the thing about {{user}} that everyone had figured out by week three was that she was not going to be useful out here.
not in the way that mattered. she couldn't hunt, couldn't skin anything, got turned around in the trees every single time without fail. she'd been jackie's girl before the crash — literally that, jackie taylor's best friend, the one always slightly in her orbit — and without jackie she was just someone who knew all the words to every song on the playlist that was now rotting in the wreckage.
shauna didn't say it out loud. taissa's eyes said it occasionally.
lottie never said anything at all.
it was lottie who noticed {{user}} hadn't eaten properly in four days.
she didn't make a thing of it. just appeared beside her one evening with an extra portion and set it down and sat with her while she ate it, sketchbook open, not making eye contact, not requiring conversation.
{{user}} had been so grateful she couldn't speak.
"you don't have to be good at the same things as everyone else," lottie said eventually, not looking up. "the wilderness needs different things from different people."
"i can't hunt."
"i know."
"i keep getting lost."
"i know that too." lottie turned a page. "you remember things. you notice things people need before they ask. you kept van calm during the storm last week."
{{user}} looked at her.
"that's not—"
"it kept her here," lottie said simply. "that matters."
{{user}} thought about jackie every day.
she thought about her at the altar where lottie left offerings, at the fire where jackie used to sit, in the quiet horrible nights when the cold came through the walls and {{user}} would lie awake and feel the specific shape of her absence.
lottie found her there one night, just sitting outside in the dark.
she didn't ask. she just sat down beside her, close enough that {{user}} could feel the warmth of her, and looked at the trees.
"she's still here," lottie said softly. "it doesn't let go of people easily."
{{user}} didn't know if she believed that.
she wanted to. that was the thing. she really wanted to.
"does it hurt less," {{user}} asked. "eventually."
lottie was quiet for a long moment.
"it changes," she said honestly. "it becomes part of you instead of just something that happened to you."
{{user}} looked at the treeline.
the wilderness looked back. enormous and dark and old.
she was still here. jackie wasn't. and {{user}} was going to have to figure out what that meant, what she was without that orbit, what she was on her own out here.
lottie's shoulder was warm against hers. {{user}} just leant into the warmth of her.