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The moment Kirby stepped in front of the mannequin with the bloody blue flannel a series of shivers ran down her spine, and it seemed like all her body was sizzling with electricity. Her breathing became heavier, and she felt like there was something stuck in her throat, trying to claw its way out. Longing, sadness, heartbreak.
She held out her hand, but her breath hitched right before she touched the fabric. At the same time it felt like they were different magnetic poles, pulling each other closer, and the same ones, repelling each other with might. It was fitting, that’s how it had felt with Jill and Kirby, always different enough to keep the other curious, until they became too much alike and neither could stand to look in the mirror any longer.
It was a thought that kept Kirby up at night more times than she could count, the what ifs eating at her with ferocity. She wondered if she had looked closer, if she hadn’t turned her gaze away when Jill became too bright, would she have noticed, would she have seen what was beneath the facade all that time? She hates herself for being a coward, for not facing her feelings.
The moment her skin touches the fabric, all the air in the detective’s lungs leaves at once, as if she had been punched in the gut, but her hand is glued on the item like her mind is glued on Jill. Jill, Jill, Jill, like it had been for the last twelve years; Jill, Jill, Jill like it had been for the 10 years before that. From the moment Kirby laid her eyes on the other girl when they were eight, her thoughts were consumed, they had one focus and one focus only: Jillian Roberts.
It seemed like even death couldn’t change that. She’d chuckle if she wasn’t quietly having a full on panic attack right now.
Kirby remembered clear as the day how looking at Jill felt like: it was as if your favorite song was suddenly playing, as if the sun was kissing your skin with its warmth, as if the world had stopped spinning on its axis. Kirby could never look away, not until the song became too loud and the sun started to burn her skin or the inertia knocked her on her face. She’d looked away, wounded. Wounded, but silent. And Jill would observe her for a beat too long, a beat too painful to think about.
Her free hand trembled violently, and she closed it in a fist and clenched it tightly. She remembered it all, what holding hands with Jill felt like, what laughing at her jokes and watching movies with her felt like. What waking up to a series of dramatic texts from her or listening to her angrily ramble about Trevor felt like. What sleeping in the same bed did to her heart, what making her laugh and squeal did to her insides.
She remembered every single detail, from the shape of Jill’s face to how her brows furrowed unevenly when she was frustrated. From her tilted but perfect handwriting to the pitch her voice would rise to when she was outraged. From the dark shade of her eyes to the way she walked. Kirby remembered because she had never once stopped thinking about the girl.
She sought out people to replace her, replace the Jill-shaped hole that ached in her chest, but the smirks were never right and the laughs were too high and the tilt of the head was never quite right.
So Kirby wondered, once again, about her cowardice. Wondered if her confession could’ve changed something, anything on Jill. If she had been loved right, would she have discarded their friends like they were nothing? Would she still have discarded Kirby as if she was nothing?
Could she have handled Jill, the real Jill, the one hiding behind a mask? Or would she have been hurt even worse? She’d regret keeping her feelings a secret for the rest of her life, a life drowned by guilt and sorrow and grief.
She remembered how cold the floor had felt, that day, when she thought she was dying and the last thing she would ever hear or see was Jill, not her Jill, but someone, some thing else announcing how little she cared for her friends, for Kirby. And she imagined what Jill would have done if she knew about Kirby’s feelings. She pictured the girl laughing, that laugh she reserved for when they were alone and Jill could let her mean girl out at whatever loser had pissed her off. Yeah, in retrospect maybe Kirby should’ve seen it coming. So she would laugh in her face and tell Kirby how pathetic she was for falling for a girl that didn’t even exist, a girl that was a perfectly designed farce from head to toe. Jill would shake her shoulders like she did when she was laughing too hard and then she’d crush Kirby’s heart with her own hands when she said she could never love someone like the blonde.
Sometimes Kirby wished she had died that day. She especially wished that when her mind came up with scenarios like those, scenarios that might’ve been wrong, but could’ve very well have been true.
And she judged herself a fool for being so helplessly in love with someone who so easily tossed her away. She judged herself an even bigger fool for still being just as helplessly in love as the day Jill died.
The truth was, Kirby would take it all, she’d take all the heartbreak in the world if it meant seeing Jill one last time, hearing her voice and her laughter ring in her ears again. She’d go through everything again just to catch a glimpse of the mischief in Jill’s lips or the sway of her hips. Kirby would even beg for Jill to kill her herself if it meant the last thing she’d see were the glint in the eyes of the love of her life. Kirby would give everything up for Jillian Roberts.
And yet, she was frozen in place, the blue fabric still trapped between her digits and her eyes wide and completely wet. The others were still walking around the place, but their chatter didn’t reach her ears. Everything felt dull compared to Jill, even if it was just her bloody clothes.
Later, after the current Ghostfaces were once more dead, Kirby would come back with the guise of making sure no one had fucked up the crime scene, and she’d stand in the exact same place and she’d weep and sob loudly, fighting the urge to tear the place apart with her bare hands until the only thing left standing was that stupid mannequin. And instead she’d scream until her lungs burned and she’d yell all the things stuck in her chest for the past twelve years, in a feeble attempt of getting rid of them. But Jill would still have betrayed and left her and she’d still be dead. So Kirby would hug the stiff mannequin like her life depended on it, in a desperate effort to feel Jill again, one last time.
But until that, she would have to make do with being brought back to earth by a soft tug on her jacket. Tara.
The girl looked at her with intense eyes, but there was no questioning swirling on them.
“I was also betrayed and almost killed by the person I loved most. And I, too, still wish she was here every single day. You’re not crazy, and I’m not alone, alright?”
Kirby had no idea how she didn’t completely break down in that exact spot, but maybe she had finally heard the one thing she needed since that night in 2011, that someone understood her, wholly and utterly.
“We’re fucked up sisters or something now. I got you.”