No more teasing... holy shit, here we go.

Part III: If I Move Away

Chapter One: Those Windows

When I was in third grade, my best friend Abby and I went for a sleepover at the home of Sophia, a girl who we both silently agreed was cooler than us, and so we were excited to have been invited by her. Sophia's mother drove us to the local Pizza Hut for dinner in her mini-van. There were six girls and Sophia's mother, so there were six witnesses to my friend Abby's loss of bladder control. I don't know exactly what led to the urinary calamity in the local pizza place, since it was clear that I couldn't ask, but I know that even now, Abby has an aversion to Pizza Hut that is so powerful that she won't even eat delivery pizza from Pizza Hut. I think, years from now, that is how I will continue to feel about Berlin.

We had half a day free in Berlin; the girls, the band and I did a cheesy city tour with a stop at the Berlin Zoo. We all learned of Ted's aversion to snakes, which was so intense that he lingered outside of the reptile house, shivering, while the rest of us went in. Johnny stayed to watch the monkeys for ages after we'd moved on to the next environment, and his adoration for the monkeys was matched by Tegan's infatuation with the penguins. The penguins were cool, no doubt, but every time one of them dove from their little artificial rocky beach into the water, Tegan nearly lost her mind. Sara and I laughed at her, and I wondered for how long, and in how many varied circumstances, Sara and I would share moments like that; she looked at me, gave me a slight roll of the eyes at Tegan, and I smiled back at her. I hung back for a few minutes to look at a solitary Siberian tiger, sprawled out lazily in his paddock, and was startled by Tegan who crept in next to me.

"Does he remind you of something?" she asked with a warm grin. I smiled back at her around the little pang it gave me. She had gotten a cup of frozen yogurt, which she offered. I took her spoon and ate a scoop of the yogurt; she watched me taste the familiar pineapple, her smiling eyes on my eyes, wandering down to my lips. She leaned in close and gently reached out a hand to wipe away a bit of yogurt from the corner of my mouth with her thumb. She looked back to my eyes and gave me a little smile as her thumb softly stroked my lips, causing my heart to lurch and skip, before she rushed off to share her yogurt with Sara.

Back on the city tour bus, Sara sat next to me and when I tried to dismiss her apology for what had happened in the drugstore - for which I didn't think she needed to apologize - she repeated her apology with an intense look, and hugged me. So I accepted her apology, and we spent the rest of the tour sitting behind Shaun and Tegan on the bus and talking about the Berlin wall, the shadowy stones of the Holocaust memorial, and the underground bunker where Hitler had killed himself. It was a good afternoon. Everyone was in good spirits. Everyone was friends again. We were looking forward to the show that night, a sold-out engagement at a nicer venue than they were used to.

We arrived at the venue less than an hour before the band was scheduled for sound check. Backstage, there were people in and out: members of one of the opening acts, a few friends of the band and the girls, a writer from a local magazine, road crew, managers, and others I didn't bother to keep track of. I was sitting on one end of a sofa, looking over some photos on my laptop. One of the girls' managers, Piers, was on the other end of the sofa with his laptop. Tegan was talking with a local magazine writer and I don't know how the interview had gone up until that point, but something drew my attention to them at that moment. Perhaps it was his tone, that edge of excitement in his voice when he asked it, a hint of sadism perhaps. I don't know. But when those words left his mouth, the air was sucked out of the room and I think everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up.

"So, I have to ask you, to give you this, how can I say, opportunity to say something to your fans, in your own words. . ." the journalist began, with a slight smile, sitting on a stool across from Tegan. My stomach was already clenching when I saw Tegan's expression, at first blank, and then her brows contracted, puzzled.

"About. . .?" she started.

"Well, about the video, of course!" he started, his accent twisting the word into wideo, but it didn't matter. It was clear enough. "A wideo which is you start to make sex with your sister. I think your fans are so. . . how is it. . . curious to hear about that."

I can't tell you what happened to my stomach in that moment. I slowly closed my laptop, but I felt like I'd been plunged into ice water. Tegan's face had gotten suddenly very pale and Sara, who'd been in the middle of a Scrabble game with Ted, looked over, quizzically and then tense, when she saw Tegan's face.

"What the fuck did you say?" Tegan started, her voice trembling slightly, as the little journalist's reptilian enjoyment intensified.

"Oh, you haven't heard? The video has been posted last night on the YouTube and now there are so many thousand of -"

"Get - what the - who - I need you out. You need to get out of here. Now," Tegan said, standing. Shaun and Ted were up as well, approaching the journalist.

"It's time to go, I think," Ted said, handing him his bag as Shaun moved in next to Tegan. I glanced quickly over to Piers, who sat there, quietly, curiously, opening YouTube on his computer.

"Don't you want to make a statement to your fans-" the journalist went on, as he was being helpfully led to the door by Ted.

"You need to shut up," Ted said, opening the door and, in a gesture more aggressive than any I'd ever seen from Ted before, shoving the slim, smug young German through the door.

"On YouTube, search 'barn sex, Tegan and S-" And the door slammed. Ted turned, looked from me to Tegan.

"Barn sex?" Piers said with a laugh, shaking his head while he typed those words- I saw it - typed the words into the search field.

"Piers, don't-" Sara started, her voice tight, panic mirroring the pale shock of Tegan's face. Piers clicked on the video and looked up at Sara in surprise. And then to Tegan.

I could hear the voices on the video and without looking, I knew what he was seeing. I knew because the video camera had been in my numb hands when it was recorded. The face of the girl, the girl in the camera shop, flashed through my mind and her smug grin, no longer a mystery.

"Tegan, what is. . ." Piers started, but stopped, his eyes on the screen.

Ted mumbled something to Shaun and Johnny, who looked confused, worried, but silently filed out of the room behind Ted, somewhat reluctantly.

"The description says. . . thanks to Jamie for the great footage. . ." Piers started, dumbfounded, looking over to me at the other end of the sofa. My stomach dropped even further as I looked up to Tegan, whose eyes met mine, blank. "What is this that I'm watching?" Piers asked. Shockingly, he started the short clip again, from the video, and turned the computer around on his lap so that Sara and Tegan could both see it. I was frozen, numb, as they looked, only for a moment. Sara's eyes closed; Tegan lunged forward, grabbing the computer from Piers' hands.

"Piers, that's not - it isn't - it isn't what it looks like," Tegan stuttered. "It's not. . . it isn't Sara. It's. . ." Tegan looked like she was going to throw up. She was not in any state to sell her lie, and Sara's eyes, glossy, fell on me.

"Jamie, did you make that video?" she asked, her voice remarkably level, almost soft. My throat felt like it was closing. I was dizzy. Everything was starting to sound muffled and the skin on my entire body tingled as the dread in my chest flattened my lungs, my heart.

"I didn't. . . make. . . the video, it was. . . I. . ." I choked, listening to myself try to make a sentence.

"How is- did it- did you put that. . . on YouTube?" she asked, her pitch starting to rise. My heart was racing in my throat.

"No! Of course I didn't-"

"Who? Who put. . ." I glanced over at Tegan, who was looking at me, wide-eyed.

"The. . ." I managed, "it must've been the. . . the girl at the. . . shop, the camera shop. . ."

Sara lunged at me, one hand stretched out to grab me, to strike me, I don't know. I leapt to my feet more quickly than I thought I was capable of, but Piers was there and he caught her. She strained against him, flailing, struggling to push his hands off of her, her face redder and more furious by the second.

"You. . . you. . . fuck!" she screamed as Piers held her shoulders, holding her back. "What. . . what have you. . . what. . . you've fucked us! You've fucking. . . oh my God, you fucking bitch!" Sara wailed, fighting for several more moments before losing all resolve and crumpling in Piers' arms. Tegan, suddenly, dropped to her knees in front of the coffee table and opened the laptop, frantically clicking and, after a few moments, she covered her face with her hands. I was very nearly hyperventilating. Sara stood, stooped over, with her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. Piers rubbed her back.

"Can someone please explain. . . I mean, it can't be. . ."

"No!" Tegan cried out, suddenly, her face flushed, her eyes wild. "It isn't. . . it's not. . . you know that's not, possible, I mean. . . Jamie! Tell him!" Her eyes were on me, filled with terror, panic, disbelief.

"It's not Sara," I said quickly. "It's Casey." For a second, a hint of relief flashed across Tegan's face, as she looked to Sara and Piers.

"It really looks like Sara," Piers said, almost laughing. His mind was not prepared to comprehend what he'd seen, and what he was seeing now, as the girls fell apart.

"Casey really looks like Sara," I said, desperately. Piers looked from me to Sara.

"If it's not Sara, then why is Sara crying?" he asked. Sara looked at me, her face red and wet with tears. "And why is Tegan crying?" They stood there, stunned. Tegan covered her mouth, shaking her head frantically, in tears as well.

"Oh God. . . oh my God," Sara said again, covering her mouth too, turning quickly and starting for the door. I recalled the way Tegan had looked in her bedroom before running to the bathroom and throwing up.

"Sara, wait!" Tegan cried out, jumping up and reaching for Sara's arm. Sara recoiled, in a panic.

"Tegan, don't touch me!" she yelled, pulling away and rushing out. Piers ran after her, leaving me alone in the room with Tegan.

For a moment, Tegan stood, looking at the door, like she'd been slapped. Then she turned and looked down at the computer screen, where she could see the screen-cap from the "barn sex" video.

"How. . ." she whispered, looking up at me with red, wet eyes. "How could you do this to me?" In all that I'd seen, I'd never seen her look this devastated, this destroyed. And it was because of me. My knees almost gave out.

"Tegan, I didn't. . ." I breathed, reaching towards her.

"You didn't?" she repeated in disbelief, stepping away from me.

"I wasn't-" I tried to say, desperate to explain, to make her understand, all the while feeling like it wasn't quite real, like it couldn't really be happening and that I would just wake up in a few minutes, with a kink in my neck from sleeping funny.

"You recorded us. . ."

"I turned it off! No - I didn't - the camera was - I didn't-" the dread, panic, and horror were multiplying inside of me, all at once.

"And now it's on YouTube. . . and. . . there are. . . over twenty thousand hits," she said.

"I deleted - you don't - no - I'm sorry -"

"Everyone in the world is going to see it! Our mother is going to see it! Our mother! Oh my God, oh God. . ." Tegan cried, one hand clutching her stomach, the tears streaming down her face even more heavily, her eyelids fluttering as if she were trying to stay conscious as her other hand clutched the back of the sofa for support.

"It was - an accident," I said, but my throat felt so tight that my voice was not much more than a whisper.

"An accident? An accident that you recorded us when we . . . when we were. . . alone, and that you didn't tell me, after everything! Everything!" she shouted, the volume and hysteria in her voice increasing with each word.

"No! I. . ." I whimpered. She had a point. I'd told her about the hotel but I hadn't told her about the barn. Why hadn't I?! "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please. . .I deleted-"

"You're sorry! Sorry! Well I'm sorry that you fucking. . . you fucking spied on us!" she ranted. "And sorry that you videotaped us and you fucked up so bad that now the video is somehow on YouTube! And I'm fucking sorry you didn't fucking delete the file after you accidentally recorded us, before you, like, fucking, gave the fucking camera to some fucking. . . oh my God. . . oh my God. . ." She was screaming, sobbing. She looked like she would be sick. She slid down the side of the sofa to her knees, covering her face with her trembling hands. I felt sick, too. I wanted to escape. I wanted someone to rescue me. I wanted to cry.

"No! I'm sorry! I just, I went up in the loft to look around and I heard -" She righted herself, swiping her tears away angrily with her sleeve.

"You fucking watched us! On purpose!"

"No! I. . . I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Tegan, please, I'm so sorry -" I whispered desperately.

"You're sorry again! Oh my God, fucking stop it with the sorry!" she spit out. "What the fuck does it matter that you're sorry?! We're fucked! It's over! Our career is over! Our lives are over! Our family. . . oh my God, you've destroyed us! It's all over! EVERYTHING!"

"No, Tegan, please-" I begged, swallowing the stomach acid in the back of my throat.

"Shut up!" she screamed hysterically. "Shut up! Just stop it! I fucking trusted you. . . with the most. . . the most. . . and you have destroyed my life! Everything I have! My life, and Sara's life. . . what are we going to do now? What, Jamie, WHAT?! It's all over. . . it's over. . . I'm sorry I ever fucking met you!" Those last words, drenched in rage, a fist to my guts. I don't think I did anything when the tears started. I don't think I even noticed. My mouth opened, but nothing would come out. I couldn't breathe. She stared at me for another moment, the pain in her face more than I could bear to look at. My hands were shaking, my whole body was shaking. Her face crumpled again, and she choked back a sob into the cuff of her shirt before she turned and ran out of the room.