The twins had spent the remainder of their day on separate ends of the bus, Tegan in her bunk trying to sort out her emotions and Sara switching her attention from her book to her phone. It was inevitable that their mother would question the sturdier of the two incessantly until she was satisfied with the answer, but at this point, Sara didn't know if she would ever get one. They would be touring together for the better half of the year and the close proximity in which they would be forced into certainly wouldn't help Tegan in any way, even if Sara obliged to petty rules and unnecessary mood swings; in fact, she was almost one-hundred percent sure that Tegan would push herself into predicaments that would only encourage her asperity just to spite her. They had only talked once or twice in passing, and as brief as it was, it caused Sara to wince and shrink away, perhaps out of hearing the blatant pain and suffering in her twin's voice that she had vowed to herself never to be the cause of, or perhaps it was the look in her sibling's eye, so blank and unseeing although she had been pretending to read, but whatever the reason behind the undiluted expression of such devastating hurt, it had Sara feeling the impact of what she'd done. She could barely focus on the book in her lap with the thought of her sister moping on the other end of the bus. She knew the distance was crucial if she ever hoped to see her twin up and running again, or if she ever hoped to get her side of the story in, but how much space could their tiny tour bus provide? There was no intimacy behind numbing their headaches with glasses of scotch as they sat cross-legged on the couch beside their miniature fridge, nor was their any substantial comfort in knowing that if one decided to cave in and cry, the other would be right beside them doing the same; there was only the shattering silence that made Sara's ears ring to the point of throwing her book halfway across the bus. She could hear Tegan sniffling and briefly wondered if she was crying or had simply succumbed to the whim of allergy season, but the thought that it could be the latter was thrown out the window as soon as she noticed that her sibling was no longer standing outside her bunk with dirty clothes in hand.
'Of course I'm the reason.' Dusting off her thighs as she stood up and crossed the bus, Sara paused at the door to look over her shoulder at Tegan's bunk, though the attempt was soon lost, for the curtain had been closed. The scene brought back memories of Tegan's first serious relationship and the breakup that had followed, how she had held her twin, rocked her to sleep and murmured promises that she wasn't sure she could keep at the time. The image of Tegan so broken, tears streaming down her face as she whispered the same name over and over again with shaking hands as she sought out the cure for her heartache, or the weight that would sink them both, was forever seared into her mind as the one crime she must never commit. She was growing suffocated by the depression threatening to throw her into an asthma attack with each passing second, the very thought enough to make her stumble as she clutched the handle of the door and stepped out into air that was free of the brewing quarrel she was bound to step back into. Taking a seat on the concrete with her back against the cool metal of the vehicle that had whisked their lives into an unrecognisable blur of faces and places, Sara pulled out her phone and scanned through old messages, stopping at the ones that were most important to her. The screen of her Blackberry blurred, a single droplet marring the words that had once patched up the worst of her days. She choked back a sob, running over the last line until a buzz had her scrambling to press 'accept'.
"Hello?" The thickness in her voice immediately gave her away, though she clung to the little ribbon of hope that perhaps the contact she hadn't thought to check before accepting the call would think she were drunk.
"Sara? What's wrong? Are you and Tegan fighting again? Do I need to call a family meeting?" Sonia's timeless worrying finally pulled a groan from the depths of Sara's soul to the front, though it was easily deciphered as a whine. How could she hide from the one woman that had grown up learning the very tricks they still used in the present?
"No, mom, I..." she laughed, her voice breaking, "I was thinking about how sad Tegan would be if I quit the band."
"Sara, for God's sake, you can't quit the band! What will Tegan do?" Sonia's exclamation was met with a stifled sob, Sara's free hand moving to cover her eyes. "I don't know. I don't know what she'd do without me."
"Honey..." The voice on the other end of their call softened to a degree that only mothers could attain in the moments where their child is in deep pain, the tone as comforting as if she were back home, wrapped up in her favourite blanket while nursing a cup of coffee. She wiped at her eyes furiously, shaking her head to clear the stuffiness that had taken root there with a defensive, "I'm fine."
"I think you should come home, take a break from touring and catch up with family." The idea was laughable at the least. They could barely keep from ripping each other apart even considering the dysfunctionality of their relationship, what would keep them from continuing down that road at home?
Sara scoffed through her sniffling, "I don't think so."
"Well, I do. You're coming home to talk this out. I don't want another angst-filled album." She hadn't thought of that, had she? While Tegan was suffering inside the bus, there was an entirely new selection of undeniable accusations to make songs out of waiting just outside the curtains of despair.
"All right, I'll try to drag Tegan over..." Sara quickly said her goodbyes and pushed her phone back into her pocket as she stood, dusting off the bits of concrete from the seat of her pants. She made her way back into the bus, where she curled up under the blankets that had become foreign to her during the time she spent wrapped in Tegan's arms, cradled in their personal shelter from the outside world.
Why do I take this lonely road, nobody here to walk with me?