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The pro of very little food intake after a day on shift at PTMC was that if you wanted to get rip roaring drunk, you could do so very fast and with little effort.
The con was, you got drunk fast, so fast you could lose track before you even knew it.
That’s how Trinity found herself three sheets to the wind, tripping over her own feet and leaning on Mel King as she helped Trinity unlock her front door to get inside of her apartment. She couldn’t even remember the specifics of how she’d communicated her address to Mel, but somehow Mel had been able to load dorkass, bumbling Trinity into her shotgun seat before driving them to Trinity’s apartment, getting Trinity’s keys off her, and hoisting her out of the car and up the stairs.
The apartment was dark and quiet, no Huckleberry in sight, and even in her drunken haze the stab of terror at being alone took Trinity’s breath away. She moaned and clung to Mel before the delay in her cognition bridged the gap and she tried to push herself off Mel to stumble to her couch. All the release, even joy, of karaoke evaporated in an instant, condensing into the drip, drip, drip of loneliness and pitiful sadness that was Trinity’s equilibrium.
Mel let go of Trinity as soon as Trinity pushed herself off and she wrung her hands as she watched Trinity pick her way to her couch and flop facedown onto the cushions. Trinity expected any moment to hear retreating feet and the closing of her front door so she could wallow in her patheticness in private.
Instead footfalls went further into her apartment, then Trinity heard the sound of cabinets opening and closing, the sound of her kitchen sink running. She felt every impact of Mel’s steps as they came closer until a tiny little finger tap on her shoulder came with a breathy, “I brought you some water.”
“Mnnh,” Trinity responded.
“Can you sit up for me?” Mel asked, sounding all the world like the steady, patient doctor from PTMC and not the headbanger from karaoke. The magic was gone, snuffed out by Trinity’s drunk antics. She threw her arm out and tried to wave Mel off. Mel didn’t budge.
With extreme effort Trinity rolled over onto her side, tucked in her legs, and sat back up. Mel smiled down at her and made sure Trinity used both hands to hold the water glass. Trinity drank obediently, too wobbly to argue. She kept one eye on Mel, wary, curious, wondering why the hell Mel was still there. Gratitude bloomed in Trinity’s chest, crowding out the pain. There was no question that karaoke had kept her from coming home to an empty apartment and using the scalpel tucked away safe in her scrub pants. Mel had saved Trinity the humiliation of her lack of self-control.
So when Mel sat down next to Trinity on the couch, that lack of self-control mixed all up with her gratitude and she leaned over to kiss Mel on the lips, the only thank you she knew how to give, the only use she’d ever had.
And Mel pulled away.
Mel’s eyes were made owlish and bright by her glasses and she stammered, “Dr. San- T-Trinity, I-” Trinity’s name sounded foreign in Mel’s mouth, tangled on her tongue. Trinity’s heart sank and she screwed her eyes shut, like a toddler pretending that if she couldn’t see the person anymore she would become invisible. Absolute mortification made her lips glue shut, for once unable to make stupid, snarky quips to distract from her whole loser deal. Mel would leave now and Trinity would dig into her duffel and ruin all the good work Mel had put in, just as one last “fuck you” to Mel and to herself.
“I’m sorry,” Mel said. “I’m just not- I don’t-” Trinity opened her eyes, startled at the apology. Why on earth would Mel be apologizing for Trinity sexually assaulting her on her couch?? Trinity should be the one apologizing, but she was evil so she wouldn’t.
Mel was fidgeting, her hands fisted into her lap and white knuckled with pressure, her neck muscles taut with tension. She couldn’t meet Trinity’s eyes and she made that humming sound that she let out when she was overwhelmed or upset, a noise that had become recognizable to anyone who spent any amount of time in The Pitt and elicited avoidance or the occasional check-in from a mother hen like Dana or a Huckleberry like Dennis.
Trinity was monstrous. She opened her mouth to speak and the glue that had sealed her lips slid into her throat, blocking any words. She started to tremble and put her face in her hands. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, her mind screamed, then started in on the nasty, selfish thoughts, I’m rotten, why am I like this, just kill me, I’ll be alone forever and I deserve it.
“Trinity…?” Mel’s nervous voice came, confused and worried. She was too good of a person. “Hey, it’s um… are you okay?”
Trinity’s palms were damp with tears and snot and drool and she refused to move them away, protecting her from Mel seeing her disgusting, dripping face. She nodded her head in answer but then, feeling as if perhaps lying to Mel was some sort of cardinal sin, she turned her nod into a headshake.
“Oh,” Mel murmured. Trinity stayed hidden. There was silence, which was worse, as Trinity’s shaky breath and sniffles had nowhere to hide. Then Mel said, “It’s okay. I’m sorry I didn’t- that I can’t… but it’s okay. Do you… I’d still like to do karaoke with you, sometimes, if you wanted to. And! If you don’t! I don’t blame you at all!”
Mel was so desperately lonely, too, that she’d take Trinity over being by herself. What a sad place to be.
“Could you get me more water?” Trinity said into her hands. Her glass still had plenty of water but Mel jumped up at the request. While Mel went to Trinity’s kitchen Trinity took the opportunity to wipe her hands on her pants and used her forearms and shoulders to harshly dry her face. Her complexion was already blotchy red from drinking and she had eyebags from exhaustion so it wouldn’t be obvious how hard she’d been crying, right? By the time Mel returned with a topped off glass of water Trinity’s face was dry and creaky. Trinity took the glass and drank it all down. If she didn’t throw back at least another two glasses she’d be dehydrated and nursing a horrendous hangover at work the next day.
Trinity watched Mel as she continued to fidget and glance around the apartment, lips pressed thin and eyes shining in the dim light. Trinity thought back to what Mel had been saying. Not just no, but “I don’t” and “I can’t”. Was it a girl thing? Odds were good that Mel didn’t swing that way and Trinity had just forced a kiss on her, but what if… god forbid- “Please tell me that I wasn’t your first kiss,” Trinity croaked in hoarse horror.
“What?” Mel’s eyes snapped to Trinity’s and Trinity tried not to wince. “Oh! No!” Trinity wasn’t sure she believed Mel until Mel started to babble, “My first was in middle school, Bobby Bradford, he had a piece of spinach in his teeth which was really all I could think about and then I went on a few dates in college before Mom got sick. After that though, and since, I haven’t really had time, but it’s also been kind of nice to have an excuse because all that- a-all that…” Mel’s ramble trailed off and she seemed more uncomfortable than her usual awkward self. She looked down at her lap. “I’m just not sure it’s for me…”
“What’s not?” Trinity couldn’t help but ask. Dating? Kissing?
“... all of it?” Mel ventured, looking as if she was terrified of the admission.
Trinity processed. Ace, maybe? Trinity was a proud cardcarrying member of the alphabet mafia so she knew about the asexual spectrum, though she wasn’t sure she’d met someone on that particular spectrum before in her personal life. Hard to say since it wasn’t something people tended to lead with.
More than once she’d had the fleeting thought it might have been better if she’d just been completely turned off sex after all the shit she’d been through, but no, she was just all fucked up and used sex to cope and to self-harm and everything in between. She could almost call herself jealous of Mel, the way life might be made easier if that particular switch had never flipped… but no, she wouldn’t trade her sex drive, no matter how complicated and damaging it got.
“Cool,” Trinity said with a shrug.
Mel looked uncertain. “Yeah?”
“Think I’d judge you about that?” Trinity asked, trying not to feel hurt. It made sense. People assumed the worst of her, which was pretty much by design.
“No, no! Or, well… not you specifically. Just, you know. I-it’s kinda weird.”
Trinity wasn’t really in a place to have this conversation. The room was spinning and she was starting to develop a skullsplitting headache as the drinking and hellscape of her day caught up with her. If Mel needed to talk about her sexual identity, she should probably find just about anybody else… but she didn’t have anybody else, did she? Alone in the world, like Trinity. Which seemed ridiculous when Mel was nice even with all her strangeness. More evidence that the world was fundamentally unfair (not that she needed more). “Think so?” was all that Trinity offered. She leaned her head back on the couch and stared at her ceiling to try to stave off nausea by looking at a blank surface and not the details of her living room.
Mel took Trinity’s vague response as a sign to keep talking. “I always thought maybe I’d grow into it, or maybe things would change after I felt like I could settle down, but even if it didn’t my sister would be the person to understand, be the same as me. Only now she has a boyfriend and she’s having se-suhe-”
“Sex,” Trinity supplied, testing the waters of closing her eyes to see if that would help with the spinning but immediately snapping them back open when the void behind her eyes began to swirl like a black hole. “Get it Becca,” she mumbled, and from the corner of her eye she saw Mel’s entire face scrunch up.
“And now… I’ll be alone for real,” Mel finished miserably.
“Well, Mel, tonight we can be alone together,” Trinity sighed. “If you want.”
“That’s very kind. Thank you.” From anyone else, those words would feel like sarcasm. But this was Mel and so Trinity had to sit with the discomfort of Mel being entirely sincere. Mel smiled at her, earnest as ever, and Trinity didn’t get it.
“Can’t say I’ll ever be good company,” Trinity yawned.
“I had a wonderful time,” Mel said quickly. “You’re very fun to hang out with.”
“Okay.”
Despite Trinity’s state of perpetual paranoia she managed to fall asleep to the gentle drone of Mel’s voice as she nattered on about a medical study she’d recently read. When Trinity woke, she had wrapped an arm around a sleeping Mel’s legs. It took her a few moments to even realize who it was as she took in Mel’s askew glasses, her wide open mouth as she snoozed. As soon as she did Trinity sat bolt upright and scooted as far as possible away from Mel, her heartbeat picking up at memories of slumber parties and the idea of a friend.
Trinity extracted herself from between Mel’s legs and the back of the couch and crept into her room, closing the door and briefly leaning her back against it as she took a deep breath. She would let Mel think that she had woken up and gone into her own bedroom to sleep.
Being alone was always safer.