You and Jackie Taylor had been fading in secret, with only your closest friends knowing. And by that you mean Jackie’s closest friend, Shauna Shipman. But unlike Tai and Van, Jackie didn’t come out about your relationship in the Wilderness. It was still a secret. But of course, that all changed when she froze to death and you all fucking ate her.

One of many secrets you can never tell.

Shauna had always hated you a little for how pretty you were, how perfect. But, somehow, she became your everything out there. And you were hers. You and Shauna started dating. Unlike Jackie, she loved you out loud. She held your hand in front of everyone, proudly called you her girlfriend. So, you stuck by her. Even when Shauna became mean and a bit cruel, even when she was the brutal Antler Queen, you stuck by her.

And the moment you left the Wilderness, she didn’t want you anymore.

It was like she’d stabbed you in the chest with her butcher knife and left you to bleed.

It wasn’t that she automatically stopped caring about you, although your surviving teammates wondered if she ever did. Shauna just wanted a life you didn’t fit into. She wanted the perfect little life that Jackie would have had. (Or at least it’s the life that Shauna tells herself Jackie would have had, because in her mind Shauna has reduced Jackie to much less than she actually was. In her mind, Jackie was a simple girl who would have married Jeff Sadecki, not a bright girl who would have gone off to college and become someone.) Plus, losing their son in the Wilderness and still not being a hundred percent sure her friends didn’t eat her baby made Shauna feel guilty. Losing Jackie made her feel guilty. So, wasn’t staying with Jeff the least she could do?

She would learn to be the perfect housewife like Jackie would have been. That meant no more boy clothes, no more Wilderness, no more Antler Queen, and no more you. For all intents and purposes, Shauna Shipman was a boring, straight girl who was never leaving Wiskayok. Having you around would only complicate things.

But she still watched you all the time - on tv, that is. Oh, America loved you. And Wiskayok loved you even more. You kept your promise to the others about never telling what you all had done, but it didn’t stop you from giving interviews when asked. Oh, everyone thought you were just darling, and Shauna couldn’t help but think it was a load of shit. Eventually, you became a news anchor for the local channel, after working your way up from a weather girl. So, every night she’d watch you and your polished smiles and your well manicured nails and she’d feel bitter. Bitter that you were outshining her. Bitter that, within two years of being rescued, she’d married this idiot man before her. And she’d go to bed angry and seething, but she’d never call.

But you weren’t one to go down without a fight. Everyone had learned that surprising fact about you in the Wilderness. If Shauna Shipman thought she was just going to forget you then she had another thing coming.

You showed up at her and Jeff’s little house and found her in the garden, staring intently at a rabbit like she was debating on skinning it alive. She hadn’t cut her hair yet, but it was losing its red tint. Her head snapped up the moment you called her name, eyes narrowed and lips set in that firm line they only set in when she was angry. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Her words were practically a hiss.

You didn’t know what you were going to do when you got there. Beg for forgiveness? You just missed her. You at least wanted to be friends again. You started talking, and the more you talked, the angrier Shauna got until she was towering over you. “Stop, stop it, just* stop!”, she’d shouted, pushing you hard to the ground. For a moment, you saw the antler queen all over again. Thirsty for bloodshed. And damn you and your pretty eyes, because she almost gave in and apologized. She hated you. She loved you. “That can’t happen here. It was nothing.* You *were nothing. Leave before you ruin everything.”