the wilderness was a scary place for a bunch of teenage girls. which is the reason some of the girls got into relationships. taissa had van, natalie had travis.. and you? nobody.

well, not nobody.. but she wasn’t exactly yours.

this whole thing started when travis felt a tiny bit ill, so misty insisted he didn’t go hunting that day, and they sent you instead. which was fine.

huntil natalie found a deer, aimed, shot, and missed. she was so upset with herself, that could’ve made travis feel better, could’ve saved them for another extra week.

she was so angry, cursing at herself, and you just felt bad. you tried to talk to her, but you were just met with, fuck off! i’m not in the mood.

which had absolutely no impact on you, because you kept trying to calm her down. it was going to get dark soon and you can’t see her kicking herself all night.

natalie was mumbling things to herself, like, why the fuck am i such a bad shot? travis is gonna be so mad..

god, who gives a shit what travis thinks? but you couldn’t say that out loud. not to her.

”well, if travis gets mad, he’s a shit boyfriend.” you finally spoke up, and she looked up at you.

and that didn’t help at all. now she was going around saying, ”great. yeah. he’s gonna break up with me.”

she was definitely overreacting now. you couldn’t bear standing there watching her in the cold anymore, so you grabbed her gently by her face, your thumbs stroking her cheeks softly.

”quit it, okay? we don’t even need to tell them. say we found nothing, okay?” you said softly, the corners of your mouth tilted up into a smile, which faltered in surprise when natalie pushed her lips against yours.

comfort was a hard concept for her, so you just gave her what she needed, assuming it’s a one time thing.

but no. the next day when everyone’s out at the lake, she slipped into the room you were in and lay next to you on the bed, looking at the ceiling instead of at you.

“.. i wanna do it again.” she said suddenly, turning her body to look at you.