I looked at her. “Yeah, well. It wasn’t as bad as you think. I only gave hand jobs.”

“Did they know you were a girl?”

I scoffed, “No, they would have kicked my ass, maybe even killed me if they did.”

Tina put her hand on my knee, “Well, at least you never got hurt.”

I scoffed, “I never said that. I’ve had my share of hurt, just not because I was a girl is all.”

We sat in silence for a while. Tina wrapped an arm around me. “Well, you’ve moved onto something better now, right? I mean look at how far you’ve come since then?”

I exhaled slowly, “Yeah… I just thought I was past all that, you know?”

“You are. Don’t let some asshole like that make you think you haven’t. Don’t let him drag you back down to his level. You’re better than that.”

I shrugged, “Sometimes I wonder…”

We sat there in silence for a while longer. Eventually we were interrupted by one of my new housemates coming home, trying to open the door that had been chained shut. I quickly pulled my emotions in, threw the walls back up, and let her in. I changed my clothes quickly for the night, and Tina and I headed to my truck. I drove us over the Bette’s for dinner, before I headed out to meet up with Alice at Milk. As we drove to Bette’s Tina tried to cheer me up.

“So you won’t believe the news I have for you.”

I smiled faintly. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“Bette asked me to move in with her.”

I looked over at her. “Really? That’s awesome. Did you say yes?”

Tina shrugged, “I don’t know. I want to, I’m just afraid it might be too soon…”

“Come on, you guys have been dating now for what? Close to a year?”

“Try only eight months.”

“Still… you practically live there already. No matter what you tell everyone else, forget not, I used to live there. I know how often you are over there. What would be so different? You’re stuff would be there instead of somewhere else?”