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prologue
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The sweet nectar seeps onto his tongue. Its hunger is sated. Their stomachs full, a prize for the unwilling sacrifice. It hungers and they hunger just the same. A splinter penetrates his gum, he tastes blood. He keeps chewing. The pain...the blood...an offer and a thank you.
It wants. It wants. It wants. It keeps wanting. They give. They give. They give. They keep giving.
But It gives back too.
☠︎☠︎
spring 1996
Zach fiddles with his clipboard—only 30 seconds left of added time...He tracks the ball on the field trying to read for any play. Shauna has the ball and passes it to Tai and then it happens—the ball hits Jackie's head and hits the net. State fucking Champions! He lets himself relish in the team's win—he smiles. They've earned it. The win doesn't taste sour like he thought it would, he feels genuinely glad they won. Maybe even four months ago he would have been edging on bitterness, not for them, for himself—recently life has dealt Zach a shitty hand. But still, he watches the team celebrate from his place on the sidelines, clapping his hands in chorus with the people in the stands.
Brown gazes into brown and he swears he feels time slow down. Then hazel joins brown—they're waiting for him...waiting for him to join as if he won right alongside them. He didn't win. He's only here because it was mandated by the Principal so he wouldn't get kicked out for beating Lucas Bennett's ass. So, he doesn't deserve anything but just congratulating them.
He turns around to place the clipboard he was holding under his arm on the bench and that's apparently the time it takes for ice-cold water to be dumped over his head. "Oh...oh...fuck...fuck...you." So, fucking cold...His teeth chatter as he tries to speak.
☠︎☠︎
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...
Zach's eyes flutter open at the sound of the alarm. He feels a body under his arm and smells the scent of the shampoo in her hair and then it hits him—we fell asleep. He takes his arm from around her. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Shauna..." He gently shakes her awake.
"Shit." She groans, pressing her face into her pillow.
Zach crawls over Shauna to get out of her bed. He starts picking up the discarded clothes from last night off of the floor and throws them onto the bed as Shauna sits up, pushing the hair over her face back. He pulls his pants up and buckles his belt first before putting his t-shirt on and sliding his grey flannel over it. He looks around for his black Converse and finds them at the door, next to a smaller identical pair.
"My mom's home. You have to sneak out." Zach sighs because Shauna lives in the freaking attic, which means he has to make it two flights of stairs without being caught.
"I thought she was at work." He grumbles as he ties his shoes.
"Her shift ended at like four. So just try to not wake her up and leave through the backdoor." Shauna basically pushes him out the door of her room. It's always like this—tonight was actually the first time they did anything close to cuddling after doing thedeed. He has feelings—he's not just a piece of meat Shauna can just use and toss aside after—but he's been in love with Shauna Shipman since his first armpit hair popped out of the follicle...And like he knows they can't do anything but what they've been doing for the last six months because Jackie made them swear they would never get together so she would "...never ever get to choose between my twin brother and my best friend" and there's no freaking way Shauna will ever go against Jackie's wishes.
"Meet me in the shed after the Pep Rally?" He asks.
"We have AP Lit right after."
"Maybe we skip..." Zach suggests.
"Jackie is going to meet me after class so we can walk to practice together."
"Okay. Fine." He grunts as he checks his pockets for his keys and wallet before turning around to tiptoe down the stairs. Jackie is always Shauna's priority, and he can't say that sometimes it doesn't get to him.
He goes out through the back door and basically jogs to his black Pontiac Firebird on the other side of the street. The car is the only thing Zach has truly worked hard for and paid off. He spent a full summer mowing lawns and cleaning pools to pay for half of the downpayment on the car. His parents put the other half of the money down for it after he came out of the hospital—they could never say 'I'm sorry your future is ruined' or simply 'I'm sorry."
Zach drives home with '1979' blasting from his speakers.
"...We were sure we'd never see an end to it all And I don't even care To shake these zipper blues And we don't know Just where our bones will rest To dust I guess Forgotten and absorbed Into the earth below..."
He parks on the curb to not wake his parents.
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author's notes... Shauna is very much in love with Jackie in this and vice versa if you missed it (what's closer to Jackie than her twin brother? ;) ) Act I -teen timeline s1/2 and Act II- adult timeline s1/s2 Thanks for reading!
