“Thanks Al but could you wait until I’ve finished, I’d like to come with you.”

Alice smiled, this was unexpected.  Half an hour ago Tina hadn’t wanted to even talk to Bette on the phone let alone see her and now she wanted to go over there.  Despite everything that was going on, her anger at Bette and her own confusion as to how the most perfect relationship she had ever seen in her adult life could go so terribly wrong right in front of all of their eyes and to have none of them notice.  Despite all this she wanted to see them figure things out both for them and for herself.  Bette and Tina individually and together were, whether they realised it or not, the nucleus of the group, ‘No, of our family’ Alice corrected herself.  She couldn’t see things ever being the same without both of them and everyone seemed pretty messed up at the moment anyway. 

Tina saw Alice‘s smile and knew what she was thinking but she didn’t have the energy to bring it all up now.  She knew it would be hard enough to do it later and at the moment she was just too exhausted so she smiled and took herself off to the bathroom.

Alice cleaned up the remnants of the breakfast; neither of them had actually eaten much, and went to get ready herself.  As she got ready she was debating whether or not to phone Bette to warn her but eventually decided that it was Tina’s decision to make.

As Tina slipped into the bath a plan of action came to form in her mind.  So she had to get away and the most logical place was home.  But that was a prospect she did not relish, her relationship with her parents since she and Bette had gotten together had been strained to say the least.  OK, not mom and dad’s.Carrie’s!!  Why didn’t I think of that in the first place?!?!  Tina thought to herself.  Carrie was her younger sister by 4 years and although they had not always gotten along in their youth and only phoned each other sporadically now, Tina knew that she’d rather go to Carrie’s than her parents place.  Definitely, going to her sisters would be a much better idea than going back home to endure the ‘I told you so’ looks from her father and lectures from her mother about wasting 7 years of her life on a relationship that would ultimately come to nothing.  Maybe they were right – Tina thought to herself for a moment before shaking herself from thoughts that weren’t going to help her get through the next few hours which would definitely prove to be testing to say the least.