Bette swallowed. ”I know.”

”Then why is this happening to us? Why us?”

”It’s all my fault.”

”It’s nobody’s fault, Bette,” Tina shook her head. ”I guess, it’s just circumstances of life. Circumstances that seem to be against us.”

”Nothing is against us. It’s what I do and how I live that is against us.”

Tina pondered over Bette’s comment for a moment. ”Maybe. But were you not doing what you do and living how you live, we wouldn’t have met. Maybe it’s our destiny, our test.”

”Test?”

”Maybe we just have to endure this test, and then, when enough will be enough, we’re gonna sail along smoothly?”

Hope was shining in Tina’s watery eyes and Bette stared into them deeply as if she could see through Tina, inside Tina, feel Tina’s honest young heart breaking for her.

A sorrowful smile lit up Bette’s tired face. The brunette took a hold of Tina’s hand and brought it to her lips.

”I hope so…” Bette whispered against the fingers.

”But what if we’re unable to endure the test?” Tina said in rhetorical question, her shoulders drooping a little.

Bette kept watching her intimately as the blonde appeared to be having a dialogue with herself.

”What if the test has initially been unendurable for us? What if our relationship was predestined to be a failure?”

”Tee, there’s little point in speculating about this now. Don’t get yourself worked up over something you will never know, or won’t be able to change,” Bette uttered quietly and kissed Tina’s hand. She then leaned her head on the back of the deckchair and closed her eyes, releasing the air in a soft sigh through the nose.

”Are you feeling alright?” the blonde wondered gently, running her warm hazel eyes over Bette’s face with a combination of sadness and deep affection.

”Yeah,” Bette half-whispered. ”Just tired.”

”I worry about you. About your health, sleeplessness.”

”It’ll become better with time.”

Tina hung her head. ”What’re we going to do, Bette?” she asked, putting a wealth of meaning into the words.

Bette paused. ”There’s nothing to do, but wait.”

”Wait for what?”

Again, Bette took her time to answer the question. Eventually she said, ”For the right time.”

Tina didn’t like the way Bette was talking. There was no force behind her statements. ”Right time for what?” the blonde quizzed. ”Do you mean right time to leave the country?”