"She wanted to keep a little piece of everyone," Carmen said smiling fondly and looking into the closet. "Hey, that’s mine!" she exclaimed grabbing her red shirt that was hanging on the rack. I remember that red shirt fondly. It was the one she wore the first time we were together in that sound room. The memory brought tears to my eyes and I averted my gaze.

"What?" Carmen said looking at me.

"That was the shirt you wore the first time we met, and we…" I trailed off.

Carmen turned her head and sighed sadly, "yeah." She avoided my gaze for a long while before moving into the closet and picking out clothes from the rack.

"Carmen, I fucked up," I said.

I saw her pause for a minute, then she pulled out one of my T-shirts from the closet. "This one is yours," she said handing me the shirt, "I thought she only kept mementos of lovers."

"She did," I said.

Carmen turned her head to look at me for the first time since I mentioned the red shirt. "You and Jenny?"

"She fell in love with me Carmen, I knew she would hurt herself if I didn’t get with her."

"So you didn’t love her?" Carmen said.

"Not like that," I said, "it was my happiness for hers."

"Happiness," Carmen repeated with a scoff, "I find it hard to believe you would sacrifice something like that for someone else."

"I was never gonna find happiness anyways," I said looking deep into Carmen’s eyes.

Carmen looked into my eyes and her eyes narrowed. I knew she was angry, I knew she wanted to say something mean to hurt my feelings, but I saw the pity move into her eyes. She always had a good heart.

"You don’t think you will ever find happiness?" she said softly.

I let out a long sigh and with tear-filled eyes I looked at her and said, "I lost that chance the moment I lost you…"

…………………………….

Bette:

I cannot believe I am here right now, but I’m willing to endure this for Tina.

"Welcome to trust building class," the effeminate man said walking to the front of the room, "why don’t we start with introductions?"

There was four couples in the room and he looked at the one at the other side. Good, we’re last.