The flicker of the bed side lamp woke Betty.
Searching in dim light of her room, she thought it was the intruder that she'd always welcome.
It was just the devil of her own hopes.
Betty rolled over and closed her eyes again, the bed creaked with the shift in weight.
The blond returned to an old daydream, trying to will herself back to sleep, but it just kept her awake with a bitter after shock.
Would the bed creak so much if Kate lay by her side?
Would it make a sound as they slept huddled into each other?
Would their combined weight pressure the metal frames complaint?
Betty felt her eyes sting, but wished the tears away with the simple slap of reality.
Kate wasn't coming back.
The blond buried her face into the pillow and tried to torture herself. Immersion therapy the fancy doctors called it, the more you are exposed to the thing you're scared of, the more you become numb to it.
Right now, Betty was loathing how her pillow had still managed to cling to the now dull scent of Kate's perfume.
It was a ritual that Betty performed every night to try and get by.
The scent would hurt her, but no pain, no gain.
A small knock on the door brought her from the ritual.
Betty turned in her bed to peer at the door, like it would just open it's self so she didn't have to pull herself away from such a display of self pity.
"Betty?" Gladys's voice hissed out through the crack between the door and the frame.
Betty pulled herself from the bed with a loud creak and her bare feet padded over to the door, she unlocked it and Gladys slipped in, the damp night air clung to her coat.
"Some would say this hour is ungodly" Betty crossed her arms over her chest.
"You don't believe in God" Gladys replied a matter of factly and stood next to the bed, looking around the small room to give herself time to adjust to the change in temperature and topic of conversation.
"I still think it's a darn assed hour to come knocking" Betty quipped, feeling exposed in her pyjamas.
"Well it was the only time I could really bare to come and see you"
"At night, people'll talk" Betty mocked and sat on her bed, peering up at the brunet. "Bare to come and see me?
Gladys strangely liked her sense of humour, but decided not to play along, but soon realised what she'd said had sounded like.
"You do know how to make a gal feel popular or wanted" Betty smirked, knowing Gladys had worded her intended sentence wrong.
"Betty, I've been thinking about you all day"
Betty was taken off guard, her words were unromantic, which reassured her that Gladys hadn't flipped the coin so to speak.
"And?"
"And I think I might know how to find Kate"
The words fell like a ton of bricks on to Betty.
"Find?" Betty flexed her jaw. "She doesn't want to be found"
"But you want to find her" Gladys gave a small smile.
"You know what princess, I'm not sure if I do or don't" Betty hugged herself.
Gladys was taken back.
"But you always know what you want"
"Yeah, but the one thing I want... wanted... whatever, is gone"
"You mean to say you've got over her in the space of a month?" Gladys wasn't convinced, her expression confirmed it.
"She's probably forgotten me" Betty's voice broke and Gladys sat by her side, the bed creaked in protest of the extra weight.
"I hardly think anyone can forget you" her eyes were playful with a hope.
"No, really, she's... she's better off without me... she said so her damn self" Betty's eyes began to sting and her voice quivered.
Betty thumped her knee in anger and bit down on her lip.
"But you have to fight" Gladys held the side of her face in a soft caress.
"When I have nothing to really fight for"
"You have yourself!" Gladys pressed their foreheads together. "You have to fight for Kate, she needs to come back, her father... her old life is the one thing that she's scared of, she's not scared of you"
"She's better off without me Gladys" Betty winced and pulled away.
"But I need you" Gladys pleaded. "I need you both"
"Why would someone possibly want me?"
"Because you're the only woman here who actually stands up for what is right, I want to be like that and if you're not being strong and you're waiting for something to happen, then how are the rest of us going to hold it together?... We make our own path, and you need to pick yourself up and get running" Gladys had her hand clasped on her side of Betty's neck, rubbing her thumb across the skin, soothing the other woman.
"You are really something ain't you princess" Betty sighed, smiling softly.
"You are my muse" Gladys shrugged, a tiny giggle carried the words.
"I can't believe I'm saying this... where do we start?"