Chapter 17

“Are you insane?” she cried out when Bette finally parked the car.

Realizing they were sitting in the car right in the middle of a cemetery.

“Are you insane?!” Tina cried out again, holding her belly instinctively
protecting her unborn child.

The car lights were the only lights they could see. Everything else was dark.

Tina’s heavy breathing was the only sound echoing in the air. When she finally
snapped out of her initial shock, Tina was surprised to see it wasn’t as scary
as she thought. A little spooky maybe, but not unbearably terrifying.

She knew it was only because she had Bette next to her that made her
feel a little more secure to be sitting there at that time of the night.

She looked over to Bette who was still silent. Her facial expression, blank.

That was when Bette began to talk.
“This is me,” she said in a soft voice, her words breaking the silence of
the night.
“Without you, I’m dead… There is no ME anymore. There’s only the memories
of us back then when you still loved me. When you thought I was your
one and only…when I was alive.”
“I may seem alright… I breath and I walk among all the living people on this
earth…. I go to work, I have lunch with friends… but inside… I know… this is where I belong… These are the people I relate to the most…the dead.”

“Without you…without you, Tina…I have no life and it doesn’t matter what
tomorrow will bring…if it’s good or bad… it means nothing to me.”
“You are my life. The only reason for my existence.”

“You may not believe it…God you have every right not to, but I promise you,
I never, not in a million years thought it would come to this. I know now I was
heading here regardless of how much love you gave me or how much I loved
you. It was the only way I learned…. the only way I surrendered….lost control.”


Tina was listening, trying to make sense of what Bette was telling her. Surprisingly,
it all did. It made perfect sense and she leaned back letting Bette do the talking.

Bette: “I brought you here, Tina,” Bette continued in the same tone as before.
“I brought you here to show you how precious life is. How it can all be over in
a blink of an eye… and to tell you that I don’t want to spend anymore minutes…
seconds without you… I can’t be without you.”
“I don’t want to be without you.”
“I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful it feels to be just sitting next to you.
To breath in your smell, to look at you here, carrying a new life inside of you.”
She glimpsed over to the line of graves in front of them.
“These poor souls have no more chances…. This is the end of the road for them…
maybe they too needed a second chance in life and never got it… Maybe they
never tried, but we…you and I..maybe we can still have that chance. Maybe this
is their end….”

She shifted her head back to Tina’s direction.
“…There end and our beginning, a new life for us with a new life inside of you.”
“I don’t know… if there’s one thing I learned in therapy,” she laughed.
“Yes, in therapy.”
“I learned that I don’t have all the answers to everything all the time, but there is
one thing I do know…. I know I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t try to make us work again. I know that I can’t continue till my last day not knowing that at least…. I tried.”

Bette’s voice was trembling. She exhaled trying to hold back the tears from coming.
She looked over to Tina with so much love in her eyes, Tina thought she would faint
from its intensity.

“T, if you really don’t want to give us another chance …and its breaking my heart to say it… If you love someone else and don’t want to hear from me again… I will accept it with all the respect and love I have for you.”
“If that’s what you really want, I will let you go because the most important thing for
me is that you will be happy…. with or without me.”

Tina sat there taking in all of what Bette had just told her. She couldn’t believe it.
Bette talking so openly about her emotions. The same Bette that took her a year
just to say I love you for the first time. The same Bette who wouldn’t even hear
about going to therapy is now openly discussing her discoveries in therapy sessions. And most of all, this new humble person in front of her was genuinely willing to let her go if it made her happy.

Tina was speechless. Not able to respond to this unconditional, unexpected love monologue from Bette.

It was only minutes after Bette stopped talking…minutes after they both sat there in silence that Bette reached out and touched Tina’s belly. The touch was electrifying, sending warm vibrations through both of their bodies. It was magical. It sent them both into a different level of excitement.

They knew it was all it took for them to cross all the barriers and finally, once again, re-connect.

Bette had realized that Tina did not say a word since they parked the car. She needed
some sort of reaction from her. Even though she felt the shiver that ran through Tina’s
body when she touched her, she wasn’t sure if it was Tina’s body trembling to her
touch or her own body and her shaky hand that was trembling.
She needed to know…she needed an answer. Was it just her or was Tina responding
to her touch the same way she hoped she would?”

Bette: “Is there anything you want to say to me, T?”

Tina put her hand over Bette’s hand who was still caressing her belly. The storm of
emotions she was in was too much for her to handle.
Her body exploded in a warm sensation, not willing to let go of the familiar hand touching it.
She squeezed Bette’s hand and let out a moan. Letting out her first words since they parked.

Tina: “Bette,” she whispered. “My water just broke…”


TBC