𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆 - Yellowjackets

𝐈.

𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑: 𝐈.

Vincent is high.

Jamie almost wishes she were, too.

Mama doesn't notice. She never does, even when the smell of shitty skunk weed drifts out from Vincent's bedroom when he visits from college for the holidays. Jamie might be the baby of the family, but Vince is the youngest boy, so maybe that's why Mama pretends nothing is wrong when he comes home stumbling drunk after nights out with his friends.

Russell would never get away with it. Jamie still remembers when Mama found a pack of cigarettes in his luggage after he moved back in after graduation. She'd broken down crying in the hallway, saying that Russell was just doing it to spite her, that he'd rather have died than move back in when she needed him the most. It was right after the divorce. Russ had been twenty-three, Vince twenty, and Jamie fifteen.

Mama doesn't know that Russell still smokes in the backyard at night.

She also doesn't know that he sneaks Jamie puffs in exchange for her silence.

In the two years since their father left, things have changed drastically for the Dyer family. Before the divorce, Mama would never have been caught dead driving the family minivan to her daughter's school, but Dad took everything when he left, and they don't have enough now to afford another car for Vincent. Right now, the two boys are stuck sharing the Oldsmobile Dad bought for Russell's eighteenth birthday, which Jamie is sure that neither of them is happy about, especially now that Russell has taken the car to visit his girlfriend for the weekend.

"Vincent will pick you up after practice," Mama says as they pull into an empty parking spot.

Jamie just nods. She's learned that she just has to accept what Mama says without argument, even though she hates how fast Vincent drives the van and how it always reeks like stale beer when he's had it for too long.

"Say hi to Nat for me," Vince pipes up from the back seat, and Jamie has to fight every urge in her that wants to break his nose for the comment.

She knows nothing happened between the two of them. Vincent had lured Nat in with the promise of weed and beer and he'd struck out bad when Jamie's teammate refused his advances.

She has to tell herself that she's just protective of Natalie, which is true enough. With the crowd Nat runs with and with the shit she gets herself into, Jamie wouldn't be surprised if she ended up getting herself hurt.

The jealousy is secondary to the concern.

She tugs her Walkman from her backpack once she's out of the eye line of the van, slipping the headphones over her head and pressing play.