‘My Bette’ she thought.  Who did so willingly. Freely. Tina shivered.

The anxiety and nausea that overcame her on multiple occasions before as she grasped blindly to try and understand threatened to make an appearance.  Determinedly, she fought it down.  Instead she focused on Bette who sat rigidly before her.

Bette shook her head in answer.  If it weren’t for the fiery look that Tina kept on her, she would have then bowed her head in apology.  In shame.

“Say it.” Tina muttered heatedly.  “I need to hear you say it.”

Bette straightened.  Her back perfectly aligned with that of the structure of the seat she occupied.  She filled her lungs slowly as if to harness a power in the air, letting it out through pursed lips deliberately yet gently.  Only enough to make a candle’s flame flicker.

“No,” the brunette spoke clearly.  “I didn’t.”

“Are you sure?” A frustrated Tina asked. Why else would she have done it?  That at least would make sense.  She must have cared for her.  Must have loved her right? 

“I didn’t.” The brunette said definitively.  Pausing, Bette continued.  With words that were used often in confrontations such as this.  Ones that always failed to appease or clarify. 

“It didn’t mean anything.”

The accusations that followed were forced through clenched teeth.  “So you threw us away for nothing.  Nothing!” There was no mistaking the anger then. 

“An affair of the body and nothing else.”  Tina’s voice rose significantly. 

Then she stood to circle her chair.  The second time around she jerked left then right – only to sit down with force.  Needing to contain her anxiety.  To keep from leaving. To glare.  To prompt more than a shake of Bette’s head and the feeble explanation that followed.

Her voice raspy she said, “If that’s supposed to make me feel better then you’re mistaken.”

“Is that the reason I’m supposed to accept?”  Breathing heavily to regain some calm, she plunged ahead. Her charge was rife with emotion.

“How could you do that to me?  To us!”

Deep breaths didn’t help.  Her agitation rose.  The volume of her voice increased to echo around them.  “What the fuck Bette?”

“Please.”  Bette pleaded.  She didn’t need to witness a familiar attack from yesterday’s pages.  Most of all she hated being the cause.  She’d prefer what they shared of late.  Benign exchanges based on a growing understanding and well, friendship.