Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘
Jamie Dyer didn't like soccer. She didn't like boys, or the spotlight, or attention, or parties.
But it was what her mother wanted. With two older brothers already out the door by the time Jamie reached thirteen, she quickly became the shoe-in for Mother Dearest's favorite. The only girl, the baby of the family, a pretty doll to dress up and show off to the neighbors.
Joining the Yellowjackets was the one spark of rebellion Jamie had. 'A boy's sport', Mama called it, when her precious daughter mentioned a passing interest in her school's extra-curricular activities, and so it stuck. Her brothers loved coming to her games, and Mama really couldn't complain if it was going to look good on college applications.
Leaving for Nationals was supposed to be an escape.
Jamie was supposed to come into her own, away from her mother, away from home, surrounded by the friends she had made for herself. She was supposed to meet a pretty girl on the opposing team and sneak her into the hotel room.
She was supposed to go home and have a great memory of doing something on her own.
Instead, all the memories she ended up with of maggot-filled deer, chopped-off limbs, and torn open faces as the plane would crash down in the Canadian wilderness.
In a sense, Jamie did find herself on that trip. She found the parts of herself that were meant to stay hidden, the parts that she would have to shove back down nineteen months later, when they finally were rescued from the forest.
