“Helena, would you get in the car?”

Helena had walked quickly in the direction of her own home, and Bette guessed right in that respect at least.  By now, the rain was pouring once again—soaking the angry woman outside of Bette’s slow moving car.

Helena continued to stride determinedly in the drumming rain. Bette kept her window open as she drove slowly. She was relieved to notice that the air was not all that cooler outside than in, and that the rain itself was slightly warm. Around them, the streets glistened—but were strangely deserted.  Water ran in rivers down the drains.  And it seemed as though much of Los Angeles were holing up for something big.  Bette had the sudden panicky urge to get them both in doors.

“Babe…this is probably acid rain…your hair isn’t going to like it.” Bette had no fucking idea if this was acid rain.

That did it anyway.

Helena stopped, turned, and walked toward the car.

“Take me home.” She said quietly when she had settled in.

“Can’t we talk?” Bette asked meekly. She still had not gotten used to this mode of fighting.  Helena had closed the car door gently—gently—where Bette expected it to be slammed. She was obviously hurt, and unlikely to cover it up with anything so easy as anger.

“if you don’t trust me,” Helena said calmly. “Then I see no point in discussing it. I do, however, apologize for shouting and swearing at you.”

“You don’t have to apologize, I deserved it.  And…It’s not that I don’t trust you.”

“Then you don’t trust yourself? You would be inclined to cheat on me, if left alone for five minutes with one of your dysfunctional ex-girlfriends?”

Bette thought about that one. She often wondered why she had been so tempted to cheat on Tina, and why she simply had no urge with Helena.  Was it about time spent together, given that she and Tina had been together for so long? An inevitable decline in excitement and passion—as though these things had expiry dates? She no longer believed in these clichés.

“What happens, when you’ve done the work, processed a thing to death,” Bette signaled to pull out into the street once again, choosing to take Helena where she wanted to go, as a gesture of goodwill.