Titansliv3

she glanced out the bay window to the other side of her. she could see the forest and the wavering silhouette of a deer, and for a moment she understood it. she and the deer were the same in that they were always standing off at the border of the pavement, both of them asking the same question: what comes next? what happens if i cross? i step to the middle. i turn, and there is light.

paige had gotten up early, most likely in the kitchen or out at the gym. this meant azzi had time to build her fortress. her wife was one of the most beloved things in her life, and in being so, azzi tried her hardest to avoid subjecting her to this version of herself.

but paige noticed patterns; paige was good at patterns. in fact, paige had been the one to urge azzi a year ago to begin tracking so that they could go to the gynecologist. you shouldn’t be in this much pain, she had whispered into azzi’s temple. i was raised catholic, azzi had wanted to whisper back, i know how to suffer—but her body had been lead that day, and so instead she had fallen asleep.

paige was tuned into most things, but above all, she was tuned in to azzi. but here she was unreachable. this wasn’t something to film-study and fix. this was only azzi at war with herself, and it was private, cellular, and deeply humiliating. this illness that infested her bloodstream, that had no visible wound to press.

it was always the same: two weeks before her period, it would start.

azzi would wake up with a strange tenderness in her chest, like she'd swallowed a blade in her sleep and her body had, against all wisdom, begun to heal around it. she’d look at paige and feel a course of love so large that it terrified her, and then—almost instantly—feel the fear behind the love: the knowledge that love was a spirit with the possibility of ruin, the knowledge of love as the rain and azzi as the earth that drowned beneath it.

she’d feel too aware of herself, far too aware of the space she took up. everything grated: her voice sounded when she asked for something, paige's face in the half-second before she answered, sunlight, moonlight, the bedsheets. it was as if her brain had developed a second language overnight, one that translated everything—every gesture, every pause, every nothing—into threat.

it was all against her: the world, her wife, even the bedsheets, abrasive, even a bystander in the grocery store parking lot who had done nothing more than exist near her.

paige could say hey, baby, how are you? and azzi would hear you’re utterly exhausting.

paige could ask you need anything? and azzi would only hear here we go again.

paige could hold her jaw and say look at me, i love you and azzi would only hear don’t make me regret it.

she hated it most then, when she could tell it wasn't real. when she knew she was misreading paige and still unable to stop, like watching herself cross a street against the light and being powerless to call herself back. she normally loved it when paige held her face and said look at me. look at me, i love you.

that was the true sickness of it: clarity without control. she wanted them back, them both.

she managed a few more minutes, lay there staring at the ceiling until the bedroom door opened and paige entered, bright movements around the bedroom, humming while she pulled clothes from the closet with her normal boat of casual confidence. azzi wanted to scream at her, to snap about her lack of consideration, but she got a hand around her mouth before she could and briefly felt like a child again, looking at the neighbor’s dog with its snout muzzled. she thought a lot of the mouth - the parts of it, of its crush against another. the way it opened. the way it could close.

it was a soft, dangerous trap, and she only opened wider.

azzi despised the way she existed to the point of discomfort. she loathed the thought of passing this down to a daughter: her personhood, so heavy that for fourteen days—sometimes longer—she struggled to begin the day and get out of bed. she was often an animal then, curled on her stomach and restless in sleep. her mind was never quiet. everything that was a drop of water became a pool, even if there was nowhere further to go. every small thing was asked to be a catastrophe, and some part of her kept agreeing.

azzi always felt on the edge of flight, bones straining against the skin as if all it would take was for someone to blow on her to prompt her free. she was not sure if it was always worth it to go through life this way. it was not something she could connect rules to. it was not something that she could ease because to restrain it was to lose herself, to lose the sensitivity that also made her the way she was the other fourteen days—the good fourteen, when she loved paige with a completeness that almost frightened her.

how could she do that to someone she loved?

paige came out of the bathroom with her hair still damp, face fresh, skin gleaming wet and aggressively clean. she had a grey cotton towel wrapped around her, but let it drop as azzi reached a hand out toward her, palm up, fingers uncurled. she leaned over azzi's prone form, blonde hair gone dark with water, and azzi could smell the root of her and her soap before it was masked by cologne: peach, chantilly cream, honeydew, bigarade, jasmine, a ginger note.

“hey, baby,” paige murmured.

azzi watched her with an unreadable expression, slowly losing herself to paige’s gaze, slipping into the blue. paige touched the side of her waist with two fingers, the tips soft in their touch.

“you still down for tonight?”

azzi blinked slowly, then carefully raised herself upward, hand settled in the middle of paige’s back to keep her steady. she slid that same hand up to the nape of her neck, then further into the thick of her damp hair, free hand coming to loiter on paige’s waist as she dragged all 6’0 of her wife into her lap. paige flushed at the motion, and azzi felt a flicker of feeling, the pink-edged pleasure of catching her wife by surprise; the brief, bright relief of being someone paige wanted to be caught by.

“remind me what tonight is again,” she said, though she knew. she’d known all week.

paige’s eyebrows lifted, amused. she knew this, too.

“dinner, mama. with liv and them.”

azzi closed her eyes, let out a low hum of understanding. liv. paige’s people. the orbit of friends paige had kept from college and the league and the endless overlap of both. they weren’t cruel at all, but azzi liked them less than she liked paige’s teammates. she found this group just a little too sharp, bizarrely competitive in a way that seemed to never turn off. they belonged to the vein of people who made jokes that leaned more offensive than comedic, and then, if you said as much, insisted you were too sensitive if you didn’t laugh.

they loved paige; they loved her rather loudly. but azzi always felt as though she was being assessed beside her, like an accessory someone might return. today in particular, she could not trust the accuracy of that feeling, and that uncertainty made it worse, not better. maybe she was the problem. maybe she was always the problem. the luteal phase specialized in that, making the unfalsifiable feel like fact.

“oh, i don’t really feel like going,” azzi said, and she pushed it out all in one breath.

it came out even, almost casual. she’d tried to make it sound normal, as though she was turning down the offer to view a film.

paige paused, leaning back, further away from her. azzi watched her shoulders flex and idly pressed a palm to the back of her, where she could feel the scapulae shuddering.

“what? why?”

azzi shrugged. her body felt like it was full of wet sand.

“i’m tired.”

in turn, paige gave her that look - soft, coaxing. her best working look, the one she used with kids at camps, with rookies who looked as though they might cry under another lashing from their coach, with azzi when she refused to admit she needed something, most often help.

“it’s just dinner,” paige said. “we’ll stay for, like, an hour. two, tops.”

azzi stared at the ceiling again. it was never an hour. it was never two. paige got there and became paige—radiant, social, highly regarded—and azzi would sit beside her, wasting away, feeling herself disappear and the copper tang of panic rising as she began to wonder if anyone could see her any longer. if she had already gone. if the thing sitting in her chair at the table was something else wearing her, doing a passable imitation.

“p,” azzi said, quieter, “i really don’t want to.”

paige leaned in then, hovering over her for a moment, before sliding free of azzi’s hold and lingering at the edge of the bed. she leaned down and pressed a kiss to azzi’s forehead -the connection butter-melted, warm and sloping over azzi's body before drifting away.

“you’re just in your head again, baby,” paige murmured. “we get like this, all comfy, just us two. but we gotta see people; it’s good for us. just tryna get us out. c’mon. for me.”

for a moment, the fall of her hair made azzi think of the floral arrangement out in the hallway, the one she’d had made and presented paige with just because: quicksand and playa blanca roses, white tulips, ivory calla lilies, pale beige dahlia, white anemones; a filler of bleached ruscus, dusty miller, and white astilbe. a blonde bouquet, azzi had teased, and paige had laughed even though it wasn’t all that funny. that was marriage, maybe. laughing when things weren't that funny, because the laughter was the point.

for me.

a gentle, affectionate plea. an unintended enormous weight.

azzi felt her lips part, her mouth opening and nearly letting slip: some parasite has crawled inside of me and has tainted me. i can’t explain this to you without sounding entirely insane.

instead, she said, “okay.”

because she loved paige. paige had a strain of loyalty that made you want to match it when exposed to it, made you ache to be the kind of partner who showed up always, who didn’t make things difficult, who was devoid of a devastating internal weather that could take up the whole room.

because she loved paige. and by saying okay, she sent out the only translation available to her, the only word that crossed between her language and paige’s in this moment. and so she said it, though her body was still full of wet sand, and the sun was straining over the room and causing a headache, and she would get up now.

she would get up, and she would go.

because she loved paige.

and that was all, really.

getting ready as a concept was by far easier than the execution of it.

in an effort to energize herself for the evening, azzi had taken herself back to bed after breakfast, pressing a light kiss to paige’s temple as she told her she was going to take a nap. as she strode into their room, she shrugged off the sweat set she had put on for the morning and didn’t bother with dressing herself in anything else before sliding underneath the sheets.

she’d slept too late, into the dark, waking up from a dream that remained more vivid in feeling than in detail. and her body had been so desperate to expel itself from her fantasy that it had forced her into a coughing fit. it had been a terrible feeling, to sit halfway up in the dark with her lungs contracting and expanding erratically, her throat scratched to shit as she heaved out so viciously that she kept retching up air and couldn’t breathe. azzi tried to call for paige but couldn’t get the word out, her voice lost, tried to raise her hands above her head, but it didn’t work the way it normally did, so instead she twisted her way out of the sheets and stumbled and fell into their wardrobe, feet bare against the new soft green body of the persian runner she’d laid against the floor the day before.

she’d turned on so many lights in different rooms looking for her wife—kitchen, bedroom, bathroom—hands pressing and pressing against the walls until she felt the slick white bodies of the switches tilt up, light opening and opening until she was drenched with it, until she was nothing but light and the animal fear of being seen. azzi knew then that she was having a panic attack: legs gone tingly, near numb, and she felt as though she was going to tumble straight off the porcelain rim of the toilet once she made it there. she’d barely made it back to the bedroom, where her phone was propped up, charging, glowing—something rapturous enough that could save her.

and there she lay, four in the afternoon, finally summoning enough strength to call paige, who had been only taking the dogs out. eventually, she felt stable enough to try to fall back asleep somewhere near five fifteen, and was woken again by paige’s gentle rocking at six—dinner was at eight—and azzi gazed at her, face like a moon and heart like a soldier, eyes shutting tightly and intermittently as she tried not to feel sick.

i had a nightmare, azzi told her, and she felt immensely like a child - so much so that she nearly burst into tears. but she pushed on, broke away to go shelter in the shower.

now, azzi stood in front of the mirror and tried to make herself look like someone who belonged properly to this evening's dinner, to her own life. she pulled on a red dress she’d bought months ago but had yet to wear: red, blood red, consequence red. a cling to her shoulders as if trying to hold her in place, keeping her upright. the neckline sat high, qipao-adjacent, nearly choking her but loose enough to avoid doing so - hiding her throat because the throat was vulnerable and everyone knew that. the fabric was fitted along her torso, tailored where it counted, neatly hemmed where it needed to be, but that fell apart at the skirt. the skirt was ruffled, like a secret panic—ruffles on ruffles on ruffles, swallowing her legs, swallowing the floor, an avalanche—folds so thick they looked nearly edible, like cake frosting, except the cut of it wasn’t sweet.

azzi knew paige would like it, even before she came up behind her, knew it would make her wife’s eyes go a little hungry, deepen into sapphire. she put on mascara and watched her lashes darken into black jasper.

her face looked fine, beautiful, even. but her eyes were all wrong, as if she’d been awake for days. she was clearly shaken. hopefully, no one commented on it.

she heard a scrabble of nails on the tile, and when she turned her head to look back, her face didn’t match what she was wearing. her expression was small and careful, as if she were trying to apologize for all that red. after a few blank moments, she remembered herself, peering down at the long, solemn face of their six-year-old cream-colored borzoi with a patient smile, letting a hand down to drag along the velvet backs of her ears as she cooed her name: aemma, my aemma, aemma, sweet girl.

paige came up behind her and slid her hands around azzi’s waist. she pressed her mouth to azzi’s shoulder, warm and easy.

“my god,” paige said, voice low. “you look beautiful.”

azzi should’ve felt flattered, at the very least desired. but she felt a deep wave of sadness so sudden it almost made her dizzy.

i just know i’m something animal, she thought, with brown eyes that are endless and long legs that knock into each other and bruise when i roll back and forth at night. i want to submerge myself underneath our comforter so that i can feel even warmer, even though our heat hasn’t once been turned off. even though i am already burning in the dead of winter.

but could she say nothing of the kind because paige wouldn’t understand her. paige could want her and still not understand her. paige could love her and still not know how lonely it was inside of her head, her mind an endless maze, the leaves devouring her.

azzi swallowed, the sound hard and wet, and forced a minute upturn to the edges of her lips.

“thank you, honey,” she said, and hated how lackluster it sounded.

she felt paige let her go and promptly secured her up-do with a mahogany and white jade hairstick before bending and touching a satin-matte-shade del rio kiss to aemma’s wet nose. when she pulled back, it looked as though the black cobblestone tip was bleeding red.

in the car, paige drove with one hand on the wheel, the other reaching over to rest on azzi’s thigh. she always did that, and azzi appreciated the reassurance, the unknown way she was anchoring azzi to the present.

azzi stared out of the window at the city slurring past: streetlights, headlights, neon heartbeats of their chosen hometown. she turned away, back and inward, when paige squeezed her thigh.

“you okay, az?” paige said. “you’ve been a little quiet.”

azzi felt such a swell of affection then, immeasureably touched by paige’s insistence on knowing whether or not she was happy, on being determined to change it if it wasn’t so. she intertwined their hands, joining them, and lifted the bulk to kiss her wife’s knuckles. she smoothed them down after, fingers pressing along pale skin, sending the golden dusting of hair back into its downward drift.

“yes, sorry. i really am tired—that nightmare stole all of my sleep.”

and it truly wasn’t a lie. exhaustion was the most common symptom of her disorder, a depletion that traveled bone-deep, bleaching her limbs white, wearing her down. paige glanced at her, eyes roving up and down azzi’s face, a lighthouse searching.

“you mad at me?”

“of course not.”

“you sure?”

azzi exhaled through her nose. “paige. i’m sure. we wouldn’t have left if i were. you’ve done nothing wrong, i swear.”

paige made a noise low in her throat as though she didn’t believe her—and azzi knew she didn’t—but refrained from the urge to push. paige was like that: patient until she wasn't, patient until she got tired of guessing and yanked rather than pulled at a thread.

they arrived at the restaurant, and azzi’s stomach tightened as soon as she saw the warm spill of light through the windows, the silhouettes of bodies inside. there was a rise of laughter that was shed from the inhabitants, and the sound poured forth into the parking lot, an amber blaze. azzi felt dread seize her from all sides, an onslaught of warning for disaster.

paige parked and turned the car off.

“you good?” paige asked a final time.

azzi saw it for what it was: an escape route. she nodded, resolute.

paige leaned in, kissed her cheek, then her mouth. “one word and we’re gone.”

azzi closed the gap a second time, licking into paige’s mouth before breaking off, wiping carefully at the waxy smear of lipstick she’d left behind. they both knew she wouldn’t say a word, wouldn’t say anything at all.

the restaurant was called the monarch. inside, the lighting was soft, yellowed, and impossibly low, spilling from unseen sources in graceful ribbons that pooled around the edges of the wooden floor. then there was the kitchen: open, exposed, a fire blazing within, emanating something almost psychosexual, a charge that spread as you walked past it. a gaze locked with a chef's for a moment, longer than was necessary. it lingered until you unraveled, wet and runny, a loose yolk.

paige’s friends were already there, of course, gathered around a circular stone table at the center like a small court, and the second paige was in view, the entire group swelled with light. olivia—liv to close friends, olivia mostly to azzi—swept forward, olive neck encircled by a gold band set with a diamond as large as a fruit.

“p!” she cheered.

paige smiled immediately, huge and effortless, the way she did on-camera. she slid into the moment like it was a tailored suit. azzi could only clutch tightly at her fingers and follow a step behind, already feeling the faint sting of being the evening's afterthought.

olivia hugged paige first, tightly. she was an art collector, founder of calatayud collection house; paige had met her through an interior design recommendation from lala and arike, and upon learning they were both from minnesota, born in two sets of coordinates that bordered one another, they had hit it off immediately.

“finally,” she said. “we were about to order apps without you.”

paige laughed. “you wouldn’t.”

“oh, we would. i’m fucking starving! we would’ve gotten you calamari, of course,” liv teased.

she pulled back and looked at azzi. her smile was quick but not unkind. “hey, azzi.”

“hi, liv, it’s really nice to see you again,” azzi said. “you look lovely.”

paige squeezed her hand, thumb rubbing the back of it - you're doing so well. the sentiment seemed to soften liv, and she put a hand on azzi's arm.

“i love your dress. it’s perfect for you.”

“thank you so much,” azzi responded, smiling with as much warmth as she could summon. she accepted the compliment and left it there before her brain could begin its work.

one of the guys—some teammate's brother whose name she could never hold—leaned over and grinned.

“azzi! good to see you’re alive. i swear we never hang out with you these days.”

azzi’s smile stretched stiffly on her face, an unnatural drag. “yeah, i’m sorry about that. it’s just been a bit busy lately.”

"courtesy of the ol' ball and chain," he cracked off, laughing at his own joke, and paige laughed too, because she knew azzi wouldn’t.

azzi laughed a second late, uncomfortably delayed; she could already feel the night draining something from her.

they sat. paige pulled out both their chairs before sliding into her own, and then—without asking—pushed azzi in and ordered two seven-ounce glasses of wine. something azzi usually found sweet - the way paige remembered her preferences, the way paige remembered her without having to be reminded. but tonight it rankled, felt like being spoken for. their knees pressed together under the table, casual intimacy,

conversation moved quickly, a blessing, darting between league gossip and old stories and inside jokes azzi wasn’t part of. paige was relaxed, leaning back, talking with her hands. azzi watched the ligaments move, the joints articulating as she expressed herself; her laugh was everywhere, a mellow lullaby, and azzi felt herself begin to separate—from her chair, from the table, from the version of herself she'd been only a few hours ago—as she watched paige become the public paige, the one the world got. she watched the ease with which paige belonged, and the sadness in her chest deepened, slow and sticky, like resin setting.

she tried. she really tried.

she remembered herself, her tasks, asked questions. she smiled and nodded along to someone’s news about this and that, even made a joke that landed well and earned a boisterous round of laughter, and then another that glened a few more. and for a moment, she felt the relief of being perceived as normal, as one of the group, with skin that fit.

then olivia turned to paige, wine glass raised coyly to the side of her cheek, wrist loose.

“so,” liv said, green eyes glittering—moss over rock—, “is it true y’all are moving?”

paige shrugged. “might be.”

azzi blinked, once and then again, before slowly turning her head to look over at her wife. paige kept talking, fingers toying with her napkin ring.

“we’ve been thinking about it for a while. just like… somewhere quieter.”

azzi felt her stomach drop. it wasn't the first time they'd talked about moving; they both ached for that sally mann kind of living, especially thinking about children. but—but nothing had been decided. and paige was talking about it as though it were settled, set in stone, as though azzi wasn't sitting right there with her own resistances and reservations; as though she were a footnote in this decision already made.

liv’s eyebrows shot up. “oh, my god. paige bueckers in the suburbs.”

laughter circled the table. the outpour settled into azzi’s body like a vibration. she felt like a bell, struck.

paige twisted her face in mock offense before letting it fall into an easy smile. “hey! not too much, now. i’m still me.”

azzi kept her face neutral, but she leaned closer to paige, voice a low curl.

“we’re moving?” she repeated.

paige's smile faltered for a fraction of a second. she turned so that for a moment they were closer than ever, heads settled together, uninviting the table from their intimacy. the position put only the other in focus, and it was why they both missed the dark shutter of olivia's face and the large swallow of wine that followed.

“not like, decided, mama,” paige murmured. “‘m just talking.”

azzi nodded, laid her hand along paige's thigh to say she understood. but something in her tightened: a small humiliation, a tiny cut. they broke apart, and the conversation rolled on, and azzi found herself shrinking again, pulling back from the edge of the table as if loath to let the light reach where she sat.

at some point, cam—another friend—looked at azzi and said, with the careful lightness of someone who actually wanted to know,

“you good? you look like you’re about to cry.”

it had a teasing nature, as though it were a joke. and azzi knew it was intended as much. cameron was one of the only people here she genuinely liked—a newly licensed therapist, and exceptional at it. a truly sweet girl. she'd probably leveled the question with levity precisely so the table wouldn't turn.

azzi felt her face flush. she stared at her water glass.

“i’m fine,” she answered, and it was meant to be soft, but came out like the shut of a door.

cameron raised her hands, silver rings blinding with the reflecting light. “okay. just checking.”

azzi touched her mouth in delayed horror, went to apologize, but the moment had already moved past her. azzi’s throat tightened. she blinked slowly and held her face in place. paige leaned in, murmuring, you’re fine, baby. cam knows you didn’t mean it, and azzi hummed and flagged down the server for a refill of her water.

paige was most likely right, but azzi couldn’t ignore it. she couldn’t set aside the way her insides were twisting, the height of the disorder rising, spitting her back out in a knot.

the rest of the dinner blurred. their plates arrived. azzi had chosen fish—salmon, to be exact—and it arrived blushing pink and sliced thin, fanned opulently across a black wire rack, flesh glistening under the low light, adorned by garnishes of black caviar, horseradish, and jewel-bright jam in a delicate blue-and-white porcelain dish. a set of crisp flatbreads leaned artfully against the edge; a tableau seemed made for someone else, far more present.

azzi picked at the salmon with the side of her fork, letting it curl onto her plate like a ribbon unwound. she spread a whisper of jam onto sourdough and bit into it without tasting, careful to maintain the pace of someone enjoying herself. her stomach tightened with every pass of the spoon over caviar, every careful dollop of cream. the food felt like a prop, her enjoyment a performance, and she could feel the audience—even if no one was watching—aware of her disconnection.

paige's hand stayed on azzi's thigh, but it did nothing now to soften the way her mind grew louder, her body heavier. she felt as though she was trapped behind glass, watching herself smile. by the time they'd made their perfunctory rounds of goodbye hugs and cheek kisses, her face ached from the effort of holding expression.

outside, the air was cold enough to bite. it should have helped, a glacial spill of clarity over her head. instead, it only made her feel more exposed. paige traipsed ahead, ribbing someone walking alongside them, and azzi slowed until she was floating behind like a spectre, watching their hands separate from a few paces back. she was dimly aware of it: the way paige reacted to the absence of her—an immediate stop, a loose spin edged with panic until she found her again. azzi stored that somewhere small and private, momentarily buoyed.

eventually, they made it to the car. the last friend peeled off three rows away, and paige turned the heat on, rnb starting automatically - a suede bluetooth bloom. she reversed out of the spot with one hand on the wheel and the other reaching across for azzi, neck bent like a crane’s leg as she looked manually out the rear window.

azzi didn’t move her leg away, but she didn’t lean into it either. as they pulled back onto the highway, the silence stretched. paige glanced at her, cobalt gaze pinched.

“you okay?”

azzi gazed through the windshield, face as empty as the glass, before going, “yeah.”

paige’s hand slid away. “no, you’re not.”

azzi said nothing.

“az.”

the particular exasperation in it, the plea threaded through the irritation, made azzi's skin prickle.

“what?” she said.

“why are you acting like this?”

azzi kept her eyes on the road. “like what?”

“like you're somewhere else entirely,” paige snapped. like you can't stand being near me.”

azzi's hands were folded in her lap, fingers pressed together so tightly that the joints had gone white. she pursed her lips.

“i told you i didn’t want to go,” she reminded her. she knew it was the wrong thing to say, though she said it anyway.

paige made a short sound. “okay, but you came.”

azzi turned her head slightly, looking at paige from underneath her lashes. “because you asked me to.”

“yeah, i asked. i didn’t make you.”

azzi laughed under her breath; bitter, hollow, a sound she barely recognized as her own. “no. but you know i’d do anything for you.”

“it was dinner,” paige said. “it wasn’t a hostage situation.”

azzi's throat burned, constricted. she reached up and pulled the hairstick from the dark twist of her hair, the pull incredibly sharp, three strands ripping free from the root.

“fuck, az—be careful.”

the road lights dripped across everything—windsheild, windows, the wing mirrors—high-beam refractions sketching paige's face briefly unfamiliar, harder, the angles more severe than azzi knew them.

“i felt like shit the whole time,” azzi said. “and your friends were being—.”

“my friends weren’t doing anything,” paige said immediately.

azzi looked at her. a long, even look. she could hear herself somewhere deep down, screaming at her to stop. “did you know that liv is in love with you?”

paige pressed her heel to the floor mat, grip tightening on the wheel. “not this again. she's not. she just jokes—that's how she is.”

“that's the problem.” azzi's voice stayed level, which somehow felt worse than if it had risen. “that’s always the excuse. that's how she is. that’s how they all are. that’s how you are. that's how i’m supposed to be.”

paige exhaled sharply.

“what the fuck are you talking about right now? you want me to cut them off? fight everybody?”

azzi’s voice rose, involuntary. “no. i would never ask you to do that.” she settled. “i went to the dinner. i just want you to notice me, to notice when i’m uncomfortable.”

“i do notice you,” paige said, and there was something almost wounded in it now. “baby, i married you. i did that so i could notice you for the rest of my life.”

azzi shook her head. “that’s not what i mean.”

paige’s laugh had no humor in it. “do you even know what you mean?”

azz gave up then, turning from the rigid side profile of paige’s face to press her forehead to the cold glass of the passenger window. her breath fogged a small circle, and she watched it shrink. she felt on the edge of collapse, and the precipice felt almost like a relief. she felt like she was already over it, a hair's breadth away from disintegration.

“no, i don’t,” azzi whispered

paige softened at that, body tenderized by the admission, and reached out to run a hand through azzi's fallen hair.

azzi didn't want to be this. a dramatic creature picking fights over topics that disguised her real afflictions. a serrated edge cutting and cutting until she'd bled out everyone's patience and tenderness for her, no longer beholden to tolerance. she loathed her ability to be difficult. she didn't want to be the kind of wife who turned everything into an emergency, who pulled every thread until the whole thing came apart.

but the thing about her and this insipid disorder was that it didn't feel anything like distortion. it simply felt like the truth, like her body handing her a document and saying: here. here is everything. evidence filed and organized. case closed.

azzi swallowed, her words tumescent and stuck. this all felt humiliating. how could you explain to someone that you were being possessed by your own making? that your brain had turned into a room full of weaponry, endless torture?

they turned into the drive, and as soon as paige parked, azzi unbuckled her seatbelt and burst from the car, stepping out before the engine had fully settled, moving without urgency but without pause; moving how she moved only when trying to outpace herself and knowing she couldn’t.

the garage door sealed shut behind them, and paige turned the car off as azzi fumbled with her keys. she got out quietly, closing the driver’s side behind her, and quietly selected the right one for the lock. azzi stayed still, staring straight ahead. paige perched her head on top of hers, thumb brushing azzi’s wrist.

“c’mon, mama,” paige said.

azzi stood just inside the doorway, coat still on, as though part of her had not yet agreed to come home. her body felt stuck in external mode, unable to unclench.

“az,” paige’s arms spread slightly. an opening, a doorway, please just step through it. “what is going on with you?”

azzi could only stare at her. paige's face was open, exhausted, and frustrated, and still, underneath all of it, trying. she was only offering her hands out. and azzi wanted to step into them—god, she wanted to—but something in her was still animal-cornered, still certain that if it stopped moving the chase would end and then it would die.

“i told you i didn’t want to go,” azzi said again. her voice sounded as though it was coming from someone else.

paige rubbed a hand over her face. “okay. yes. but we went. it’s done.”

azzi’s eyes stung.

paige stepped closer, reaching for her again. “come here.”

azzi jerked back.

“please don’t,” she said.

paige's hand stopped, fingers mid-curl. a terrible silence. azzi watched the hurt move across her face before it hardened over.

“what the hell?” paige said.

“please,” azzi's voice was barely above a whisper now, shaking at its edges. “i’m sorry. i can’t.”

she pressed her hands to her temples. her head felt like a hive, bees shouldering each other for space.

“you can’t what?”

“i don’t think i can be touched right now.”

paige exhaled through her mouth. when she spoke next, the frustration was still there, but so was something more unraveled - fraying, genuine. “so let me just understand: you can't be touched, you can't talk, you can't do dinner. i don’t—what am i supposed to do, az? what is it you actually need from me?"

azzi’s chest felt as though it was collapsing inward, and she was suddenly and entirely elsewhere—pulled back to her university days, stolen into the memory of the black, sweltering mouth of the tunnels as she rode the train late at night, watching the yellow-pocket-windows of passing carriages blinking in and out of the dark. other lives. other people, continuing. she was always in the tunnel between them.

“i don’t know,” azzi said finally.

paige's voice rose, not to a shout, but to the register just before it, where the control began to show its seams. “you don't know. azzi. you’ve been shutting down since this morning. looking at me like i’ve done something terrible. and i just—” she stopped, her jaw tight. when she looked back, what came out was small and almost involuntary, more exhaustion than pointed cruelty.

“you’re acting crazy right now.”

crazy.

the word arrived quietly. that was almost the worst of it, that it hadn’t been hurled in a fit of high temper, an accidental shot off a rifle both had thought unloaded. it had just slipped out, the way the most damaging things had a habit of. and it landed in azzi's chest, on the floor of her stomach, anchored to the ocean floor.

crazy.

the ugliest shorthand, the easiest dismissal. the easiest way to harm her. a fear fulfilled: her body was so unknowable, her mind even more so, and azzi always felt silly when she thought something was wrong because she was known to be a hypochondriac. but what was hypochondria but the body’s prophecy of its own unraveling? maybe, in ways, she was only a visionary. from the arcana, she’d nearly always pull high priestess.

azzi’s breath left her body in a swell of oxygen that mangled into a salt note not quite a sob. she gazed shell-shocked at paige, eyes wide and unblinking, and she felt the strangest sensation - floating above herself, watching the moment unfold from the ceiling. a sudden bid for freedom, as if she’d been waiting for this exact word. she stood very still. the kitchen light was on, and in it she could see aemma tucked against the base of the cabinet, ears low.

once, the world had been devoured by the chassis of hurricane named callum, and azzi still had to go to work. she’d felt as though she were in a mausoleum, everything so slick and wet and stony and gray. the winds were so strong that she’d lost every fight against them and was pushed by phantom hands, by the breath of something larger than weather. by the end, when she entered the sliding glass doors of her office building, she’d felt like the swell was inside of me and all she had to do was open her mouth and scream, collapse to the ground and writhe, and let it all spill out.

all the glass shattering and tumbling down, the concrete stairs rumbling as they divorced from one another and crashed onto every sign of life. the textile display in the lobby would go first, those great looming blank bodies snapping like branches off of toppling oaks. and azzi, in the middle, on the verge of running but unable to disengage with what possessed her. this is what it meant to live her own life.

she felt much like that now.

when azzi spoke again, her voice was different, unbearably quiet.

“i woke up this morning, and i felt it already,” she said. “before i even opened my eyes. just…waiting.” azzi wasn’t looking at paige. she was looking at the floor, or at nothing, or at the shape of whatever it was that she was trying to say. “i feel it moving, surging through me like i’m the levee and it’s the water. i feel it crawling all over me, a snake determined to bite. and i’m paralyzed, i'm watching myself, and i know—i know—it's not real. or it is real, but it’s wrong. but i can’t stop it. i’m helpless. i can’t get out of my own way. and moves much faster when it realizes i’m unable to fight.”

she stopped. she pressed her palm flat against the front of her coat, directly over her sternum.

“yes,” she said, “i do feel rather insane.”

paige’s face changed instantaneously.

“azzi—”

“don’t.”

azzi’s voice ripped, though still no rise. she shrugged her coat off, the heap sloughing to the floor.

“don't do that voice. you can’t fix this. there isn't a version of tonight where you say the right thing, and i'm okay.” she paused. “i’m not saying that to be cruel, paige. i’m saying it because it’s true.”

“it’s as though i'm strapped in, and someone else is driving,” she said, and her voice had gone to something very small, very careful, a near gasp as she searched for the best words and found them far from her. “and i can see the road. i can see everything—i see myself say things and think things and do things and feel things that make me—and i still can't—i can't make it stop."

she wiped at her face, furious at the tears.

“i know how it looks,” she said. “i know.”

paige stood perfectly still, like she was afraid that any sudden movement would cause azzi to shatter all over the floor.

“i know i’m being irrational, that i’m hard this way,” azzi continued. “i hear myself, and i have no idea who is speaking. living this way—sometimes i’ve gone into the bathroom and stared at myself and tried to talk myself down like a child having a tantrum.”

she dragged in a breath, shoulders shaking.

“and the entire time it’s just… grief. it’s grief for no reason, grief in different forms, changing outfits. it’s grief like a flood. it’s my brain trying its damndest to convince me for two weeks straight that i am deeply unloved and unwanted and disgusting, and then i look at you—” she swallowed, voice cleaving. “and you’re the only thing i have, and i still can’t hold onto you properly.”

paige’s eyes were glassy. her mouth opened, then closed. azzi shook her head, as if setting something loose.

“and the worst part,” azzi said, quieter now, almost ashamed, “is that i just have to bear it. every time.”

paige stepped forward, and azzi didn’t fall back this time.

“i’m sorry,” paige said. her voice was oddly stripped, raw; it didn’t get that way often. “i’m so sorry. i shouldn’t have said that.”

azzi’s sadness thrashed inside of her, misery tidal and enormous. paige meant it. paige meant it so sincerely that it hurt.

azzi shook her head. she pressed both hands over her face for a moment, then let them drop. she crossed the kitchen slowly, past paige, past aemma—pausing only long enough to cup her dog's narrow chin, press her lips to the bridge of her nose, feel the warmth of fur against her mouth. then she went to the top drawer of the kitchen hutch. her fingers found the paper without looking. she was always aware of its exact location, the way one was always aware of a bruise. only now were they beginning to touch the real wound.

she turned it over once and then again, before speaking.

“that day, i went to the gynecologist,” she said. “last year, in march. i came back and told you that she told me it was only pms.”

paige nodded slowly, confused.

“yeah, i know,” she told her.

azzi’s throat tightened at the phrase, sweet and sure. it made paige sound younger.

“you don’t,” she corrected. she lifted herself to full height, turned, gaze unflinching. “i lied.”

they didn’t lie to each other, or at least they used to not, and azzi saw the blow hit its mark. paige's mouth twisted down, face shifting through every stage of grief.

“what?”

azzi’s face crumpled.

“i didn’t want you to stop loving me,” she said, clutching her elbows. “and when she told me, i felt—i felt so disgusting. i cried in the car, nearly had an accident. i mean, she did—it was that. a form of it. just much more. white lie, really.”

paige’s eyes filled.

“you’re not disgusting,” paige said, and it sounded like a slur, furious. “you’re not. you’re perfect.”

without a word, azzi surrendered, held it out.

paige took it. read it. azzi watched as paige read it, the words already scored into her memory, her every cell.

azzi watched her face as one would watch the landscape outside the window, hooked on every minor change: the small furrowing, the progressive stilling, and then the place where paige stopped reading, and the whole of her pulled inward, an elongated inhale.

paige looked up. her eyes were wet. her expression was coldly furious, though azzi knew not at what: her or the situation.

“what does that mean?” she said. it was low, barely a question. “si. hi.”

azzi knew paige had already understood. azzi had fallen in love with a smart girl, had married a smart woman. she knew that paige had done the math, but had simply asked in the hope of correction.

she reached behind herself, back to the drawer, for the torn bottom half of the form she’d torn upon reception; the part she'd separated as soon as she'd gotten to the car that day, as though distance between the pages might soften what was on them. she held it out. paige snatched it from her, eyes skimming anxiously.

azzi saw the exact moment the words registered.

the apartment was now very quiet. azzi slipped around her and went to bed.

patient name: azzi fudd

dob: 11/11/2002

mrn: 004*****

date: 03/09/2025

assessment/diagnosis:

premenstrual dysphoric disorder (pmdd) (icd-10: f32.81)

rule out: major depressive disorder (mdd)

rule out: generalized anxiety disorder (gad)

history/presenting complaint:

patient reports severe mood lability, irritability, anxiety, fatigue, and depressive symptoms occurring during the luteal phase (approximately 10–14 days prior to menses), with resolution within the first few days of menstruation. symptoms have been present for >12 months and cause significant impairment in social and occupational functioning. patient reports “feeling like a different person.” patient endorses intermittent passive suicidal ideation during symptomatic periods without active plan or intent.

symptoms reported (luteal phase):

marked irritability/anger

depressed mood

hopelessness

tearfulness

anxiety/tension

difficulty concentrating

fatigue/low energy

sleep disturbance

appetite changes/cravings

somatic symptoms (bloating, breast tenderness, headache)

mental status exam:

alert and oriented x3. affect tearful and congruent with mood. thought process linear. no psychosis. insight intact. judgment intact. passive si reported during luteal phase; denies active si/hi at the time of visit.

plan:

begin symptom tracking for 2 menstrual cycles

discuss ssri options (intermittent luteal-phase dosing vs continuous)

consider combined oral contraceptive (drospirenone-containing) if appropriate

recommend psychotherapy (cbt/dbt skills for mood regulation)

safety plan reviewed; crisis resources provided

follow-up in 4–6 weeks

provider: dr. hanna korso, md ob/gyn / psychiatry

azzi cried herself out in stages.

it couldn’t pass in any clean catharsis, so it came in waves; shuddering, breathless bursts that made her ribs ache, each one receding only far enough to gather into the next. she managed to guide herself to the bedroom before sinking. the duvet swallowed her. somehow her nightgown had been donned—though she couldn't have said when, only that she was in it—and the room was dim around her, curtains half-drawn, the air cool against her overheated skin.

she lay there in the aftermath of herself. her face felt tight, the mascara drying in small obsidian fissures at the outer corners of her eyes. she had the distant thought that she was going to ruin their pillowcases and then couldn’t bring herself to care. she had begun, somewhere in the interval between the kitchen and here, to build a very detailed and almost tranquil vision of her future as a divorcee—the apartment she'd have, the quality of its lonesome silence—when the duvet lifted, and paige crawled in.

she was still dressed: suit jacket gone, but the dinner shirt still on, three buttons loose at the throat, the fabric carrying the residue of the evening spent in it. she had at least kicked her shoes off before getting in. azzi noticed this even with her face turned toward the wall. she noticed things about paige the way your body could note its own temperature, rather automatically, without ever having to try.

“hey,” she murmured.

azzi kept her face to the wall. she had nothing left to give, not even a language for a semblance of what nothing felt like.

paige didn’t ask her to turn over and look at her. she had learned, in the years they had been together, that eye contact could make azzi retreat further, turn her elusive; could transmute an offering into something that felt like interrogation, or like being witnessed in the midst of self-administered punishment. so paige tucked in behind her instead, one arm coming around azzi's waist, careful with the pressure: present, not restraining, maintaining a hold that strayed devotedly from becoming a trap.

it was only information: i am here. you are not alone, here, in this bed. i am in our life with you, our world. she only wanted azzi to know she was there.

azzi's breath hitched at the warmth of it, the unbidden mercy, and paige pressed her mouth to the back of her shoulder through the cotton.

“you can’t just go to sleep whenever things get hard,” paige said. “what are you, that princess and her pea?”

she kept her body very still while she waited, and azzi felt it—the tension paige was holding, the careful suspension of her, hoping—and laughed weakly, against the pillow. she felt paige exhale against her back.

“i’m here,” paige continued, lower, a soothing coo. “you’re good. you’re safe with me.”

azzi, in response, made a sound that didn’t resemble any language. she squeezed her eyes shut, and her whole body was tremulous as though held in tension for days, a deep internal shudder of something held very tightly for a very long time. paige's hand found the hem of azzi's nightgown and slipped beneath it, hitching it up to her stomach, palm warm and flat against the bare skin of her lower back.

and then she began: dragging her nails, slowly, up the length of azzi's spine, and back down. not hard enough to scratch. the point was not to scratch, but to apply just enough pressure, enough range of motion to send a sense of electric relief through her body. a slow, repetitive motion that told azzi’s nervous system: come down. you can come down now.

azzi inhaled sharply.

paige kept going.

up. down. up. down. up.

azzi didn't know when paige had learned this about her; she didn't think she'd ever explained it, had never had the words to explain it, but somehow paige had found it the way she’d found out most things about her wife, through meticulous and repeated attention. and right now, the forbearance of it, the utter lack of agenda in the motion, was the most devastating form of consideration she could have offered. azzi’s breathing transformed into a loosening, became a soft breeze. the panic inside her began to lose all architecture under the metronome of touch, melting into exhaustion.

“i hate this,” azzi whispered. her voice was wrecked, scraped clean. “god, i hate this.”

paige’s mouth pressed to her shoulder again. “i know.”

“i hate who i become.”

paige's nails kept their slow path, a tide going out.

“you’re not whoever it is you feel like you become,” paige said. and then, more quietly, like she was deciding it as she said it: “you’re just…who you are. you’re who you’ve always been. i know who you are.”

azzi swallowed. she could still taste the shame of their argument, the subsequent reveal, the shame of having been seen mid-fracture, and underneath that - the echo of crazy in her skull, moving to and fro, like a tennis match.

paige’s voice shifted, delicate now in a different way.

“i just hate that you felt you couldn't tell me.”

azzi didn’t answer. paige’s hand paused pace for half a second, as if she was checking something, then resumed, slower than before.

“and i shouldn’t have called you…that,” paige said. “i got frustrated, and i got careless, and i shouldn’t have said it.”

her voice was even, but azzi could feel the effort that evenness was costing her. she could feel it in paige's chest, pressed against her back, the slight irregularity of her breathing, the way her arm was not quite as relaxed as it appeared. paige was doing what she also chose to do: absorbing the blow, steadying herself, making herself a landmark, a solid presence for azzi to press against. and azzi was grateful for it and also, dimly, felt the ache of knowing what it must require.

she reached down and wrapped her fingers around paige's forearm, and without quite meaning to, began to mimic the same slow motion against paige's skin—up the muscle, and back. a reciprocation, or an apology, or just the only language available to her in that moment.

“i’m sorry,” azzi said. “for picking a needless fight. for keeping something like that from you.” she felt her throat tighten. “i was so scared. i thought—i don’t know what i thought.”

but she did.

she stopped. then: “i just—it feels like i’m possessed. like there’s something in me.”

paige hummed softly, a sound like understanding even if she couldn’t fully understand. azzi knew she couldn't fully, but this was someone who was choosing to believe her without any requirement. there was a difference, and azzi felt it.

“i believe you,” paige said.

the words sluiced over azzi, body entire, like warm water. like heat.

i believe you.

her eyes filled once more. it was devastating what that could do to you, the simple, unglamorous, complete act of being believed. paige’s nails moved a little firmer now, as if slowly coaxing something back, a fox in a burrow, a piece of azzi that had gone into hiding and needed to be persuaded that it was safe to return.

“i don’t want to be another person who makes you feel alone in it,” paige said, and her voice was quieter now, less certain; the careful admission of someone not entirely sure they hadn’t done that already. “i don’t wanna be that for you. i don’t.”

azzi's voice broke at the seams. “i feel so alone. i think i just can’t help it.”

paige’s arm tightened. “you're not.” and then, with a firmness that sounded like she was saying it to herself too: “you're not, azzi. you have me. you have aemma. you have our families, our people, our friends.” a pause. “well, the ones you actually like.”

azzi turned her head slightly. paige kissed her cheek immediately, before the laugh had even finished forming. then again. then she settled her forehead against azzi's temple, and her nails kept moving and azzi's answered against her forearm, and they stayed like that, spent an indeterminate amount of time doing question and answer, creation then recreation, call and response. each of them tended to the other in the only small ways available to them in that moment.

up. down. up. down.

up.

azzi's tears slowed. her body grew heavier, settling into the mattress by degrees, gravity reasserting itself as the crisis ebbed. the rage, the grief, the humiliation of being known this way - it all began to dull around the edges, losing definition. her eyelids stuttered. her palm flattened against paige's arm, and she felt paige still beneath her touch, a long, slow exhale pressing against the back of her neck.

she could feel paige coming down, too. that was the thing she didn't know if paige understood she could feel: the slow release of the effort it cost to be the bigger person, the way her wife’s body had finally, tentatively, begun to unknot itself now that azzi's had, as though she'd been holding breath this whole time. as she was always holding it.

paige’s voice drifted into her hair like smoke. “you want water?”

azzi shook her head faintly.

“you want me to stop?”

azzi's hand tightened around paige's arm; a fierce, involuntary grip.

“no.”

it was a fierce negotiation, and paige exhaled, a soft sound, nearly a laugh, full relief.

“okay, mama,” she murmured. “i got you.”

she kept going. the same route, the same slow pressure, over and over, until azzi's breathing turned shallow and regular and her grip on paige's arm loosened into something more like holding than clinging. azzi fell asleep like that: face still damp, breath carrying the last of the salt in it, paige’s arm locked around her middle like a promise vowed to never break.

paige did not fall asleep for some time. she lay in the dark with her eyes open, her hand still moving—at its slowest now, barely a motion, more a resting of her palm—and thought about the piece of paper still on the kitchen counter, and what it said on it, and what it meant that she had spent over a year not knowing.

when azzi woke, the room was pale with morning.

for a moment, like that first morning, she didn't move. she lay still and took inventory, checking for the emotional hangover, the leftover dread. her body felt leaden, her eyes swollen, her throat intolerably dry. the pillowcase was cool and slightly damp where her face had been.

but there was something else too. a tenderness that pooled around her heart and low in her belly, a warmth she hadn't expected to find. a small, unfamiliar calm, still water.

paige's side of the bed was empty. the sheets were still warm where she'd been.

azzi sat up slowly. her nightgown was wrinkled, twisted around her thighs. she looked down at herself and felt the bloom of it immediately; an old, fast shame. god. i must have looked insane. the word returned like pressing a bruise. she closed her eyes and swallowed it down, held it in her throat until it became just a word again, and then stood.

she padded down the hallway barefoot, moving carefully, as though her legs might crack if she walked too fast. she could smell coffee. she could smell the deep, dark sweetness of powdered sugar and french toast.

paige was on the living room floor.

she was cross-legged on that horrid cowhide rug—the one azzi had searched long and hard for because she knew paige would love it—thick lilac hoodie on and drowning her, blonde hair tumbling free from a low-nape bun. she was surrounded by material as if preparing for something important: books spread open around her, papers everywhere, a legal pad at an angle beside her laptop, a baby blue highlighter in hand. azzi hadn't seen her arranged like this since their college days, since the nights before a game.

her laptop screen cast a thin, bluish light across her ankles, and it made the veins there look stained, made her look younger: closer to the girl she'd been before the league, before the cameras, before the stalker, before the endured labor of holding her chosen career. there were printouts with clinical terminology sectioning off their headers, an actual medical textbook cracked open and weighted down with paige's crossed thigh, sticky notes bristling from the spines of two more books - small flags planted in foreign soil. a page of her legal pad was swallowed in sharp, angular handwriting.

azzi's eyes found her own name: az. luteal phase. 10–14 days before period.

paige's jaw was tight. her lips moved slightly as she read, clearly in the midst of processing a slew of text, trying not to panic. her knee bounced a steady, unconscious rhythm against the rug. she hadn't heard azzi yet—she was too far inside of it—but then a floorboard gave under azzi’s foot, and paige looked up. her expression changed immediately, something in her face releasing.

“hey,” paige said. “you're awake.”

azzi's mouth opened. nothing came out at first. her eyes roved over the pages: her name in paige’s beloved handwriting, the highlighted lines of close text she could half-read from where she stood, the clinical language spilling wildly out of its margins, curling and curling.

“hey, pretty baby,” she said finally, stepping closer. “what is this?”

paige shifted, a flicker of something almost sheepish moving across her face. she scratched the back of her neck.

“i couldn't sleep,” she said. “so i started reading.”

she nodded toward the papers. a confession.

“i just kept thinking about it. i didn’t realize it’s two weeks,” paige said. “i thought—i thought it was just right before your period. i knew it was bad, but i didn’t know it was that long.”

azzi's eyes burned. she stood still and let paige keep talking, because paige needed to say it, and because azzi needed to hear what it sounded like coming back to her from the outside.

“and it says the hormone levels aren't even necessarily abnormal,” paige continued. “it's the sensitivity. the way the brain responds to the shift.” her voice reedy, anxiety an underscore. “it's not the hormones. it’s that your brain can't—it—you can't regulate against them.”

she swallowed.

“paige—” azzi began, but paige jerked in place, struck.

“i didn't know it could make you feel suicidal,” paige interrupted, and her voice fell around the word like a shroud. “i didn't know it could get like that. i didn’t.”

azzi covered her mouth with her hand, head tilting to the side with the sudden hit of understanding. paige’s gaze stayed on her, steadier than she looked, blue fire, bright and endless. terrified.

“it says it can make you want to—” paige shook her head once, hard. she couldn't finish the sentence. her throat moved. “azzi. what the fuck. why didn't you tell me that?”

azzi opened her mouth. still, nothing came. her throat felt neatly sliced, as if given a paper cut, as if she had had her neck against a blade and had chosen to turn it very swiftly a few degrees to the right.

paige stood up quickly, almost stumbling, needing to move or she'd stay too still and feel the full implication of it all at once. her hands went into her hair. she was breathing harder now, though she was trying not to show it, the way she tried not to show anything that looked like losing control. azzi knew this body. she knew what it looked like when paige was frightened.

“is that true?” paige asked. her voice was barely her own. “is that something you—”

she stopped, unable to say the word. paige bueckers, who had stared down arenas full of screaming strangers, who had taken the ball in the last seconds of games that felt like life or death and treated them as neither—she could not say this word. her mouth held the arrow and would not release it.

azzi’s vision turned to a haze. paige’s face collapsed, a rupture of feeling.

“oh my god,” paige breathed.

she looked like she’d been told something irreversible. her hands dropped from her hair. she crossed to azzi in two steps and reached for her as though she needed to verify her, needed the physical evidence of her solidity, the warmth of her still being here - flesh and blood. her hands landed on azzi's shoulders, too firm at first, grip calibrating.

her eyes were wet. her voice went somewhere small that azzi rarely heard from her. azzi looked at her, at the fear moving openly across her face, undisguised, nothing held back or managed.

paige, whose whole professional life had trained her to withstand, was not withstanding at all.

that pale face twisted.

“i can't lose you,” she whispered. it came out a hoarse cry, the words too exposed for the room. “i can't. i just can’t. i wouldn’t be able to—i can’t.”

azzi knew she needed to go slowly here. paige wasn’t necessarily fragile—paige was decidedly far from fragile but if she were to be azzi would only hold her, retain the strength required for the both of them—but because the truth was housed in a room kept locked and labelled si (do not speak of), and even now she dawdled at handing over the key, at allowing paige a step into this barbed country without a map.

“i don't really want to die,” azzi said.

she said it plainly, without softening it or adding to it, and watched paige's eyes flicker with the slow burn of relief, uncertain whether it was allowed to land. she reached up and touched paige's wrist. paige's hand closed around hers immediately, an automatic grip.

“that is the truth. i don’t. it’s never been that. it's not that,” azzi repeated, tone purposefully sluggish, clearer. “i’ve never wanted to die. i only wanted the pain to be over.”

paige's face cracked down the middle, and she shut her eyes.

“jesus,” she whispered. “jesus christ.”

azzi moved closer, until paige’s hoodie brushed her cheek. paige smelled of what must have been her fifth cup of coffee, her body quivering with the proof, sleep, and an animal-warm base that surfaced only when she was scared; a bodily instinct that bypassed all fragrance entirely and went straight to skin. azzi lifted her other hand to paige’s face, thumb settling beneath her eye, where the wet had gathered.

paige opened them. and what was there, what azzi found, was not only fear but a more severe wound; one that skulked underneath the horror.

“sometimes i feel like you don't love me,” paige said. her voice was hoarse. she looked away as she said it, a quick involuntary flinch, like she hadn't meant to be that candid. “when you get like this.”

azzi turned to stone. paige looked down at her hands, watched them flex blankly. “you look at me like you can't stand me. like i'm in your way. i know you don't mean it—i know. but it gets into my head.” a pause. “and it stays there.”

azzi's throat closed. there was no longer any air.

this was the part of the disorder she never let herself think about fully, what it cost those she loved—especially paige—to live adjacent to it. not only its inconvenience, but its horrible, invasive, private wound: being looked at by the person you love and not being recognized in what you see looking back.

“oh, baby,” azzi whispered.

paige's jaw tightened. she was trying, with everything she had, not to fully cry; as though crying meant she had made this about herself, and she didn't want it to be about herself. god, azzi wished she’d be more selfish.

“come here,” azzi said.

she climbed into paige's lap, and paige handled her immediately, arms going around her waist, and azzi felt the grip, tighter than comfort. azzi took paige's face in both hands and made her look directly at her. paige's cheeks were full and damp, baby fat slick. she hadn’t permitted herself to cry, but she had cried anyway, weak against the instinct.

“once,” azzi began, hesitant. “once i got very close.”

she felt paige go ramrod straight, but azzi placed a firm hand on the back of her neck and brought her to heel.

“i think the worst days are the ones where i can’t pin the sadness on anything else. i’d been coming off of ovulation. we were in college, well, i was, you’d gone off then, drafted—” azzi broke off, memory overlapping as she built the bones of her confession. “senior year. i took a bath, it was only meant to be a bath, really. but i was so tired. it had hit me so deeply that day, i think i wasn’t really eating the way i should’ve been at that time, and so i kept sinking and i just—i slipped.” she shrugged. “i went under, and for a moment it was beautiful. i was weightless, and even as my lungs began to burn, my legs kicking, hips bucking, i did nothing to resurface. it was going to be over. it was what i had always gambled with my entire life: a bid for freedom.”

she knew paige was starting to remember, could feel it in the way her mouth parted against her shoulder, teeth ivory-slick against her collarbone; the slow reconstruction of it happening in paige's body before it reached her face: the memory rising, spirit to spirit, azzi on the phone, wet-haired, face drawn, voice skewed in a direction too left of azzi’s normal, in a way paige had noticed and chosen to believe the dismissal of.

“why didn’t you?” paige whispered.

azzi worked at a note in her neck, lifting the coil of blonde with one hand while she dug into the skin. finally, she answered.

“you called.”

and she had. the first call had been banished to voicemail, but then paige had dialed a second time, and there had been a horrible screech of some royalty-free jingle that had come long ago with the phone when azzi had bought it. and azzi had spluttered to life, hair wet and dark against her shoulders, dragging soap and transparent streaks across their bones. she’d picked up, gasping, had brushed off paige’s concern, and sat naked on the tile with her back to the tub’s cool lip as her then-girlfriend told her about the next dates she could come visit.

“i love you,” azzi said, it was not meant as comfort, but as fact. “i love you so much it frightens me. it robs me of my breath sometimes. i just see you, and i feel nothing more than love, something bigger than it, more than i’ve ever loved anything.”

paige panted against her, moist and hot. azzi pressed her lips to paige's cheek, then to the hinge of her jaw. small, unhurried, the kind of kisses that are not about desire but about insisting on presence, on the reality of the person beneath them.

“it's not you,” azzi said, against her skin. “it is never you. it's—my brain running amok over everything. it takes what you're doing, and it gives it back to me incorrectly. you say azzi, i love you, and it gives me don't make me divorce you. you reach for me, and it tells me you're doing it out of obligation.” she stopped. “i don’t know why i feel it, but that doesn’t change that i do. i know it’s wrong. i know while it’s happening. and i still am unable to stop it.”

paige's hands tightened at her waist.

“and it tells me i'm a burden,” azzi continued, the words coming more quietly now, a difficult nerve worked enough to lose some of its power. “that you'd be better off. i know that isn't true. but it doesn't feel like a lie when it's saying it. it feels…sourced. it’s the truth then, and that’s all there is. it takes extra will to combat it.”

paige pulled back to gaze at her with the unguarded attention she reserved for the last two minutes of a close game. total. nothing held back for later. azzi smoothed her thumbs over her cheekbones, pressed a kiss there, too.

“when i’m like that, when i’m like this,” she said, “i don't stop loving you. i’m just inside something i can't see past. i'm scared. i'm trying to survive it, and i don't always know how not to take you down with me. sometimes, in an effort to save you, i push you out.”

azzi felt paige’s spine contract at the thought.

paige said, “i hate that it does that to you.”

“i know, baby,” azzi kissed her temple. let it rest there. “me too.”

a silence settled and then,

“you really scare me,” paige said finally. closer to baseline, a few feet past the panic. “truly terrify me, az. not like, angry, scared. just. you scare me because i love you and i don't know how to fix it.”

azzi nodded. “you don't have to fix it. i don’t think it’s fair to ask that of you.”

“then what do i do?”

azzi looked at her. “this,” she said. “we do this.”

“we manage it. if it ever gets really dark,” azzi said, “i'll tell you. before it gets dark like that. i'll tell you, and you'll hold me, and we'll wait it out. that's what we do.” she paused. “okay?”

paige nodded, wiping her face with her sleeve in that slightly embarrassed way, as though she could retroactively tidy herself up.

“okay,” she said. “yeah. well—no.”

azzi stayed where she was and allowed her to speak.

“you have to go back to the doctor, azzi. you have to see dr. korso and try some of her recommendations. i know—last night, you said something about enduring it, and i just don’t want it to come to that any more. you may have this for the rest of your life, but you’re allowed to lessen your suffering. i want to—i’d like for us to look at some of those ssris she talked about.

“when i researched, i saw it’ll pause if you still want to carry, when we’re trying to get pregnant, but it comes back after. it can be even worse during the years leading up to menopause. i don’t want you on your back, on your knees, when you can be standing.”

azzi kissed her forehead, and paige leaned into it, as though each point of contact was something she needed to stockpile. azzi felt the dizzying pleasure of being needed like this, didn’t find it suffocating. she found it true.

“that’s fair.”

“why is it—what makes you feel like you can’t ask for help?” paige asked, her mouth a brand against azzi’s neck. beneath it, she could feel the torpid rhythm of azzi’s pulse.

“i think it’s because i feel like i'm being hunted,” azzi considered, half to herself. “every month, i know it's coming. i know the date, i know the phase, i know all the clinical words for what's happening in my body. and it still lands like it's the first time.” she pressed her lips together. “like drowning in a pool you've drowned in before and somehow still forgetting not to swim there. i think: this is it, this is the time at which we know best and can face it head on—and then it taps on my shoulder from a blind spot and it stabs me.”

paige pulled her closer, and they sat intertwined under weak sun, layers of research spread around them, the laptop screen still open to a tab she had yet to finish reading, the french toast going cold somwhere on the kitchen counter.

“we're going to figure it out,” paige said, a logistics statement, the voice used for things she intended to solve. “the doctor stuff. the tracking. all of it.”

azzi turned her face into paige's neck. this time, it was her turn to feel paige’s pulse there, that quick spur of life.

“i'm not going anywhere,” azzi murmured. “i will never leave you, do you hear me? not like that. not ever. i swear. i swear.”

paige said nothing in return, but her grip tightened, and azzi knew that meant she would hold her to it. azzi let herself be held here, eyes falling shut, feigning sleep; the entire space drifting into a beach of black. here they were whole and in their bodies in a way that didn’t demand of them a way to climb out.

after, azzi took aemma for a much-needed walk. then, upon the threat of the cold, she dashed back in to grab paige’s gloves off the wall’s black hook and a better scarf. her wife came running, a towel wrung to death in her hands, and asked her, what’s going on?i heard the door open and close. 

azzi had scared her, silent and instant in the hallway.

azzi couldn’t help her faint smile. they’d have to work on that, the jumpiness.

she was halfway out the door again, leash wrapped twice around the knuckle, when she told paige,

it was only me.