“You could have said no.” Bette’s pursed lips emphasized an already tense mouth before she continued, “You didn’t have to accept the invitation.”

Tina nullified, “I thought it was from the both of you.”  The seated woman was just as confused as the one by the door of her trailer.

“Why would I have invited you over with some girl who’s after you to Jodi’s dinner party?” the upright woman asked incredulously.

Why would Tina think that? 

What reason would there be to want to see her with someone else?  Did she think it would aid in masking what was developing between them? 

That there wasn’t a connection that was resurfacing?

Why?

A very direct answer followed.

“You’re the one that’s with Jodi.”

Silence.

“And I kissed you.”  Bette admitted quietly. 

She detested herself in countless ways for doing so.  How could she again resort to clandestine displays of affection while with someone else she supposedly loved?   But the darker toned woman couldn’t fight it.  The power that urged and impelled was entirely beyond her. 

How could this happen again?  With, of all people, her former partner?  The one she cheated on but deserved the purity of intent in the everyday.  The same loyalty and respect that Jodi deserved now…

How Tina must hate what happened too.  Though it seemed like ages ago it was still so fresh in the brunette’s mind she could almost feel the sharp strike to her cheek the night of the confrontation.  It must have reminded the lighter haired woman of what drove finality on their waning union. 

The blonde sighed heavily.  “I kissed you too.”

Stalemate. 

‘What now?’ they both thought in the torturous silence that ensued which showed how neither knew what this all meant.  How were they to resolve the obscurity and complexity that lingered in the air between them since that night?  Added to that the faltering and ambiguity that blanketed their present.

“We just had this thing…this moment and you’re okay with that?”

Perhaps a defeatist attitude would be the answer.

“It’s kind of a foregone conclusion.”

“No it’s not,” Bette quickly disputed the certainty of it all.  “Not for me.”

“I don’t want to be part of you and Jodi breaking up.”  She knew how that felt.  To be ignorant and deceived.  But now she was part of it even though Tina wanted nothing like this to ever touch them again. 

Yet here they were…

“I don’t really like who I’m becoming right now.”   As a mother, a girlfriend, why would she ever want to do this to anyone again?”  

“Why did you do it?”

“I…” how was she to encapsulate all that it meant?

“I couldn’t…resist.”  It sounded quite empty but the three words meant so much more.  The longing.  The hope.  The overwhelming wish for what seemed impossible until now. 

Tina felt the emotion.  But the deeper meaning was too much given she already wanted to explode in her own ache for Bette. 

She herself now couldn’t.  Not after all they had been through.  Instead she resorted to anger and confusion that prompted her to say then trail off for her former lover to finish the rest.

“Just like before…”

The inference brought them back to square one. 

And the silence was deafening. 

It felt like the twelfth round of a boxing match.  With everything bruised and only an intense will that remained to keep Bette from being cradled by the artificial rubber at her feet, Tina’s statement dealt the slaughtering blow.  Would it always come back to that?  When there was so much now that this could mean her once partner would grasp on to the bitter memory of the mistake that kept them apart for so long? 

Bette turned to the door with a weariness that signaled there was nothing left to be said. 

Or was there?

“Wait,” Tina said urgently.  She stood quickly and rushed to embrace Bette from behind.

The taller woman squirmed to break away but Tina pressed into her even more. 

“I kissed you too.” The blonde repeated from earlier.  Then said what she kept secret since that night.

“I touched you and I never wanted to let go,” she whispered.

Right then, positioned as they were, each let out soulful gasps of yearning that meant there was more… 

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