Page 4 of Outside the Lines
Socks shrugged and took another sip of the hot chocolate. "I can really stay here for the next few years?"
I nodded. "If you want to. And if you follow the rules." I tacked that on because I had to, not because I thought this kid would break them. Still, there was something I hadn't asked. A few somethings, actually. But the drugs and this kid's home life could wait until the morning. For right now, Socks was safe, and I'd do my best to make sure they stayed that way. We shared a brief smile over the hot chocolate and I went back to reading, my silent promise to look after Socks settling into my mind.
Chapter Two
Ten years later
Trin
"Hello and welcome to Trinity House."
I looked up at the teenage receptionist sitting behind the scarred steel desk and remembered when I'd helped bring it to the building years before when some friends and I had found it by some dumpsters a few blocks over.
"Hey, I'm here to see Alex."
I didn't know if he still let people call him by his first name, but she looked surprised by something so maybe that was it. I didn't recognize her, nor should I have, and figured she was probably one of the dozen or so kids that lived in the old house off Sixth and Main.
She picked up the phone from the desk beside her while I waited in what was effectively the lobby but was once the foyer of a house long used to being so much more than simply a single-family residence.
"Who are you?"
There were more polite ways to get my name, but she looked barely over sixteen, so I let it slide. "Trin."
"Alex, there's a Miss Trin—"
"Doctor Trin," I interrupted her.
Her eyes widened slightly. I looked too young to be doctor, I knew this, and she might have even thought I was lying. But what she thought right then didn't matter to me so much. I just wanted to see Alex. I’d been able to rush my education, thanks to being able to test out of a good number of the classes needed to get my bachelor’s degree and taking as many classes each semester as the college would possibly let me.
"Doctor Trin is here to see you," she finished. She was quiet for a long moment while I looked at a painting of some flowers hanging on the wall that had Trinity's motto painted on top of it: Accept yourself and each other. Someone named Pete had signed their name in the corner.
"He doesn't know a Doctor Trin." She sounded uncertain, but the girl that looked up at me showed nothing but boredom. She'd already gotten good at having a mask. I'd been at least a year older than her before I'd figured out my own.
"Tell him Socks is here, then."
I didn't get to see her reaction because before I'd finished speaking an office door to my left opened, and I was looking at Alex. He walked toward me, his hand out as if to shake mine, and I had to remember how to breathe. Six years apart had been good to him, with barely a crease around his eyes.
I took his hand in mine and shook it. The gesture felt weird between us. When I'd moved in at fourteen, he'd been twenty-three and more like a big brother to us all as he finished his internship at the youth homeless shelter. He had been the guy that stopped us from fighting, made sure we stayed or got clean, and also made us hot chocolate at two in the morning. I was glad that he'd stayed, taking on a full-time job here before I'd even entered the alternative high school program that partnered with the house.
He pulled me into the office before I could let go of his hand, and I sat down in one of the comfortable plush chairs
"Trin now, huh?"
I blushed and pushed a long strand of platinum hair behind my ear. "Yeah."
"And a doctor now, too."
There was warmth in his voice, and I found myself looking up at him; suddenly, I was a skinny fourteen-year-old kid again, hoping he wouldn't turn me away. I hadn't been that soft little kid for years, but somehow Alex was able to take me back to that place of vulnerability. I wasn't sure if I hated that about him or not.
"Of what?"
"Child psychology, primarily high risk youth including gangs and homelessness," I answered him proudly. He'd been my inspiration, my driving force. Did the man sitting across from me even know what kind of impact he'd made on my life? Did I want him to?
His eyes widened and his chapped lips stretched into a smile. "Wow. That's seriously... just wow. I'm impressed, Trin. Good for you. Are you here to apply for a position?"
I shook my head, though I had considered it. "This place, though I love it, holds too many memories. I'm here and I feel like I did back then. I'm with a private group about ten minutes up the highway during the week. I'm new, and they're dumping the court cases that they don't want to handle on me. I don't mind it though. Those kids, the hurting ones, are the reason I got into the field; they can keep their suburban kids with their failing grades. On the weekends, I volunteer with a group that uses dogs to help trauma victims."
It had seemed impossible, but somehow his smile got even bigger. "You're one of the house's success stories for sure. I'm glad you came back to visit."
