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? ]
[ Ah, yeah, the confirmation bias inherent to small-town life. A hardly changing community with generations' worth of history and dynamics. It's not hard to imagine how that can affect a person. But still-- ]
You said it yourself, though. You're from a small town. You didn't have the chance to meet more people.
[ Hannah glances in the direction of the camp, mostly just to remind herself she still knows where they are and how they'll get back. ]
You're not the first small town girl who'll be going into the big, wide world in college. What Shauna said isn't true. You'll see, one day.
[ A slow exhale. When it's put that way, it sounds much better. Normal, even? Like other people have been where she is, and that's fine. Wow, it turns out having someone around whose frontal lobe has finished developing makes a huge difference when it comes to this kind of thing. ]
Thanks. That's... actually super helpful. [ She leans back a little on her good arm, getting comfier. ]
[ It's not something Hannah talks about much. She feels more vulnerable right now than when Shauna walked her into the camp at knifepoint. She should leave it at just the one word answer, but-- well, it's not unlikely that she'll die here, and this might help Melissa out, so why not? Someone should know. Someone who's still alive, at least. ]
Nobody at my school knew about my life. Every new friendship started with a blank slate. I wasn't "Hannah, the idiot who got knocked up." I was just Hannah, a bio major who had a kid and was working hard to do right by Alex and by me. It was such a relief, to just be able to live my life without all that judgment. Things were hard enough already. It's not like everything magically turned perfect and went smoothly all the time, but it was one less thing to worry about, and that made a huge difference.
[ Plus, people liked seeing pictures of Alex and didn't act awkward about how young Hannah was. That was nice too.
She smiles at Melissa. ]
You'll be too busy having fun or being frustrated with a class to feel awkward for too long, and before you know it, you'll meet people you'll be close with forever.
[ Melissa doesn't want to say this out loud, but the way Hannah is describing it does sound kinda magical, in a way. Living life without judgment, having less to worry about... In a way, the wilderness has been like that for a lot of them. Survival is hard, but there is something to be said for being able to kiss your girlfriend and not worry about getting the shit beaten out of you for it.
Nice to know that if they ever get out of here, there's always college waiting. ]
Did you always wanna have kids? [ Like, maybe not in high school, but! At some point! ]
[ That's true. She'd just been unlucky. Unfortunately, bad luck looks like bad planning when you're known as a nerd with ambitions, and plenty of people are happy to take the chance to be unkind.
Nostalgia is definitely coloring Hannah's retelling of her college days. Nostalgia and a probable-end-of-life impulse to see the positives in her past. Melissa will have bad times in college too. Hannah sure did. But when every day is focused on literal life-or-death survival, realistic details feel unimportant. ]
Yeah. Someday. With a partner, whether or not we were married. I like kids.
[ Her heart aches, her chest physically tensing, gut metaphorically twisting. She thinks she was so close to gaining a person in her little family unit. But-- ]
I think you'd be good with kids, even if you don't want to have any.
Yeah? They made us take care of bags of flour for home ec freshman year. It was so stupid.
[ And it's not like they cried or pooped or did anything real babies do, so the only thing that happened was they were sort of embarrassing to haul around to classes and practice. ... Oh. Suddenly Mel is realizing that maybe that was the point. ]
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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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You said it yourself, though. You're from a small town. You didn't have the chance to meet more people.
[ Hannah glances in the direction of the camp, mostly just to remind herself she still knows where they are and how they'll get back. ]
You're not the first small town girl who'll be going into the big, wide world in college. What Shauna said isn't true. You'll see, one day.
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Thanks. That's... actually super helpful. [ She leans back a little on her good arm, getting comfier. ]
Was it like that for you?
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[ It's not something Hannah talks about much. She feels more vulnerable right now than when Shauna walked her into the camp at knifepoint. She should leave it at just the one word answer, but-- well, it's not unlikely that she'll die here, and this might help Melissa out, so why not? Someone should know. Someone who's still alive, at least. ]
Nobody at my school knew about my life. Every new friendship started with a blank slate. I wasn't "Hannah, the idiot who got knocked up." I was just Hannah, a bio major who had a kid and was working hard to do right by Alex and by me. It was such a relief, to just be able to live my life without all that judgment. Things were hard enough already. It's not like everything magically turned perfect and went smoothly all the time, but it was one less thing to worry about, and that made a huge difference.
[ Plus, people liked seeing pictures of Alex and didn't act awkward about how young Hannah was. That was nice too.
She smiles at Melissa. ]
You'll be too busy having fun or being frustrated with a class to feel awkward for too long, and before you know it, you'll meet people you'll be close with forever.
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[ Melissa doesn't want to say this out loud, but the way Hannah is describing it does sound kinda magical, in a way. Living life without judgment, having less to worry about... In a way, the wilderness has been like that for a lot of them. Survival is hard, but there is something to be said for being able to kiss your girlfriend and not worry about getting the shit beaten out of you for it.
Nice to know that if they ever get out of here, there's always college waiting. ]
Did you always wanna have kids? [ Like, maybe not in high school, but! At some point! ]
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Nostalgia is definitely coloring Hannah's retelling of her college days. Nostalgia and a probable-end-of-life impulse to see the positives in her past. Melissa will have bad times in college too. Hannah sure did. But when every day is focused on literal life-or-death survival, realistic details feel unimportant. ]
Yeah. Someday. With a partner, whether or not we were married. I like kids.
[ Her heart aches, her chest physically tensing, gut metaphorically twisting. She thinks she was so close to gaining a person in her little family unit. But-- ]
I think you'd be good with kids, even if you don't want to have any.
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[ And it's not like they cried or pooped or did anything real babies do, so the only thing that happened was they were sort of embarrassing to haul around to classes and practice. ... Oh. Suddenly Mel is realizing that maybe that was the point. ]
But I'd like to have kids someday.
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[ Even just five pounds gets to be a lot after a while. ]
I can totally see you running around playing tag with a few little kids. They'll adore you.
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🎀?