Chapter Text
Trinity woke up first. She felt like she hadn't slept at all. She felt like she'd spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows shift as grey dawn light leaked around the edges of her blackout curtains. She kept replaying the details of the night over and over in her mind: how Victoria had looked pressed into her, how her touch had felt, how her mouth had tasted. She tried to remember how she'd felt in every moment, tried to decide if each feeling had been real or just some blurry illusion. It scared her that she wasn't sure.
She barely had to turn her head to see that Victoria's face was right next to hers, each exhale tickling Trinity's cheek. She had one hand curled up into a fist against her chin, knuckles brushing her lips. It made Trinity wonder if Victoria had maybe once been a child who sucked her thumb, who'd needed to soothe herself to dreaming.
"I can feel you watching me, creep," Victoria murmured, mouth still against her fist, eyes still closed.
Trinity startled. "I didn't know that you were awake," she said.
"You know that that makes it creepier, right?"
Victoria opened her eyes and Trinity watched her pupils shift to focus on her face. Their noses were barely inches apart.
Victoria offered a soft, sleepy smile. "Hi."
"Hi."
"This is actually kinda nice," Victoria said. "Like, I'm actually a little surprised. I like your bed."
"Yeah," Trinity said. It came out softer than she meant it to.
Victoria's brows twitched, a microfrown, there and gone again. "You okay?"
"Yep," Trinity replied, and she made a show of stretching her arms up over her head. "I'm great."
But she felt like her thoughts were racing away from her, like she had to pound the pavement of her own mind to catch up and make sense of them.
—
When Trinity told the truth, it came out almost accidentally.
They were at a diner near her apartment, the kind with cracked vinyl booths and melamine tables, scuffed-looking white ceramic coffee mugs and menus that are maple syrup sticky despite being wiped down with vinegar water. This was Trinity's usual haunt after one night stands that overstayed their welcome and dates that she welcomed to stay as long as they wanted.
Trinity's gut was telling her that she wanted Victoria to be one of the kind who stayed, but her gut had lied to her before, had proven itself untrustworthy.
"There's supposed to be a meteor shower peaking tonight," Victoria said, swiping through her socials and sipping at some matcha raspberry latte situation with layers smearing into each other like watercolour smudges. Trinity stirred a spoon through a black coffee, watching the oil slick on its surface swirl.
"You're not listening." Trinity looked up and she thought that Victoria might be pouting, just a little, her mouth still around her straw.
"I'm listening," she said. "You want to see shooting stars."
"Yeah," Victoria looked at her strangely, then glanced back down at her phone. "There's a dark sky preserve near Coudersport if you're up for the road trip." She went for another sip of her latte and grinned a little to herself, biting the straw and letting it go to add. "We could make another date of it."
Trinity stared at the little crimp in Victoria's straw left behind by her teeth. She squeezed one hand between her thighs, pressesd the meat of her palm into the bruise that Victoria had left there, still tender and new.
"I don't think I can do this," she said.
"Yeah," Victoria shook her head. "Of course. We don't have to go. I just thought it could be nice, you know?"
Trinity let out a long slow breathe, until she felt like maybe there was nothing else, no residual volume, and that maybe her lungs might collapse right there in the middle of the diner.
"I meant all of this," she tried again. She released her hand from between her thighs to make a sweeping gesture over the tabletop. "Any of this. I don't know."
"You're being fucking weird." Victoria said, but there was hurt in her eyes. "Was I really that bad?"
"What?" Trinity felt her face scrunch up, told herself to relax. "No. You were fine. Good."
"Wow," Victoria scoffed. "Rave review."
"Stop. Shut up. You were hot, okay? You're fucking hot. It's just—" Trinity was floundering. She couldn't stop herself. "It just…doesn't feel right? God. I don't know what I'm trying to say."
"I think I'm getting the idea," Victoria said, her voice flat. Her matcha sat at her elbow, abandoned now, the layers melted into something brownish. "You're breaking up with me."
"We've only been on two dates," Trinity said. "It's not really a break-up. There's nothing to break up. It wasn't that serious."
Victoria opened her mouth as if in retort, then closed it again without speaking, pressing her lips together into a think line. For a horrifying moment, Trinity was afraid that Victoria might actually cry.
"You know what, Trinity?" She said finally, "You're right. It wasn't that serious. Kind of wish you had had your dark night of the soul or whatever this is before I slept with you but—" she shrugged and looked at Trinity with wide, wet eyes. "—I thought we were having fun or something? Like, why did you even ask me out?"
This was a moment where Trinity could choose to tell the truth on purpose. But her mouth was dry. She bit the tip of her tongue and swallowed, trying to conjure enough spit to clear her throat and find her voice again.
"I do like you, Crash," she said, her tongue sticking to her hard palate on like.
"Don't bother, Trinity," Victoria said bitterly. "I don't want to hear how much you like me right now. Or how hot you think I am. Or was. Or whatever." She started to get up, elbow jostling her latte a little as she stood. "Um, I'm going to just go. Okay? I'll pay for my drink. I'll just—I'll see you at work."
Trinity let her go. She sat alone in the booth and let her coffee get cold.
For the rest of the day, she tried to keep busy. She tried not to think about their conversation, to examine every single word they'd said and what Trinity wished she'd said instead. She stopped herself from texting Huckleberry, just to ask him if he thought she was a good person. She stopped herself from texting Yolanda to ask the same thing.
That night she did look out her window, tried to peer up at the night sky, but the light pollution in the city was impenetrable. She couldn't see anything at all.