It had only taken a matter of minutes before Tina was sound asleep. Bette’s mind refused to let her relax, with all that had gone on there was too much think about. Most of all she was concerned about what was going to happen when the shock wore off…would Tina still want her back? She had been so upset, so angry. Was it realistic to expect that she could just let that go and they could pick up their life again? Bette suspected not. It was 3:12am the last time she looked at the alarm-clock, by 3:16am she had drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Daylight eventually summoned Bette from her slumber to find she was alone. She walked out to find Tina at the dining table staring blankly into her coffee. Out of habit she walked over and kissed Tina on the top of her head.

“Hey”

“Hi, Babe” Tina seemed to find her coffee infinitely more interesting and didn’t look up.

“What’s up?” Bette asked pulling up a chair at the table.

“You’ve got to learn to let go, Bette” Tina stated, not moving her attention from the mug of coffee.

The words had much the same effect as the slap that Tina had laid on her, shock, fear, pain, they engulf Bette and she was struggling to stay afloat. ‘This can’t be happening’ Bette thought ‘I can’t ***** believe this is happening’. She tried to gather her thoughts into some semblance of order.

“I know” Bette replied, resigning herself the increasingly familiar feeling of failure.

“You can’t just expect to deal with everything on your own, you’ve got to stop getting yourself into these situations where you are always fighting to survive – almost getting fired over Provocations, taking on Faye Buckley. You’ve got to stop making life so hard for yourself, for us”

“***** Tina” Bette sighed with relief, allowing herself a small chuckle. Tina looked up to see what was so funny.

“I’m serious” Tina insisted, not finding anything amusing.

“Jesus…baby I thought you were dumping me all over again”

“What?” Her eyes were wide with surprise

“Telling me that I had to let go” Bette prompted “I thought you meant that I had to let you go”