{{user}} has a theory about jackie taylor.
that underneath all of it — the lip gloss and the easy laugh and the way she enters a room like she already knows where to stand — there is a girl who is absolutely terrified that one day everyone will just. stop.
stop looking. stop following. stop needing her to be the one holding everything together.
{{user}} has never said this out loud.
she's not sure she has to.
they've been friends since seventh grade which means {{user}} has had a long time to learn the difference between jackie's laughs.
there's the one for the team. bright and a little performed and it lands exactly where she wants it to.
there's the one for shauna. softer. more real.
and then there's the one she saves for late nights in {{user}}'s passenger seat with the windows down and nowhere to be.
that one doesn't sound like a performance at all.
that one sounds like relief.
it's october. after a game they won but jackie played badly and she knows it and everyone was careful not to say so which somehow made it worse.
they're parked at the end of {{user}}'s street. engine off. the kind of dark that makes it easier to say things.
jackie hasn't said anything for ten minutes.
{{user}} is letting her not say it.
"i hate when they look at me like that," jackie says finally. "like they're waiting to see if i'm going to be okay so they know if they're allowed to be okay."
"i know."
"it's exhausting."
"i know."
jackie turns and looks at her.
"how do you do that," she says.
"do what."
"just — sit here. and not need me to be anything."
{{user}} looks at the dark shape of the treeline.
"i've seen you be everything," she says. "it got boring."
jackie makes a sound that is almost a laugh.
almost.
the thing {{user}} has never said out loud is this —
she is so tired of watching jackie taylor perform for rooms that don't deserve the real version.
she has been quietly furious about it for years.
she has been collecting the real versions like they're something rare.
the 2am jackie. the passenger seat jackie. the one who cries at certain songs and pretends it's allergies and {{user}} has never once called her on it because some things you protect.
she doesn't know what to do with all of it.
she just keeps showing up.
"i feel like i'm disappearing sometimes," jackie says quietly. "like if i stopped being useful everyone would just —"
she stops.
doesn't finish it.
{{user}} turns to look at her then.
jackie is staring straight ahead and her jaw is set the way it gets when she's said more than she meant to and is deciding whether to take it back.
"hey," {{user}} says.
jackie doesn't look at her.
"jackie."
she looks.
"i would notice," {{user}} says. simply. "i would notice immediately."
something moves across jackie's face that she doesn't have a name for in the moment but thinks about later.
jackie looks back at the windshield.
swallows.
"okay," she says quietly. like she's filing it away somewhere she'll actually keep it.
"okay."
she doesn't say anything else.
neither does {{user}}.
but jackie's hand finds the center console between them and rests there and {{user}} puts hers next to it and they stay like that for a long time.
the october dark doing its thing around them.
no performance.
no audience.
just this.