[ Melissa wants to cry at the soft little squeeze of her arm. It's such a mom thing to do, all comfort and reassurance, not the kind of gesture anybody else in the wilderness would make. The corners of her mouth turn down and she blinks a few times, quick. But this is a really shitty time to start getting homesick. She knows Hannah wouldn't judge her for crying, she seems way too understanding to be weird about it, but the last thing Melissa wants to do is walk out of the woods with puffy eyes and have Shauna notice and assume it's because of her. She takes a deep breath. ]
Really? That would be awesome. This whole thing seriously blows. [ The sling. It's so freaking cumbersome. She can't even pull a shirt over her head by herself or do her own hair right now. The thought of her range of motion being permanently screwed up has Melissa anxious. Only one functioning arm and she'd be almost as bad off as Coach Scott. Not trapped-in-the-animal-pen bad, but definitely most-likely-to-get-eaten-next bad. That thought makes her squirm, and she blurts out, ] Can we do it soon? I'm worried it's going to, like—get stiff, like when you break a bone and the muscles get all weird from not using them? Have you ever broken an ankle or something?
[ Or maybe Hannah's daughter has. Kids break bones all the time! ]
[ The wounds have closed up. They can take it slow. And if Melissa wants or needs to cry when they're working on her shoulder, she can go right ahead. It's going to be really painful without painkillers. No one can call her weak for that. Let them get shot by a crossbow and start doing PT for it.
Hannah starts back on getting branches off the berry bush. What a nice find. That should help group morale a little. ]
The cold might numb the pain a little. But right now, just moving around is good for it. You're young, your body can repair itself really well.
[ That, at least, is something Hannah can feel optimistic about. They've eaten better in the summer than they must have last winter. All that protein will come in handy. ]
[ Misty took the Red Cross babysitting course (twice) or whatever, but she's no doctor and Melissa gets creeped out remembering how little hesitation she had when she chopped off Coach's leg right after the crash. Not that Hannah is a doctor either, but it's nice to at least feel like there's someone around who more or less knows what they're doing and isn't going to pull any weird shit. With a relieved, self-conscious little smile, Melissa goes back to picking berries. ]
So, like... what made you decide to be a scientist? I swear to god I almost puked when we dissected frogs in biology last year.
[ Even if she hadn't decided not to bring up Edwin again, Hannah would still keep her own terrible lab experience to herself. He played too big a part in it. The memory belongs to her, to soothe the despair that pervades life here. Besides that, this is a topic she likes. ]
I guess I just can't stop asking questions. I wonder about the way our bodies developed to make these precise sounds so we can communicate, how adaptable we are because we can make and use tools, how we use fire. I look around and see how everything... in all the chaos of nature, in the violence of it, there's beauty.
Like this bush. It doesn't have consciousness, right, but it evolved to keep its species alive. It adapted to the light, the climate, the soil, the wildlife. Will it outlive us? We've been around for so little time on the scale of the known universe. And look, we can use so much of it, it's not poisonous. It's going to help us survive.
[ Oh no she went full nerd. Hannah laughs and glances at Melissa, embarrassed. ]
Sorry. I kind of love, you know, all of it. I wish I could live three times as long, just so I could keep learning.
[ The way Hannah explains it, it makes sense. Melissa gets it, especially out here. Once they started building up the campsite, it had been kind of fascinating seeing all the ways they could use the environment to help them instead. Animal furs for the winter, the huts, they can even make wine now. Pretty incredible. ]
Did you ever think about being a teacher? You'd be good at it.
[ You know what, that's fair. And teenagers kind of suck, so she can't exactly argue with not wanting to spend every day trying to hold their attention when the alternative is catching frogs or hanging out in a lab.
Melissa laughs a little and shakes her head. ] I don't know, maybe business? Something boring and normal. All I know is my plan was to get far away from New Jersey, but um. Kind of already did that, so.
It's just an option. [ Hey, we can't all be scientists, okay. The world needs people doing boring things all day too. ]
So if your daughter disappeared for like two years, came home, and then turned around and chose to go to college out of state, you wouldn't be pissed? [ Melissa's half calling bullshit, half actually asking. She just can't imagine anybody being cool with that. ] I mean, I know they can't stop me if I'm eighteen, but it seems... fucked up.
Hannah sits on a nearby patch of clearish ground. Her calves ache a little, so she stretches out her legs as she thinks about the question. ]
If she did, I'd think it's because she believed she needed to leave. I couldn't be mad at her. I might be hurt, and I would be sad, but... I would hope I've done a good enough job raising her that she knows I'll always be there for her, support her, believe in her.
And honestly? I'd just be glad she lived. That she made it out. You have to live life for yourself even when you don't go through something like this, you know?
[ And really, Hannah isn't letting herself think about how she'll be when she gets home. If she'll become overprotective, or distant, or maybe both in turns. If she'll be enough. ]
[ Melissa plucks a couple more leaves and adds them to the supply. Then, with a little sigh, she sits cross-legged across from Hannah. It feels a little bit like the first conversation they ever had, except this time there isn't the added anxiety of Shauna popping up out of fucking nowhere to yell at them. ]
You're a good mom, you know? [ Just 'cause it's obviously the truth, but nobody ever says it to the people who need to hear it the most. ]
After the crash, like... once it became clear that people weren't coming to rescue us, I stopped thinking about what it would be like to go back. I didn't really think about it again until you guys came. And I obviously want to see my parents, but I think it's going to be really... different.
[ It feels wrong to accept that compliment, to believe it could be true. She was a kid who had a baby, what the hell did she know about being a parent? But it also feels really good to hear it. And now here she is, skipping ahead to being the responsible adult for a small classroom's worth of teenagers, and she can't even fall back on her own high school years, because they weren't normal.
She does know one thing, though: kids of any age need support. They need to feel safe. Hannah figures none of these kids has felt safe since their plane went down, so if she can give them a moment or a place to feel safe, then maybe she's better at this than she believes herself to be. ]
Oh. [ "Different" says so much there. ] I'm sure they'll be happy to see you...?
[ If not, then excuse me but what the fuck. Melissa is a great kid. ]
[ Melissa utters an awkward little laugh, not sure how to explain just what she means. It's not like her parents don't love her. They just want her to be a certain type of person and since she's been out here, she's realized she can't. It's something that would've happened anyway, she's sure, but it should've happened when she was off at college or something, not coming home with all the added scrutiny of having been missing for over a year. ]
Just, like, certain stuff doesn't really matter out here. It's going to be weird going back to a place where people care, you know?
[ Even in the short time since getting here, Hannah can see what Melissa means. Grades and procedures don't matter out here, and neither do things like "no indiscriminate murder" and "tying people up and putting them in the animal pen is at least a little bit wrong." To say nothing of what they experienced before she joined the group. ]
To think this is kind of how human society started forming. Early on, all that mattered was surviving, not who's following the newest fashion or wearing white after Labor Day.
Yeah. We're like, back in the old times when people prayed to the trees and shit.
[ Literally, they are. Except they're doing it wrong, because they can't seem to totally escape the world they came from, either. Instead they just balance on the weird edge of it. Unsustainable. ]
But for the record I think I'm staying pretty fashionable out here. [ She's kidding, obviously. But she does rock the skirt-over-your-jeans thing. ]
[ And fire, and the sun, and water. Strip away all the trappings of so-called civilization, and what ends up happening? What's important changes. It's fascinating and not helpful at all right now.
Fashion, though. Hannah laughs. ]
I've seen undergrads wearing way worse than muddy clothes, trust me. You're ready for a catwalk.
Seriously? Okay. [ Melissa laughs, even if she doesn't believe it. She knows Hannah's just trying to make her feel better. ]
What's college like?
[ Blah blah blah nobody's experience is universal. She knows that but she doesn't care. She hasn't gotten to watch TV in over a year, the only reading material they had was an issue of Sassy and a bunch of porn magazines and those all burnt up in the cabin fire anyway, and they make Van act out the plots of movies for entertainment on nights she is willing (less often, these days). Melissa needs this. ]
Oh, gosh, it's really fun. There's always something to do, people goofing around between classes, lots to explore on the grounds...
[ Hannah loved it. Sometimes she wonders what it's like if you're living on campus full time, and sometimes she wishes she knew firsthand, but even as a commuter student, it was amazing. She had fun and made friends and was able to move beyond the baggage of being that girl in high school. With her confidence back, she felt like every part of life was easier. ]
I'm still in touch with people from undergrad. Sure, everyone has to take certain kinds of classes, but sooner or later, you're with people who are there because they want to be, so it's easier to make friendships that last for longer. You'll have so much fun.
[ That all sounds like a dream. Especially comparing it with the freezing months spent living in huts that are looming ahead of them right now. People who are having fun, studying what interests them, who want to be there and want to be her friend. ]
I can't fucking wait. Seriously. [ Huh. ] Was it hard being in college with a kid? Like, did you date or anything?
[ Hannah hasn't ever explicitly told her that she didn't stay with her kid's dad, but Melissa figures it must be the case. Edwin was her boyfriend but they wouldn't have met til grad school, right? A tiny part of Melissa acknowledges that maybe she's just making things up about somebody she doesn't really know and deciding they're true. She's good at doing that. ]
[ There were also annoying assignments, a lot of reading, tough exams, less than exciting teachers... but high school had that sometimes too. ]
Mm, it wasn't that much harder than taking night classes to finish high school. [ It helped that sleeping through the night slowly became a thing again. ]
And yeah, kind of. A little bit. There aren't exactly a lot of college kids willing to seriously date someone who has a toddler. [ She's almost sheepish about it. She shouldn't even have bothered, really. Nothing went past more than a date or two anyway. ] You'll have a better time with that than I did, for sure.
[ It's not a fair judgment to make, but Melissa also has no clue about what having a kid is really like. She thinks if Shauna's baby had lived she would have helped take care of him. Not like a stepparent but, well... kind of like that, if Shauna let her.
At Hannah's last statement, she shrugs her good shoulder, dipping her chin with a self-conscious laugh. ]
[ No, see, the so-called real world can be brutal (in different ways than life out here, that is), and teenagers are going through so many changes to begin with, that paying them honest compliments is necessary. Especially after what Hannah saw go on between Melissa and Shauna. ]
You wanna know a secret? It's awkward for everybody, but it's easier to get past that when you meet in intramurals or clubs or classes.
[ Because it's worked out sooo well for her thus far, you know. But that's always been the goal—not, like, professionally or anything, just for the fun of it, but she's never been able to see herself going to college without playing. It would just be the most natural thing, and open her up to so much more socially. ]
I know dating is like, hard for everyone. But small towns are shitty. You know? Nobody cares here because they have other things to worry about all the time, but it wasn't like that before we crashed. So I just... never talked to anybody. [ Shauna was her first girlfriend! How fucked up is that! ] Like, some of that shit Shauna said— [ Well, she doesn't want to say "it's true" but, isn't it? Kind of? ]
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Really? That would be awesome. This whole thing seriously blows. [ The sling. It's so freaking cumbersome. She can't even pull a shirt over her head by herself or do her own hair right now. The thought of her range of motion being permanently screwed up has Melissa anxious. Only one functioning arm and she'd be almost as bad off as Coach Scott. Not trapped-in-the-animal-pen bad, but definitely most-likely-to-get-eaten-next bad. That thought makes her squirm, and she blurts out, ] Can we do it soon? I'm worried it's going to, like—get stiff, like when you break a bone and the muscles get all weird from not using them? Have you ever broken an ankle or something?
[ Or maybe Hannah's daughter has. Kids break bones all the time! ]
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[ The wounds have closed up. They can take it slow. And if Melissa wants or needs to cry when they're working on her shoulder, she can go right ahead. It's going to be really painful without painkillers. No one can call her weak for that. Let them get shot by a crossbow and start doing PT for it.
Hannah starts back on getting branches off the berry bush. What a nice find. That should help group morale a little. ]
The cold might numb the pain a little. But right now, just moving around is good for it. You're young, your body can repair itself really well.
[ That, at least, is something Hannah can feel optimistic about. They've eaten better in the summer than they must have last winter. All that protein will come in handy. ]
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[ Misty took the Red Cross babysitting course (twice) or whatever, but she's no doctor and Melissa gets creeped out remembering how little hesitation she had when she chopped off Coach's leg right after the crash. Not that Hannah is a doctor either, but it's nice to at least feel like there's someone around who more or less knows what they're doing and isn't going to pull any weird shit. With a relieved, self-conscious little smile, Melissa goes back to picking berries. ]
So, like... what made you decide to be a scientist? I swear to god I almost puked when we dissected frogs in biology last year.
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I guess I just can't stop asking questions. I wonder about the way our bodies developed to make these precise sounds so we can communicate, how adaptable we are because we can make and use tools, how we use fire. I look around and see how everything... in all the chaos of nature, in the violence of it, there's beauty.
Like this bush. It doesn't have consciousness, right, but it evolved to keep its species alive. It adapted to the light, the climate, the soil, the wildlife. Will it outlive us? We've been around for so little time on the scale of the known universe. And look, we can use so much of it, it's not poisonous. It's going to help us survive.
[ Oh no she went full nerd. Hannah laughs and glances at Melissa, embarrassed. ]
Sorry. I kind of love, you know, all of it. I wish I could live three times as long, just so I could keep learning.
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[ The way Hannah explains it, it makes sense. Melissa gets it, especially out here. Once they started building up the campsite, it had been kind of fascinating seeing all the ways they could use the environment to help them instead. Animal furs for the winter, the huts, they can even make wine now. Pretty incredible. ]
Did you ever think about being a teacher? You'd be good at it.
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[ If a teenager says that, then it must be a little bit true, because it's way too easy to bore a teenager. ]
Maybe someday. I want to do more of... [ she gestures at the surrounding woods. ] Field work. Hands-on research.
[ Minus the whole actual hard core survival thing. ]
Hey, what about you? What do you want to go to college for?
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Melissa laughs a little and shakes her head. ] I don't know, maybe business? Something boring and normal. All I know is my plan was to get far away from New Jersey, but um. Kind of already did that, so.
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[ It's... really easy to fall into mom mode, including the vocabulary, oops. ]
I can't think of anything more boring than business school, so it sounds like you're set for life.
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So if your daughter disappeared for like two years, came home, and then turned around and chose to go to college out of state, you wouldn't be pissed? [ Melissa's half calling bullshit, half actually asking. She just can't imagine anybody being cool with that. ] I mean, I know they can't stop me if I'm eighteen, but it seems... fucked up.
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Hannah sits on a nearby patch of clearish ground. Her calves ache a little, so she stretches out her legs as she thinks about the question. ]
If she did, I'd think it's because she believed she needed to leave. I couldn't be mad at her. I might be hurt, and I would be sad, but... I would hope I've done a good enough job raising her that she knows I'll always be there for her, support her, believe in her.
And honestly? I'd just be glad she lived. That she made it out. You have to live life for yourself even when you don't go through something like this, you know?
[ And really, Hannah isn't letting herself think about how she'll be when she gets home. If she'll become overprotective, or distant, or maybe both in turns. If she'll be enough. ]
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You're a good mom, you know? [ Just 'cause it's obviously the truth, but nobody ever says it to the people who need to hear it the most. ]
After the crash, like... once it became clear that people weren't coming to rescue us, I stopped thinking about what it would be like to go back. I didn't really think about it again until you guys came. And I obviously want to see my parents, but I think it's going to be really... different.
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[ It feels wrong to accept that compliment, to believe it could be true. She was a kid who had a baby, what the hell did she know about being a parent? But it also feels really good to hear it. And now here she is, skipping ahead to being the responsible adult for a small classroom's worth of teenagers, and she can't even fall back on her own high school years, because they weren't normal.
She does know one thing, though: kids of any age need support. They need to feel safe. Hannah figures none of these kids has felt safe since their plane went down, so if she can give them a moment or a place to feel safe, then maybe she's better at this than she believes herself to be. ]
Oh. [ "Different" says so much there. ] I'm sure they'll be happy to see you...?
[ If not, then excuse me but what the fuck. Melissa is a great kid. ]
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[ Melissa utters an awkward little laugh, not sure how to explain just what she means. It's not like her parents don't love her. They just want her to be a certain type of person and since she's been out here, she's realized she can't. It's something that would've happened anyway, she's sure, but it should've happened when she was off at college or something, not coming home with all the added scrutiny of having been missing for over a year. ]
Just, like, certain stuff doesn't really matter out here. It's going to be weird going back to a place where people care, you know?
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[ Even in the short time since getting here, Hannah can see what Melissa means. Grades and procedures don't matter out here, and neither do things like "no indiscriminate murder" and "tying people up and putting them in the animal pen is at least a little bit wrong." To say nothing of what they experienced before she joined the group. ]
To think this is kind of how human society started forming. Early on, all that mattered was surviving, not who's following the newest fashion or wearing white after Labor Day.
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[ Literally, they are. Except they're doing it wrong, because they can't seem to totally escape the world they came from, either. Instead they just balance on the weird edge of it. Unsustainable. ]
But for the record I think I'm staying pretty fashionable out here. [ She's kidding, obviously. But she does rock the skirt-over-your-jeans thing. ]
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Fashion, though. Hannah laughs. ]
I've seen undergrads wearing way worse than muddy clothes, trust me. You're ready for a catwalk.
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What's college like?
[ Blah blah blah nobody's experience is universal. She knows that but she doesn't care. She hasn't gotten to watch TV in over a year, the only reading material they had was an issue of Sassy and a bunch of porn magazines and those all burnt up in the cabin fire anyway, and they make Van act out the plots of movies for entertainment on nights she is willing (less often, these days). Melissa needs this. ]
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[ Hannah loved it. Sometimes she wonders what it's like if you're living on campus full time, and sometimes she wishes she knew firsthand, but even as a commuter student, it was amazing. She had fun and made friends and was able to move beyond the baggage of being that girl in high school. With her confidence back, she felt like every part of life was easier. ]
I'm still in touch with people from undergrad. Sure, everyone has to take certain kinds of classes, but sooner or later, you're with people who are there because they want to be, so it's easier to make friendships that last for longer. You'll have so much fun.
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I can't fucking wait. Seriously. [ Huh. ] Was it hard being in college with a kid? Like, did you date or anything?
[ Hannah hasn't ever explicitly told her that she didn't stay with her kid's dad, but Melissa figures it must be the case. Edwin was her boyfriend but they wouldn't have met til grad school, right? A tiny part of Melissa acknowledges that maybe she's just making things up about somebody she doesn't really know and deciding they're true. She's good at doing that. ]
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Mm, it wasn't that much harder than taking night classes to finish high school. [ It helped that sleeping through the night slowly became a thing again. ]
And yeah, kind of. A little bit. There aren't exactly a lot of college kids willing to seriously date someone who has a toddler. [ She's almost sheepish about it. She shouldn't even have bothered, really. Nothing went past more than a date or two anyway. ] You'll have a better time with that than I did, for sure.
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[ It's not a fair judgment to make, but Melissa also has no clue about what having a kid is really like. She thinks if Shauna's baby had lived she would have helped take care of him. Not like a stepparent but, well... kind of like that, if Shauna let her.
At Hannah's last statement, she shrugs her good shoulder, dipping her chin with a self-conscious laugh. ]
I don't know. Maybe. I'm not great at that stuff.
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[ Ah, teenage insecurity. Hannah does not miss that. ]
I'm serious, Mel. All you have to do is be yourself. I've only known you for a few weeks, and I can see how great a person you are.
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I just mean I'm really bad at talking to girls I like. [ Really. ] I get better after that part's over.
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You wanna know a secret? It's awkward for everybody, but it's easier to get past that when you meet in intramurals or clubs or classes.
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[ Because it's worked out sooo well for her thus far, you know. But that's always been the goal—not, like, professionally or anything, just for the fun of it, but she's never been able to see herself going to college without playing. It would just be the most natural thing, and open her up to so much more socially. ]
I know dating is like, hard for everyone. But small towns are shitty. You know? Nobody cares here because they have other things to worry about all the time, but it wasn't like that before we crashed. So I just... never talked to anybody. [ Shauna was her first girlfriend! How fucked up is that! ] Like, some of that shit Shauna said— [ Well, she doesn't want to say "it's true" but, isn't it? Kind of? ]
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🎀?