Chapter Text
“We’re just casual, right?”
Yolanda’s words echoed through Trinity’s mind as she fumbled through the rest of her day. God, why did that make her so angry? She’d signed up for it, she went into it knowing that Yolanda wasn’t looking for something serious. At the time, at the first night they spent together, she thought she could do casual. But every time Yolanda blew her off, made other plans, left after sex, Trinity felt something inside her crack. Small, minute fractures, but enough of those and she knew, at least subconsciously, that she would shatter.
She made it through the Fourth of July, she watched the fireworks on the roof, then got wasted and sang karaoke with Mel, and then went home and passed out. Those things helped distract her, but after the day she’d had, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t ever enough.
Trinity did what she always did, and went to work and pretended everything was fine. She tried to avoid attending to traumas when she could, to limit her interactions with Yolanda, even though she knew that Yolanda wouldn’t ever talk about their relationship unless Trinity brought it up first. But, fuck, she hated dealing with the regular patients. Asking their dumb questions and needing boring things like blood work and injections and none of the cool shit that went down in the trauma rooms. It grated on her.
A week later, the next Saturday, Trinity was still keeping her head down. That was, until…
“Incoming head trauma, ETA three minutes,” Dana said.
Trinity paused in her charting at one of the computers near the ambulance bay entrance. Oh, no. She quickly logged out and grabbed a random chart.
And then Baran said, “Santos, I haven’t seen you on a trauma today, you and Witaker, prepare for incoming.”
“Fuck.” Trinity muttered. No wriggling out of this one.
“You okay?” Dennis asked as he moved from a patient’s room towards the ambulance bay.
“Fine.”
“Really? Because you’ve been avoiding traumas. You. Avoiding traumas.” He set the chart down in the tray on the nurse station’s desk.
“None of them have been exciting enough for me,” Trinity replied. “Where are the limb detachments or the blood transfusions?”
Dennis gave her a confused look. “We had to drill into someone’s skull earlier.”
“What do you want, Huckleberry?” she crossed her arms. “I’m fine. Dr. Al-Hashimi wants me to learn balance, I’ll learn balance. I’ll let some of the interns get all the glory.” Shit, she really wished she’d been there. “I’ll deal with the… fucking head trauma.”
Dennis gave her one of his looks that meant he saw through her bullshit, but he didn’t press her. Instead, he led the way out to the ambulance bay.
By the time they made it out, they could hear the sirens, and it only took about thirty seconds of awkwardly standing outside before the ambulance pulled up and the EMTs opened the door.
“What do we have?” Dennis asked as he helped get the stretcher out.
“I’m fine,” you insisted.
Trinity froze at the sound of your voice. At the sight of you, of all people, emerging from the ambulance, holding a towel to your head that was soaked through with blood. You had heaps of makeup on that was now fully ruined, and you wore a gorgeous white dress like you were getting married, also now half-red with blood.
“Scalp lac, fell from about ten feet, no LOC” the EMT said.
You sighed and shook your head. “I’m fine, my director’s freaking out because it’s opening weekend, he called the ambulance.”
“We still have to check you out, ma’am,” Dennis said. He started escorting the stretcher inside. And as you passed Trinity, your eyes caught on her and Trinity watched you do a double-take in real time.
“Trin?” you asked.
Fuck.
~
It had started because Trinity needed an art class for her undergrad degree, and the only one that fit her schedule was a stupid acting class.
Trinity did not like acting. She felt ridiculous even trying. She did enough pretending in her daily life, and she wasn’t good at it so all she did was embarrass herself. But it was senior year, and her last semester, and if she didn’t get this damn credit, then she wasn’t getting her degree.
To make it worse, the classroom wasn’t even an actual classroom. It was a modified dance studio with a big open space, mirrors on the far wall, and a single desk pulled in for the professor only. Everyone had to pile their shit on the floor and hope for the best.
“Alright, everyone, welcome to your first day with DRM-101,” the professor said as everyone idled in the center of the room. Trinity was on the outer edge trying not to stand out too much. “Let’s run through roll call real quick, then let’s jump right into this.”
After that, someone stepped in late. That would be you, with your hair in a loose bun and a pencil behind your ear and a messenger bag slung over your shoulder, carrying two coffees. Everyone’s eyes were on you, including Trinity’s, as everyone assumed you were a late student, one of the people who didn’t answer during roll call.
“Thank you,” the professor said and accepted the coffee.
“Sorry, someone in front of me ordered like ten things,” you said to the professor and took a sip of your own coffee.
“Everyone, this is my TA,” the professor said with a smirk aimed at you, then gave your name. “She’s not usually late.”
“Sorry, everyone,” you said.
Trinity shoved her hands into her pockets. Well, at least you were cute. Actually, the more she thought about it, that made it much worse. Embarrassing herself in front of you would probably make it sting more.
“Alright, class, we will jump right into a fun warm-up exercise, get the juices flowing and get to know each other. Everyone get in a circle.”
As everyone got into a circle, Trinity watched as the professor whispered something in your ear and handed you some papers. You gave her a nod and a smile that made the corners of your eyes wrinkle. And then Trinity snapped her eyes away from you, but she couldn’t help but return them slowly to see you leaving the classroom.
“Alright,” the professor said and clapped her hands together. She slipped into a spot in the circle. “We are going to go around in a circle and say our names and then the first word that comes to mind when you think of your name. It’s a nice free association game that will help everyone learn everyone else’s names and give them a nice easy thing to remind them of your name. I’ll start, so people know what I mean. My first name is Carla, and my word is… curler. See? Easy. Try to avoid other names, and try not to repeat anyone else’s, and it doesn’t have to start with the same letter or sound the same, really whatever comes to mind. Ready? We’ll start with you.” She pointed to her right.
Trinity was almost directly across from the starting point, so it didn’t matter what direction the professor had chosen. Instead, she tried desperately to think of a word and barely paid attention to anyone else, but it was her turn all too soon and she panicked.
“Uh, m-my name is Trinity and my word is… triangle?” Oh my god that was the stupidest thing to ever come out of her mouth.
And it was only after she spoke that she realized that you had walked back into the room a few people prior and were sorting some papers on the professor’s desk. And looking right at her when she said the word triangle.
Everything continued on, it wasn’t like her words had made everything come to a grinding halt, no matter how much Trinity felt like it should have.
The dumb word-association game finished and Trinity was wondering what to say to her advisor to try and figure out a way to reshuffle her classes around so she could take something way better than this. Hell, she’d take art history over this.
“Now, let’s get into pairs. I think there’s an uneven amount of you, so my TA will be a backup partner for anyone. Chat amongst yourselves for a moment or two to get acquainted.”
And, like clockwork, every other student found someone and left Trinity high and dry. She’d even tried this time to find a partner, but every single person she approached already had a partner. So, begrudgingly, she walked up to you and gave you one of those acknowledging smiles.
“Trinity, right?” you asked.
“Yep,” she said. “And you’re…” she offered your name, “right?”
“That’s correct,” you said. “Let me guess. Need an arts credit?”
“How could you tell?” Trinity asked sarcastically. “Don’t I look happy to be here?” That got you to smile.
“Well you look ready to bash your head into a wall, so I wouldn’t really call that happy.” You tilted your head. “Give this a chance. You don’t have to be Kristin Chenoweth-levels of talented to have fun with it.”
“Who?” Trinity asked.
“Sorry, she’s more in musical theater. I’m just saying you don’t have to be good at acting for this. Let loose, have fun. There’s nothing I hate more than seeing someone force themselves through something they’re actively not having fun with. So, stay for a week or so, and if there’s absolutely no way you can have fun here, then I will write you a pass to swap to a different class. Sound fair?” You offered a handshake. Trinity stared at it for a moment, then sighed.
“Fine, sure. I will be more open to trying this. But if I end up a laughingstock, I’m quitting.” She shook your hand.
You giggled. “The worst thing that could happen to you is a funny story passed around once or twice between friends.” You leaned in closer. “I’ll let you in on a secret, the professor gives extra points to people who embrace the silliness of it all.”
Trinity narrowed her eyes, trying not to think about the perfume you were definitely wearing. “Why do I feel like you’re not supposed to be telling me this?”
The professor interrupted before you could respond. “Alright, now, I want you to come up with a random emotion for your partner. Try to avoid something basic like happy or sad, try to get a little specific. Then your partner has to list their name, age, year in college and major, and a fun fact, all while staying within the emotion that you chose. Then you’ll swap. I’ll be walking around, just pretend I’m not here, this is just for fun. I promise to tell you when you’re actively being graded.”
You smiled at Trinity. “So, do you want me to pick the emotion first or would you?”
Trinity wasn’t sure she wanted to go first, so she shook her head. “I’ll pick an emotion, I want to see how you do it.” Her mind stalled for a moment as she tried to think of something. “Uh… upset?”
You nodded. “Okay.” You wet your lips and put your hands on your hips. You took a deep breath in, then let it out as you adjusted the muscles in your neck. “You want to see me upset?” You added an inflection to your tone, to the way you enunciated your words that instantly made Trinity want to backpedal.
You cleared your throat. “Fine.” You gave your name like Trinity had forgotten it after years of knowing. “I’m twenty-one, and a…” you trailed off and wiped angrily at the corner of your eye with one hand like you were trying to ward off tears. Shit, were you actually about to start crying? Trinity shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Major in theater arts with a minor—” your voice hitched and you forcibly tried to shut down a sob. “A minor in vocal music. A fun fact about myself is that…” you let out a measured breath and closed your eyes. A tear leaked out of the corner of your eye. You wet your lips again and opened your eyes, looking directly at Trinity. “I’m scared of heights because my dad took me to the grand canyon once when I was four and pretended like he was going to… to fucking throw me off the edge.” You sniffed, then wiped the tear away with a thumb.
And then you flipped a switch and the energy dissipated. You gave Trinity a smile like you hadn’t just cried in front of her. “What did you think?”
Trinity blinked. “Uh, oh. Wow. That was… I almost thought you were genuinely upset.”
A faint blush settled on your cheeks at the praise. “The way I did it was I drew on something that actually made me upset. There are the universal signs of emotions that everybody knows, but you are a unique person who reacts to different situations in your own way. If you add something personal to it, it’s more real. Does that make sense?”
Trinity nodded, even if she didn’t quite get it. “Something personal. Okay. Sure.”
“Ready for your emotion?” you asked.
“No,” she admitted.
“You’ll do great. Why don’t you try elation?”
Trinity let out a scoff. But the professor was wandering nearby, plus you, the TA, were staring right at her. No getting out of this one. You said you’d pulled on your past experiences, so she tried to remember the last time she felt so happy that she could probably describe it as elation. Probably when she got into this college.
“Uh, hi!” she waved and her face immediately turned a beet red.
You gave her a gentle smile and a nod to keep going.
“I’m Trinity! I, uh, I’m twenty, and, wow, my major?” She tried to get herself to smile as she tried to remember that sensation in her chest when she remembered she’d gotten the acceptance letter. “I’m a health sciences major!” Everything felt stilted and wrong and she felt herself pulling back under the sudden attention from the professor. But you still maintained that smile, that look in your eyes that completely lacked any judgment whatsoever, and you nodded again as she trailed off.
Trinity pressed her lips together. “And a fun fact about myself is that I’m… uh… I want to be a doctor someday, like maybe something really cool, like a surgeon.”
“Nice work, Miss Triangles,” the professor said. “Break through that wall in your mind that’s telling you how stupid you look. It’s lying to you.” She gave a side nod to you. “Showing off the fake crying on day one?” she teased.
“Maybe I am a bit of a showoff,” you jabbed back. As the professor walked on, you turned back to Trinity. “For someone who really doesn’t want to be here, that was good,” you said. “I think you have some potential.”
“Me? Acting? No thank you,” Trinity said. Her mind was trying to replay everything she’d just done and find ways to critique herself.
“Potential to have fun,” you clarified. “I told you, you don’t have to be good, and you won’t be graded on how well you do things. Put effort into it, and the passing grade you shall have.”
Trinity laughed sharply. “Okay, okay. Since you’re giving advice on how grading works, can you let me in on what the tests are going to be like?”
You crossed your arms. “I’m not giving everything up so easily,” you said. “You have to earn the intel.”
“Ugh. So unfair,” Trinity sighed.
The professor called everyone back and you gave Trinity a wave with just your fingers as you returned to the lone desk. The exercises continued, but Trinity couldn’t quite help but keep looking in your direction.
The promise she’d made to you involved finding absolutely nothing that would keep her here. Well, she did want to keep seeing you, so… maybe she would put up with looking like an absolute idiot.