Author's Note: It's a miracle! Another chapter right away! Also, I've been forgetting to add a new feature of Part II: the soundtrack! Soundtrack for this chapter is "Satellite Mind" by Metric, another great Canadian band. Go to Youtube and type in "metric satellite mind with lyrics" and watch the first one that comes up. You'll figure out why it's the track for this chapter… tell me if you don't. ;)
Chapter 5: Before You Were Out of Bed
Later, back in the bus, tired from all day on and off the Underground, up and down stairs,
in and out of crowds, they crashed out on the plush three-sided sofa and put on a movie. Shaun came over briefly, and watched about half of the movie with them before leaving to meet up with friends. While Shaun was there, Tegan and Sara sat two meters apart. Jamie found it hard to ignore them, though she tried; the energy between them was palpable. She half-watched the movie while trying to write replies to emails from home, and when Shaun left, Jamie half-expected them to move closer to each other, but they didn't. She was starting to have difficulty keeping her eyes open, so she shut the computer off and lay back, listlessly watching the movie until her eyes closed.
The human mind is an incredibly malleable thing. Less than a year ago, I was trying to wrap my head around what I half-saw and half-heard through a drug-induced haze, trying to reconcile that with what I knew and what I felt. And the equation at first seemed to be, they are sisters having sex. And that equation was more shocking than anything I'd ever tried to comprehend, especially given who they were - to thousands of fans, to the public, and to me. But so much has happened since then that I can hardly remember the way I felt when I first saw it. All I've seen and heard since then has made me believe that they belong together, that they need each other in a way that nobody else can understand. When Sara clenched her fingers together and said we're the same stuff, one more piece of the puzzle slid into place and it all made a little more sense. And knowing that about them - knowing that they are tied together so inextricably - makes it almost possible for me to live with how I feel about Tegan, even though all of those feelings still overwhelm and nearly crush me every day.
What do you do when you've fallen irretrievably for someone that you've always known you can't - will never - be able to have? What do you do? What can you do? If it were something I could turn off like a light switch, believe me, I would have done it years ago. How can one person be worth torturing yourself over like this on a daily basis? Why her? I ask myself that question as often as Tegan probably asks herself what she asked me in Vancouver: "Why us?" We're suffering on different sides of the same problem, and it's illogical and irrational and insufferable and miserable. . . and there's not a fucking thing any of us can do about it. Except wait. Just wait, and hope that something - anything - will change our insides. That somehow, someday, the feelings will subside and allow us to get on with our lives already. Sane, rational, socially acceptable lives. Not the life that happens when you're so in love with someone that you toss away everything you have in order to be near her, for even the shortest amount of time, the way I'd done for years. Even when you know that being near her will only twist the knife that's been stabbed clean through your gut for as long as you can remember, causing you to breathe carefully, to speak carefully, to move carefully. . . anything to avoid provoking the pain. And then, given the chance, you provoke it anyway. I mean, I knew what happened between me and Tegan in Vancouver couldn't last and I can still hardly believe it happened at all, but what else could I have done? I couldn't even stop it to protect my own sanity. And I don't like to think of myself as a cheater, or as someone who would help someone else cheat, and she wasn't even cheating then, exactly. . . and maybe I'm just rationalizing things now, but if anyone else wants to criticize, I'd like to see them do any better. Go on, I dare you. Anyone who thinks they would have done things differently is just lucky enough to have never had it happen to them. Yet.
But I knew, god, I knew, that it would end up just like it did; I knew that she would go back to Sara, because what else could she have done? I didn't expect anything else, and I don't blame her for it. I just knew that in the end, I would be the one losing out; I knew that I would, again, be watching her touching Sara and feeling the kind of jealousy that has driven people to do insane things, and right now, I don't blame any of those people either. They're right when they say that jealousy can eat you alive. It's like being slowly drowned in acid. The one fucked-up bit of consolation I have is that if I can't have Tegan, I'd rather she be with Sara than anyone else. Maybe it's completely bizarre, but I know that nothing Tegan can have with me or anyone else can compete with that bond they have, which started before they were even born. And knowing that, and knowing that what Tegan needs in order to be happy is Sara, makes me want to try to support them in their struggle in any way that I can, just like I always have, no matter what it has done to me. When I told Tegan I would be her cover to protect them, I meant it. Even if it shreds my guts, I will do it if that's all I can give to her.
And in the meantime, what will I do? Continue on with this fake life here, this suspended reality, with no hope of it ending up like I wish it would? What will happen when they don't need me anymore and there's no reason for me to stay? I don't have a real life anymore. I gave it all up, for what? To chase a wish? And the sad part is, I'd do it again. Being around Tegan all the time creates so many triggers, and not only pineapple yogurt. When she squeezes past me on the bus, and her hand grazes over my hip, I'm back in her bed again, her hands sliding up my legs to my hips, her lips against my collarbone. In the most innocent of moments, she says a few words to me and smiles and I can taste her mouth and feel her warmth flooding through me, a wave of sensation, a wave of recollection that almost knocks me over. Does this happen to her too? I think of asking her to remember those days in Vancouver and now I wonder, does she? Does she ever lay awake at night remembering mylips on hers? If she did, knowing it would make this easier for me. But when I see them near each other, the jealousy I feel seems so petty, and I'm ashamed of it and know I need to push it down. I can't interfere with something that nature designed. If it were someone other than Sara who possessed Tegan's heart while she possessed mine, it would be a different thing entirely. I would want to hold her head under water. But it's Sara. Arguing with that would be like arguing with pandas for eating bamboo. Like Tegan said, maybe the pandas would love coconuts, but they can't live without bamboo and there is no argument that can change it.
And so I'm around them when they're around each other and I give them hints, and smiles; I give
them time; permission; I try to make them feel at ease, which they've never had before, which nobody but me has ever been able to give them. But it may be that the only happiness they will ever really have is that which they grab from each other alone in the dark.
The voices in the movie come back to me and when I reluctantly open my eyes, I see them on their side of the sofa. Tegan has moved and now her head is in Sara's lap, their eyes on the screen, Sara's hand on Tegan's arm. My eyes are on the screen too but I see them; a moment later, Tegan shifts and lays on her back, facing up at Sara, saying nothing. And Sara looks down at her too, also saying nothing. Sara's hand moves through Tegan's hair, smoothing it back. It's a sweet moment and it warms me but they think I'm asleep so I stretch, extend my legs, and keep my eyes on the screen. Sara tenses a little but Tegan shakes her head slowly against Sara's lap and whispers something I can't hear. Something amusing happens on screen and I give a very short and soft laugh; see, you guys? I'm awake, and I see you, and I see this moment between you and everyone's fine.
I can make out bits of their murmured conversation. Just bits. Sara's hand is still in Tegan's hair as I hear Tegan's voice, it's fine. I can't help myself: I turn my eyes to them briefly and Sara's eyes are on Tegan, her face uncertain. Tegan smiles at her and says it's fine, she's fine, very quietly. Why don't you just kiss me? Tegan murmurs with a slight smile, and when Sara takes a breath and tenses, Tegan says Don't check. Look at me. Don't check Jamie; it's fine. I can't help but smile at the screen, and I see in my periphery that Sara struggles to resist checking to see if I'm noticing them or not. She keeps her eyes on Tegan and after a moment's more of hesitation, she bends down, one hand in Tegan's hair and the other on her cheek, and she presses her lips against Tegan's. They kiss for several seconds and it's sweet and hot and I try not to look, keep my eyes on the movie that I have not been paying much attention to. Sara lifts her head again and Tegan chuckles a little.
"See?" she says at a normal, audible level. "Jamie saw us and nobody died."
"Tegan, she's watching the movie," Sara mutters, embarrassed.
"Jamie, you saw us, right? Didn't you?" Tegan says, turning her head to me. "I'm just asking because Sara thinks we'll all die if you see us kiss but you did, right?" I laugh a little, self-conscious that I've been caught, that she knows I was watching.
"Yeah, I did."
"Did you die?" Tegan asks me, with that same cheeky grin.
"Haha, no. Well, I might have died, a little, from the cuteness. But that's it," I say in a way that I hope comforts them, despite the way it twists in my guts. Sara's face reddens and she stares at the floor; Tegan grins even wider.
"Awwww see? We're cute. It's fine," Tegan says to Sara, who just shakes her head. "If you want-"
But Tegan doesn't have a chance to finish her offer; we hear a knock on the door of the bus open up ahead. We are not visible from the door of the bus, but Sara and Tegan spring away from each other as though they're electrified. Sara's face is suddenly white; she crawls back into the corner of the sofa and Tegan quickly comes and sits by me as Johnny comes in.
"Hey girls," he says with a smile at all of us.
"Hey Johnny, what's up?" Sara asks, her voice slightly tremulous.
"There are no girls on our bus. It's boring and smelly," he says, sitting down next to me. He stays and watches the rest of the much-ignored movie while Tegan and Sara sit a few meters apart from each other, silently.
A couple of hours later now, in my bunk, unable to sleep. I'm going through my Twitter feed when the sounds of their voices reach me. It's late; if I'd been asleep, these sounds wouldn't have woken me, but I'm awake and it's clear what I'm hearing. Their gasps and moans, I've heard before. But this time it's different. They're not loud, but their voices are less fearful, less restrained. I hear rustling, heavy breaths, soft voices. Maybe they think that I'm asleep and I can't hear, or that the thin fiberglass door is enough of a barrier. Or maybe they don't care if I can hear them. The sounds they make create a physiological response in me that I try to ignore. I hear Tegan's voice intensify in a way that is now so familiar to me, and I am flooded with memories of her, of her face, her voice, her skin. I feel the inside of her with my fingers; I feel her ankles lock together at the small of my back as she is there, under me, pressing up against me with her hips. I remember her moaning against my lips. All of these memories assault me as I lay there, my body responding to their voices, their sounds. I follow their wave up, up, and then down into sleep.