Sarah's fingers flexed in frustration around the steering wheel, as though she were trying to throttle the life out of the inanimate object. She huffed, pointedly avoiding looking at the spot on the passenger seat where the little green cell phone had landed after she tossed it away.
Stupid, bull-headed, dreadlocked hippie.
Sarah hated this. Cosima was so bloody wrapped up in the beauty of the tall French scientist, Delphine Beraud (the sheer Frenchness of her name made Sarah queasy), that she clearly could not see the danger of the situation. Cosima herself was the one who guessed that Delphine was her monitor, but for whatever reason she had immediately set about getting as close as possible to the other woman. All of Sarah's attempts to warn her away seemed to be in vain.
Well maybe if you told her the bloody truth.
The truth. Ah yes, the truth. The truth that Cosima had quite suddenly but most definitely caught Sarah's attention, starting on the night that Cosima had flashed her canined smile over a bad joke Sarah had cracked in that crummy bar. The truth that Sarah was painfully aware that Felix had been one hundred percent correct when he pointed out that, somehow, out of all the identical clones, Cosima was far and away the most attractive. The truth that Sarah had grown to find Cosima's loose, winding language and her talkative hands one of the most endearing traits of any human she'd ever truth that more often than not her stomach turned with nausea every time she thought of Cosima's toned body being caressed by Delphine Beraud's sultry French gaze, or worse, by her hands.
Sarah shook her head, trying to dislodge the gnawing thoughts. The truth was too much to face right now. Sarah had had a girlfriend as a teenager, but it ended badly - the girl cheated on her with the drummer of a local band.
Ever since then it had been a parade of bad choices and stupid mistakes, Vic and Paul being contenders for the top spots on the list. Paul was miserable in every sense except for in the bedroom; he had a certain animal instinct and the, ah, equipment, to get the job done right. But Sarah had never felt any kind of emotional connection. She really didn't blame Beth for jumping in front of a train after a relationship with a man as cold and calculated as Paul Dierden.
But Cosima. She was different. She exuded life, enthusiasm, genuine curiosity and warmth that Sarah had long ago believed no longer existed in the world. Her intelligence and wit were not barbs; she didn't use them as weapons, the way Sarah did. Instead, they were Cosima's tools, her way of connecting and sharing her view of the world with others. Or, at least, that's how she used them with Sarah.
Despite all that, Sarah genuinely believed that Cosima probably deserved better, so much better, than Sarah could ever offer her. But something buried deep in Sarah's heart of hearts whispered fearfully that no one would ever make sure Cosima knew how important she was. Not the way that Sarah could, anyway.
Sarah's mind began to wander and she imagined wrapping Cosima up in her arms after a long day, stretched out on the couch together, Cosima's long dreads draped across Sarah's chest as the bespectacled woman outlined the highs and lows of her day with the energetic movements of her hands. She imagined falling asleep with her at night, listening to her gentle snores in the darkness. She imagined peeling Cosima's wildly patterned clothes from her toned body, kissing the roundness of her breasts, breathing in the scent of her skin, feeling the heat between her thighs, heat brought on by Sarah's mere presence.
The last image made Sarah's heart plummet and she sighed defeatedly, running her hand through her hair.
I didn't sign up for this shit.
Whatever else was true, Sarah knew one thing for sure: she was completely and utterly done for.