"Your letters. Wow." Sara looked at the corrected sheets in her hand. She read all of them. She went through her students' emotions and feelings. She tried to connect their hidden experiences to her own. She tried to see who was hurt, who was in misery, who was dying because their lover wasn't paying attention to them. Her conclusion was that all of them, all her students, everybody was miserable in their own way. And misery loves company, Sara loved feeling she's not the only fool in the game of love. "They're full of emotions, of sadness, of feelings I didn't know you would express so openly to me," Sara said. She smiled at her students and took a seat on her chair. "It's only fair I share with all of you my feelings. The thing is...I'll have to share them in the open. I tried my best..." She looked at Tegan, who was as frozen as ice, then continued, "To be be true to myself and my feelings. I hope no judgments come my way. What I have written is rather personal in the most implicit way possible. But that's because I'm your professor and you shouldn't know much about my personal life." Sara took a breath when she saw Tegan swallowing. She saw the lump descending down her throat. "But because you guys were so honest with me, I'm going to be honest with you as well."
Tegan took several breaths. Sara didn't know she was counting to ten, trying to control herself, trying to sit through her own hidden misery.
"I'm going to start right now," Sara announced. "Alright." She chuckled, unfolding the sheet she had in her coat pocket. She sat all night writing, tearing the letter, writing it again, ripping it off, drinking wine, writing again, crying for a bit, then trying once again. She hoped the letter didn't reveal too much or too little. She wanted to tell Tegan how she felt while still remaining fair to her other students and hiding her actual emotions from strangers. She was scared. She was just starting to open up and it did scare her to do so, but she's a wise woman and wise women did what they had to do for love.
"Dear X."
Sara smiled, lifting her head up. Her students laughed at her attempt not to reveal the name. Tegan didn't smile, she was too anxious to do so.
Sara read again, "Dear X.
When I was sixteen I used to write love letters for nobody in particular. They were cheesy and full of love. I used to smile at romantic movies and dream I was the lover receiving that letter in a bottle. I used to daydream of a happy ending. I used to imagine myself in a small house. My lover would return from work, we'd kiss. Then my lover would ask me about the children, and my children would come out of their rooms. They would hug my significant other and we'd smile. I used to imagine that's how my own film would end and that's the last scene before the credits would roll.
Without having to explain, you were well aware of my circumstances until the day I pushed you away. I do admit I pushed you away.
My father never asked my mother what was wrong when she was crying or hurt or sad. My mother did not smile much when my father was around. I always wondered if I was the reason they acted so coldly towards each other. But then I grew up and took their ways. It occurred to me that it was something in our genes. Till now I'm not sure if my parents loved each other but I know that because of me they stayed together all through the years. So I made a rule: I wouldn't want anybody attached to my burdens when they were too much to take. Therefore, I pushed you away.
If I could get back to that day, I'm going to remind you that you have cheated. But you already know that. I'm sorry I keep mentioning it. I know why you have cheated, but I cannot say it is entirely my fault. I try, I promise you I try to embrace you with every pain I feel, but why do you have to put up with all of me when you can run free and be happy?
I won't give you an answer but I'm going to tell you that, selfishly, I do not want you to run free. I want you to be imprisoned with me and the little time I might have. I'm fine now. But who knows what might happen later? I know you're thinking that when later happens I'll exterminate your entry to my home. It's your right to think so.
I love you, though. That love that tickles my heart each night is the reason I cannot let you be. I didn't think it would claw my skin the way it did. I didn't think I had tied a rope and it wouldn't get torn no matter how hard I pulled. My love covered my room of sickness, and your picture floded my mind when I was taking my last breath that one night. I don't know how I woke up and how my cancer killed its own self but I honestly, and with all the naivety in me, believe it's that love I cannot let go of helped me wake up wanting only you.
I came running back because I'm not sure if my time is well preserved. I have the limited time that any mortal owns, except mine is much more limited. I returned to ask of you to return to me so I could love you foolishly. Because that's the love I've always seen in the films, that's the love I want to fill my head with. Even if it makes you pity my romanticism and my childish thinking, that's the love that I want to give you. And to be fair, I want you to pity me.
I took too long and many things are still unsaid, my dear. I'll conclude with my wish: I want to wake up to you next to me like we used to do that. I want to share my home with you again. I want your clothes to be in my closet. I want your hair to cover my pillowcases and your scent to invade my household. I also want your unhealthy snacks to haunt my fridge and your bad habits to make me laugh once again. It is simple what I want. I want you to be my girlfriend once again and even more.
I hope to hear from you. I'm sorry that was not what you have expected of me. I tried to keep it as honest as possible. I tried to get right to the point.
With all my love and all my passion.
Sara Clement."
Sara expected the stark silence which was supposed to follow her letter, but definitely did not expect the cheering and clapping which happened afterward.
"That was amazing," one student shouted.
"You rock, doc," another did.
"Who's the lucky woman?" a boy asked.
Sara's crimson cheeks and heated forehead were for the eyes to inspect, but most importantly, Tegan's bashful smile and her own rosy face was the reason for Sara's increasing heartbeats.
"Do you plan on giving her that letter?" a student asked.
"I...I'm not sure," Sara stuttered.
"You should, doctor." Sara smiled at her student. Technically, she had already given her letter to Tegan. "She should take you back. She better takes you back. She's a fool if she doesn't"
Sara's eyes traveled to Tegan's face again. Their eyes interlocked for a second until Sara shifted her eyes back again at her students. "That's enough you guys. Don't make me regret this," Sara said confidently.
If happiness had a true soul, it would be Tegan's insides right now. They were glowing with pride and happiness she hadn't felt in two years. The last time she felt this happiness was when she was in this class. When Sara Clement bent down and showed her some skin while touching her forehead and checking if she was alright. It's a Platonic happiness as she liked to refer to it. When the spark was too big for her to be able to sit through hours of waiting. And it's that feeling again of a stomach cramping in utter excitement and pure love she had missed so much. It all came back to her. She wanted the letter, she wanted to read it. Again, and again, and again.
But wait. Tegan was not the same girl she really was. Too many things were there to think about. She needed to talk with Sara, but at the same time she wanted a proper promise and love letters were love letters. She wanted to trust Sara. What a love letter would do when she's not sure Sara was going to do what she had written? As far as she was concerned, Sara promised sex till they were eighty and tired. Sara left many, many years before that age.
When Sara handed back everybody's letters, Tegan's still had the red circular zero on her own, with Sara's dried tear stains. Tegan; however, she had spent the entire lecture trying to write something else for Sara. She wanted to give it to Sara, but she didn't have time to slip it into the woman's coat pocket. Instead, she waited till everybody left then gave Sara the piece of paper.
"I do not accept make up assignments, Ms. Rain," Sara said. A crooked smile was playing on her features. She felt good that she had let it all out. She really wanted to accept the paper, but rules were rules. She preferred if Tegan talked, anyway.
"It's not," the student said. "It's a response to your letter."
"How do you even know it was for you?"
"Mind games won't get you anywhere you want, Dr. Clement." Sara swallowed, not believing she was hearing Tegan's confident and sharp octave. She reached for the paper and hurriedly looked at it. "I have a class. I have to go now." Sara looked up, watching the frail woman walk out of her classroom.
"Dear Sara.
If you truly know me, you know my love for you isn't dead. You know I left you while crying at your doorstep. I left you while asking for chances that you didn't grant. I left you while looking at your friend staring at me as if I have caused the cancer you have been dealing with.
You want my pity, but I am not going to pity you because I know you too well and I know every wicked scheme you're capable of. A letter full of romanticized words will not win my trust back that you will not walk away in two months.
You need to learn the terms of love first. Do you know when people love each other they stick around? Do you also know that sharing your pain with your lover is not going to make you feel humiliated? You should learn that. Who knows, anyway? I could be the one sick next time. I might not find you there with me. Who knows!
My cheating is the mistake I will forever regret. But this cheating showed me the truth about you and myself. How can I trust you to be your girlfriend and more? I don't even know what you mean by more since you cannot even hold tight to a relationship.
Try harder, maybe next time I'm convinced.
Tegan Rain."
Sara folded the letter and shook her head. She took a breath and looked out of the door. Silly child. She was dealing with a silly child who wanted to be chased. Sara had no time for a chase. All time felt running away, but if that's what Tegan wanted, then that's what Tegan was going to get.
Jeremy found Tegan in the kitchen. She was munching on ice cubes like she always secretly did. He shook his head when she showed her gummy smile. The crunching noise was disturbing but Jeremy could never be disturbed by Tegan. Next to the glass full of ice, lay a paper which Tegan was reading from.
The boy reached for a bottle of water from the fridge and sat at the kitchen table next to his house mate. They had made up. They talked it out. Tegan told him that she was in love with Sara. Jeremy told her that he knew. Then Jeremy told her to be with Sara if she wanted. So Tegan said that the sex between them must end. Jeremy nodded his head and said that it would end.
Was he okay with Tegan's choices? Of course he wasn't. Did he have a saying? For sure he did not. He learned his lesson from that time he called her mother. Technically, most of the problem was his. He was the root which created this evil flower that departed Sara and Tegan away from each other. The cancer was the evil flower for sure, but he was the root.
"You still crave ice?" Jeremy asked. The ice cravings had started a year ago, in unusual and abnormal ways. Apparently it was a sign of severe anemia, which Tegan was facing at the moment.
"So bad. They're back. My results are probably going to be shit again."
"Tomorrow's your appointment, right?" Tegan nodded. She was still reading from the paper. "What are you reading?" Jeremy asked again.
Tegan lifted up the paper and smiled like the foolish child Sara still thought she was. Jeremy's eyes went wide when he skimmed the letter as fast as he could before grabbing it and taking it in his hands. "She read it in front of the whole class. She slipped it in my pocket before I left. I found it when I was changing. What do you think?" Even though she did not make Sara believe she was a bit excited and already thinking about going back, but she really was. She even searched for her suitcase.
"Holy shit. That's some deep...shit." Jeremy felt utterly speechless. He also felt extremely jealous in all the ways. He was reading a love letter. He was reading the words of a woman asking her lover to return and be hers again. Of course Tegan favoured romantic and corny Sara over him. Sara had her fucking ways, she always had them. She was always a winner even when she was a loser at life. "She's asking you to be her girlfriend, Tee." Tegan nodded. "What did you say?"
"That she has to try harder." Tegan shrugged.
"What?" The boy felt confused.
"Jeremy," Tegan started. "I don't want what happened last time to happen again. I have to make sure she won't run away. I have to make sure she won't act like she did if..." It was hard for her to continue. She didn't even know Sara's circumstances right now. "There's a lot we need to talk about before I can take such a step, you know." Jeremy nodded. "Plus, I'm still her student." And that was the awful part.
"I'm proud of you, Tee," Jeremy said. "You have grown. I'm happy you didn't jump right away. You deserve a good love. I hope you get what you want."
"I hope you get what you want as well." It felt terrible to say this to the man who loved her. But he had to move on and find some replacement. He had to.
...
Dr. Wilson tapped her pen on the desk as she read from the several tests she had ordered Tegan to take and get her. Tegan's heartbeat, blood pressure, and liver were checked first. Basic questions about her fatigue and eating habits were asked. Then she was sent to take these tests in the lab in the first floor.
The funny (which was not really funny) part was seeing Sara Clement sitting in the waiting room when Tegan returned. They both stared at each other. Nobody said anything. Jeremy was there, he was the most nervous of the three.
Sara wondered what was her lover doing at the medical center. Mary Wilson was Sara's GP. Sara was doing her monthly checkup, starting from Dr. Wilson then moving to Dr. Lily Anderson, her gynecologist, who was in the same building.
Tegan seemed quite alright this morning when Sara was teaching her Poetry. They smiled at each other. That was a start, Sara thought. Tegan raised her hand and shared a point. Sara was getting somewhere. When she returned home, she told Stacy all about it. Stacy told her about how she gave Audrey a piece of her mind. Sara didn't hear a single part of it. Her friend was obsessed with her cousin.
Tegan also wondered why Sara was there. But then she realized Sara was a sick woman and that's where she was going to spend most of her time at. Was she considered a sick woman as well? According to Dr. Wilson right now, it seemed pretty serious what Tegan was going through.
"Jeremy, you can wait for Tegan outside, please," the doctor ordered.
Jeremy found Sara still waiting. He sat in the opposite direction. He looked at her and he stared without giving a single damn about his staring.
"Is she alright?" Sara asked after ten minutes of silence. She tried to hold her question in, but her worry ate her up.
"Just anemia," Jeremy said.
"Figured." Sara pursed her lips then continued, "She looks tired and sick. She lost lots of weight."
"Thank yourself." Jeremy got up and left the room. He texted his friend that he was going to wait outside. He promised himself he wouldn't let his anger or jealousy get the best of him. But when he saw Sara there, looking healthier than ever, glowing with beauty the way Tegan had described, he really couldn't help but lose it. His friend looked like a ghost because of the ill woman and the ill woman looked like a beauty queen? That was not fair in his view. Not at all.
"So Tegan," Dr. Wilson said. "It appears that everything in your body is properly functioning, yet here are your red blood cells, smaller and paler. You still faint. You have lost three pounds since last month. You are still diagnosed with severe anemia." The doctor sighed. "You're taking your iron supplements for sure?" Tegan nodded. "You told me you've switched to healthier options of foods."
"I did," Tegan said loudly. "I don't know what's happening in my body."
"You still don't eat red meat, though."
"I hate red meat," Tegan complained.
"When was your last menstrual cycle and how was it?" the doctor asked.
"Two weeks ago. It was great, thanks for asking." The doctor did not laugh despite the snorting sound that left Tegan's mouth. She felt herself sitting in front of a judge, not a damn doctor.
"I meant was it heavier than usual?"
"Nope." Tegan shook her head. "Can we not talk about my menstrual cycle, please?"
"If you're going to keep acting like a kid, I won't be able to help you. I'm trying to help you here. I'm your doctor." Tegan scowled once she was called a kid. The doctor did not smile the way Sara used to do that or the way Jeremy did. She burned holes into Tegan's frame. "The main reason for Iron-Deficiency Anemia is excessive blood loss. That's why I'm asking you."
"I know." She did not, though. "It's heavy the first three to four days. Then it's okay."
"If it is an abnormal flow you need to tell me so I turn you to a gynecologist." Tegan's eyes went wide. She felt uncomfortable. And it felt like Dr. Wilson was trying to get rid of her stubborn, childish patient.
"No. It's fine. It's like it had always been." The doctor nodded.
"Do you have an eating disorder?" How many times did Tegan have to say no to this doctor about that? She did not. She loved food. It's just that the past two years food was not her first priority thanks to the damn woman who was sitting outside waiting.
"What do I have to say to you so you can believe me? I don't have an eating disorder. I do not self harm or whatever. I eat as much as I can. My uterus is working fine. My whole body is working fine. I throw up the food I eat because I either get too excited or too nervous. I forget to eat sometimes or do not have an appetite because my mind is occupied." Tegan paused for a moment, staring at the wide-eyed doctor, then she continued, "And yes, I went and still go to a therapist. I take antidepressants and took anxiety pills. Happy now?"
"Are you on the pill?" Tegan looked for the nearest object she could throw at the doctor because for a moment she did not mind committing a crime. She was an easily irritated 21 year old. And the woman was finding it amusing.
"No. Never was. Never will need them." She smiled fakely at the doctor. She was not really sure about that last sentence. She was a lesbian, even if she was sleeping with a man. They hadn't slept together since that day he went down on her, and it was working. She didn't want the pill, anyway.
"Why is that?"
"Pretty sure I'm not gonna get knocked up sleeping with girls." Tegan sat back, a bragging smile on her face.
The doctor nodded. "Thought you're with Jeremy. Sorry about that." Tegan nodded as well. "Look, Tegan, I really want to help you. Your bitchy attitude makes me want to help you more. How about we together start a diet?"
"We?" Tegan chuckled.
"Yes. I actually go by this diet myself. So I'm gonna write it down and you will go with it. When you leave my office, you'll see a beautiful woman my age outside. Short hair, hazel yes. She follows this diet as well. She looked just like you before. But she dealt with serious hardships and a very bad illness. Look at her now, she's glowing."
Tegan knew she was talking about her professor, her lover, her Sara. "I saw her when I returned from the lab. Is she your friend?"
"My patient and my friend." The doctor was writing. "You'll notice that you can eat anything you want from here. The times and proportions are more important than the selections. So your stomach can stop being troubled. Go with it and if it didn't suit you at all, return to your old one. I'll see you next month and you better be helping yourself. Continue with the iron supplements and the vitamins. Get well, Tegan." She handed the sheet to Tegan, who nodded and left the room.
Sara and Tegan met again when Tegan left. It was Sara's turn now. She looked at her student and wondered what could be wrong.
"I can't tell you. Patients' information are secretive," Dr. Wilson said when Sara asked her what was wrong with the woman who had just left. "Why are you asking anyway? You never ask."
"She's..." Sara was not sure it was safe to tell. Dr. Mary kept the secrets the way each doctor did, and Sara was dying to tell someone. "She's my ex-girlfriend," Sara announced.
The doctor looked at her for a second but then nodded. Who was she to judge, anyway? Sara had told her a brief story about the young woman she had dated. Only to let her understand how it all happened the past two years. The discovery was during sexual intercourse. Sara had to tell. Maybe Tegan's case made more sense to the doctor right now. Wasn't that what lovesick teenagers did to themselves? They didn't eat because they were just too sad?
"She has severe anemia. No reason really. Just iron deficiency. She's so stubborn. She's the hardest patient I've ever dealt with." The doctor felt as if she had betrayed her patient by saying all these things.
"I always warned her about her health. She never listened." The doctor nodded.
"There's a gown in the exam room. Change and call me in." Sara went to the examination room, which was combined with the doctor's office.
...
"Why did she kick me out? Is everything alright?" Jeremy asked when he and Tegan went back to the car.
"Ya," Tegan said. "She just wanted to make sure I don't have an eating disorder that I'm hiding from everyone or if my period is acting weird or whatever." Tegan rolled her eyes. She was already reading the list of food the doctor had prescribed. "What the fuck? Bitch lied. This thing has nothing. Mainly apples and fucking broccoli and mangoes. Oh yes mangoes." Tegan's voice cheered up at the last sentence. She smiled goofily at her laughing friend. "Sara follows this list. That's why she looks yummy now." Jeremy furrowed his brows and nodded. "I can't believe I said that out loud." Tegan sighed. "Anyway, we need to go grocery shopping so I can get all of these things. She said the proportions are more important. And wrote here that I can exchange with what I find suitable."
"I think your main reason isn't the food you're eating. I think it's the anxiety. When you're happy you're healthy, when you're depressed you never eat," Jeremy said while he drove.
"I know," Tegan said. "I mean, I feel better now. It's stupid, but after that letter I could eat an elephant, you know. I have the good happy excitement, not the nervous one which makes me throw up. I can't help but think about the bad thing that's going to happen next. It's always like that with life. One good thing and then a storm of ugliness that takes too long."
"Don't think about that. Focus on the positive energy." Jeremy was actually worried about that inside of his mind. Indeed life was always like that. It always took, never gave. "Wanna go for pizza?"
"Ya." Tegan was thinking about Sara's health for now, instead of her own. She was worrying about the woman who was never going to be healthy again. Was she really willing to go through the same old whirlwind again? Was she really willing to share her life with an ill woman?
...
"Well, how is it going to be? Is sex going to be like that for me?" Sara was doing perfectly fine, the way a cancer survivor with the fear of it coming back could be doing perfectly fine. After the tests and examination, she told her doctor about her obstacle in getting wet.
"Sara, you're not even sexually active at the moment." Sara blushed deeply. "It's okay, don't feel embarrassed. Discovering your body is a helpful thing, especially after the changes that happened to it. It helps you knowing what's good for you and what's bad."
"So?" Sara was impatient. She wanted her sex life to return the way it was before.
"The increase in dryness is because we have lessened your HRT doses. It is natural. Your body will get used to it."
"I really don't think that's going to happen. I didn't face that problem before I removed my cervix. Only the first months but the HRT tablets helped. Now nothing is helping. I'm too young for this, doctor. My own mother just hit menopause last year." The issue continued depressing her and making her feel ashamed. She wanted a healthy and an easy sex life once again. If Tegan was her girlfriend again she didn't want the young woman to be dealing with this. And if she married her that's even worse , because Tegan was young and healthy and had the sex drive of a girl in her twenties, while Sara had such a failing sex drive and different complications in sex.
"Sometimes your emotional state can affect your libido. You cannot know that for sure unless you have sex with someone again. Someone you're highly attracted to."
"It's not that I'm not getting turned on. It's the fact that I'm not getting wet." The doctor nodded when Sara explained her situation.
"I understand your point. Alright, how about you continue with the tablet till next month? If the dryness continued to be painfully acute, I'm going to suggest oestrogen preparations that can be directly applied to your vagina."
"Oh God." Sara rubbed her temples. She was about to cry sitting there. "Why is my life like that?"
"I'm sorry, Sara. I'm really sorry. It's all I can do." The professor nodded, sitting back in her chair. "But you should be thankful that you are healthy now. Try to focus on that bright side. Sex will be easy again once you get used to all the changes. And if you ask me, these things do not really matter once you have someone who cares enough not to care about these matters." The doctor smiled genuinely. "Sleeping with girls I guess will be easier for you and the other party since she will not really feel the penetration in her sexual organs."
It was a girl anyway that Sara was after. But it was still a very sensitive matter and an embarrassing issue she felt she was facing. What about dildos? Sara loved feeling them inside of her, now it's going to be even harder to be penetrated by them. Everything felt harder.
The next day, Sara gave Tegan another letter she had written. She put it sneakily on Tegan's seat when she was walking in class.
"Dear Tegan.
What do I have to do to promise you that you can trust me again? I want to speak to you. I want to tell you about everything. Give me the chance. I'm always waiting for you. Here's my number..."
Sara's number followed. Tegan smiled to herself and then wrote her letter back.
"Dear Sara.
I don't know. I'm kind of liking the Medieval way of communication in here. It gives me better time to see through your bullshit. Plus, I'm a hopeless romantic!
Thunder Girl ;)"
"You're torturing me. Are you enjoying it?" Sara said after class.
"Very much," Tegan answered. She scanned her professor, who was wearing a light pink sweater and tight dark blue jeans. Sara hadn't worn anything colourful since the semester had started.
"Stop checking me out." Sara felt just a tad self-conscious. Her body had never been so voluptuous since her twenties.
"Stop deluding yourself." Tegan smirked. She got Sara back. Sara was hers and she was enjoying making the woman chase after her.
"Are you taken?" Sara suddenly asked. Tegan did not answer, she just smiled. "Please come back to me." Sara was standing there, begging.
"Give me something real." Tegan did not even understand her own sentence, but she had to make the woman suffer until she gave herself again to moody, mysterious Sara Clement.
"How about..." Sara sighed. "How about we start slow? Be my friend? Tell me about you and I'll tell you about me and then you decide?" That felt ridiculous. Tegan wanted to take her time and Sara didn't have any.
"Hmmm," Tegan hummed. "That sounds nice. Maybe I'll pass by your office sometime next week. Maybe I'll give you a call. Maybe I'll do nothing, though. I'll decide." Sara wanted to slap Tegan at that moment. She wanted to slap her because Tegan really turned her on with the way she was licking her lips and smiling so wickedly. So Sara wanted to slap her and fuck her right there in class. She missed that feeling, she missed it.
"Alright," Sara said. "I'll be waiting."
Sara waited and waited and Tegan never called and never passed by her office after a week of waiting. It frustrated the older woman to the degree of childish glaring at her younger student, who was enjoying the torture very much but dreading many things she hid inside. She didn't know what to expect if she took Sara in after she had shut her doors. That talk was what she dreaded the most. It's like so much was waiting for her yet anything could happen and take Sara away from her. She wished Sara was perfectly healthy. Things would have been better. She wouldn't be scared of Sara leaving for any type of reason.
The thing was, Sara was not that confident when it came to it. She blamed her health and her disease when Tegan was not giving her a chance. If the student loved her then why was she waiting? Sara was right, Tegan was scared of that part. Sara was scared of it too. That's why she felt like she had no time.
"Aren't you scared she runs away?" Jeremy asked Tegan. They were sitting on the bed they were sharing. It had been just a tad harder than before. Tegan already felt herself in a relationship with Sara and felt as if she was actually cheating on Sara.
Just the night before, Jeremy shifted his frame closer to hers. He started rubbing her arm and she was not yet aware of where they were going until she remembered Sara rubbing her own arms during sex. She pushed him away and he understood. She felt as if it was time she left his place and found her own. She didn't work but her parents would aid her with money. She was graduating in about three months and she had to find a job already and find an apartment. But the thoughts of the apartment weren't big in her brain before nor now. Before, she was staying at her friend's. And now, she imagined she'd stay at Sara's if all came alive and they were back together.
She wanted to find a teaching job, or a desk job. It didn't matter. But she was a good tutor. She felt she could do well at teaching. She also really wanted to start with her Masters right away. She had too many dreams in her mind. She wanted to become something big. She wanted to be like Sara when it came to achievements.
Tegan looked at her friend for a second and then said, "She runs away now better than later. I already dealt with that once. I don't want it again."
"I guess that makes sense," Jeremy said. "But..." His words escaped him for a second. "But what if her cancer returned again? I mean, I'm assuming she's healthy now? What if she left with...death?"
"Why do you think I'm so scared of going back?" Tegan sighed. "I lived the past year and a half thinking of her as dead even though I had a tiny hope she was alive. Then she appeared all of a sudden and it's just..." Tegan didn't know what to say anymore. She didn't know how to express her feelings.
"Take time to think it. You're doing well."
"Ya. I mean, if I'm going to be with her, I really have to graduate first."
"There's that as well," Jeremy said. It amazed Tegan how supportive he was.
"I really miss being around her." Tegan laughed to herself. It was a small laugh. A sad one. "It's the greatest feeling. And just the feeling of it coming back is making me feel like I am eighteen in her tiny apartment again. I want to go back there and hear her speak and watch her drink her coffee." Jeremy did not say anything. He only looked at Tegan as she smiled to her own thoughts and memories.
In Poetry class two days later, Sara was explaining the nostalgic poem "After Death" by Christina Rossetti. All the students were focused on Sara's analysis, including Tegan, whose chest was facing pangs of disturbance and a mist of sadness.
The poem meant something deeper to Sara because she had lived it and experienced it in that hour of her death, as she liked to think of it. But she also named it the hour of catharsis. It was when the purgation and the cleansing happened to her entire body. She heard all the voices around her yet she could not open her eyes. She realized that dead people were loved more in death than if they were alive. Or perhaps pitied. In that hour she realized what she wanted and it was not to die but to stay alive and stop victimizing her own self. She had dreams and they were not fulfilled. The man who she thought she was going to fulfill these dreams with was there. He was in tears, she could tell, even though she couldn't hear but the sobs of Stacy.
But her ex husband was there. She felt his hand brushing her forehead and kissing her cheeks and damp skin. He whispered things which indicated he was crying. He asked for forgiveness and admitted his love. It was rather too late because Sara was in love with someone else even when she was in the stage between dying and living. It felt as if she was in the isthmus. She was between living and dying. She saw all the faces and heard all the voices.
She even smelled the roses her ex husband had gotten her. She remembered the short story she and Tegan studied together. It was called "A Rose for Emily." When William Faulkner was asked why he had given that title to his story, he said that he pitied Emily so the rose was a salute. "To a woman you would hand a rose," he said. Jack's roses stayed there near her resting head and only died when she stopped dying and woke up. She joked with Stacy telling her that these roses died after her death.
"Rosemary and May/ Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay," Sara said, reading the second line of the poem. "May is supposed to be the month of the blossoming flowers. In here it is the month of death. The speaker meant the flowers were all around her but they were indicating death. What do you give a sick person? You give them flowers. You pity them." It was in May when Sara was dying. The third of May, 2015. She refused to go to the hospital when it happened. The chemotherapy was over and the doctors said they killed the cancer. Sara did not believe them. Sara felt herself tired and sick and aching.
That night she started bleeding and she had a fever. It all started happening too quickly at dawn. Stacy sat beside her and cried for the two days she was in a comma. Sara continued refusing to go and die in a hospital. Her mother came and Jack came too because he was in town the previous week. He visited Sara each day but he said nothing. He visited as a friend only. He was too emotionless and perhaps that's why she was able to relate to the poem. Because the man in the poem only let his emotions free and be told when the speaker was dying. The same way Jack did. He only expressed his grief and apologized when she was dying.
Sara woke up in a hospital and they told her she was asleep for two days. Stacy said they thought she died until they heard her steady breaths. The doctor told her that her cancer was saying goodbye. He said a miracle had happened. Sara felt strange. She felt herself waking up in a different reality and a new beginning. Everything felt strange and her heart felt pure and out of all the dirt it had been in.
"He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say,
'Poor child, poor child': and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept."
Sara smiled to herself. Her students were falling in love with the way she paused and stared into the distance. Everybody in the room knew what Sara had been through. Every person in the room knew Sara felt a common connection with the poem. Tegan's eyes teared up.
"It's like," Sara started. "The man was too cold and too rigid all the years she spent with him. She tried too hard to win his affection. She knew he loved her. But he was hard to deal with at times. He wouldn't speak much. He wouldn't reveal anything while she always left her heart open, pouring out everything for him to see. And he didn't like it. He ran away because she was too much to handle. She was such a sob." Sara took a breath and blinked for a second. Frozen, fixed, and in touch with her inner strength. The past was the past. No need to go there again. "He got her flowers that day. You know, she's dying, so he got her flowers and he started to reveal everything he hadn't let out before. He started to reveal his emotions. He pitied her. He wept. He never did that and he hated when she did so. But that day, he wept and she heard him even though he thought she was not listening."
Tegan's eyes were fixed on Sara's. It's like they had their own telepathy. From her limited time with Sara she was already aware that when Sara explained something this way, it meant she had lived it. She was imagining what Sara was going through. She was imagining everything. She was imagining Jack crying and Sara lying there, almost dead. Tegan felt like crying herself.
"He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold."
Those three lines made Sara take a moment to pause and reflect on her own emotions. Jack's love was Jack's love, a man's love. He loved the beautiful version of Sara but once he saw the truthful image, he did not like it so he always left her. But when she died, he pitied her and regretted his actions. Jack was mostly the reason Sara had become cold. She always blamed him but after the slumber and the new start, she blamed nobody but herself.
She knew Tegan was able to take her in her good and bad. She pushed Tegan away because she thought Tegan was another Jack. Tegan's actions and her mother's appearance helped her to see it the way it was. But she was sure Tegan was willing to go deeper in that black hole with her when she came knocking at her door begging Stacy to let her in. That day she decided Tegan should be in despite what her mother thought. But her friend did not allow it, thinking she had a saying in that.
At times, she thanked Stacy for not allowing such a thing because the pain was too painful to even watch, and she knew Stacy alone was able to live with it and see it. Tegan was too young to change her bloody clothes and sheets. She was too young to hear the screaming cries in the middle of the night when the ache was spreading through all her body. And she was too young to collect the hair that kept falling and clean the puke. She was too young to give her showers and wash her entire body. She wanted Tegan to see the good image of her the way Jack wanted to. But now she did not care because now she wanted Tegan to see all of her because that's who she was. If Tegan didn't want to then that's her own choice not Sara's. But if she did, she's welcomed.
"The speaker here had reached her conclusion that her lover never loved her tender ways before. I guess that's how I see it." Sara laughed to her own self. "I mean she could be criticizing the gender norms of the Victorian society back then. How men were supposed to be cold and women were seen to be emotional and tender." Sara looked at her own book again and said, "But I see it differently. I feel like she's saying that it was nice to know he's actually warm inside even though he was the reason she was so cold now. Or maybe she said that because she was asleep and dying. A cold skin is an effect of dying. And a cold soul as well, I suppose.
"Personally, I believe you become cold and distant because you think nobody there wants to see the weak you. You think that's how people want to see you in order for them to make sure you're alive and well and not dying. Dying is weakness to you." Sara took a breath and then continued, "And inside, you know you are dying. But once you open up and let your emotions out you live and be a person like all those people.
"Sometimes I feel stupid for thinking that if I talked about it then people would pity me. Now I just don't care. Let them pity me. I'm a sick person and I could die any moment and it's okay to cry and be sad. It's my right the way it is a healthy person's right." Tegan wanted to hug Sara and cry with her. Sara had changed. Sara was different. Sara was honest. Tegan knew that. But Sara scared her as well. "So here, I guess the speaker is blaming that man for making her be this way. She didn't know he had emotions within him until he thought she was dead. She enjoyed these emotions. She cherished them even if they were pity or fear. I suppose the title is figurative. I suppose she's suggesting death of an old soul that was hers and the birth of a new one which can see better. She feels clean and purified of these emotions."
Sara smiled at Tegan when the student turned her head to the back as Sara walked in the class while explaining. Sara loved Tegan's innocent eyes. They always seemed searching for her and wanting her. They looked like a child's eyes wandering around and she adored them. Tegan was inspired and in utter love with Sara Clement she just wanted to hold her and hug her for hours. Tegan smiled back and even blushed.
Tegan made up her mind. When it was time for Sara's office hours, the student decided to go visit her instead of going to her class. Tegan found Sara reading the newspaper with her glasses on. Sara's coffee mug had peach-coloured lipstick stains on it. She smiled when Sara didn't notice she was standing there. Sara reached for her mug and took a sip. It was too hot so she wrinkled her nose and hissed. Tegan giggled. Sara jumped immediately, sitting back. Her heart quickened in beats at first but then she smiled when she saw who was there. She couldn't believe herself. Tegan was standing there. In her office.
First thing Sara did was look at the opened door. It's true she was in a much bigger office now and she was secluded from the other professors, with her office way in the back with no rooms next to it but a bathroom that barely anybody used it but herself in front of it, but it still scared her getting caught in the act of innocent love. Tegan looked back at the door and nodded. She walked there and closed it. It felt like old times. It all felt like old times yet everything was remotely disparate.
"I didn't know you're an assistant dean now," Tegan said. "Just read it on your door. Fancy. No wonder you're chasing me. Special privileges, huh?" Tegan showed her own version of Sara's old wicked smirk.
"Had anybody told you how much of a bitch you had become?" Sara asked, but jokingly.
"Isn't that how you like them, though?" Tegan teased. "Otherwise you wouldn't be chasing like a lovesick friend-zoned boy, I presume." The student licked her lower lip, taking the silver labret inside her mouth then releasing it.
"Indeed that's my type: bitch." Sara's eyes sparkled and her smile didn't fade at all. "You have changed a lot," Sara finally said.
"Same goes to you. Now you really look and sound like a forty year old divorced woman swallowed by grief and agony." Even though Tegan was joking, after she had said that she instantly regretted it. "I'm sorry," she apologized.
"It's fine." Sara chuckled. "I'm too close to forty and indeed I'm not that happy. I feel too lonely."
"And I am your only option?"
"Yes, because you're the only one I love." Sara lowered her head. Tegan blushed and took a breath. Just a month before and she was crying about Sara and the beautiful past. Life was too ironic, it always had been.
"What you said in class. The whole lecture I mean. It really inspired me. It made me..." Tegan took a breath and looked into her lover's beautiful honey-like eyes. God, they were beautiful, they were so fucking charming. They weren't scary and frozen. They were warm. And the sun reflected dozens of vibrant diamonds lost in there. The sun reflected the true warm nature of Sara that she had loved so much and missed so much. "I love you, Sara. I really do."
Sara smiled too big because she wanted to hear that in person. She closed her eyes and smiled even bigger. Tegan looked at the creases on the corners of her lips and eyes and admired the faint lines. "You are terrifying, beautiful, and strange...something not everyone knows how to love," Sara said. "But I love you crazily and blindly, my Thunder Girl. I love you so much. You're my baby."
Tegan giggled, blushed, gasped, and blushed more. Nobody had ever said these words to her. Nobody had told her how they felt about her in that beautiful way Sara had just put it. She shook her head, however. She said, "But we still have to talk. You still have to know me better and I still need to know you more."
"Of course," Sara said. "I will tell you everything and anything and I'm ready to do what you want me to do. Just please give me the chance." Tegan nodded. Sara scribbled something on a paper. She took a breath and looked at it. "I know this is just too much. But this is what I want for us. This is..." She couldn't explain anymore, she was too excited and too scared and too nervous to continue speaking. She held the small piece of paper up so Tegan could read it.
It said, "Will you marry me, please?"
Tegan blinked once, twice, and thrice after gasping. She read it again and again.