“Hi there,” she whispered in my ear. Her hot breath sent shivers down my spine.

“Hey yourself,” I answered, kissing her softly.

“We have to get up, T.” She kissed me behind my ear, but as she had called me T, I had felt my body totally tense up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just… I’d rather you didn’t call me that.”

“Oh, sure, Tina. Any reason?”

“No, it’s just… well, it’s just, Bette used to call me that. It reminds me of her.”

Now it was Helena’s time to tense up. She had never met Bette, but she had heard a lot about her. People talked about her right after she had left, I had told her some stuff and there were Alice, Shane, Dana, Amy, Ally and Lara.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Helena said, and she sat up. Her voice was cold and it hurt me, but I didn’t show. I didn’t want her to think she had done anything wrong.

She looked at me. “Don’t you have to get ready for school?”

“I’m staying home. I don’t feel well,” I lied. She frowned her eyebrows.

“You felt really well last night,” she said with a smirk.

“Leave it, Helena,” I said, a bit irritated. I her rolling her eyes and I could almost hear her thinking how weird I could be at times. I wanted to just hit her really hard. I really liked Helena, but sometimes she could be so… pretentious, and it completely annoyed me.

“Well, I’m going. See you tonight?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t want to see her, I wanted her to leave. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. She had called me ‘T’ and all the memories were coming back, all the memories I shared with Bette.

I was longer together with Helena than with Bette, but my relationship with Bette always seemed so much more intense. I felt the tears rolling down my cheek. My hand blindly opened a drawer of my night table and pulled out her photograph. Bette.

_ _

Bette Porter – “You don’t have to sell your body to the night”

Marina Ferrer was clearly very Italian. I was amazed by her. She radiated authority, her wish was a command to anyone.