Page 10 of Outside the Lines
Trin laughed a little. "It wasn't my first, or the most dramatic. But it was the softest. It was just the kind of kiss I would have expected from you." Their attention shifted from me for a moment to the people around us. "Are you going to get a drink?"
I looked to the table where they'd been sitting. Something iced and clear amber was in their glass. "Sure. Can I get you a refill?"
"I'd like that. It's an iced Moroccan mint tea with honey."
That sounded particularly delicious. "I might have to try that too."
I ordered one for each of us, along with some little shortbread cookies, and as soon as I had our drinks, we went to a table outside to sit in the sunshine together. I put the cookies between us and sipped my drink. It was sweet and beautiful. It reminded me instantly of Trin. Not Socks as I'd known them. The scared child always watching everyone with haunted blue eyes. No, now Trin was stunning and confident. But they'd lost none of their sweetness, or their genuineness. I'd seen that quality of theirs when they had been with Naran earlier. It was something I hoped they never lost.
"So your friend who does our makeup, you said his name is Andy?"
Trin gave me a fast smile. "You shouldn't always presume. I thought you knew better than that, Alex."
I did know better. Of course I did. And I felt like a total ass. "I'm sorry. I am. Their name is Andy?"
"His name is," Trin said, playing with me a bit.
I smiled at them. I was also proud of them for being able to correct me. It took guts to correct a friend, even if I had been right the first time. "You've grown so much."
"Taller? Older?"
I shook my head. "Yes, but that wasn't what I'd meant. You're so much more confident now. You carry yourself differently. I keep contrasting you with the Socks I knew. You're better than you were. I can tell that just by looking at you."
"Thanks." They fiddled with their cup. Trin was still so unused to a compliment.
"Do you still talk to your ex ever?" I asked.
Trin laughed. "No. Definitely not. We didn't really break up on good terms. Do you still talk to yours at all?"
"Not since he cheated on me. I didn't see much point after that. You know?"
"I can imagine. I'm glad you didn't stay. I can see you being miserable in a situation like that. Did he ever say why he did it?"
He had. Plenty of times. And somehow he'd always made it seem like it was my fault he'd decided to have someone on the side. "He said I was always with the kids and never had any time for him. Apparently he thought I loved the shelter more than him." I shrugged.
"Did you?"
There was no accusation that I could hear in Trin's voice. Only their quiet curiosity. It was the same curiosity that had led me to learning everything there was to know about a combustion engine just so we could talk about it and I could answer their questions about how cars worked. I still remembered some of what I'd learned. "I'm not entirely sure. Maybe. I wasn't ever entirely sure I even loved him. I thought I had. I'd married him. But sometimes I wonder if I wasn't just thinking that he was something I needed in my life. When we met, people were urging me to have something more than the shelter. I needed a social life and more friends. At least according to other people. I'd been perfectly happy, and maybe that had been the problem. Dating him was easy. So was getting married. And for a while there, we worked. I'm not all that surprised he got tired of always waiting for me to come home or to have a weekend off."
Trin reached toward me, as if they wanted to take my hand, and I laid it flat on the table between us, offering them my palm. Trin laid their fingers over my hand, but I didn't take their hand in mine. Even though I wanted to. I didn't squeeze their fingers. Trin could stop touching me at any moment. They could run whenever they wanted to. I was still treating them like the scared child they had been at fourteen when they'd been so worried about me keeping them prisoner in the shelter. I wasn't sure how to break out of that way of thinking. Maybe it would take time. Maybe knowing Trin as I had when they'd been Socks, maybe those memories would always cloud my thinking when it came to dealing with the adult they were today.
"What was it like for you? With your ex?"
"Much the same as it was for you, I'm gathering." Trin sighed softly, as if the memories hurt. "He was good looking, and smart. He thought I was a girl at first. I was wearing a dress, and I sat two rows ahead of him. He gave me his number and people in the group therapy sessions I'd been going to at the time said it was time for me to take a chance. They wanted me to have something normal. A relationship like many other college age people have. And things were good there for a while. We went out to movies and to dinner. But there were little things that I noticed right away. He treated me differently when I wore makeup and a dress. He touched me more and smiled at me more. He only kissed me when I looked like a girl. When I was neither, or when I looked more masculine, he treated me like we were friends. It hurt. And when he..." They licked their lips and looked away from me. I wanted to stop them there.
"Trin, you don't have to tell me any of this."
Their smile was sad. "When he wanted to have sex with me, he said I had to wear what he wanted me to. I had to be extremely feminine. We never got to that part, but he talked about it often. What he wanted to do to me, what he wanted me to do to him. He wanted it, and sometimes I thought I would like it too, but not on his terms. Not with me dressing up like a doll so that he could get what he wanted from it."
My heart was breaking for them as I leaned over the table and gently kissed their fingers. They hid their tears well, but I saw their shoulders shaking as I stood up and took their hand in mine. "Would you come with me?" I asked them.
Trin nodded and seconds later we were walking down the street, their hand wrapped around my arm, our nearly full drinks forgotten. I didn't have a plan of where to go as we walked away from the cafe. I simply wanted to take them away from there and all their memories. "I'm sorry," I said when we'd gone nearly six blocks in silence.
"I know you are. But you don't have to be. I don't consider my time with him to be a mistake. I learned a lot of valuable lessons from him, and I'm stronger because of it."
They always were one of the strongest people I'd ever known. "I bet you are. Can you stay out late tonight, or do you have to get up early for work? There's an exhibit at the botanical gardens I think you might like, but it's for night blooming flowers."
"I was never very good with plants."
