Candace immediately moved away from Bette and sat up on the side of the bed. Looking blankly away from Bette she hung and shook her head. This time it was her tears that were falling quietly. She dreaded hearing those words. Every day they were together she began to feel more and more confident that maybe this was more that just a rebound affair. But she knew she was fooling herself. She knew she had not captured the one thing she wanted most from Bette, her heart.  Now here it was, her worst nightmare coming true. Bette was breaking it off.

Bette sat up and touched Candace’s shoulder softly. “I’m sorry Candace. It’s not you. It’s me. You’ve been wonderful to me. I couldn’t have asked for anyone better, but my heart is not here and I can’t continue this any more. I don’t want to go any further because in the end it will all still be the same. I’m in love with Tina. I need to try to work it out with her. You and I have no future”

Candace turned to look at Bette.  She reached and held Bette’s hand in hers, running her index finger over Bette’s fingers. Softly looking into Bette’s tearful brown eyes that matched her own she said, “You give up on us so easily Bette. You think you are in love with her. Even you said the relationship had been a struggle for the past several years. I don’t understand what you are trying to go back to. You told me you felt you had grown apart. You told me you think she doesn’t understand you. Well, I have been here for you. Listening to you, holding you, loving you and fucking you. I don’t want to end what we have. I think it is us that have a future not you and Tina.”

Bette took Candace’s hand in both of hers. Smiling awkwardly with tear filled eyes Bette responded, “I don’t expect you to understand but I love her and that doesn’t get erased so easily. We have been through so much together. Yes, we did drift apart, but the bottom line is that I love her and want to work it out with her.”

Bette released Candace’s hands, sat up in the bed, pulled her knees up to her chest and continued to explain, “I miss my life. I miss my life with her. I miss what it meant to be with her. There is just so much I cannot explain but I need her. I need her in my life. I need her love.”