Tina wasn’t sure what she was attempting to penetrate as she stared intensely at the glass-topped bar in front of her. She had subconsciously slipped into deep thought about the past few years of her life, attempting to understand why turmoil was rearing its head at that moment. Her finger circled the condensation that lingered on the outside of her martini glass providing a feeling of contentment as mental anguish began to encapsulate her senses. She had long ago forgotten where she was and had lost awareness of the outside world around her…as the plague of her thoughts settled in.

“I know you loved me…and I know what we once had was real”

The statement was said so matter-of-factly that Tina couldn’t help but quiver at the thought that any glimmer of hope for reconciliation with her past lover was all but gone, and she was overwhelmed with the feeling that she’d given up her last chance because of selfish innuendo. It was hard for her to accept the fact that she had acted so coldly to the one person she identified as her heartbeat….but on the other hand, although she had made mistakes that could only be explained out of sheer disappointment and resentment, she knew why. She knew why she acted in such a manner. At the time, she could not give her heart again…whether she decided to leave the past and move on with her life, or follow her intuition and give the relationship another try…no matter the outcome of the decision at that time…ultimately she was broken, and could not allow the wounds caused by her ex-lover to ever be reopened…in trusting Bette again she would have to trust her completely…trust that she was the only one for Bette…back then Tina didn’t believe it…actually at the time she wondered if Bette only wanted to be with her because of Angelica…she knew Bette loved her but how could she still be in love with her?…After the infidelity and leaving for months after their dismayed breakup?…They had never really talked about it and the circumstances that lead to what had happened…to that day Tina didn’t really know why there was infidelity but she had blamed herself and had never been cleared as the guilty party…so she continued to feel it was her own shortcomings that caused the relationship’s demise…Why did it happen…Was Bette really in love with her?…Was she?…And if so, when did she fall out of love…and why…was it because Tina had become someone she didn’t want…someone who could not fulfill her anymore…how could she ever fulfill her again…could she love and be loved and they love each other wholeheartedly ever again?…..and with that type of doubt she pushed Bette as far away as she could…it wasn’t right…but painfully it was the truth. She had lost her now, and her first, last, and never again was in the arms of another woman. Tina stroked the picture of her daughter on her key ring smiling gleefully back at her as the questions replayed in her head. She was finally pulled from her mental stupor by the noise of a chair next to her scuffing the floor.