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Another Left Turn – Chapter 3
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Alice had been still trying to get a server, but now froze with her hand in mid air.
‘You’re what?’ she said.
Tina tugged her shirt down a little and said again: ‘I’m getting married. Carrie asked me last week.’
Slowly, Alice lowered her hand – and her jaw. Tina watched her, waiting for the news to sink in, but then the server came and took their order. When she’d left again, Tina could not help but notice that Alice looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.
‘I, uh . . . I think it’s traditional to congratulate people when they say they’re engaged,’ Tina said, with a hollow chuckle.
Alice looked down at her hands, endlessly twisting her Lamy fountain pen. ‘Sorry,’ she said. Then she nodded, emphatically. ‘Congratulations.’
Tina felt tears prickle her nose, but she blinked them back. She hadn’t known exactly what reaction she’d get from her old friends but, truthfully, she was taken aback that Alice wasn’t even pretending.
‘Is uh . . . Is Bette okay?’ Alice asked.
Tina took a slowly measured breath. ‘I think so,’ she replied.
Alice nodded again, still playing with the pen, so Tina gently took it from her and placed it out of reach. Their eyes then met for a long moment. Tina wondered if Alice was remembering the same thing she was remembering. A night almost seventeen years ago when Alice had come home to her apartment to find Tina sitting on her couch, sobbing, desolate, her heart shattered by the discovery that Bette had been fucking another woman. Alice had opened her home and her heart to her then. She’d let her stay, she’d screened her calls, she’d met Bette in her stead to ask her to be out of the house when she went to collect her things. But now – now, in a complicated situation – Tina was the bad guy.
‘So . . .’ Alice said, seeming to recover from the shock of Tina’s announcement, ‘Carrie, huh?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, good for you. It’s about time one of you moved the fuck on. Properly, I mean. Not the bullshit Porter gets up to.’
Tina smiled weakly. ‘I heard you were mad at her.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be? She lied to my face.’
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I am enjoying this. Leading up to an endgame? Just wish that would happen. Thank you and great writing????????
Thanks, Jane. So pleased you like the story. It’s a great motivator to keep on with it. :-)
Thanks for commenting.
Endgame is coming…
Play it slow to endgame. You have captured the essence of these two character’s relationship wonderfully. I am hanging on every word.
Thanks you, SuperK – I hope you like the next instalment
This was a fantastic piece of writing…..great descriptions….full of the past and the present…and laced with the confused feeling of both Bette and Tina. Tina is getting more confused by the hour. Remembering and analyzing her own past behavior and not quite sure what to make of her own actions and reactions. Bette too trying to make sense of Tina’s behavior past and present.
The final gesture of sending Tina her wedding ring to signal that the relationship which was their marriage is truly over was really sweet and heart breaking. She is truly making an effort to honor Tina desire to move on. However, if Tina gets more involved in Angie’s life, emotionally Bette will still very much have problems moving on.
Tina has still not addressed the response she received from Angie. It was the same response she received from Alice. And its the same response as Shane has but is respectfully keeping to herself. Tina is right – she is the bad guy in this little saga. Hopefully, she will come to her senses before they actually have a ceremony.
So Carrie is a lawyer? That is freaky! Wonder how she met her?
Love that smell of bananas references – laughed my self silly. Great humor!!
This is truly a five star chapter…. I’m impressed with your talent and your ability to link in the backstory to the current progress of the story. Your story line has real depth and understanding of the complexities of human nature. I look forward to whatever you wish to publish. I am just blown away with this chapter….. Thank you for making my week.
Wow – thank YOU for making MY week, Martha3128! What a really lovely comment for me to read. Thank you for taking the time to write it and for following the story so closely.
I’m glad you, like me, enjoy weaving the past and present of the Tibette story together. Great love affairs are rare and fascinating, and much more fun to write about than they would ever be to live, I’m sure.
Tina is waking up. She’s been asleep a long, long time.
Glad you found the bananas funny too. Such an Alice thing to do. I loved writing that.
Many thanks again. x
Wow, that took bravery. Bette is saying that Tina is free to go, marry Carrie and love their daughter. Carrie is the losing pawn in this act. Tina loves Bette, period.
Yeah, Bette is… immense here. A gesture of true love and caring. Makes my heart swell!
Thanks so much for commenting :-)
Thank you for continuing to post this story.
I am really loving your take on the new Show and how you are bringing in the past.
Love how you write, you have a great talent.
You make me laugh, bananas, and you make me cry, notes in rings!
Looking forward to more
SG
I’m so pleased you stuck with it, SG! It means so much to me that people are reading and coming along for the ride with these two.
Thank you for commenting and I’m glad I made you laugh :-) I love writing Alice, she’s so huge and colourful
Oh my gosh. W.H. Auden. One of my absolute favorites coming at me like a train in the night in this story. I read this at work and had to take a minute to process.
What a fantastic chapter. I can not. I love this story. I love how we can hear Tina’s unraveling,.. her unbecoming… as she wraps her brain around her own role in the demise of their relationship, her need to hurt overriding everything. It looks like she is coming to terms with the changes she needs to make to give Bette the partner she deserves. Isn’t Carrie a poor substitute with all the same tendencies the old Bette showed but that the new Bette has overcome;…
And Bette! Woah. She just laid it all on the line and…. I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT.
So very glad you kept writing. I will wait patiently for the next installment as Tina draws ever so closer to Bette.. …. thank you for this beautiful story.
Thanks, BK! I love your writing too. One thing I’m realising is that writing fanfic is leaving me much less time for *reading* fanfic, so I have to fix that and catch up!
I’m glad you see Tina this way. Unraveling is the right word. She’s been running too long. (I just realised I made her meet Carrie because of running… haha, the subconscious strikes)
And yeah, that Auden quote is killer, isn’t it? So tender and beautifully phrased. I’m glad it resonated with you. Thanks so much for commenting and encouraging me to push on. It means a lot. X
I think it’s time for Tina climbed down off her high horse not only about Carrie attended Bette, but most importantly about all Candace thing. Because frankly be hypocrite don’t very suit her very much – thinking how she was hurt about carpenter and forgetting all Henry thing, really?
Maybe if before they married in NYC Tina also asking Bette about if she forgiven her too – maybe things could be different.
Yep, that’s a really good point, Zhenya. Self-awareness and responsibility is a powerful cocktail and Tina is taking a sip! Maybe someone will help her to drink more deeply?
Thank you for reading the story and for commenting. I appreciate it.
What a great story. You captured the essence of Tina and Bette’s relationship wonderfully. Can’t wait to see where you take us on this journey. BTW loved your choice of lawyer for Carrie. Let’s see the alphas go at it.
Thanks, SuperK! I had fun inventing the woman Tina was going to MARRY but wasn’t Bette… not! Thanks for commenting and I hope you like the other chapters as they appear.
I think it says a lot about Tina and Angie’s relationship that Angie didn’t even think of Tina when she was exited about sharing her news. Tina has a lot of work to do with her.
The part where Tina reflects about the fact that she never really forgave Bette about the affair or got over it, was very poignant, and an issue I think must be addressed between the two of them. The fact that she kept bringing it up (also with the whole Kelly thing, where it was obvious she wasn’t over it and didn’t trust Bette completely) shows that they never actually resolved it.
Alice is completely right by saying “who the fuck would marry either one of those two, with their history?” :-) I always felt that anyone that started seeing either one of them just put themselves in a world of hurt…
Bette’s note to Tina was just lovely and heartbreaking at the same time. acknowledging that you are willing to let the other person go so they could be happy is a truly selfless act.
Amazing chapter, as usual. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Noa! It’s lovely, actually, that your comments at this point are making me go back in my head to the earlier parts of this story. :-) Thank you!
I ADORE what Bette did with her wedding ring. It was so loving. Like the wisdom of Solomon – she so loved Tina that she didn’t want anything but the best for her. And then (as I later discovered when I was writing it from Tina’s point of view) she actually also let Tina see that her own happiness mattered! And that was the beginning of Tina thinking that maybe she should stop living half a life – trying get herself together…
Unfaithfulness can take a looooong time to ‘get over’, I think. Bette was lucky that Tina was able to trust her enough to marry her, but the ghosts remain…
Thank you again! I appreciate the time it takes to read these long chapters and to make comments. Your insights are great, especially about unresolved things. Take care x
Oooooh I really like your version of events about what happened when they moved to NYC re Bette wanting another baby. When Gen Q aired that was one of the many things left unanswered. In the OG Bette asked Tina about giving Angie a sibling, Tina (for whatever reason) wasn’t that keen on that, and then they were trying at some point to adopt, and then…. obviously something happened between OG and GQ and none of that happened. I’m on board with your version of events!
OH DEAR GOD THE ENDING LINES STABBED ME IN THE HEART
‘If equal affection cannot be, then let the more loving one be me.’
Be happy.
B x
Welp, personally for me, if I had even a nano-particle in my heart that was not over my ex, that note would’ve obliterated any chance of moving on lol And we know with Tina it’s waaaaaaaay more than a nano-particle.
Hi! Thanks for another great comment. :-) I loved making Bette genuinely selfless here. There’s a bit in a later chapter where we see Tina articulate more specifically the effect this gesture had on her. It’s a huge act of unconditional love from Bette (and the reason why she deserves to get what she wants).
Glad you liked the story of what happened in the missing decade. It’s fun trying to come up with how it might have gone down.
L