Bette ended the call, but held on to her phone, reluctant to completely break the connection with Tina. Bette had asked for the words to get Jodie back, and Tina had given them to her. But for a moment, a small moment, Bette imagined Tina was really speaking for herself. And in that moment, Bette felt like the months they had been apart never happened. It was the same feeling she had when she kissed Tina goodbye earlier that day…rightness. Being with Tina was right in every way. Bette drifted off to sleep with images of Tina and Jodie competing for space in her dreams. Tina eventually won and Bette slept peacefully.

When Bette’s lips touched Jodie’s, when her arms wrapped around her perfect body, a small part of her heart whispered that no matter how wonderful the woman before her, she would never be Tina. Even through the perfect days that followed, as Bette learned and loved the remarkable artist she had followed across the country, that whispered message never fully faded. It followed her on the plane back to L.A., remained with her as she settled back into the chaos of semester’s end. Usually the whisper was drowned out by all her efforts to build and maintain a relationship across the miles, to prove to herself that she could be worthy of a real love. But at night, in the stillness of her dreams, the whisper grew, and all too often, Bette awoke with an emptiness that she knew only Tina could fill.