Going Out by Quinn J. Graham

I was stuck in front of the mirror, running late.

Mark had already been shed, his work clothes tossed on the ground, and in the mirror his short perma-bedhead had grown into Hailey’s shoulder-length curls. Hailey’s basics emerged soon after, Mark’s stout musculature slithering and softening into the proper proportions: C-cups and hips, and enough in the belly for a bit of a paunch. Soft limbs and chubby cheeks, and then I was free to spread the leftover biomass around.

I examined my work. Hailey, naked and unadorned, stared back. She was cute. Innocent. Non-threatening.

Which was good. Non-threatening was always good.

But was it enough? She could be taller. I could trim a bit of belly and put it towards the spine. But this was Hailey’s fourth date with Theresa; she knew how tall Hailey was supposed to be and was smart enough not to buy my usual excuses of heels or pumps.

I worked on makeup instead. With a few shifts of cell pigmentation, lipstick bled across Hailey’s mouth and mascara bloomed over her eyes. Crimson seeped into her fingernails like drops of ink in water.

Making clothes with biomass is possible, but impractical. Instead, I grabbed Hailey’s dress from the closet where it hung between Henry’s gym clothes and the hoodie Natasha wore for book club.

I did a turn to see Hailey from every angle. Something nagged at me, but I had to leave; I couldn’t stomach the idea of standing Theresa up. But with every step the niggling feeling, like an eyelash in the eye, wouldn’t leave me be.

---

“Where’s your tattoo?” Theresa asked after dinner.

I froze in the doorway, my back turned to where she sat on the bed.

“Your back tattoo’s gone, the one with flowers,” she continued. “Where’d it go?”

“I had it removed.” My pulse quickened. I exerted the control I could to slow it down.

“It was there during our last date. You had it removed in a week?”

“Laser,” I replied. It was the first answer that had come to mind.

“That usually takes a few sessions.”

“I fast-tracked it. I … I really wanted it gone.”

“Hailey, that’s not safe,” she said. “Here, let me make sure you’re okay.”

She was at my side in the next instant. I felt her hands on Hailey’s shoulder blades, goosebumps rising to her touch, but I could only hope she was too focused to see how tightly I gripped the door frame. Theresa was a nurse; she knew the way human biology was supposed to work.

“There’s no scars, or irritation, or anything.” Her voice was mystified.

“The doctor didn’t get it either, but I’m not complaining.” I turned round to face her, hiding Hailey’s back in the process. “Really, Terri, I’m fine. Promise.”

With a sigh of resignation and touch under the chin, Theresa tilted me up for what I thought was a kiss. But her brow furrowed instead. “What’s wrong with your eyes? They’re brown.”

Hailey’s eyes were supposed to be green. Mark’s were brown.

I slapped Theresa’s hand away and took a few steps back.

“Hailey?”

“Contacts,” I blurted. “They’re … They’re contacts.”

“No one gets defensive over contacts. Hailey, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

The answer refused to come. It was happening again. I’d screwed it all up again. Again, I’d have to start over, new names, new faces, new gaits, new lives—the wreckage of everything already being cleared as it crumbled for the inevitable new foundation.

Trapped in the whirlpool of my spiral, it took Theresa passing by for me to notice she’d grabbed her things from the bedroom floor. She was leaving.

And it was only then that I knew I needed her not to.

“Wait!”

When she stopped and turned I still couldn’t speak, but I knew words wouldn’t suffice. I went to drawer next to the front door and returned with the contents: a stack of IDs.

Theresa took them, confused expression only deepening with every photo and name, eyes flicking back to me between each searching for an explanation.

So I took a deep breath and showed her.

I flipped between everything—every height, every width; every skin, hair, and eye colour I could manage. I showed her Mark, and Henry, and Natasha, and even a few faces I’d previously left behind.

When I settled back into Hailey, I don’t know how I felt. A tear on my cheek fell into the corner of my smile. I imagined a rough sea under sunny skies.

Theresa just stared. She set the cards on the dresser, then sat at the foot of the bed, hands clasped between her knees.

When it was clear she wouldn’t run, I sat beside her.

Eyes locked on the dresser, she eventually asked, “so what do you really look like?”

I had to clear my throat. “There’s no answer. I’m as much this as any of them. They’re all real—the same way each leaf on a tree is.”

“You still lied to me.”

“I did,” I conceded. “I was scared. I’m sorry.”

I could feel her fingers wrestling with the sheets next to me, and I placed my hand on hers, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her yet. We sat like that for a while.

“I have to go,” she said.

I took back my hand, and Theresa stood up, yet paused in the doorway. She inhaled deeply.

“I’m still free next week,” she said.

I remember it became hard to breathe. “Really?”

“Really. But no more lies.”

I looked down, at Hailey’s body and my own. “But what about—” I began, but suddenly Theresa stood in front of me, and leaning down she kissed me on the forehead.

“Whatever we’re doing,” she said. “Just come as you are.”