Bette was silent, taking everything in. It was so hard to believe and yet it made so much sense. The interest Tina had in her, the mails, the care, the phone calls… everything. The look in her eyes sometimes that Bette had never been able to define. She felt like pinching herself, just to make sure this was real. It couldn’t be, could it?

Tina took Bette’s silence as a rejection and was already starting to panick when the brunette finally spoke.

“This is really a big surprise,” Bette admitted. “Certainly since I’ve been feeling the same way about forever. Things are such a blur in my head, Shane probably knows better how long it’s been. I think since my second of third year.”
“Wow,” was all Tina could say.

Silence.

“So what do we do now? We can’t be together,” Tina said.

“But you just said you’re in love with me?”

“Yeah, but how would we manage it? You going to college, me still being here. Don’t get me wrong, I would quit my job immediately if it meant us being together, but you’ll lead such a different life. I don’t want you to miss out on college life because of me, you’ll end up blaming me later.”

“I still can’t believe we are actually having this conversation… I’ve dreamed about it for so long, it just feels so weird. Why would you be in love with me? There are so many other people out there who are so much better than I am.”

“Nobody is better than anybody else.”

“And I’m sorry ms Kennard, but -”

“Tina.”

Bette frowned her eyebrows.

“I’m not your teacher anymore. You can call me Tina now.”

“Oh. Right. So, Tina, I think you know me well enough by now to realise that I’m not someone who likes parties all that much. I don’t see the fun of it.”

“But if we wanted to be together, that would mean we would have to live together?”

“Wow, wait a second. This is just so much to take in – I have been having a crush on you that developed to deep feelings for so long and it hurt me so much to talk to you and look at you and hold you and know that you were with Jesse and it would never happen and now it does and it doesn’t make any sense! Why would you love me? Why on earth would you love me? You must be having a wrong image of me, you are so much better and better looking and a better person and you deserve so much more than me. Maybe I should just go now? I don’t deserve you at all…”

Bette was already up and ready to go when Tina pushed her down again and straddled her, her hands firmly on her shoulders.

“Now listen to me, Bette Porter. I am absolutely positively very much in love with you and I’m going to show you just how much. You are a wonderful person, without you I would never have gotten the help I needed after my miscarriage, you were there for me when the father of my lost child wasn’t, I thought for so long you’d want someone younger and more like you and now I hear about your feelings, I’m not planning to ever let you go!”

Before Bette could protest against any of that, Tina crashed her lips onto Bette’s. The scorching kiss was full of the feeling of lost time, despair, jealousy, hurt, love, passion, everything they had been going through for the past months. 

When they finally had to let go to take some air, they rested their foreheads against each others. Both of them were crying silently, letting everything out. Tina kissed Bette’s tears away, moving her hand up and down through Bette’s hair. They were panting.

“I love you,” Bette whispered. “I thought I’d never get to say this but fucking hell, I love you so much it hurts.”

“Then let me ease the pain.”