After a few minutes, she quick-walked to the section of lockers where her locker was located, and punched in her code when she got to her locker.  She pulled out the large courier envelope tucked inside the locker, tapping it lightly against one hand, trying to determine what was in it, being careful about it as there was no addressee marked outside the envelope.

Screw this.                     

She tore off the strip at the top of the envelope, and dipped her hand in.  She felt the sides of a paper folder inside, and pulled the folder out.

Bette flipped the folder open, and saw an 8 x 10 photo of Tina almost fall out of the folder.  Behind it was a typed report of some kind.  It was dated the other day.

The picture hit her like a lightning bolt — the room spun and Bette stumbled backward, knocked to the long bench that bisected the banks of lockers on either side of that section of the locker room.

Tina.  In bed.  With a man.  Body arched upward, eyes shut, face blissed- out in ecstasy, smiling like she’d just had an orgasm.

Bette’s vision blurred, and she found it hard to breath.  She pinned the photo with a finger against the back of the front folder flap as she tried to read the attached report.

She couldn’t see anything past the picture.  Couldn’t make sense of the letters that formed what looked like words typed out neatly in the report  Something about Tina in Charleston, photographed in the man’s hotel room, through the open windows.

Bette tore the picture apart as tears fell.  F&^%$#@k!  D*(^%#&mn this whole fucking, stupid, crap-filled mess!!   She wanted to hurt something the way she was hurting.

She dumped everything back into the envelope, and absentmindedly took it with her as she headed to the gym.

Head still spinning she mumbled a request to the attendant for a pair of gloves, and slipped them on when he returned with a pair that he said she’d used before and had mentioned liking, the envelope still pinned her side.  He helped her strap it on, chatting casually.

Bette shook her head when he asked whether she wanted to spar with him or someone else.  She bit out, “I’d just like to be alone right now …”