The Space Between

by Michelle L. Teichman

  The loud bass of a song started to play as Sarah walked in, and Harper felt it pounding in her chest. Sarah had her hair tied back, and she was wearing one of her tighter black hoodies. Tyler came in behind her, wearing his peacoat, his hair gelled back. They were both smiling when they saw her. How long could she keep doing this?

  Sarah and Tyler entered the kitchen, where she was sitting on a barstool. She hugged Tyler but avoided his kiss, letting it land on her cheek, then pulled Sarah in for a hug. It was the closest kind of contact she was allowed to have with her in public, and Sarah pulled out of it much too quickly for her liking.

  “You guys are just in time.” Alexis pushed the half-empty bottle of vodka toward them. “Fill up some cups. We’re playing truth or dare.”

  “I’m game.” Tyler pulled off his coat and threw it over the chair-back of Harper’s barstool. The action bothered her, as if he felt entitled to anything that was hers.

  Sarah pushed the sleeves up on her hoodie and accepted the glass that Jen handed her. Harper tried to keep her attention off her, but she looked really pretty, and it was hard not to let her focus return to Sarah.

  “I assume you both know how to play?” Alexis asked.

  “Uh, yeah, I think we got it.” Tyler laughed. “It’s like the oldest game in the world.”

  “Great. You’re up.” She challenged him.

  “Okay.” He put an arm around the back of Harper’s barstool, and she fought the urge to push him away. “Sarah.” He turned to his sister, and Harper’s breath caught. “Truth or dare?”

  Sarah flashed her eyes to Harper quickly before looking into her cup of vodka and cranberry juice. “Dare.”

  “I dare you to chug that whole cup.” Tyler laughed at the look on his sister’s face. Why would he dare her to do that? He knew she didn’t like to drink. “Don’t puke.”

  Sarah shrugged and started to chug the cup. When she finished, she made a face, but to her credit she slammed the cup down and gave Tyler a victorious smile. One pulled at Harper’s lips as well. Sarah had shown him up.

  “Your turn.” Alexis pointed at Sarah, distaste in her voice. Was she ever going to get over that?

  “Okay.” Sarah looked around, and her gaze flickered past Harper as if she wasn’t even there. “Alexis, truth or dare?”

  “Truth, and don’t make it lame.”

  The answer seemed to give Sarah pause. She’d obviously expected Alexis to opt for a dare. Harper had as well.

  “How many people have you slept with?”

  “Boring. Two.” She turned her eyes from Sarah to Harper. “Truth or dare?”

  “Dare.” There was no way she could risk that same question being asked to her.

  “Fine.” Alexis sucked in her cheeks, and it was clear she’d hoped Harper would say truth. “Go up to Jen’s bedroom and go to third base with Tyler.”

  Harper opened her mouth to argue, but no sound came out. What the hell was Alexis playing at? “I’m sure Jen doesn’t want us doing that in her room.”

  “Oh, Jen’s a good sport. Come on, you guys have ten minutes. That should be enough time. Right, Harper?”

  Harper didn’t know. She’d never done anything like that with a guy, and the hours she and Sarah had spent worshipping each other’s bodies wouldn’t be any kind of comparison.

  Tyler took her hand, and she averted her gaze. She couldn’t look at Sarah. When they left the kitchen, Alexis laughed, and she’d never hated a sound more. Tyler guided her up the stairs, and motioned for her to lead the way to Jen’s bedroom. Harper let go of his hand, and walked them to the room at the end of the hall. Tyler closed the door behind them.

  Her hands were shaking. She didn’t want to be in here with him. She didn’t want to do this. When Tyler unzipped his pants, her heart stopped. She couldn’t do this. She shook her head, trying to loosen a sentence.

  “What is it?” he asked. His hands were on the sides of his jeans, about to pull them down.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? We’ve been together almost six months. It’s okay for us to want to go further.”

  “But I don’t want to.” She walked to the window at the far end of Jen’s room, putting as much space between them as she could. “I can’t. I don’t want to.”

  “When will you want to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tyler zipped his pants back up. “I’m getting tired of waiting, Harper.”

  “I just need more time.”

  “Right.” He scoffed. “You’ve been saying that for months. You never want to touch me, and God forbid I try to touch you.” His voice was getting louder. “You freak out every time I get near you. Is something wrong with you or something?”

  “What?”

  “If there’s something physically wrong with you, we could talk about it, you know.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? So, if I don’t want to give you head that must mean I’m physically defective in some way?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Are you?”

  “No, Tyler. Maybe I’m just not attracted to you. Have you ever considered that?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. From the look on Tyler’s face, she knew that she had said too much.

  “Is it me you’re not attracted to, or is it all guys?”

  The blood drained from her face. She did the only thing she could think of. She moved across the room and pulled him into a hard kiss. He tasted of vodka and his tongue was cold, but she didn’t care. She had to convince him in that kiss that she wanted him, and after a few seconds, he kissed her back. He’d bought it. When his tongue darted into her mouth, she pulled back. She was sick, more with herself than with Tyler, but still, she could only pretend to a certain degree. “I just need a bit more time. I don’t want our first time together to be on a dare, do you?”

  Tyler considered her words. “No, I guess not.”

  Harper nodded. She might actually get away with this. “Let’s go back down. They can think whatever they want, right?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Tyler didn’t sound totally convinced, but he opened the door to let her walk past, and she let out a huge sigh of relief.

  When they got back downstairs, Sarah was gone, and Alexis was wearing a face-splitting grin. “All good under the hood, I assume?”

  “I’m going out for a smoke,” Harper said. When Jen made to follow, Harper put her hand up to stop her. “I’m just having a few drags. I’ll be right back.”

  Outside, Sarah was leaning against a tree in the yard. She lit a cigarette and walked over to her. It was a warm March night, and she’d left her jacket inside the party.

  “Hey.”

  Sarah turned at the sound of her voice. She’d been crying. Harper wanted to feel sorry for her, but she couldn’t. Sarah had thought she was upstairs giving her brother head, and she hadn’t even tried to stop her. Sarah had been willing to let it happen, and all to what, protect their stupid secret?

  “So, how was it?” Sarah asked, venom in her voice.

  “You really think I could do that?” Harper was aghast. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “You didn’t then?”

  “God, no, Sarah.” She took a long pull on her cigarette.

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to smoke anymore.”

  “Yeah, well.” Harper shrugged, taking another long drag and letting it forcefully out of her nose. “There are a lot of things I don’t want to do, but I seem to be doing them anyway.”

  “I don’t like the taste of cigarettes,” Sarah reminded her.

  “Well, it wasn’t you I was kissing, was it?” Harper said caustically, tossing her cigarette onto the lawn.

  “You did do something with him then?”

  “Oh, you’re seriously going to get mad at me? Isn’t this what you wanted? Would it even matter to you if I did? You thought I was up there with him doing that dare, and you just took off.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She wasn’t going
to cry.

  “I’m sorry.” Sarah turned from her. “I just couldn’t watch that.”

  When Sarah started to walk away, Harper grabbed at her wrists. “And you think it was easy for me, going up there with him? He asked me if it was just him I wasn’t into, or if it was all guys, so I kissed him. I kissed him to prove that I was normal.” She wiped the tear that fell from the corner of her right eye. “I hate this.”

  “I hate it too.” Sarah squeezed her hands. “I’m sorry I left. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this, Sarah.”

  “Shh, it’s okay.” She moved closer to her. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s just go somewhere and be together.”

  “What about Tyler?”

  “I don’t care about that right now. I want to be with you.”

  Harper studied her for a moment, then nodded. It was all the encouragement Sarah needed to lead her by the hand out the back gate. Once they were on the street, she kept hold of her hand, and started hurrying down the road with her.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know, anywhere.”

  “Sarah, slow down.” Harper stopped.

  “Come on.”

  “Where are you taking us? I’m so tired of this. I don’t want to keep lying and running away.” In that moment, she realized just how exhausted she was. Even in the dim lighting of the streetlights, the worry was clear in Sarah’s eyes.

  “Please, don’t do this,” Sarah said.

  “I have to. I need to break up with him.”

  “You can’t. We wouldn’t be able to be together even if you did. You know we can never be together in the open. My parents would kill me, Harper.” Her voice trembled.

  “You don’t know that. You’ve come to accept it, why couldn’t they?”

  “No.” Sarah moved back, choking on her words. “I haven’t.”

  Harper’s chest tightened. She’d thought that, deep down, Sarah had accepted what they were to each other, but if she hadn’t, there was no hope for them.

  “I hate myself, Sarah. I hate myself whenever I’m with Tyler. I hate myself for hating him, and for being a coward. I can’t do this anymore. We have to be honest. I want to tell people about us.”

  “People won’t understand, they’ll–”

  “Fuck what people think! I’m tired of giving in to what’s expected of us. I don’t care about the repercussions. I only care about being with you. I want to be with you out in the open, out loud. Why won’t you let me?”

  Sarah pulled Harper close. “We can’t come out,” she whispered in her ear. “No one will understand.”

  Harper sobbed and pulled away from Sarah’s hug, meeting her eyes. She was so scared. “We can do this, Sarah. We can be together. They can only hurt us if we let them.” She put a hand to Sarah’s cheeks, and wiped the tear that fell.

  “I can’t do it.” Sarah bowed her head.

  Harper took Sarah’s hand and brought it to her lips, brushing her knuckles with soft kisses. “I don’t understand why you’re so afraid of this. Maybe it’s not as real for you as it is for me? You have me, Sarah. You have me, and you care more about what other people think? We can do this together. I’m not ashamed of us. I’m proud to be with you. My whole life, you’re the first thing I’ve ever really wanted. The first thing that I wanted just for me, that Bronte didn’t dangle in front of me like a carrot, leading me to what she wanted for me. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.” This wasn’t just a crush anymore. She’d fallen in love with her.

  “Don’t you care what your friends think? What they’ll say?”

  “You mean my frenemies? No, you can have them all to yourself, if that’s what will make you happy.”

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “Like what? You’re the one who is making this so hard for us. It’s not a crime to be gay, you know.”

  “I don’t want to be gay, Harper!”

  Harper’s stomach lurched. “Why not?”

  Sarah shook her head. “You don’t get it. You’re living in a fantasy. You don’t know what it’s like to have everyone hate you. To walk into a room and have how much you’re not wanted there be palpable. I finally fit in. I finally, for the first time in my life, don’t have to feel that way anymore.”

  “But you’re not being honest with yourself.”

  “Maybe that’s a price I’m willing to pay. You think things will be okay when they all find out?” She pointed back in the direction of the party. “Everyone will hate us when they find out what we’ve been doing. That we’ve been lying to them. That we’ve been cheating on Tyler.”

  “You would rather keep them close than be who you really are?”

  “Who’s to say who I really am?”

  Harper took a step back. “I know who you are, Sarah.”

  “Do you? Do you even know who you are? Who you’d be without them telling you who you are?” Sarah’s words cut her to the quick.

  “At least I know who I’m not, and I’m not one of them. Not anymore.”

  “Harper—”

  “What? Are you going to tell me you want me to stay? To keep pretending? It’s killing me. Don’t you see that? It’s killing me, and you don’t even care.”

  “I do care.” Sarah stepped toward her and reached for her, but Harper shirked her off. Someone walked out of a nearby house, and Sarah pulled her hands back quickly.

  Harper laughed mirthlessly. “Right, as long as no one’s looking.”

  “I just need more time.”

  Harper shook her head sadly. How many times had she said the same thing to Tyler? “I could give you all the time in the world, and I don’t think it would be enough.”

  Sarah looked down at her shoes. “If we were to do this, no one would be on our side.”

  “I could have the world on my side, and I would feel alone if you weren’t with me. I’m on your side. I’ll always be on your side. Nothing could ever separate us or make me stop…” Harper stopped and cleared her throat. She’d almost said way too much. “Nothing could make me stop wanting to be with you.” She couldn’t say what she was really feeling, but she took Sarah’s hand, and put it to her heart like she had the first time they’d slept together. “You’re in here, and no one can take that away from us. You’re the only real thing in my life.”

  “Harper,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

  “After what we shared, I can’t believe you can say that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t you understand what you mean to me? Don’t I mean the same to you?”

  Sarah turned away, tears streaming down her cheeks, and Harper sobbed again, the aching in her chest was unbearable. It had all become too much. She was falling to pieces. “I can’t do it, Sarah. Not after what we did. I can’t share myself with someone else, and I can’t believe that you would want to share me like that.”

  “I don’t want to, but I can’t do what you’re asking.”

  This was it. She needed to make a decision. She would not live like this anymore. She was tired of waiting for Sarah to stop being ashamed of them. “I don’t know if it’s up to you anymore.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

  “If you don’t want me to end my relationship with Tyler, then maybe it’s time you stayed out of it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that if I’m Tyler’s girlfriend, then I’m Tyler’s girlfriend. If you don’t want to be with me…then I’ll be with him. So, what’s it going to be?” She had never meant for it to go this far, but she was scared, backed into a corner, and so tired of lying her heart was sick with it.

  “Y-you d-d-don’t mean that.”

  Harper steeled her jaw. “Did I stutter?”

  “Fuck you!” Sarah cried, then turned and ran into the darkness.

  “Arghhhhhh!” Harper screamed into the night air.
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  Her heart hurt worse than she ever thought possible. Had they just broken up? Could you break up when you were never really together in the first place? She wrapped her arms around herself protectively, more alone than she had ever felt in her life.

  Sarah wasn’t brave enough to be with her.

  Sarah didn’t want to be with her.

  She’d chosen fitting in over her feelings for her, and Harper wondered if Sarah had ever been as invested in their relationship as she was. It didn’t matter now though. It was over. Her ultimatum made sure of that, and Sarah had taken it without looking back.

  CHAPTER 22

  The days floated by Sarah as if she were in some kind of a dream. She’d stopped eating, stopped sleeping, and Harper had stopped talking to her. It was like it had been at the beginning, and she began to wonder if any of it had ever happened, if it had ever been real.

  Why did she have to be such a fucking coward? Why couldn’t she be as brave as Harper? Harper had given her confidence, made her feel strong, but now all of that fragile strength was gone. She’d made her decision to stay in the shadows as a coward, and Harper had made hers.

  “What happened between you and Harper?” Tyler asked her on the way home from school one late March afternoon. “Hello?” He waved a hand in front of her, and her annoyance grew. He’d won Harper, wasn’t that enough?

  “None of your business.”

  “Harper’s my girlfriend and she’s upset, so it is my business.”

  Was he kidding? “Stay the fuck out of it, Tyler,” she seethed. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  Tyler stopped walking and grabbed her arm. His face was red. “I fucking knew it,” he said between his teeth.

  He started walking again, too fast for her to keep up with, and after the first block, she stopped trying. She thought she was safe when they got home, but he had waited outside for her.

  He turned to her, his face a mix of pain and anger. “I would have supported you, but did it have to be my girlfriend?” His face twisted in more pain as he shoved the door open and ran up to his room.