You know you’re not really good enough for her, but a part of you still hopes she’ll see through that. A part of you hopes that she’ll accept you’re messed up and forgive you, even though you don’t deserve it.

The longer you’re together with Bette, the harder it becomes to break up with her. She’s so sweet to you, so accommodating. For the first time you realize that she cares for you. She knows you and all your flaws, but she still loves you.

And isn’t that what you wanted? For someone to love you? Didn’t you think that was impossible?

The way she looks at you… nobody will ever look at you like that. You know that.

You’re surprised when you start looking forward to seeing her, kissing her, making love to her. Spending time with her. Being goofy with her. Being nerdy with her. You know she won’t tell. You can be yourself with her and you never knew how much you valued that.

She’s the perfect girlfriend. A bit needy sometimes, and insanely jealous and possessive, but everybody has their flaws. God, don’t you know that.

When you first decide to let go of your original plan, you think you’re settling for what you can get as you watch Dana from afar. Because honestly, when Dana meets Alice at the tennis club and introduces her to the two of you, your heart breaks and you want to kill her.

Over time, you see how happy she makes her. You know that she is helping her to get over Bette. And then Bette smiles at you, because she’s happy for your friend, and you think to yourself that this isn’t too bad – you could’ve done worse than see the girl you love being happy and have a gorgeous girl love you.

You learn to appreciate Bette.

Bette buys you the entire Harry Potter book collection for your birthday.

That’s when you tell her for the first time that you love her and actually mean it.

You don’t love her the way you love Dana, but you think you can find peace with the fact that Dana’s happy. Bette treats you well, and when she proposes to you five years later and you accept, you do it with an honest heart.

Fin.

***

I hope this was a satisfying end to this short story. I hope that by adding those two chapters, I showed that every situation is too complex for one person to fully understand. Dana misinterprets some of Tina’s actions, simply because she is so in love with Bette who is in turn so in love with Tina that it isn’t that far-fetched for Dana to see everything Tina does in a bad light.

As far as Bette goes – yes, she is happy, but one can wonder what the quality of that happiness is when it is based on lies. But then in the end, I do believe that Tina has fallen for Bette and truly loves her, in her own way.