the rest of the week

Tuesday

Tasha arriv****ed mid-morning with coffee and pastries, moving with slightly less urgency than she had the previous day. There was a different quality to her now—calmer, more settled, like she'd made peace with something internal.

"I feel weird," she said as soon as she was through the door, setting the coffee on the counter. "Good weird. But weird."

Tom watched her carefully. "Tell me."

She sank into a kitchen stool with the awkward grace of late pregnancy. "The anchor—it's like having two internal monologues at once, but they're not fighting. Tasha is in the foreground. Her life, her feelings, her love for Christine—all of that is so present and real. But Sarah is underneath, observing. It's like..." She paused, searching for the right metaphor. "It's like watching my own life from behind glass. I can see it all, feel it all, but there's a separation. A buffer."

"Is that helping?" Tom asked, setting down the coffee in front of her.

"Yes and no." Tasha wrapped her hands around the cup. "I feel more myself—both of me. But I'm also more aware of how much I'm losing. Sarah can see exactly how Tasha is becoming the dominant voice, and instead of fighting it or ignoring it, she's just... witnessing it. Accepting it." She looked up at him. "It's sad, Tom. It's heartbreaking in a way it wasn't when I was just sinking. But it's clearer. More honest."

She took a sip of coffee. "Christine asked me this morning why I seemed different. Like, not physically—she knows pregnancy changes people day to day—but emotionally. She said I seemed more... present. More like I was paying attention to everything."

"What did you tell her?"

"I said pregnancy hormones make everything feel more intense," Tasha said. "Which is true. And then she kissed me and told me she loved me, and I felt Sarah notice that. Really notice it. The way Christine's hands felt on my face, the exact pressure of her kiss, the smell of her shampoo." Tasha's voice softened. "Sarah wants to remember that. When she goes back, if she goes back, she wants to carry that memory."

Tom felt something twist in his chest—jealousy, grief, tenderness all tangled together. "That's going to make coming back harder."

"I know," Tasha said quietly. "Sarah knows too."

They finished breakfast in companionable silence. Afterward, Tasha asked if she could shower—she said Christine's house was out of hot water that morning—and Tom showed her upstairs. When she emerged twenty minutes later, she was wrapped in one of his towels, her hair damp and darkened, her skin still flushed from the warm water. She was so beautiful and so not-quite-his-wife that it made his throat tight.

She sat on his bed while he returned to his desk, ostensibly to check emails but really just to give her space. After a while, she appeared in the doorway, dressed again, her expression uncertain.

"Tom?" She leaned against the door frame.

He turned to face her. "Yeah?"

"I don't think I can," she said carefully. "Not today. Not yet. The anchor is still settling, and if we..." She gestured vaguely. "If we do that right now, I think Sarah will feel too much. The grief will be too sharp."

He nodded, though disappointment lanced through him. "That's okay. Whenever you're ready."

She came over and kissed the top of his head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Tom said, pulling her into a gentle embrace against his leg. "We have time."

But even as he said it, he wondered if that was true. Time felt like it was running differently for her, accelerated by pregnancy and transformation and the weight of two identities learning to coexist.

Wednesday

She came earlier, just after ten, and she looked exhausted. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she moved even more carefully than before.

"Christine has been making me rest more," Tasha explained, collapsing into the couch. "The OB said my blood pressure was slightly elevated at my last appointment. Nothing serious, but they want me taking it easy."

Tom brought her a glass of water and sat beside her, instinctively reaching for her feet. She didn't object, and he began the massage routine they'd fallen into, his thumbs working the arch of her foot while she sighed with relief.

"We had an ultrasound yesterday," Tasha said, her voice drowsy. "Christine came with me. We got to see the baby move, his face." She paused. "They confirmed it's a boy."

"A son," Tom said quietly.

"Christine cried." Tasha's voice thick with emotion. "She was so happy. She's been hoping for a boy since they decided to use her brother as the donor. She kept saying things like 'our son' and touching my belly and I felt..." She trailed off.

"What?" Tom prompted gently.

"I felt Sarah feel it too. This overwhelming protective instinct. This sense of responsibility. Sarah is pregnant with her girlfriend's baby, Tom. Emotionally, psychologically—even if she doesn't have a womb in this reality, she's experiencing the reality of motherhood." Tasha opened her eyes. "Sarah is going to leave pieces of herself behind in this pregnancy. When she goes back—if she goes back—she's going to be missing parts."

Tom's hands stilled. "What kind of parts?"

"The parts that bonded with Christine during this time. The parts that will carry the memory of giving birth. The parts that experience being a mother." Tasha's eyes were wet. "She's going to give Tasha a child, and she won't get to keep that. When the coin wears off, she'll be back in her own body, her own life, without the baby she carried. Without the woman she loves."

Tom understood then—truly understood—the weight of what he'd set in motion by making that first wish. He'd thought he was giving Sarah an experience, but what he was really doing was giving her a catastrophic loss to carry back to her original life. The coin wasn't just transforming her body and circumstances. It was rewriting her emotional architecture in ways that couldn't simply be undone.

"I'm sorry," he said, though the words felt impossibly inadequate.

"Don't be," Tasha said, and there was Sarah in her voice now, so clearly Sarah. "This is what I wanted. This is what I asked for. I wanted to know what it felt like to be pregnant, to give birth, to be a mother. I'm going to have that. And yes, I'll have to give it up. But I'll have had it. That's more than I ever thought I'd get."

She squeezed his hand. "Just promise me something."

"Anything," Tom said.

"When I come back, don't leave me. Don't be angry that I'm not quite Sarah anymore. Just—hold on to me while I figure out how to be both."

Tom pulled her into an embrace, careful of her belly. "I promise."

They spent the afternoon watching movies—nothing heavy, just light romantic comedies that required no emotional investment. Tasha dozed off around three, her head on Tom's shoulder, one hand protecting her belly even in sleep. Tom sat very still, watching her face, trying to memorize the exact expression of her breathing, the way her lips parted slightly, the faint freckles across her nose that belonged to Tasha but had maybe always been part of her somehow.

When she woke up around five, she said she needed to get home. Christine was making dinner and would worry if she stayed out too long. Tom walked her to the door and kissed her forehead—not passionate, just tender and sad and full of acknowledgment.

Thursday

She didn't come over.

Tom waited all morning, then into the afternoon. By five o'clock, he was genuinely worried. He considered texting, but he'd been careful about leaving a digital trail, aware that Christine might see messages. He considered just walking over, but that felt like crossing a line they'd implicitly agreed not to cross.

At 6:47 PM, his doorbell rang.

Tasha stood on the porch, and she'd been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy, her breathing ragged. She pushed past him into the house without preamble.

"What happened?" Tom demanded, closing the door behind her.

"Christine suspects something," Tasha said, her voice shaking. "Not—not that it's you specifically. But she knows I'm different. She said I seem distant sometimes, like I'm not fully present. She asked me if I was happy, if our marriage was okay, if I was having second thoughts about the baby."

Tom's stomach dropped. "What did you say?"

"I lied," Tasha said. "I told her I was just hormonal and emotional and that everything was fine. And then she held me and I started crying, and I couldn't stop crying because she was right—part of me isn't fully here. Part of me is already grieving."

She sank onto the couch, her hands over her face. "She doesn't deserve this, Tom. She doesn't deserve a partner who's not entirely present, who's going to disappear in a few months and leave her alone with a newborn and memories of someone who wasn't real."

"Sarah," Tom said, sitting beside her. "Sarah, look at me."

She lowered her hands. In her eyes, the battle was clear—Tasha's panic and guilt warring with Sarah's exhaustion and sadness.

"This is what I asked for," Tom said quietly. "Not for you to hurt Christine. But for you to have this experience. And yes, it means loss. Loss for you, loss for her, loss for everyone involved. But that's the nature of the coin. It rewrites reality. People get hurt."

"That doesn't make it okay," Tasha whispered.

"No," Tom agreed. "It doesn't. But it's the choice we made."

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "I want you to make love to me. Right now. I need to feel something other than this guilt and confusion."

Tom hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Sarah is asking," Tasha said. "Sarah needs you right now. Can you do that?"

He could. He did.

Tom took her hand and led her upstairs, moving slowly to accommodate her belly. In his bedroom, he undressed her with careful reverence, kissing each new expanse of skin as he revealed it. Her body was changing week by week—skin stretched tighter, breasts heavy and sensitive, the baby bump so large now that he couldn't quite press against it as he once would have.

She lay on her side, and he positioned himself behind her, entering slowly, carefully. She gasped at the pressure, but it was a sound of relief rather than pain. They moved together slowly, without urgency, less about pleasure and more about connection—the need to be inside each other, to be as close as two bodies could possibly be.

"I'm here," Tom whispered against her neck. "Sarah, I'm here."

"I know," she breathed, reaching back to grip his shoulder. "I know."

He felt her climax gently, not with the intensity of their first time but with a kind of melancholic release. Tom followed her shortly after, coming with a low groan, his arms wrapped protectively around both her and the life growing inside her.

They lay together afterward, not separating, his softening cock still inside her, his hands cradling the bump. She was crying silently, tears running down her cheeks as she stared at the wall.

"I have to go back to her," Tasha said eventually. "She's waiting for me. She's probably worried."

"I know," Tom said.

"But I wish I didn't have to," Tasha continued. "I wish I could stay here. With you. In this bed where everything makes sense."

"I know that too," Tom said.

She got up slowly, and he helped her dress, buttoning her shirt for her with hands that wanted to hold on and not let go. At the door, she turned back to him.

"Three more months," she said. "That's what the OB said. Three more months until my due date."

"Then we have three months," Tom said, though it felt like an impossible amount of time.

"Tom?" She leaned against the door. "I don't know which version of me loves you more—Sarah or Tasha. But I want you to know that both of them do. Both of them, completely."

He pulled her close one more time, burying his face in her hair. "Come back tomorrow?"

"Yes," she promised. "Tomorrow."

But when tomorrow came, it would be different. The anchor was holding Sarah in place, yes, but it was also forcing her to witness her own dissolution with perfect clarity. Each day that passed, each moment with Christine, each kick from the baby—it was all crystallizing into memories that Sarah would carry back into her original life like wounds that would never fully heal.

Tom was beginning to understand that the coin's magic wasn't just about transformation. It was about loss. Fundamental, irrevocable loss. And everyone caught in its wake would bear the scars.