"What about Emily for a girl?"

"NO!" Tina almost screamed. She quickly recovered. "I’m sorry, but no. I don’t like that name."

"R-ight," Jesse frowned. Where did that reaction come from? Didn’t everybody like that name? "And what about Amy? It has to do with love."

"Amy is really common, but I’ll think about it."

######################

Bette was feeling absolutely miserable. She couldn’t talk about it to Kit, simply because she didn’t like discussing her emotions with her sister. She didn’t know what held her back, she didn’t know why she couldn’t just open her mouth and say it, but somehow Kit seemed too close and yet too far away, too much in a different world.

She couldn’t talk to Shane, because she had promised ms Kennard that she wouldn’t tell anyone about her pregnancy and Shane might be one of her students next year. She knew she could trust Shane, but she remained silence on principle. She had given her word and she would keep it.

The days went by too slowly. A basketball practice twice a week, Candace trying again and again to ask her out with her friends. Bette didn’t want to and she had stopped making excuses. After all, what did she care? Candace could think about her what she wanted.

In a strange way, ms Kennard’s pregnancy had made her numb in places. She no longer cared what people thought, she no longer cared whether she would get run over by a car and sometimes she wished that happened – that she would have an accident and just die. What point was there in a life without ms Kennard? This woman was the only one who understood her and completed her. She had an image of her that probably was way too perfect, but it was there, and nobody she met would live up to that image. Her relationship with Emily had proven that.

As the last week of August approached, her nerves were getting the better of her. She would see ms Kennard again soon and she didn’t know how to behave. She would just wait and see. 

She went to her laptop and read ms Kennard’s last mail again. It was the one where she adviced Bette to go and talk to a therapist about the situation with her father. Ms Kennard had even looked up some adresses that fitted in her wallet. Bette smiled a bitter smile. This was just so her, to try and help her so much. Little did she know she was the end of her, the person who could make her or break her, who was right now breaking her into a thousand pieces. She would never know. She would be happy. Bette would pretend to be happy. Bette would become a teacher and teach at this school she attended. She and Ms Kennard would be colleagues, maybe friends, but never more than that. It was the scenario she had played in her head so many times. It was the best it would ever get for her. Just a colleague, maybe a friend, but ms Kennard would never know just how she felt. Never.