The drive to school was silent. Lorraine was slightly hungover and Mari really just wasn't a morning person either way. They were taking the bus to the airport so none of them had to pay for airport parking and then they would be taking the private plane that Lottie's dad had payed for to Seattle.

Once they pulled into the parking lot, Mari went to get out. Lorraine called out to her from where she was standing by the trunk, hauling their suitcases out. "Can you get the letter from the school for me? It's in my glovebox, I need to stick it to my windshield." The realisation occured to her a second too late. "Wait hang on!"

Mari giggled. "What, do you have a gun in here or something?"

Lorraine ushered her out of the passenger seat. "Ha ha, no, I just remembered that your hands are sticky."

Mari rolled her eyes, going to finish grabbing all their stuff out of the back of Lorraine's car. The school had given her a form to stick to her windscreen so she'd be allowed to park in the teachers' parking lot for the week that they were going to be gone.

Lorraine stuck it up using the stick of blutack she bought just for that purpose, and then she allowed herself to finally look at the envelope she hadn't wanted Mari to see. Mari would be supportive regardless, whether she got in or if she didn't, Lorraine knew that. It was more the idea that if Mari knew she'd gotten her letter back, then she would want Lorraine to open it.

She still couldn't bear to open it, so she shoved it in her hoodie pocket and, once she had her bag from Mari, it went straight into the front pocket of her backpack.

It was weird, being on the bus with the rest of the team but without Allie but if Lorraine was being honest, it was a lot nicer. It was kinda sad, though. Allie had been the one most excited for the idea of an entire airplane just for them.

It was a nice one, too. Extra legroom on all the seats, an entire cart filled with soda and snacks. Van let out a low whistle, looking back at Lottie, "I can't believe your dad paid for a private plane."

Lottie nodded awkwardly. "It's pretty much his only form of parenting. I guess I'll take it."

"Well," Van said appreciatively. "Thank you, Mr Matthews." Laura Lee turned to chorus the last sentence together.

Mari called dibs on an aisle seat and Lorraine fell into the chair beside her, closing her eyes. It was a long flight, nearly six hours, and she still had a headache.

She'd brought her social studies textbook to hopefully do some work on the plane, but her will to do practically anything was at an all time low.

Mari had woken up well and truly by now, and she was chattering into Lorraine's ear regardless of the fact that she was not listening at all.

Eventually, Mari seemed to realise this, and turned to terrorise the girl sitting in the aisle across from them. "Woah, woah, hey, JV." The junior varsity girl looked nervously at Mari. "Didn't they tell you? New blood's got to earn a seat."

The other girl's eyes widened. "Oh, I- I thought that I could-"

"She's fucking with you," Lorraine said without opening her eyes.

"No, I'm 100% messing with you," Mari agreed. "Want some fruit by the foot? I've got like, a mile of it."

"All right, hustle up," Coach Martinez interrupted, calling out from the front of the plane. "It's gonna be a long flight."

The captain started talking over the intercom and Lorraine nestled into her chair more comfortably, leaning her head on Mari's shoulder. Mari put her head on top of Lorraine, sighing. "Can I have one of the Oreos in your bag?"

"I don't have any Oreos in my bag."

"I put them in there, my mom wanted you to have them." Normally, Lorraine would point out that Louisa had put them in there for her, so no, Mari could not have one. But the idea of eating an Oreo made her want to cry, so she just said yes.

Lorraine listened to the captain talk about how they were going to be flying a little bit farther north than they planned to avoid a storm path, which meant the flight was probably going to be longer than six hours.

Maybe she could just sleep the whole time. She was usually pretty fatigued, but she put that down to the insomnia and the fact that she did an hour of cardio every day. Now, she had no idea why she was so tired, but she felt like she could pass out the second they took off.

Take off was smooth, Mari and the girl in the other aisle were chatting amicably while Lorraine went through her notes. She'd given up on social studies, instead pulling out her biology notebook to make some more flashcards in preperation for her final in a few weeks.

Her letter from Yale was less than one foot away, and her fingers itched. No matter how much she really wanted to open it, she had a dreaded feeling. If she didn't get into Yale, then she was done for. She couldn't deal with that and the stress of nationals.

Everything she was was riding on this weekend. If they lost, if she didn't get into Yale, she was fucked. She needed to win, and not in the way that someone like Taissa needed to win. Taissa came from money, not as much money as someone like Lottie or Jackie, but way much more money than Lorraine came from. If Taissa lost this weekend, then she still had a really good chance of being able to go to college.

Lorraine needed the scholarship that she'd applied for, there was no way she'd be able to afford college otherwise. Her dad couldn't even afford to keep the lights on in their house. It was a lot worse when she was younger, back before she realised that she could do something about it. The longest they went without power was a month, back when she was eight years old.

Now, she'd steal one of her dad's government cheques and use that to pay the power bill. They had a water tank and luckily it rained fairly often in Wiskayok, plus there wasn't a lot of water being used in their house anyway.

Growing up, Michael was the only person in her family making money. She hadn't realised it at the time, but he was pickpocketing and taking money from the cash register at work, and that was the only money they had for a long time.

Then all of a sudden, it was just her, and her two jobs, and suddenly life sucked a little bit more. She missed her brother.

He had always known that she wanted to play soccer. Lorraine and Michael used to spend hours in their barren backyard kicking a soccer ball he'd stolen from the school gym, using a laundry basket as a goal. Then, Lorraine had broken the handle on their only laundry basket and Michael had drawn goals on their fence with spray paint to avoid damage.

The plane jolted beneath them and Mari grabbed onto Lorraine's arm. "Jesus, let up, will you?"

Mari frowned. "Someone's grumpy. What gives?"

Lorraine sighed, slamming her biology textbook shut. "Nothing, I'm sorry. Just stressed, it's a big week."

Mari clutched her hand even tighter. "You wanna talk about it?"

The plane jolted again, but Lorraine payed it no mind. The plane was quiet, most people were asleep. The coaches were chatting idly up the front and the single flight attendant had stopped making laps because no one was doing anything.

The girl across the aisle from them looked like she was doing some sort of crochet project out of rubber bands, not listening in the slightest.

Lorraine shook her head. She honestly just preferred not to, they didn't need to. "It's a big week" had been everything that she wanted to say, and Mari simply nodded.

Mari liked to believe that she understood Lorraine, but sometimes she wondered how much she really did. A lot of it felt like things that she made up to fill in the gaps. Lorraine was the best friend that Mari had ever had, but sometimes it felt like neither of them really knew each other at all.

But other times, it felt like they were one person.

Mari gripped Lorraine's hand and opened her mouth to speak again. Before she could say anything, though, she was interrupted by more turbulence. This one didn't stop after one jolt, though, it continued.

"What-"

The plane tilted suddenly to the left and Lorraine felt Mari slam into her side, grabbing onto her. "Shit, you okay?"

"Yeah, just wasn't expecting that." Mari said apologetically. The seatbelt sign turned back on and the flight attendant hurried down the aisle, making sure everyone else was seated.

The plane shook again and that was when the screaming started. A beeping from somewhere started, drowning out when the captain came back over the intercom.

Lorraine held Mari's hand, her bones rattling inside of her skin from the force with which she was being tossed around in her seat. Mari groaned. "I shouldn't have eaten all those Oreos."

The plane steadied and for a moment, they thought it had passed. Then the oxygen masks dropped.

The plane trembled so violently that Lorraine felt dizzy. She could hear screaming from behind her and she realised that she had been holding her breath.

She couldn't hear anything over the sound of her own laboured breaths and she fastened the oxygen mask to her face with shaky hands. Lorraine looked to the side and saw Mari's terrified face staring back at her, oxygen mask fixed on her own face.

Laura Lee was praying a few roads behind her and Lorraine clenched her eyes shut. If there was a God, why was he doing this? Maybe this was the punishment that was befalling her for her lack of worship.

The noise was defeaning, the engine rumbling, the screaming from the horde of teenage girls, the sound of the aircraft shaking thousands of feet in the air.

This wasn't just turbulence, Lorraine could feel them dropping in altitude by the second. The window shade was closed, but if she looked across the aisle she could see the tops of trees getting closer and closer.

There was no way she was surviving this, they were falling too rapidly, she couldn't breathe, they were going to die.

Lorraine had often thought about how she would die. Best case, rich and successful, maybe living in LA with a prestigious journalism career to her name. Worst case she died in Wiskayok.

Now this? Certainly not ideal. But she had to look on the bright side. Not dying in Wiskayok was better than she thought she'd get. Mari was holding her hand, and she had a letter from Yale in her backpack.

There wasn't much more she could do at that point other than to brace for impact.

────────── ⋆˚✿˖° author's note
we finally reached the end of the pilot - which, sidenote, i find hilarious. i know that it's like the industry name for a first episode of a tv show before it's picked up for a full season, but the pilot??? that's objectively funny come on.

me and one of my friends both love talking about how they are filming yellowjackets season 3 literally right now, which is nuts i'm so excited. like, sophie's hair???? it's gonna be good i can feel it

i hope you enjoyed this chapter, i enjoyed writing it it, i am very excited to actually like get into lorraine and fully who she is and how the wilderness treats her <33 i love you thank you for reading