Archive of Our Own

It had been a while since Tina left, and in that time, Bette discovered that grief became significantly easier to manage when there were cameras pointed at you. Okay, maybe easier was the wrong word, but it was easier to disguise, at least.

The mayoral campaign consumed almost every waking hour of her life now, which Bette suspected was the only reason she was able to remain functional at all. Her days were structured down to the very minute, and she was used to being in endless rooms filled with people wanting pieces of her attention. 

By the time she got home each night, she was usually too exhausted to think clearly enough for the loneliness to fully settle in – usually, and tonight, there had been a fundraiser in Silver Lake. Three hours of smiling until her jaw hurt, shaking hands, and pretending not to notice which conversations stopped when she walked into the room.

The scandal with Felicity had mostly died down publicly, but traces of it still lingered everywhere. People were unsure of her now, looking at her with thinly veiled curiosity as they tried to reconcile Bette Porter the candidate with Bette Porter the woman who had slept with a married campaign manager’s wife. 

It was humiliating. 

Bette didn’t exactly regret her time with Felicity – that would have implied it had meant more than it did – but the affair had exposed something she preferred hidden: the sheer recklessness of her loneliness. 

People loved nothing more than to push the narrative of a midlife crisis and self-destruction; arrogance, perhaps, too. They spoke about it as though Bette had detonated her own campaign for sport instead of simply making one terrible, human decision during a period of her life where she had been quietly unravelling. 

Only a handful of people knew the timing of it – how it had happened not long after two of the most devastating events of her life: losing Tina, and losing Kit. Bette had walked through those first few weeks feeling flayed open and furious with herself for still wanting someone who had already chosen another life, whilst also blaming herself for being too caught up in everything else to see Kit’s struggle.

Felicity hadn’t been about love, that was the sad part; it had been about absence, about wanting another body in the room badly enough to momentarily forget whose body she actually missed. 

The campaign team called it “a lapse in judgement”, a temporary stumble, while the internet called it proof that Bette Porter was exactly the kind of selfish narcissist people already suspected she was. But privately, and shamefully, some part of Bette had wanted Tina to hear about it and understand what it really was. 

How lonely she had been underneath it all.

She had wanted Tina to hear the story and picture her correctly: alone in that enormous house after midnight, drinking too much wine, carrying around the humiliating weight of still loving someone who had already learned how to leave her. She had wanted Tina to recognise the recklessness for what it was – grief, with nowhere to go. 

And, maybe worse than that, Bette had wanted Tina to feel sorry for her. The realisation disgusted her even now, because beneath all her anger, all her wounded pride, there had still been this pathetic little hope that Tina would call. 

“Aren’t you miserable? … Aren’t you lonely? … What have you done to yourself?”

Bette had imagined the conversation more times than she cared to admit. She could picture it so clearly: Tina would arrive at the house, furious but worried, standing in the kitchen with that crease between her eyebrows that only appeared when she cared too much. Bette would spill every thought and feeling, and, eventually, Tina would feel sorry for her. 

She would take her into her arms and brush the hair back from her forehead as she cried, in that soft, loving way that only Tina knew how. She would keep her safe and tell her how sorry she was for leaving, then she’d call it nothing more than a mistake made by a woman trying to survive having her heart broken.

Instead, the scandal broke, the headlines circulated, the campaign stumbled briefly under the weight of it… and Tina had called it nothing at all.

That night, Bette unlocked the front door and stepped into the quiet house with a tired exhale, already working on loosening the collar of her blouse. The same, usual silence hit her at first. The house wasn’t empty because Angie was home – Bette could hear the faint music upstairs and the distant sound of movement close by – but there was a specific kind of silence that arrived after losing someone who had once occupied every corner of your life.

She set her bag down by the stairs, rubbing at the ache gathering at the base of her neck. Earlier tonight, one of her advisors had pulled her aside to remind her she needed to appear “warmer” in tomorrow’s interview cycle. Warmer, as if she hadn’t spent the last several months hollowing herself out publicly in an attempt to remain electable. 

Bette moved toward the kitchen, grateful suddenly for the ordinary sounds emanating from throughout the space. Angie's presence in the house softened it somehow, making it feel less like a carefully curated mausoleum.

That was a dramatic thought to have, and Bette knew instantly that Tina would have rolled her eyes at it. A memory arrived instantly afterwards: the two of them lying in bed side-by-side a few years ago. Bette was saying some nonsense about a particularly eventful work day, and Tina had laughed, saying, “God, Bette, has anyone ever told you that you narrate your own sadness like you’re the tragic lead in a French film?”

Bette had kissed her just to shut her up. 

“Ang?” she called.

“In here!”

Bette smiled at the immediate response. A warm pool of golden light flooded the marble countertops as she made her way into the kitchen, where she found Angie sitting cross-legged on the counter, phone in her hand, one foot dangling lazily.

“You’re home late,” Angie frowned.

“Fundraiser.”

“Oof.”

Bette hummed in agreement as she crossed toward the wine fridge. “I spent most of the night having my own campaign mansplained to me by men who think owning property counts as a personality.”

Angie grimaced. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.”

The exchange earned a small laugh from both of them, and Bette had found herself holding on to moments like these more tightly lately. She hated the thought that Angie was all she had – even though deep down she knew it was true – but Angie made it easier to exist inside her own life without constantly feeling the absence of Tina.

Even though somewhere, underneath it all, constantly and relentlessly, Tina remained. It was humiliating, honestly.

Bette poured herself a glass of wine and leaned back against the counter, watching Angie scroll absently through her phone while talking about school. Bette made a point of listening carefully and asked questions at the right moments, grateful for the distraction. 

Angie had always filled the space easily, and Tina used to say that she entered rooms like sunlight through open curtains. 

Bette tried not to think about the fact that most of Angie’s mannerisms came from Tina: the shape of her smile, the way her eyebrows creased when she was concentrating really hard on something, and even her laugh, sometimes.

There were moments Bette looked at their daughter and felt such fierce love it bordered on grief. 

“You know,” Angie said suddenly, “I think my photography professor finally likes me.” 

“That’s great,” Bette smiled. “She’s lucky to have you in her class.”

Angie tried, and failed, to suppress a grin at the compliment. For one brief, dangerous second, Bette felt almost normal standing here like this – tired after work, home with her daughter, the campaign still moving forward despite everything she had done to nearly destroy it.

Sometimes she looked at Angie and felt overwhelmed by the terrifying fact that she and Tina had managed to make something so good together. 

Then Angie laughed at something on her phone. “Oh my god, wait,” she said, turning the screen toward Bette. “I forgot to show you this—”

Angie slid closer on the counter. “Okay, don’t judge too hard because it’s technically unfinished and I already know the lighting needs work—”

“Angie.”

“No, mom, I’m serious. It’s–”

Bette smiled. “You are literally a Porter. Critique is your love language.”

Angie slipped off the countertop to stand beside Bette. A series of black and white portraits appeared onscreen as she swiped through the album – a collection of blurred city lights and strangers on sidewalks. 

“These are good,” Bette said honestly, studying them.

Angie’s face brightened immediately, trying and failing to stay casual about the praise. “Yeah?”

“The framing is excellent.” Bette tilted the phone closer to her face. “This one especially.”

Angie leaned in. “Right? Okay, that’s what I said, but apparently I’m still ‘emotionally withholding as an artist,’ whatever the hell that means.”

Bette smiled, distracted now as she examined the image more closely. “It means your professor is pretentious.”

“Thank you.”

Bette took the phone from Angie’s hand to look properly, narrowing her eyes at the screen. She swiped through the album several times, taking in her daughter's work. Another street photograph, then another, then – her thumb moved once more across the screen before her brain even fully registered what she was seeing.

Another photograph suddenly filled the display: sunlight, water, Carrie smiling with her whole face… and Tina; Bette felt her entire body stiffen. The first thing she noticed was Tina’s expression, startled and radiant and tearfully happy in a way Bette hadn’t seen in years.

The second was the ring – a new one, unmistakable on Tina’s left hand, where Bette’s had once been: a slender band of pale gold with a single diamond set cleanly into it, catching the light and making a home as though it had always belonged there.

The third knocked all the breath from her lungs. The top–cream silk, thin straps, soft neckline. Bette knew it instantly, because she had bought it for Tina herself for the last birthday they spent together.

It was, perhaps, a little too delicate for Tina’s practical taste, which was exactly why Bette had purchased it, wrapped in silver paper with several others, alongside breakfast in bed to celebrate Tina’s birthday after Angie had been dropped off at school.

Bette remembered Tina unfolding it, and she’d watched as Tina had tried it on in the mirror.

“It’s—wow,” Tina had laughed, initially a little unsure of the garment. “This is very you.”

“No,” Bette had said, fingers hooking beneath one strap as she stepped behind her. “It’s very you… when you let yourself be adored.”

And Tina had looked at her then with that unbearably open expression Bette spent years trying to recover after they divorced. 

Now, the shirt existed inside someone else’s memory. Someone else’s engagement, worn for someone else, who was asking Tina to stay forever.

Something cold moved jaggedly through Bette’s chest, and beside her, even though it sounded distant, Angie was still talking, oblivious to it all.

“—and then Carrie apparently dropped the ring box at first, which honestly makes sense because she was freaking out—”

Bette stared at the screen. Tina was smiling down at Carrie as the sunlight caught against the silk Bette had once smoothed meticulously over her waist with both hands – the same top Bette remembered unbuttoning slowly in the dark, later that same birthday evening.

“Oh,” Angie said suddenly, noticing the silence at last. “Shit,” she immediately reached for the phone. “Sorry, I didn’t—I thought you knew—”

“Language,” Bette corrected automatically. “It’s fine, really,” she said then, handing the phone back a little too quickly, noticing how strange her voice sounded to her own ears.

Angie watched her mom carefully; she was old enough to recognise grief now. “You knew, right?” she asked wearily. “About the engagement?”

“No,” Bette admitted quietly.

Angie grimaced instantly. “Oh.”

And there it was – pity. Bette almost preferred cruelty.

******

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

She kept seeing Tina in that shirt whenever she closed her eyes, so instead, she lay awake, staring blankly at the ceiling while Tina occupied every corner of her mind with unbearable clarity.

“This is too expensive” … “Who cares? It’s your birthday?” … “That’s not what I meant.”

Rationally, Bette understood that people kept old things after relationships ended. Sweaters, jewellery, books with inscriptions written inside the covers; tiny artefacts of former lives shoved into drawers because throwing them away felt unnecessarily cruel.

Bette herself still owned a chipped blue mug that Tina bought her sometime in the early 2000s – she drank coffee from it three mornings a week without thinking. Objects survived people sometimes; that was normal.

But this was not something that had been forgotten at the back of her closet. Tina had chosen that shirt – deliberately – for that day, for photographs that would likely exist for the rest of her life. It hurt too much to seem like an innocent coincidence.

To anyone else, it would seem like she was catastrophising a blouse, and maybe she was, but the image wouldn’t let her go. Tina had loved that shirt because Bette had chosen it for her, because Bette had once known her intimately enough to understand exactly how she liked to feel beautiful. 

That was what hurt.

Bette tossed and turned again, remembering all the versions of Tina she had loved. Twenty-five-year-old Tina, in Bette’s Yale sweatshirt and bare feet, stealing Bette’s coffee despite insisting she refused to drink it without milk. Early mother Tina, moving exhaustedly through the house at three in the morning with Angie balanced against her shoulder, hair unwashed and somehow still the most beautiful thing Bette had ever seen.

Divorced Tina, years later, in Bette’s kitchen, standing a little too close to her with a wineglass in hand, looking at Bette with those same doe-eyes and dangerous expression that could make Bette fold in an instant.

Now, she was engaged. Happy, wearing Bette’s gift while promising herself to somebody else. And suddenly all Bette could think was: You carried proof that I loved you into your new life without me.

The thought was ugly, possessive, and immature, but it hurt anyway. Because somewhere, beneath all her attempts at civility and emotional maturity, Bette still loved Tina with the full unreasonable force of someone who had never really learned how to stop. Loving didn’t end with a gentle fading, but rather with a fracture that kept splitting open even after the breaking was done.

And that was the most devastating part.

Three weeks later, Alice was holding another party for the show, which mostly seemed to involve forcing all her friends into one room and supplying them with endless amounts of alcohol. Bette, stupidly, had offered to host at her house before thinking too carefully about what that would actually mean, and now she was regretting it.

Alice’s chaos was manageable – predictable, even – but the real problem was Tina. Bette had spoken to her a few days after the engagement, when Tina had shown up at her house under the guise of “discussing something”. Bette didn’t have the heart to tell her that Angie had already ruined her ‘surprise’, but as heartbroken as she may have been, Bette was thankful in some twisted way – if she hadn’t known, then a small, pathetic part of her would probably have hoped Tina wanted to discuss the possibility of them getting back together.

Pathetic, indeed.

“She’ll come if you ask,” Alice said over the phone two days earlier.

Bette pinched the bridge of her nose. “Alice—”

“I’m serious. With the whole ‘looking for a house’ thing, she’s already going to be in town. It’s for one night. Be adults. This is important to me.”

Adults. Bette almost laughed; adults didn’t spend more than twenty years failing to stop loving each other. They also didn’t lie awake at night obsessing over engagement photos and old birthday gifts like emotionally repressed teenagers. But, despite every instinct telling her otherwise, Bette eventually agreed.

And that was why she’d spent the last twelve hours feeling violently ill. A steady, persistent anxiety burred beneath her skin and coiled in her stomach throughout the work day, and by six o’clock, her house was glowing with candlelight and full of people laughing too loudly over expensive wine while Bette moved through the rooms feeling strangely detached from all of it.

Alice mingled with people Bette didn’t know nor care to, while Shane had already made herself scarce, smoking discreetly on the patio despite being asked not to because Angie was still upstairs.

Bette performed hosting effortlessly: smile, touch someone’s arm during a conversation, refill drinks, and laugh at the appropriate moments. It was muscle memory at this point, and nobody watching her would have guessed she’d spent the last hour painfully aware of the front door every single time it opened.

Around seven-thirty, Angie finally came downstairs dressed for whatever party she was heading to with her friends, shrugging into a jacket while checking her phone. 

“You sure you don’t wanna stay?” Bette asked, intercepting her at the foot of the stairs.

Angie paused. For a moment, something gentler crossed her face – too perceptive, too much Tina in her suddenly. “You’ll be okay,” she said reassuringly.

Bette forced a smile that definitely didn’t convince either of them. “I know,” she said. “Text me when you get there, okay?”

“I will, Mom.”

“And stay safe.”

Angie rolled her eyes affectionately, already halfway outside. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

She watched Angie go, and her daughter had barely made it halfway down the path before she crossed paths with Tina. For one disorienting second, the sight of her felt so familiar that Bette’s body reacted before her brain did.

“Hey, baby,” Tina said warmly.

She opened one arm automatically, and Angie folded into her without hesitating. Bette watched Tina press a kiss into Angie’s hair, smiling as Angie said something too quiet to make out. 

The intimacy of it hit Bette unexpectedly hard. It was something sadder than jealousy; the realisation that Tina still fit here so naturally. Seeing Tina in her home wasn’t unusual, but something about it felt different tonight. Tonight was the first time Tina would be here, and Bette wouldn’t feel that small, piffling urge of hope that maybe, just maybe, Tina might ask her to try again.

She wouldn’t spend the evening trying to read into things – like the softness in Tina’s voice or the way she laughed at something Bette said, even when it wasn’t supposed to be funny. There had always been some hidden, humiliating part of Bette that believed they were still orbiting each other toward an inevitable collision. That one day Tina would walk back through the front door and say: It’s still you.

But now everything was different.

Angie pulled back from the hug first. “You look nice.”

Tina smiled at her. “So do you. Where are you off to?”

“Friend’s birthday.”

“Mm.” Tina gave her a look Bette recognised immediately, something affectionate yet parental. “Behave.”

Bette watched the exchange quietly from the doorway, arms folded loosely across her chest as something warm and painful unfurled beneath her ribs. God—this, this was the problem.

Angie stepped backwards toward the friend's car waiting at the end of the drive, “Love you guys.”

“Love you,” Tina answered immediately.

Bette’s response caught half a second later. “Love you. Text me when you get there.”

“I will.”

They watched her leave, and when she was gone, Bette found herself overwhelmed by a memory so vivid it disoriented her completely: Tina coming home late from work, Bette waiting in the doorway, and the immediate loosening inside her chest at the sight of her. 

Tina looked at her then with that same careful expression she’d worn ever since the divorce — gentle, restrained, like she was constantly trying not to step too hard on something fragile between them.

“Hi,” Tina said quietly.

It was ridiculous how much damage one word could still do.

Bette swallowed once before stepping aside from the doorway. “Come in.”

Tina hesitated for barely a second before walking toward her. And there it was again, that unbearable familiarity of the sound of Tina’s heels against the stone path; the scent of her perfume reaching Bette a moment before she crossed the threshold; the instinctive awareness Bette’s body still carried for her after all these years.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Tina murmured as she stepped inside.

“You’re not.”

Tina slipped out of her coat before distractedly glancing back toward the still-open door. “Carrie says sorry she couldn’t make it. She’s meeting with a realtor tonight; we’re trying to fit in as many house viewings as possible.”

House viewings. We. Bette felt something small and ugly tighten in her chest. 

“Oh,” she said evenly.

“She really did want to come,” Tina added honestly. “It’s just difficult coordinating everything long-distance right now.”

Bette gave a short nod and reached automatically for the door behind them, shutting it perhaps a little harder than intended. “Well,” she replied coolly, “that’s probably for the best considering I didn’t technically invite her.”

Tina looked down briefly, fingers still tensely gripping her coat. “Bette…”

“I’m sorry,” Bette interrupted too quickly, pressing one hand against her forehead for a second. “That was unnecessary.”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“I know.”

“Then don’t punish me like I was,” Tina said harshly.

Shame moved through her unpleasantly, and she abruptly became aware of how this must look from Tina’s perspective: standing in the entryway of a crowded house being reprimanded by her ex-wife because she had mentioned looking at houses with her new fiancée. 

“I’m sorry,” Bette said again, more honestly this time. “Really.” 

******

The party swelled around them quickly afterwards, and Alice immediately reclaimed Tina the second she entered the living room, hooking an arm through hers and dragging her into the crowd of strangers. 

Bette, however, made herself scarce, retreating to the quietest parts of the house whilst simultaneously tracking the sound of Tina’s laugh from every room before she could stop herself. It was mortifying, really, and the entire evening became an exercise in pretending not to notice Tina while noticing absolutely everything about her.

Worse still, Tina seemed entirely capable of existing normally; she mingled easily with people Bette barely knew and laughed like the only thing she had to worry about was finding a new place to live in her very happy and very normal life. But now and then, her eyes found Bette across the room in little accidental collisions of attention that left Bette feeling strangely winded afterwards. 

Bette remained at the edges throughout the night, and at some point, she realised she had stopped participating in conversations entirely. The wine also stopped helping after the third glass, but she poured another anyway. 

Eventually, the noise inside became too much, and so she slipped silently out the back door without announcing herself. Cool air brushed her overheated skin as she stepped onto the patio, replacing the thud of music with the sound of cicadas and the gentle breeze as it swept through the trees.

She sat down on the edge of the deck and placed her wineglass down beside her feet, watching the pale reflection of the patio lights tremble against the surface of the wine. For a while, she simply sat there, staring blankly ahead. Then, she pinched the bridge of her nose hard between two fingers and exhaled shakily. 

What the hell was wrong with her?

She was fifty-something years old, running a mayoral campaign; publicly respected and intelligent enough to know better than this. And yet one glimpse of Tina standing in her doorway had reduced her to this strange, miserable version of herself all over again.

She dragged both hands slowly over her face, covering it completely for a second as though darkness might steady her. Instead, all she could see was Tina. 

Behind her, the sliding door opened.

“You know,” Shane’s voice drawled, “from inside, this looks exactly like the opening scene of a nervous breakdown.”

Bette let out a little humourless laugh without uncovering her face. Shane stepped onto the deck carrying cigarettes and two beers, unsurprised to find her there. She settled beside Bette with the ease of someone who had spent decades witnessing her unravel in various ways and was still choosing to sit through it with her.

“I figured you’d either end up out here,” Shane said matter-of-factly, “or drive directly into the ocean.”

Bette finally lowered her hands, giving her a tired look. “Good to know my friends think so highly of me.”

“Oh, I think incredibly highly of you.” Shane lit a cigarette. “Emotionally? Different conversation.”

The cigarette smoke curled lazily upward between them before disappearing into the dark as Shane passed the cigarette to Bette. She knew that the chances of it containing more than just tobacco were extremely high, but she didn’t really care at that moment.

Shane had always been good at this – sitting beside a disaster without looking for an immediate way to clean it up.

“You know she almost didn’t come tonight, right?” Shane said again, eventually.

Bette stared ahead. “Really?”

“Mm.” Another pause, then Shane glanced sideways at her. “You’re taking this worse than the divorce.”

Bette’s jaw tightened. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m right, though, aren’t I?”

Bette opened her mouth to argue, but fell short, because the terrible thing was: Shane might have been right. The divorce had been devastating, yes, but some part of Bette had always believed Tina would eventually circle back to her somehow. They had spent so many years breaking apart and returning to each other that Bette had started treating it like gravity instead of choice. 

But engagement changed the shape of things – permanent in a way their endless almosts had never been.

“She’s happy,” she managed to say finally, though the words sounded foreign aloud.

Shane took a drag from her cigarette. “Yeah.”

“I should want that for her.”

“You can love somebody and still hate watching them build a life that doesn’t include you,” Shane said earnestly.

Bette looked down into her wineglass. “I saw the engagement photos,” she admitted quietly.

Shane’s expression shifted immediately. “Oh.”

“She was wearing this top I bought her years ago.”

Shane blinked once. “Christ.”

“It’s stupid.”

“No,” Shane said carefully. “It’s not.”

The cicadas continued to hum steadily in the trees while warm light spilled across the patio from inside the house. Somewhere behind the glass doors, Alice shrieked with laughter loud enough that both of them instinctively glanced toward the sound.

“She’s definitely drunk now,” Shane smirked, choosing to lighten the conversation for a while. “That screech almost guarantees a hangover tomorrow morning.”

After that, they stayed there for what might have been an hour or so – drinking, smoking, and talking about nothing in particular. And at some point, Bette realised she was actually relaxing. She wasn’t sure whether it was the alcohol or Shane’s presence; most likely both, but for now, Bette felt like she could at least breathe.

The sliding door opened behind them then, and both of them glanced back automatically.

Tina stepped onto the patio slowly, one hand resting against the edge of the door as warm light spilled around her silhouette. For a brief second, she just stood there looking between them, eyes settling on Bette almost immediately.

Something shifted visibly across her face then. Relief, maybe, like she’d been searching for her.

“Well,” Shane announced suddenly, draining the rest of her beer as she stood. “I’ve just remembered how dangerous Alice gets after midnight.”

Bette shot her a warning look that went completely ignored. Then Shane disappeared back inside, sliding the door shut behind her.

Tina looked toward the empty space beside Bette. “Sorry, did I interrupt something?”

“No.”

Something wary flickered across Tina’s face at the clipped tone, but she didn’t comment on it. Instead, she walked across the patio toward her, hesitating briefly before sitting down.

For a moment, they simply sat there side by side, looking out over the city. It reminded Bette so violently of a hundred other nights that she had to take another sip of wine just to steady herself.

“You’re smoking again,” Tina observed quietly after a while.

Bette glanced down at the cigarette between her fingers. “Apparently, I’m going through a rebellious phase.”

“You always smoke when you’re stressed,” Tina said after a beat.

Bette looked over at her then. “You say that like you weren’t the cause of at least half of it.”

“And you were the cause of the other half,” Tina counted. 

That was deserved.

Tina tucked one leg beneath herself slightly in the chair, angling more toward Bette now. “Your campaign seems intense.”

“It’s awful.”

“You’re doing well, though.”

“That depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking.”

Bette looked out toward the city again instead of answering immediately. The alcohol had softened her edges enough now that exhaustion sat visibly near the surface. Tina could always tell – even years ago, Bette had never been able to hide fatigue from her properly.

“It’s just…” Bette exhaled quietly. “A lot of people want different versions of me all the time.” She paused for a few seconds. “And you? The house—have you found one yet?”

Tina shook her head. “We’re still working on it.”

“But you’re happy.” The question, or statement – Bette wasn’t sure which it was – slipped out before she could stop it.

“Most days,” Tina said meekly, looking down at her hands. “Angie seems really good,” she said after a second, redirecting the conversation.

“Yeah,” Bette said, smiling.

“She talks about school constantly now,” Tina continued warmly. “I had to sit through twenty minutes of her explaining photography lighting last week.”

“That sounds about right.”

“She’s excited, though.” Tina’s expression softened with unmistakable pride. “You can tell. She really cares about it.”

Bette looked down at her lap, warmth and grief tangling together painfully in her chest. “She’s doing well.”

“She is.” Tina glanced over at her. “She loves being here with you.”

The sincerity in her voice almost hurt more than anything else had tonight. Because there it was again — the version of Tina who knew exactly where Bette was fragile; the version that spoke to her softly when she looked too worn down to keep carrying herself properly.

Tina studied her for another second. “You okay?” she asked uneasily.

And maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the exhaustion or the fact that Tina still looked at her as though concern came naturally after all these years. Bette was drunk enough for honesty to start leaking through the seams, and before she could stop herself, the words escaped.

“You wore the blouse I bought you for your birthday to your engagement.”

Silence. Immediate and absolute. Tina blinked at her, visibly startled, and Bette shut her eyes the second the sentence landed between them. God, there it was – weeks of humiliation and jealousy and grief condensed into one pathetic confession on a dark patio after midnight.

“I know how insane that sounds,” Bette muttered, already reaching for her wineglass again. “Forget I said it.”

But Tina was still looking at her. “You noticed that?” she asked.

Bette let out a quiet laugh under her breath, though there was nothing remotely amused in the sound. “Of course I noticed, Tina.” She stared down into her glass. “I bought it for you.”

Tina stayed quiet for a second, brow furrowing. “How did you see the photo?”

Bette hesitated because the answer suddenly felt embarrassingly intimate. “Angie was showing me something on her phone a few weeks ago,” she admitted finally. “Her photography assignment—I swiped too far by accident. It was my fault, not Angie's.”

Realisation moved slowly across Tina’s face then. “Oh.”

Bette swallowed hard, eyes fixed firmly on the view ahead. “I wasn’t supposed to see it.”

“Bette—”

“No, I just…” She shook her head. “I need to understand that. Because I can’t tell if it’s cruel or sentimental or if you didn’t even remember where it came from.”

“I remembered.”

The air suddenly felt too heavy and suffocating between them.

“I didn’t wear it because I wanted to hurt you.”

“Then why?”

Tina opened her mouth, then closed it. A flicker of guilt and sadness washed over her face, and had it not been for the statement that followed, Bette would’ve assumed that the guilt had been meant for her.

“Because it still makes me feel loved.”

Bette’s breath caught. There were a thousand responses available to her: angry ones, defensive ones; something detached and distant. Instead, she just stared at Tina as though the words had physically struck her. 

“I remember that birthday,” Tina continued quietly, eyes still lowered, “You had that terrible meeting the night before, and you came home in the worst mood imaginable. You were convinced I was upset because you had forgotten dinner reservations, but really, I was upset because Angie had told me about the surprise party and ruined it before you even got home.”

A reluctant smile flashed across Bette’s mouth before disappearing just as quickly.

“You spent the entire night trying to fix a problem that didn’t exist,” Tina whispered. “And then the next morning… You gave me the blouse and told me that I should let myself be—”

“Adored,” Bette whispered, finishing the sentence for her, feeling the memory vividly arrive in the front of her mind again.

“Exactly,” Tina sighed, like all the air had been knocked from her lungs. “I’d have never chosen it for myself, and yet somehow it’s the most sentimental thing I own because every time I put it on, I remember what it felt like to be loved by y—”

Something inside Bette’s chest twisted like a vice.

“Tina,” she said suddenly, too fast, voice cracking at the edges. “Please don’t.”

Because this was exactly the problem – the way Tina could still reach into Bette’s life and pull entire versions of her back to the surface with only a few sentences.

“I can’t do the reminiscing thing tonight.”

Bette kept her eyes fixed ahead; anywhere but Tina, because if she looked at her right now, she was terrified of what might happen. Every boundary she’d spent months trying to rebuild had been instantly softened by Tina’s voice, and her presence pressed against Bette’s composure until she could feel it cracking somewhere deep and immeasurable beneath her ribs.

“I’m sorry, Bette.”

“Don’t apologise.”

“But I–”

“You don’t have to apologise for loving me once.” 

Tina inhaled sharply, and Bette closed her eyes, exhausted by herself suddenly. 

“You make it sound past tense,” Tina whispered.

“Isn’t it?” Bette offered weakly.

Then, she felt herself stop breathing entirely when Tina reached over, settling her hand over where Bette’s rested against her own thigh. Her thumb brushed over the side of her hand, and the contact sent something so visceral through Bette’s chest that it almost felt like grief turning physical.

She looked down at Tina’s hand covering her own, and felt suddenly, overwhelmingly tired of pretending she had ever truly stopped loving her. 

“Tina…”

Tina shifted closer at the sound of her name, close enough now that Bette could smell the wine on her breath beneath her perfume – close enough that all memory began to blur dangerously with the present. Every version of them seemed to exist here at once: young and in love, middle-aged and broken, divorced and still somehow unable to let go. 

Tina’s gaze swept down to Bette’s mouth, then back up again. Bette knew this look – knew exactly what was about to happen before it did. And God help her, some aching, terrible part of her wanted it anyway. She could feel her breath against her own mouth now. She could feel the hesitation and the longing; twenty years of history suspended in one unbearable moment. 

Bette felt suddenly sober inside her sadness.

“You’re marrying her.”

The words stopped everything instantly, and Tina froze barely inches from her.

“I know.”

The quietness of it broke Bette’s heart. “You love her.”

Tina’s expression flared immediately – pain, guilt, and honesty colliding together so visibly that Bette had to look away.

“I do,” Tina whispered, voice shaking.

The truth: simple, clean, and completely unsurvivable. Bette felt something inside herself crumple around the edges despite having known it already: of course, Tina loved Carrie. She wouldn’t be marrying her otherwise.

“And there are still parts of me,” she continued, voice trembling now in a way that made Bette want to gather her in her arms, “that belong to you. I don’t know if that ever changes.”

Bette felt her eyes sting. For years, she had imagined closure as something cinematic – a final conversation; a clean ending; Angie moving out and going away to college so the two of them would never have to be in the same room ever again.

Instead, it was this –  loving someone past reason, past fairness, past the point where love was useful – it was thinking about the past and haunting a house that nobody lived in anymore.

There were tears in Tina’s eyes now, though Bette couldn’t help but notice how her expression remained heartbreakingly calm.

“It was always you,” she said softly.

Bette felt her entire body freeze.

“It will always be you.”

Bette looked away sharply before Tina could see the full extent of what those words had done to her. This was cruel. Maybe not intentionally or maliciously, but still cruel all the same. Because Tina was saying you are the love of my life while wearing another woman’s ring.

“You can’t tell me that when you’re marrying someone else,” Bette’s voice faltered as she tried to speak.

Tina’s face crumpled then. “I know, Bette.”

“But you are. You’re marrying her.”

“I know.”

Bette pressed the heel of her free hand hard against her eyes for a second, trying unsuccessfully to steady herself. “This is exactly why I can’t do this with you,” she said brutally. “Because every time I start learning how to live without you, you say something like that and suddenly I…” Her voice broke. “I don’t know how to put myself back together afterwards.”

Tina looked devastated now.

“Bette…”

“You were my home,” Bette admitted before she could stop herself. “And you still feel like one.”

For one terrible second, Bette genuinely thought Tina might kiss her anyway. Tina’s hand rose carefully to her face, fingertips brushing against the soft skin of her jaw with catastrophic familiarity.

“Tina…” she whispered weakly.

Tina kissed her before she could say anything else.

Every part of Bette remembered her, and Tina kissed her like she remembered, too. Her hand slid up into her hair, and Bette felt herself unfold completely beneath the tenderness of it. No matter how badly they hurt each other, the second Tina touched her like this, Bette became terrifyingly willing to forget every sensible thing she knew. 

A second later, Tina pulled away carefully, as though she were separating something delicate at the seam. One second her mouth had been there, and the next there was only the thin stretch of air between them. 

Bette hated how quickly distance could return. How it could exist even with their knees touching, even with her ex-wife’s hand still pressed against her cheek like she was framing the world's most expensive piece of artwork.

But it was more than just a physical thing, and the metaphorical was worse of all – the distance between her heart and hands, between her voice and the words she could never seem to say in time; between wanting and being wanted back in the same way.

Tina looked down at the engagement ring on her finger like she had only just remembered it was there. And somehow that was what hurt most Bette of all, because loving Tina had always felt like this: standing inches away from the sun and never quite being able to keep warm.