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You can taste her blood on your lips. It’s like warm pennies on a hot summer afternoon, and when your tongue swipes over your bottom lip, the taste is tangy and fresh. You’re here, in your old apartment with the love of your life sleeping in the next room. When the clack of your fingers against your laptop stop and you close your eyes and focus, you can hear her breathing. Soft, slow, steady, everything that Amanita is, fills the empty space, and you’re lulled by the noise, not quite ready to go back to reality.
Something changes in the air. One moment, you’re thinking of Amanita, letting her flood your senses and clear out your worries. The next, the soft sounds are gone, like a thready whisper in the back of your mind that you can’t listen to just yet. You’re there but you aren’t, somewhere else, and out of all of your cluster-mates, you feel like you’ve done this the most and least. Your connection strengthens and you’re annoyed, for just a moment, when you realize someone needs you. Your selfishness must wait, for now.
Sun, you realize instantly. You’ve only really meet once, twice. Although you share a connection with her, you’re always opposite sides of the coins. Sun fights, beautiful, daring, dazzling displays of dexterity and skill and self-control. You hack, you fight from behind a screen and make sure to always have a back up plan for your back up plan. It doesn’t leave much room to speak, and from what you’ve seen, she prefers to talk with her fists much more than her words.
Your eyes blink open and the dim light from the jail cell does nothing for her pale complexion. Your day had been busy, a success, but busy, and now there’s only a small window of celebration before you have to deal with the real world. Will, the only reason you’re still alive today, is in danger. This is all too real. Whispers, Doctor whatever he likes to call himself, wants you all dead and no one knows why still. Your mind is on rest but the adrenaline courses through your body, ready to jump and run and move at any moment. You understand that you’re not safe.
But now isn’t the time to get stuck in your head. Sun’s quiet, the scabs on her fist freshly formed as she clenches them in front of you. She’s in isolation, for doing something bad. She’s angry and frustrated, and most of all she’s all alone. No one is left and you aren’t sure what that means exactly but it doesn’t make your heart hurt any less. Part of you yearns to be able to hear Amanita’s soft snores again; she’s your safety net, your bullet proof vest. Her love has protected you and it will again from that stifling, unbearable, loneliness that comes with being different.
“When did you know?” Sun asks, curiosity in her question, and you instantly assume she’s talking about what everyone always wants to talk about. Still, it’s better to not just ramble on about being true to oneself and living in shadows, so you qualify her question with a question. Something tells you that Sun isn’t one for idle chit-chat, and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t slightly scared of her.
“When did I know that I was a woman?”
“No,” she answers abruptly, after staring at you for a few hard moments. Her eye are hard like shiny rocks, but there’s something else behind them, something not so unmovable. It makes her look incredibly human. “When did you know that you loved a woman?”
“Oh.” What she asks next throws you for a loop. It takes you a minute to gather your thoughts, to give her an answer, but she’s patient. Sun seems to have a never-ending stream of patience, until she doesn’t, and you can tell that the stained cement behind her wouldn’t agree with you. It’s the first thing you’ve seen her look less than certain about, and you hesitate. Is there a right answer? No, probably not.
“Slowly, and then all at once,” you manage to get out, your voice much scratchier than normal. You know that Neets is sleeping in another room and you don’t want to disturb her, but that isn’t the only reason. This talk feels intimate, private, like it’s made just for the two of you and you don’t want anyone else to intrude. You realize that Sun caught you at the apex of your thoughts, before the love could come crashing down and knock you out of your own mind. You were thinking of love, and she must have been too.
“Like it had been there the whole time, but it wasn’t something I wanted to deal with until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.” You’re starting to realize that this story sounds like another story, and maybe all stories are inexplicably linked because life is complex that way. Transitioning as a woman to become a lesbian brought on a lot of scorn, but both journeys were different and all of the same. There will always be.
“Until I found someone who reminded me that I deserved to be loved no matter what. Someone who loved me for who I am.” There’s a smile on your face, and Amanita clouds your thoughts again. Everything you’ve been through, everything, is worth it if she’s by your side. With her, you're never alone, and you never will be again.
“Isn’t that what a parent is for?” Sun’s voice is soft, but it doesn’t stop the sharp edge of resentment from burrowing between your ribs. Your mother, the one person who was supposed to love you unconditionally, tried to have you killed just to soothe her own willful ignorance. Sun’s thoughts are on her parents too, suddenly you’re side by side instead of sitting across from her, and your hand is on her shoulder. Sun flinches away from the touch but you’re bigger than she is, more confident in this moment. When your arm wraps around her she leans into the touch, and you realize just how small and fragile she really is.
“Sometimes,” you murmur, pretending like you don’t see the shiny tracts running down her face. It’s really not fair that she’s even a pretty crier, because most women just aren’t. They blubber or wail or making awful screeching noises. Sun's tears are silent, they're proud, and in that second you think she's the most remarkable person you've ever met. Then you’re in your own head, and you can’t remember shutting your laptop, or turning out the light, or quietly walking to the bedroom
“Sometimes we have you wait for someone to show you that everything is going to be okay. That you’re going to be okay.”
Sun’s curled up, her legs pulled up to her chest as her knees are covered with her bloody knuckles. She’s staring intently at you, and then back to Amanita, as you climb into bed. Your lover shifts around in her sleep, drawing an arm around your waist as she pulls you in. You can feel the soft exhale of her breathe on your neck and you sigh into her touch. This is what you needed after a long day of running and saving and waiting. Amanita's your everything, wrapped around you and you may as well be in a bomb shelter because nothing can touch you.
“Thank you,” ghosts across your ear. You’re so sleepy, you realize that you must have accidentally broken the fragile connection. You feel worry for a moment, because Sun’s not sitting in the chair when you look over Neets’s shoulder and you hope she’s alright, wherever she is. No one should have to be alone. And then a blink later you can smell the sweat in Sun’s hair and the starch against your fingertips as your arm links over her waist. She’s small but warm, and when she shifts back into you and her fingers squeeze your hand, you’ve never felt so comfortable in your entire life.