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The last summer before 4th year remains as the warm body of a gun. The smoke still hanging low on the pistol, rippling.
Trinity remembers almost-domestic weekends; shared body heat, the kitchen smelling like ramen and the TV on until early mornings —not like they were watching, anyway. The tinny words unfurling into soft blabbering while they laughed out loud.
In those days, the sun was slow to rise through the thick blinds. And they would have an excuse to get up later, still too tangled up in arms and legs, too comfortable, to do anything. She would press her fingers into the dip of Garcia's cheeks as she laughed, and pretend that the world wasn't moving outside her bedroom.
Too tangled in the no-labels, to realize that it had already been cataloged.
Trinity loved the illusion, though.
A long time ago, she had heard someone in the library talking about a “family of souls,” connected to his long before the body had been created. At the time, it sounded like an overly complicated; far-fetched thought. She was no romantic; but in front of Yolanda, it sounds almost understandable, as if her soul recognized hers as something of its own, something to take care of.
She remembers her almost’s disappear into nothing's, too.
The left side of her bed remains cold, as she remains in denial. She doesn't dare touch that side, it doesn't belong to her, nothing in this apartment does, only the paper with her name at the end, which is even shared with Whitaker.
Everything is shared, everything has been designed that way —the upper cabinets in the kitchen, designed so that Yolanda's arms could reach them, the large isle, just so that both of their bodies could move with ease. The left side of her bed, against the windows, so that when Trinity woke up, the first thing she saw was Yolanda's silhouette, covered in a yellowish halo.
Her body; soul, made for Yolanda to fit into her arms.
She remembers herself years ago, leaving Pittsburgh for the same reasons her heart hangs loose in her ribcage now. It all always trails back to brown eyes and hushed conversations, —everything was treated with such delicacy among them that it no longer seemed like affection, but a filthy secret.
She knew they were doomed ever since Yolanda stepped into her house for the first time.
Now, at university and years away from Yolanda, it seems her heart will never forget its devotion for her. Whether if it's as a friend or a lover, she wants her near.
It explains a lot; in reality, she was never enthusiastic about anyone else. Not at Yolanda's level. She always ended up looking for some glimmer of her in someone else.
Finding her here was like seeing Jesus reincarnated, in the back of a party, bathed in red lights and crowded by people. Trinity was no devout, but she wanted to reach and sink her fingers into the soft skin over her ribs, feel the warmth, to know it was real.
At that point, Trinity had finally found something somewhat stable, but it was a matter of weeks until it all dissolved again.
“I don't think this is going anywhere”
The bay area is pretty, and its sunsets even more. It's almost romantic, it's supposed to. It's a date, after all.
But when she reaches for her girlfriend, her hand doesn't recognize the dents of her fingers; she doesn't know how to hold her, how to love her.
Despite the time that had passed, her body had not adjusted to the shape of the other, her heart had not softened enough to open up to her.
Most of the time she felt numb in that relationship. Just moving on autopilot, squeezing the words out of her mouth. It was all so superficial, a relationship made for the pics and nothing more —She'd been a terrible girlfriend, and she'd never realized it until now.
She didn't even recognize her voice when she agreed, watching the cars pass by as the weight from her side was finally removed. Trinity sat on the edge of the cliff until evening, feeling the breeze lift her hair and cool her skin.
That night she grabbed her phone, typing down a number that her mind knew by heart, and calling. She didn't even notice Yolanda's car parking nearby until she felt her hand close on her shoulder.
She recognized the calluses on her skin long before she spoke.
“Hey, are you okay?” She whispers for no reason at all, there wasn't anybody near— And if that were the case, none of them knew about them, or even cared about their existence.
Trinity smiles, feeling the flesh of Yolanda's skin rub circles on her shoulder. A familiar pattern she missed.
“Yeah, I just. Um. My girlfriend and I kinda broke up? I don't know”
Yolanda doesn't say a thing for a while, just stands awkwardly at her side, jaw locked and looking down at her feet. She doesn't owe her anything.
“Jesus, Trin.”
Trin. She breathes like it's the most normal thing, it used to be their normal: tangled in each other, whispering just for them to hear. Trin. She breathes, and Trinity realizes how much she has missed her.
In silence; that's how she understood: there would never be anyone like Yolanda for her. There would never be anyone who could imitate that intense feeling in her chest. Never.
Lover. Leaver. It doesn't matter in which form she comes off, she was the keeper of her heart —and Trinity adored her, through and through.
There's a pending conversation between them, it always feels like that. No matter how much they clarify things; the way their eyes meet at the end of each decisive word speaks louder than the speeches they prepare in front of the mirror.
Whitaker had warned her days before, seeing her rush out while slinging her leather purse over her shoulder. Things like this leave you aching for a while. I don't think this is good for you.
She just scoffed at his words and opened the door. He had no word over her decisions, she was grown up and knew where she was going. Plus, Yolanda and her were just friends trying to rekindle their relationship.
At least, that's what she liked to think.
Trinity drove irritated, the word's plaguing her system. She felt uneasy, trying to control the trembling in her hands and Whitaker's stupid speech. The last time she felt like that was back at Pittsburgh, —still a child at her core; heart tender on her hands, newly broken and disarmed by Yolanda.
Casual, casual. Keep it casual.
“I missed having you in my life”
It was dark, and the rain was blinding Trinity's precarious eyesight, so she had decided to turn off the car near a cafe, listening to the raindrops drumming against the roof.
It was a risky decision of words, but it eased the spiking rhythm of her heartbeat. One less thing haunting her house.
The silence stretched for a bit, and the wait felt like someone was tearing her heartstrings. Then, Yolanda breathed, sounding relieved.
“Me too,” she said. “You know? When I saw you again, I thought you were going to pretend you didn't know me. After all, Pittsburgh was….”
“I could never do that,” she hastens to say. “I don’t think that I– I don’t know.”
She is exposed under Yolanda's eyes, eyes that once looked at her without emotion and told her that she was broken. But now, she feels strangely good, despite crawling to the same person, to the source of her ache.
And that was the first honest thing that they had said to each other since then.
But their time it's never theirs, and Trinity clings too hard onto hope sometimes. It's too much, she's too much.
We're nothing, Trin. Still stains her skin with beige, scarred, lines.
It seems that some things never change.
It was stupid of her to think that it was going to change. That she was going to change. Even more stupid of her for pushing all that mush down her throat. Yeah, casual, right? She'd even asked one night, tracing freckles on Yolanda's arm.
She perpetuated that idea, those unexpected plans, while Whitaker was visiting I-don't-know-where, taking pictures of farms and valleys. She fell onto bed with her heart outside her chest.
It was frightening; she felt a certain vertigo every time she confronted the magnitude of her feelings. So she piled them up deep in her stomach and vomited them on fridays while she's out with Javadi and Whitaker.
Every time she felt she was about to name it, every time she felt it slipping from her lips, she pushed Yolanda out of her reach. She feared for her own well-being, what would become of her if she officially handed everything over to her.
It was a mutual agreement, a constant misunderstanding for which they kept apologizing, but in the end they always ended up repeating it. A spiral of almost's.
Until yesterday.
She liked to think she's immune to falling in love, but every time she lets Yolanda in her life again, it feels like she's just lying to herself.
Because she does —Trinity often finds herself curled in her bed, imagining how nice it would be if García just barged in; hair tamed in a loose bun, soft pajamas and holding two mugs of tea for both of them, smelling like Trinity's shampoo and wearing her mismatched socks.
But she can't afford that, not again. So she sticks to whatever is thrown at her.
“What happened?”
Whitaker stands in front of the aftermath of whatever-this-was. Tote bag falling off his shoulder and hair tousled. The skin of his cheeks is sun-kissed, and it looks like he gained a couple of freckles on his nose.
He looks like he's had a great time away. Fucking perfect.
She wants to laugh at her own expense, living the consequences of what he warned her about. Part of her wants him to be angry, to yell and tell her: I fucking told you.
But he doesn't, just stares.
Footsteps fill the air, distinctly his; quiet and somewhat reluctant. He's always unsure about everything, and his shaky hands deposit the bag on the isle while he looks at her. A few groceries spill onto the sleek surface as he walks to the living room.
She really wants to ask about his trip, but the words swell on her throat and dissipate.
Everything's a mess, the room is still frozen in time, things in the same place as yesterday: some takeout plates scattered on the coffee table and a few cushions on the floor. It's rather dramatic; she still wants to keep her love warm, wants to bathe in it while it's still tender. Wants to burn its remnants and box it for herself.
Trinity scoffs onto the palm of her hand. She's on the couch, knees pulled up high on her chest, trying to vanish into herself.
The TV is on, reproducing a boring program, a monotonous voice droning about turtles. It had been torture to find something she hadn't seen with Yolanda.
“García left.” She whispers, the name scratches the back of her palate unpleasantly.
Dennis frowns, sitting on the armrest with the slowness of a scared animal. He knows that this time it is different, it's glaringly obvious, and that makes Trinity want to die a little bit more.
He shoots a fleeting glance at the screen of the TV, watching the turtles disappear in the ocean. He's finding his words, she can see it through the cracks of his charade.
“I see,” his hands rest uncomfortably on his lap. He fiddles for a while, and Trinity acts like she doesn't know what that means. After all, they're best friends, they know each other like the palm of their hands.
Meanwhile, the world moves slowly. It's agonizing, time becomes a physical object that touches her at every instant. The voice on the television is too loud, and it creates an unwanted echo in the room.
Everything feels hollow. Like it did back at Pittsburgh, weeks prior to her graduation.
From the corner of her eye, she catches Dennis moving uncomfortably again. He crosses one leg over the other, and then corrects his posture, he repeats the process for about three times, until Trinity feels like it's too much.
“Don’t-”
“I wasn't-”
“Just— Don't talk. Let's not do that, please” she sighs, melting against the sofa. The program goes on, and she watches the turtles swim somewhere in the caribbean sea. “They're so lucky. They don't have to live a shituationship”
Whitaker smiles, just barely. The words press against his teeth like tiny blades, but he prefers that his gums get hurt rather than Trinity. Instead, he tries for a stupid comeback.
“Well, at least you’re not eating plastic,”
She laughs. It's rough and tinted with hurt, “Well, I prefer to eat plastic before being taken as a joke”
“Ouch,” he winces as if the comment was directed to him. And it probably was —they’ve been together so long that, after a while, each individual pain became one's own. They were an extension of each other.
“You know, you don't have to act like it doesn't matter. You've seen me crying over someone, too”
Joking comes easily, sweet laughter spills in contrast to the sour pang of anger that crawls up her spine. —For a minute, it settles and grows muted. Silent in its violence, it tears her from the insides in a way Trinity can't discern. Maybe it’ll reveal itself later.
“Yeah, that's because you're a pussy that can't handle his alcohol”
Whitaker snorts, and the sound bursts into an honest laughter. It feels like an open window in the middle of spring, sweet and undemanding. She breathes gladly the clean air, —greedily absorbs it, not knowing if it's the last time she'll have this little bit of peace.
“You want to talk about alcohol?”
She rolls her eyes. There are too many stories hanging in the air, many of them stuck to the walls; horrible polaroids taken at inopportune moments, but portraying the entire essence of the moment.
“Shut the fuck up, huckleberry”
There's a comfortable silence in between, in which Santos' doesn't feel like she's healed, but it feels very close to home, very distinct from everything she had before. She fears of the rot that she may cause on it, that life will take this away from her too.
She will never voice it, she thinks she's not strong enough to do it yet, but she’d live for this life with him. He's the closest thing he's ever had to a family. The first person that cared deeply for her, even through her snarky comments and complicated self.
Whitaker; Huckleberry, and lastly, an undeniable friend.
And despite how precious it is to have someone that cherishes her, the thought of losing it terrifies her just as much.
All her life, she had made her wounds her home, the only thing she could grasp and knew how to handle; she hated the idea of someone else intruding. But Whitaker had pulled at her many layers and made a home in her heart; now, all the muscle moved for was this soft feeling of comfort.
“Y’know, I appreciate you very much, Trin. You're like…Family, and all that.”
She smiles against her palm, eyes squeezing. Tiny droplets begin to form at the tip of her eyelashes, and she really doesn't want to do this now.
There's a shuffling sound, and then a weight dropping next to her in the couch. She shakes her head once, twice, and buries her face in the flesh of her palm.
She can't face him —can't hand over this disaster and expect him to receive it with open arms. She's fucked.
“Fuck. Sorry”
Whitaker's smiling, she doesn't see him, but she feels it in his words. “Nah, it's okay.”
He bumps his shoulder against hers, and then slips his arm around her shoulders. They rarely hug, but it's always special, in its own awkward way.
They don't talk, they rarely do that, too. Silence stretches as Trinity sobs quietly into her hands; Whitaker never leaves her side, and keeps whispering stupid things into the air that are meant to make her laugh, or at least, to stop her from crying. It eventually does, a snort leaves her lips, and then they fall into banter.
The rest of the afternoon is quiet, it rains and Trinity tries something new, she starts the kitchen with a book of recipes propped on the wall —It hurts a little bit this way, it reminds her of how many meals Yolanda made for her when she was feeling down. Food warm on her throat, and a pair of arms keeping her cosy.
Whitaker lingers on the counter, reading out loud his notes for a paper he has due, waiting for feedback that comes way too late.
The kitchen smells like sun-dried tomatoes and wet grass. Something akin to home —It's peaceful for a moment; silence doesn't feel violent with him around.
“Taste this, tell me if it's good” with a thick wooden spoon, she feeds Whitaker a bit of the sauce.
She's careful with the remnants that spill from the sides, placing her hand under the material and feeling the hot drops fall into her palm.
“Hurry the fuck up, this shit is burning my hand”
“Imagine what it is doing to my mouth!”
Trinity rolls her eyes with affection, “Then blow it!”
He hums noncommittally, always approving of her food without any complaints. Mostly because Trinity threatens to never cook for him again if he doesn't like it. She smiles when he says it's good, as usual, and tries to get a little bit more.
A song plays in the background, it accompanies the moving titles of the documentary that had ended minutes ago. The sound drifts around the air and she hums along with it.
“Oh. I forgot,” he says, leaving his phone on the side. His feet are crossed and they bang against a cabinet that's already loose, the wood changed and softened by his antics.
Trinity doesn't look away from the pot, just tilts her head towards the sound of Dennis voice, and hums in acknowledgement.
“Mel invited us to her family's cottage. It's on the countryside”
The mention of Mel throws her off. It's not that they are not friends, but she has never been good in getting along with people —It is much more complicated with Mel; she always offers a smile and a kind heart to the world, and for some reason, it annoys Trinity.
So, she expected her to never invite her, much less consider her. Trinity hasn't been kind to her, and it's something she regrets, but doesn't know how to correct.
Mel represents what she'll never be, and she wants her kindness as much as she despises it.
“Uh-huh? When?”
“The next weekend” His voice strays a little bit, like he's ashamed of holding the information for himself.
It's the end of summer, again, and her heart is breaking like it did in Pittsburgh, but this time she allows herself to feel a little more, she tastes the metallic-ness of her hurt and learns to embrace it.
This is her life. This hurt won't go anywhere soon.
Her hand shoots up to her neck, tracing absently the shadow of the love that was smeared there days ago. The almost-confessions uttered in the crook of her neck.
Y’know, I’ve never felt lonely with you, Trin. It's not like with other people I've been.
She doesn't plan to move again,— if she was able to reinvent herself once, without Yolanda by her side, she is determined to do it again. Gap in her soul and all, she'll carry her incomplete adoration wherever she goes.
That kind of love is the kind that makes you suffer for the rest of your life. She can't escape that.
“I don’t know” she says, stirring occasionally the pot.
The kitchen is painted in shades of baby oranges, the clouds finally clearing the sky. It's silent again since the documentary finally ended, and she doesn't know what to do with herself now. Trinity waits in line for a judgment that will never arrive.
Whitaker just smiles, his thumbs catching with eachother. Ever the saint.
“Is Trinity Santos chickening out?”
“‘S not like that. You know it.” She hisses, her hold in the wooden spoon tightening.
“Trin, really.” Whitaker presses, not too rustic, but putting on enough strain to make her feel his intentions “It's cool. She invited you. Plus, you won't be alone; we’ll have fun.”
Trinity sighs, her worries don't melt away, they just contract against each other, making space. Finally, she gives in.
“Okay, just because you seem like you can't live without me.”
Whitaker beams, it's not a rare sight, but it still throws her off how someone can be so content with her around.
“It's a plan, then. I’ll let her know”
The food is ready by evening, and there's a trace of fog waltzing around the kitchen when they leave to the living room to eat on the sofa. She folds her limbs and relishes on the old aches that seep through her bones, it keeps her grounded for a moment. Reminds her that this is real, and hers to keep close to her heart.
“So…What's your next stop?”
He brushes the question off with a smile, and Trinity purses her lips as the reality dawns on her.
It's been a while since she's been alone with herself, and the threat of Whitaker leaving again, materializes at the door, with his suitcases waiting in the hallway, full, large. Ready to go.
She doesn't want to think about it, but it's right there; physical, and so real.
Dennis doesn't say a thing about it, though, just focuses on Trinity's attempts to brush it off. He knows her too much for his own sake —always granting Trinity some sort of escape she’s sure she doesn't deserve. He's as nice as she is irritable. And she will always feel guilty about it.
“Are you going to put on something to watch or are you going to torture me with another documentary about baby turtles?”
She scoffs, “Fuck off. You didn't even watch it”
They settle for a horror movie while they eat, occasionally cursing when Whitaker drops his fork on the floor because they're too scared to distinguish the sounds from the TV from the ones in their house.
There were no more questions for the rest of the night, just empty plates in the sink and a couple of thick sheets thrown over the sofa. Whitaker asks Trinity to read him her tarot cards before going to sleep, and if it weren't for the tiredness weighing on her mind, she would have flipped him off.
Still, she sits him in front of her, covered in a fuzzy blanket and sunburnt. Waiting.
“And…what does that mean?”
“The hermit,” Trinity kneads the soft flesh of her palms, not really sure of its meaning.
“It's vertical, so it means a….Search for truth, introspection, and contemplation.” She lists, “Perhaps you are looking within yourself for guidance?”
He snorts, “Jesus, you're terrible for this”
Banter blossoms yet again, it's the sweetest fruit in times like this, and Trinity relishes in every bite.
“Eat shit, farm boy. You asked me to read the cards!”
“I thought you were better at this!”
“You know what? I think you’re right, I’ve made a mistake,” she shuffles the deck in her hands, feeling the accumulated dust stick to her fingers. Whitaker looks at her, chasing the movement.
“The hermit means you'll die in three days while you're taking a shit.”
The rest of ne night is easy, bellies stuffed with laughter and pasta. They fall asleep in the sofa in the most uncomfortable position, with the TV still on, reproducing an episode of Cake Boss.
Somewhere, on the other side of the city, Yolanda checks her phone for the last time before falling asleep, craving for a trace of Trinity.
