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Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and
not to be angry.
— Her Grave; Mary Oliver
Trinity Santos does not believe in modesty.
She grew up in a house where, for one reason or another, most people were naked. Her mother topless, smoking a long cigarette with the door open and a large dark shape next to her in bed. Her tiny stepbrother, running around before school while Trinity tries to catch him and pull a pair of pants over his skinny legs. A man as wide as her bedroom door, backlit by the yellow glow of the living room. Herself, slick as a fish in the tub. Herself, putting on only underwear and curling her hands into fists: walking from the bathroom down the hall to her room, thinking I dare you I fucking dare you.
When she was in middle school and playing field hockey like she hated the enemy team, she would change openly in the locker room while everyone else hid themselves in the cubicles. Her roommate in university got used to staring at the ceiling when Trinity was getting ready in the morning. One time, during a game of strip poker at a frat party, she was left only wearing one sock and her pride. And every time, she bristled like a porcupine and thought I dare you I fucking dare you. Nobody dared.
Now, she treats it less like a challenge and more like a fact of life. Hospital locker rooms don’t feel like a circus. All of them see bodies every day, dead or mutilated and in need of fixing, so nobody looks at her body with judgement or lust.
She likes medicine for that, for making her body neutral. It doesn’t work all the time, but still.
When she told Whitaker to move in, it was a part of the conversation they had. He had lived in her spare room for two days before they sat at the kitchen table with the lease laid out in front of them. The landlord rents out the two rooms of the townhouse, so it’s easy to find a place for Whitaker to sign his name. They discuss house rules and she says it outright: “I like to walk around naked. You good with that?”
Whitaker does his funny little wide-eyed expression, like he does when a patient admits to eating raw cassava in their spare time or when Doctor Robby touches his shoulder. This makes Trinity feel better. It always makes her feel better when someone is visibly nervous, because she gets to be the one in control.
“Or maybe I shouldn’t be worried,” she smirks. “You seemed pretty comfortable with your shirt off in the hospital, huh, Huckleberry?”
His cheeks go a dull shade of red and he says that it’s cool with him.
It is awkward the first time, almost painfully awkward. They’re about to go out to a bar in the evening and Whitaker tells her that her shirt’s on the wrong way. Trinity takes it off, turns it right side out, and puts it back on again. When she looks back at him, his mouth is a little bit open and confused.
“Oh, sorry,” she says, chin jutting out. “Did I offend your delicate sensibilities?”
He tries to take it in stride. “I think I’ve seen more growing up on a farm than you could show. Ever seen a cow calve?”
After that, they both don’t bother wrapping a towel around themselves after they take a shower. It’s not all the time and it’s not like they do it to make a point, or at least Whitaker doesn’t seem to. Trinity still sometimes clenches her fists, out of sheer habit, when she hears him moving around in the house when she’s changing. Then, because rage and fear are the same emotion to her, she walks out wearing nothing but jeans to look for a hair elastic. Her shoulders are back, tense, defensive. Her nipples are hard because they both like the heat turned off in the summer but Pittsburgh evenings get cold.
Whitaker gets really good at making direct eye contact.
“He’s laser-focused, that Huckleberry,” Trinity jokes with Garcia after Whitaker accidentally walks in on them in flagrante delicto. Garcia, who almost broke the bed in her urgency to get the covers over them, makes a sound that means she wants an elaboration.
“He never looks at my tits,” says Trinity. “It’s impressive.”
“His loss,” says Garcia, and lowers her mouth to the tits in question.
Garcia never stays the night. She says she sleeps better in her own bed, but she never invites Trinity to her house. This makes Trinity feel sick if she thinks about it too hard. Instead, she walks her fuckbuddy to the door, blows her a sarcastic, mean kiss, and then goes to sit on the stained couch. The old suede is unpleasant against her bare legs, and she’s glad she’s leaning against a cloth pillow to protect the sensitive arch of her back.
She sits on the couch and waits for Whitaker to come out of his room. He makes them shitty powdered hot chocolate and they watch a show together. He never tells her that Garcia is bad for her. He’s just there, becoming less twitchy by the week, and he soothes her in ways she didn’t know she could be soothed.
Trinity doesn’t know why he puts up with her once his paycheque comes in and he can afford to live somewhere else. For some reason, he stays. He eats all of her food but he also fixes the fridge when it breaks and he doesn't blink when she's making him coffee in the morning with her bush out.
When he strikes up with Farm Amy, Trinity teases him and scolds him by turns, but she starts making the hot chocolate. They sit, chuckling quietly at whatever episode of Community is on, and lick the undissolved powder from the inner edges of their cups.
Once, when he’s just come back from Amy’s place and Garcia has just left, Trinity says pours a healthy amount of kahlua into their mugs and says “Holy fuck, Huckleberry, we’re fucking fucked up.” He lifts his hot chocolate in a silent cheers.
Trinity keeps running around the house naked and sleeping with the wrong people and drinking hot chocolate until the Fourth of July, when Melissa King says yes to karaoke.
Mel lets Trinity ply her with drinks and sing angry girl music of the indie persuasion and then, when it's finally last call, they take a taxi to the Whitaker-Santos house.
Trinity is hazy with beer and a couple of gin and tonics, and she suddenly remembers that Garcia cancelled on her and Amy didn't cancel on Whitaker. Swearing under her breath, she starts rustling in the cupboards for hot chocolate. Mel watches her with the quiet politeness of a first-time houseguest, but interrupts after Trinity knocks over some boxes and spills Ritz crackers over the shabby water-damaged shelf.
“What are you trying to do?” she asks, chirpy and helpful as if she's still in the ER.
“Hot chocolate,” slurs Trinity, and drops down cross-legged onto the floor with a handful of crackers. She eats one and feels the carbohydrate change into sugar on her tongue. It tastes like when she and her stepbrother would sit under the table and sneak snacks before dinner. In her mind’s eye, his face is Whitaker’s.
“Okay,” says Mel, obviously a little tipsy herself. “Let me help.”
Trinity watches Mel's hair, which is falling out of the braid it's usually in. The long blonde hair is very pretty in the dark kitchen, dark and golden, flyaways gilded by the stove light. Mel is also doing a lot of moving around, more than powdered hot chocolate should involve, but Trinity is getting dizzy and can only keep her attention on the braid. She wonders, briefly, what it would be like to touch it. If it's smooth and thick like her own hair. She wonders what it would look like loose. She wonders what it would look like against her sheets.
She closes her eyes and dozes, the room spinning and spinning.
Mel's small hand on her shoulder wakes her up. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Trinity says, muzzily. “That smells good.”
“I hope you like it,” says Mel, and gives her a mug, the chipped one with a fat Garfield on it that Whitaker found on the street. Trinity takes a sip.
She's so drunk that it takes her a few seconds to process just how delicious it is. The hot chocolate is rich and thick, more chocolate than milk, and a little bit spicy.
“This isn't Nestlé,” she says.
“No,” agrees Mel, happy. “I found some milk chocolate in the lower cupboard. And there was chili in the spice rack. Becca never likes it spicy but I do and I thought you might.”
It's Trinity's top secret stash of emergency chocolate, tucked into a back corner along with a sealed Plan B and a tin box full of sharp things she steals from the hospital and promises herself she'll never use. She feels anxious, and wrong, and far too drunk.
“Who told you that you could go fishing in my cupboards, King?” she mutters, and takes another sip.
Mel doesn’t react, only lowers herself down onto the floor next to Trinity. “You get abrasive when you feel vulnerable,” she notes, and gulps her hot chocolate. She looks calm and collected.
“You think I’m bothered by you knowing that I’m getting some?” asks Trinity, shoving past panic and into anger. She’s sure that Mel didn’t look into the little tin, the conversation would be stilted in a different way. Mel thinks that Trinity is defensive about the Plan B. Mel thinks Trinity is fucking men and letting them cum in her. She hates that. Hates the thought of it.
“Oh, that’s not what I— it’s none of my business,” says Mel, quickly, in her husky voice. “I just noticed that. That you get defensive. When you— it’s none of my business.”
Trinity relaxes minutely. The hot chocolate is comforting on her tongue. Mel has a little dark spot on the side of her mouth from the lip of the cup and Trinity wants to kiss it, to see if it’s sweet. Instead, she says “Whitaker isn’t home. You can sleep in his bed.”
Mel startles at the change of subject. “Oh, um, I can call a cab.”
“No,” says Trinity, standing up and putting her empty mug into the sink. “I’ll get you some pajamas.”
She walks off to her room, grabs a pair of cotton shorts and her favourite PTMC logo t-shirt, all threadbare and soft, and pads back to Mel. When she gets to the kitchen, the mugs are clean and dripping dry on the dish rack and Mel is tidying.
“You don’t have to do that,” says Trinity, but it doesn’t sound honest even to her. She’s almost forgotten what empty countertops look like. The kitchen looks clean, organized. It looks like somewhere she would want to make bibingka and serve it to friends like her mother used to before everything went to shit.
Mel puts away the kitchen sponge, which she was using to scrub at a cacao stain on the white stovetop. “I want to. Thank you for the pajamas.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the hot chocolate, and— yeah. Thanks. Toothbrushes are under the sink.”
When Mel doesn’t move, Trinity remembers that she does best with direct instructions. “You might want to brush your teeth. It’s late.”
Mel goes. Trinity stays and looks at the clean counters. She’s sobering up and her head is starting to feel heavy and tight the way it does just before her body figures out it’s hungover. She finds dramamine in the cupboard and pours herself a glass of water before she swallows it. She waits until the telltale creak of the bathroom door before she goes to brush her own teeth.
Trinity Santos in the mirror looks a lot worse for wear than her usual reflection. Her mouth is pinched tight and her eyes are squinting against the bright bathroom lamp. She has an unfortunate circle of mascara under her left eye. The yellow toothbrush hanging from her mouth looks like a child’s caricature of a cigarette.
She spits into the sink, decides flossing and skincare is not today’s concern, and makes her way to her room. Her clothes are greasy with sweat and beer and she will wash her sheets tomorrow but right now she needs to sleep. She starts fighting with her shirt in the hallway, hiking it up over her head and throwing it. The rest of her clothes come off in quick succession.
The chest of drawers in Trinity’s room is deep and large, so she goes through all of the drawers when she realizes that her favourite sleep shirt isn’t in it. She tears apart her pile of dirty clothes, stacked precariously on top of her office chair, but it isn’t there either. It’s definitely in Whitaker’s room. He likes that shirt, too. It might even be originally his.
“Fuckleberry,” she grumbles, getting up from the floor with purpose. “That is my shirt.”
It’s only when she opens the door to Whitaker’s room when she realizes that, one: Mel is inside, two: Mel is wearing the shirt that she’s looking for, and three: Trinity is naked.
Mel’s eyes go wide as dinner plates. And she does not have Whitaker’s eye contact skills, she never has, not even in normal situations. Her gaze goes directly to Trinity’s breasts, the curve of her stomach, the curls between her legs, the scars on her thighs.
“Oh my god,” Mel squeaks. “Oh my god.”
Trinity opens her mouth to say something. Closes it. Opens it again. “Like what you see?” she says, instinctually, angrily. It’s not what she meant to say.
Mel says something but Trinity can’t hear it over the ringing in her ears. She flees.
When she’s back in her room, she examines her naked body in the mirror on her wall. It’s a good body, a neutral body, a body which has protected her. She runs her hands down her hips and thinks about Mel’s surprised face. She had said something before Trinity left. What had it been?
She can’t focus. Her cheeks are burning red and her head aches. Her vision goes hot and blurry, her nose prickling like it always does before she cries. Under the covers in her room, she takes out her phone and texts Whitaker.
huickle berry i flashed mel by acciden twhatdo i do
helmpe me
And then, after a moment where a tear slips easily down the side of her face and wets the pillow:
I fuck everyhting up.
In the morning, she wakes with a pounding hangover and to the smell of greasy food in the kitchen. Bacon, for sure. Eggs, maybe. She drags herself out of bed and almost touches the doorknob before realizing she still isn't wearing any clothes. She puts on the closest things on the floor: a pair of Whitaker’s sweatpants which are tight around her hips and a hot pink sweatshirt which reads JUICY in big sparkly rhinestones across the chest. She puts her hair into a horrible ponytail and takes a deep breath. Maybe Mel went home and Whitaker brought takeout on the way home from Amy’s.
The reality is both better and worse.
Mel and Whitaker are sitting at her small dining room table which is shoved between the living room and the kitchen, and Whitaker is opening beautiful glass tupperware boxes of homemade hash browns, bacon, and something that looks like an omelet studded with tiny garden tomatoes.
“You’re awake!” says Mel, excitedly. “Amy made us food.”
“Amy’s here?” asks Trinity, bleary, trying not to feel too alarmed. She expected Mel to be shy and embarrassed. She's shy and embarrassed instead. “Where?”
“No,” Whitaker sounds like he didn’t drink at all last night. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, like he got laid. Trinity narrows her eyes at him. He smiles back at her. “She says hi, though.”
“I’m making coffee,” says Trinity, and starts portioning out Nescafé into three clean mugs. She focuses on the task, pretending that Mel and Whitaker aren't talking about Amy and then farming and then a particularly interesting case study published in Nature.
She makes the coffee strong and black with extra sugar, and brings it to the table. The lack of coasters in her life has left the surface pockmarked with burn scars and rings of tea and coffee, and she feels a little bit ashamed of how shitty her house is. The salary isn’t great for an R1, but she could probably afford to buy things instead of bringing them in off the street or from the hospital.
Whitaker has already stacked his plate high with baked goods and sausage links and eggs, but Mel waits for Trinity to start poking at the food to start serving herself. “Amy wants to butter me up, huh?” jokes Trinity, taking a tiny bite of English muffin. Nausea rolls through her, from the stomach up into her throat. She hides it with a sip of water from Whitaker's glass.
“Yeah, she knows you don’t approve,” says Whitaker, in between bites of omelette.
It’s not that Trinity doesn’t approve. She doesn’t feel much about it one way or the other, only that Amy is making Whitaker work essentially a part-time job when he isn’t on shift. Sometimes he even has hay in his hair from lugging around bales. Then there’s the whole patient’s wife thing, though she doesn’t want to touch that topic with a ten foot pole because of how Whitaker might turn it onto her. Garcia getting fucked into Trinity’s mattress is definitely not something HR would look kindly on if anyone found out.
“If she keeps sending breakfast, she can stay,” she says, magnanimously, then tries a bit of bacon. That goes better than the muffin and she finishes a strip slowly, chewing while Mel and Whitaker turn the conversation to their experiences with fireworks as children.
“I don’t know how I didn’t get my hands blown off,” says Whitaker, and they all wince thinking about the poor kid who did. The Fourth of July sucks for that kind of thing, but then so do most major holidays.
“Becca didn’t like them,” says Mel, a bit sadly. “So we never went. She likes them now, though, if she has ear defenders.”
Trinity wants to tell them that she has a long and faded burn scar along her arm from when she and her stepbrother set off fireworks when her mom finalized the divorce. They went to their high school's soccer field, right in the middle, and watched the sky explode into red, green, and blue sparkles. The fuse was too short on one of the firecrackers and it shot into the air before she could step back. The burn took a while to heal, but she looks at it now with pride. It's like a tattoo: it marks the day she finally became free.
Sometimes she thinks about covering it up with something bold and thick lined, but the delicate skin is beautiful by itself. She was hurt before, but she kept going. She healed.
“What about you, Trin?” asks Whitaker. She asks him to repeat himself and it turns out they're talking about favourite childhood snacks.
“Ritz crackers,” she says, and finishes her coffee. Mel looks knowingly at Whitaker, and smiles.
“Was she vacuuming them down last night?” he asks, gently teasing.
“Oh yeah.” Mel doesn't seem to know how to be part of an inside joke, but she's trying. She looks like she's twenty-one and trying to act like she's been to a bar before. “Handfuls. She almost cleaned you out, Dennis.”
Trinity wants to bristle, but she can’t bring herself to do it. Usually gentle people annoy her, make her want to shake them until they show some backbone, but Mel already has backbone. She’s a confident doctor, good under stress, and so competent it makes up for her softness.
“Yeah, okay,” says Trinity, and it only sounds a little grouchy. Her headache is going away in the face of bacon grease. “See if I make maja blanca for either of you.”
Mel looks puzzled but Whitaker dissolves into overdramatic begging. The coconut pudding isn’t difficult to make but she keeps it in a shroud of mystery because he likes it so much. He even gets Mel into the spirit, after explaining what the dessert is. They both fall to their knees in supplication, Mel a little self-consciously, and Whitaker promises to make Trinity the godmother of his firstborn if she keeps making him maja blanca.
She can’t help but laugh. Trinity knows she has a nice laugh when it’s genuine, but the way Mel looks up at the sound of it, surprised and hopeful, makes her feel like it’s beautiful. Like she’s beautiful, too.
Garcia doesn’t call her that day. After a week it becomes clear that she’ll never call again, and Trinity only sends one u up? text on the tenth of July, when she’s lonely and bored and wants to get some pent-up frustration out. Garcia responds Yes, be there in 20? but then never shows up. Trinity is left sitting in a mismatched sports bra and underwear on her clean sheets, still warm from the dryer. She doesn’t text again, and now whenever they work together it’s very professional. Doctor Santos and Doctor Garcia, clinical, cold.
Strangely, this doesn’t bother her because instead of the whiplash of Garcia’s comings and goings, there’s the steady presence of Mel. She stays over sometimes on the couch, which for all its failings is very comfortable when it has a sheet thrown over the suede, and makes airfried tofu and congee for breakfast. Trinity likes sweet better than savoury any day, but Mel’s slowly chipping away at her habit of syrupy toaster waffles and a vitamin gummy to start the mornings.
Mel is slowly chipping away at a lot of Trinity’s habits, actually, including her perpetual clotheslessness. One morning, she wakes to the smell of rice porridge and covers herself with a terrycloth robe instead of sticking out her bottom lip and staring Mel down, waiting for her to say something about the fact that she’s not wearing pants or a shirt.
Whitaker is on shift so it’s just Mel, hair braided long and straight down her back, in the kitchen when Trinity comes in. She’s wearing an orange t-shirt and blue jean shorts, something a kid in summer camp would wear, and she’s stirring the congee. Anyone else would be scrolling on their phone. God knows Trinity does when she’s making coconut pudding, but Mel is calm and focused on the softly bubbling rice.
It’s nice to have her in the apartment. She looks at home and sweet in the morning light.
Trinity comes close and rests her chin on top of Mel’s shoulder. The cotton is thick and stiff under her skin: Mel hates polyester.
“Did Whitaker wake you up when he left?” she asks, breathing in the steam.
“Oh, I came around nine,” says Mel. “I did the night shift yesterday. Today.” She stifles a yawn and looks a little unhappy. “I didn’t think I could drive safely and the Uber still had your address in it so I came kind of by accident.”
Trinity reaches around Mel and turns off the burner. The congee looks done anyway. She doesn’t ask how Mel got in either: by now, Whitaker would have shown her the spare key underneath the rock on the porch.
“Let’s eat and then get you to bed, huh?” she says, and puts two spoons into the pot.
Mel seems confused. “No bowls?”
“No bowls. We’re eating Santos style. From the pot and over the sink.”
Mel laughs, but it’s a tired and shaky laugh, so Trinity sits them down at the table and watches Mel put away a healthy portion of the rice before eating the rest. She thinks Mel is looking at her from her peripheral vision, but when she looks up, Mel’s grey eyes are closed and her head is slowly, slowly falling forward.
“Hey. Hey! Mel! Bedtime, bucko.” Trinity leads her friend to Whitaker’s room, but the asshole seems to have decided that today’s the day for washing the sheets. She makes a mental note to change them over to the dryer before they grow mildew.
“Okay,” she grumbles. “Pivot. My bed or the couch?”
“No more couch. Too bright,” says Mel blearily, and pushes the door to Trinity’s room open.
It’s a little bit messy but most of her clothes are in the laundry room, thinks Trinity. Mel doesn’t seem to notice anything but pillows and blankets. She makes a beeline to the bed before turning around. “Pajamas?”
Most of Trinity’s clothes are in the laundry room because they’re dirty and she’s been working twelve hour shifts for five days straight. “I don’t have anything right now, sorry. I can see if Huckleberry’s got—” but Mel is already taking off her clothes, stripping efficiently.
She has days-of-the-week underwear. Her beige bra has a little bow on it. When she climbs into bed, the curve of her ass is smooth and white as porcelain.
Trinity feels like someone has crashed a large gong right next to her ear. Maybe clanged a pair of cymbals with her head in between them. She surprises herself by pulling the terrycloth of her robe tighter around her torso. She feels so rotten, so indecent, compared to Mel’s easy grace. When Trinity takes off her clothes, it’s a challenge. When Mel does, it’s just natural. There’s no ulterior motive.
She stands there, rooted to the spot, when Mel mumbles “You can sleep too, if you want. I woke you up.”
Trinity is tired. She’s scared, too, but it’s not turning into anger. It’s a softer kind of scared, the type she feels when she’s holding small animals in her hands.
She walks up to the bed, uncertain, waiting for the punchline. She lifts the corner of the blanket. She shifts into place under the sheets, not quite touching Mel. The room is quiet and dark and the curtains make everything dark and twilight blue.
Everything is very still, until Mel shifts to a more comfortable position and immediately complains about the robe. “That’s a bad texture,” she says, face screwed up. “Can it not be here with us?”
Trinity carefully shimmies off the terrycloth, still under the covers, and drops it to the floor. She’s only in underwear now, and feels every inch of herself against the soft cotton of the sheets. She’s gross, a bit sticky, from the August heat. She’s hyper aware of the fold of her stomach, the sensitive skin under her breasts, the dry skin on her hands from hospital sanitizer.
Mel turns over again, flips from supine to prone, and makes a frustrated noise.
“What’s wrong?” asks Trinity, and it comes out in a whisper.
“I have a weighted blanket at home,” complains Mel in her sweet, sturdy voice. “Usually I sleep okay without it, but right now…”
“I get it,” says Trinity, though she kind of doesn’t. “I could get some blankets from the—”
“Too hot,” says Mel. “Just come here and lie on me. I can’t sleep without it.”
Trinity could overthink it. She doesn’t.
She moves closer, straddles Mel’s back, and lowers herself down. Her chin hooks neatly over Mel’s shoulder, like it did in the kitchen. Trinity doesn’t think that Mel is an idiot who is incapable of social cues. The warmth of her bare skin could mean something salacious, but right now the world is muffled and the only thing that matters is the creamy white underside of Mel’s wrist by Trinity’s mouth, close enough to kiss.
Mel makes a soft content noise, like a cat, and her breaths become regular. Trinity doesn’t know how Mel can be sleeping when the universe has become the pinpoint of their bodies pressed together. How could anyone fall asleep when there’s electricity sparking in every second that passes? Even so, she dozes into the warm, dusty afternoon.
A few hours later, they peel apart, laughing a little at how sweaty they are.
“Shower?” Mel asks, and Trinity says “Go ahead” and Mel looks disappointed but throws on a t-shirt and shorts and walks out the door.
Trinity finds her robe and holds it in her hands, and the terrycloth feels comforting against her skin. Maybe for other people the vulnerability goes the other way around, but for her, wearing clothes feels the most uncertain. When she’s naked, most other people are put in the position where they have to avert their eyes, where they are less confident than her, where they don’t know what to do. When she’s clothed, people can strip those clothes off her.
One of her worst memories is her size-too-small hoodie getting caught around her head and her arms, so she was blind and could only struggle to free herself, and she screamed and kicked and it did nothing to stop what happened next.
The shower turns on. Mel is humming something under the sound of the water. Trinity pulls on a long-sleeve shirt. It’s tight against her torso, but it doesn't make her overstimulated and furious. She puts on loose jeans. She looks at herself in the mirror, assessing.
Suddenly, she remembers that night after karaoke, when she walked in on Mel completely naked. She had asked if Mel liked what she saw. Thinking back on it, she thinks Mel might have said yes.
The shower turns off and Trinity can hear the sounds of towels and wet feet on the linoleum. She stands, fully clothed and breathless, waiting for Mel to come back to her.