Tina woke up with a headache. She kept tossing and turning until the early morning hours, the thoughts that ran through her mind just couldn’t let her sleep. As she lay in bed with her daughter in her arms, her mind drifted back to the argument she had with Kit, a few weeks after Bette’s departure.

------

“So what happened that made you take the decision?”

Asked Alice casually as she took another sip from her beer.

“What decision?”

“Hey Kit. Well Tina broke it off with the dude.”

“Too late.”

Kit said under her breath as she took a seat between Shane and Tina.

“What?”

Tina asked, she heard her but couldn’t make out what Kit said exactly.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, okay.”

Tina replied before the very awkward silence took place.

“You know what? I said too late.”

A confused Tina looked at an irritated Kit. Tina knew that Kit had been angry with her, but she never really showed it. But now it looked like the time had come that she would.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“No Kit, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tina shot back as she turned to face Kit.

“What I’m talking about is you breaking up with him after making my sister leave.”

“Bette left because she wanted to. She got the job offer before breaking up with me.”

“You like everybody else knew she got a dean position that she was more than ready to take here. But your insensitiveness is what drove her away.”

“My insensitiveness?”

A hurt Tina asked.

“You heard that right.”

Alice, Shane, Jenny and Carmen were watching the exchange between the two without saying a word.

“Kit, don’t blame your sister’s decisions on me. I didn’t ask her to backstab me by filing for sole custody and wanting to take my daughter away from me. I never gave Bette the slightest reason to think that Angelica doesn’t belong to her, even when we were at odds.”

Tina didn’t want to say the word “kidnap” because she herself hated to think that Bette even thought about attempting such crime.

“Guys, I think…” Shane said before being cut off by Kit.

“You know what Tina? You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Telling my sister that you and your boyfriend want to start a family and at the same time that you don’t want her to adopt her daughter showed how much you insisted on her being Angelica’s other parent.”

“I said that after she filed for sole custody. I was hurt and angry.”

“Hurt and angry is what Bette was when she filed for sole custody…”

“She shouldn’t have filed for it in the first place; she shouldn’t have used our daughter in that way. Besides, she had 6 weeks to stop it but she didn’t…”

“She did try to stop it…”

Kit was interrupted by Angelica’s sobs suddenly coming through the wire-less monitor on the table. Tina, Kit and all the others looked at it at the same time. Shane was more than happy with the interruption. She hated it when her friends argued. When Tina looked up again, she saw Kit glaring at her with angry eyes. Tina wanted to stay and hear what Kit had to say to her, but she couldn’t. She got up, gathered her things and walked to the door.