„You don’t have to do this, you know. You’re my guest and you shouldn’t be doing that“ Bette said as she felt slightly guilty to let Helena do this almost every day. She was supposed to take care of her and not the other way around.

„It’s ok. I want to do this. I can’t give you much else to thank you for everything you do for me. You let me live with you here for nothing, it’s the least I can do for you“

Bette went over to her and stood next to her. She laid her hands softly over Helena’s, who was drying her hands with a towel. Helena looked to their hands and then up to Bette’s face.

When Bette had Helena’s attention she told her softly but firmly „Helena, I’m happy that you’re here with me. I know that you don’t wanna talk about what happened and I understand, but sometimes I don’t know how to help you. It’s difficult for me to know what I can do for you to make you feel better. And if I can help you and make you feel better by letting you live with me, then I’m doing this happily. You’re my friend Helena and friends do things like that for each other. Ok?“

Bette expected an answer or only a nod from her, but what she didn’t expected was for Helena to wrap both arms around her neck and laying her cheek against Bette’s cheek.

„Thank you for saying that“ she whispered in Bette’s ear.

Bette was surprised at the first moment, but then brought up her arms too and wrapped them around Helena’s waist and hugged her back. She leaned a little more to the smooth cheek, which was so warm against her’s and savored the rare moment of closeness between them.

Since she had visited Helena in prison she knew that her feelings for her went deeper than friendship. Now that they were living together her feelings became stronger. She didn’t want that to happened, but it did and she couldn’t nor wanted she to change that. It felt good, but sometimes she asked herself why she of all things had to develop feelings for someone who probably couldn’t reciprocate such feelings for a long time to come. In that visitors room back at the prison she had felt something happened between them, but Helena was now troubled with all that happened to her and couldn’t certainly bring up such feelings at the moment for somebody. But she couldn’t be sure about that, because Helena didn’t talk about it, but maybe she was someone who needed exactly that. She had no idea. What she knew was that she was the only one Helena felt comfortable enough to let her touch her. That was something.