I walked through the door of the cabin, and Sara was sitting at the desk, flipping through the pages of her bible as usual. I walked up behind her as quietly as I could and briefly placed my hands on her elbows before running them up her arms to her shoulders. Goosebumps rose along the path my fingers traveled. I put my face to her neck and breathed in deeply.

"Find what you're looking for in there, yet?" I whispered into her ear, and then I bit it lightly and sucked it into my mouth.

"Tegan!" she gasped. I was afraid that I'd gone too far until she turned to me and pulled me into a kiss. It was innocent at first. Her hand was on my cheek, and our lips moved slowly. When I was sure she would be able to handle it, I slipped my tongue into her mouth. Her only response was to moan and keep kissing me. We went on like this for a few minutes, but it wasn't long until I knew I needed more.

I pulled away and said, "Scoot forward."

She looked confused, but still did it anyway. I slid into the chair behind her and started kissing her neck. My hands went back to rubbing up and down her arms. Sara leaned back into me and tangled one of her hands in my hair. My right hand slowly made its way from her arm to her chest, and I squeezed.

"Oh my God," she whispered, gripping tighter on my hair. My left hand eventually mirrored my right, and I started pinching her nipples. The hand that wasn't in my hair came over to my left hand and encouraged me to pinch harder. I pulled back from her neck, seeing that I'd made a faint mark where my mouth had been.

It only brought a smile to my face.

I started kissing the back of her neck as my right hand moved lower, first rubbing lightly on her stomach, then moving lower to the waistband of her pants. I gave her a second to push me away, but all she did was groan at my hesitation, so I pushed past and slipped my fingers into her pants and underwear.

I smiled when my fingers hit a wet patch.

"Tegan, please," she whimpered, and I took mercy on her, slipping two fingers straight into her.

Fucking Sara felt amazing. The more I pushed in and out of her, the harder she pushed into my hand and the harder she pushed herself back, grinding into my clit through my jeans with her ass. She was a whimpering, shaking mess against me (not that I was much better. How could I be?), and yet I still wanted more. I pulled away and went back to her ear.

"Don't hold back," I said to her. "I want to hear you. Tell me what you want."

"I need..." she said, dropping off, still thrusting against me. "I need you to go faster."

I kissed her temple and doubled my speed. I could feel her walls tremble in response, and her hips were somehow matching the impossible speed of my hand. She was practically in my lap, bouncing up and down at this point. I ground myself into her with just as much enthusiasm, starting to feel my own orgasm building up.

"Sara...fuck, Sara..." I barely managed to get out. After a second, Sara started making more noise.

"Tegan..." I heard her voice, but it seemed far away. The blood was rushing to my ears, and everything was starting to go blurry.

"Sara!" I shouted back. I was so close...I could feel my shoulders shaking.

Wait...shoulders?

"Tegan!" Sara's voice pulled me out of the last of my sleep, and my eyes shot open.

"Sara?" I said groggily. "What's wrong? What happened?'

"You were having a nightmare," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Moaning and thrashing around and stuff. Are you okay?"

I would have been afraid of blushing if I didn't know that my face was already about as red as it was going to get.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You look a little hot."

She put her hand on my forehead, and I felt my pussy clench...and that's when I realized that my fingers were inside myself. I'd been fucking myself in my sleep...dreaming of Sara. Not all that surprising, considering that this was far from the first dream I'd had about her since we'd started getting along a little better. Still mortifying, though.

I tried to move my fingers out of myself, but I was so worked up (and Sara was so close...and still touching me) that I was afraid the smallest movement would set me off. Keeping them where they were was safer until Sara went back to bed.

"It was just a bad dream," I said. "No big deal. Thanks for waking me up, though."

She smiled. "No problem."

She went back to bed, and I seriously considered just finishing myself as quietly as I could. I didn't want to tempt fate, though, so I pulled out of myself quickly and wiped my hand on the blanket. I was still shocked I'd gotten out of that without her suspecting anything. She was like that, though. I was the least subtle person in the world when I had a crush (and as much as I fucking hated it on so many different levels, I did have a MASSIVE crush on Sara), and Sara never seemed to pick up on any of it.

I sometimes suspected that she ignored it. We were almost getting along at this point, and I figured that she was just happy to not have the constant conflict anymore. It was easier to pretend that I wasn't staring at her than it was for her to deal with it.

On the other hand, she did a fair amount of staring on her end. There were even a few times that I'd let my wishful thinking take over and I'd convince myself that the smiles she'd occasionally send my way were flirtatious...that the things she said weren't always just innocent conversation between friends. It couldn't just be me who felt the heaviness in the air around us. Sometimes, she really seemed like she wanted me. She'd get this look in her eyes, like she thought about me the way I thought about her.

I'd then shake my head and mentally slap myself for getting my feelings involved in another girl that wasn't going to work out for me. The more time that had passed in the camp, the more convinced Sara became that the therapy was working.

"I haven't stopped thinking about girls that way," she said in group one day, "but I think of less girls, so that's good, right?"

"That's awesome!" Heather had replied, Joe getting the rest of the group to clap in support. I just shook my head and kept my mouth shut. It's what I'd agreed to do. Group therapy mostly consisted of me keeping my mouth shut while Joe and Heather and the other counselors gave us tips on how to have natural relationships. I left the room with a pounding headache every time. The headaches were worse on the days that Sara had "breakthroughs" and I'd see that spark of hope in her eye...knowing that it was false...that she'd never come out of here happy the way she wanted to.

I'd always known these places were fucked up for the kids that knew they couldn't change. I never thought about the kids who thought they could.

"I really do appreciate you not disrupting group," she said one day, sitting down across from me at my lunch table. This was new. Sure, we'd started talking in the cabin, and I was having pretty explicit dreams about her, but most of the effort for communication had been on my end.

"Yeah, sure," I said with a small smile. "No problem, Sara."

"I've made progress, here," she said. "I've never had things this under control for this long."

I wanted to question what "under control" meant exactly, but we weren't at the point in our tentative friendship that I could ask her about it.

"Glad to hear it," I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

"I sometimes wish that I was partnered with someone like me," she said. "Someone who wanted to get better."

"Sorry," I mumbled around a bite of food, trying to hide the fact that her words bothered me.

"Don't be," she said. "I think Joe was right. I needed you to challenge me to become who I want to be."

"And this is definitely who you want to be?" I asked her. She looked down at the table.

"This is the only way to be happy," she said, and before I could say anything, she spoke up again. "At least for me. I...I'd like it if you could get better, too-"

"Please, don't," I said. "We don't need to go there."

"No," she said. "I was just saying that I understand that you don't want to change. You like the way you are. I just can't be happy this way."

I stuffed more food in my mouth. She was trying...I knew she was trying to be friendly, but it was just making me sad and angry, and I didn't know what to say. We dropped into silence for a moment. I was expecting Sara to walk away, and I was already kicking myself for setting us back just because I was feeling moody. Instead, she just started talking again.

"My sister Samantha is a dancer," she said. "My mom and dad send her to dance academies every summer. She's at one now. She has so many trophies she has to keep some in my room."

I scoffed. "Nice."

She shook her head. "Both of us have trophy cases in our rooms, but I haven't ever won anything, and she needs the space."

"That doesn't make it better," I said.

"In any case," she went on, "when I was much younger, my parents used to send me to dance camps, too, but I was never very good, and then we found out I had asthma, and it was making me have trouble breathing properly, so I had to stop. It was unfortunate, because my mother was a dancer, and she'd always wanted to share that with her daughter. We never did have much in common, my parents and I. Sometimes I wonder why God would punish my parents with me. Maybe so they'd be more thankful for Samantha."

We'd never talked about anything like this. Every time I'd tried, she'd find a way to change the subject, or she would start to clam up, so I'd back off.

"You don't seem so bad to me," I said, and she smiled, but it didn't last long.

"I told my personal counselor about this stuff, and she said that maybe I-" She looked away from me. "I'm not supposed to talk about that, I guess."

"You can if you want," I said. "I don't mind."

"She said...she said I should feel lucky to have a sister that is such a blessing to my parents and to myself."

"Of course she did."

"She's not wrong," Sara said. "I should be happy that my parents got the child they wanted. I'm just trying to make myself less of a disappointment."

"I can't..." I trailed off. I wanted to say that I couldn't listen to her put herself down anymore. I couldn't hear her spew this bullshit. I could barely stop myself from kissing her everywhere just to show her that someone thought she was worth caring for. I barely knew her, but I knew it was true. She didn't deserve to feel like a disappointment.

I decided to just change the subject. "I'm an only child. Always sort of wished I had a sibling, but I knew my parents couldn't have any more."

"Why not?"

"My mom can't have kids. I cleared out their entire savings." She looked at me confused, so I explained. "Adopted."

"Oh," she said.

"Yeah, they had to wait five years to be able to adopt a kid. When it came around to it, there was a little boy available, too. My mom wanted a girl, though, so they picked me." I laughed a little. "They probably regret that decision now."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Doesn't that ever make you want to get better for them?"

"No, it just makes me wish better people had adopted me," I said, not completely meaning it. They were still my parents, and I couldn't stop myself from loving them.

"Your parents are good people," she said. "They could have thrown you out on the street."

"They're going to if I don't straighten out."

"But they gave you this chance," she said. "Our parents at least gave us a chance. Doesn't that mean that they love us?"

I realized she wasn't just saying this for me.

"Uh...yeah, I guess so." She needed to hear it. She needed to hear that her parents loved her.

She smiled. "You were right, Tegan. Things are getting much better now that we're getting along."

I smiled at her, and we finished our food and walked back to the cabin. Spending our lunches together became a regular thing. We'd started sharing stories from our childhoods, a few things here and there of our more recent pasts, but those were few and far between. Talking about when things had been simple was a lot easier, but we still felt like we were getting to know each other.

The more she revealed to me, the more frequent my dreams of her were. They weren't always about sex. Sometimes, it was just dreams of us, sitting in the cabin, talking about nothing, and her leaning over to kiss me...innocent stuff like that. Most of the time, though, they resulted in me trying to hide how flustered I was in the morning.

We'd still go off into our own little worlds...Sara with her bible notes, and me listening to music (sometimes, if I wasn't thinking, I'd start to hum before catching myself, but Sara never seemed to notice). Even then, I'd occasionally hear a song I thought she might like, and I'd call her over to listen. We spent a lot of time in each other's beds...sitting up with a respectable amount of distance between us, but I still took it as a small victory.

I still didn't really know what I wanted from her, but I knew that I liked us getting closer.

"What do you want to do?" I asked. "Like, for life."

We were on my bed that day, and we'd been there since lunch.

"I don't know," she said. "I honestly haven't put much thought into it. I've never been good at much, and I've been so focused on my problem. I figured I'd go to school and meet someone and go from there."

"Really gunning for that while picket fence, aren't you?"

She laughed a little. "It's what I grew up with. Me and my parents and my sister."

"Yeah, but what do you want for yourself. Dreams, goals, aspirations-"

"Do you know what you want?" she asked me, and I looked away.

"Well, yeah," I said. "I was planning on...y'know...doing the music thing."

"What does that mean, exactly?" she asked, and I sighed. I wasn't usually embarrassed to talk about this, but saying it to Sara made it seem stupid.

"I'm trying to become a musician. A professional musician. I play guitar...a little keyboard. I don't know. It probably won't happen. College is sort of my back-up plan for if it doesn't work out."

I looked back up, and Sara looked thoughtful before saying, "Have you written any songs?"

I shook my head. "Nah, I mostly just sing and play for now."

Another lie.

"I think it's good that you know what you want," she said. "I...I actually had a guitar once."

"Really?" I asked, smiling. "Did you ever learn to play?"

She shook her head quickly. "I wanted to, but Samantha...well, she wanted my guitar."

"So, what? Your parents snatched it out of your hands and gave it to her?"

"No!" she said quickly. "I hope I'm not making my parents sound bad."

"Sorry," I said. I didn't want her to stop talking. "What happened?"

Sara took a deep breath before going on. "My relationship with my parents wasn't the best after my sister was born. It didn't get bad until after they caught me, but they always seemed less interested in me after my sister..."

She stopped, and I could tell she was trying not to cry. I felt torn between wanting to show support and wanting to respect her personal space. Despite the fact that this hadn't ever worked, I set my hand on top of hers on the bed. She looked at it for a second, then grabbed it with her own. She kept talking before I had a chance to process this development.

"When I was thirteen, my parents bought me a guitar for my birthday, and I was so happy. It was like they...my personal counselor says I shouldn't doubt my parents' love so much."

"Fuck your personal counselor," I said, and she winced. "Sorry, that's not what I meant. Just...say whatever you're feeling, okay?"

She squeezed my hand tighter. "It was like they were telling me that they loved me. They hadn't abandoned me because of my unnatural urges. They hadn't replaced me with a younger, better daughter. The problem was that Samantha couldn't stop talking about how much she wanted my guitar. I shared it with her a little bit, but I wanted to play it myself. I mean...it was mine.

"One day, Samantha and I got into a little bit of a fight. She ran up to my room, and before I had a chance to stop her, my guitar was smashed to pieces on my floor. I remember sobbing and trying to pick pieces up...and I remember shoving Samantha to the ground."

I shrugged. "So? I would have killed that little bit-" I cut myself off. I had to remind myself that this was her family. "I would have done a lot worse."

"Then I'm glad you didn't end up with my parents," Sara said with a serious face, staring at the wall.

"What happened?" I asked.

She shook herself out of it. "It wasn't anything bad. They just pulled me away from her and sent me to my room for a couple of days."

"What, like, you were grounded?" I asked.

"Yeah. No outside contact. No school. No food-"

"I'm sorry, did you just say no food?" I was really, really hoping that I'd heard that wrong.

Her eyes snapped to me. "No, I...they gave me water. And I'm probably getting my memory. You can't go days without food, right?."

I could feel her pulling away again, so I just squeezed her hand back, despite the fact that I didn't want to just let that drop. It was more important for her to get this out right now than it was for me to know all the details.

I made a mental note to find out later.

"What did your parents do to Samantha?"

"What?" Sara asked, confused.

"What did they do to punish Samantha?"

"Oh, they didn't. They told her to just ask for what she wants in the future, and they gave her a guitar for her birthday."

My mouth dropped open. "What the fuck? How the hell did you put up with that shit?"

"She was young. She didn't know what she was doing. I did." I could see tears forming in her eyes.

"Sara?" I asked, and she nodded. "Are you about to cry?" She nodded again, and a tear felland slid down her cheek. "Okay...can I wipe that away? Just because last time-"

"Yeah," she said. "Thank you."

I smiled, and I wiped her tear away. This was a bad idea. I shouldn't be touching her like this. One hand on her face, one hand tangled with her own...

"You weren't wrong that day," I said to her. "Shoving your sister isn't a crime, and what she did was a whole lot worse."

She looked at me, and I couldn't figure out a reason to still be rubbing her cheek, but I was, and she wasn't pushing me away. I scooted just a bit closer to her on the bed, and she didn't push me away. I started leaning in, and she didn't push me away.

I finally pressed my lips to hers, and she didn't push me away.

For a brief second, she pulled my bottom lip between hers, and her hand gripped mine so tight, it immediately started to go numb. Before I could even mentally scold myself for doing this (or before I could high-five myself), she finally seemed to realize what she was doing, and she jumped away from me and off of the bed like it was on fire.

"What...I thought..." She had her eyes closed and was rubbing her temples hard.

"Sara, wait," I said, getting to my feet and walking towards her, but she just backed up.

"Stay away from me!" she yelled at me. "How dare you?"

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen-"

"Of course you did!" She was in my face in an instant. "We both know that's what you've wanted all along."

"That's not true!" I snapped back.

"You think I'm blind? You think I don't see the way you look at me? You practically drool when I walk into a room-"

"Wait," I said, holding up my hand. "Before you go on this little rant where you, no doubt, insinuate I'm a slut, I'd like to point out the fact that I'm not the only one that's been drooling. You've done your fair share of staring, you've flirted with me, even if you try to pretend that that's not what it is, and just now? You kissed me back."

"I didn't-"

"You did!"

She reared back and shoved me so hard that I tripped and fell onto my bed.

"Fuck you!" she screamed at me before running out of the cabin, slamming the door behind her. I stared at the ceiling and tried to breathe, still hearing her voice in my head...and feeling her lips on mine.

"Shit."