Chapter Twenty-Four

BP narration

I was sitting at the beach, looking at the stars. On my way to the Planet, to see Jessie, I was just thinking about my life. I wondered why the hell I was going there to meet her. What point was there in meeting your first love?

I would have nothing to say to her, awkward silences would fall. And what the hell was I doing with an ex while I had such a wonderful girlfriend at home? I mentally slapped myself for my stupid behavior. Why hadn’t Tina stopped me? No, I couldn’t blame her.

As much as I wanted to go home, I couldn’t. Alice would be there and they were having a night between friends, a night like how it must have been between them before Tina and I met and all of our lives changed. I didn’t want to interrupt that.

I couldn’t care less about Jessie. I didn’t want to call her just to tell her some lame excuse. She could make up an excuse for herself. For some reason I resented her very much, all of the sudden. As if she had tried to draw me away from Tina. I knew it was ridicolous and that probably wasn’t what she wanted, but still. I didn’t want to see her and I didn’t want to explain anything.

For the peace and quietness I had put my cellphone off. I didn’t want anyone to be able to reach me, except for Tina, and Tina would be busy with Alice. That was a good thing, she deserved her fun. I knew I had promised Tina I’d call her, but it sounded so… needy afterwards. As if I couldn’t stand to be without her for one night.

That was gonna happen more often, that we wouldn’t be able to spend the night together. I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t hard, I was a big girl, right? Right.

–

TK narration

I went through all the places that had the tiniest meaning for Bette, any place she could possibly be.

There was a small chance that she would be at the gallery, just to look at some documents or paintings. She would just have forgotten all about her ‘date’ with Jessie, it would be totally Bette-ish. I jumped in my car and went there, but it was completely dark. I didn’t have a key, so I rang the bell. Nobody opened and I guessed Bette wouldn’t be there then.