The scene unfolded before her; she was utterly powerless to prevent it. All those mendacious smiles.. All the inspiriting pep-talks, it all came down to this: She was leaving. Tina Kennard, the sole owner of her heart, mind and body was walking, driving, flying out of her life. And there wasn’t a single thing Bette could do about it.

She cursed her own truthless Good Lucks and her half-hearted encouragement. She loathed the way she’d reassured her, pushed her towards the arms of another woman. She mentally beat herself dry for the times she hugged Tina and told her chasing Kate was right for her.

But mostly, Bette resented her personal spinelessness. Bette knew it, plain and simple; she was a coward. Though, of course, nothing regarding Tina was ever simple. And it was certainly never plain. She smiled in spite of herself as she thought back on the life they’d shared.

All their years of happiness, peace and unity had somehow become so overshadowed by the tumultuous clouds of regret and self-hate that at some point it had become difficult to look back and see joy. Their friends, their families.. They all knew of the bond that endlessly connected the two women, but every outsider looking in could also see the scissors each woman held so dangerously close to the union. A number of times in the past the pair had stumbled; tripped. And a number of times those piercing blades brushed the binding.

Bette stood alone in the crowded airport; a sad stranger, alien to the land of hope. Her mind, as it raced through snippets of their lives together, didn’t stop to register the imperfections – There was no need; she hurt enough with these fresh wounds, she didn’t need the rubbed salt from her past.

She watched a broken blonde walk from their house; Away.. Away from her. The movie in her head came to a finish and a single tear rolled, without a whisper, the length of her cheek. The small orb of pain took with it the final speck of hope in her heart’s empty chamber. Her eyes stayed barren as the sharp shards of realisation besieged the need to cry.

As if in a slower time frame, Tina turned her head back to face her. A nervous smile, a goodbye wave. And she was gone. The entirety of Bette’s soul was now boarding that 273 plane to New York; scoping the skies to be with her love. Soaring away from the heart beating her name.

* _ * _ * _ *

Bette felt that familiar tugging around her navel. She felt herself lurch forward, falling from the clutches of the nightmare. Except it wasn’t a nightmare, Tina would be leaving today for New York.

Everything I saw. Everything I felt.. It’s going to happen. Today.

Bette almost let an audible whimper escape her throat as she fought hard once again against the inevitable torrents. She drew her knees close to her chest in a distinctly vulnerable position. A position only one had seen her in; Tina.

The night after the disastrous interview with Faye Buckley, Tina had driven them home in Bette’s precious Blue Saab. She’d taken her broken partner by the waist and into their home. Once through the doors, Bette collapsed. The words played on loop until it was pure madness in her head. She sat in the middle of that room and cried, her knees pulled close to her chest holding on for fear of them too leaving her.

Tina had pulled Bette close to her chest, cried her own heartbreak into the brunette curls and rocked them back to the present. Bette should have stayed; stayed in that protective embrace. She knew she should have held back onto Tina as their pain merged and let them battle together. But she didn’t. She pulled roughly from Tina’s grasp and found herself alone at the poolside long after dawn broke.

Tears snaked their way down the unblemished caramel cheek, they left a trail behind as proof of their existence; but the deeper trail hurt more.

She wiped them away angrily, hating them for not leaving more open wounds. Physical pain was a feat she could tackle.. but the emotion saturating her was a vast mountain next to the physical molehill.

How intensely did the wish burn inside her, like a burning beacon encased with ice. She could not re-enact the terror her mind had shown her. She simply couldn’t.