We love all of your comments as shit falls apart! We're especially amused by those of you who like to tell us what should happen next, haha! As a brilliant musician once said, "I hate to inform you... but I have my own fucking plan." ;)

Part III, Chapter 4: I Won't Pry

I'm pretty late getting back to the club. I don't know how late. I lost it under the tree, crying with my face in the moss, damp and cool. That went on for a while until two well-meaning university-age boys came up to check on me, asking if I was okay, if I needed anything. Their faces were shocked when they looked at me, and with my red, puffy, snot-covered face I must have almost looked like the monster I felt like. I almost wanted to tell them what was wrong so that they could be horrified, disgusted. Maybe they would just murder me and I wouldn't have to wait under the tree anymore. But they didn't and the corner of my brain that still cared about my obligations compelled me to drag myself back to the club.

Tegan was there when I walked in, as well as the boys. I couldn't speak to them. I needed to keep my shit together. Bawling under a tree was one thing but in front of everyone? This was my job. She was fiddling with her guitar; the boys were silently waiting. They were all tuned up and ready. I don't know where Jamie is. I see Nick and Piers and other people, the club's staff I assume, shuffling in and out, anxiously, because we're so fucking late and we're just fucking up but I don't even care. I have to do this, though, or nobody will get paid, and all the fans outside, who've already been waiting for hours and who are now waiting extra hours because of me, they will be cheated because I can't keep my hands off of my sister?

I glance at Tegan, accidentally, as I pick up my guitar. She looks like I feel. Her face is all flushed, her nose red. Her eyes, swollen. She looks over at me when I look at her, of course, because she wants to communicate with me but I just shut her out because you know what? I have no heart. She looks like she's on the verge of tears and I look away. The rawness in her eyes, in her face, are too much for me. I harden myself against it. That hurts too.

I don't know but it's like Ted just senses that he should take over and he leads us through sound check and I follow him, robotically. I do it on auto-pilot; Tegan can't keep anything straight. She fucks up the lyrics again and again, more than usual even. The boys are patient. She is a goddamned fucking mess, her hands shaking by the end of it. I try not to look at her, swallow it, this wretched feeling in my guts, everything gnawing at them. There are voices in the background and people say things that I should pay attention to but I don't until it's done and Shaun takes my arm and leads me backstage so the opening act can set up, and I follow him into one of the rooms backstage where we would normally all hang out together and wait, but I don't think I can stand to be in there with them looking at me, wondering, worrying. I can't look at Tegan. Her face isn't just a mirror; it's a mirror at a fun fair that makes everything bigger, sharper, hurt more. I can see the things gnawing at me also gnawing at her; I can see this wound in me reflected in her but it's worse when it's her because she is the one with a heart.

There's nowhere else to go, though. I can't disappear again. I'm fucking tired. Maybe they'll leave me alone? I sit on the end of a sofa and close my eyes. I hear my name, open my eyes; it's Nick, standing there with his clipboard.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asks, worried. I stare back at him. I have no idea how to answer. Am I? I can't see how. "To go on, I mean," he adds, as if he knows. I nod and close my eyes again. "Are you sure?" he asks and I nod again. "What about Tegan?" I open my eyes. They know better than to ask me to speak for her. I glance around; she's gone.

"She's just gone to the bathroom, I think," Ted says, handing me a bottle of water and sitting at the other end of the sofa. Nick goes off after Tegan.

They've all seen it, I guess? I'm surprised they're still here. The sofa shifts a little as someone sits next to me but I don't open my eyes. They are burning, swelling; my head is throbbing. I feel a hand on my knee.

"It's going to be okay," Shaun's voice tells me uncertainly. He's tentative with me like everyone is when I'm not happy. I shake my head. He is sweet but nothing he says can be true right now. Things can't be okay and never will again. How can they be? The only things that matter in the world are gone, or they're going. "They will. I mean. . . celebrities have sex tapes and nobody cares after a few minutes."

"That's right. Who remembers Paris Hilton's sex tape?" Ted asks.

"Who remembers Paris Hilton?" Johnny adds. They laugh, bless them, trying to be light-hearted while the whole world collapses. They won't have jobs soon so they may as well laugh now. I want to point out that Paris Hilton's sex tape didn't involve her sister, but I keep my eyes closed and my mouth shut. Have they seen it? If so, do they believe it's Casey on top of Tegan in the pile of hay?

"It's all going to blow over, okay? Things always do," Shaun says, rubbing my knee in a warm, affectionate way and I take a deep breath because I'll cry again if he doesn't shut up and fuck, I'm sick of crying.

Tegan's back in the room, murmuring something to Nick. I can't help it; I open my eyes for a moment. She sits in an armchair, kind of curls up, and starts to cry again, pulling her hood up and covering the top half of her face with it. I close my eyes again and don't move so I'm sure everyone thinks I'm just a cold fucking heartless bitch as I sit on my end of the sofa as the person who owns my whole fucking soul is fucking falling apart in front of me in slow motion. I think I might throw up but instead I cry too, and do the same thing with my hood. Silently, as silently as I can. God damn it. I can hear Tegan. That misery combined with my fucking inability to go to her and hold her like I want to is just slicing my heart like it's on a butcher block. Make it stop.

"You guys, it's. . . you'll be okay, everything will. . ." Ted says a little helplessly. "Maybe we'll go out and leave you alone for a bit. . ." That sounds like a good idea but that means I'll be alone with Tegan. And then what will happen? She'll come to me and I'll be too weak to push her away.

"No," I say quickly. "Please stay." Nobody else says anything for a while.

People come in and out and I ignore it. I keep my eyes closed and I drift off for a while. A few minutes. I don't know. I come around again and I hear someone talking softly to Tegan and I don't know if it's helping. My tears have stopped finally and it's good timing because we get the word that it's time to go on.

I follow them onstage. I'm the robot again. I grab my guitar and the crowd is screaming, cheering, hooting, whooping like always except that there's a thread of something hostile in it. I don't look at them, no smiles. We start the first song right away. When it's done there are screams, cheers, shouts. There is also something like. . . jeering. Taunting.

I ignore it. Someone shouts Fuck each other again! and some people scream excitedly. There are shouts that sound angry and maybe they are on our side? But maybe they are going to run onstage and murder us?

I look over at Tegan because she stumbles, or something, kicks over the mic stand. She picks it up. She's blinking, squinting. What's wrong with her? Can't she see?

The next two songs are Tegan's. She has her favourites that she fucks up regularly, and a few wild cards that we can never be sure about, but she fucks these up like she's trying to but I know she's not because she's angry, and when she stops after the second verse of "I Know I Know I Know" and rambles something in the mic but it isn't funny, it's just sad. She starts again, fucks up again, stops. Her voice is shaking. I look over; her hands are shaking. She moves the capo. Why is she moving the capo? She's moving it back. She's going to lose it; her eyes are shining. If she does, I will too. I want to say something to help her but I also want to grab her, close my fingers around her throat. I can't cry so I find another way to channel it.

"Do you want me to fucking sing it for you?" I snap, and the crowd cheers. Tegan shakes her head, bites her lip.

"No, I want you to play your guitar and give me a break," she says.

"You've had like three breaks already in this song, so-"

"Shut up and play your part, maybe?"

"Fuck you," comes out of my mouth, unbelievably. There are laughs, hoots, shocked noises and someone shouts again, Yeah! Fuck each other!

I start my part and we get through the song. Tegan fucks it up a little bit more but keeps going.

"Dark Come Soon" is next and I just feel it in my guts that that is a bad thing. She starts okay. Wavers a little but it's okay. I hear shouts, see a scuffle in the middle of the floor out of the corner of my eye but ignore it and keep going. Half-way through the song, Tegan is in tears again, turning her back on the crowd and the deja-vu hits me. I keep singing my backgrounds. I don't know what to do. I wish something would happen. An accident. Some kind of natural disaster. Maybe someone could jump on stage and attack me. Generally I'm fucking terrified when anyone so much as approaches the stage, but right now, I think I'd welcome it. Fucking stab me, please. Tegan is crying now with her back to the audience and I keep singing, it's a mess, God, it's all falling apart. I hear a crash; a pint glass explodes on the stage next to me. Beer soaks my sock. Bits of glass hit my leg. There are angry shouts, I think, towards the glass-thrower but I don't know. I try to keep going. Tegan is back at her mic stand when another glass flies past her and crashes in front of the drum kit. I see Tegan's face, red, wet with tears, shocked. My heart contracts painfully and so does my chest. I try to take a deep breath but I can't. I feel dizzy. They are throwing beer at us. Tegan is in tears. Fuck this, no more. Fuck it, fuck it all. I drop my guitar on the stage and walk off as the drum kit rattles to a halt and the screams are frantic, deafening, insane. I hear Tegan berate them, tearfully. My stomach has these weird pulsations and I taste acid. My chest is tightening, tightening, I can't breathe. I go through the first door I see and I slide down a wall, in a stairwell, collapse.

I'm there, crouching down in the stairwell with my head between my knees because I hear that's what you do when you hyperventilate. I think I'm going to pass out. My throat is closing. I gasp, panicking, I'll die, I'm dying, finally. I hear voices, someone's hand on my back, I don't know. Shouting, crying, stomping sounds from the crowd vibrate through the wall where I lean my head, try to breathe. Then Tegan is passing me on the stairs, stumbling. She is rushing, I see her. She almost falls, grabs the railing, and then doubles over and vomits on the wall, on the stairs and staggers down the last three steps, to the landing, and collapses. I hear her voice, wailing, piercing me, slicing through me. My chest spasms, my lungs burn as I gasp, gasp, gasp and can't stop, I'm dying, we're both dying. Tegan is dying in front of me! Things get blurry and then black.