Bette frowned as she considered the call that had ruined their day yesterday. Finally they were having a little fun together and Joel just had to call. On the weekend. Bette rubbed her forehead with her fingertips and sighed.

Joel had been a source of the strain in her marriage for months now. He worked closely with Tina and had been over to the house a few times. Bette didn’t like how they were together. It was too… familiar. Too comfortable. The way they laughed together made Bette sick. She had gradually become jealous – maybe because she had too much time alone on her hands to brood about it – and had confronted Tina one day.

Bette had known on some level that she wasn’t really jealous of Joel. She knew that she didn’t really believe Tina had anything inappropriate going on with that guy. Somehow a combination of resentments and insecurities had manifested itself in suspicion and jealousy and Bette hurled the accusation rather than deal with the real issues that had triggered it: her feelings of boredom and inadequacy for being out of work too long, the distance she felt between herself and Tina, her wish that Tina would spend more time with her and Angie.

Tina had been hurt, angry, and defensive when Bette had accused her, but now it seemed that Bette putting it out there was making Tina consider whether or not she really was developing feelings for the guy. Bette had dug her own grave with her stupidity and pride. Tina knew her – or used to know her – better than anyone else. So why couldn’t she open her mouth and say what was really bothering her? Why couldn’t she look Tina in the eye and say the two little words “I’m sorry”, and mean them? Somehow the longer it went on, the harder it became to apologize.

It wasn’t like Tina was innocent in all this, either, Bette reasoned to herself. She had been less than supportive of Bette while she looked for another job, saying that it didn’t really matter because she was making enough to support them and pay for Angie’s school. In fact, the more down Bette got, the more dismissive Tina became of Bette’s feelings.