Tina looked up into Bette’s eyes and saw sincerity in her pleas. Tina took Bette by the hand and lead her back to the outside furniture. She took a seat in a chair across from Bette, but she had to be able to touch a piece of her in order to get this out. Tina took hold of her hand, took a deep breath and began.

"Bette, how many times has your mother told you, you were beautiful, that she loved you, or had a family member tell you "you look more and more like your mother everyday" and meant it as a compliment, or that everything about you was perfect? You probably can’t even count. At nine years old I could count how many times my mother told me she loved me and was sober at the same time. I had people, who were family criticizing me constantly. In everything that I did and every look I had. My father never really noticed it because I never said anything, so I can’t blame him for it. My mother, she only added to the self hatred that I had let those people implant in me. When someone tells you you’re ugly, you brush it off, but when your family berates you with insults you let it get to that part of yourself where you hope no one else sees you." Tina’s tears were free falling at a rapid pace, she did nothing to them. She had to let them run to at least acknowledge that they were real and that this moment was really happening. Bette’s tears had stopped and she was now listening intently to every word that fell from Tina’s mouth.

"That part of me that I locked away was my heart. I didn’t even allow myself to look at it, because of the fear of my fortress falling down. And then I come down here and there’s you. This gorgeous, intelligent, kind, and everything you could possibly want in a girlfriend. I couldn’t believed you actually were interested in me, genuinely interested. You listened when I talked to you, you were sweet when I needed it, you understood parts of me that no one ever really got. There was plenty of times when you deserved everything that I had to give but I just couldn’t do it until…I found it."