprawled out like a ragdoll across the panelled, wooden floor as freezing as a snowman. 

Jesus christ, does Rutgers not have heating? She complains, sluggishly lifting up her heavy head off the hard surface beneath her body. She squints, trying to make out anything in the pitchblack dormitory, Jackie spies Lindsay tucked up cozily inside her sleeping bag (she says duvets are a waste of time - which Jackie thinks is strange, but she never tells her that). As she clambers up and heads toward her bedside table so she can project some light across the room, the memories of yesterday afternoon come flooding back into her brain like an avalanche of unwanted thoughts. Similarly to a movie reel, Lindsay holding her while she sobbed and explained through tearful, snotty gasps what happened and how it all became too much plays. Jackie freezes in her tracks, embarrassed and sorrowful. 

Lindsay must think so I'm weird . She worries, it was only their second day together and she'd already seen Jackie sunken to her absolute lowest, gulping for air on the floor of their room. She sits down rapidly on her baby pink quilt and chews her thumbs nail in anxiety. Nobody at highschool had ever seen her like this, not even Shauna, they always perceived her as a popular, care-free, rich girl who spent her days partying and hooking up with boys. Jackie wishes that's who she could be but she feels so far from it, like that version of her is long gone - if it even ever existed at all. The Jackie Taylor she knows is a geek for pop culture (but hides it for fear of getting teased), has an anxiety-ridden mind (that she never expresses until it all builds up and explodes) and just desperately wants to be liked and have a best friend (something she never had to think about until Shauna stabbed her in the back). 

As amber sunlight begins to creep through the thin, budgeted curtains and the possibility of having to go back to class daunts on her, she puts on her Jackie Taylor mask for the millionth time. The Jackie Taylor everybody perceives her as is coming back into play, although she isn't real, she's a hoax; a facade. 

She snatches a diet yoghurt pot from Lindsays handy minifridge that she lets Jackie use in the corner of the room and downs it in a few bites. She hasn't eaten since the afternoon before when Lindsay forced her to eat cereal 'to calm her down', the refreshing cream feels so good on her hoarse throat, tired from screaming. 

She does her makeup and spends much more time on it than she probably should, wanting to appear as normal, likeable and fresh as possible; covering up the red puffiness below her eyes. 

Whilst she's finishing her clear, waterproof mascara, Lindsay slowly opens her eyes and lets out an earth-shattering yawn. 'Hi priss, you're up early for once.' She croaks out, stretching her arms above her head then unzipping her indigo sleeping bag to get ready for the upcoming day. 

'Oh, hey Lindsay.' Jackie uncomfortably says, avoiding eye contact out of being ashamed for last afternoon. 

'Why the sourness?' She responds, genuinely concerned for Jackie as she takes off her pyjamas and slips into a leather skirt and jacket combination. 

Jackie shrugs, then opens her mouth to say 'I- No reason. It doesn't matter.' Reaching for her purse placed neatly on the shelf of her vanity. 

'It's not about yesterday is it? Jackie, it's fine. You needed help, everybody gets like that.' Lindsay answers to Jackie's apprehensiveness like what happened yesterday was a normal second day friend activity. 

'Yeah, OK!' She says, plastering a fake smile on her face so wide it hurts her jaw, while buttoning up her white jacket she wore at the party before nationals with Shauna, that was hanging on the back of her desk chair. 

Lindsay sighs as if she's been defeated, 'Listen Jackie, if you need anything I'm here.' 

Jackie laughs like it's nothing, 'I'm fine Lindsay. Look, I have class. See you later, OK?' She lies, opening the door to the Rutgers hallways. 

'OK…' Lindsay trails off as the door shuts with a loud bang behind Jackie. She doesn't believe her. She's worried about her. 

Arriving at class (even if it was a different one) after her previous escape was one of the most nerve racking things Jackie had ever done. She could feel the hundreds of students stare through her soul, whispering and gossiping about what it could mean and why she did it. She keeps her head down and her view straight to the ground as she reaches the desk furthest from anybody's opinion. Her hand grabs a gel pen from her flowery pencil case and then places a leather notebook reading 'Psychology notes' on her desk, planning to spend all lesson taking notes without contacting anybody in the room. 

'I heard she's a dyke.' Jessica, a girl with a blond butterfly cut and nails that seem to extend as far as the eyes can see, mumbles to the boy sitting at the desk next to her, glancing backwards to make sure Jackie isn't listening. 

She is listening. The words hit her like shards of glass being thrown. She crumples her body up and hangs her neck into her psychology textbook, desperately trying not to draw attention to herself. The last thing she needs right now is to have a public fight with a homophobe, she never could fight; not even when Shauna and her were playfully scrapping in her back garden on the trampoline. Shauna would always push her down and spray her with a water gun, every single time that happened Jackie would get super pissed and shove her over but now she misses their hot summer day hangouts. She'd give anything to go back.  

'She stormed out the lesson, I think she's gay.' A second voice murmurs from multiple desks aways to a circle of friends who seem intrigued. 

Jackie cringes, fear overcoming her. I can't do this, she panics. Her hand reaches towards her mouth as she begins to chew her nails in anxiety. Without any form of warning, her teacher from yesterday walks in. 

Oh shit. Oh no. This is completely fucking different class, why the fuck is he here? Alarm bells go off rapidly in her head at the sight of him. He struts angrily around the class like he owns the place, staring at people and telling them to shut it so he can 'begin teaching' (if that's what you can even call it). She begins scribbling down nonsense in her book, hoping to look occupied enough to avoid conversation with him. Too late. 

'Well, look who it is.' His condescending voice rattles down at the Jackie who is currently entering fight or flight mode. 

'Hi professor.' She reluctantly responds through gritted teeth, dropping her pen but not moving otherwise. 

'Please stick around for the whole lesson this time, Miss Taylor.' He maliciously answers back as giggles from listeners echo around the room. 

Jackie doesn't reply, she knows he wants a reaction and he's not going to have the satisfaction of getting one, she can't bear to see the smugness on his face as she breaks down in his lecture hall due to his patronizing comments. The professor looks her up and down, then makes his way down the steps to the front of the class to begin lecturing about 'childhood development' aggressively. 

The class begins fine, Jackie takes notes about the way the brain progresses and how parental decisions affect it. Nobody seems to be whispering about her mid-class bolt, instead they concentrate on their work and ask intriguing questions about the topics. 

'So.' Professor Bradley says, walking around the room and peering at the students' work, 'Who knows how autism affects children and their development?' He looks directly at Jackie, eyes as wide as can be, 'You, bolter. Answer.' 

'Um.' She looks anxiously around the room, 'Well, they can fall behind socially.' 

'Surprisingly, you are correct, what else?.' He responds like the asshole he is. 

Jackie doesn't have a single idea, they never covered this during psychology at school, 'I- I dunno.' She says, ashamed of herself. 

'I bet Jackie's autistic.' The girl who called her a dyke earlier exclaims, causing a ripple of giggles to emerge around the room. The professor joins in, his laughter bellowing loudly, and doing nothing to stop the continuous bullying happening around the room. 

'Fuck off, Jessica.' Jackie answers back sourly, appearing as if she's not having any of her bullshit, internally she's fuming and ready to run out again. 

'Woah. That's not nice.' Jessica responds back, mockingly putting her hands up in fear and playing the victim against Jackie's words. 

Jackie rolls her eyes, she physically cannot do this today and if somebody says one more thing against her she may actually spontaneously combust in the middle of class. Jessica gives her a massive side eye and turns around to face the front again, smiling sweetly at everybody like nothing happened between them and she hadn't made a spectacle of Jackie just a moment ago. 

She would be lying if she said she expected this treatment when she arrived at Rutgers. At Wiskayok High School she was the most popular girl from freshman year up until graduation, everybody looked up to her, passerbyers bowed their heads at the sandy-blond strutting down the hallways as if their lives depended on it. So where did she go wrong? Why is she being bullied? The entire situation is leaving her puzzled, it isn't her fault she cares about gay people, also that day she was as hungover as Natalie Scatorccio on a Saturday morning so that must add to it right? She isn't a lesbian like everybody says, she was dating a man for 4 whole years. No lesbian would do that. She's also not autistic. She can speak for starters, and would an autistic person be as popular as she was? Why are these people making her question her own sexuality and neurotype? She knows herself. 

Everybody begins packing up their pencil cases and she realises her internal monologue (or rant as one may say) must have lasted for the remaining quarter of an hour of the lesson. She speedily follows out of the classroom, ignoring the professor's lame attempt to get into her head, making sure to follow the same customs she took part in when entering, back to the dormitory: speak to no one. The floods of people engulf her as she squeezes through them so she can breathe freely and achieve freedom from the mingled stench of body odour, lynx and expensive perfume that reeks off the other psychology majors.

Walking down the busy corridors, she notices something in the corner of her eye attached to a bulletin board next to the library entrance 

Sigma Delta Tau

Arrive at classroom 47 in the east wing on the 8th of September to meet/join the sorority sisters, we will decide to make you a pledge or not. Good luck. 

Despite the threatening messaging, Jackie tears off the flyer in awe. A sorority was something she always wanted to join since she was a young girl in elementary school. Shauna would relentlessly make fun of her and call her stuck up for wanting to be a sorority sister, but Jackie always saw it as having people who would stick with you and having a bond unlike no other. She grins in joyfulness and hugs the flyer tightly to her chest. She might finally have a place at Rutgers. 

'A sorority? Fuck no Jackie, those places are dangerous. Have you ever seen scream queens ?' Lindsay disapprovingly announces, holding the poster as far away from her as possible like it's a dead fish, then scrunching it up and chucking in the trash can, barely making it.

'Lindsay seriously. I could actually make friends, y'know, belong somewhere.' She objects, smiling with contentment as she thinks about what the future could look like.

'Jackie, you can make friends. Join a drama club or something, but not a sorority.' She stares Jackie down, trying to knock some sense into her. 

'No offense Lindsay but like, you wouldn't know, OK? Sorority sisters don't look for people like you.' Jackie responds passive aggressively, mildly upset that Lindsay isn't being supportive and taking it out on her.

Lindsay looks slightly offended for a second, then sympathy hits her, 'Look Jackie, please just be careful, for me.' 

'Yeah sure, whatever.' She waves Lindsay away with her left hand, fishing for the crumpled up flyer at the bottom of the garbage can with her right one. She grabs it then flattens it out whilst gazing optimistically at the sheet paper that she thinks will determine her entire college experience. She has to sign up. She can't carry on being 'the gay girl who stormed out of psychology class on her first day'. She needs friends. She needs Shauna. 

Well, she would probably still have Shauna if she hadn't betrayed her. Everything had gone wrong, this wasn't how university was supposed to play out. They were going to share a dormitory, Jackie had even decided on a colour palette - pink and green. Now Shauna's off at brown studying communications with Lottie fucking Matthews and posh, nerdy kids who probably say things like 'oh my gilly gally gosh, I must've forgotten to find the square root of 789,456, silly me', or whatever, Jackie never really understand that math stuff, it was Shauna's thing not hers. All she knows is Shauna has abandoned her to go off to an Ivy league university in Rhode Island with no warning apart from a 'I got into Brown, sorry Jackie' the goddamn week before they were supposed to leave together. It's not like she wanted to go with Shauna after what she did, she was glad at the time she wasn't coming with her, but more than a week's notice would've been nice. 

'What ya looking at?' Lindsay asks curiously, swinging her feet against the bed.

Jackie didn't realise she had zoned out and blocked out all surrounding stimuli with it, so Lindsay's words are like a surprising face plant back to earth. It takes a couple of blurred out second for Jackie to realise what the girl is talking about because she wasn't staring at the Sigma Delta Tau poster anymore, instead she realises she was gawking at a polaroid photo of Shauna and her, hung up on a string of other photos she had taken in her high school years across her desk. 

'Oh. That? It's me and my old friend Shauna. We don't talk anymore.' Jackie responds, turning around to look at Lindsay, trying to signal non-vocally she doesn't want to speak about this anymore.

'Why not? You looked close.' She questions, not sensing Jackie's physical discomfort when speaking about Shauna. 

She was correct, they did look extremely close in the polaroid. Jackie was hugging Shauna's back and grinning as wide as humanly possible, Shauna equally matching her happiness and laughing at how ridiculous they both were being. 

The photo was taken on a freshman year field trip to Adventure Aquarium their second semester. Jackie, Shauna, Lottie and Mari were put in a group together to roam around to museum quietly and freely as long as they didn't 'do anything very illegal', quoted exactly by Mr Ademan, their previous biology teacher (he got sent to jail the next year for tax evasion, so he was one to talk about breaking the law). Jackie was immensely obsessed with sharks and just wanted to stare at them moving through the glass for hours and hours on end as they feasted on fish and nuzzled against each other by boulders. Shauna had other plans - the gift shop - so she grabbed Jackie's pearl white kanken bag and pulled her up by the straps. Jackie was shocked, then began laughing and attached herself to Shauna. The photo was then snapped by Lottie on the expensive polaroid camera her dad had got her to make up for missing halloween because he was on a business trip to The Netherlands. They loved the photo, Shauna photocopied it and got a matching one she stuck next to her bookshelf. 

'Well, it's complicated Lindsay. Have you realised some things just aren't your business?' She snapped back in anger, the wound reopening about Shauna and causing her to fail to control her temper. She needs to put her Jackie mask back on. 'Sorry. I just don't like talking about it, maybe in the future?' She adds on, hints of kindness and sorriness in her voice. 

'Yeah, sorry Jackie.' She dips her head down in shame and picks up her fluorescent violet phone laying neatly on her bedside table next to her.

Jackie can tell her words hurt Lindsay. Why is she losing sight of who she is? She wants herself back. Where has she gone?

Chapter Text

Shauna has contemplated every single night at Brown how to kill her new roomate. First of all, her name is Everleigh which in itself is enough to make Shauna fire her off in a cannon across the Atlantic ocean. Secondly, she has spent around an hour in the bathroom every single morning they have been together and Shauna has had to resort to waking up at 6am to avoid her out of tune display of Sabrina Carpenter every morning. Lastly, which is honestly three reasons too many, she is a self proclaimed Instagram 'influencer' which Shauna thinks really just consists of pretending to donate to charity, spending atrocious amounts of money on breakfasts and not being a bitch on camera - in person seems to be fine though. She has been subjected to her Instagramer nonsense on more than one occasion and each time she has nearly grabbed Everleigh by the throat and thrown her out the dormitory window into the thorn-filled hedges below. Shauna might if she starts hogging the bathroom at night times as well, she isn't afraid of a jail cell. 

She's really been trying to keep an open mind about Everleigh, as the psychotherapist her mom sent her to in eighth grade to help with her 'anger issues' (does she have anger issues, or is she just passionate is a question Shauna has been asking herself for years) would put it 'Shauna, you are incredibly closed-minded about everybody but this Jackie girl. Maybe you should put yourself out there, try to make more friends. Join a soccer team or an art class'. Shauna never went back to the therapist, but that's not the point, the point is she is really trying to become friends with Everleigh but she just makes it so hard. Like, filming-you-without-your-consent-and-posting it-on-the-internet-for-a-million- eyes-to-see hard. 

Imagine Shauna's surprise when she wakes up on an unsuspecting Wednesday morning at Brown, ready to go to her 'the structure of information' class and then spotting a video on her for you page, starring the one and only Shauna Shipman. She was nonchalantly brushing her teeth over the stainless steel sink then after seeing the clip she audibly begins choking on the frothy mint toothpaste and has to take multiple seconds before being able to breathe without the risk of toothpaste coming out her nose or mouth.

A video with the caption 'POV: Your roommate hasn't spoken to you all week and only plays video games on her computer' shocks Shauna to her core. Storming out the shared bathroom, enraged, in nothing but an old, baggy yellowjackets t-shirt falling apart at the seams and the shortest navy blue shorts known to mankind she screeches at the top of her lungs at Everleigh who is curling her hair at the vanity in the corner of the room. 

'What the everliving fuck is this?' She yells, thrusting her phone in Everleighs face, horrified that her roommate would upload this without having her permission. 

'OK firstly, I'm not wrong am I? Secondly, what the fuck are you wearing that's hideous Shaun.' She responds coarsely, glaring judgmentally with her ice blue irises at the unimpressed Shauna. 

'My name is Shauna! And take this down now!' She screams back, not taking any piece of Everleighs shit. 

Shauna grabs Everleigh's shoulder aggressively and squeezes it as tightly as possible, much to her astonishment.

'What the fuck, don't touch me freak.' Everleigh complains, nastiness plaguing her voice whilst trying and failing to swat Shauna's hand off her shoulder. 

'Take this down, right now or I will kill you and they will never find your body.' Shauna menacingly tells the scared blonde, staring her straight into the eyes without blinking, trying to install fear into her - which seems to be working. 

Everleigh gulps, 'OK! OK! Jesus christ you're so fucking weird. I should get a restraining order against you.' She reacts, taken aback by Shauna's sudden physical violence against her, and honestly rather fearful of her new roommate.

Shauna smirks, proud of her intimidation tactics and planning on using them again in the future. 'Why don't you? It means I can finally sleep in peace until 9am again.' 

Everleigh ignores her remark, not wanting to get wrapped up in Shauna's aggression, instead she grabs her Gucci purse and leaves the dormitory in a rush, trying to avoid any more attacks from the threatening communications student.

How did that girl even get into Brown? Shauna ponders, sitting down on her falling apart desk chair she's had since the 4th grade. 

It's not like Everleigh is the brightest light bulb in the box, in fact she seems to be one of the dimmest. Shauna had snuck a glance at her report card from high school, laying flat out open on her bed the previous night, and she had barely gotten a C in every class, even English which is what she was supposedly majoring in. 

Shauna is making it her mission to work out why Everleigh is here, was it grade fraud? Maybe she's a nepo baby. Or the university let her in because of her 122k followers on Instagram and 80k on tiktok, but would Brown stoop that low? 

They are literally raising future cancer-curers and mars-goers, so would they risk tarnishing their reputation for a dumb vlogger? 

The main reason Shauna wants to work out this 'mystery' is so she no longer has to room with her if it is grade fraud, she's essentially everything Shauna thought Jackie was but 1000x worse. Everleigh puts Jackie to shame on the annoying blonde scale. Maybe, just maybe, Shauna should've gone to Rutgers just so she could be free from her. 

Aside from the roommate situation, everything else at Brown is going spectacularly well for Shauna Shipman. She seems to have made a rather kind circle of friends named Maddison (Maddie), Louise and Oliver. She was introduced to them by Louise (who she had met in the library, after her first class, whilst doing the homework) at the cafeteria. Oliver had been chowing down on a particularly rank-looking bean hotpot whilst Maddie was playing Stardew Valley, Jackie's favourite game, on her sticker-covered Nintendo switch. 

'Hey guys! This is Shauna! Shauna this is Maddie and this is Oliver.' Louise had cheerfully called out, thrusting her arms in the direction of the table towards the occupied pair. 

Louise was everything Shauna wasn't. Optimistic, kind to annoying people, good at shooter games and even confident at everything. Shauna had dreamed in her teenage years to be somebody like Louise, she'd lay in bed late at night wondering why Laura Lee believed in god if he had made her so pathetic and incapable. Her question had never been answered, much to her disappointment. 

'Hey.' She anxiously introduced herself, sticking her hand out to be shaken like a professional businesswomen, not a teenage college student. 

'Hi Shauna.' Maddie and Oliver said in sync, then bursting out into fits of giggles and clutching their stomachs, Louise rolled her eyes. 

Shauna joined in on the laughter, not knowing why, but from that exact moment on she knew that the four of them would be excellent friends. 

After her class had finally finished after what felt like hours of scribbling down nonsense about classic films and how to write reports on them, the girl who was amazed about her being a yellowjacket on the first day gingerly approaches her, clutching a pink piece of card and smiling awkwardly. 'Hi, you're Shauna right?' She asks anxiously. 

'Um hi, Yeah, your name is?' She answers back, trying to be polite but desperately wanting to get out of class to devour sandwiches with her new-found friends. 

'I'm Lilo! So, um basically, I'm having a freshman mixer party tonight and would love for you to come.' She enthusiastically passes Shauna an invitation with hand drawn flowers on it and her name is sparkly, magenta, stickers. 

Well crap, I'd be a terrible person if I said no, she grumbles. 

Shauna pretends to be happy about it, 'Sure, I'd love to come!' She replies, tucking the invitation into her leather bag and plastering a fake, gleesome, smile on her face. 

'Great! See you there!' Lilo cheers, her glasses falling off her face when she jumps in excitement, before walking off to tell her friends she got the Shauna Shipman who won nationals to come to her party. 

Oh fuck, there's no getting out of this one , she sighs and defeatedly leaves the classroom. 

Well, at least her friends will come. 

The doorbell to Lilo's (rather nice) student accommodation is completely broken, and nobody is answering the aggressive knocks to the door because the music overpowers every sound, Shauna can't even think straight because all she can hear is Shakira . 

If I left would they notice? She ponders, glancing through the stained glass windows to see if anybody is coming to let her in. Like a devil ignored her prayers, Lilo bounces over to the door, beer clasped in her hand. 

'Shauna you made it!' She exclaims, reaching in for a hug from the reluctant flannel-wearer. 

'Yeah.' She says, trying to muster up as much willingness as possible to sound happy, or even grateful. 

The inside of the ancient house is just as beautiful as the outside, there's vintage furniture everywhere the eye can see and almost every door has a gorgeous stained glass rose implanted inside it. The floors are a rich mahogany in almost all the rooms, the kitchen and bathrooms exempt, and there are magnificent water-colour paintings lining the walls. 

Shauna's favourite drawing is of two women, a brunette and a blonde laying next to each other in a field of daisies on a tartan picnic blanket, sharing a bottle of red wine. She feels connected to it, though she isn't sure why. 

The bass and drums thump through her head as she heads over to the refreshments table to pour herself a beer from one of the many kegs, in one of the red, plastic cups. The party is way more successful than she thought it would be, she's ashamed to admit she thought it would just be Lilo and her, but for some reason Lilo seems to have a much, much larger social circle than Shauna in just 3 days of being at campus. Hell, half of the year must be here with how much Shauna is fighting just to walk a meter across the living room. People are bumping into her from every single direction and she's really trying to ignore it but it's driving her up the walls.

'Hey! Watch it!' She yells frustratedly at a boy who appears to be about 5 feet tall, carrying almost 4 cups of beer at once and spilling one of them all over Shauna's emerald green heels that Jackie had gifted her for her christmas present the year prior to their falling out. 

They had been window shopping around Westfield Garden State Plaza, well Shauna was window shopping, Jackie was far too wealthy for that shit. She was mindlessly placing any item of clothing she found even mildly cute into her cart, not paying attention to the number of zeros on the price tags. Shauna had been staring longingly at the high heels, wishing, just wishing her mom could be as wealthy as Jackie's. Jackie had taken notice and then next thing Shauna knew, she was opening them over a fire underneath her badly decorated christmas tree. She's worn them at nearly every party since and they mean the world to her. 

'Sorry!' The boy squeaks out, looking terrified that Shauna might hit him.

'Yeah you better mean that.' She answers back, rolling her eyes whilst walking off to find somebody she recognizes that isn't Lilo. 

The sea of people engulfs her as she tries her hardest to be free from the mosh-pit-like room but everywhere she looks there are dumb guys playing beer pong shirtless and girls arguing in the middle of the dance floor about pointless shit. 

'Shauna!' A voice shouts from behind her, she turns around to see Louise waving happily and grinning. 

'Hey!' Shauna responds happily. Finally, she might actually enjoy this party now.

Maybe Louise can be her new Jackie. Maybe Brown can be the best years of her life.

Chapter Text

The sorority tryouts are in a minuscule music room with bold, motivational posters on the brick walls and electric drum kits as far as the eye can see. 

The room was rather far from Jackie's dormitory, which led to a rather far hike over through the physics department and now much to her dismay she's nearly late. As she pushes open the glass door to enter the room, she sees about 20 or so girls sitting in a circle on bright blue, plastic chairs, laughing at a joke one of them had just made. She stands awkwardly in the doorway whilst they all turn their heads one after the other to look at her. 

'You here to be a pledge?' The blonde haired, blue eyed girl closest to Jackie questions, 'Or did you get lost?' She giggles, even though the joke was not amusing in the slightest. She must be the sorority president. It fits.

Jackie's aware she probably looks like a deer in headlights complete with the big, brown, doe eyes as she stands whilst staring apprehensively at the sorority sisters. 'Um, yeah. Here for tryouts.' She responds, trying to sound as professional but enthusiastic as possible as she glances around the room.

'Sit.' A second girl with a French accent instructs harshly. She has extremely pale skin with a birthmark on her forehead and long, black hair tied up in a sleek, neat ponytail, like how Shauna used to do it in senior year before things went bad, then Shauna bleached it like people do after regular breakups - it was the ugliest hair job Jackie had ever seen in her life. Thank the lord or whoever controls ugly hair Shauna changed it back just before she went to Brown or she would've been a victim of bullying. 

Jackie pauses to process the sudden instruction then slowly makes her way towards the final available chair between a ginger curly haired, freckled girl with turtle shell glasses and another girl that reminds Jackie of Lindsay except with slightly less piercings and cherry red hair. So, not the kind of person that you'd expect to join sorority. 

She anxiously waves at them both, and they politely smile and wave back. 

See, sororities are nice places Lindsay. 

A few minutes after Jackie sits down, a voice booms across the room interrupting her pleasant conversation with the girls she just met beside her. 

'Now that everybody who registered is here, it's time to start the possible new members meeting. So see guys, actual recruitment interviews will be taking place separately over the next couple of weeks.' The sorority president, the one being slightly rude to Jackie, exclaims emotionlessly. 

Jackie sits up, trying to appear as interested as possible without being perceived as a suck up by everybody else. 

She had registered late at night on her crappy laptop under the bed covers, when she made sure Lindsay wasn't looking. She knew that she'd object and make it an entire lecture about hazing culture and the permanent damage it could have on her mental health, but Jackie knows that this is definitely the correct decision to make and no influence from Lindsay will ever sway that. 

Over the course of the next two hours, (that Jackie zoned out for the majority of) the sorority sisters tell the possible new members what to expect during the recruitment process, which mainly consists of 'Do not wear denim jeans or shorts to the interview or we'll slit you by the throat and stick your head on the flagpole outside the university'. Everything else didn't really seem to be that important and definitely was not worthy of two hours of Jackie's time, she had been to amusement park queues on the first Saturday of summer break that didn't feel as long. 

She also seemed to become friends with the girls on either side of her during this period of time, their names being Ness and Izzie. Which was a first for her Rutgers experience and filled her up with happiness. She did have Lindsay as a friend, but she doesn't really count because it's, like, university law to become best friends with your roommate. What she means is, first proper, real friends outside of her living space. 

Ness is from Michigan and absolutely loves Stardew Valley almost as much as Jackie does. She's majoring in History with specifications in Irish history and is like a human wikipedia page for the Irish potato famine, it's almost scary. Ask her anything and she knows it, Jackie wonders how she can know so much about a topic just so boring to her. 

Izzie is from California, specifically Los Angeles, she's studying music with a specialty in electric guitar (Which is the same as Natalie Scatorccio, except she's studying bass, maybe they know each other?). Izzie is also in a band called the cobwebs which seems to be her pride and joy, she never stops talking about their live shows.

A pretty good crowd to get stuck in Scream Queens with, if what Lindsay says is correct. 

After another 2 psychology classes, this time about how mental health disorders develop and nature vs nurture (Jackie believes it's a combination of them both) with a separate professor than the one that gets off on bullying her, Jackie arrives back at the almost-empty dormitories at around 4pm. Utterly exhausted from socializing and ready to curl up into a ball and sleep until the end of time. 

It is only one day away from being Saturday, and Jackie's had the most eventful week since the time she went on holiday with Shauna and the Matthews family in 8th grade as a reward for the three of them getting the highest grades in the year, and she almost got kidnapped, but that's a story for another day.

After managing to get a bit of shut-eye, she is rudely shaken awake rapidly by Lindsay, just an hour following getting home, after barely managing to fall into the depths of slumber. Her side table alarm clock reads 7pm and she almost starts crying out of exhaustion.

'Jackie.' Lindsay whispers, looming over her like she's about to be her next murder victim. 

Jackie makes a sort of grunting sound, that sounds halfway between an unamused goat asking for food and a possessed demon dying. 'What?' She mumbles, turning to her side and rubbing her eyes. 

'Uh well, how do I say this?' Lindsay ponders to herself unsurely, now walking backwards to sit on her bed. 

Jackie sluggishly sits up, stretching her arms out and yawning, 'You woke me up. Now spill.' Jackie responds still sounding almost inaudible but impatient and wanting nothing more than to continue dreaming. 

'Well, um, so. I may or may not have signed you up for counselling and your first appointment is tomorrow at 11am?' Lindsay blurts out then winces, scrunching herself up, as if she's expecting Jackie to throw her office chair at her.

'You did what now?' Jackie yells, the words now fully waking her up as she stands up with anger coursing through her veins, trying to maintain herself from brutally attacking Lindsay. 'That is not your call to make.' She complains, pacing around the room making angry hand gestures.

'I know, I know. It's just after what happened and then the sorority.' Lindsay can see she may have made a mistake. She knew Jackie wouldn't have responded positively but now she thinks she should've just pushed the idea away back into the unknown parts of her head like she does with most other things. 

'Listen, I'll go, OK? Just don't pull this shit again.' Jackie snaps as she stands with her arms crossed, unhappy with Lindsay's decision but also strangely relieved. In some way, she's glad she didn't have to make the decision herself, like her brain was tossing the proposal of therapy around in her subconscious without actually visibly showing itself to her and now she can do it without all the complicated sign up shit. 

Maybe it'll help, you never know.

In all honest truth she hates that her roommate went behind her back like this, but not because she's angry Lindsay signed her up for counselling with zero permission from Jackie herself, she's angry Lindsay thought she needed help, but all in all she was angry with herself for showing that she needed help. It was always supposed to be light, camera, and smile when it came down to it, but since arriving at Rutgers the mask she built up for herself is slipping through her fingers as she speaks. Therapy could be the answer to this, but the real question is; does she want the answer? 

The therapy room has a strange sense of calmness wafting around it, like you take a deep breath in and all of a sudden you want to start journaling with vanilla candles burning around you whilst eating expensive chocolates. Jackie wants to stay in that sense of calm forever and not think about a single thing going wrong with her life, just put noise-cancelling headphones on and pretend it doesn't exist as it screeches behind her. She wonders how people who just put make-up on and go about their day with their perfect boyfriend do it. Surely they have at least one bad thing going on with their lives? It all can't be so stunningly, well, perfect . 

The boy next to Jackie is really doing her head in. He keeps tapping his left leg at an alarmingly fast rate and it's stressing her out, so much for the calming atmosphere. The sound is gnawing and it goes off and on and off and on with every moment of his foot. He's been doing it for the past 10 minutes and each time she wants to lung on him and ambush him, she can control the urge to fidget and annoy everyone so why can't he? 

'Jackie Taylor.' A man with greying hair and glasses in his mid 40s calls out from room 6 across the hallway, holding a clipboard and obviously intending for Jackie to approach him, saving her from the leg tapper. 

She sticks her hand out, trying to be polite, 'Hi, I'm Jackie.' She says with a smile as he shakes her hand back.

'Welcome.' He responds, gesturing for her to enter the room.

It's a rather nice office for college counselling, universities usually have other intentions with their money than their students' mental health so it’s a surprise. 

It smells like vanilla but sweeter with hints of strawberry and there are pink, grey and blue aesthetic motivational posters covering the walls until you can’t see the grainy plaster behind it. 

Jackie sits down on a crimson red armchair, her counsellor facing opposite on a desk chair next to a computer so he can take notes about the inside of her brain. All her secrets that even Jackie herself hasn’t discovered all behind a passcode, unable to access. 

'So Jackie, do you know why we are here today?' He asks, staring into her eyes as if trying to suck all her secrets out. 

'Oh. Well my roommate signed me up because I got upset or whatever it's really not a big deal.' She lies, staring at her skirt-covered thighs so she doesn't make it awkward by looking at him for too long. 

'Well if it's not a big deal why did she sign you up?' He retaliates, not buying Jackie's under-explanation of the situation. 

'I don't know, she overreacts and shit.' She responds, desperately trying to avoid this topic of conversation for her own emotional wellbeing. What happened that Monday is not his business, and neither is her asshole teacher or problem with Shauna. She didn't even ask to be here. 

'So, that may be a difficult topic of conversation for today, so Jackie, tell me about yourself.' He asks as he readjusts his position on the swivel chair. 

'Anything?' Jackie doesn't believe he wants to hear anything. He's a psychotherapist, it's his job to dig deep into the small crevices of Jackie's subconscious state of mind and pull out the key that unlocks who she is as a person. He wants to know about her family so he can work out if she has childhood trauma, he wants to know about her friends so he can work out if she had or has friendship problems. Jackie is a psychology major; she knows all the tips and tricks and how to avoid him finding out about everything she wants to keep invisible.

'Anything.' He lies, just like Jackie did. It's a psychologist's job to bend the truth, just so you can find the exact question that causes your client to spill everything. 

'OK, well, uh. My name is Jackie, I'm a psychology major, I grew up in New Jersey.' She purposely responds the most bland answers needed to make sure that he can't have anything to go off. 

'You grew up here? What was it like?' He keeps digging, needing to know more. 

'Fine.' She says as uninterestedly as possible whilst she picks randomly at her fingernails. 

'Just fine? Did you have friends?' He isn't satisfied with her minimal responses, he has to know more. Being curious comes with the profession.

'Obviously I had friends.' Jackie is rather insulted that he came up with the possibility she was a friendless loser like Misty Quigley that roamed the halls by herself and ate sandwiches in the bathroom cubicles. 

'What were their names?' He is beginning to catch on to Jackie's therapy technique. He's now trying to make her snap, and reveal a vital piece of information that changes his opinion on her. 

'Shauna, Lottie, Nat, Van, Tai. I can keep going?' She rolls her eyes, then immediately regrets it. He now knows she's defensive and easily upset. Her plan is starting to crumble like he intended. 

'What was Shauna like?' He queries, writing notes on a clipboard for later. 

'She was fine. Smart.' She regrets bringing up Shauna as much as humanly possible. Why didn't she leave her name out of things for once? Shauna is a thing of the past. She can't think about Shauna. She needs to leave her behind. 

'Are you still friends?' 

Oh, this man knows how to get under Jackie's skin and into her nerves. 

'No.' She gives the shortest answer she can, hoping there is nothing for him to pry off about her and Shauna. It is not any of his business what happened between the two. 

'Why not?' He can't stop digging and he just keeps on going, asking question after question that Jackie despises, leaving a sore, bitter and unwanted taste in her mouth. 

'Just because, OK? It's not really your business.' She snaps back at him, pondering whether to leave the room and never come back or not.

'OK. I get it, it's a sensitive topic.' He reassures, as if just helping Jackie removes the tension and stress that piled up inside her during their conversation.

She slowly nods, as if still absorbing what he just said. 

'So, you're majoring in psychology, how's that going?' He trails off, leaving Jackie to half-mindedly respond to the boring questions he places on her about the courses and grades. 

She respects that he is trying to slowly walk her into the counselling rather than throwing her into the deep end, but she also wishes that it would help. Jackie knows it isn't a 'one session fixes everything' but she at least wants to feel a bit more fixed. She currently feels like a broken puzzle and the final piece is unavailable. She knows where it is but she just can't reach it.