“I want to help you, T.” Bette responded as she watched her wife flight back tears, “We need to find a way to get you through this.”

“You deserve better than this.” Tina said bitterly as she bit her lip and willed the tears away, “I’m in therapy three times a week and I’m still a complete fucking mess.”

“It’s not your fault.” Bette countered as she reached across the table and took Tina’s hand in her own, desperate for contact.

“I can’t make it stop.” Tina said again as a look of pure hopelessness crossed her face, “I never imagined my own life would become such a fucking train wreck.”

“Let me help you find a way to get control again.”

“What if there’s no making this better?” Tina asked as she withdrew her hand from Bette’s grasp, “What if the nightmares never go away, what if it’s permanent?”

“You can’t think like that, T.” Bette said as she resisted the urge to reach out for Tina once again, “If seeing Sandy isn’t making this better then we’ll find a different therapist, we’ll find a way though this.”

Tina looked down into her drink and shook her head slowly. “Some days I think it might have been better if I’d just gone too.” Tina admitted as she looked up at her wife, tears lining her face.

Bette felt like the wind had been knocked out of her, “Jesus, how can you say that?”

“Because living like this…I don’t live, all I do is survive. I spend every day just trying to get through, fighting the memories, it’s like a looped tape in my brain that never stops.”

“I need you, T, Angie needs you.”

Of course, their daughter, the child Tina looked at and felt nothing but resentment. Her own daughter had become just another person that expected her to be someone she wasn’t. Tina wiped the tears away with the sleeve of her jacket and mentally pulled herself together. If she let the tears take hold she feared she wouldn’t be able to stop.

“I’ve asked Kit to take Angie for a couple of days, to give us some time to figure things out.” Bette offered.

“To keep her safe you mean.” Tina corrected, “Who knows what her strung out mother might do next?”

“T, I…”

“It’s ok, I get it.” Tina replied without missing a beat, she did get it. Why on earth would Bette want such a damaged person near her only child?

“What happened with her, T?” Bette took the opportunity.

Tina’s brow creased as she tried to remember the details, “She was screaming and I needed her to stop, I felt like I was suffocating.”

“Why was she screaming?”

“I don’t remember.” The blonde admitted.

“She said she slammed her finger in the door.” Bette prompted.

“I’m not sure.” Tina answered honestly. All she could recall was screaming, then the sound of gun shots then a silence that made bile rise into the back of her throat. It was getting harder to tell where reality left off and the episodes began.

Bette watched as Tina twisted her glass back and forth, the ice swinging to and fro.  “She loves you, Tina. We both do.”

Silence fell between them as Tina failed to offer any reply, she knew the words that Bette wanted to hear but they were a lie. For Tina, love was an emotion that died nine weeks ago, along with life as it once was.

“I won’t give up, Tina, and I won’t let you give up either.”

“It didn’t happen to you, Bette. You weren’t there, you don’t know.” Tina stated without emotion.

“I know my wife.” Bette said in a tone that left no room for argument.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“I’m not the person I was, Bette. I look at my daughter and feel nothing. I look at you and my head knows that you’re the woman I loved but my heart is dead. I’m never going to be that woman again and your incessant hope is unbearable. I wish it was different, I wish I could go back to how it was before but the woman you love is gone. Why can’t you just…”

“Let you go?” Bette interjected as she tried to control her rising anger, “Not a fucking chance, Tina. As long as I breathe, I will not give up on you so don’t bother asking again.”

TBC