Hooray, chapter 3! I tried to make this a bit longer because of how short the 2nd chapter was... thank you for all of your wonderful reviews, they really mean the world to me! My new best friend, saraxtegan, has an incredible story called "This Business of Sainthood", and I cannot stress enough that you all check it out. I, for one, am completely hooked on it, and it is a wonderfully, beautifully written story that you don't want to miss!
T:
I rushed out of the grocery store, the bottle of soda water that was stuffed hastily under my arm damn near to spilling on the street. I ignored it and fished for my keys with trembling fingers; I was already behind schedule, my ten minute promise to Sara now stretched to at least twenty. Maybe thirty, but I couldn't be bothered to check my watch.
I managed to yank open the car door and threw it into drive before I had even closed the door. My car had taken abuse that would probably be illegal if that kind of thing was frowned upon, but I ignored its squeals and protests and rushed onto the interstate. My fingers rattled on the steering wheel, following the cadence of a song on the radio I didn't know. It had started to rain by the time I pulled into Sara's apartment complex, so much so that even when I rushed into the elevator I could still hear it, sliding down the walls and whispering sweet rhythms in my ear.
The apartment was dark when I entered it, and it immediately set me uneasy as I fumbled for the light on the wall. My fingers were clammy from an emotion I couldn't place, and it ate away at my nerves until I had to set the groceries down on the floor and claw mindlessly at the wall until my nail nicked the switch. It set the room alive with light and I recoiled at the sudden influx, clumsily grabbing the soda water as my eyes adjusted.
When I could finally see, I was faced with an empty apartment. The sheets of the couch were thrown up against the walls, leaving the sofa barren and empty, left to reveal all its dirty blemishes and flaws to the world's hungry eyes. The sight made my stomach clench uneasily, and suddenly my mind was frantic, grasping at thoughts too flimsy to hold.
"Sara?" I asked, my heart beating so maniacally in my ears that I could hardly register the sound of my own voice. I set down the soda water again and set for Sara's room, feet tripping and slipping on the floor in some kind of desperate gait, not slowing until I stepped through the threshold. Her room was dark, seemingly untouched by the light of the foyer, and it made my entrance slow and feeble with fingers clawing at the walls for balance, desperate steps rendered hesitant and searching.
"Sara?" I called again, hearing my voice echo off the walls and fizzle away in the dark room. My fingers curled around the knob of her closet, and I pried it open slowly.
It was black, pitch black, and I let the disappointed breath I had been holding beneath my ribcage slip out between my lips. I turned to leave, tracing the lists of places she could have gone, the places she must have been hiding-
I heard a rustle of fabric against skin, so miniscule that I was surprised my tired ears caught it. I narrowed my eyes enough to make out the edges of a body, pressed so tight into the wall that she could have faded into it. I mumbled her name unconsciously as I searched for the light, yanking on the frayed light bulb cord in vain three times before giving up. I slid down to my knees and fished for my cell phone to give me some kind of illumination.
Sara's head was leaned back against the wall, lips parted slightly, her shirt hitched messily at her ribs. There was something almost macabre about it, and for a moment I let the insistent panic take hold as my fingers fumbled along her neck, searching for a pulse. Once I found it, I let my shoulders slump and my breathing relax, chiding myself over and over: of course she's not dead, of course she's not, she's only asleep.
She was clutching something tightly to her chest – an old t-shirt from the looks of it – and I gently tried to pry it from her hands. She stirred idly, and I watched as her eyelids lifted to reveal red-rimmed eyes, still glossy from sleep. Her lips parted and she narrowed her eyes, shaking her head, stretching her bones, moving her eyes back to me. Her movements were nauseatingly quick, like a rabbit set to run, and before I knew it she was on top of me. Her fingers clawed at my shirt, desperately, and she hissed sleep-drunk sentiments into my neck, from which I could make out: leave… leave, please, I just… I just want to sleep. It made my skin crawl more than her fingers, and I let out a yelp as she scratched along my arm. "Fuck, Sara! Sara, you're asleep!" I yelled, grabbing her shoulders and holding her from me. She struggled in my grip and blinked frantically before she was able to shake the sleep from her bones and look me clean in the eye.
"Tegan." She grumbled, and the way my name fell from her lips made it sound like a sigh of relief. She sat up, straddling me slightly and the position made heat rush to my cheeks and to places of my body it shouldn't have. I was glad she couldn't see my embarrassment in the darkness. She swung her hips off of me and stumbled to her feet, the old t-shirt still wrapped around her middle. I pried it from her skin and she looked ashamed as I held it up to the flickering light of my cell phone.
"Who's is this-"
"Mine." Sara said hastily, grabbing it and throwing it to the top shelf of the closet. She pushed by me, and I tried to ignore the way her hips pressed into me. I blamed it on loneliness.
I followed her through the darkness that she somehow managed to navigate in effortlessly, walking gracefully like a ghost that I could hardly see. I felt the urge to grab her hand that dangled limply at her side, but I was afraid my hand would fall straight through.
She sat at the counter, and the light made her look fragile, nearly like a child. I swallowed the lump in my throat and pushed the soda water and aspirin to her; she gave me a small thankful smile, but merely spun the bottle idly on the counter.
"Hey," I propped my elbows up on the counter and sat adjacent to her. She looked up slowly, and although her gaze met mine, I couldn't shake the feeling that she was looking through me. "How about we go out tonight? For dinner or something. We can go wherever you want, my treat."
She dropped her gaze and bit her lip, softly, as if to test how hard it would be to break right through the skin. My skin crawled again and she sighed lowly.
"Tegan, I don't really-"
"Come on, it will be fun!" I could tell she was annoyed, but I persisted anyway. I swung around the counter and placed my hands on her shoulders. "Fresh air, good food, hell, we can go get McFlurries like we used to. I mean, I don't think we need the calories, but whatever-"
"Okay, okay, just get off of me." She was chuckling now, and I smiled and dropped my hands from her. She strolled into her room and I idly played with my car keys until she finished changing. She emerged a moment later, her jacket tucked neatly under her arm as she ran a hand through her hair.
"Can we go to Tony's? I'm dying for pizza." She hastily slid into her coat, and I watched her cautiously, taken aback by her sudden change in demeanor. I hadn't dared to ask her why she had been jammed into the back of her closet, and when she looked at me, her eyes still circled red, I knew I couldn't take the answer.
So I dropped it, painted a smile on my face, and prayed that it was strong enough to last the whole night.
Tony's was nearly empty, save for an elderly couple tucked in the back of the restaurant. Sara slid into a booth in the back and I followed suit and sat across from her.
"Can we get mushrooms? I've been craving it for weeks." Her eyes were glued to the menu, scanning back and forth, and I watched her wordlessly. My eyes caught the rise and fall of her breathing, the way she licked her lips here and there, the way she brushed her hair from her eyes idly-
"Tegan?" Sara looked up at me now, pursing her lips in annoyance when she realized I wasn't listening.
"Did you say something?" I asked and she shook her head, mumbling a quick nevermind under her breath.
"No, really, what did you say?" My hands unconsciously caught hers and her head shot up, startled. Her eyes froze in mine for a moment and the stagnant air seemed to freeze, and I found myself holding my breath, as if letting it go would break me. She jerked her hands from my grip and set them on her lap. My stomach turned uneasily, and I shifted awkwardly in my chair.
The waiter approached our table before the awkwardness reached a nauseating level, and he flipped his notepad idly as he asked for our orders.
"A large mushroom pizza." Sara said with a smile and I nonchalantly ordered a Coke, not having much of an appetite at this point.
"You should really eat something," Sara said as she handed the waiter our menus, still refusing to look me in the eye as she settled in her seat. "Mom may accuse you of being anorexic again."
She was joking, I could tell, but there was a slight inch of scorn in her voice that made my fingers clench over the lip of the table.
"Yeah well, I'm sure Mom has other shit to worry about. Maybe if I told her you kissed me, she'd probably be a bit less worried about my eating habits." Sara's eyes met mine immediately and she pursed her lips, angry now.
"What the fuck is your problem?" She hissed, leaning forward as to not attract attention. For some unknown reason, probably related hormones or aging or some other headline plague, it made me angrier, and I leaned towards her with clenched teeth. "I don't have a problem, Sara. It happened, didn't it? I'm not going to lie to myself-"
"I'm not denying it, Tegan." She snapped, straightening back against the seat and folded her arms over her middle tightly. "I'm just not going to discuss it. We were drunk, it wasn't a big deal."
I wasn't in the mood for an argument so I dropped it, trying to push aside the fact that I was furious and that my temper was pressing holes through my skin, begging to be released, clawing at my bones. She sighed and pressed her thumbs to her temples slowly.
The food arrived moments later but I simply watched Sara eat, spinning my straw around idly inside its can. Sara offered me a piece between bites, pizza clinging to her teeth as she grinned. I couldn't help but smile back, and in that moment it seemed as if the tension had faded from the room.
It felt as if things had gone back to normal.
But then I noticed in an idle glance something that made my heart hiccup in its rhythm; I caught the glimpse of a razorblade's messy handwriting scribbled on the inside of her wrist, and I swung out and caught her hand as she ate.
"What the fuck, Tegan-" She paused when she noticed my expression. Her mood changed abruptly, like a sudden lane change, and she shifted awkwardly in her seat. I ran my fingertip over the little scratches, now bubbled and starting to scab.
"Sara…" I breathed, not sure what to think or say or how to breathe or how to function, and how could I let it get this bad, how could I be so fucking blind-
"Tegan, it's not that big of a deal." She seemed to have noticed my mind running rampant, and gently eased her wrist of out of my grip until our fingers were touching.
"Of course it's a big deal." My voice was hoarse and sounded alien to my own ears. She sighed and eased herself away from me.
"Can we just leave?" She had already begun to slip on her coat, obviously not caring about my answer or the fact that over half of her pizza still remained.
"Finish eating."
"Look, Tegan, I just want to go home-"
"Fucking eat it, Sara, I paid ten dollars for your stupid pizza."
Sara looked taken aback by the roughness of my voice, and hesitantly grabbed a slice and chewed it slowly. "There." She murmured and slid out of the booth. She leaned now to tie her already-tied shoe and I grabbed my car keys and headed for the parking lot, not caring to see if she was following me.
The car ride was silent, save for Sara's uneasy shifting and her low coughs. I couldn't stand to look at her, and yet I didn't once glance in the rear view mirror in fear of catching my own reflection. How could I look myself in the eye anymore? How could I look at someone so utterly blind?
I took the elevator and Sara took the stairs.
I took the time to re-teach myself how to breathe, chiding myself in my head that I needed to talk to her, that she was probably three steps to killing herself-
"Shut up, shut up." I grumbled to no one in particular, although the man to my left seemed to take offense and got off two levels before his room. I ignored it and walked to my room with keys in hand. Sara was already waiting, sunken down against the door with her knees drawn to her chest; she lifted her head when she say me and slowly pushed to her feet. I fumbled the key in the lock and grumbled obscenities when it wouldn't open. In the corner of my eye, I could see Sara inching towards me, inchinginchinginching until she mustered up the courage to gently touch my arm.
"Tegan…" She mumbled, her voice low and trembling from lack of use. She cleared her throat and tried again.
"I'm sorry."
I scoffed and grunted when the door opened reluctantly. I threw my coat on the counter and flicked on the lights and tried my best to ignore Sara's footsteps trailing after mine.
"Tegan," She hissed and darted out in front of me. "Fucking listen, I'm sorry, what else do you want me to say?"
"You should have told me." I spat and tried to get around her. She simply followed me and blocked my steps, like kids playing king on the playground. I grit my teeth and crossed my arms over my chest.
"Told you what, exactly? What could I have said-"
"You could have said something!" I yelled exasperated now, trying desperately to get around her so I could finally sleep. Maybe then I could wake up in a live that I recognized until of this Alice and Wonderland-esque hallucination with characters that I had only heard of in books. This couldn't be my Sara, it couldn't.
"Just move." She noticed the exhaustion in my voice and gently allowed me by. As I walked by, her lips brushed my neck, and I froze for a moment.
"Goodnight." Sara mumbled, her hand brushing the inside of my wrist as she walked into her room. I watched her walk, watching the sway of her hips, and let my mind wonder if she needed me now as much as I needed her.