It was almost 3:00 in the morning and Bette awoke with a start. Her heart was racing, her anxiety level high, breathing shallow and rapid.  She thrust her arms out blindly, finding her eyes were unable to adjust in the dark.  She groped urgently around her for a light switch.

A warm arm curled around her waist tightened to hug her closer, and a quiet moan by her ear brought her senses back into focus.

Tina.

Bette took a deep breath, blew out slowly.

Tina was here.  Beside her.

She felt a sense of calm come over her, and shut her eyes.  She said a prayer of thanks, and then turned slowly onto her back, taking care not to wake the sleeping blonde.

Bette stared at the ceiling. Over the last month, unexplained panic attacks would hit her at random times, frequently at night, but sometimes during the day.  She had tried various calming techniques, deep breathing, intense, hours-long exercise sessions, including innumerable laps in the pool, running in the trails by the river, or biking for miles out to the countryside.

None had worked as well as the simple tightening of Tina’s arm around her just now, a reassuring embrace from the sleeping blonde, and the warm, steady breaths she felt on her ear.

She reflected that, at some level, what had happened between them eluded understanding, really, given how deeply the beautiful blonde had become ingrained into the very meaning of Bette’s life, and whatever was to come in her life.

Bette shook her head. Why, suddenly, love?   Six months ago, one could say she had almost everything she thought she needed, had accomplished every goal she had set out, and was in the midst of several projects that, altogether, brought her to the doorstep of realizing every ambition she had ever had.

She didn’t know a love like this was possible for her.  Which was probably why she was so drawn to and had been so committed to art.  Certainly through innumerable relationships in her past she had experienced what she thought was love.  She even thought lightning had struck on several occasions, consuming passion, in some cases, that caught fire and lasted for a few months.

But not once, in any of those relationships, had she thought: I’ll take everything I have, and throw it all away.  Leave everything I know, for her. For her, I would do what would have been unthinkable.  For her, I would take on the world, start all over again, if necessary, and defeat it.  For her.