Alice

After the match Dana and I returned to our room. I was aware that the mirror in the bathroom was still broken after I had punched it and my mind was racing with possible explanations that I could give Dana.

When Dana walked into the bathroom about half an hour later she came out again with a puzzled expression.

“Al, what happened to the mirror?”

“Um…” Shit. There weren’t exactly many explanations that I could give, apart from the truth and I didn’t want to lie to Dana, so I decided to tell her the truth. I looked down at the grazes on my knuckles. “I punched it”. My gaze drifted up to see Dana’s reaction.

“You punched it?” Dana saw my hand and ran over to sit on the bed beside me, taking my hand in hers and stroking it. She looked up at me with a questioning expression. “What the fuck Alice, why?”

“Um” Again I struggled to find the words to explain. “I was annoyed….at myself”

Dana’s grasp on my hand tightened. “Alice” Her voice was soft and quiet. “Why were you annoyed at yourself?”

“Because I just ran off like that, for getting jealous when I shouldn’t have doubted you for a second. For hurting you. I always told myself that I would never hurt you”.

“Al, it’s ok, you had a right to react the way you did when you saw another girl kissing me. Please, I don’t want you to punish yourself for it, it was silly little fight. I can’t bear the thought of you hurting yourself” Dana lifted my hand to her mouth and lightly kissed the rough grazes on each knuckle.

“I’m sorry. Let’s just forget about it ok? You need to concentrate on the competition”. I didn’t really want to carry on the conversation that we were having and I didn’t want Dana to ask any more question that I would not want to answer.

“I know and I am concentrating on it. I just don’t want you to be upset and I especially don’t want you to hurt yourself. Are we okay now? You believe me that it was the other woman who came onto me right?” I leant forward and kissed Dana softly on the lips.