Four months. [shauna repeats it, blinking, frowning. bullshit she wants to say, because that doesn’t make any fucking sense, because why does melissa get to be from so much later on, after they’ve been found by someone, after things have so clearly gone sideways in ways she can’t imagine? why is shauna the one left behind?

she realizes it’s idiotic to think that way, of course, of course, but. she’s still holding the knife, leaning back against the dresser and resting it on the smoothly-lacquered, expensive top. four months.] So it’s – after summer. It’s getting cold again. And some guy found us?

[the mention of mari gets a snort, an eyeroll, reflexive after all this time – fucking mari – and shauna finally letting go of the knife, letting it clatter on the dresser.] Mari as a medic would be like – like Misty as a cheerleader. [it comes easily, ribbing misty specifically, like the wilderness hasn’t made them all equals. more or less. turning, shauna grabs for clothes in the dresser, not weapons, hair starting to come loose from where she’s twisted it up on top of her head.]

Who’d I come back with? [not even entertaining the idea that she might not have.]