“You lied to me.” Bette’s words pierced Tina’s chest like an arrow.

She hadn’t spoke the whole ride home, not since Tina told her what happened in her interrogation.  She couldn’t be mad at Bette for her reaction, she just hoped that instead of anger, Bette would show compassion.

When Tina was 11, her sister experimented on her, calling it “role playing.”  Tina was always the boy to Amanda; with Amanda being 15 and Tina only 11, Tina had the figure of a boy and a short blonde hair to match.  Amanda made her believe that this was something normal; that all sisters did this, but not to tell mom and dad or their brother, Anthony.  She said it was incest, because incest had to involve penetration and they were girls; girls couldn’t penetrate each other, she said. She should have known then there was nothing normal about this.  A second clue would have been her own shame that kept her from asking her friends if they had done the same with their siblings.

It was that same shame that kept her from telling Bette years ago.  It was that same shame that made her make up lies to cover herself.

Bette was not her first.

Bette walked up the stairs and into the house, she left the door wide open.  Tina followed her and closed the door.

“Bette, please, let me explain.”

Tina’s fear was that Bette now judged her and viewed her as disgusting.

“There’s nothing for you to explain, Tina.  You lied to me.  Our whole relationship is built on a lie.  You told me that I was your first, Tina!  You remember, first, last, and forever?  What other pieces of bullshit have you been feeding me for the past 10 years?”

“Just listen to me.  Here me out.”

“I really don’t want to here anything you have to say.”  Bette stalked up their new stairs.  Tina stood at the bottom, listening to the bedroom door slam shut.  The bedroom door crept open again.

“You know what I said in my interrogation.  I said that you were the love of my life.  I said that you were the person who sees me for my true self.   Yet, when you do not see me, I remind myself that you’re not perfect.”  She peeked her head around the corner, “I told her that the only time you’ve ever failed to see me was when you never even asked if I would want to carry our child.  I was never going to tell you how disappointed I was, but your secret makes a mockery of mine.”