Chapter 1

Separated

It's been a month now since Sara died. All touring has stopped and I have returned to my home in Vancouver. Nothing is the same. Some days I go to call her but get "the number you have dialed is no longer in service". Of course; I always forget that she's not going to answer. That Sara will no longer join me on tours or wake me up when I've overslept. That she will no longer be mine. Because she's gone now. And believe me—when you've lost your twin, nothing is the same. It's as if you've lost part of yourself.

One month ago, Sara and I were finishing up a concert in Chicago, Illinois. That concert was, in fact, the last one of our eight month long tour around the United States. It was a warm night in the city and the crowd was screaming and enjoying themselves while we played from our newest album, "Sainthood", the song "The Cure". I loved playing that song, and Sara was enjoying herself just as much as I was. A final chord was hit, and we thanked our fans for joining us that night, cracked a few jokes, and headed off stage to grab some water and prepare to pack up.

"That was a pretty damn good show, wasn't it, Tegan?" asked Sara.

"Yeah, it was. It's crowds like that that really make me happy to play!" I replied, tired, but enthusiastic. It really was a great crowd. They were the best so far on our tour; a great way to end it, I might've added. Sara and I were taking our time relaxing while cooling off with some water as the other members in the band started to collect the drums and microphones and other items we brought.

"Hey, Teetee," Sara began.

"Hmm… What's up, Sasa?" I asked her.

"I'm glad for this,"

"Well, you're going to have to be more specific than that…" I said. "What are you glad for?"

Sara looked at the floor for a few moments and then stood up, gently pulling me up to my feet as well and embraced me lightly. "I'm glad that we're here right now in Chicago together finishing a concert up instead of being thousands of miles apart in different cities doing boring ass jobs" She said. I laughed.

"I supposed this is a lot fucking better, huh?"

I wheel myself to the kitchen to grab some coffee I've just made, but when I began to pour it into my mug, my hand trembles and I end up pouring the boiling coffee all over the front of my shirt. "Fuck!" I exclaim, grabbing the nearest rag and wiping my shirt off with it. Fuck." To top it off, I grabbed the mug that had a picture of Sara and me on it, hugging each other. I grit my teeth and tears stream down my face.

"Screw the world." I tell myself quietly, and pushed myself to my room to get new clothes. But as I take my shirt off, I get out of my chair, sit down on my bed and bawl into my palms. Had Sara been here, she would be laughing at my mistake right now and then helping me clean up the spill. But the apartment is dead silent. All I can hear are the birds outside the windows chirping like nothing is wrong. Like the world's moving on without her.

"Nice! Now we finally get a break. I say we go hit the bars and then relax for a couple months. We can start writing new songs later. But for now," Sara said, stretching her arms out wide, "drinks and a good time. How about it, Teetee?"

"Uh, yeah! Let's get going. I am ready for this vacation to begin!" I said. I smiled at Sara the smile I always gave her when I was really happy. She loved it. Said it was her favorite part of me. She grabbed my hand and we walked out of our hotel room.

The bar we chose was extremely crowded, but that was okay because the more people that were there, the more fun we'd have dancing and singing to whatever was playing. The lights flashed brightly all different colors, and they reflected off the happy and drunk faces of everyone in the bar. The bartender immediately recognized us and offered us our first round on the house. We didn't refuse and chugged the beers down in a contest to see who could do it first. Sara and I smiled at each other as we downed our first beers, myself winning at our little game, of course.

"Tch, no fair! You're such a fucking cheater 'cos you do this all the time with the boys!" Sara said, giggling. She shoved my shoulder lightly. My heart fluttered inside my chest. It was times like these when we weren't fighting that I loved.

Ted's been calling my cell phone for days, trying to get a hold of me to see how I'm doing. But I don't want to answer. I want to stay inside my apartment forever. There's no point in leaving. Not when I know that Sara won't be outside of these walls waiting for me. I haven't even left to get groceries. My neighbors have noticed, so they have been bringing food over to me every night. I thank them quietly, but in reality, I want them to go away. They're not Sara, so they're no use to me. Within these quiet walls, I think to myself. I over think, because I have nothing more to do. I remember her face that night. I remember the blood everywhere. And I always will know that it was my fault that she died. It was because of me that Sara is no longer around.

I take out my laptop and sit down on the couch with it resting on my outstretched left leg and my lump of a right leg. There are so many picture albums on my Mac that I don't know where to start, but finally I settle on the very beginning of our lives'. I choose the album "1980-1985" I slowly scroll through each picture, noting how at first we really are identical, but as the years go by, we slowly begin to change and you can tell us apart better. I feel a tear roll down the side of my face, but I ignore it and continue scrolling.

After a while, I get to our more recent pictures. I click on the album "2004", back seven years ago when I realized that Sara meant more to me than life itself. I look at the pictures of her on stage, noticing the clothes she wore then, how she held her guitar. I noticed her lips. The same, but different from mine. I loved them. By now, I'm dying inside, and the tears keep rolling down my face, more and more dripping onto my jeans, but I keep going through the pictures. I want to burn her image into my retinas. I don't want to forget her.

Finally, I scroll to the album "2011", the last album we have together. But this album is different from the rest. In every other album, we are together, but apart. Hugging each other, but there is a barrier between us. Singing together on stage, but focusing on nothing but the audience. Well, she was, but I always noticed her. I just didn't know she noticed me as well until recently. In this album, we are smiling at each other, with each other.

There are professional pictures in here and also some we'd taken with our Blackberries. In the professional pictures, taken by Lindsey, we are holding hands a lot of the time, unless we are on stage. And if we are on stage, most of the time we are looking at each other as we sing.

The less professional pictures are ones no one but Sara and I have seen. They are our secret stash of memories that I keep from everyone. I will never let anyone see these. In one picture, we are pressed up to each other tight, me kissing her cheek and Sara smiling uncontrollably. In another, we are actually kissing, my lips pressed to hers. It's almost like I'm kissing a mirror, but I know I wasn't. I know it was her.

Now I am dying. I can't take it anymore, so I close my laptop and begin to cry aloud—my face in my palms once more. We could have lived happily. We finally began to experience what we'd been longing for and now it was gone forever. I look up to see my guitar—one of the guitars that had a twin, which belonged to Sara—and I grab it angrily, snapping the neck over my knee and throwing the base at the ground. My neighbors are knocking at my door now, but I refuse to answer. I don't fucking care if they are worried or whatever. I want to be alone.

A few months before, we stopped at a bar in a little town in Iowa and got extremely drunk. We took a cab to our hotel because we were too tired and drunk to get home by foot. Sara and I helped each other get up the stairs and into our room. Once in the room, we immediately jumped onto one of the beds and lay there for a moment. It was quiet, but nice, considering we'd been in a loud bar for quite a few hours.

"Well that was awesome," said Sara in a slightly tired tone. She was looking at that ceiling, smiling. She rolled over and looked at me. "Did you have fun, Teetee? You were getting pretty crazy with your dancing by the end. You were like a tsunami crashing into people."

"Oh, shut the fuck up Sara," I said, rolling over as well to look at her face forward. Underneath her eyes were dark, but her eyes themselves were full of life, staring at me straight into my own pair. We held there for a moment, almost like in a trance. We smiled at each other. Suddenly out of nowhere Sara placed a kiss on my lips. It was so gentle I could barely feel it, but nonetheless, I knew she had done it. My heart exploded in my chest and my hand immediately went to my lips. I must have looked surprised because Sara jumped off the bed clumsily and stumbled back into the wall.

"Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit! I'm so fucking sorry Teetee! I did NOT mean that! Oh fuck." I stopped being surprised and sat up. Maybe I looked angry, because Sara pressed herself to the wall even harder than she already was and a curse passed her lips once more. But I was taking in what had just happened. I wasn't angry. I was… happy. I had been waiting for this. Somewhere deep in me I knew Sara loved me as I had learned to love her. I finally stood up and went over to her.

"Well," I began, looking down to watch as my toes wriggled. I bit my lip. "Don't be sorry. I'm… glad actually!" I started. I didn't know where to start. I decided to start by holding her hands in mine. She looked at me with worry and confusion in her facial expressions. "You know…" I said, ready to take the chance that she had given me, "I used to just think you were the cuter twin, but then I realized I… actually liked you—more than a sister. Gross right? But you…" I stopped. I didn't know what to say. I was so nervous. But Sara pulled her hands away from mine and wrapped them around my waist and pulled me closer to her so that I was leaning on her while the wall supported us both. We stood there in an embrace that felt warmer than any other one we had shared before this.

"Teetee… I don't think it was gross. If I did, I wouldn't have done what I did, now would I?" She asked me. I shook my head. Of course not. If she didn't like it, she wouldn't have done that. In that moment, we looked into each other's eyes again. Something about her eyes pulled me closer to her, until our lips met again, harder than last time. It was almost magical—I couldn't breathe at first because it was so unbelievable. Without any notice, Sara grabbed my shoulders and gently turned me so that I was the one on the wall and she was where I had stood. She pressed her body to me and my heart pounded once more. Her knee slid its way in between my thighs and I might have made a small noise. Her eyes locked with mine again as we pulled away from the kiss.

"I love you, Sasa" I said.

"I love you too, Teetee" Sara told me. There was no more time for words. That night we entered a whole new world that almost no one even came close to being in. It was a forbidden love, but God, was it fucking amazing.

That was when our relationship took a whole new level. When we were happy.