Chapter 24

Bette and Tina just sat on the shore of the beach just gazing out into the horizon. Hours had passed and they still didn’t have the courage to go back home, and there was so much yet to figure out. Tina sighed. She looked at Bette and smiled.

“Where do we go from here?”

“I’m not sure, but we do have two other people to think about.”

“Yah I know, but wow; I never though we’d end up back here.”

“I know what you mean. Although I have to say; when I’m around you Tina, I feel like the separation had never happened, but when I think about Ashley, I realize that it had; and what I’d done. I keep replaying it in my head trying to figure out the exact moment everything went wrong.”

Tina shook her head. She placed her hand on Bette’s shoulder.

“Bette, just leave it in the past. If we have a shot at this, assuming you want to. Do you?”

Bette looked at Tina. Her eye brows furrowed. She look absolutely flabbergasted.

“I can’t even believe you asked that. Tina this is all I’ve been waiting for, for 18 years. You’ve always been the love of my life. And all I want to do is show you how much I love you, and how much I missed you for the rest of your life.”

“Bette you have no debt to me. You don’t have to do any of that.”

“I know I don’t have to do any of it for you.”

“Oh so you have to do it for someone else.”

She pounded the sand with her fist. She used it as leverage to get up off the sand and began to walk away before Bette had even understood what was going. Tina decided to turn around and say one last thing when she thought she was a good distance away, but when she turned around little did she know Bette was right behind her. She was met with another spontaneous kiss this time she pushed Bette back.

“Will you quit with that?”

Tina yelled. She was losing her resolve extremely quickly as she continued to pant from the excitement, and surprise in the kiss.

“NO! Tina Kennard you have a habit of running away, and I refuse to let you do it anymore. If that means that I have to keep following you and kissing you until you finally break down and realize that I love you more than anyone else in this world, I will continue to do it. You know me too well Tina to give up.”

Tina face turned red. She was pissed at that last statement. It would have been one of the most romantic speeches she’d ever heard had she not heard the end of it.

“Not to give up? NOT TO GIVE UP! Bette you’ve already given up on me once!”

“I did because I thought that is what you wanted!”

“And what makes you think I don’t want it now!?!”

“Because Tina, I can see that you are pushing me away because you are afraid. You don’t’ think I’m not! I’m so fucking afraid that you’ll keep walking out on me!”

“How dare you!?”

“How dare I? How about you? We could have worked things out. It’s not like either one of us to walk away from a situation, but that didn’t stop you did it. And you continue to do it. Twice in one day has to be a record. Do you enjoy seeing me hurt.”

Tina began to cry. From a lot of things. From the truth in Bette’s statements, from the audacity, from the fact that Bette had admitted to being hurt by her, and that was what hurt the most.

“No! I don’t like seeing you hurt. I don’t like seeing you hurt, and that’s WHY I run. I can’t take the look of pain on your face!”

“TINA!!!!”

Bette screamed. The frustration was becoming so much. She loved this woman with every fiber of her being. Tina began to walk away again, but this time Bette pushed her to the ground, straddled her, pinned her wrists to the sand and began to kiss her lips hard. The kiss didn’t last long there it soon followed to her neck and back up to her jaw line. She pulled away and looked into Tina’s eyes. She saw hunger, and lust, but most of all she saw love.

“Tina that only way that you can hurt me enough to make it matter is if you run from me again. Don’t leave me. Stay. I promise I’ve changed, and I promise to make you the happiest woman alive.”