Slivers

Alex was many things.

She was a borderline alcoholic binge drinker, when it suited her--note the borderline; it was important to her. She was a mess of contradiction. She was a sister, before anything else. She was a workaholic. She could be wildly protective. She was stubborn--no could be there. She was, apparently, a lesbian. That one was new, relatively speaking. She also, through discovering that last one, had clicked with some pretty intense tingles for Kara´s aunt, compounded by that one dream Alex had tried to push to the back of her mind.

She was not, however, a cheater.

At times she could be a liar. It was part of the job. So she couldn´t really list that. But she wasn´t a liar without reason? Maybe she could say that.

Whatever, she just wasn´t a naturally dishonest person.

And especially not a cheater.

Damn it. She liked Sam. Everything she´d said to Maggie, while all the time inching closer, had been true. Sam was sweet. And funny. And loud, in a way that drew people in, not pushed them away. She was mostly understanding about the randomness of Alex´s job, which said a lot. Alex´s job could call her away at a moment´s notice. And, importantly—Kara liked her. Which meant so much, to Alex.

Kara meant everything, really.

But how close Maggie had come to challenging that was terrifying.

Fucking Maggie.

Alex stood at the entrance of the building she´d arrived at, shivering in the cold of three am air, feeling raw and peeled back, nerve endings exposed. There was an ache in her forearm, a burn in her thighs. She wanted to shower, in water so hot it might actually wash this feeling away.

Mostly, though, there was shame, bubbling through her veins.

Fucking Maggie.

Alex went to open the door but then let her hand drop away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself and let her back fall against the rough brick wall.

Another thing that Alex was good at, was compartmentalising. It was all that got her through life. Her dad, his death, the news that he wasn´t damn dead and there wasn´t anything Alex could do that she hadn´t already tried that might find him, her mother´s distant coldness, that creeping feeling that Alex, really, was never going to be enough. For what, she didn´t know. But enough.

Just that word made a lump grow in her throat.

But the point was, Alex could shove that shit way down deep nothing could access it but her occasional dip into over-drinking.

And that´s what she´d done with Maggie. Whose rejection had split something inside Alex, something she´d never realised could be split. It had stung, like the time Kara had hugged her too tight, in the early days, and Alex hadn´t needed super hearing to hear how her rib had cracked. That´s what it had felt like, to hear Maggie say 'no'.

Alex had flown in on a high, about realising how it felt to really like someone. To feel a flutter in her stomach and awe at their beauty and an itch in her fingers to claw them closer.

But then she´d discovered that with that high came a huge fall, and no one really mentioned that. Alex had gone her entire life not feeling that kind of drop. It made her think that discovering the upside wasn´t really worth it.

So she shoved it away and tried to be friends with Maggie. Because Alex didn´t want her out of her life completely, even if she couldn´t have her how she wanted.

It took months to finally feel like dating.

The first had been a bust. A dramatic one. Alex had never been so nervous--she´d stuttered and knocked things over and had felt her cheeks glow so red she thought she´d melt.

The second was nicer. It lead to date number two, then three. Then Alex had gotten cold feet when the girl had been a little pushy. Or maybe she hadn´t been pushy but Alex had panicked because being intimate was actually kind of terrifying.

The third was Sam.

Alex´s stomach turned over and she thought she was going to throw up right there on the pavement. Cheating. It was a terrible thing to do to a person. Alex had seen friends in her early twenties spiral dangerously, their hearts shattered and trust in pieces when various girlfriends or boyfriends had cheated on them.

She never thought she´d had it in her, and she wasn´t entirely sure if the guilt and shame she felt was for what she did to Sam, or for knowing that she was a person capable of doing it.

A horrendous mix of the two, maybe, that was swirling in her stomach and leaving bile to scorch her throat.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the wall. Pain bounced around her brain but she just rode it out, not even flinching. How did people go on to cheat, serially? She was an hour past it and her insides felt like they were being dissolved. Her foot, pressed against the well, her knee bent out in front of her, bounced endlessly. She chewed her bottom lip and winced.

Maggie had bitten it, at various points over the few hours.

Her nails had raked down Alex´s back.

Her thighs had quivered.

Alex bit her lip harder and tears formed behind her lids. She squeezed them closed and refused to let herself have the comfort of letting them fall.

Why had Alex gone back?

Why?

Why?

Angrily, she opened her eyes and span, yanking the door open and climbing the stairs. Her fist pounded on the door. It only took a split second.

“Alex, what´s wrong?”

Kara.

Alex could have fallen into her, but she crossed her arms and walked through, her teeth still worrying her lips.

“Alex!” The door closed and with a woosh Alex had been listening to more years than she hadn´t, Kara was in front of her. All concerned eyes and soft voice. “What happened? Are you okay?”

That lump in Alex´s throat almost burst and she swallowed heavily, wanting to push it down, drown it out. “I—I´m fine.”

“No,” damn Kara and her soft voice, “you´re not. You´re shaking.”

And she was. That was embarrassing. Maggie had shaken. Her entire body had trembled. She´d stared up at Alex like she was everything she´d ever wanted and Alex had closed her eyes and kissed her, hard and fast, in the hopes that that look would go away and when she´d open her eyes, she wouldn´t be doing something that she´d never thought she could.

Why had she gone? She´d left Sam behind in the bar, her thoughts full of that kiss and Maggie´s lips and that shattered look her eye had held right before she´d kissed her. And blazed with anger. How dare Maggie? Alex had claimed a headache and gone to her place to do what? Alex hadn´t planned it.

Had she?

“I—I…Kara.” Alex hated the crack in her voice, over her sisters name. “I fucked up.”

And Kara stilled, her face glasses-free and her pyjamas soft looking, just like her eyes. She took a small step back, and Alex knew: it wasn´t out of disgust of the words, but she´d finally realised Alex needed space. That Alex was about to shake apart, but someone near her wasn´t going to help it, but only make it happen faster.

“Okay.” Kara´s voice was soothing. “Tell me. What did you do?”

“I slept with Maggie.” The words were acrid on her tongue and she wished that they were tangible. That she could reach out and grasp them back, fingers desperately shoving them back down. But she couldn´t, so she just kept going. “I—I cheated on Sam.”

Kara loved Sam.

Kara was still very cool towards Maggie.

“You…what? When?”

“Uh. Just now.”

Kara took a step back again, and it ached to know it wasn´t for the same reason this time.  Alex drew a shaky breath.

“How—how did that happen? I thought you were happy, with Sam?”

“I was—I, I am. I just… I fucked up.”

“Yeah, Alex, you said that." Kara was all light and positivity. Until she wasn´t, and her voice could flash through with a tone like that. "What happened?”

Kara´s voice was back to bordering on concern, and that was all that was keeping Alex from fleeing.

“We were at the bar. A group of us. And Maggie seemed off. So I followed her to the bathroom and she, she kissed me, for a second.”

Or a minute. That was all a blur.

“She kissed you?” Kara´s cheeks went red. “After putting you through all that months ago? She kissed you, when you have a girlfriend?”

Alex nodded. “And I was angry, too. It´s why I stopped her.”

Alex tried not to think about that. That that was why. Not because it wasn´t what she wanted.

Kara´s shoulders relaxed. “You stopped her? That´s good, Alex. I thought you said you slept with her?”

“I did.”

“In the bathroom?” Kara´s face wrinkled up and if it had been any other situation Alex would have thought about how adorable her sister was.

“No. I went to her apartment. Afterwards.”

Kara´s posture was stiff again. “So you—you went to her place. This was planned?”

Alex shook her head, her throat tight again and aching. She dropped onto Kara´s couch. Something poked her back and she pulled out a cushion, clutching it in her lap and staring up at Kara. “No. I was so mad, Kara. Like angry, on a cellular level. I went there to yell at her.”

“And instead you…”

“I did yell.”

Kara sat in a chair opposite her. “And?”

“And I was so mad. And then I kissed her instead.”

“Why, Alex? I thought you were over her? You spent so much time, getting over her.”

She had. So much time had been dedicated to shoving Maggie into that box in her brain. “I don´t know why.”

"Come on, Alex. Why?"

"I don´t know!"

“You have to. Why would you do it? Why would you hurt Sam, like that? Why would you go to Maggie and--”

“Because I love her!”

It exploded out her mouth and Alex stared, wide eyed, at Kara. Who stared straight back. The silence in the room was deafening. There was no taking that back.

Alex wanted a drink.

Something straight, on the rocks.

Alex swallowed. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Kara asked.

Alex nodded. “Yeah. Oh.”

“I don´t know what that means. Wait.” Kara straightened. “Did you only just realise that?”

Alex nodded, clutching the cushion to her chest. “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

That silence was back. “So what are you going to do?”

“I have to tell Sam.”

“And then?”

“I don´t know, Kara. I´ve never—I´m so—I´m so ashamed, of myself—“

And that woosh, and Kara was next to her, arms around her and Alex let herself crack, there. One of the only places she ever did, the tears hot on her cheeks and shame even hotter in her belly.

She fell asleep, eventually, her head on Kara´s lap and Kara´s fingers in her hair.

* * *

In the morning, Alex went to Sam´s. Her shift at the hospital didn´t start until the afternoon, and Alex needed to come clean.

It wouldn´t help. But Sam didn´t deserve this. A lie stretched over their lives.

“You what?”

Alex swallowed and Sam, blinking, was ashen. “I slept with someone else.”

She could hardly say the words, they choked her so badly. Scraped out of her.

Sam took a step back. “Was it Maggie?”

Alex didn´t even have to answer, the shocked flick of her head enough. Sam gave a laugh that left Alex in pain with how mirthless it was. “How—“

“Alex. She was so clearly into you. I just…I thought you…” Sam´s voice broke then and tears were thick in her eyes. She lifted her chin. “Get out.”

“Sam—“

“Get. Out.”

So Alex did. She paused at the door, her hand on the knob. “Know I´m sorry. I don´t—I´m sorry. More than I can say.”

And Sam didn´t say anything. Alex left.

And went to a bar. Dirty and sticky, as any bar open at eight am would be.

She ordered a whiskey. Straight. On ice.

She knocked it back in two sips and ordered another.

That shame wouldn´t go away.

Maybe the drink would burn it out.