Since I've written the first two chapters a long time ago, thought I'd share the second one right after the first in order to give you more information and more background, especially about Sara's situation since I'm following an omniscient narration with the focus on both Tegan and Sara the most.
Thank you so much for the feedback and the reviews. That's what I really hate about this site, I can't interact or respond to everyone of you, though I do PM some when there's something that needs explanation or so. Thank you again, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter as well.
"Mama, I need your help." Was it true? Was it actually happening? Tegan never thought that the day would come and she'd be haunted by old storms once again. Well, she's already haunted by raging demons dressed in black and red, but those dreams, they were asleep...they were just dreams. Why did the slimy ocean have to throw a tantrum of endless apprehension and take her in once again? She was just getting out of the water, brushing seaweed off her foot, she was back to the safety of the land, but God, God, God, it had to happen again, the fucking ocean, it's always the stupid fucking ocean. It took her again, it's drowning her again, and it's locking her up inside again.
Sara's in there and she's now in there and now she's drowning with Sara, the monster of the ocean, the monster of the water, the mermaid in disguise, the witch with flaming eyes, the beautiful, oh so damn beautiful lady of the rocks.
Was it fate? Was it chance? Was it punishment? Was it even something? God, tell her, was it something? She's breaking down, she hadn't stopped crying since she returned. Why did she have to see her each day? Hear her? Remember her? Feel everything all over again and force herself to deny it! She's no fool anymore, she knew, she fucking understood, she's well aware of it, she fucking realized how it wouldn't end the way she wanted it to end. No, wait, it wouldn't even begin the way she wanted it to begin, it wouldn't be the way she wanted it to be. She wouldn't be with Sara, it's not the same. And Sara, Sara did play her, who did she think she was? Coming back and wanting peace and love again? No, no, no, Tegan offered her selfish heart many times and offered to stay through the darkness of these past days. But Sara kicked her away and now she's back, healthy, better, and she wanted her back again? Sara didn't even say it, but Tegan knew what Sara wanted from the stupid playful gestures she got too used to. She still repeated them over and over in her head once or twice a week before she crawled inside the land of silence with her slumber. So what's it like? How did Sara even want it? She's happy, Tegan's in? She's miserable, Tegan's out? That's not how things work. That's not how lovers stick with each other.
Oh God, lovers? Did she really think of that word? Sara's not her lover, Sara's her ex-lover, and her ex-lover is dead, she dreamed about it. Even if metaphorically, that woman was dead. She couldn't be back. Why was she back? Why did she have to mess up with what this universe had planed for them? Tegan was supposed to get over her, marry someone, most certainly Jeremy, and live her life in endless despair with kids she's raising just because it's her fucking role to do that.
However, that's not the life Tegan daydreamed about, she daydreamed of other things, of love, of success, of happiness, but life was nothing but a scheming little con. Tegan was awaiting for her unhappy ending and expecting it...but then Sara Keirsten Clement came again, and even though in her mind Sara didn't mean happiness, she still meant prohibited satisfaction that tasted so fucking sweet on her tongue and rang so fucking beautifully in her ears and drummed so loudly in her heart and ached so terribly in her stomach. Sara meant memories, meant pleasure, meant lust, meant moments she relished till the highest levels of euphoria, Sara meant red tulips, Sara meant the mighty ocean, Sara meant the story of the ancient mariner, Sara meant glittering eyes, Sara meant poetry, Sara meant nature, and in nature Tegan cleansed her soul and embraced her anguish, and Sara, oh she meant nothing more than anguish, sadness, misery, pain, melancholy...and love. Sara meant love. And in real life, love was just a myth.
"What's wrong, Tegan?" Sonia's worry instantly crept to her insides. The connection she and her daughter had wasn't as strong as before. It was shaken, since ever her daughter moved away to Canada, since ever her daughter found a lover, since ever that lover left her. But in those times, Tegan always called, she always thought of her as the first option, the only option, and Sonia needed nothing but to still be on the top of her daughter's list. "Are you okay?"
"No." Tegan cried, as simple as that. She started crying. "No." She repeated with a sob. "Mom, she's back. She's back. She's fucking back." She spoke, she repeated, she cried, she broke down, again.
"Who? Who's back?" Sonia's mind couldn't select any human who'd been gone and now was back. Her mind was too anxious and too worried hearing her daughter breaking down. The last time she called her crying like that was when she and her guy friend slept together. Tegan told her she needed to vent and she couldn't find anybody better. Tegan begged her not to be judged. Sonia didn't judge her. She didn't ask her any of these trivial questions a simply careworn mother would ask. Sonia listened and made her feel better. Her daughter seemed to keep on erring. First she slept with her professor, then founded a relationship with that ill woman, and then she slept with her best friend, and also dated that best friend, and then she cheated on her with her other best friend. Her daughter scared her with every phone call. With every phone call Sonia dreaded the worst, and now there's another trouble her daughter had gotten herself into.
"Sara." Tegan whispered. She didn't know how to say it loudly, she couldn't decipher how her mother's reaction might be. But she needed to let it out. Jeremy wouldn't advice her and tell her to go to Sara, neither her mother, but she needed a point of view of someone who wasn't in love with her, of someone who didn't selfishly want her to themselves. Her mother was always on her side, but also her mother, and she knew too well, would tell her to stay away from Sara.
"Sara as in...?" And what Sonia had been dreading for the past two years was finally alive. Why couldn't you wait another semester to send her back? God, why did she have to be back when her daughter was soon graduating?
She recalled too well the secretive meeting she had with the professor behind her daughter's back. It happened when she visited them. She remembered making plans behind her back. She remembered facing Sara Clement in some dark restaurant that the professor had picked. She remembered Sara's pleading eyes, Sara's honest love, she remembered all of them too well. She also remembered the deal she made with Sara. That day, she felt like she made a bargain over a product. It made her feel sick, but she had to do what she had to do to save her daughter. Sara promised her she loved her daughter sincerely, she also promised her she was looking for something stronger when her daughter was going to graduate. She was set on a family, a wedding, she was set on all of these, and she promised that's what she wanted. But Sara's disease banned her from all of that, all of a sudden, and Sara cried in front of her. Sonia didn't know what to say, she listened and felt terrible. But Sonia's condition was that Sara should leave her daughter alone while getting treatment. Sonia didn't want her daughter to be dragged into all of this. Her child was young, she was a kid, a baby, Sonia wanted her to focus on her studies not on a dying woman. So Sara told her that she'd leave on one condition, and the condition was that when she healed and returned, if she did, then she'd return to Tegan. Sonia agreed only because she found no hope in Sara's recovery. She's a doctor, she knew about that specific cancer. But here was her daughter telling her Sara was back.
"Yes...Sara. My professor. She teaches me. She gives me two subjects." Tegan cried more. She wanted to explain everything, she wanted to tell how beautiful Sara looked, how healthy she looked. "She wanted to talk to me after class but I refused and I went away." Sonia listened. She listened carefully and said silent prayers in her heart. "She's been trying to talk to me for that past week. I keep ignoring her. But I can't take it. I can't take it because it's so hard to look at her. Mom, she looks different. She looks healthy and beautiful. I can't take it. She smiles at me. She wants to talk to me." Sonia didn't know how to answer her daughter. And Tegan wanted a damn answer. "Mom, what do I do?"
"I don't know." That's the first time her mother had given her that answer. She always seemed to know what Tegan should do. But now she voiced her lack of knowledge. Even her mother didn't know what to do. "I'm so shocked."
"Me too. Imagine how I feel. I cry each night."
"What do you think she wants to talk about? Are you sure she's not sick anymore?" Sonia knew what Sara wanted to talk about. She also knew she's not sick anymore without having to see her to make sure. It's that old deal. Only a semester and her daughter would have survived without the the old woman.
"I don't know. I know nothing. I'm not giving her a chance...but I want to." It's as if Tegan was begging her mother to give her anguished daughter her blessings to go and redirect all her past emotions back to Sara. It's as if she was waiting for a sign that she didn't know, a push from someone other than herself.
"Tegan...I..." Her mother sighed instead of continuing. Who was she trying to convince? She knew her daughter would do what her mind would tell her eventually, it's Tegan after all. The same daughter who always followed whatever she wanted to do even after asking for an advice. The advice freed her from feeling guilty not taking permission and that's it. It's like by asking for help she's subtly alluding to what she's going to do. "Do what you want to do." Sonia snapped, she had no idea why she did that but she had enough. "Do whatever you want to, and please don't ask me about her again."
Hearing this, Tegan cried more. Was her mother refusing to help? Was it a way to show her she's fully against that woman? Her mother rarely yelled at her that way, not in these past days anyway. She hadn't spoken about Sara since ever. She didn't get why her mother had snapped. She shut off her phone and sobbed.
Sara had been trying to get herself in the mood for a sexual activity that involved only her hand for the past fifteen minutes. Between trying a few positions, different techniques to squeeze the juices out of her core, changing from one obscene video to another, she still didn't lose any hope. It usually took about ten minutes of work to start getting wet, but it seemed that it was getting harder and harder each time. After the surgery everything had been harder, not only the hormones she had been taking were making her extra emotional and extra tender in certain areas, but also getting wet was just hard labor after the removal of her cervix. Not to mention the slight sting and pain or the occasional bleeding that occurred normally. That's the way it was, that's what her doctor had told her. And that's the way it's going to be. Sex was going to be harder now, way harder and would require an effort. For sure, this made her confidence decrease to a much lower level, caused her some type of depression, and also made her think about Tegan's discontent with the whole issue.
Sara huffed and opened up a new video. She watched the two women getting it on and massaged her folds, putting pressure on her clit each few seconds, following that, she'd check if her wetness started slowly seeping out of her or not, when she met the agonizing dryness she would become more frustrated, and then she'd repeat the process. She tried to think of something else, of a sexy position that would involve her and a sexy woman. Because of the type of the lover that she was, that sexy woman was immediately exchanged to her student, and even though it ashamed her, it was always the most helping method. Often she'd imagine fantasies of her student sprawled on top of her office desk, and she would be doing her from behind, she'd be spanking her every now and then, and then she'd squeeze her cute bum and her student would scream her name. Often she'd think of her student joining their parts together and making her come like she promised she'd do if they had done it again. Most of the time, she'd just imagine or think of sweet, gentle, heavenly love making in a dark room, candles lit only to make it more romantic and to help in the purposes of seeing. She's a hopeless romantic and a foolish poet at heart, she'd even recite some medieval poems by her favorites, Marlowe or Spencer.
Except that this time none of her fantasies worked and she grew tired of trying after thirty minutes of unmet effort. She closed the tabs on her phone, she deleted the history, hid her face in her pillow, and resumed crying. Yes, she'd been crying before touching herself and she cried after. It's usually what she'd been doing if not speaking with Stacy (who made her cry more because of how depressing her once cheerful friend had become, also the fact that she still didn't know when to stop talking or whining or ranting played a heavy role) or not teaching.
The next morning, she groggily dragged herself to her office half an hour before her first class. After she unlocked her door and entered, she took her place on her chair and attempted to continue her slumber by resting her head on her desk. What was happening to her? A week full of rejection from her lover was causing her that much distress? She couldn't believe herself or what she's doing. She counted the hours, she always counted time because time played the major part in her life after what she'd been through. In the lapse of time she ran away from her reality, she wanted one thing and wanted it to happen quickly.
A soft knock made her raise her head up and remember who she was, where she was, and what's her position. When she looked up it was just her friend, Dr. Austin, which wasn't a bad thing, in fact, it was a good thing because she didn't desire for any student to see her in her state of misery before putting her icy mask on. "Oh, come in Dana." The professor sat up, a lazy smile immediately crept into her face.
"Well, here's your coffee, little grump." The other professor handed her a white mug with a pink animated pig on it. "You don't like the pig? It reminds me of you." The woman joked and Sara laughed.
"You always save me." Sara sighed, taking a sip. Dana sat on top of the desk, facing her friend. Dana had given up her Poetry class and gave it to Sara to teach, she took Intercultural Communication instead. Dana was in the British department, she was a British woman, she taught English Literature in the Nineteenth Century and English Literature in the Twentieth Century. Tegan didn't like Dana because she never got good marks with her, but she tried to avoid her mostly because of the fact she's the woman who once spotted her and Sara at the restaurant two years ago. Dana of course hadn't forgotten that, and Sara's been even closer to her lately, and when she was on healing hiatus she told her about her tale with her student.
"Well I need you to save me."
"What is it?" Sara took another sip, squinting her eyes.
"Babysit Matt and Sammy?" The woman smiled brightly after asking a favor of her friend.
"Ya, sure." That's an easy task for Sara. She loved kids, she was lonely, that's an easy job, why not? "When do you want me?"
"Okay, slow down, love." The woman laughed. "First of all you should know that I haven't slept in three nights because Sammy keeps waking up wanting me to feed her and then Matt would wake up and jump on my bed." It seemed like all women had the same struggle of not sleeping with a toddler or a young child. They all tried to scare her off, but she insisted on loving the feeling of being a mother, she thought her motherly instinct was just that enormous.
"Where's your husband?" Sara asked.
"Out of town. Some business back in London." Sara nodded. "So I'm warning you, it's not going to be easy."
"I've babysat a three year old who thinks every wall is her canvas, every sofa is a toilet, and every bed is a trampoline, the past year." Sara rested back in her chair with her famous triumphant smirk lightning up her face.
"Alright then, today at six?" Sara nodded. "I'll drive them to your flat."
"Can't wait." Sara joked.
"Still no luck, huh?" Dana knew about Sara's struggle, her conflict with Tegan, and everything that had happened.
"Not a single one." The professor sighed. "I don't know how to approach her, that's the problem." All she was offered was a sympathetic smile, but she wanted to vent so she continued, "I just want it to happen. I want to get her back with me. I want to..." She was afraid to say it, it felt too soon, too good, too unrealistic, too dream-like, but she demanded on doing it.
"You want to?"
"Marry her." Sara lowered her head, her index circled the edges of her mug. "And have a child with her."
"Well, she has to graduate first in order for you to do that."
"I know. She only has this one semester left."
"Do you know what are her thoughts on marriage? She's so young. Can she even handle something so big and so soon? Let's assume you guys are back together, would she be up for it? Marriage? Family? Isn't it too much on a kid?"
"She's not a kid, she's almost twenty-two." Nobody was allowed to label her beloved as a kid even if she herself considered the younger woman as a kid at times, but that was mostly because of her actions, not because of her brains or looks or any of that sort. And to be fair, Tegan looked older and way more mature than ever, again not only looks-wise, but her expressions, the distress Sara clearly witnessed the past three classes, her eyes, the way she looked at her, her body language, everything felt heavier, less lively, and when things were like that it meant she seemed older, or that's what Sara felt being older was...less lively.
"Before the whole drama and all, we made a deal that we'll try for kids right after her graduation." Sometimes she felt that she's the kid when she revised her words in her head. And maybe she was at heart, a kid, hoped for too much, got nothing, followed a spark, drowned in the ocean, and now she's back again like everytime she fell.
"You told me you only were together for two months. I can't be the judge of that, but I think you two need to know each other a bit more before entering such a...union, let's say."
"I've wasted so much time, Dana. I don't have time. I don't know what will happen. I just want to be happy with whom I love."
"What about her? Are you sure she still loves you?" And that's what Sara hadn't thought much of. Her heart told her that the woman she taught still felt for her, but the constant rejection worried her. She dared herself to win Tegan's love back. She needed that love, she needed it more than anything, the possibility of its existence was what was keeping her sane and what's making her hold on to a thin thread of memories and hope. She hoped for this love to crawl back and hit her with its warmth. She had to move, to step into Tegan's life one way or another.
Tegan was frustrated that morning, the whole argument with her mother, or to be more specific, lack of proper communication with her mother, made her furious the rest of the previous day. Her anger was mostly taken out on her best friend. She picked up different fights during the day. First of all she yelled at Jeremy for putting too much salt in the salad he made. Then she yelled at him for not giving her his dirty laundry on his own if she didn't ask. At night she kicked him out of his own room because she couldn't put up with him using his laptop while doing his work. She locked the door and slept. When she woke up, she saw him standing outside, he smiled at her, it made her more angry because she had had enough with his sweet attitude, she'd had enough with him putting up with her, therefore, she picked up another fight about how much she hated it that he was trying too hard. She hurt him with her words. Words about her not loving him no matter what he did, words about how much she really hated being at his home but couldn't choose otherwise, and words about how much she wished she'd wake up in some other place instead of his. Jeremy did not say anything after that, he left the apartment without even driving her to university. She instantly regretted what had left her tongue as she realized what her irrational mind had uttered. She didn't mean to say that, yet she couldn't help but snap at her best friend simply because she was angry with herself and confused.
Being around the woman who caused that anger did not help at all. Looking at her beauty did not help at all. Hearing her inspiring words did not help at all. God, she missed her. She missed her theories. She missed the way she spoke and the way she explained everything about her.
"And let's be real, is home really a sweet place? Home sweet home? Bullshit, right?" Her students laughed, Tegan smiled on her own. Sara was discussing the concept of home. One of the poems they were discussing was about how the speaker couldn't find their home, couldn't feel at home even after returning to their homeland. "I don't believe that your home is the place you were born in or the place you live at. Home is something internal, not external, not physical. It's within you, it's your body."
Sara was seated on her desk. She looked just a tad tired. Shadowed redness circled her eyes. Her black top was quite tight, and when she sat, her belly was accentuated for the eyes to see. Her breasts had grown in size and her cheeks were just a bit fuller than before. "The whole concept that home is sweet, home is the place where you feel comfortable, safe, secure, and can be yourself is a lie. Who can be themselves at their own home here? Or let's say your original home? Your family home? Anybody?" Nobody raised their hands, and Tegan remembered the prison she put herself in around her parents when she was a teenager. And now? She didn't even have a home, she's not herself in Jeremy's home, she's a fake, a fraud, a liar, a runaway. "See? Nobody. When you're at home you have to follow some rules, your parents', your partner's, you have to be this, do this, or any of that. You fight with your siblings, with your parents, you hide your true identity in order to survive, tell me where is the true comfort in that? When I leave home I take a good breath, I feel free, I feel good." Tegan also remembered Sara's hatred for her family home, she hated going back. Her ugliest years were those when she lived with her father under the same roof. "Home is actually whatever inside you. Home is yourself, your body. You'll find your true home when you realize that home isn't supposed to be a perfect sweet place. You'll find your home when you accept yourself with all your scary thoughts, your craziness, your love, your weirdness, your depression, your sadness, your happiness, your irritation, your misery, your everything. Home is when you stop being scared of who you are and start to accept living in this body and mind you're given. That's when home will be a sweet home despite the bitterness you now embrace and love."
"It's hard to accept yourself, doctor." A student interrupted the professor.
"I know that. It's not easy at all. It takes a lot of time. But accepting yourself is much easier and much more efficient than trying to change who you are. Changing who you are in order to adapt won't even work. Putting a fake mask isn't the answer, the mask will crack one day and everybody will see through you. Once you accept your own self, you won't give one single damn about any other opinion, you won't care about what anybody thinks of you." Tegan listened carefully, she listened and and processed the words in her head. She missed that preaching voice, dear God, she missed it heavily.
One time, she did consider Sara as her home, but she was so miserable, especially those last days. The paradox made her feel that Sara wasn't her home at all since home was supposed to be sweet and warm. But now everything was tossing and turning inside her mind. She was happy at a broken home she called Sara. Her misery with the woman and the struggle were still what she really loved about being with her. The hardest days were when she returned to America after Stacy closed the door in her face. She was so confused, she missed the parts when she cried because of Sara, she missed when Sara treated her as a child, she missed their arguments, she missed Sara crying with her. That was fucked up in some sense because Sara was hurt and while she was with Sara she hated all of these things, so why was she missing them in the first place? Now she had some answer, Sara's simply her home the way she was her soulmate, and she loved Sara in all her forms; angry, sad, quiet, talkative, wicked, lovely, happy, lusty, she loved Sara till this day and her love was rushing back in ways she didn't want to admit. But wasn't that what Sara said? She should accept this term of bittersweet home in order to feel peace within herself? She also said it's hard. Tegan was trying, she didn't want to give herself up to Sara without teaching the woman a lesson, without showing her how much pain she was feeling and had felt the past two years. If Sara really wanted her for real she had to beg, to plead, to fight for her, to promise her that these two months of misunderstanding should be compensated, to promise her a new start.
"We said twenty percent is on participation, right?" When Tegan snapped out of her thoughts, Sara was at the end of her lecture, looking at the sheets between her hands. "Okay, back row should watch out, none of you participate at all. Please start participating in class." And who was in the back row? Tegan and some boy she did not know. Here was Sara and her evil games, she was mostly directing Tegan and pushing her to talk more. It's always a game with this woman, never something honest and that's what Tegan disliked the most, but that's another quality about Sara she should accept, wasn't it? "And ten percent on the poem all of you are going to write at the end of this semester. Start practicing from now, I need good poems with lots of emotions." Sara winked, and even though she was looking at Tegan, the student still believed it was for the whole class not only herself. "Alright, that's it. You can leave."
Tegan stood up to leave, but on purpose this time, she made herself be the last to leave. Sara rejoiced with her smile. "Tegan Rain," That sweet voice, that sweet octave, she loved it. "wait a minute, please."
"I have a class to go to." Tegan walked to the door.
"Just a minute." Sara begged and Tegan stood right at the door. She looked at the woman from head to toe, Sara blushed in return, her ears burned in color. "Can we talk?"
"Here we are." Tegan insisted on being as cold as Sara had been with her.
"You don't understand anything. Please let me explain everything."
"No, I don't understand anything. I never do, I'm just a naive little selfish baby." She drew on a sarcastic smile and walked away as quickly as she could. She shook her head, swallowing tears she was sucking inside. Why was it so hard to fight her emotions and freeze them? She did that around everybody, why was it so hard to do it around Sara? Next time around she'd probably break down in front of her. She didn't want that.
"Where are you? Aren't you coming back?" With extreme exasperation, Tegan screamed through the phone. "Jeremy, come back home." It was six and her friend hadn't returned to his place. He usually returned at four. She decided to call him, he told her he's somehwere else.
"I'm just leaving you alone to chill." He responded.
"Where are you staying at?" She paced around the kitchen, biting her short nails and taking several quick breaths.
"At a friend's." He answered.
"Who is it?" She asked again.
"None of your business. We're not dating, isn't that what you always point out? We're not together. Why do you care? You don't fucking care. Why are you asking?" Maybe that was the second or the third time ever her friend yelled at her. Tegan didn't know what was the feeling that accompanied the loud tone, but it's something like ire, also a rush of guilt, and a need. Why did she want the man all to herself when she wanted another person? Was she that fucking selfish?
"It's your place, that's what I meant. I'm the one who should be leaving, not you." Her friend didn't give any answer, she listened to his breaths, and he listened to hers.
She didn't care, she didn't at all, and that disappointed him, also angered him. "You're at Emy's?" Her persistence to find out if her guy friend was with the other friend she wasn't on good terms with wouldn't shut down. She couldn't give it up.
"Tegan," Jeremy breathed. He knew what he was going to say was going to sound harsh, he knew it's going to hurt his friend, but he'd been around that moving mess for the past two years, it's time to stop her, to put her in her place. "listen to me." She was waiting, listening, ready to explode and to attack. "You're a fucking mess. You've been a fucking mess for the past two years. You've been a fucking mess since Sara left you. The thing is, in this mess you're dragging every human being close to you to whatever misery you're feeling. You fucked up many times and all of us kept quiet. Yes, I do love you, you do know it, and you hate that I am so patient with you. So I guess now I can just show you and tell you what I really feel. You hurt Emy, you hurt me, you hurt yourself, and you won't even stop." He took a breath, she listened with a raised brow and a look of disdain and mockery. "Now that woman of yours is back and you're doing your best at being the bitchiest person on planet earth. Seriously, if you love her so much go fucking back to her, what are you waiting for?" He yelled, he didn't even know he had it in him, his other friend sat beside him, she was looking at her hands while he was speaking. "I don't know if you've forgotten but you're the one who cheated on her? Stop making everything about you, for heaven's sake, stop thinking about what you want. You don't even listen, you don't even think, you don't even look around you. It's all about the Tegan kingdom, it's all about your fucking thoughts and feelings while all of us are just victims of whatever shit you pull all of a sudden." Tegan closed her phone, she couldn't handle hearing that.
Perhaps an abyss in her mind was well aware that the criticism she had just gotten was more than just accurate, it held the sense of realism in it, but her denial had always been an inherent trait inside her damaged thoughts. Her tears flew because she was also in check with the accuracy of every word she heard. Her brain ached and her fear surrounded her. Not again, God, not again. But it's happening again. Same ancient feeling, same ancient tale, it's not going to depart her being, wasn't it? Should she follow Jeremy's words and just be with the woman since she still loved her? But she couldn't find any trust in that woman, she would doubt every second around her. If the woman truly wanted her she'd be knocking at her door or chasing her at university the way she once did. No, the woman didn't want her, the woman wanted to explain some shit to her, that was all, that was it, that's what Sara wanted.
As for Sara, she was having a harder time than she thought she'd have while babysitting her friend's children. The baby was easy to handle, but the devilish three year old boy reminded her of her friend's daughter. Her place was small, and the boy had already torn a couple of leaves from her plants near the door. He also made sure to throw everything above the coffee table on the floor, as well as scribbling on her wall with a pen he had found inside a book she had been reading.
Sara put her phone on speaker in order to be able to feed the infant and watch what the boy was doing while still talking to Stacy. She switched on to the cartoons channel and he finally calmed down and sat, but then his sister started crying.
"You're an idiot, I swear to God." Her best friend spoke through the phone as she tried to see if Sammy needed changing. "You have her damn number, call her already...Ella for God's sake, I'm going to kick you out so you can sleep in the street if you don't stop jumping on the sofa." The last sentence was yelled harshly into Sara's own living room, making the girl cry harder and the boy turn his head and laugh at Sara's misery.
Sara tried to burp the infant, she patted her back and rocked her just a tiny bit, but it was no use. "It's just that she's my student, I just don't want to go through the same old shit again. I really don't want us to hide and be secretive and afraid all the time."
"What are you going to do then? Do you want me to talk to her? Oh wait, you said she doesn't like me. Why doesn't she like me? Am I that much of a bad person? I mean, yes, I am kinda annoying sometimes, but I was so nice to her. Oh my God, Sara, you should see what Audrey did the other day at your grandparents' house..."
"Stop talking for one damn second, I'm trying to make this baby shut up." Sara screamed.
"Oh, sorry." Sara tried to give her the bottle again, but the baby refused the offer by turning her head to the side and continuing her loud shrieks. "Oh, it's that cry. I know that cry. This one is the boob cry. Nothing will shut her up but the boob."
"I'm giving her the bottle." Sara tried again, but her efforts were unmet.
"The bottle is different from the boob."
"What's the damn difference? They both have milk." She was thinking of giving up and leaving the child sob till she's tired and fast asleep.
"It's about the bond with the mother, she wants her mum, basically." Sara sighed and rubbed both her eyes, she was tired, she wanted to go to her bed and just be alone with her thoughts, her anger, her sadness, and herself. "When you become a mum you'll know."
Sara chuckled. "I won't know." She leaned back on the sofa, thinking about everything she wished to have or be and everything she lost and couldn't be. "It's not like I'll be the biological mother, the one breastfeeding and all."
"Are you getting yourself sad again? Don't do that. Yes, you'll know. What's the difference from the father? He doesn't breastfeed nor give birth nor carry, he still have the instinct and the bond with his child." There was a moment of silence before Stacy continued, "Honestly, I don't know why you're so eager to have children. You think it's easy? You think it's cute? Honey, it's not. The responsibility you'll have will literally deprive you from even thinking about yourself or doing anything for yourself. It's just a way to waste your life in my opinion."
"Stacy, please." She huffed loudly into the air. The baby's cries have decreased into low stifled sobs. Sara hadn't noticed that her gentle patting to the girl's back was the reason for the quiet she needed. "Just because you have a devil child, doesn't mean I will have one. Plus, you're a person who's easily irritated from everything, I'm not like that." Sara looked up to find the boy standing in front of her, crotch wet and a shade darker than the color of his pants. He smiled at her while covering both his eyes behind his tiny hands.
"You know what? Fine, I hope you talk to Tegan, marry her, be fucking happy, get not only a child but three, all at once. Yes, you'd probably love that, twins or triplets, and they're all just like Ella. By then I'll be so fucking happy for you and I'll be laughing so fucking hard at the misery you'll be facing." Sara wasn't hearing anything from the blabber of her friend, her eyes were widened and her misery was indeed thickening.
"You peed your damn pants?" She said with a high tone, she was in a state of disbelief. "Why did you do that?" She continued in that tone, simply because she just wanted to shoot herself. "Why didn't you tell me to take you to the bathroom?" Her friend was laughing through the phone, she couldn't handle it. "You," She spoke louder, and her friend already understood she was being directed. "I'll talk to you later." And she pressed the red button to end her call without hearing anything more from the irritatingly laughing woman.
...
"What we're going to do today, or what you are going to do today, is write a love letter." Sara faced her students as she spoke. She toyed with the zipper of her olive-colored jacked unconsciously.
The previous night she slept as soon as her friend's kids were gladly deported back to their mother. She cleaned her small place because leaving it a hideous mess was not an option, and then she slept. She woke up earlier than usual, she cleaned again, then she dialed the number she shouldn't be dialing at dawn. Nobody picked up. Sara didn't try again. She had her breakfast and headed to university.
"It's always easier for us to write than speak. We, human beings, find it terrifying to express emotions verbally, we hide beneath words we scribble down. How many of you do not speak on the telephone but text instead?" Sara asked, and one of the raised hands were her lover's. Their eyes met, Sara smiled, Tegan did not return the smile.
When Tegan woke up after a rough night of endless sobbing and regret, she found a missed call from a strange number. Tegan was not stupid when it came to technology, she had all the apps that everybody was using. One of these apps was Truecaller, it was an app that one could guess the anonymous numbers that had called them through. She found Sara's name right away. That was not the first time something so similar happened. She remembered a couple of times Stacy's number was one of the many calls she had gotten. But those calls stopped. When Stacy rang, she would pick up, she'd say hi, but nobody would be answering, and the call would end. Sara called and Sara wanted to speak and she knew that. Only that part made her feel better. She did hate the fact that her heart still skipped a beat whenever something warm came out of her past lover, but she couldn't help it, she still loved her, she couldn't deny it. But she also hated her, in different ways.
"See? Me too. I don't like speaking on the telephone. It's not because I'm not confident, it's just because I don't know how to express my emotions. I have a friend and she's rather talkative," Sara chuckled as she spoke. She looked at Tegan, a faint smile adorned her face. "she would talk on the phone for hours and hours and hours. She'd gossip for ten hours straight without taking a breath, but when it comes to it, she's the worst to tell you how she truly feels, she would become a coward, she'd shut down and push you away. She cannot express love through words." Tegan was well aware that Sara's best friend was the directed woman. She wondered if Sara was giving an accurate account of the woman. Stacy didn't seem as such, she seemed as someone so honest with all their interactions even the ones that had to do with love and hatred. "She expresses it through actions, or terrible choice of words. This had gotten her into many troubles in the past. People misunderstand her and even myself does that at times." Tegan listened and tried to connect whether Stacy had been in any way kind to her and she understood it differently. Sara did tell her that Stacy's actions were out of care and nothing more. But Tegan always felt skeptic about that kind of care.
"But one time I told her to write. I sat down with her and told her to write her feelings. She was going through a lot back then. She started writing and I thought she'd write as much as she speaks. But I only got one sentence out of her. That sentence spoke many things I tried to understand for all the years I've been her friend."
That one sentence was: I'm in love you. It was written in a small font, a scared font. Sara read it and everything made sense to her. She already did have her doubts about Stacy's affection towards her, but she didn't really think it was that alive and that vibrant until that summer of 2014 when Stacy admitted her feelings. Back then, Sara was bald and tired. Stacy was dealing with her divorce and with getting the custody of her daughter. When Stacy kissed her, Sara didn't pull away, she needed the kiss because it nourished her and made her feel like a young woman once again. But when things were about to go farther, Sara put a stop to it. The stop made her friend cry. That was one of the very rare times she witnessed her crying so honestly in front of her. Stacy barely cried. One time she cried when she fell and scraped her knees, when she and Sara were young children playing in the backyard. The other time was when her first boyfriend broke her heart and cheated on her. The third time she cried was when she was giving birth, Sara had been there, she witnessed her tears of pain. The fourth time when she knew Sara was diagnosed with cancer. The fifth time she cried when she told Sara she and her husband were getting a divorce because she'd been cheated on again. But that was a very small cry, it ended as soon as it started. But Tegan saw it, and she felt strange in seeing it. The sixth time Stacy cried was when Sara refused her love, and the last one was when Sara almost died in May of the previous year. She stayed strong for the whole night. Doctors in, doctors out, Sara's mother was crying, even Jack came to town, and then Stacy broke down in front of all the strangers and all the friends and family. Sara kept looking at her, she hadn't cried that much since she ever knew Stacy, unlike herself, she cried so many times that she bet Stacy named every tear by then.
Tegan did not only marvel at what Sara was speaking of but also was developing her old habit of jealousy once again. It's like that powerful feeling had been asleep for the previous year and a half she and Sara were apart, and once the woman of her desire returned, the feeling accompanied her as well. Same old story, same old feelings, what could she deny to deny? There was no hope in denial when she knew it too well.
"So that's why I want you to write a love letter, to whoever your lover is. I'm a woman who doesn't judge. I'd read your letters and imagine what you're trying to say. The conditions are, honesty is highly required, be honest with your feelings and emotions, and use simple words to express what you feel. You don't have to be poetic, you don't have to use metaphors, just be honest and try to let it out of your system."
"Isn't it a bit not fair that you'll get to read our love letters while we won't get to read yours?" A student asked flirtatiously. Her voice was sweet and her eyes were charming. Tegan stared at her, while not noticing that Sara was staring at her instead.
"I promise you next class I'll write mine and I'll say it out loud." Then Tegan looked up at Sara and their eyes met for the second time. Sara's ears were red as well as her face, and Tegan's heart was beating and thumping harder than it had been. "Even though I'd have to master the courage in order to do that, but I've been trying lately to be more vocal when it comes to expressing feelings. Not only my friend, but also myself had gotten in many hardships due to my distant tendencies." Sara smiled at the student she answered, but Tegan noticed the pupils which were shifting to the right in order to take a look at her. It kept getting harder the longer she was around the woman, and she was afraid she'd lose the battle she was the only one fighting in.
But when it came down to writing her letter, she simply didn't know what to write. She had a lot to say and she needed to know many things. She was very much against the idea of sharing her feelings to the woman who most probably asked that task in order to get some words out of her. What could she say to Sara anyway? A love letter, really? What love she was imagining? The only love she felt was one broken and shattered and the lady who held the other part of the love was standing far away and not willing to express it the way Tegan wanted her to. Sara chased her once so why not again? She wanted the chase because she didn't want to give Sara the idea she was easy to love then leave. It happened once and if Sara was actually into the idea of wanting it to happen again, she had to know that if it happened she wasn't going to pull Tegan away from her just to return again after a destruction she caused.
Sara collected each letter before dismissing her students. She took a quick glance at each letter in order to make sure the names were written and words were said. "Tegan Rain, follow me to my office right away." Sara raised her head after reading the one sentence her student had written: I have nothing to say. It was unprofessional and Sara did not look past it. She herself made the entire class write the letter in order to understand her student a little bit more. She did expect some resistance but nothing as that. When she ordered her student to follow her, she said it in front of the class with an enormous amount of anger seeping out of her tone and escaping her glassy irises, reaching at Tegan's figure and making her nod her head quickly without much thought.
Sara dismissed her students and waited for the student she was extremely angry with to rise up and follow her. When Tegan stood up, everything in her body was against following Sara. "I have a class, I can't follow you. Just say what you want." She instead said as coldly as possible.
Sara nodded her head and looked down at Tegan's letter. She reached for her pen, scribbled what Tegan couldn't see and handed the piece of paper back to her student with fixed eyes never moving or blinking. "When I ask for assignments you follow the rules without any unprofessional follies." And then Sara left with so much confidence despite the fact her heart was sinking, aching, and swollen with grief.
"A zero?" Tegan whispered to her own self as she read the grade out of ten. All her fears and all her hesitance felt small near her rising anger and furry. She felt the heat climbing up to her face, she felt her heart drum and her eyes sting. She was too far up her own ass to take anything seriously. She was too much into the idea of wanting to put Sara under her mercy, forgetting the marble statue that Sara actually was, the iron woman that she portrayed too well. Sara was strong and confident no matter how frail and fragile she really was. Even the last time she saw Sara, she was in her office with her concrete mask on display, her words were measured, her actions were sane, and her emotions were frozen. She only broke down behind the four walls she once called home. She broke down for seconds and returned back to her frosty state. And this frosty state had always been the reason for Tegan's submissiveness, Tegan's ruin, and Tegan's doom.
And Tegan found herself again dragged by a force much bigger than her to Sara's hellish door. She couldn't control it. It was her heart, yes her heart, it drummed at Sara's door while she knocked with her two shaking hands. The beating matched the knocking and there she was again, thrown at Sara's feet. Her defenseless heart caused all the issues again and took her where everything had once started. What was she doing? Her heart, it was beating and it was craving Sara's absence at the same time. It was beating and it was coveting her torture as well. She was standing in front of her and she was wishing to be somewhere else. She wanted to speak but she was too sad, miserable, angry, and tired to say anything.
"Tegan." Sara looked up at her, with that same pride and that same mask. The student walked and stood in front of her professor. She looked at the new bigger office but didn't focus much. She looked at the plants beside her and back at Sara. "Can I help you?" She shook her head and almost cried. It was not happening again. No it was not. She took a breath and showed her paper to her professor. She really thought Sara would say what she had to say, but she should have known better, Sara only played games. Damned be her heart for beating out of childish excitement. "I told you the rules, you didn't follow them. I'm sorry, I can't fix it for you."
"But I'm being honest. Your rules were honesty...I'm being honest." Tegan swallowed the lump in her throat and regained her composure. Sara expected the break down, but it didn't happen. Tegan had changed, unlike herself.
"You know how a letter is written? Dear whoever, something something something, with love, and then your name." The professor explained, her eyes were on Tegan's hand. That small hand was toying with one of Sara's leaves. Tegan wasn't aware of it, but when she saw Sara staring she looked at the leaf and didn't remove her hand. "The plant. You're hurting my plant." Tegan looked at the green plant again.
"Does that bother you? Huh?" Childishly, she tore the leaf and then the other one, then the third, and then punched the green plant. Sara's mouth was wide open, her eyes dilated and her anger was slowly rising. "What are you going to do? Give me an F? Deprive me from the subject? You can't do that. You won't do it. You just can't."
"What are you doing?" Her high pitched question made Tegan look at her. "Why did you take it out on the damn plant?" A tear rolled out of Sara's eyes and Tegan was not sure whether she had broken the mask, or it was already broken. She was also not sure whether Sara was crying because of the plant or because of what she said.
But Sara, she was crying because she felt utterly helpless with her own emotions, she wished to speak and just say what she wanted to say but she couldn't.
"You want a love letter, Sara?" Tegan shook her head, she as well started crying. "What do you want me to say? What do you want to hear? The fact that you pushed me away and it damaged me for the past year and a half? The fact that I never understood you or what you wanted? The fact that you always treated me like a little child who understood nothing and couldn't understand what you were going through? Or the fact that I waited for just one text message after the dozens I sent just to make sure you're alive until I completely lost hope? And then all of a sudden you appear perfectly fine, acting like nothing had happened, and you just want to casually talk? Is that how easy I am to you? I don't know, a moment's distraction? A fling? You want me when healthy and push me away when ill? Is that what you want me to say? Isn't it just easier to say that there's nothing to talk about? Yes, I cheated, I'm an ass, I regret it, I'm paying because of that, I'm still fucking paying everyday. But you're worse, Sara. You know it, you just don't like to admit it." She took a breath, she shook her head at herself and at the woman with bowed head and tears staining the empty letter on her desk. "Do you want me to continue or is that enough?" Sara shook head and sniffled.
"Please leave." Sara said when she finally looked at her student. Tegan saw the redness, puffiness, and exhaustion clearly on the woman's face. Dark lines of mascara ran across her cheeks, make up fading away the more she sobbed.
Tegan left her professor's office, wiping her tears, and walking as fast as she could in order not to be seen. Sara did not answer her, she didn't say anything, she asked her to leave instead. Typical Sara and Tegan expected it to happen. Despite everything, the woman was still rigid when it came to letting out her emotions. If that's how they were going to start again, Tegan didn't even want to think about it. That felt like an ending to her, it was never going to be the same, and even though she loved Sara, it was too hard to absorb the fact that they could build a relationship with all the gaps they hadn't filled. If Sara was ready to fix her mistakes, Tegan was also willing to, but the younger woman needed answers, and what Sara did was only push her away the same way she had done before.
Tegan left university and went back to her friend's apartment. It was better to break down by herself than sit through hours of torture and anxiety.
Her friend was there when she opened the door and sat on the floor. He walked up to her and stood while she sat.
"What are you doing here?" She sniffled and wiped her tears. "I mean, aren't you supposed to be at work?" He knelt down next to her and helped her up.
"They gave us a day off. Boss out of town." She nodded and walked towards the bedroom. So many things were supposed to be said but she didn't have the energy to ask and Jeremy didn't have the courage to start speaking.
He felt as if he was cursed, whenever he looked into her eyes he forgot why he was angry with her. When he was sleeping on Emy's couch, he missed Tegan's presence and Tegan's scent next to him. He knew she didn't love him, why did that make him so upset when she was too honest about it? She was a lesbian, he was sleeping with a lesbian, and her lover was still around after all. Even though Tegan consented on sleeping with him, touching him, and even cuddling with him at rare times, she still didn't love him the way he loved her. But the fact that she was okay with giving him her body said something to him, it meant that she trusted him. That always lit a spark of hope in the depths of his hopeless thoughts. His main priority was always to make her happy, whether in everyday interactions or in bed. He made sure to show her the love he possessed for her and to make her feel it through every touch, thrust, or kiss, even if it made her disgusted with herself.
When Tegan plopped down on the mattress, her cries increased and her wails became louder. She covered her eyes and cried more. Jeremy looked at her body and sat where her feet rested. "Did she hurt you again?" He asked.
"Did she ever stop?"
"Do you want to go back to her?"
"Not when she keeps acting like that."
"Like what?"
"Like a lot of things." The cries never stopped. "That's not a way to love, is it?" She uncovered her face and looked at her friend.
"How can I know?" He began taking off his friend's shoes. "People love differently."
"When you love someone you don't push them away." Her parka was off then. She looked up at her friend's eyes. "You never leave me and that's why I like being with you." Because she knew she loved attention and care.
"I don't think so." Jeremy unzipped her pants and then slid them down her legs. She didn't mind, she kicked them off. "You're just like everybody. You love torture, you love to chase and if somebody chases and wants you, you don't love them." That was not true to her, she desperately wanted Sara to chase her. "I think it's human nature."
"I don't agree." Her sweater was out of the way and her friend was sitting between her parted legs. "I want her to chase me." She nodded when her friend tugged at the elastic of her underwear, lifting her butt off the mattress to help him take it off. "I wish I could love you the way I love her." Then she said, right before her friend's face met her sex.
"But you don't." He whispered and kissed where she wanted the most. He always tried his best to give her what a woman could give and even more, but he never did, simply because he wasn't a woman. She did love having sex with him because he took care of her needs and of her, especially after sex, but why her heart felt ill after every intercourse was something she wasn't able to understand. "I wish you do, but you don't." Her friend said again while lapping at her clit.
To Sara, love was easy and sexuality was fluid so why wasn't it to her? Maybe she could love men, maybe, but not her friend, maybe. She wondered, if she ever forgot Sara, she might, perhaps, fall in love with Jeremy, eventually. No, that was way too unrealistic to her brain. She'd have sex with him, marry him, have children from him, but never love him that same way she loved Sara. She wondered whether she held some type of love towards him, that kind of love, but less than loving Sara. It felt absurd to think of it. It was just so silly to be in love with him.
"And you won't." Jeremy said again.
Her moans increased and a gasp was released when she realized her friend was crying as well. That wasn't the first time he displayed such emotions because of her lack of love but each time felt eerie and felt strange. He was a man, and he cried, society wouldn't agree but he didn't care. He cried because he loved her and she cried because she loved Sara.
And there she was allowing him to give her an orgasm and crying while down on her while she thought about Sara and cried about Sara. She cried more when she realized that not only Sara should stop her old ways, but she too must stop throwing her body at whoever offered to take it in order to sooth her pain. It was like sex was her drug and she took what she could get. If she really was willing to go back to Sara she should stop sleeping with her friend in the first place. But that was too late, she was already having an orgasm and her head was already far away from rationality to think of stopping.
"She made me cry." Sara sniffled while she wiped whatever she thought there was above the coffee table. "In my office." More tears fell. "Why do I love this way and why can't I just talk? She makes me cry like I'm a child."
Stacy wanted to say a lot of things. She was a woman with a mind and a body and she loved Sara. She was a woman who didn't make Sara cry. Yet, Sara didn't even think of her that way at all. She wanted to tell Sara to get over Tegan, but she knew that wouldn't happen. She was the one helping Sara be with Tegan through subtle ways. All through Sara's illness, Stacy made sure where Tegan was going, staying at, and who she was with. She knew people, and those people helped her to help Sara. She didn't know why she did that, but her love for the woman was just too much to waste an opportunity to please her.
"I just don't know how to get her in."
"Win her trust." Stacy sighed. Her daughter had finally slept and she had the time for herself. She decided to watch TV and drink some wine, but then Sara called crying, and she had to lose the time she specialized for herself again. "Slowly."
"I don't know how to do that. Stacy she doesn't know that I did what I did because I love her." Sara was frustrated.
"Show her it's because of it. I don't know, Sara. Just do what suits you. Let me tell you about how my daughter bit Audrey's son the other day. It was hilarious, your mum laughed so much I thought she was drunk. I think she drank, though."
Sara kicked the foot of the table as her anger rose. "What is up with you and this woman? Are in love with her? Just one damn phone call without her name would be fucking nice." She yelled at her friend, who was just laughing at her friend's childish frustration.
"I'm not in love with her. I actually just really hate her and I just can't wait to move so I never have to see her face again."
"When are you coming? I found you a job at three hospitals so far. And two apartments in my street. " Even though she was planning to move if she ever got Tegan, but the idea was taking too long to become reality.
"I don't want to jinx it by telling you, but hopefully in two weeks. Everything's going as planned." Stacy said.
"So what do I do now?" Sara bowed her head again, looking at her lap.
"Show her you love her. Chase after her you idiot. That's what women want, they want to be chased." Stacy shook her head and gave an advice to the woman she loved.