I'm an awful updater so I'm sorrysorrysorry as usual. All of your reviews have been fabulous though, I honestly get a huge grin on my face every time I read them. Y'all are fantastic. Luckily, this chapter was very fun and easy to write, so hopefully this means I am getting over my writer's block finally! Enjoy, and reviews are always appreciated. :)
S:
The guilt had started when I woke up with a mouthful of my cotton pillow, and the lights were still on and I craved a drink. I had been too tired to move from the couch, let alone change out of my jeans; I felt like one of those college kids who sits around and drinks stale coffee and reads all day, minus the raw intelligence and indie haircut. My hair had gotten far too long now, and tickled the nape of my neck with greasy fingertips.
I pressed myself up on my wrists and squinted at the clock for three minutes before realizing it was broken. I sighed and turned myself clockwise so that my shins were pressed against the coffee table; I rested my elbows on my thighs and my head in my hands. I stifled a yawn and fingered the beads of sweat on my neck, quietly spit from dreams full of either ecstasy or pain, I couldn't tell.
Tegan hadn't spoken to me in two days, for reasons she refused to reveal. I was left like the broken end of a telephone, yelling out every word in my vocabulary to get a response, but constantly receiving heavy silence. I was sick of trying so I lapsed into silence as well, and moved by her and throughout the apartment wordlessly.
We were like two ghosts haunting the same house, both desperate and craving, both refusing to disappear.
I pushed myself off the couch, leaving an imprint of my body in the fabric, and walked into the kitchen. The counters smelled of Lemon Pledge after I had scrubbed it for hours out of pure boredom; Tegan had walked by without a sound, only giving a twitch of a smirk at the sight of my raw fingertips. I grabbed the box of leftover Chinese food from the refrigerator and gnawed it lightly without really tasting it at all. My fingers wormed their way back up to my hair. I twisted it once.
And suddenly I was bee-lining straight for the kitchen drawer, I was fumbling around mindlessly, I was wrapping my fingers around forgotten scissors and leaning over the sink. I chopped at my hair haphazardly with the sole need to rid myself of it, letting it fall into the sink like dead skin. I chopped, I cut, I clipped, I grinned at the pieces as they twisted and fluttered to the bottom of the sink.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Tegan's voice sounded so alien after days of silence that I dropped the scissors into the sink and flinched openly. Her breath hitched in a smile and she walked over slowly, as if I was an animal perched to run. She grabbed the scissors from the sink, muttering something about the hair clogging up the drain. I stared as she twisted the scissors on her finger. She glanced up and smiled at the hack-job of my hair, gently running a finger along my crooked bangs. I nearly flinched again and the look came into her eyes: the look that seemed as if I had clicked off the light in them, the look that made my stomach turn. She dropped her hand back to her side. She grabbed a stool from the counter and motioned for me to sit in it. I obliged.
I sat with my back to her, tapping my foot against the stool leg in impatience. I shivered when her fingers brushed the back of my neck, and ground my teeth with the snap of the scissors even though I knew it was coming. She chuckled slightly. I heard another snap of the scissors.
"Calm down." Snap. Snip. "You did an awful job."
"I was in a hurry." Snip.
"Well next time, you should slow the fuck down. I'm saving your image here."
I smiled; we lapsed into a comfortable silence.
Snip. Snip. The soft pad of her finger smoothed over the top of my ear.
Snap. Click. Snip.
Snip. A hushed whisper, kept locked under her lips.
Click. A muffled, incoherent noise, her fingers sweeping over my cheek as she went.
I realized with every snap, with every click of metal in my hair, that Tegan was crying. I froze, not knowing what to say or do, only knowing that her hand was shaking as she cut and that shivers were trickling up my spine, setting my nerves on edge. My fingers clasped over my knee and squeezed it so tightly that I was sure that they were cutting straight through the bone.
Snap.
Her sniffles turned to sobs; I was frozen and could not move. My breath stalled. My heart lay dead in the bottom of my ribcage. Her fingers let the scissors slide onto the counter and she continued to cry and drown in her sorrow; I bit down on my lip so hard that I tasted blood on my teeth.
Turn around, you dumb fuck. She's crying and it's your fault.
But her sorrow wormed its way back into her ribs and her crying slowed until it was only trickling through her lips, splashing on my skin. She cleared her throat, once.
"Here." Her voice was raw like sand paper as she handed me a mirror. I caught a glimpse of her in it, eyes all red rimmed and puffy, as if they were trying to escape her skull. I looked back to myself, looked at the sleep-deprived girl staring back at me with disgust.
Look at you. Look what you did to her.
I couldn't look away. My hair looked perfect, and it made me want to cry.
She knows you better than you know yourself. Look at you, you terrible fool.
"Do you like it?" Her voice verged on tears again and I swung around to give her the mirror. I nearly cringed at how broken she looked, and how she hastily wiped her smeared makeup on her shirt sleeve.
"It's perfect." I whispered, forging a smile that was too-practiced. It sat like old makeup on my lips.
She smiled slowly, sadly, and nodded once.
"It looks great, Sar." She mumbled, taking the handheld mirror and slipping it back into her pocket.
My mind ran rampant in the days that followed, and I found myself staring at the ceiling for hours with the mere goal of reviving Tegan and my relationship again. Our daily routines turned from silence to small talk, and even though it was barely anything, I still appreciated it. She was trying; it was progress.
I brought Emy home one night in a fit of alcohol-induced lust, and Tegan stood in her doorway and watched us kiss without a word. I felt filthy when she left. Tegan looked at me like I was dirt and didn't talk for the rest of the night.
One morning, Tegan was gone and her sheets were undone and shriveled on the floor. I let my mind wander and wondered what she did in her bed, what she thought about, if she thought about me. I bit my lip and closed her bedroom door.
I called her phone six times throughout the day and received only voicemail.
Tegan, it's me. Call me back.
Teegs, it's Sara again. Look, it's almost 2 and I made lunch. Where are you?
Seriously, Tegan?
Fuck you. I'm trying here, and it's fucking midnight and I have no clue where you are. I don't give a shit if you're angry at me, Tegan, you can't keep me up all night worrying about you when you're probably off being a dumbass-
Sorry. Come home, please.
I was face down in the couch cushions when the door squeaked open. It took me longer to wake up than normal, and I looked at her through a blurry haze as I pushed myself up to a sitting position.
"I slept with a girl tonight." Her voice was loud and she reeked of alcohol. Bourbon, I think.
"What?" I mumbled as I struggled to wipe the sleep from my eyes. The lights were still off and she felt around for a good ten minutes for flicking the wall switch on.
Her shirt was sliding off her shoulder and led me to catch a glimpse of a bite mark on her neck. It was red and blaring and I couldn't tear my gaze away.
"I slept with a girl tonight." She repeated in a slur and sauntered over to me. She sat on the table adjacent from me. I met her eyes and noticed that her right one was black and puffy; I flinched immediately.
"Tegan, what the fuck, did you get punched?" I was on my feet and my fingers were circling around the bruise tenderly. She shrugged once and pushed my hand away.
"Jordan was angry at me."
"Who the hell is Jordan?"
" The girl I slept with. She's my girlfriend."
I felt like I had slept for years. "You have a girl friend?" I hated how much disbelief and sadness came out in a simple sentence. "Since when?"
"A couple days, I guess-"
"Wait, she fucking did that to you?" Sleep had made everything hard to process. I couldn't feel a thing.
"What?"
"She punched you. That girl fucking hurt you, Tegan, don't act like it's nothing-"
"It is nothing, I shouldn't have said what I said to her-"
"She shouldn't have punched you in the fucking face!" Before I knew it, I was yelling. Angry sweat pricked on the sides on my neck and slid until they pooled in my clavicle. "How can you say this so calmly when you're getting hurt over a girl who doesn't even care about you-"
"You're such a fucking hypocrite, Sara!" Tegan's voice was a snarl of pure anger and sent shivers all over my skin. She lunged forward and grabbed me by the wrist and pulled my sleeve all the way up to the elbow. I could hear her panting from her anger as her fingers danced over the scratches and slits that decorated my wrist. "You know Emy is going to cheat on you again. She doesn't love you, Sara, and you're still hurting yourself."
The words cemented themselves in my head slowly. They ate away at my skull. She was right, I knew she was; Emy hadn't called me back in a week, claiming that she was too busy for me at the moment. She would always be too busy for me. But the feeling crept back again: it seemed that suddenly, everyone knew me but me.
"Fuck you, Tegan. You don't even know me." I snarled, and tried to wrench my wrist back. But instead, Tegan let me pull her with it and she kissed me brutally, punishing me with her lips, biting and nipping relentlessly. My head met the wall brutally and I groaned as her nails sunk into my hips, cutting into the skin, making my back arch and my breaths come out in little sputters like a dying engine. Her breath was so heavily laden with alcohol that her taste was enough to intoxicate me until I only caught glimpses of her teeth on my neck, the little noises she forced from my throat, her fingers hooking in my belt loops.
She pulled away abruptly, too abruptly, and I was left dizzy and panting. Her lips brushed my ear as she spoke: "I know you, Sara, and you know it."
She smiled with her gums and stumbled to her room, leaving me guilty and flustered against the wall.
