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“Bitsy, sometimes I wonder if it’s even worth it.”
Bitsy looked up from where she was doing her makeup. “What are you talking about, Alicia? You’re practically on top of the world.”
“Yeah, but… what does it matter? I get fat, I let my hair grow out, and suddenly I’m out of the spotlight. I know I have Bob but do I really want to be the trophy girlfriend?” Alicia sighed. “I just… I feel like I could be doing so much more. Do you get what I’m saying?” Alicia asked. When Bitsy looked into her eyes, she saw so much in there it almost swamped him.
She took her hand. “C’mon, Alicia, let’s go sit for a minute.” When she began to protest, she waved a hand in front of Alicia’s face. “No buts. We have time before the show starts.”
They sat down in two high chairs facing each other, and Bitsy carefully wrapped them both in silence, quieting the noise from outside. People outside the bubble swam slowly past, but Bitsy and Alicia paid them no mind.
“Why this sudden anxiety, sweetheart?” When Bitsy was Eric, her voice was lower and sometimes she found herself pitching her voice lower in an attempt to achieve her normalcy. Alicia was the one person who hadn’t called her on it - although Bitsy supposed she could understand in the way that many people couldn’t.
“I just - it’s so unstable! I worry constantly that I’m gonna be outed and that’s gonna be it! This is definitely not the most stable of professions I could’ve chosen,” Alicia worried.
“Now, sweetheart, when you say outed, do you mean as trans? Or as bi? I just want to know, I want to keep you safe,” Bitsy assured her.
Alicia scrubbed her hands through her hair, then quickly shifted the curly brown locks back into order. “Both, I guess. Either. Both of them are potentially career ending! And so many people, so many other models, want so badly to see me fail! I can’t be forced out, but I know, sooner or later, I will!” She dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her robe, and Bitsy quickly shifted from her chair to huddle next Alicia, squeezing her to her side.
“Alicia, honey, look at me?” Bitsy moved to crouch in front of Alicia, letting her robe gape.
“Oh, Bits, your robe!” Alicia pointed out.
Bitsy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. No one can see us. Focus on me, okay?” Bitsy’s voice was liquid, draping itself around Alicia until she desperately needed to hear what Bitsy was going to say next.
“Alicia. You are going to do so many great thing - amazing things! - with your career, and this is where it begins! I promise, you are going to go out there and you are going to steal that runway from right under Sheila’s bitchy nose, and you are going to stun everyone. And, Alicia, in five years, you are going to be a fucking icon.” The words stung, burrowed their way under Alicia’s skin, but she was trapped to listen. “People are going to look at you, and they are going to say, ‘That is a woman who can do anything she wants to.’ You are going to own every room you walk into, you are going to have a loving husband, and a beautiful son, and they aregoing to love you, and you will love them, and everybody is going to love you, Alicia. This is the night that that begins. I promise you that.”
Bitsy stood up and crushed Alicia against her, feeling Alicia’s tears run down her stomach. “But how do you know,” she sniffled. “How do you know all that?”
“I’m your biggest cheerleader, sweetpea. I love you more than you’ll ever know, and I know for a fact that you are the best model in this room,” Bitsy told her.
Alicia laughed. “Better than you?” She burrowed her face into Bitsy’s soft belly.
Bitsy’s torso shook with laughter. “Oh, honey. So much better than me.” Alicia felt, rather than saw, one tear slide down Bitsy’s cheek and onto her scalp. It burned, but the pain was delicious, and she was suffused with a comforting warmth. “Come on, Alicia, let’s get dressed.”
Bitsy squeezed Alicia’s hand right before she left to take her walk, and Alicia watched the photographers ignore her with uncharacteristic disinterest. Usually, Bitsy glowed as she walked, but tonight it was almost as if she was invisible. But then it was her turn, and Alicia couldn’t worry about Bitsy because there was a hand between her shoulderblades, nudging her forward, oh god she was falling -
Alicia took her first step onto the runway and the cameras flashed.
_/\_
In the dressing room, backstage, every executive there wanted to speak with Alicia. She shook hands quickly and smiled perfunctorily. But every free second, she searched for Bitsy’s head above the crowd.
Alicia finally found her in a room that could’ve been a closet save the vanity mirror casting glaring light over everything. Bitsy grinned at Alicia in the mirror when she came in, then spun around to hug her. “I told you you could do it!” she squealed into Alicia’s hair. “I told you!”
“Bitsy! I did it!” She lifted Bitsy off the ground and spun her around. “I love you! Bitsy, I fucking love you!” The girls parted briefly, then Bitsy pulled her back in.
“I told you! The cameras loved you tonight! I wouldn’t be surprised if you started getting more offers after this show, Alicia!” Bitsy laughed happily, and then Alicia was laughing too, and then they were barely standing, clinging to each other for dear life.
Another girl poked her head in the door. “Hey, a few of us are going out for drinks, and you two are invited.” She smiled brittly. “See you there!”
Alicia composed herself, standing, and smoothing out the wrinkles in her street dress. “I think I’m gonna go. You coming?”
Bitsy shook her head, still laughing. “Nah, I think I’m just gonna head back to mine. You go have fun, we can have a girls night some other night.”
“You sure?” Alicia asked.
“Yeah! Go have fun!” Bitsy chided. “I’ll see you around, Alicia.”
“Alright!” Alicia ducked out of the room, waving. “See you!”
Bitsy waited a moment, then walked out of the dressing room, slipping unnoticed down the stairs. Eric walked out the door and into the street. He turned into an alley, and there he put his hood up and shimmered away in a fluttering of golden glitter.
Bitsy never showed up at another show again. Alicia worried about her, sure, but she didn’t want to go to the police. Plus, the only thing she knew about Bitsy was that her name was Elizabeth Rachel. Didn’t even have a last name. But she could never quite forget Bitsy.
In the days following her son’s birth, Alicia lived in the hospital waiting room until the paperwork was complete and her son was hers legally.. One night, Alicia couldn’t sleep, so she decided to walk down the room where Jack was sleeping and watch him for a while.
But she had been beaten to it. A young blond man stood at the glass with one soft looking hand pressed against the window. Alicia hovered a few inches away from a nurse call button until he spoke.
“What’d you name him?” he asked, his voice soft and comforting. Alicia tucked her hand inside her sweatshirt and walked over to stand next to him.
“Jack,” she rasped, her voice scratchy and raw.
The man nodded, his eyes glimmering. “That’s a lovely name, Mrs. Zimmermann. He’s a beautiful baby.”
“You think so? My husband says he has chameleon eyes,” came out before Alicia could stop herself.
The man laughed, and it was a wondrous sound. “That sounds like Bob.” For the first time, Alicia noticed the tears lingering unshed in his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“He’s going to face so much,” he whispered. “And he’ll have to be so brave, and so strong. Too strong.” The man sighed. “So much adversity. At least he’ll have you, Alicia.” He turned to face her as the first of the tears fell and Alicia instinctively caught one with her finger. The burning and warmth that followed were achingly familiar, and as she looked into his eyes she knew him, for a moment she recognized him.
“Who -?” she gasped. He brushed past her, laying a hand on her shoulder as he passed.
“You already know who I am.”