As Dana laced up her shoes she yelled at Alice. “I getting out of the ***** house, are you happy.” Dana also made a point of slamming the door as she left not caring what her neighbors thought.

Alice stepped out of her bedroom after hearing Dana slamming the door. That was hard, she thought to herself, but she knew Dana needed to start learning to be away for her. Tournament season was about to start, and if Dana didn’t get over this separation anxiety, it was going start interfering with her career. Funny thing was if it was up to Alice, she wouldn’t mind having Dana around 24/7, and Dana was probably the only person she felt that way about. But unlike Dana, she knew the road the two of them were taking was unrealistic and probably unhealthy.

COUNTRY CLUB TENNIS COURTS

Dana made a point of being gone four hours, just to show Alice she could do it. It was hard because after the first hour all she really wanted to do was go home. The first hour at the club, she spent hitting tennis balls, hitting them as hard as she could. This helped her get a lot of the anger she was carrying out, but after the release of anger and adrenaline, she could feel the anxiety coming back.

She sat down on the bench on the edge of the court and tried to reason with herself what was going on in her head. She knew Alice was OK, she looked like *****, but she really was OK. She also knew she needed to continue with her own life, but at the present time, it really was hard for her to stay focused on anything other then Alice. She didn’t understand why everyone was pushing her away from Alice. It had only been a few days since the beating, they just needed to give her time to get over it, plus this wasn’t about her this was about Alice.

And then she thought about Alice. She knew some of her problems was the fact that as she stood there watching Alice being beaten the other night, she realized she felt like she was dying, along with her. She didn’t know if she would ever get the image out of her head of Alice curled in a ball, as the man continued to kick her. He just kept kicking her, no matter how much she cried or begged, he just kept kicking Alice. And she could do nothing, which upset Dana even more. She was fit, ***** she was an athlete, but all she could do was beg and cry. And had Shane not come by, Alice would be dead and all she could do was beg and cry. Dana reached up and wiped the tears that were forming in her eyes. She looked at her watch seeing she had let enough time pass. “***** this.” she said as she headed back to the club house so she could pick up her stuff and head back home.