“What is it Al? If you keep going like that, you’ll make a hole on the floor”

“Dana is due back tomorrow afternoon”

“Oh, I see” Bette didn’t know what else to say

“It’s going to be ok Al” Tina jumped in the conversation “She must have thought things over, I’m sure you’re gonna work this out, I mean, you love each other, right?

“I know I love her, I can only speak for myself” she looked hopeless “I’m leaving now, I’m meeting Shane at her place, Carmen has to dj tonight and Shane doesn’t feel like going, good way to support your new girlfriend, but we know, it’s Shane!”

Everybody kept avoiding Lara, they felt like they were carrying the weight of the world on the shoulders just by knowing that Dana and Lara “had been talking” while Dana had emailed Alice three times, none of those mails were longer than four lines.  The last one was sent the day before when Dana had lost on the second round in Barcelona, at first she wanted to play in two tournaments but then she decided to give it a shot in Spain thinking that more time away focusing on her career would be good, but this wasn’t the case, the previous tournaments had been exhausting and the high temperature in Barcelona didn’t help her either to recover and that was what the mail said:

“Hey Al, I guess I should have listened to you when you told me that I focus  more on  keeping a good shape and not only on playing good, you have no idea how hot is the weather here… anyway, I’m taking a couple of days off to visit Barcelona.  I hope you’re doing better than me at the magazine and the radio.  Take care of yourself, I’ll see you soon.

Love,

Dane

That mail could take anybody’s hopes down in a minute, that’s why Alice had come to Bette and Tina so they can given her hopes back but nothing seemed to work, she knew that she had to come clean with her feelings for Dana and let her know, she was decided to fight for her love but of course there was always Lara……

But Bette and Tina didn’t seem to being doing great either, of course that they weren’t fighting or anything but they weren’t them either, Alice knew that she had to talk to one of them to find out what the problem was but now she was in no condition of taking care of someone else’s business but she’ll do it soon, the reconciliation of her two friends made her really happy however something wasn’t right, whatever it may be it’s in the environment and you can feel it she thought.  And she wasn’t mistaken, these three weeks have been nothing but cordial among them, they hadn’t fight, they had only spoken the necessary and they had treated each other respectfully not because they wanted to do it but just to avoid arguing, Bette thought that maybe it was too soon to try to pretend that they were the same couple before the affair and Tina thought that she better tried to get along with Bette for the time being for Angelica, she also thought that it was too soon to pretend nothing had happened.  When she didn’t agree with Bette about a domestic issue she gave in and let Bette to make the final decision, when Bette didn’t agree with Tina about Angelica, it was her time to give in; they both knew this wasn’t healthy but at least it was for the best.