The pulsating of her bottom lip had long since dwindled to nothing as the pressure applied by her clenched jaw forced her teeth deeper into the fragile flesh, interrupting the blood flow for so long that, upon release, the return of necessary circulation was a tangible relief. The characters in the book resting in her lap had taken to the activities that herself and Tegan had been secretly engaging in behind closed doors, the anxiety driving her hand into her hair, tangled, trapped, nails digging into her skull as the renewal of their previous risky behaviour came back from the depths in which she'd buried them to slap her in the face. Sara hadn't contacted Tegan all day due to the distraction provided by her favourite pastime; she'd taken to reading The Hotel New Hampshire in hopes of forgetting her temporary worries, leaving them behind in the pages of a book that ironically resurrected them with a flourish. She freed her hand from brunette strands, closing the book and rising from the couch she'd been perched on the edge of as if to manifest the precipice she was constantly standing on in reality, the war that never ended between her heart and her head.
Her patience had been wearing thin from the second her sister had stormed out of the bus and it only continued to wear away as time went on. She had nothing else to derail her attention from the phone that had sat untouched and silent since morning, the sense of urgency that accompanied her lack of knowledge on Tegan's whereabouts begging her to cross the room and press 'call'. However, she knew that neither of them would be able to handle the talk, so she rerouted her path to the booth and took to resting her head on her arms, closing her eyes in attempts of shutting out the world for a few more minutes.
...
Tegan's sleeping form had been oblivious to the coming storm for as long as it had apprehended her insomniatic twin's consciousness, the fear of the first lightning bolt rendering her motionless against sheets that were too close for comfort, trapping her in an asphyxiating heat that filled her with paralysing anxiety. She wanted her sister to wake up and see just how terrified she was, but she knew it would only end in relentless teasing the next day, so she kept quiet and allowed the sound of distant thunder to provoke heart palpitations. The sound of rain pitter-pattering against their window resembled the monster tearing through the insides of human victims in the horror movie more than the calming lullaby her sister had fallen asleep to. Sara didn't know how her sibling could manage dreaming when the images of brutal mutilation from what she'd been forced to sit through were still fresh in her own mind, morphing the leaves outside into a grisly murderer's smile, anticipating curling his gruesome fingers around her throat, ripping her from the sanctity of her room and into his torture chamber.
Her breath caught in her throat as a bolt of lightning threw one sleeping frame and a terrified set of wide eyes into a luminescent brightness, exposing her line of sight aimed at the window to the arms of electrical discharge igniting the sky. She let out a whimper of fear, instinctively reaching for Tegan's hand as she pulled herself in close and curled up against her side. The movement was blatant and she didn't care that Tegan noticed, squeezing her hand in the darkness and mumbling an 'it'll be okay, Sar.'
In response to the softly spoken reassurance, Sara's hand loosened from its death grip on Tegan's, the butterflies in her stomach replacing the crippling alarm that had previously held her heart so tightly.
...
The sound of the bus door opening shook Sara from her dream, her head immediately lifting as she stepped out of the booth, whirling to watch the person who entered. Her breathing turned shallow, her palms taking on the clammy feeling she always got before things went downhill.
"L-Lindsey?" She croaked, her throat too dry to supply her with the confidence she wished she had. The woman before her - her sister's heartbreaker - took a step forward, hand outstretched as if to move her out of the way.
"We need to talk."