Chapter 3

Tina was swimming frantically as the thoughts raced through her head. She couldn’t get her head around the beauty she had just met. She sure understood why Shane had been so exited about her.

Tina didn’t know what to think. Bette Porter made her feel strange. She desperately wanted to touch her, talk to her. This was an unfamiliar feeling. The touch earlier in the pool hadn’t been an accident. Tina was very confused about how she felt and she didn’t know what to do. A few minutes later, Shane joined her.

“If you keep on going like that, you’re gonna be dead by tonight,” her sister told her. “What’s wrong?”

“Bette,” Tina said slowing down. “It’s just… I don’t know. Weird.”

“I guess I can bury my little dream of a long-term relationship with her. If she had been interested in that kind of thing with me at all.”

“What do you mean?” Tina asked, confused. Shane had sounded so sure earlier. “Have you even talked to her properly?”

“Come on, Tee, you can’t be that blind. She can’t keep her eyes off of you.”

Tina blushed. “I just – well, I don’t know. I mean, I’m straight, but she just… there’s something about her, I can’t explain it. It’s scary.”

Shane leant against the edge of the pool and so did Tina.

“Have you ever kissed a girl?”

“No.”

“Then how can you know if you’re gay or straight?”

“Pete… I really love him, you know.” Tears started to well in Tina’s eyes and she did her best to stop them. “I can’t be gay…”

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t like girls. Maybe you’re bisexual?”

“No – I’m not, I know I’m not. I just, well, please don’t tell Bette, okay? I seriously need to figure this out on my own, I don’t need her knowing it.”

“She’s all over you, you know.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“What? Why?”

“I can’t cheat on Pete.”

“Tina,” Shane said, taking both of her sister’s hands. “Pete and you… that’s over. It’s the past now. You’ll both meet new people, you can’t stop yourself because of him.”

Tina bowed her head. “I just, I don’t know, okay? I don’t really want to talk about this. I’ll see what happens. Anyway, Bette’s probably not really interested.”