All I really want to do is crawl back into bed and disappear. Maybe even for a few days. I don't even care if the tour gets canceled. I feel like a wreck, as if I'm being tugged in two different directions and it'll be a matter of time before I crack in half.

Sara's soft, pale fingers slip in between mine, identical except for the river of veins parting beneath our skin. On the other hand, Lindsey holds firmly, but comforting. Sara presses lascivious lips to the back of my hand. I look down at her eyes peeking up at me from behind the curtain of her bangs, the desire to be closer to her bubbling deep in my stomach, like a volcano ready to burst. My palms grow sweaty and I try to let go of Lindsey's hand to wipe it off, but she yanks it towards her, pulling me away from Sara, who latches her other hand onto my elbow and sinks her teeth into my knuckles. There's no pain, though, and I'm surprised because I glance down at her peering up at me still, her mouth biting deeper into my bones, ready to rip my fingers right off.

Suddenly, I feel LB bending the ring finger of my left hand all the way back as far as she can. I stare wide eyed at her, my mouth open in a growl as she brings the knuckles all the way to the back of my hand. The bone stretches the skin on my palm, sticking out awkwardly. I hear a sickening "Pop!" as my middle finger is successfully broken and Lindsey lets go of it and it bounces back weakly, dangling from my hand like a loose tooth, the skin swelling around the torn tissue.

"Tegan Hey, wake up, it's okay. Wake up." A tentative hand gently nudges my shoulder as I'm lying on my side. My eyes slowly open and I blink a few times and look around the room, searching for Lindsey and expecting her to be close by. But there's nobody sitting beside me on the bed or leaning over to wake me up. I realize that I'm holding my wrist with my other hand and I'm curled up in a fetal position, the sheets kicked to the very end of the bed. I stretch out and feel the cool sheets along my skin as I spread my limbs and slowly try to get up before realizing I haven't got any clothes on.

I turn my head to check the time reading 12:08 PM and bury my face into a pillow. I'd only been asleep for an hour. Lindsey should be back already, so I lift myself up and out of bed and find some clothes. As I'm pulling on a pair of underwear, I remember the dream I just had and take a look at my hands. They're perfectly fine, no teeth marks or broken fingers. I take another look around the room, confused. I could have sworn that Lindsey was in here trying to wake me up. The only reason I opened my eyes is because I felt someone touch my shoulder and whisper my name.

I shake my head and finish getting dressed, still half asleep. I wander into the bathroom and deal with the mess or my hair and decide to pull it back into a pony tail. Then I go down the hall and head straight for the kitchen, reaching blindly into the fridge for a Corona until I hear someone clear their throat behind me and I jump, abandoning my beer to turn around and find the source of the sound.

"Hey."

I turn immediately back around and try to keep my insides from imploding. My heart claps against my ribs and my knees decide that they'd like to be made of jelly instead of bones. I thump my head against the refrigerator and close my eyes before I take the beer, twist it open with a hiss, and turn around again.

"Sara, what are you doing here?" I ask, trying to sound as casual as I can without letting my voice shake. She's sitting cross-legged on the love seat in the living room, the television on CNN but the volume is low. Too low almost, because I can barely hear it, and I wonder if she was even watching it. She's wearing the same thing from last night, but her hair is a little disheveled, I assume from sleeping on it or from the wind outside. I close the fridge door but don't advance towards the living room. I'm afraid that Lindsey is hiding around here somewhere, possibly behind a couch, waiting to spring up if I get too close to Sara. "How'd you get in?" I wonder out loud and take a sip of beer.

"Lindsey invited me."

"Oh." Is all I say. I expect Sara to explain further, but she just turns her attention back to the TV, so I shuffle over to the couch opposite of her and sit down on the arm.

"So," I start, but fall short when I realize I have no idea what to say. "Um…"

Sara flicks her eyes to me for a second and then goes back to pretending to watch the screen. Her foot is aimlessly moving about and she's toying with her hands in her lap. Nervous habits, I notice. She clears her throat.

"What did you dream about?"

"What?" I look back at Sara, who has turned her attention to me, her foot has stopped moving but she's begun to pop her knuckles, one by one.

"You were having a bad dream, weren't you?" Pop.

"I guess." I take another sip of beer and wonder when Lindsey is going to get back.

Finally, Sara looks at me. "You were kind of whimpering and stuff, you know?"

"No, I didn't know."

Pop.

Sara looks back at the TV and continues to crack her fingers. When I take another drink, I keep my eyes on her, allowing myself the opportunity to look at the skin peeking out of her shirt and the way her jaw tightens as she clenches her teeth.

"So, where'd LB run off to?" I ask and she turns her attention back to me, her mouth twitching a little before she speaks.

"She got a call, some photo emergency. She said she'd be back in an hour."

"How long has she been gone?"

"Just a few minutes, actually."

"Oh." I say and finish off the rest of my beer. It feels like a trap, almost. Sara and I are going to be alone in my apartment for the next hour. The erratic thumping of my heart pulses in my burning ears. It's not like I should be worried or anything.

Sara sits across from me and looks back at the TV, the tendons in her neck straining a little from her obvious anxiousness. She fingers for the remote beside her and turns up the volume. After a few minutes, while I'm trying not to stare at her, she gets up from the couch and leaves the channel changer on the clear glass coffee table, mumbling that she's going to the bathroom. I stand with the empty bottle of beer in my hand, and go into the kitchen, placing it on the counter top as softly as I can. I lean against the counter with my hands and stare at the sink, turning the water on for no real reason, just to watch it waste down the pipes.

I stare at the water swirling down the drain, hypnotized, and I zone out until I'm not even thinking anymore and I'm looking past the water at nothing at all. The bathroom door opens and closes, jerking me out of my trance. I shut off the water and turn around to lean with my backside against the counter. Sara comes into the kitchen and stops when she sees me, expecting me to be where I was when she left, watching the news and waiting for her.

"Hey," I say and move to the fridge, but my voice cracks and I clear my throat, my face growing warmer as I open the side door and peer inside. "Um, do you want anything?" I glance back at her for a response. Her arms are folded across her chest, holding them as close as she can, as if she's afraid they have minds of their own and will flail is she lets them go. Her lips are pursed, eyebrow knitted in concentration, the same way they do when she's looking over label contracts or approving an art design for our band merch. Her eyes, I notice, are lowered at my midsection and she flicks them quickly up to meet mine when I turn my head to look at her.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Just water." I turn back around and pick a bottle of water from the fridge and hand it to her. She steps forward and reaches out to take it, our fingers touching as she wraps hers around the plastic, covering mine until I pull my hand away, a little slower than necessary. The butterflies flutter in my stomach, making it hard for me to swallow or let alone breathe normally.

"Thanks." She says and twists the cap open. I turn around and close the refrigerator door, giving myself a second or two so I can get rid of the giddy smile ready to break out across my face. Sara doesn't move and I'm suddenly trying to gain the ability of speech back. I don't know if I should bring up last night or apologize again, but I also don't really want to talk about it. It feels too wrong. I mean, of course I love Lindsey and I feel like I always will, but then there's Sara, who I feel like I can never not love. She's literally a part of me. We're like a magnet split in two. Except our ends are both polar. There's an unspoken boundary between us that we can never cross, because if we do, then maybe we'll become the single person we'd been split up from since the beginning. This force between us is something we can't see, but we can feel it pushing us away from getting too close. Maybe the attraction isn't so bad, if only we had opposite ends. I'm more afraid of the pull than I am of the magnet.

"I think it's too soon." Sara mutters behind me. I turn around to face her, pretending I didn't hear what she said.

"What?"

"I think it's too soon. I think we both need some time to think about this." She holds the bottle of water in one hand, turning the cap between her fingers, staring at it. There are a few feet between us and I wish I had enough courage and carelessness to fill them. I wish I didn't care about Lindsey or what everyone else would say. I really do. It would be so much easier, but instead I refrain and settle with imagining myself as the bottle of water being pressed tightly against my sister's lips as she takes another sip and clears her throat.

"I'm sorry." Is all I manage. Sara holds the bottle in front of her mouth, as if she's about to take another drink, and watches me for what feels like forever, until I shake my head and make my way around her to the living room. I sit down on the love seat, where she was sitting when I first came out here, hoping she would come in and sit next to me or something. I stare at the TV, not paying attention to it but instead imagining Sara slipping into the room and putting her drink down on the coffee table before sinking a knee into the gap between my thigh and the arm of the couch, settling her other knee on the other side and sitting in my lap, pressing herself into me and straddling me with her hands on my shoulders, arching her neck down with my head tilted back to catch her soft lips with my own.

Instead, she walks slowly into the living room and heads straight for the front door. I try to ignore her, but I turn to see what she's doing when I hear the lock click out of place.

"Where are you going?" I ask, sounding a little too needy, even for me. "I mean, you don't have to go…"

Sara keeps her eyes on the door knob held in her hand. After a few seconds of silence, she opens the door and walks out, closing it behind her. I sit for a minute, staring at the door, a million thoughts racing through my head, and then I rush to the door, almost falling over the coffee table, and rip it open. Sara's eyes are wide, her hand outstretched from being pulled in by the door and having to let go of the knob. She looks up at me, her mouth slightly open, as if she's going to say something, and takes a small step forward to grab the hem of my shirt and pulls me toward her. She looks me in the eye and licks her bottom lip slowly, still pulling me closer to her body until the toes of my feet touch her shoes. My pulse is almost painfully loud in my ears and I wonder if she can hear it, too. My legs shake underneath me and my jaw is held open tightly as Sara leans in close to my mouth, achingly slow. I close my eyes, feeling her warm breath on my lips, almost close enough to actually taste her. First I feel her bottom lip barely brush against mine and then she's kissing me softly, as if she's afraid I might bite her if she moves too fast. I keep my hand on the door and a fist at my side, careful not to touch her.

Sara's lips remain closed as she presses her mouth harder against mine and then pulls away before catching my lips with hers again, moving at a pace that my heart beat can't even fathom right now. It's a thoughtful kiss and I think about everything I want to say to her but don't know how and wish the whole telepathy thing were real. Then maybe she would be able to understand why I had to pull away. I open my eyes, feeling her grip on my shirt let up as I take a small step back, and keep them focused on not looking at her face. She stands there for a moment, torn between coming back inside and leaving. She looks around the empty hall and back to me, conflicted, I know, in every way.

"I'm sorry." I say, barely loud enough for her to hear, and she captures her arm in her other hand at her side, watching me as I stare at the floor.

"Tegan," She pleads as I hold the door open, blocking the entrance to my apartment as if I'm not going to let her back in. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that." I let myself look at her now, flicking my eyes up to meet hers, which makes me choke on my words. "I should go." She adds, stepping a little bit further away from me. I panic then, uncertain of whether or not I really want her to leave, and reach toward her.

"No," I pull my hand back, aware of how desperate I'm beginning to sound. I step away and open the door further, signaling her to come back inside, but she stays still, unsure of herself.

"Tegan, I don't know." She says slowly, shaking her head. "I don't know." I watch her, biting my lip. I'm torn between sending Sara away again and pulling her inside with me.

"I think—I think we should talk about…this." I say, gesturing between us. "Yeah?" I ask. Sara digs her nails into her elbow and gives a small nod. I step back and invite her inside again. She walks past me and I close the door, locking it just in case we decide to be selfish. Turning around, I find Sara sitting down on the love seat again, so I sit in the couch across from her and the coffee table. The TV is still on, but it's not too loud so I keep it on.

"I don't know if I want to talk about it." Sara blurts about before I can speak.

"Okay."

"I mean, I do, kind of, I just don't know what to say."

I nod. "Me, too." Sara nods back and her eyes wander away from me for a second before shooting back.

"I just think we need to think about this more, you know?" I can see her ears growing red. I hadn't noticed how nervous she is. She scratches her head and crosses her leg over a knee.

"It's just Lindsey and…everything." I say, almost regretting it as soon as I said it. "I'm not saying that I don't want to, I just—I don't know." I add and bite my lip again. Sara nods her head in understanding, holding her arms once more.

"Every time," Sara gives a small laugh and shakes her head. "Every time I kiss you, I expect you to hit me or something. I do." She says when I look at her and shake my own head. "I deserve it, though. I love Lindsey too and it makes me feel like complete shit, but I—sometimes I can't—"

"Sara," She wipes her eyes with one hand and stands up.

"I have to go. I'm sorry."

"Sara, just wait—"

But she's already at the door, cut short by the lock until she turns it and walks out. I get up and run to the door before it closes and swing it back open, but Sara is walking as fast as she can down the hall.

"Sara!" I call, but she keeps going without looking back. "Sara!" I shout again as she's turning the corner. I could run after her, but I can't find a reason to. My feet feel like they're cemented into the ground. So I just stand there for a few minutes, unable to move, until one of my neighbors opens their door and comes out into the hallway. I go back inside and close the door before lying down on the couch and flipping through the channels of the TV until I fall asleep.

I wake up when the front door opens and Lindsey walks in with a paper bag in her hand.

"Where's Sara?" She asks, sitting down on the coffee table in front of me and taking out the bagel wrapped in half a dozen napkins, handing it to me as I sit up.

"She wasn't feeling well, so she left." I take a small bite out of my late breakfast as Lindsey watches me.

"Oh, well sorry I was gone for so long. I called her before I left after you fell asleep." She laughs. "Are you feeling better?" I shrug first, and then shake my head, my mouth full of crème cheese.

"You have tomorrow off too, right?"

I shrug again. I feel horrible when Lindsey is being so good to me and I've been cheating on her with my own sister. I put the bagel down on the coffee table and swallow the last bit.

"I'm sorry, LB. I really am."

"Why? What's wrong?" She asks, concerned. I don't deserve her right now. She should hate me, never want to talk to me or see me again. I hold my face in my hands and shake my head, unable to do anything but cry while Lindsey wraps her arms around me and strokes my hair, telling me that it's okay to tell her anything, that she loves me and that I don't have to keep anything from her. But I do, I have to.