snippet of when you sing it again (can i be him?)
Nancy closed her eyes, and the bathroom returned before she could stop it. Not the whole room, not at first.
Only Robin’s back. The pale, trembling line of it rising from the bathwater. Wet hair clinging to her shoulders. Water gathering in the shallow curve at the base of her spine before slipping lower, vanishing beneath the surface. Steve’s broad hand spread across her ribs, holding her upright while she coughed and sobbed against him.
Nancy opened her eyes. The ceiling above her was pale and empty. She found a crack near the corner and followed it until it branched into two thinner lines. Then she counted her breaths. Ten in. Ten out. She counted the spaces between the branch tapping the glass. She recited the items from the grocery list in the order she had written them.
Candles. Batteries. Bandages. Bread.
Nancy rolled onto her side and pulled the blanket higher.
She thought of Jonathan. She tried to picture him asleep beside her, one arm folded beneath the pillow, his back turned toward her. She remembered the familiar weight of his body in the bed, the smell of his hair, the way he breathed through his mouth when he was exhausted. She reached for the feeling of lying beside someone she knew, someone she loved, someone whose place in her life was supposed to make sense.
But even the memory of Jonathan seemed distant, faded around the edges like a photograph left too long in sunlight.
Nancy closed her eyes again. This time, she saw the bathroom door already open. Steam curled through the room and softened the mirror. The water moved in slow ripples, reflecting the light against the walls.
Steve was no longer there - Nancy was kneeling beside the bathtub instead.
The image did not feel like a choice. It simply rearranged itself around her, replacing Steve’s hands with hers so naturally that she did not question it.
She imagined reaching into the water. Robin’s skin would be hot from the bath and slick beneath Nancy’s palms. Nancy would catch her under the arms and pull, feeling Robin’s weight rise toward her. Robin would break the surface gasping, water spilling from her hair and mouth, her hands searching blindly until they found Nancy’s shoulders.
Nancy would say her name. Not sharply, not like a command. She would say it the way Steve had, low and close, until Robin heard her.
Robin would look up. She would see Nancy. The thought loosened something inside her.
In Nancy’s mind, Robin did not turn toward Steve. There was no one else in the room. She caught at Nancy’s blouse with both hands and pulled herself closer, breathing hard against Nancy’s neck.
Nancy could almost feel her there.
The imagined weight of her was startlingly specific - the press of Robin’s soft chest, the sharpness of her nails digging into Nancy‘s skin, the wet strands of hair caught between their faces. Robin’s arms would wind around her with desperate strength, and Nancy would hold her without hesitation, one hand cradling the back of her head while the other settled against the trembling length of her spine.
She would not stand uselessly in the doorway. She would not leave.
She would slide her palm slowly down Robin’s back, feeling each frightened breath move beneath it, and Robin would soften against her because she knew Nancy would not let her slip away again.
Nancy’s breathing deepened. She shifted beneath the blankets, searching unconsciously for relief from an ache she had not yet named.
In the fantasy, Robin lifted her head.
Her face was flushed from the hot water, her eyelashes gathered into dark points. Droplets clung to the bridge of her nose and the curve of her mouth. She looked frightened still, but the fear changed when she saw Nancy. It became relief, trust. Something warmer that Nancy could not allow herself to examine too closely.
Robin’s gaze dropped to her lips. Nancy felt the imagined pause between them as though she were inside it.
She could see Robin wondering. She could see herself deciding.
Nancy would touch the side of Robin’s face, smoothing wet hair behind her ear. Robin would lean into the contact without looking away. Her mouth would part on a quiet breath, and Nancy would feel it against her skin before she felt anything else.
Then Robin would kiss her.
The thought came so softly that Nancy did not resist it.
At first, the kiss in her mind was frightened and uncertain, Robin’s mouth brushing hers as though asking whether Nancy was real. Nancy would answer by pulling her closer. She would taste bathwater on Robin’s lips, feel Robin’s fingers tighten at the back of her neck.
Robin was taller. Even kneeling beside the bath, Nancy would have to lift her chin to meet her properly. Robin would bend toward her, all long limbs and damp hair and barely contained need, and Nancy would curl her fingers against Robin’s back to keep her there.
Not all at once. Slowly enough for Nancy to lose track of where invention ended and physical sensation began.
Robin’s mouth moved against hers with a hunger that felt unlike the frantic way she spoke or the careless way she smiled. This Robin was quiet except for the little breaths she could not contain. Each one warmed Nancy’s cheek. Each one seemed to ask for something Nancy wanted desperately to give.
Nancy imagined Robin turning fully toward her, water moving around her body as she rose higher in the tub. The towel was gone. Steve was gone. There was no shame in the room, only the soft sound of disturbed water and Robin’s wet skin beneath Nancy’s hands.
Nancy’s palm moved over the curve of her waist. Robin shivered. Nancy felt the reaction as though it had happened beneath her real hand.
She pictured the bare slope of Robin’s shoulder, the hollow beneath her ear, the long line of her thigh breaking the surface of the water. All those accidental glimpses from the doorway belonged to Nancy now, reshaped by the fantasy into something freely offered.
Robin wanted her to look. More than that, Robin wanted to be touched.
Nancy imagined her bending close again, her mouth finding the place beneath Nancy’s jaw. Robin would be clumsy with want, uncertain but eager, learning Nancy by instinct. She would press closer whenever Nancy’s hands moved over her, and the small helpless sounds caught in her throat would tell Nancy where to touch her again.
The thought sent heat through Nancy so suddenly that she drew in a trembling breath.
Her hand had slipped beneath the waistband of her sleep shorts.
She did not notice the moment it happened - or perhaps she noticed and allowed herself not to understand.
The fantasy had become too complete to abandon. Nancy no longer felt the mattress beneath her or the cool air against the part of her shoulder left uncovered by the blanket. She felt the humid bathroom, Robin’s breath, Robin’s arms around her.
That was the most dangerous part.
Robin was not looking toward Steve. She was not calling his name or hiding her face against his neck. She was looking at Nancy with an openness Nancy had never received from her while awake, as though Nancy were the person she had been hoping would come through the door all along.
In Nancy’s mind, Robin whispered her name.
Nancy’s fingers moved beneath the shorts, beneath her underwear.
The sensation just drew her deeper. She imagined Robin responding to every small change in Nancy’s breathing, noticing the way Nancy’s body softened beneath her. Robin would smile against her mouth, astonished and delighted that she could affect Nancy at all.
Nancy would pull her closer to hide it, but Robin would not let her.
She would kiss the corner of Nancy’s mouth, her cheek, the place beneath her ear. Her wet hair would drag across Nancy’s skin. Her hands would be everywhere Nancy had tried not to imagine them, hesitant at first and then surer when Nancy did not stop her.
Nancy pictured herself saying Robin’s name.
She imagined the look that would cross Robin’s face at hearing it like that - surprise giving way to something tender and almost disbelieving. Robin had always looked at Nancy as though she were impossibly composed, impossibly beautiful, someone who belonged to a world far beyond her reach.
In the fantasy, Nancy showed her otherwise.
She let Robin feel every shiver. She let her hear every broken breath. She let Robin understand that Nancy wanted her so badly it hurt.
Robin’s mouth returned to hers. Nancy imagined the pressure of it, the warmth, the desperate little sound Robin would make when Nancy drew her nearer. She imagined her own fingers tightening against Robin’s bare skin and Robin’s body answering, moving instinctively toward her touch.
The image blurred into sensation.
Nancy’s breathing became shallow and uneven. Her legs shifted beneath the blankets. She pressed her face deeper into the pillow to silence the sound building in her throat, but in her mind it was Robin’s shoulder beneath her cheek, Robin’s hair against her lips.
Nancy let herself answer.
Her body tightened around the fantasy, around Robin’s imagined mouth and hands and the impossible relief of being chosen by her. For several suspended seconds, there was no Steve, no Jonathan, no church or family or future waiting to judge her.
There was only Robin rising from the water toward her. Robin wanting her. Robin’s naked body held safely against hers while Nancy touched her in ways she had no right even to imagine.
And then, all at once, she understood.
Her eyes opened. Her hand stopped. The room rushed back around her - the dark ceiling, the cold air, the gold beneath the door, the sound of her own ragged breathing.
For a moment, she did not move.
She could still feel the ghost of Robin against her. Could still see her face softened by steam and desire, her mouth parted around Nancy’s name.
Then comprehension struck with such force that Nancy tore her hand away as though the touch had burned her.
She sat upright, the mattress springs groaning beneath the sudden movement.
“No.” The word emerged thin and breathless.
Her hand remained curled against her stomach, fingers drawn tightly into her palm. She stared at it as though it belonged to someone else.
She had not merely thought Robin was beautiful. She had not simply envied Steve or wished she had been the one to reach the bathtub first.
She had imagined Robin’s mouth on hers. Her body beneath Nancy’s hands.
She had touched herself while imagining it - while imagining Robin frightened and naked and unaware that Nancy had even seen her.
Nausea rose through her. Nancy pressed both hands over her face, but the images continued behind her closed eyes. Robin leaning over her. Robin shivering beneath her palms. Robin looking at her as though Nancy were someone she could want.
The fantasy had felt warm. Tender. Almost inevitable. That frightened her more than if it had felt ugly.
Because some part of Nancy had not merely desired Robin’s body. She had wanted Robin to choose her. She had wanted to replace Steve in Robin’s arms. She had wanted the trust Robin had given him, the closeness, the right to see her frightened and exposed and hold her until she was safe.
She had turned all of it into desire.
Something filthy, the cruel voice inside her insisted. Something impossible.
She thought of church pews and whispered jokes in the halls at school. Of girls whose names had been used as warnings. Of the careful way her mother had taught her to sit, to dress, to smile without inviting the wrong attention. She thought of every future that had ever been placed before her as though there were only one road available.
Husband. House. Children. Jonathan.
Nancy lowered her hands. The guilt of his name struck almost as sharply as everything else.
Jonathan, who still believed they were together. Jonathan, whom Nancy had loved. Perhaps still loved, though the feeling had become tangled with distance, obligation, and a future neither of them seemed able to discuss honestly.
He should have been the person she reached for in the dark. Instead, she had closed her eyes and found Robin waiting there.
Robin’s bare back. Robin’s mouth. Robin looking toward Nancy instead of Steve.
Nancy wrapped both arms around herself. Her skin felt feverish, contaminated by the desire that still lingered despite the shame smothering it. That was the worst betrayal of all: part of her still wanted to close her eyes and return.
She wanted Robin’s imagined hands again. She wanted to know what sound Robin would make if Nancy kissed her. She wanted Steve never to touch Robin that way because she wanted the right for herself.
The thought made her stomach twist. Nancy leaned forward until her forehead almost touched her knees.
She hated Steve for being allowed to hold Robin without questioning what it meant. Hated Jonathan for existing inside the life she was supposed to want. Hated Robin for being vivid enough to replace them both without even trying.
But most of all, she hated herself. For looking. For wanting. For taking Robin’s terror and transforming it into something that had made Nancy’s body ache.
Nancy lay down again only when sitting upright became unbearable. She turned toward the wall and pulled the blanket tightly around herself, as though it could contain whatever had awakened inside her.
She did not close her eyes. Whenever she did, Robin rose from the water again, wet and breathless, reaching past Steve toward Nancy.
And even with shame pressing heavily against her chest, some hidden, treacherous part of Nancy still wanted to reach back.
