Alright, so I actually like this chapter? Weird, I guess. And I managed to get it out quicker than I thought! I apologize for the fast changes, but I felt like if I keep at a steady, slow pace nobody will be interested. I don't mean to make any of them look bad. I am staying neutral and you choose who you feel bad for and who you're angry at. Things are going to be pretty hard for them from now on, especially for Sara. A lot of similarity with Catharsis will appear (shows how bad I am as a writer). Tell me what you think!
Trigger warning: abuse, violence, mental illness.
Sara
Dec 20th, 2007
"Why? Why didn't you tell me?" she says, crying loudly. Somehow I can't react or feel anything as I watch her excessive tears. I feel indifferent and carless. Her tears are streaming down her face but I feel nothing. I am here because of her. I am in this bed facing this pain because of her. I don't even want to answer her. She knows why I did not tell her. It's over. All of it is over. Since that day, since that moment she touched me.
"Sara, please talk to me." She hiccups, kneeling down like a beggar. "Please forgive me. I am sorry. I'll always be sorry. You have no idea how much I hate myself. You have no idea." My sister is watching us. She's the only one who knows about this. I can't tell my mother or father, they'll get a heart attack. Plus, my dad's already been sick these days.
My sister is looking at Tegan with dark eyes full of anger and vengeance. I can't even look at her. I love her, don't love her. I hate her, but want her. I am a big mess and it's because of her.
"If I were you, I'd just leave her alone. I can't believe she even stayed with you these months. Just leave her alone," my sister says.
The sobs Tegan escapes make me quiver. I admit they make my stomach twist. She cried every night since what had happened. She apologized everyday but I couldn't allow her to touch me and I still can't. I can't trust her anymore. I'm not sure I love her anymore. I don't know how I feel about her anymore.
"You can't leave me, Sara. You can't. You know too well I will die. I know I need help and I'm sick and I've always been sick and you knew it." She pushes her head on the mattress and weeps. I think of touching her soft hair but retreat. "Sara, I am nothing. You know I am nothing without you. It's fine, don't love me, don't be with me, don't even touch me, just don't leave me. You have to come back with me." She buries her face in her hands. Her wailing noises are heart shattering but I can't do anything about them. I feel a tear sliding down my eyes.
"Sara, no," Joy says. "I swear I'll tell mum and dad. Sara, you can't. This time you're back, next time she'll kill you. She's a monster."
"No, no, no, no, no, no." Tegan shakes her head dramatically. Her tears are falling all over the white sheets. Her eyes are swollen and red. Her hair is damp, sticking to her sweaty forehead. Her face is pink and her neck is flushed. "I am not like that. I swear I did not mean to. I swear I did not mean to. I swear I did not mean to. I swear I did..." She starts to hiccup, losing her breath.
More tears fall from my eyes and my lips tremble. My hands move to touch her but I can't. We have not touched since that day even though we lived in the same place. I just can't do it.
"Joy," I say, hearing my hoarse, cracked voice, "please leave us alone."
"No," Joy shouts. "And let her be near you? She might fucking choke you to death right now."
By now Tegan has managed to sit on the floor beside my bed and cry. I'm just scared mum and dad might visit and see her this way. I told them I did not tell her because she had finals, which is partially true. But, mostly, I did not tell her because I wanted to get away. Only Emy and Amber know. I told Joy because she's the one who had to help me dress and undress after the surgery. She saw the still evident marks of Tegan's fingers and hands. She realized it immediately, she is not stupid.
"Joy, she's not going to hurt me." I am sure she is not going to hurt me, not anymore. No, I can't trust her, but I know she regrets it. If she didn't, she wouldn't have tried her best to win my trust back for the past two months.
"You just performed a dangerous back surgery because of her and you're saying she won't hurt you? What are you? Nuts?"
"Joy, please," I beg. I wish she's still young and stupid.
"I'm not leaving, Sara. Talk to her in here. I am old enough. I know what happened. I can't trust her. I am your sister and I care about you more than she ever will." I hear the loudest sob Tegan has ever let. I know Joy's words are fuming her, hurting her chest, stinging her heart, beating her worse than she has beaten me, choking her worse than she has choked me, murdering her vitality the way she has murdered mine. I know what these words are doing to her because when I said such words, she hit me without knowing how to stop. I know how hard these words are hitting her. And I am glad and happy that my sister is by my side.
Stupid! Years and years trying to search for a family when I have a real one. I was stupid. Everything Tegan has been through is because of her own family. If I was her mother, I'd be ashamed. I tried to help her but it was just too late for her. Her mother doesn't even know what she has done. I don't blame Tegan for not telling her. I'd be very embarrassed telling my mother that I hit my girlfriend senselessly just because she pushed me when we were arguing. Emy was right. I was stupid. I am stupid. I'll always be stupid. The fact that I still feel sorry for her and I am crying as she is crying proves how stupid I am.
Stupid. Stupid. Fucking stupid.
How? How did it start? How did I let it happen? We were happy and everything was going well. Goddamn it. Goddamn the luck I hold in life.
I can't even connect the incidents in my brain. Since I came here two weeks ago I've been reliving every moment since we moved together. Emy warned me. I did not listen. Emy has always been scared of Tegan. I thought it was silly. I was silly.
But Tegan was not like that. No...she is not like that. What happened all of a sudden? I can't get it. She was the best girlfriend just two months before. She asked with beautiful gentleness that she wants to end the affair we have with Emy.
"If you want," she said. "Only if you want." She was careful and looked scared.
"I want whatever you want. Emy's into Amber anyway."
"I'm glad she finally found someone. I'm happy for her. I really want us to be girlfriends, the two of us only."
That time was a bit tense for me and I needed her by my side but at the same time I needed to be away from her. I was scared of moving. She gave me the option to think about it till the end of the academic year. That means till May next year. The fact that I still believe it's an option scares me. Go with her? After all that? Wow, I must be so stupid.
"Please, Sara," Tegan says, getting up from her seating position, but still kneeling in front of me. "Ask Emy. She's helping me. Ask her. Ask her. I'm ready to go to anger management and I want you to help me."
I should have listened to Emy but I didn't.
"I just want you to be careful around Tegan," Emy said to me months ago. I thought she was jealous we did not welcome her anymore, but a week later she was officially dating Amber.
"Why?" I asked.
"She's a good person, but she needs some kind of help with her anger."
"Emy," I whined. I rolled my eyes.
"I am serious," Emy said. "She still breaks stuff when she's angry, yes or no?"
"Yes," I whispered.
"You still feel scared when she yells."
"No."
"Yes," she insisted, which annoyed me and vexed me. I couldn't think of Tegan as a frightful human being. She cried because she thought she hurt me. She had been hurt all her life, how could I think of her that way?
"How's Amber?" I changed the subject.
"Jealous," Emy said. "But it's cute."
"You're gonna miss those days, aren't you?"
"Oh, yes." Emy chuckled. "It makes her jealous but I really like it. I really like her. A lot. I'm happy with her."
"I'm happy for you."
Emy! Emy helping Tegan. She has always been there. She will always be here for me. But Tegan? I doubt it. Emy hated Tegan that day she had to clean every bleeding scratch on my skin. Tegan hated Tegan that day. It was the worst day of my life.
We were just talking. We were simply talking.
"I don't like cats, Sara. I don't like pets." I just wanted a company while sitting alone doing nothing at home. She refused.
"Please, Tegan. It's so fucking boring. I don't do anything at all. Emy's not getting me her cat because Amber's mum is hogging her all to herself."
"No means no, Sara." She turned her head to the television, continuing her show.
"You know, it's not fair that you're the one who always makes the rules in this place." I was honestly sick and tired of having to go under her will. Plants made my allergies worse than they are, yet Tegan wanted plants and she got plants. I couldn't buy a bicycle because Tegan was too scared I'd fall and break something, yet she was saving money to buy her own car. I couldn't look up any information about my birth parents without consulting her because, apparently, I was very irresponsible in that department. I was so sick of being treated like an inferior to her. That day, I admit, the fiend has ridden inside my body and demanded a strong fight.
"Sara, seriously?" She rolled her eyes. "I just don't like cats. Goddamn it."
"Not only cats." I stood up. I blocked her view of the television. "I can't get a bicycle and I can't search for my birth parents in secrecy. I don't have a saying about the bullshit you fill the house with. For fuck's sake, Tegan, I can't even have some sexual freedom without you demanding this and that. I'm sick of it."
Tegan stood up as well. She was surprised. Her brow was furrowed and her lips were parted. "Why are you trying to pick a stupid fight?"
"I am trying to understand why you're controlling everything in this relationship," I yelled at her.
"Don't fucking yell at me," she shouted.
"But it's okay when you do?" I felt my hot tears threatening to escape.
"Maybe you fucking feel less because all you ever do is sitting your ass down and complaining about being lonely. Have you ever tried looking for a job? No. You looked once, Sara. And once you got rejected from a couple of places, you gave up."
I started crying, she didn't. Her face was red and strong. "Don't say that," I told her.
"I'll say whatever the fuck I want." She walked closer to me and I took few steps to the back. She looked scary, but I still did not see what was coming. "I go out every day and work and get tired and come back expecting some peace and quiet, some nice talk, and, maybe, some good sex, but all I see is you whining and complaining about being lonely and bored. I'm the one who is making the money, Sara...in case you have forgotten. I'm the one who is trying to offer a good life. I'm the one who pays the bills, not you. I have every fucking right to make the rules that I find appropriate for my place."
That's when I lost it: my sanity, my mind, my fight, my heart—my everything. I cupped my mouth and shook my head. I know that even if she hadn't touched me, those words are enough to make me leave her. Even if she hadn't meant them, I know there is a lot of truth in what she had uttered. If there weren't any, she wouldn't have said what she said in the first place.
"How fucking dare you?" I screamed so loud and pushed her so roughly she almost fell. I knew at that moment nothing good was coming.
I couldn't even blink before I saw her body attacking me, gnawing at my sensitive skin. I was on the floor in mere seconds, receiving hits and blows. I was dizzy and unconscious in a matter of minutes, but I kept hearing her say, "You're lazy and dependent. You want it all. You're stupid and you blame me." She repeated these words together or separately.
I still don't know why I haven't attacked back. It all happened in a matter of seconds. I was just thrown on the floor and my nose started bleeding. I was trying to focus on the pain that hit my lower back and protecting my face at the same time. She was moving quickly as I surrendered to her words and actions. I might have mouthed a couple of stops before my head started spinning. I don't remember at all. All I remember is that I gave up and let her hurt me so bad. All I remember is that once she started, she couldn't stop until her hands were wrapped around my neck and my consciousness was teetering. I remember pain everywhere: my arms, my thighs, my lower abdomen, my jaw, my head, my nose, and my back. I remember her slapping me, pushing me, scratching my skin, and squeezing my flesh. I remember her hands wrapped around my neck. I remember her fist meeting my nose. I remember her tears hitting my face and her words hitting my brain. I remember her gasping and crying and hollering upon realizing what she had done. I remember the pain: pure, sharp, intense, acute, fierce, and agonizing. I remember feeling my bones like jelly, my skull out of my head, and my heart out of my chest. I remember the taste of the blood on my tongue. I remember the feeling of being lifted, thinking I had died and realizing it was her freaking out about what she had done. She lifted me and screamed. I remember her words asking herself what she had done. I remember her steps to the kitchen to get water and a cloth. I remember her talking to Emy, cursing herself and losing her ability to speak. I remember Emy coming, screaming and shouting and crying. I remember I was so sleepy. I remember falling asleep.
"I will never forgive myself," Tegan's broken voice pulls me out of my memories. I can feel my tears dripping on the white sheets. I look at her, hoping the pain in my eyes can tell her that I am not that Sara anymore. I am not that woman who thought of rainbows and butterflies. I am not that innocent little girl who thought everybody was perfect and she was the imperfect silly dreamer. Now I know that Tegan's far from perfect, Emy's far from perfect, my parents are far from perfect, and I...well, I'm nowhere near goodness anyway. What will make me go back to the state of normalcy again?
Since that day, that awful day, Tegan and I have not touched each other more than a second. I can't even begin to describe those two months I spent waiting to run away but was scared I might hurt her. Why do I still care? Why does my heart care? Maybe because I know she is truly sorry. Maybe because I know what she has done was out of her mental control.
I remember waking up at dawn, screaming because of how in pain I was. Emy took me to the bathroom and cleaned me. I was crying and shrieking. She cupped my face, looked at me, and cried.
"I told you," she said as if she was the one beaten up. "Oh God...I told you."
"I didn't do anything," I cried. "I don't know what happened."
"I know. I know. She's not sane."
"Why does the universe hate me?"
Tegan was shivering alone on the chair in our room. I couldn't look at her and she couldn't look at me. I only heard her voice mouthing "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" for hours without stopping. When Emy told her to shut up, Tegan screamed the word. It was terrifying. That day I knew her mental state was not good. I knew if I left her, something terrible would happen.
Amber came later that day. She took Tegan out of the room and I stayed with Emy. I cried more as she tried to rub the swollen parts of my back. I slept again after the medication she had given me.
The next morning was still as horrible. Tegan did not go to university. I found her curled up on the floor, near my side of the bed. Emy was asleep next to me. When she saw my eyes open, she sat up, continuing her apology but putting more feelings into it, the way she is doing right now.
"It's like something invaded my brain," she told me. "I swear I saw nothing but blackness. I swear I couldn't even stop my hands. I swear somebody inside me was controlling me."
Those days were the worst days I have lived till now. Emy and Amber stayed at our place the entire week. Emy slept on the mattress beside me and Amber slept in the living room with Tegan. They were scared to leave us alone. I was scared to be alone with Tegan.
"I can't tell mum and dad, Emy," I remember telling her that. "I can't even tell her mum."
"Someone other than us has to know. Being with her is dangerous at this moment."
"I can't tell my parents. They'll think I'm a failure. They already think I am."
"They're your parents, they don't think that. They love you," Emy said. "Sara, let's be honest with each other. You can't tell them because you don't want them to hate her."
"I don't want anybody to hate her," I said.
"I can't help but hate her right now."
"Please don't," I begged my ex-girlfriend not to hate my current one.
"When we had sex years ago and she made me bleed...I begged her to stop and she didn't. She was only aware of what had happened when she stopped. I knew by then that she needed some help. I knew she had violent tendencies."
I didn't know what to say to Emy. She spent that week telling me, "I told you so." I was not in the mood to listen.
Tegan apologized day and night. I was not able to speak more than two words to her. She came to me after three days with a small beautiful kitten. She was crying. "Look, Sasa. I got it for you and I'm holding it even though I'm probably pissing my pants right now. I'll get you a bicycle, too. I'll get you anything you want. Just forgive me. I'll do anything."
"I don't want the cat," I said. "Take it back."
"Why?" She seemed hurt. The cat was meowing and she was clearly scared while holding it.
"I don't want anything from you anymore. We're nothing to each other anymore."
"No," Tegan screeched. The cat jumped off and ran out of the room. Emy hurried inside. "No, no, no." She shook her head violently. "You don't know what will happen to me if you leave me. You don't know what's inside here." She hit her chest as tears streamed down her face. "I am fucked up, you know that. The only way I can be normal and act normal is with you." She held my hands but I pushed her away roughly. "I am nothing, Sara. I am nothing without you. I can't love. I don't know how to love. You're the only person who can make me feel these things. You don't understand what will happen if you leave me." Amber and Emy were looking at the scene from the doorstep of the bedroom. "I wish you'd see the torment in my heart. I wish you'd see it, I wish you'd see it. I go through it every day. I see her threatening that you will leave every day. That evil little monster in my head, she messes up with my brain. I can't control her. I swear I'm not lying. I swear I'm not lying. It's in here." She started hitting her head. It was painful to watch.
"Stop," I said shortly. Emy moved to her frame, stopping her from abusing her own self. She glared at her for a minute until the action was over. Tegan was gasping for air. Her red face looked like a balloon ready to burst.
"I will not leave, but we're not together. I will stay in this place but you don't touch me and I don't touch you. I can't trust you anymore. I can't give myself to you anymore. I can't even feel anything towards you anymore." I know half of the words were lies, but at that time I felt that way. Whenever I felt the sharpness of pain in my back, I disliked her more.
"Emy told you?" I ask, making her look at me with hopeful eyes. I don't think words can describe the sharpness in my chest when our eyes meet. It's worse than the pain in my back. It's like a snake slithering in endless motions around the muscles of my heart, ready to feast on the tiny parts.
Tegan shakes her head. "No," she whispers. "I already knew. I knew you were leaving. But your back...I only knew about that on my way here. Emy tried to help so when you came back, as she said, you'd see a better me. I just...didn't know that she meant...like...maybe...after ten years."
"Or never," I say. Tegan chokes on a sob. The snake opens its mouth around the right side of my heart, ready to spread its venom inside my blood.
"I wish you'd understand that I didn't mean to do it. I wish you'd understand I couldn't control it," she says desperately and sits down on the floor again, putting her face in her hands. The snake is chewing at my heart. It hurts. It hurts so bad I want to scream.
Tegan was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which I have already suspected in her a long time ago. What I know is that it rarely causes any type of violence and it can be cured with talk therapy. I tried my best to let her open up to me, she did her best to open up, but there was always this hidden part that she herself was not even aware of. I can't even connect her violence with it. I know her past was not the best, but as far as I know she did not have a physically abusive relationship with anybody. The only thing I can think of is she needs anger management and she is not even seeking that, so how can I trust her?
When the ache in my back lasted for three weeks straight, I knew I had to do something about it. At times it seemed as if it was only getting worse. Usually I treat sciatica with gels, creams, and back stickers and the pain would diminish in few days. But when I tried everything; took warm baths; cold baths; put a heating pad or an ice bag, nothing was changing, the pain was getting worse and worse. Eventually, I went with Emy to the doctor, who informed me that I needed a surgery to treat my herniated disc. When I told my parents, my dad refused, saying the outcomes can cause many complications in my movement when I grow up. I continued taking medication and applying creams till I stopped being able to sleep at night or even sit calmly without the pain crawling through my veins.
Tegan did not know any of that because we were not talking. We were two strangers living under one roof. I did my things, she did hers. She apologized to me everyday till she got tired. She slept in the living room and I slept in her room. Having to do the surgery forced me to leave before her finals. I told her I was going to see my parents and spend time with them till after the New Year. She was supposed to go see her parents in Calgary after her finals. I told my mother and father that Tegan did not know because she had finals and I did not want to worry her. I thought maybe I'll tell them we broke up after the surgery. I told Joy everything because I needed to vent. I didn't know Tegan was going to follow. I thought that was it. I thought I'd tell Emy to send my stuff. I even over packed and I remember Tegan asking about it.
"That's lots of luggage for a month visit," Tegan said as Emy pushed my two large suitcases out of Tegan's room and into the hallway.
"Two months visit. I'm staying till the middle of January," I said.
"Will you...will you talk to me? Can I call you?" Emy was looking at us, not sure where to stand and what to do. She told me she wasn't talking to Tegan much anymore, but I think she was lying.
"Why would you call me? There's nothing that ties us together right now," I said. "We need this break, Tegan. I'm only staying here because you won't let me leave you."
"Because if you leave me I'll die. It's simple. I'm not being dramatic. I can't let you go...I can't." Tegan started crying. At that moment I was in so much pain that I couldn't do anything but leave her. I cried in the plane. I cried in my room. I cried before the surgery and after it. And now a week after the surgery, Tegan's here, crying and begging.
"If you can't control it how can I trust you? How can I live with you?" I ask her.
The question halts her cries and turns up the silence in the room.
"See?" I say after a chuckle. "If it was all about the beating up maybe I would have considered it, I mean, we used to hit each other before. But the words, Tegan...the words you used...I can never forget them. I will never be able to forget the way you made me feel so fucking useless."
"Sara, what the fuck?" Joy stands up from the chair she has been sitting in from across the room. "Beating you up is not okay."
Tegan stands up, too. She wipes her never-ending tears and shakes her head. "No, it's not. It never was. It never will be. I am nothing but a stupid human being. That's what I am. I fuck things up, that's what I was created to do. I was never meant to feel love. I never felt it and once I finally did, I let it slip away. I let you go and you can't go because you know I can't function like a sane human being without you. I'll get back to that same old Tegan. I can't love another person. Sara, you know I can't love another person. You know that. You know that." She starts to hiccup. I can hear her wheezing breaths and the squeak in her chest. I am trying my ultimate best not to cave in and hug her. I am trying so hard. I know she means what she says but I can't let the pain of her words disappear.
"You're full of it," Joy says.
"Joy," I shout, "get out."
"No," she yells. "She's using her words to fool you. You're stupid if you believe her."
I don't know what exactly hits me in the guts, but that word itself takes me back to the time Tegan used it. Maybe I am actually stupid and everybody does believe that.
I start to cry like I have never cried before. Tegan tries to touch my face but her hands shy away from me. I don't know what anything means anymore. I feel like I really am created for nothing but to make Tegan be sane and feel successful while I remain stupid and lazy. What's my purpose in life? Is that it?
We spend nearly an hour like that, both of us crying without saying anything. Joy sits back in her chair and looks at us, without anything to add, until my parents suddenly come inside with the nurse. They gasp when they see the scene. The nurse hurries to my side in order to check on me.
"What...what happened? Is she okay? Tegan, when did you get here?" my mum asks in hurry and panic.
"I'm okay," I say. "Nothing happened."
"I just got here...I didn't know she's in the hospital. I...Emy told me..."
"She's just crying because I didn't tell her. It's just been emotional." I see Joy rolling her eyes. I send her a look, which she ignores.
"Oh, sweetie," my mum says, "she's alright now. She didn't want you to worry and leave your finals." My mum puts her hand on Tegan's back and gives her soothing rubs, which makes Tegan break down once again.
"Sara," my dad says, "you're ready to leave tomorrow."
"I know. They told me this morning."
"Why don't you stay with her tonight, Tegan?" my mum says.
"And Joy will come back with us," my dad adds.
"No," Joy says loudly, making both my parents narrow their eyes at her. "I can't leave her alone. Who would help her go to the bathroom?"
"Her girlfriend would." My mum gives her a look. Tegan seems hesitant, scared, and shaky.
"Joy," I say, "it's fine. You can go."
"But Sara..."
"It's fine. Tegan can...can help me." I swallow as I look at dejected Tegan with her heavy breathing.
My sister, eventually, caves in and joins my parents. Before they all leave, my father and my physical therapist discuss with me the exercises that I should and should not do in order to walk normally again and not have any complications in the future. The entire time the old man is talking, I keep looking at Tegan from across my hospital room. My mum is saying to her things I can't hear and she's nodding slowly.
"Did you hear, Sara?" I look at my father's aging face. "You have to be very careful, honey. You can't lift anything heavy and can't bend down these few days. You want anything, you ask one of us." I give my dad a nod.
My doctor adds more things about the sessions he's going to be with me at my house these few days in order to help me fix my walking. I have tried walking with him around the room but I continue limping and tripping. I have already been through this once, so this time it is not as hard as it was for me when I was sixteen. The hardest part is going to the bathroom and sitting on the toilet. Having to get help getting dressed and undressed because I can't bend down or lift up my arms is the worst thing possible. Back when I was sixteen I was surprisingly fine with my mother doing all that, but now it seems the most awkward thing so I just let Joy do it instead. I would have been so comfortable with Tegan or Emy, but Emy's not here and I can never ask Tegan to do such things right now. I have no idea what I'm going to do if I have to go to the bathroom at night.
My dad kisses my forehead before he leaves with the doctor, and then my mother gives me a small shoulder squeeze and asks if I need anything before she can leave. Joy gives Tegan a glare and tells me to call her if I need anything. They all leave me alone with Tegan and the silence that's swirling around us.
"The only reason I didn't tell them is because I don't want them to get a heart attack," I say.
"I'm sorry," Tegan says.
"You've said it enough."
"I'll keep saying it till you forgive me."
"How can I forgive you when your words keep repeating themselves in my ears? How can I forgive you when I am lying here because of you?"
"What should I do to make you believe that I didn't mean what I said and did?" Tegan walks up to my bed again. She sits at the end and buries her face in her hands. "Just tell me and I'll do it."
"The thing is you did mean what you have said; otherwise you wouldn't have said it. I am nothing but a burden and a lazy human being who succeeds at nothing. It is true."
Tegan doesn't answer, she starts crying.
"Go back to your mother, Tegan. Go visit her. Ask her to help you. Help yourself." I know my words are mean and harsh. I know they're hitting her in the right corners, but I want to do just that. I want her to feel what it is like to sting somebody that loves you with honest vocabulary.
"I am trying. I swear I am trying. I quit my internship just to take anger management classes. Emy's helping me. She got me this punching bag so I can release my anger. I tried therapy, too. I'm trying everything."
Emy hasn't told me about all of this. This is the first time I hear these information and I am a little bit shocked. That internship meant everything to Tegan because she was doing a great job and she was loved by everyone in there. I was jealous of her when she got it and jealous of her whenever she talked about it. I got jealous each time she mentioned the job her father has for her.
"Don't you see how I am nothing?" She looks at me. "Look at me. Seriously, look at me." My eyes come in contact with her red ones. "Remember when I shook your hand the first time?" I don't say anything nor give her any head motion. "Remember when I made fun of you being your father's girl?" To this, I nod. "Remember how I hid my face in your chest when I revealed some truths? Remember how I told you to treat me as if I haven't said these things to you? Remember how I couldn't love or admit love until I fell for you?"
"I do," I whisper.
"Can't you see that I am nothing, Sara? You know that. You know that my family shows me their love with their money. They think they did a mistake marrying young and having me, so they shove what they have in my face. I am not that hard working, I have everything my father wants me to have. I try to make a big deal out of everything in my way to make myself feel better about how fucked up I really am. I have no friends because they all think I'm conceited. The only normal relationship I have...or had is with you, yet we spent it sleeping with our only friend that people think we're friends and not lovers."
"What does this have to do with anything?"
"It has to do with everything," Tegan says. "I never liked our sexual relationship with Emy yet I endured it because my love for you is too high to care about such a thing. I never felt good for you because I would come home and find everything pretty and clean and nice and I felt like I was doing nothing so I pushed myself to provide the money. I never understood your obsession with finding your biological parents because I've been so envious that you have such caring parents who love you more than my biological parents could care. I dreamed of having a normal relationship with my mother and not the one I have where I tell her to fuck off and she tells me to eat a dick. I just wanted a mother. I wanted a father who loved me for who I am and not what I can do to make his money grow. I had these parents when I was a very young child and they were poor, trying to live a better life for me. I lost them all of a sudden and I lost every ounce of love till I found you and now you're saying I mean what I said and think of you less? Really, Sara? Do you see that in me? I am nothing. I am literally nothing but this human that my father is controlling. I only feel like I matter when I'm in bed with you, when you hug me and kiss me and tell me it is okay to feel bad and feel sad and worry that I hurt you. I only feel like a human being when you talk to me like that person who cares and understands. I only feel okay when I see you happy."
I continue staring at her for a whole minute after she finishes pouring her heart out to me. We haven't talked about it at all. We haven't talked about what happened at all and this is the first time I hear her perspective and her point of view on things I didn't think about because she hasn't voiced them. Still, nothing justifies what has happened that day and she herself cannot justify it, which leaves me dancing on a thin ledge of whether I should take her in my arms and cry with her, or turn my face and ignore her.
I end up doing the latter because I still don't understand why she did what she did. I ignore her speech and tell her to pull the portable bed that Joy slept on each night. I show her where the sheets and pillows are and ask her to turn off the lights.
"Do you...want anything? Go to the bathroom or anything?" she asks timidly. Her voice is still raspy and her tears are silently falling. I shake my head and close my eyes.
Because I take a lot of medication that makes me fall asleep, I usually spend most of my days asleep in bed, but I can't close an eye more than half an hour this night because my mind is a wandering land. I can't stop thinking or worrying or asking many questions about what will happen. I pull myself into a restless sleep and wake up after a bit to hear Tegan's loud snoring. She hasn't snored that much since ever.
I listen to her heavy breaths and to the sound coming out of her lips. The melody drags me back into another sleep but I wake up again to her coughing, trying to take a calm breath but not able to get any air in her lungs. Honestly, this worries me because I know she is having something close to an asthma attack.
"Tegan," I call. "Tegan…" She does not respond.
She starts gasping for air, which frightens me so I reach out to the bed beside mine and slap her arm quickly. I can barely reach out for her arm and the pain in my back increases whenever I try to move but I do it anyway in order to wake her up before something terrible happens.
"Tegan, please wake up." I begin to panic. I reach out for the light on the bedside table and turn it on. I see tears streaming down her face and her eyes wide open as well as her mouth. I see her trying to breathe but struggling. I grab my puffer and throw it at her chest. She grabs it right away and inhales. She calms down for a second and inhales again, closing her eyes tightly, squeezing more tears out of her eyes. I stay looking at her for awhile until she calms down. One of the nurses comes up to see if something is wrong.
"Can you get her water, please? She was having an asthma attack."
"Sure," the nurse says. She walks up to the fridge and grabs Tegan a bottle of water, helping her sit up and chug all of it at once. I see the nurse's hands move behind Tegan's back, rubbing up and down.
Honestly...I miss doing this.
"You both have asthma?" the nurse asks.
"Yes," I respond.
"I got worried when I heard the noises, I thought it's you."
"Thank you," Tegan says, looking at me.
"Are you guys related? Is she your other sister?"
I chuckle, rolling my eyes. "She's my...girlfriend," I say.
"Mhm." The nurse gets it right away. It's not hard to see there's some tension between Tegan and I. I bet my mother saw it. I bet that's what they were talking about.
"Thank you," Tegan thanks me again when we're alone.
"What you said earlier still doesn't justify why you hit me the way you did," I say.
"I know," she says. "Nothing really will." She sighs, lying down again. "I think I lost you but I don't think I can let go, so just put up with me clinging to you because I can't...I can't live normally without you."
"You're melodramatic. You know you can."
She sends a sarcastic laugh my way and does not answer me for awhile.
"You don't love me anymore, do you?" she says after some time, when the lights are off again. When she sniffles, I realize she's crying again.
"I don't trust you anymore," I say. "Love is different than trust but it's not whole without it."
"I never trusted me," Tegan says. "I never understood why you were so self-deprecating and insecure because you were everything in my eyes."
"Seriously?" I wish she can see the roll of my eyes right now. "Please do remember your words when you were choking me and before that so you can realize why I've always been so insecure. It's like you really poured salts on my cuts when you opened your mouth that day."
"God, I'm so stupid," she says angrily.
"Better saying what you wanted to say than keeping it locked inside. It was gonna come out eventually."
When we both realize talking will get us nowhere, we go back to sleep after a ghostly silence swarms around us.
My parents arrive early in the morning. Joy helps me to the bathroom and gets me dressed in there. My mum asks me what's wrong with Tegan when she's pushing my chair down the hallway. I repeat the same answer I've given her yesterday. I don't care if she believes me or not.
"You guys realize I haven't showered since last week, right?" I ask my mother and Joy when I'm finally in my room.
"Yeah, you stink...especially in some places." My face heats up when my eyes meet Tegan's.
"Joy," my mum scolds.
"It's the truth. I'm the one who's been dealing with that super hairy situation." My eyes widen. I shoot a glare her way. I'm sure by now my face is all types of colors because I have the most annoying sister on earth.
"I can help you shower, Sara," my mother offers.
"No. I just need someone to get me there and I'll do it on my own. Just help me sit down, please."
"I'll do it," Joy says. She sighs irritatingly then glares at quiet Tegan. I'm sure my mother is questioning why Tegan is not participating in this.
After my shower, Joy helps me take baby steps in my towel and wet body back to my room. As I sit on my mattress carefully, I look at my legs full of hair and cringe. I don't think I've ever been this hairy before.
"Go out," Joy says to Tegan, "I'm gonna help her get dressed." I glance at Tegan who is sitting on my beanbag. She has two red eyes that are painful to look at. Her hair is damp and messy and her facial expression is unreadable.
"Is there anything she hasn't seen?" I mutter. "Just get me my underwear, I'll help myself." Joy sighs again. "You know, you whine and complain a lot for a person who isn't broken and doesn't have to be naked around almost everyone with so much hair on their body."
"I have to see that each day…sure I'm gonna whine a lot."
"Grow up, Joy," I say, "You're almost fourteen."
"Doesn't mean I have to see your vagina hair. Your legs hair is like dad's, I swear. Why aren't you a blonde like mum and I?"
I look at Tegan, who is silently looking at Joy helping me get into my clothes. I can't believe nobody had told her yet. I don't even have the energy to tell her. All I want to do is sit and do nothing because that's the only thing I'm good at. That's what my heart's capable of.
I spend my day reading a book in my bed. My mum moves the TV to my room so Tegan spends her time on the beanbag watching one film after the other. We don't say any words to each other…at all. Mum checks on us and shrugs whenever she comes with something in her hands. Tegan smiles and talks to her but the only face she gives me is the blank one that has neither an expression nor an emotion.
"You can sleep in bed next to me," I say. I don't know why I say it. I've been contemplating whether it is okay to invite her beside me on the mattress or not for the past two hours. What if she touches me? What if her hands touch my arm and she loses all her pent-up anger again? I know I'm being ridiculous, but the thoughts keep on fighting back any resistance in my mind. Tegan looks so vulnerable and small falling asleep on that beanbag. She looks tired and empty.
"Are you…sure?" Her octave is thick due to the heaviness of sleep that's hovering above her tongue.
"Yes…and change your clothes. You've been wearing them since you came yesterday. Please wear your pajamas."
I hate to say it or admit it even in the depths of my skull, but I've been sleeping in her bed alone for the past two months and she's been paying every penny even though we have technically, in a way, broken up. I do love her and miss her. Her words; however, ignite the fire that burns my heart when I recall them in my mind.
"I love the hair on your body. It looks good. I love it so much," Tegan says as soon as she takes her place on my mattress beside the wall.
"Is that your goodnight? Empty flattery?"
"I mean it." Tegan yawns. "Goodnight," she says, turning around and giving me her back. I'm the one who should be angry and not talkative…not her.
"Don't let the monsters kill you in your sleep," I say.
"Too late," she whispers, voice like a cold knife on heated flesh.
I don't find Tegan beside me in the morning. My door's ajar and the sound of the Hoover is coming from downstairs. My mum comes after I call her, forcing me to do some walking to the kitchen so my body wouldn't stay stiff. It takes us about fifteen minutes and lots of groaning till I am able to get to the kitchen and sit on a chair next to Joy and Dad. Tegan isn't there as well.
"Does it hurt, Sara?" my dad asks.
"No. It's perfectly fine. I feel nothing." He does not respond to my angry sarcasm. He flips through his newspaper and eats his breakfast silently. "Where's Tegan?"
"In hell," Joy says.
"Joy," mum shoots, "what's up with you and Tegan? What's going on?"
"Can I just know where she is?" I ask again.
"She said she wanted to take a walk. I told her it's cold as heck but she didn't care," dad says, shrugging.
"Great." I huff. "She'd just had an asthma attack two days ago. She wants to kill herself," I say.
"Why the hell do you even care about her? I hope she gets run over by a frikin' car," Joy shouts, making mum and dad…and Lucifer (which is sitting on her lap) give her confused looks.
"What's going on, Sara?" mum asks.
Just then, I am saved by Rob coming in. I sigh at the perfect timing but I know that I'll be interrogated later. I have to plan a lie till I am alone with mother and father again. I give Joy a look that promises her soon-to-come death and she rolls her eyes. I know she loves me and cares about me, but I guess some things are just better untold to people her age.
"Ohhhh, look at her. She's out and looking fresh. She's sitting on a chair and looking good." Rob walks up to me, hugging my side gently and placing a quick kiss on my cheek.
"Hey, Rob," I say. "Sit down." What I can't believe is Rob still, after all these years, has feelings for me. He admitted it right after I was out of the surgery room last week. He cried when he saw me in pain. I wanted to tell him about what Tegan had done, but I didn't want him to hate her like Joy does now. It was a mistake telling anyone. They all think she's a monster and I know she's not, even though I cannot feel safe around her. I wish I can deal with the complexity of my thoughts, with this opposition between heart and head, with this rivalry between the heat of the situation and the coldness of our love. I wish I can resort to a solution. I wish I can be the Sara I was before. I wish I can be this happy, silly girl.
"How are you, cupcake?" Rob says. He touches the hair covering my eyes and pushes back my fringe.
"Don't call me that." I giggle, pushing his hands off. "I'm good. I'm so much better."
"That's great. We need to get you a haircut…some new style…don't you think so, Jessica?"
"She looks adorable anyway." Of course my mum would say that. I roll my eyes jokingly.
"Actually, yes. I think I'm over the mullet. I just need to get better and I'll chop all that hair off." I take a bite of my omelet and ask, "Why do you always care about my hair?"
"I don't know, actually." He laughs. "Your whole face structure is pretty so I pay attention." I see the rosy hue on his face as I chew the food in my mouth slowly. My dad is looking at him from the corner of his eye, even though he is pretending to read whatever he is reading in his newspaper.
Tegan comes inside looking messy as messy can be. Her face is flushed and her hair is sticking up in different directions. Sweat is coating her brows and under arms. Her eyes are droopy and puffy. She looks at everyone with parted lips.
"Oh, I didn't know Tegan's here. Hi, Tegan," Rob greets her. She does not answer.
"Did you get another asthma attack? Are you okay?" I ask. She shakes her head and I'm not sure to what question.
"Tegan," my mum says, "is everything alright?" Tegan nods.
"I'll go shower." She disappears out of our sight, making my family, including Rob, look at me. If this isn't awkward I don't know what is.
My physical therapist comes afterward, so I'm forced to walk in my living room for about twenty minutes and do the most uncomfortable exercises that he thinks would make me feel better.
"You're doing great, Sara," he says, sitting next to me on the sofa. I nod, crying because of the burn in my legs and back. "It hurts that much because it's the first time. Next week you'll be so much better. We'll do this every day. I'll even come in Christmas."
"Oh, God," I say.
"You don't have to," mum says, "I can work with her. I know what you've done. The holiday is for you to rest."
"It's okay," he says, "she's been my patient since ten years ago; I'd like to help her."
"Thank you," I mumble.
"Anytime, Sara. I don't want you to have complications later on. I'm very sad that you had to go through this again. Please be careful next time."
"I will," I say. "Thank you, doctor."
Thinking I could run away from my mother's questions is just me hoping for too much. The doctor leaves and I'm left alone with her in the living room. She closes the door and sighs. I pet Lucifer and wait for the pouring questions that I will have to fake an answer to.
"What's up with you and Tegan?" Here's one.
"Nothing. We've been arguing. That's it."
"Why did Joy say all that?" Here's another. They won't end.
"Mum, Joy is an almost fourteen year old angry teenager who thinks that anything she hears is the truth. Tegan and I were yelling at each other and she took it personally. She didn't want Tegan to yell at me."
"Why would Tegan yell at you?"
"Mum," I say loudly, "not everything has to be shared. It's a private thing between her and I."
"I'll ask Joy."
"Go ahead." I try to get up, but fail. If only I can walk normally, I would have stormed out of the room. "You keep treating me as a naïve little girl."
She tries to help me stand up and, sadly, I have to let her. "I didn't mean to. I got worried and Tegan's actions have been confusing me."
Speaking of Tegan, mum and I find her crying alone in my bedroom. My mother doesn't say anything at all. She leaves us alone with only the clingy cat with us in the room. I wish I can touch her and tell her not to cry, but that has been me for the past two months.
"I get it," I say, "I forgive you, Tegan. I just…can't perform stuff…normally." The cat sits between us. I wait for Tegan to flinch but she doesn't move. She's hugging her knees. Her hair is still wet from her shower.
"I can't live with myself knowing I've done all this," Tegan says.
"What are you gonna do about it?" I shrug.
"I'll probably cry till I die."
"You're being dramatic."
"That's just me. You don't really know me."
"Here we go," I say. "I tried, you know."
"I know." Her sobs increase, making Lucifer meow.
I grab Lucifer, placing him on my lap. I start to cry, too. I don't see any bright side ahead of us and I don't understand anything. I want answers but confusion keeps on blocking my way. "Over a cat, Tegan. Just because I asked for a cat and confronted your obvious controlling behavior."
"I don't even understand what hit me. I really don't. I felt…challenged. I mean…it had upset me since the beginning of the year. This is not the same Sara I fell in love with, I kept telling myself. You have changed, don't deny it. You were this lively person who took charge of everything and then…there was just this gap that was growing between us. I didn't get you, I didn't get me, I couldn't even understand what was happening inside my brain…do you understand that?" I nod. "I don't know what happened."
"I didn't want to deal with my depression…and now…" a sob breaks my sentence, "I just don't get what's the point of me existing."
"Please don't say this." Lucifer brushes his head on my belly, purring softly. "I wish my tongue had been cut off before I said such words…words that I never meant and would never mean."
"I just want to be left alone, forever. That's what I want. That's what had changed in me. You went out every day and I isolated myself with a book. I just wanted something to do other than the house chores. I wanted something as simple as a cat like that to play with. My loneliness hovered from every direction. You didn't see it, you didn't notice it."
"I did," Tegan said. "I didn't know what to do. I wanted the perfect life and the perfect house and my rules to go the way I've always planned for them. I kept pushing myself, promising that after this hard work we'll be happy together in New York with a much better life."
"Why your rules? Why?" I ask her. That's the exact error we face, this dominance that she forces me to endure.
"Because that's how I'm used to do things. That's what my freaking father taught me. That's how I dealt with my mother and that's what you were so okay with at first…I didn't see it. I couldn't see it your way."
"And you still want me to come with you and follow those rules or be pitied and get what I wanted just because you feel sorry for what you did?" I snap at her.
"You say you forgave me but you didn't," she says very quietly. "But we won't go back. You deserve a good life. You deserve to work and participate as well because you are a smart person and you are going to help people." I raise one eyebrow in mockery at her meaningless words. "Your dad has found you a job and we're going to stay here. I'll just finish my semester and I'll catch up. I'll probably find a small job. We two will be working and we'll get some small place…and yeah. I guess that's so much better, actually. I talked about it with Jessica. It's gonna be so hard for me leaving these months for my last semester but I'll do anything for you."
"What the fuck?" I'm not sure I'm following up or understanding what she's saying. "What are you talking about?"
"Your dad has found a job for you at a school…and I can't, you know, live without you, so I'm going to reject my dad's offer and we'll live here. Sounds good to me." Tegan attempts a smile, but it's tired and fake and strange-looking.
"No," I say loudly. "No," I repeat. "That job…has been your dream since I met you. That job in particular. You don't have to stay with me…we're not together. I don't think I can be…with anyone…that way…"
"Why?"
"I can't…I don't know how to explain it." I furrow my brows. I feel the beats of my heart quicken. I feel the clenching of my stomach. I feel the same nostalgic feeling that drains the power of love within me. "I can't perform these tasks lovers do. My mind…doesn't…I can't…I can't…" I break down in tears, not knowing how to deliver the sting in my heart in comprehensible signals.
"I don't care what you give me or not…I just have to be with you because that's actually the only way I will be able to live normally…yeah. I can't explain it either. I don't care if you hate me or you don't talk to me…you just have to be there."
I'm scared. I've never been this scared. I'm not sure if this is some type of love we share or a phantom of danger that we have not been aware of till now. I feel suffocated with the strangeness of this relationship that we have. I love her, yet I can't let her near that much and now she's saying she can't stay far away. I'm not sure what the hell that is but I know nothing seems good for us at this point.
"I can't let you give up your dream," I admit. "I'd rather you go there and I come with you than you being locked up in here with me."
"You'll come with me?" she asks, surprised.
"I can't let you do this to your career. You worked hard…I didn't."
"Don't say that," she whispers.
"It's the truth." I wipe my tears. "But…I can't give you anything. I can't give you love or sex. I can't sleep with you or act like your girlfriend. I think I need…help. I think I do…"
Tegan starts crying again, she tries to hug me but I push her off violently. The fear is evident in her eyes. "I can't believe I caused this," she whispers.
I don't know what's wrong with my body; I can't get it to accept her touches anymore.