Part II: It Only Fuels the Flames

Chapter 2: Your Hand Was in Mine

Fuck, is it always going to be like this? Things finally start to get better, to calm down, and just for a second I think that maybe Jamie is right and there could be a way that things could just be okay. Why did she want to ask me that? I knew she wouldn't really want to hear it. There was no answer I could give that wouldn't have upset her. Could I have told her that it was just meaningless sex? That I just wanted to fuck someone and Jamie was there and that was it? That wouldn't have made her feel any better. Then what would I be? I'd be some opportunistic asshole who did what she wanted without giving a fuck about anyone else. She'd be ashamed of me. I'd be ashamed of myself. But part of me wonders if I did that anyway. Like I knew. . . I guess I'd already known that Jamie loved me and I didn't really think about how it would affect her if something happened between us. Like I knew I was a fucking mess and everything inside of me just hurt so badly and I needed to be close to someone and she was sweet and she held me and something clicked in my mind and that was it, and suddenly she was not only this sweet person who held me but this sexy person who loved me and I wanted to touch her and so I just did, and didn't think, and Sara's right to ask me if I ever thought about the fact that I might break her heart because I really kind of didn't. I do these things. I do things impulsively and then take the consequences.

But this is different. It started out as me needing to feel something other than how I was feeling, and it turned into something else. I think it turned into something else as soon as she put her arms around me and pulled me closer. And I don't know what to do with how I feel about her, because that wasn't even supposed to happen.

And now what? Now Sara has run off again, hurt because I can't lie about Jamie. I can't lie about Jamie to Sara because she knows me and she can fucking look at me and know everything, see everything. Hurting her makes me want to die and I keep doing it! I keep fucking doing it!

I mean God, she's my sister. My sister, and when we're near each other things happen to my guts and my heart and my body that don't make sense to me, things that shouldn't happen. But I can't stop those things. Being with Jamie in Vancouver and her knowing and understanding and not screaming and running away from me made me feel sane. I wanted to feel sane but also . . how objective can Jamie be about me? Just because she accepts it and isn't horrified doesn't mean that anyone else will respond that way. She'd probably still accept me if I told her I had human remains buried under my apartment.

And now I've made Sara cry and she's wandering around outside like that and I wish she was just here. She should just stay here and cry with me, it's better. She doesn't cry very often and when she does, she won't let me hold her. I would do that, I would do just that, and nothing else, but she pushes me away and runs off. She only comes to me when she can't resist it anymore and then she'll touch me but she's afraid still. Afraid and angry. And I don't know what to do.

All of these things ran through Tegan's mind as she lay on the huge bed at the back of the bus, staring up through the cloudy skylight, littered with crispy leaves. She remembered those fearful, angry encounters with Sara but she remembered one more, in the bus with Sara, after Johnny's party. It was different then; Sara had allowed more than she usually allowed, and it was that sweetness that Tegan remembered when she was alone. Tegan, she had said, with an ache in her voice, as Tegan touched her hot, pink face and kissed her trembling lips, and she could feel Sara's whole body trembling against her too.

The sound of the door opening dragged Tegan out of her reverie. Jamie came in quietly, the cup of yogurt in her hand. Tegan sat up and wiped the little bit of wetness from her face.

"Hey," she called to Jamie, who walked to the back of the bus. Tegan met her eyes and smiled, smoothed her hair down. "Come and sit down for a second?" Jamie sat on the end of the bed and handed the yogurt cup to Tegan.

"Everything okay? I saw Sara run off," Jamie began nervously as Tegan took a bite of yogurt. Tegan, too, recalled their yogurt-flavored kiss in Vancouver with a little shiver.

"Yeah, she's a bit upset," Tegan said heavily, licking her spoon.

"Uh oh, what about? I mean. . ."

"She asked me about you," Tegan explained. "I mean, about Vancouver."

"Oh. . . oh no. . ." Jamie said uncertainly.

"Yeah, well. . ." Tegan went on, "she shouldn't ask questions if she doesn't want to hear the answers." Jamie smiled at her nervously and she smiled back, a little sadly. "Want some yogurt?" Tegan asked with a wry grin.

"Only if I can use your spoon," Jamie replied. Tegan pretended to think about it.

"Yeah I guess," she said, handing the spoon to Jamie, who took it and scooped up some of the yogurt while Tegan looked at her lips and then away.

"Thanks," she said, and after a thoughtful moment, she commented shyly. "Pineapple yogurt. . . like. . . it's. . ."

"It'll never be the same," Tegan finished for her with a cheeky grin. Jamie laughed, nodded.

"Exactly." They shared more yogurt in easy silence.

"You went for yogurt with Ted?" Tegan asked and Jamie nodded, taking the spoon again.

"Yep."

"Have you seen Johnny? Shaun said he wasn't feeling well," Tegan asked.

"Yeah, Ted said he had stomach issues," Jamie replied.

"Ugh. Two hours until sound check," Tegan said, looking at the clock on the DVD player across from the bed. "Shit, this thing is plush."

"Right?" Jamie agreed. "It's like. . . ridiculous."

"I almost feel guilty," Tegan said, looking around and bouncing a little on the bed. "And this bed, it. . . like. . ." she stopped herself, awkwardly, and focused on her yogurt.

"Aww, well, you guys deserve your privacy," Jamie said warmly, and Tegan blushed. "I mean, you're the stars. You're the bosses. You don't need to share a bus with eleven other people."

"Boys," Tegan added.

"Smelly boys," Jamie said helpfully.

"Zombie sneakers?"

"Totally."

"But seriously like. . . this bed is like. . . I mean, anyone who sees it will think. . ." Tegan started, unable to say it.

"People will probably just think it's like. . . way more comfortable to share a huge bed with your sister than to cram yourself into a bunk," Jamie suggested. Tegan nodded thoughtfully. They didn't speak for a moment. "But I need a shower before the show so I'd better-"

"Shower here," Tegan said with a shrug. "The shower's bigger and not full of boy germs."

"Really? All my stuff is in the other bus."

"You're going to need to move your stuff over here anyway once Jeremy starts." Jamie looked at Tegan and blinked.

"Jeremy?"

"Our new roadie. An old friend of ours. He's going to need a bunk. So this is going to be the girls' bus. There are four bunks up front." Jamie smiled at Tegan, who smiled back.

"Wow, great. No more smelly boys."

"Right? Go grab your stuff."

I must have drifted off for a second after Jamie left. I wake up to the shifting of the bed and when I open my eyes, Sara is lying down next to me. Her eyes are just a little red, but not too much. My stomach does a quick jump. I can feel the warmth from her nearness, and it makes me shiver a little. Her face is sad, but not angry

"I'm sorry," I say, looking at her face, her eyes which are just like mine except not as puffy, not droopy like my left eye. I wonder for a moment what could possibly be more narcissistic than the feeling I get in my guts when I look at my own twin. My own twin.

"I'm sorry too," Sara says softly and I try not to look at her lips, which are so full and soft and right there in front of me. And then she moves closer and puts an arm around me so suddenly that my heart jumps, and we're so close now and I put my arms around her too and we lie like that for a minute without saying anything. My heart is racing a little because it's not often that this happens, that we just lie together like that. Her face presses against my neck and I smell her hair. It's like green apples. I feel warm all over and squeeze her more tightly. Instantly I hate everything in the world that will happen to make this moment stop. I hate our sound check that's coming up in an hour and a half; I hate our band; I hate our jobs; I hate the fact that we have responsibilities and bills and friends and family and managers and people who want things from us. Can't we just fire all of them, announce that we're quitting, break up with all of the people we love and just stay in this bed? But fuck, if we did that, we'd have to give the bus back. . .

I take a deep breath, half-expecting her to pull away at any moment. Don't go, don't go, don't go. . . I try to use my twin telepathy to tell her that when I feel her lips below my ear, on my neck, and I instantly feel a jolt go through my body. Her hands slide up my back and she pulls me tighter to her and when she moves her face back from mine and looks at me, there is that little line between her eyebrows which says we can't and we shouldn't and this is wrong and there's something wrong with you and there's something wrong with me andI need you need you need you need you and I feel all of that too so I try to smooth out the little line between her eyebrows using my thumb and maybe I smile just a little but my brain is saying kiss me kiss me kiss me like that old Cure record and then she does. She doesn't do it tentatively; she does it like she can't help it, like she wants to stop but can't, and we're the same and it hurts my guts but God there's no way I can stop it. Her lips are so soft and a little wet and when she takes my lower lip with both of hers I feel something happening to my body that makes me hate myself again. But I kiss her back and need more and her hands have moved up to my face, my hair, and they're trembling a little and I just think are we going to be scared like this forever? I literally do not know how to hold her without shaking. Tegan, you're a cheesy motherfucker but it's fucking true like every other bit of that song that I wrote for her and lied to Jamie about. Maybe I can tell her. Maybe I will.

When she slips one hand around the back of my neck and her tongue touches mine, I instantly think of Jamie and all those feelings crash together in my guts. Kissing Jamie didn't make me feel insane and broken. . . it made me wish that I could just keep doing it and all of this would go away. It was different, almost everything about it was different. A kiss can tell you a lot. Sara's kiss says to me like. . . I shouldn't kiss you, I'm afraid to kiss you. . . I need to kiss you, I need to consume you and eat your whole body and leave your bones for the vultures. I need to absorb you, possess you, and if we do this right we will merge back into one person. You are me; I am you; you are mine; I am yours. I'm insane and so are you. It cuts through my guts like a dull blade because it's all the same, the same as I feel, and I don't know why. Jamie is different, though. She kissed me and I knew in a moment that she loved me. Just like that. I didn't really know it until that moment and then I couldn't imagine how I had missed it. When she kissed me it said I love you and I want you andyou are not a disgusting, crazy, broken monster. It said you're beautiful. Let me show you! And she did show me and it put part of my heart back together and I'm thankful for that, so thankful. I liked her before, but then she held me all night while I cried like a mental patient and that tenderness made something turn over in my mind and when I woke up, I wanted to feel her body and watch her face as I made her come and I wanted to feel like a normal human being.

How can all this go through my mind with Sara's mouth on mine? She kisses me slowly, for a long time, and now I think if she doesn't touch me I'll die and her hands are under my shirt, on my back and she's warm and soft and smells so good and feels so good and why are we like this? Her body is the most familiar thing to me, the most familiar thing that there could possibly be. She's me. And yet what happens in me when she touches me is something I'm not smart enough to describe. Ask Sara to do it.

I don't know what noise in my head stopped me from hearing when someone came in but I didn't, and by the time I hear her footsteps she has already seen everything and that flood of shame and panic comes over me and Sara too because she pulls away, jerks away really, out of my arms and away from me and sits up and looks a little bit sick. But it's Jamie, I notice with a wave of relief.

"It's okay, it's just Jamie," I say to Sara, who looks quickly over to Jamie, most of the tension draining out of her.

"Holy Jesus," Sara breathes.

Jamie blushes a little but gives us a grin.

"Hey, don't mind me," she says, more to Sara than to me, laying her bag on one of the bunks. "I mean, at least you're clothed this time!" She gives me a playful smirk and my whole heart fills up with affection for her. Sara manages to give an embarrassed smile, just a little one.

"Sorry," she says anxiously.

"Oh, don't be," Jamie says, waving it away. "I'll be in the bathroom for at least twenty minutes," she adds suggestively, and I laugh. Sara scowls at me but she's smiling. She looks at her watch.

"Should we set a timer?" I ask and she scowls at me again but pulls herself quickly on top of me.