Bette Porter:

I love this beach…it’s just perfect, and it isn’t just the beach it’s the feeling I get when I’m here. I don’t come here as often as I used to, it breaks my heart when I have to leave, but when I’m here I just feel so calm and at peace. I love the way the sand feels beneath my feet, the slight breeze blowing through my hair, and the water is always just as beautiful as when I last saw it. I walk along the water with my pants rolled up a bit and let the water lap at my feet, any tension I may have had is slowly washing away. I keep on walking for…I don’t know how long I’ve been walking but I don’t really care how much time has passed. I decide to sit down in the sand to relax a bit more, to enjoy the sun before it sets. The sun warms my face but the soft breeze tempers it a bit so it feels great. The sun doesn’t seem to be as bright and is starting to set. And each any every time I’m here she’s here looking every bit as beautiful as the first time I saw her. She always has on one of this light breezy dresses on that shows off her gorgeous body. Her beautiful blond hair is a bit longer with soft curls here and there. And I wait for it…the moment when she turns around and gives me that beautiful smile that’s just for me…and then it happens my heart feels so full when she smiles at me that way, and everything else goes away. I get up and walk over to her wanting, no needing to touch her…hoping that she could see all the love I have for her in my eyes. I reach her and all I want to do is pull her into me but I’m afraid she’ll leave me…she sees the change in my eyes she always knows what I’m feeling, and I love that about her.

She reaches out and softly rests her had on my cheek, "Hey stranger…I haven’t seen you in awhile…I thought you left me for good last time." And as she says this she’s giving me this achingly soft loving look that just dismantles my very being.

"I really tried this last time…I really did, but it doesn’t feel right if I’m not with you." A few tears slip out and she brings up her other hand and starts to wipe away the tears as she steps even closer so that there’s only a whisper of space between our bodies. Her left hand is still cupping my face and her right is softly brushing through my hair (I absolutely love it when she runs her fingers through my hair), and as she tucks my hair behind my right ear she leans in and whispers soothing words that reach me to the farthest depths of my soul.

"Baby I will always be here if you need me…always, but I want you to be happy, you know that right?" At this point my throat feels too tight to talk so I just nod yes. "I’d love to spend all day every day here with you on our beach, but you know that we can’t stay here forever…Baby look at me tell what went wrong between you and Natalie, she seemed like a really nice person."

She moves away from me and takes a seat in the sand, "Come here tell me what happened, and lets see if we could figure something out."

"Natalie was really nice, smart, and all that other good stuff you want in a partner. She really loved me, she was always telling me that she loved me, and really made me feel it, but as much as she loved me I knew I couldn’t love her the same way…I couldn’t make her feel completely loved because I couldn’t give her all of me. I really tried, you know how much I hate to fail at anything but I couldn’t do it. I hate that I hurt her but it was for the best."

She fixed me with that look that tells me to elaborate. "After she left I felt really bad, and it hurt not to be able to be there for her…I really did care about her, she’s a really great person, and for a second I started to reconsider my decision but…in the end she just wasn’t who I meant to be with."

"How do you know if you didn’t really give her a chance."

"I did give her a chance we were together for seven months and in all that time she wasn’t the first thing I thought of in the morning or the last thing I thought of at night, she couldn’t excite my entire being with a single look like someone else I know."

"Ah there’s that Porter passion, but you do realize that if you continue to compare everyone else to me you’re always going to find something wrong, because baby they can’t be me just like no one else could be you, at least not in my eyes. You have to stop comparing your relationships to what you had with me, accept these women for who they are and how they make you feel and take it from their. Trust me babe have I ever steered you in the wrong direction?"

"No, but if I was meant to be with any of these woman than don’t you think that any comparisons I make would be irrelevant. I mean…no stay with me here, if I was meant to be with any of them, take Natalie for example: if I was supposed to be with her, to spend the rest of my life with her than she would make this pain in my heart disappear. She made me happy but if she was meant to be my ‘forever’ then shouldn’t I be more willing to let our past go and rush towards my future with her. In all the months we were together on our best day it was only a fraction of the happiness that you made me feel." I sigh at what I just said, it’s been nine years but here I am. She lifts my chin so I’m looking in her eyes again.

"I guess I’m still not at a place where I’m desperate enough to settle for something that doesn’t make me completely happy…I blame that damn Porter passion." I knew that last line would make her laugh and damn she’s so sexy when she laughs.

"That Porter passion can be blamed for many things like almost getting us fired on several occasions, but babe I think you’re a little too stubborn for your own good. So, what do you want to do now, the sun’s going to be coming up pretty soon and your going to have to leave."

"I hate it when I leave…it hurts so much when you’re not with me."

"You don’t have to feel this way if you let me go…it has to be so exhausting, hiding a piece of yourself, never letting anyone get close enough to see who you really are…you have to try to move on."

"Don’t ask me to leave you…It broke my heart when you left me…I don’t think I’m any closer to letting you go now than I was nine years ago."

I feel her hand lifting my face up so she can look into my eyes, "Don’t sell yourself short Porter, you’ve worked really hard to get to where you are now, and you’ve said it yourself you like the person you are today and guess what so do I. You’re not the same person you were nine years ago."

"Tina I’ve came to this beach for nine years, and I’ll admit my visits are less frequent now then they were nine years ago, but in those nine years I have never been able to touch you without having you slip away."

"Why do you think that is Bette?"

"I don’t know…sometimes I feel like I’m being punished when I come here because I know you won’t be with me tomorrow, but every time I come here I never want to leave because it makes me so happy to be here with you."

"Bette, I won’t pretend to have all the answers but the only thing that’s stopping you from touching me is you…you’re afraid of what would happen if you did."

"No. No. That’s not true because in the beginning every time I tried to hold on to you, you’d slip away. Why?"

"Maybe you didn’t think you deserved to touch me back then…you tried so hard to hold on but in the end you didn’t think you deserved to hold me, and after awhile you stopped trying. As you slowly started to change you came to the beach less and less but you were so afraid that if you touched me, you would lose me…So here we are now nine years later, and you’re still scared that you don’t deserve to be happy. Trust that you’re a changed person Bette, stop being so afraid, you can’t be happy if you’re holding back." You know only Tina could make something I’ve spent thousands of dollars on therapy to try to figure out sound so simple.

I raise my hand to touch her beautiful face but before I could touch her I hear something behind me and I’m yanked away from her. And this is the worst part I squeeze my eyes tight, and tears start to slip out because I know I’m in my room.

"FUCK."

As if waking up from that dream isn’t bad enough, but to be pulled out of my dream by Alice ringing the damn doorbell really pisses me off. She better have a damn good excuse for waking me up so early on a Saturday. I pull my hair up, clean-up my face, and walk to the front door. I honestly don’t know how she does it…she drank all night, she should be sleeping off her hang-over, but no instead she’s here ringing my doorbell while trying to knock my door down, she’ll never learn. I yank open the door and lay into her, "Alice what the fuc…"

TBC