"Sarah is everything alright? You look like you're gonna be sick," Cosima asked, laughing slightly at her girlfriend's pale face. "I told you that night out with Felix was a bad idea, how much-"
"I didn't drink," Sarah replied hollowly, wishing she had. Or that she was drinking right now. It would dull the panic that clawed in her mind.
"So what-"
"I have something to tell you," she whimpered faintly, the fear scratching past her eyeballs now. She vaguely wondered if they were bleeding. They felt wet.
Cosima stopped and stared down at the couch where Sarah was sitting. And Sarah could feel the questions buzzing and bouncing around in Cosima's head, much of the same way that the panic was hissing and clanging around in her own skull. "Did something happen-"
It only faintly occurred to Sarah that she sounded like a cheater. But she didn't rush to correct it; maybe it was better that Cosima think it of her, that she was lying. At least, lying in a way that made sense. Because nothing about this, whatever this was, the way that she sometimes wanted to be in Cosima, to push into her with flesh from below, not with bone and muscle and sinew of curved fingers... nothing about that made any sense.
How could she possibly explain it? Without sounding like a freak?
So she let the idea of the simpler lie stand. "I realized something last night."
Somewhere above her she heard a muffled inhale and her eyes shot upwards, even as she felt the blood leak from the corners, dislodged from their home in her eye sockets at the sudden movement. Sarah could see the questions above Cosima's head, could feel the dark clouds beginning to rumble in her chest. "What did you realize?" Cosima finally managed, stuffing her trembling hands in her pockets, a habit she had picked up from her girlfriend.
Sarah rose from the couch slowly, mechanically placing a hand on Cosima's shoulder, feeling the tension even from that robotic touch. "I've been lying to you," she dropped the words like anvils from her tongue, each one creating a new and shattering effect on the woman before her. "I'm sorry," she spoke, forcing herself to remain blank about this; if she didn't, she'd run. And she couldn't run from Cosima.
"Who is it?" Cosima shook as she spoke, her back stooping with the weight of Sarah's words, Sarah's anvils, like she had suddenly aged fifteen years.
It killed Sarah to see. But this was better. If she got emotional, she'd rage. She'd tak her pain and confusion and the disconnect she felt from her body out on Cosima and she'd lose the best thing of her whole life. "It's me." There wasn't even emotion anymore, even though those spiders in her eyes were still crawling, even though the blood was still dripping down her face.
"That's it?" Cosima's voice cracked, "After everything...? One night out with Felix and he introduces you to someone new and... you're just going to leave me?" she whispered, the cracks spreading up past her tongue, her lips, radiating out over her face, her expression falling and dropping to the floor with each new hairline fissure.
"It's not you!" Sarah finally shouted, blood clouding her vision, her judgement. Cosima, who never broke, was breaking now. And Sarah would be damned if she let her break on her own. "It's me, no, really-" Cosima had scoffed and Sarah grabbed her arm, "Look at me! What do I look like? I'm a lie! I can't love you like this, I'm lying, do you hear me?!"
"Sarah, stop, let go-"
"Cosima, you can't leave, you've got to help me, I don't understand my head, my body," Sarah began rambling, frustration dumping onto her head like something thick, something constricting. "But you," she rounded, seizing Cosima by her shoulders now, "You make sense! Your logic, your brain, your science.. everything!"
"Sarah, I said let go!" Cosima shrieked, shoving her in the chest, causing Sarah to stumble back a few paces, hitting the couch and dropping onto it.
"Cosima... shit I, listen, I fucked up, please, you can't-"
"I need to go. Now," Cosima choked back a sob, snatching up her coat as she tripped towards the door, barely coordinated enough to put on her shoes, rip open the door and crash down the driveway.
Really fucked it up this time Manning, she told herself, falling backwards onto the couch, feeling the anvils that Cosima had dropped settle onto her chest as the blood and the spiders clogged her mouth, cutting off tears.
"Hey uh, Cos... I'm really sorry for.. for the other day. I wasn't feeling well.. my whole body wasn't feeling well, like I'm sick in my mind or something? Look, I don't know how to explain it, I just need to talk to you again? Could you please-"
"I'm sorry, you must insert more coins to continue," the payphone chirruped gleefully. With a heavy sigh, she pulled the phone away from her ear, rifled through her pockets for another few quarters. Came up empty, dropped the receiver back onto its hook. Pulled her hood up and began to walk home in the rain.
"Look, Cosima, I just... I should probably tell you that I'm not cheating on you. I mean, you're probably just gonna laugh at that, like, a cheater would say that, right? But, it's true. And I should have told you that first off, first thing. But it was... easier to let you believe that I was cheating on you than... than trying to explain that I don't feel right in my skin. I s'pose that sounds really stupid too.. but it's true I guess. I'm not really sure what else to say. Uh, yeah."
Two weeks after their fight, Sarah walked to the same payphone, armed with quarters and heavy words rolling around in her brain. "I don't feel right in my body," she muttered as she slipped four quarters in the slot, dialling the number with numbed fingertips. "I don't look right in the mirror," she tapped out a random beat on the top of the phone box, "Something's happening to me," she rehearsed as it rang, and went to voicemail once again.
"Hey again Cos," she started, the words already feeling hopeless in her chest. "I get if you don't-"
"Sarah... hey."
Sarah whirled, dropping the phone, sending it swinging on its cord. "Cos?" Sarah gaped, staring at her girlfriend standing outside the phone booth. Or was she her ex now?
"Can we... go someplace else to talk?"
"Of.. of course," Sarah stared, stunned, as Cosima nodded sharply and turned on her heel, expecting Sarah to follow.
"I got your messages," she explained quietly as they sat down by the window in Cosima's favourite coffee shop.
"Oh...?" Sarah replied hesitantly, tracing blank patterns on the table space between them, the way she used to trace patterns on Cosima's skin.
Cosima's eye lit up inexplicably then as she pulled out her laptop and tapped in her password in a flurry of rattling fingertips. "I know what's happening to you, or, well, I found something that matches, maybe, it could explain, well, you should just look," she finished in a rush, nearly knocking the whole computer off the table in the process of turning the screen around to show Sarah.
Sarah stared blankly at the screen, barely taking in Cosima's words, much less the bold heading the website boasted. "Genderfluid?" she asked quizzically, her eyes flickering between Cosima and the screen.
Cosima nodded eagerly, leaning forward excitedly as she took Sarah's wrist and pointed out different things on the screen with it, "You said that you didn't feel right in your skin, that you felt like you were lying to me... I mean, it's not conclusive but like, it matches, mostly, right?!"
"Cos..." Sarah pulled her wrist slowly out of Cosima's grip, "This whole time... you weren't mad at me? You were... researching.. all of this, for me?"
"I was mad at you," Cosima amended softly, reclaiming Sarah's hand in her own, tangling their fingers together. "But I talked to Felix after we fought and he told me about your sudden revelation at the bar. That, paired with all of your messages... I decided to start digging."
Sarah turned back to the computer screen, absently squeezing Cosima's hand as she scrolled with her other. "I dunno about all this Cos," she mumbled, skimming and feeling the weight settle back on her chest.
"You don't have to know. Not right away," Cosima assured her.
Sarah slapped the laptop shut and stared at her hand resting on top of it. "It's too much right now. I.. I can't-"
"You don't have to. Not alone. I'll be right here for you. Every step."
"Promise?" Sarah asked, her voice so small. So very small.
"Yeah, I promise."
"I love you Cos," she folded, feeling relief flood her frame like angel wings. And there was weight, there were anvils still, on her frame. But at least now she didn't have to bear them alone.