"If you be my star, I'll be your sky. You can hide underneath me and come out at night- when I turn jet black and you show off your light. I live to let you shine."
The lyrics to the sweet song crept back inside her head as she looked at the sky on the balcony of her hotel room. Sara knew what she was doing to herself, she knew damn well what she was doing. But she simply didn't care anymore. Nothing to lose anymore, she thought to herself when the song's melody crawled into her mind, trying to find a star in the dark night sky. Fiddling with her fingers, pretending it was someone's hand instead of her own, she finally found one.
"The sky is more clearer in Montreal" she whispered out loud, accompanied by a sigh. She crossed her tattooed arms onto the balcony and placed her head onto them. As she watched the cars come in and out of the parking lot, she smirked darkly. It was ironic, because the newly done piece on her arm ached when her mind crossed the lyrics from the song-
"If you be my boat, I'll be your sea. A depth of pure blue just to probe curiosity- ebbing and flowing and pushed by a breeze. I live to make you free."
Her arm ached from soreness, but the dull ache was nothing compared to the heavy, excruciating pain that settled in her chest. Usually, the pain went away when she wrote songs for the new record, successfully transferring all that pain into neatly done melodies that had a hint of sadness in them. After she let all the pain out and bottled it up onto a mpeg file on her computer, she felt numb and it was the way she liked it. Not being able to feel anything was the way Sara lived now, after the recent fall out from her five-year relationship with Emy. And it wasn't even the breakup that hurt Sara the most; yes, of course it hurt her, she loved Emy with a passion that rivaled large fires, but there was something deeper down into the depths of Sara's heart that arose from underneath her again. And this time, there was nothing that she could use to push it down. Not even the strongest Scotch whisky that she began to admire when she drank her sadness away, not even the most powerful sleep-aid drugs that she frequently used, nothing could help her drag the secret that she kept thirteen years back down to the deepest, darkest section of her heart.
For thirteen long, agonizing years, she kept this secret to herself because she knew too well that if she tried to talk about it with someone, anyone even, they would dismiss her as mentally fucked up and be sent to a mental hospital. Sara couldn't even talk to it to her own goddamned sister, the one who she shared a life with, the one who she was in a band with, the one who she told everything to- and that was the part that hurt the most. Keeping something from her own twin. It hurt more than fracturing your arm, breaking up with a girl you were with for five years, the smallest papercut on your finger; it...simply just hurt. But tonight was the night that she was going to change all that. She had invited Tegan to her hotel room that she had for one night, which Tegan thought was strange because they stayed in the house they rented for the recording of the new record, but she dismissed it as Sara trying to get away for a night. Sara texted her twin, telling her to arrive promptly at 9:00 PM earlier in the day and waited in the hotel room all day, thinking of different ways to tell the secret that she kept for half her life to her. She finally scribbled some things onto a notecard and stuffed it into the right pocket of her flannel shirt.
She grew tired of watching cars back out and drive away from the mediocre hotel but continued doing so out of boredom, and in an attempt to prevent her anxiety from getting to her. It started to climb. Her breathing rapidly quickened, and she started to sweat- she imagined the worst possible situation coming to life, being played out in the room. She quickly turned around and walked into her room, sliding shut the glass door behind her. Reaching down to open the door of the mini fridge, she pulled out a bottle of beer to calm her nerves down. She opened it and chugged half of it down, trying to speed its intoxicating effects to her control the incoming anxiety build-up. The moment she slammed her beer down onto the counter, her phone rumbled and danced on the nightstand. Tegan texted her.
I'm in the parking lot, room number please?
Sara quickly typed the four digit number of her room and went back outside onto the balcony to see if she could spot her sister. She saw a figure walking to the entrance, wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood up, with blue jeans and black shoes and assumed it was her. This was it. A few minutes and Tegan would be in her room, wondering why Sara was acting weird. A few minutes until Sara would confess to Tegan, that for thirteen years, she loved her. Not as a sister, but as a lover. That Tegan Rain Quin was the object of her affection, the apple of her eye and all those terribly written love cliches.
In a few minutes, thirteen years of lying would be erased and Sara didn't know how to feel about it. She felt like she was on fire and was missing the feeling of numbness way too much. She took one more swig of her beer and then she heard it. The knocking that knocked her heart out of her chest and into the ground. Every footstep she took closer to the door, it felt like an earthquake was going to come out of nowhere. She pushed down on the door handle and Tegan came bursting in. Sara stood right there as Tegan made her way to the bed, and let herself free fall onto it, face first. She shut the door and took a deep breath...Jesus Christ, Tegan you tease, she thought to herself.
"Good evening Tegan." Sara walked to the counter and leaned against it, the frigid beer still in her hands. She watched as Tegan flipped onto her back and looked at Sara. Sara almost dropped the bottle when her eyes met Tegan's red, puffy ones. Her perfectly constructed jaw dropped and out came Sara's words in a rushed, angry voice.
"Who did this to you Tegan? Who made you cry?" She interrogated her twin, demanding to know who hurt her. Who hurt the love of her life.
"N-nobody..I don't want to talk about it.." Tegan's voice cracked once or twice when she spoke but it didn't matter. Sara placed her beer onto the counter and walked over to Tegan, immediately cupping her sister's face and raising it so their eyes were level. As much as Sara wanted to kiss Tegan right then and there, she wanted to know who hurt her.
"Was it Lindsey? Who hurt you Tegan!" Sara shouted, not caring about anything more other than who hurt her. Tegan, looked up at Sara with tear-filled eyes and nodded, not wanting her voice to break anymore. Sara let go of her hold on Tegan's beautifully sculptured face and turned away, grabbing her beer and walking to the balcony.
Tegan sat up onto the bed, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie and watched Sara as she walked to the balcony. Sara, infuriated by Lindsey's carelessness, threw open the door, took the neck of the bottle and smashed it against the wooden railing. Unbeknownst to Sara, Tegan jumped when she heard the noise of glass breaking against wood, Sara's "Goddamn it!" curse and because of Sara's quick emotional change that shocked her. She didn't know what was going to happen next and to be honest, she was terrified when Sara was pissed...Sara walked back into the room, heavily smelling of the alcoholic drink splattered all over her with a dark red blush on her face. She was heavily breathing and moved her glance onto Tegan, who looked into the ground.
"Do you know why you're here Tegan?" Sara spoke with a loud, almost confident but furious tone. Tegan looked up at her twin and stuttered-
"N-no I don't..why are you here? Couldn't you tell me whatever you told me back at the house?" Tegan's voice was back to normal, yet there was an uncertainty in it. Sara took a deep breath and began to release the secret that has caused her immense trouble for thirteen goddamned years from her heart.
"Tegan, for thirteen years, I watched you love others. I watched you get your heart broken- smashed to pieces even, I watched you age and mature into the person you are now, I watched you cry, I watched you laugh, I watched you do everything, and I even remember the times we got into physical fights. But in those thirteen goddamned years, I watched you with a new way. I noticed you in ways that lovers gaze at each other, I noticed you in ways that would be considered "disgusting" and "sick" but I can't keep this secret for much longer or it will kill me. Tegan Rain Quin, I love you. More than a sister. I love you as a lover. Yes, you heard right Tegan, your own blood, your own fucking twin loves you with a passion that rivals the most grizzly of bears, the most courageous of wolves, the most anyone has loved another. And to see this little bitch, Lindsey, toy with your love, use you as her little "gay" experiment hurts me more than you because I know goddamned well I could treat you a thousand times better than that bitch ever could. You probably think I'm a disgusting monster but those songs I wrote for The Con, So Jealous, If It Was You- they're about you. The person I could never be with, but the point is, Tegan, I am hopelessly in love with you and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to be everything you ever wanted because you are everything I have ever wanted. For every star that has fallen, that shot across the sky and that I have watched, I wished and prayed for you to be mine and no one else's. I am so sorry Tegan but I just want to be yours..."