Another chapter I really love. The author is amazing.

Part IV: Chapter 14 - Run and Hide

"Sara," I hear once, inside of my dream, and then again as I lift up out of it. "Sara, wake up. . ."

I open my eyes and her face is there above me, a little blurry at first, and then in focus. She's sitting on the sofa, next to my waist. My mouth feels like the carpet; the alcohol makes my head pleasantly heavy. In a moment, it all floods back: the TV report; my conversation with my mom. I want more whiskey.

"How did you get in?" I ask her, feeling and probably sounding bleary.

"I took your spare key when I left. I told you I was taking it." I shrug, but she smooths my hair back with her hand. She's sweet and gentle and I don't deserve it. "Do you feel okay?" she asks me.

"Fucking awesome," I say, pulling myself to a sitting position and looking for my glass. It isn't quite empty and when I find it, I empty it in one mouthful.

"Sara, how much of that have you had today?" she asks, disapproving like my mother. I'm sick of them and all their concerned admonishments. I shrug again, getting up and heading for the kitchen as she watches after me from the sofa.

"I don't know. Lots."

"Sara."

"What? Fuck, you sound like my mom."

"Did you talk to her?" she asks. I fill my glass again because I'm fucking twenty-eight and if I want to drink Talisker like it's 7-Up I fucking well will.

"Yeah, it was fucking awesome good fun. Told her a few lies, said 'fuck' a whole bunch of times. Want a drink?" I raise the bottle, knowing full well she doesn't want a drink. I suddenly need to grip the counter because things are getting unsteady.

"What did you tell her?" Emy asks. You just can't throw her off, that girl. Such a sensible person she is.

"I told her the truth, of course! I told her that I'm like. . . that I. . . fuck my sister every chance I get!"

"Sara."

"In lots of different ways. I do like strapping on, as it turns out, which might be a surprise to you, haha. . ." I make my somewhat unsteady way back to the sofa and sit on the end farthest away from Emy. She looks at me with a frown. It probably would surprise her, I muse to myself, to see Tegan and I together, how different things are for us. How hard it is for me to let go. How much I try to hold onto things. How much Tegan undoes me.

"Sara, come on."

"What?"

"Can you be serious for a minute? I know this is hard for you but what are you trying to prove?" She talks to me like that, Emy does. She always calls my bluff. Always puts me in my place. She's unflappable. It makes me want to try, though, sometimes. I have to admit it.

"Are you sure you want me to do that?" I ask her. I hope she really gives that some thought because things are about as serious as I can stand.

"You did not say those things to your mother."

"No, I did not. You are correct," I say, and snort, my head back against the cushions again because it's heavy and kind of under-watery. "I told her it was some other girl and she. . . tried to believe it. Or I don't know, I mean, it's fucking obvious it's me, isn't it?" I take a very big mouthful of whiskey and choke a little. Thinking of my mother is going to make me need to run to the toilet again.

"Jesus, Sara, slow it down-" she says, reaching for the glass.

"Fuck off," I snap, jerking it away and taking another swallow just to spite her but now I'm feeling nauseated. "You can't like, always like, make me fucking like. . ." I'm rambling, it's idiotic, even I can recognize that.

"What, Sara? What do I make you do?"

"You want to, like, make me all. . . all good and fucking like. . . perfect, like you, and behave myself and shut up and-"

"Sara, don't be stupid. I've never wanted you to shut up. And you know I'm not perfect. That's just silly."

"Yes you are! You are! I fucking. . . I can't like, I couldn't have . . . could never have been good enough for you anyway, even if I wasn't a fucking sick motherfucker. . ."

"That's just wrong, Sara, and you know it."

"I went down on her, you know. You can't like even imagine how much I wanted to but God, it took a long time to get around to it!" She blushes a little, which gives me a little jolt. I like it, actually. It's like scratching the fuck out of a bug bite when you know it will just make it worse but it hurts in a way that you can't help but enjoy. "Yeah, that was a major fucking like. . . stumbling . . . uh. . ."

"Sara, do you want to have a serious discussion about this? Because it's fine if you do but I think you're just upset right now. You do this when you're upset."

"Do what?" I challenge her, because she's so fucking smart.

"You try to push people away. Try to alienate people."

"Whatever. You just don't want to hear about me fucking Tegan."

"It's not that-"

"You don't. You don't. Because it's disgusting and I don't blame you-"

"Is it?" There's a moment when I don't answer because she's surprised me with that. I look into my glass which is now empty and I wish it wasn't.

"What?" I ask.

"Disgusting. Sleeping with Tegan." I look at her and she looks back at me with the calmest eyes. I feel heat rise up through my chest, up to my face and I can't look at her so I look back into my glass. God, I just want to lie down but I think I might throw up and now Emy is asking me that. God, not again. I'm not going to cry again. I shake my head and don't look at her because if I look at her I know I will cry.

"No," I murmur.

"No," Emy confirms with a sad smile.

"It's not easy, though," I tell her, somehow, and she's quiet for a few seconds.

"No, I guess it wouldn't be," she says softly. My breaths quicken a little.

"It scares me. It hurts."

"Yes."

"It's too much. Too much to like. . . say, to explain. . . too much. . . I feel. . ." I want to say something that I can't explain and the frustration makes me ache. I tap my fist against my heart for a second, searching, and she watches me with sympathetic eyes. "It drowns me."

I get up before the tears start because I don't want her sympathy. I choke back a sob on my way to the kitchen to get more whiskey.

"Sara, hey-" she calls after me, and she's up off the sofa and she's coming up behind me.

"And then I kissed her and said never again! And I fucked that girl! And Tegan saw and I said it was a nightmare and I broke her!"

"Nightmare?" she repeats, puzzled, as I reach for the bottle but my glass hits the edge of the counter and smashes, and I feel a sting and when I look down, blood is dripping on the tiles between my feet. "Oh Sara, jeez-"

She hurries to me and sees the broken glass, the blood. It isn't bad, though. It's a little cut on my ring finger and with all the whiskey in my blood, I can hardly feel it. The bleeding, though, is making me very light headed.

"Here, let me. . ." She leads me to the sink and holds my hand under cold water for a few seconds. "Stay there, keep it under the water," she tells me and I do. She's back in a few seconds with a small hand towel and a couple of Band-Aids. My hands are shaking.

"Nightmare, I said to her. I said it because I. . . it was the worst thing I could say. That girl was just. . . she was just a fucking slut and. . . the Scottish guy was nice but that girl was just. . . but he. . . I just. . . he just fucked me like a piece of meat and, oh, uh, I can't. . ." I feel my knees buckle a little and she catches me.

"Sara, woah, okay. . . come on. . ." She pulls my arm over her shoulders and helps me to the bedroom. It's only about fifteen steps but I almost collapse twice. The whole room is rotating and the floor is completely unreliable.

She gets me to the bedroom and I flop down on my back, closing my eyes as she squeezes my finger with the little towel for a couple of minutes.

"Who fucked you like a piece of meat, Sara?" she asks, and I've almost forgotten already what I'd said. She looks at me, worried, and then takes a look at my finger. I guess the bleeding has stopped because I feel her wrap it with a Band-Aid.

"The Scottish guy in the bar. He tried to be nice but I just told him to fuck me and that's it. He was shocked." I laugh, a little, but it isn't funny.

"God," she says, pained.

"It didn't matter. It could have been anyone. He was almost too nice to do it though. Poor fucking guy."

"Sara, who. . . what did you. . ."

"On the bus, though, he realized who I was, it wasn't. . . I. . . it almost fucked it up. I mean if I. . . I thought about like. . . if I could just like lie down in some park or something, maybe. . . I'm not even kidding like I thought if someone could just like, rape me or something like. . . and then kill me and then I wouldn't. . . uh. . ."

"Sara, oh my God. . . did someone hurt you? Did something happen to you? What are you talking about?"

"And Tegan saw the blood on the sheets and like ohhhh my God, I was crying in the shower and, fuck, haha, oh man-"

"Sara, what-"

"She thought. . . I mean. . . well what would you think? Of course she thought I. . . and I just told her get the fuck out! Maybe she still thinks somebody raped me!" I start laughing, but it's like I feel it welling up and coming out and it's hysterical, like when I was ten and I stepped on a bee and had an allergic reaction to it, and the fever made me hallucinate, and I laughed and cried at the same time, insanely, and it scared my mother so badly she had to take me to the hospital. Emy's face now is pure alarm, like my mother's was, when I asked her why her face was on backwards and she picked me up and carried me to the Aerostar and sped all the way to Emergency.

"So, he didn't. . . you weren't. . ." Oh, no. Poor Emy.

"No!" I exclaim, and now the laughter has crossed into the zone where I don't know if I'm crying or not. "I told him to fuck me and he did. I got what I asked for." She's so horrified.

"Jesus, Sara. Why would you do that?"

"Because I'm fucking sick," I tell her and she shakes her head. She reaches a hand out to me and touches my face, smooths my hair back again.

"No you aren't. You're depressed. Don't be so hard on yourself," she says gently.

"My mom, oh God. . . she thinks. . . she doesn't believe. . . fuck." The tears come harder and I put one forearm over my eyes the way I sometimes do when I'm with Tegan and she touches me and it's too much. But now it's the shame, the disgust with myself, the drunken stupid tears, I don't need her to see all of that. So I sob into my arm. She gently strokes my hair but doesn't try to move my arm away from my face because she knows I need it.

"Shh, hey. . ." she murmurs softly, and her fingers caress my cheek, wipe away some of the wetness and I take a breath. She is gentle and sweet and I'm sick and insane. I'm laying down and she's sitting so that her hip is next to mine, and one of her thighs is near my hand so when she touches my face, I put my hand on her thigh and slide it up the inside. She catches my hand, and moves it away from her and now it shouldn't, but it hurts me and the pain makes me angry.

"Sara, come on." I pull my hand free, sitting up in front of her, and I lean in and put a hand on her thigh again as I try to kiss her and she puts her hand on my lips and stops me. "No way. You are wasted," she says and something breaks inside of me. I don't know what it is. Maybe the desire to not be a fucking asshole. "This isn't you."

"No way? Even Jaime said yes!" I cry, petulant, and the sobs start again, convulsively, as I try to push her away from me, off the bed.

"What - Jaime? You-"

"Fuck off then, if I'm so disgusting to you! Go!" I cry, pushing at her. She is quick to grab my hands and push them down, but I pull away and start shoving at her again and it's mad, it's insane and I am sobbing now, out of control again.

"Sara, no! Stop it!" I'm flailing against her but she wraps both arms around me, pinning my arms against my sides. I struggle but I'm tired, I'm drunk, and even when I'm not, she can still pin me down.

"Fucking let go of me, fuck!" I scream, pushing violently back against her as she holds me tightly.

"I won't let go of you. Knock yourself out."

"Fuck you, you self-righteous fucking. . ."

"Go ahead and say it but you'll be sorry tomorrow," she says to me, so in control while I lose my fucking mind and I want to slap her. Of course I've never slapped her. I think of Jaime, how I lunged at her in that room backstage, and feel like an animal.

"Sara, calm down-" I'm crying so hard now, it feels not much different from an asthma attack. I struggle against her a little bit more but I'm getting tired and all the violent thrashing is making me feel ill.

"Oh fuck, fuck you, fuck off," I whine.

"Yeah, let it all out."

"Fucking leave me alone!"

"I will not." I go limp a little, exhausted. Her arms are tight around me still.

"You fucking. . . like. . . motherfucking. . ."

She's quiet, maybe waiting for me to finish my vile sentence, but I have nothing. I just weep. "Oh Sara. God, honey. I'm so sorry," she says, and it shocks me because I'm just shit and how can she be so forgiving?

"Why?" I say, almost a moan, my nose running down my face now too and I can't stop it because my arms are pinned. My bangs are in my eyes, my face wet with snot and tears and sweat, and I feel like I will throw up. She sighs. I feel her warm breath on my neck.

"It's really hard to see you in so much pain," she says, her voice just a soft murmur behind my ear, and this gentleness finally kind of deflates me. I go limp in her arms. "You're not yourself." I nod a little and just cry. After a few moments of sitting still in her arms, she loosens her grip on me somewhat, but doesn't let go.

"I'm tired of being alive," I say inside of my head but somehow it has passed my lips.

"Sara, don't even say things like that," she says to me. "Come on. . ." She releases me, puts her hands on my shoulders and with gentle pressure, she lays me down on the bed. "I think you need to sleep off this whiskey. . ." She reaches for some tissues from the nightstand and hands them to me. I lay there and look up at her for a minute. I'm terrified again. I don't want her to go. I wipe my eyes with my sleeve.

"Can you. . . if you stay. . . if you'll. . . hold me a little. . . I won't like, try anything. . ." I'm afraid of myself. Don't leave me.

Her eyes are sad.

"Sara. . ." she starts, but doesn't finish her sentence. She crawls up beside me on the bed and lays down and when I turn away on my side, she cuddles up against my back. She knows. She puts her arms around me and pulls me close. I don't know but this tenderness is making it harder to stop crying. "Shh, hey, it's okay," she says next to my ear and it's comforting, her voice, her warmth, the familiarity of her touch and her body. She holds me tight enough that I feel like I might not disappear. "Go to sleep, it's okay. . ." Her voice, so soothing. It's not long before I lose consciousness again.

It feels like it must be a few hours later when I wake again and her arms are still around me. I jerk awake, which rouses her too, so she squeezes me a little tighter in her arms and sighs sleepily, just behind my ear. The drunken haze is lessening now. When I take a deep breath and let it out with a sigh, she speaks softly behind me.

"You alright?" she asks, sleepily, and I nod. I feel warm with her arms around me, her body pressed in close. Warm, and sad.

"I'm sorry for. . . about all the shitty things I said. . ."

"Shh, it's okay."

"It's not," I say. "I don't even. . . sometimes I'm. . . I can't even stand myself."

"What you are going through right now. . . Sara. . . give yourself a break." I think about that for a few quiet moments.

"It's like. . . these days. . ." I try to say but I don't know how to finish so I don't. With one hand, she is softly stroking my stomach. Every time she exhales, it warms my neck.

"You said some things that made me. . . wonder," she says softly.

"Like what?" I ask apprehensively, because I don't trust my own memory.

"A Scottish guy? A girl you maybe picked up? And. . . Jaime?" I sigh, and nod.

"I've been. . . it's. . . I don't know."

"Who was he?" Emy asks.

"I don't know. A guy in a bar. . . it was. . . bad." It surprises me the way thinking about it makes me feel a little ill. I recall his soft, low grunt as he came.

"God, Sara."

"The groupie chick was kind of the same thing. . . except. . . this time, I was the one doing the fucking."

"Oh no." Her voice is sad.

"Yeah and Tegan saw it. . . it's like I. . . wanted her to see it."

"You wanted to push her away."

"I needed to," I answered, starting to feel agitated again. She's stroking my stomach and she feels me getting tense again so she kisses my ear.

"Shh," she says, and I take a breath and relax a little more. "What. . . what about Jaime?" she wonders, and I sigh, because it's just sad. "The video girl?" It's weird to me now that Emy doesn't really know Jaime, outside of saying hello at a couple of shows. The video girl? The video girl I went down on and then tried to murder even though my hopes for Tegan's happiness right now rest squarely on her?

"Yeah, she. . . well we got wasted and. . ."

"Who's we?"

"Me and Tegan and Jaime," I tell her.

"Oh. . . oh."

"Yeah and we went back to the bus and we. . . uh. . ." I don't finish because it seems unnecessary.

"Oh wow." She says, stunned.

"Yeah."

"And Jaime is like. . . was she. . . uh. . ."

"She was sleeping with Tegan and-"

"What?" Emy asks, surprised. I'm starting to feel new effects from her closeness, her touch. I try to ignore them.

"Yeah, before and. . . in Vancouver, with Tegan, she was. . . I mean, she loves Tegan. She's in love with Tegan."

"Oh, wow. . . okay. . ." Emy takes a moment to absorb it all. "And after, were you like. . . how was it? I mean, the three of you. . . that must have been so weird for Jaime." In my mind, I look up the length of Tegan's naked body as I pressed her thighs open, and saw Jaime kiss her so passionately, her fingers in Tegan's hair, Tegan's arms tightly encircling her, and I was the one who shouldn't have been there. Tegan should have opened her legs for Jaime, not for me. They could just fuck each other and love each other and be happy.

"We were just. . . I mean. . . it would never have happened but we like, we had these pot cupcakes accidentally and like. . . we just. . ." I don't know what else to say. I feel suddenly ashamed of myself, yet again. "It's so fucked. I'm so. . . fucked."

"Hey, no you're not."

"And I'm sorry I. . . tried to touch you or whatever. I know you, I mean, I know it's not. . . you don't feel that way about me anymore, I mean. . ."

"I never said that," she murmurs and I feel stupid but the tears start again. Not intense sobs like before but she's holding me and it's making me cry, I can't help it. "Sara, no, don't cry. . ." she whispers, her voice sad next to my ear. She kisses my hair, makes soothing sounds. "I never stopped feeling that way about you. You know that was never our problem." She's right. I guess I did know that. Our problem was me. I was partly there, partly hers. I was living like someone who was waiting for something impossible to happen in order to make life right somehow. Biding my time. It was so unfair of me to be with her at all. She deserved so much better.

"I'm sorry. . ." I say, the spasms in my chest making it hard. "It wasn't fair. . . I wasn't. . . I wanted to be there. I wanted to deserve you. . ."

"We can't give what we don't have," she says simply, softly. "Don't be sorry." She kisses my head and then my neck, and she's just tender but she kisses the exact spot against my ear that makes me shiver. "Go to sleep," she says, and I close my eyes, her warmth enveloping me, and after a while I sink back into sleep.