Outside the Lines

by Caitlin Ricci

  He sighed. "I'm okay. Did you ever talk to your dad again?"

  I shook my head. "I didn't see much of a point to it really. I was telling him what had been happening for years, and he didn't care. I'd allowed it though. Maybe I'd even wanted it."

  Alex came across the bed toward me, and I lifted my head to look up at him. "No, you didn't. You were a child being abused by an adult. There's no way that you could have wanted that."

  "I wanted to play with the rabbits," I reminded him. I wasn't completely innocent in what had happened. I'd gotten something out of it too.

  He leaned forward and kissed the top of my knee. "You were a child. He did something horrible to you. None of what happened is your fault. You're not to blame at all and you have nothing to feel guilty about."

  "If I'd said no. If I'd said that I didn't want to play with the rabbits…"

  "Then he might have forced himself on you sooner. He's the monster. Not you." Alex kissed my other knee. "Please, Trin. Please believe me. Please don't blame yourself for that."

  I was trying not to. Years of therapy, and sometimes I still thought that if I had said no right away, instead of letting it progress, that maybe nothing would have happened. "My name was Avery Wilkins," I whispered. I hadn't been Avery in so many years though. I didn't even remember who they were beyond a frightened child.

  "You'll always be Socks or Trin to me," Alex promised me.

  I liked that. I needed that from him.

  "If I take today off, will you do the same?"

  I nodded. I didn't want to go into work right now. I was feeling far too vulnerable for that. I needed a personal day to get my head clear again.

  "And if I hugged you, and we laid down together would that be okay?"

  "Yes. Please."

  He was about to lie down next to me, but then he hesitated. "Do you want me to go get some clothes on?"

  I looked up and met his gaze. "I know that you're not him. You're nothing like him. You ask and you check in with me. You make sure that I want what's happening every step of the way. You made sure that I enjoyed last night too. I know you're not him. Please don't think that I don't know that."

  He leaned closer and kissed me. I cupped his cheek. Then we lay down together under his heavy blankets. I texted my boss and told her that I needed a mental health day. He texted Kim. I wasn't sure what he told her.

  "I'm off today. No problems at all with it," he said as he rolled over me and hugged me tightly.

  "Thank you," I quietly said as we stayed there together.

  "For what?"

  I smiled. "Not blaming me for my part in what happened to me."

  He held me a bit closer. "I never would have."

  I still did, but I didn't tell him that.

  "Trin?"

  I glanced over my shoulder at him. "Yes?" I was afraid of what he was going to say. Maybe he'd changed his mind and realized I wasn't as innocent in my childhood as he'd originally thought.

  "I love you."

  I smiled and turned back over. "I love you too."

  Chapter Seven

  Alex

  We lay together until close to two. I'd gotten hungry, but I didn't want to let go of Trin. I was pretty sure they had managed to fall asleep again. I just kept thinking about the child Trin had been and how vulnerable and scared they had probably been for years. The abuse had lasted for at least six years. No wonder they blamed themselves. I wanted to be able to go back in time and rescue Avery and comfort them and promise them it would never happen again. I wanted to go back and lock their father and his friend away forever. And then I was thinking about Socks and how absolutely frightened they'd been. And how tired. Like they'd been fighting everything for so long, and Trinity House was finally the one place where they could slow down and be safe.

  I needed to be able to save Avery and Socks, but I couldn't. All I could do now was help Trin. They stirred and I lifted my arms from around them so that they could get up if they wanted to without possibly feeling like I'd trapped them. "Do you want me to make lunch?"

  "Can we order in instead?" I didn't eat at home much, and there wasn't a lot available here beyond cereal.

  Trin nodded and slid off the bed. I watched them go. I loved their pale skin and how their long hair went almost completely down their back. They pulled on their skirt and the tank top from the night before.

  "Alex?" They turned back to me.

  I sat up. "Yes?"

  "What I told you... thank you for not blaming me or using it against me. I haven't told anyone but my dad and I was afraid to. Not even my therapists have ever known my full history. Andy knows something happened to me, and I hinted at things with you before, but you're the only one that knows everything. And I wanted to thank you."

  I got off the bed too and hugged them loosely. "I never will. You don't have to worry about that. What happened to you was horrible and it was never your fault. None of it was."

  Trin kissed me on my cheek then stepped out of my arms. "I'm going to go order us some food. Do you care where I get it from or what I order?"

  I shook my head. "Not at all. I'm going to shower. I'll be out in a few minutes."

  "Okay." They walked away, giving me my privacy even though I really didn't need it. I had a brief impulse to get my phone and look up Avery Wilkins. I wanted to know where they were from and what, if anything, had happened to their father. If they were dead maybe it would give Trin some peace. I secretly hoped that he and his friend had driven off a cliff and died together or something. It would serve them right.

  But then I stopped. I went to take a shower instead. Trin had shared as much as they were willing to with me. I didn't need to know when they were born, or where they'd grown up. I knew what they wanted me to know. I knew what was important for them to tell me. I could still be curious. And me deciding not to use the internet to find out more about them didn't make me less curious at all. It meant that I was respecting them and their boundaries. It meant that I was loving them.

  When I came out of the bedroom with a t-shirt and a pair of jeans on, Trin was already accepting the pizza from the delivery driver. They looked at my phone in my hand, and then up at me, before saying goodbye to the driver. "Did you look me up?" Trin asked me as I tossed my phone onto the couch before taking the pizza from them.

  "No." I wanted to be honest with them though, even if it made me look bad. "But I did consider it."

  Trin shrugged. "I would have too. You know a lot about me now. More than anyone else. But there are other things that you don't know too. Maybe I can answer those questions for you, if you wanted me to. There are things that even Googling me wouldn't have told you."

  "The only thing I might be looking up online today is what area of the city I should start looking for a house in. As much as I like apartment living, I miss having a house and a yard and a deck where I could lay out when I got off work and just relax."

  We grabbed plates and then slices of pizza. Trin had played it safe and had gone with a plain cheese pizza. "You're thinking about moving?" Trin asked me when we were sitting down at the dining room table together.

  "I am. My ex has the house. I didn't want it. In the divorce, he agreed to pay a set amount for my rent until I found a place, and he has kept up his end of the agreement, and I can continue to stay here for a few more months too. And I probably will since I don't want to rush into anything and I hate the idea of moving again so soon. But not having to pay rent lately has let me save up some money, and I want to buy a place again. Something small. I don't need a lot of space. Somewhere that you'd feel comfortable too."

  Trin slowly blinked at me, their slice of pizza held nearly to their mouth but not quite. "You'd buy your house based on how I felt?"

  That wasn't quite what I'd been saying, but actually, it sort of was too. I put my elbows on the table and leaned in closer to them. "Trin, I want you in my life. Wanting you in my house, wherever that ends up being, is part of that. I imagine that sometimes we'll
be at your place, and sometimes at mine. Or we could just all move in together."

  Their eyes got wide and I hadn't realized what I'd let slip. "I didn't mean..."

  Trin shook their head and I stopped talking.

  After a while they started breathing again, but it was shallow and forced. "We only just reconnected. I'm not moving in with you right away."

  "I know that. I do. Just... think about it. Maybe?" I wasn't afraid of the idea, but I wasn't ready to live with another person again so soon either. But as I thought about it, I knew that having Trin around that often would make me happy. It absolutely would. I just needed them to see that as well. "And talk it over with Andy at some point?"

  "You'd want him there?"

  I shrugged. "I'd kind of assumed that you two were a package deal when you said that you wouldn't have moved anyway since Andy loved the place so much."

  Trin leaned back then pulled one of their knees against their chest. I knew that stance. They were thinking. I'd seen it for four years at Trinity House. Seconds later, they started drumming their fingers on the table. "If I moved in with you, it wouldn't just be Andy coming with me."

  "The cat too?" I guessed.

  Trin nodded. "And Sally. Which means that you and Andy both would have to be approved foster parents. She's been through too much, and if I'm moving somewhere new, it has to be big enough for her too. If I can help her, then I will. So three bedrooms, absolutely minimum."

  "Would she be our daughter?"

  Trin ran their hand through their long white hair. "Are you asking me if I would want to adopt her if I could?"

  "Pretty much."

  They pursed their lips. "I don't know. She can be a handful. I know I said I wouldn’t tell you anything more than what she told you when we were eating tacos, but this is different since now you’re talking about her living with us. There are things you need to know about her so that she doesn’t end up needing to leave yet another house. If she moved in with us I would need it to be the last place she ever moved. We would be her final family. She doesn't have a good history. It's worse than mine. She doesn't like showers, or baths, and she will only get clean on her schedule and when she is absolutely the safest that she can be. She's demanded to have added locks put on the bathroom doors and she's gone without bathing for so long that foster families have been accused of neglect. Sally needs absolute patience, and that's hard to expect someone to have with her."

  While Trin had been speaking, I'd been putting pieces together. I wanted to go punch whoever had hurt Sally too. I sighed. "I want one kid we know to have a happy story. Just one."

  Trin laughed unhappily. "One of the counselors I share a practice with has a kid who just got a B in advanced chemistry, and now he's afraid he won't get into his top choice college and his life is over."

  "If only the kids we know had those kinds of problems."

  Trin nodded. "If only." They put their foot down and pushed their pizza aside. It seemed we were both done eating for the moment. "Could you handle a child like her? Or like the next one after her I'd want to foster if we had the room to? You deal with kids all day at the shelter. Wild, ruthless kids with bad histories and terrible coping skills already. I remember the type. I was just like them. I don't want you to hate coming home at the end of the day. What if there's something horrible waiting for you at home? Some emergency that means that you don't get your quiet time on the deck?"

  "And what if our family evenings could be you, me, Andy, and whatever kids we're fostering or that we've adopted all sitting around the living room watching Disney movies?" I countered. It could be perfect, or it could be horrible, and I was sure that it was going to be some mix of the two. "I'm sure not every day will be perfect, but what if most of them were?"

  "Less than a week of knowing me again, and already you're rushing in to save me and the people I care about. You haven't changed a bit, Alex." They smiled at me, and I knew things were going to be okay.

  "So you'll think about it?"

  Trin gave me a slight nod, as if they couldn't really believe what they were agreeing to either. "Yes. As long as you get approved to be a foster parent. I'll get you all the information you'll need. There are classes and interviews and background checks."

  "And that I've worked with homeless kids for years now probably won't let me bypass any of it, right?"

  Trin snickered. And then they grabbed their piece of forgotten pizza and started eating again. "Not even a little. You sure you're going to be okay with a man who shows his breasts a lot, a girl who will refuse to take a bath, and me all sharing a house with you?"

  I was. Absolutely. "Andy might want to hold back on being nude a bit. Not sure how foster agencies would feel about a topless person."

  "Oh, he'll love that," Trin said sarcastically. "He'll probably throw a fit, at first, but once he realizes that I'd move in with you without him if I had to, then he'll come around. He can be immature, but he's not stupid. And I like having him around too. I like knowing that he's okay and he's not making bad decisions and he's not letting shortsighted people hurt him."

  "Do you think it'll always be the three of us plus the foster kids sharing the house?"

  "No. Not always. And probably not even for that long anyway. He might be at the point that he wouldn't need to live with us anyway by the time that you got approved to be a foster parent. It can take a while, after all. He's improving a lot all the time, and maybe by then he will be strong enough to live on his own and be healthy and safe. But right now, that isn't the case, and I wouldn't be okay with him not moving with me."

  I got up from the table and came around the side to kiss Trin on their cheek. While they were blushing, I crouched down next to them. "I admire you so much for how protective you are of your friends and how deeply you care about them."

  "Please don't propose right now."

  I hadn't realized how much I was scaring Trin until they looked down at me and I saw their wide, frightened eyes. I quickly got up. "I wasn't planning to. I'm sorry."

  Trin took a deep breath and curled their fingers over the dining room table. "I'm sorry too. It's just that it would have been too fast. I feel good when I'm around you. And safe. But I'm also trying to connect the person I was with who you are now and who you were with who I am. If that makes sense."

  I chuckled. "It does actually. It absolutely does. I'm trying to convince myself I wasn't in love with you when you were a child. Kim talked me through it, but it's going to take some work."

  Trin leaned back and frowned up at me. "I don't care if you did love me back then. Would you have raped me?" I opened my mouth to instantly deny it, but they beat me to it. "I know you wouldn't have. I cared about you. You cared about me. I don't mind if you liked me more than a counselor should have. I wasn't really a child anymore. I looked at you like someone who was older than I was. But I didn't feel about you back then like I do now. I idolized you, and sometimes I even worshipped you. You were my safe place for four years. You can love someone without being a pervert just as I could idolize you without it being inappropriate."

  I still wasn't completely sure about that. "I was so terrified of hurting you. If you had come to live with me when you were eighteen, I don't know if I could have been the right person for you."

  "And if I hadn't lived with Kim and then gone off to college, I would have never become Trin. You would have been with Socks. And as much as I liked being Socks, as good as I tried to be when I was them, I was not a good person for you to be with. I would have never hurt you or cheated on you, but I only recently figured out how to love myself. That might never have happened if I hadn't been through college and had the experiences I did. And if I couldn't have loved myself, there was no way that I could have loved you. Not like you would have deserved anyway. So as hurt as I was when you made that choice, as betrayed as I felt, I understand it now. I'm glad that you made the choice that I wasn't strong enough to. You were my only safety structure at that point. I would have clu
ng to you until we both sank. Now I'm my own, and I can be that person for other people like Andy, and Sally, and all the other kids I deal with on a daily basis."

  I leaned down and I kissed them. First on the cheek and then on the lips. "I missed your fire so much."

  "I missed my best friend," they quietly replied.

  "I should have kept in touch." I knew that now. There would have been no harm in talking to Trin again over those years that we had been apart.

  "I could have stopped being angry about you abandoning me and instead asked Kim to arrange play dates for us." I was going to argue about how I hadn't actually meant to abandon them, but then Trin rolled their eyes. "I was eighteen and feeling like my best friend, and the only person I could trust in this world, didn't want me around anymore."

  "And I was freaking out because I was in love with a child. Don't argue. I know you weren't really a child, but I felt like that. I couldn't separate the Socks I knew the day you left Trinity House from the day you arrived. You were this skinny little kid, and if you hadn't come with me that first night, I would have been devastated."

  Our lunch was forgotten as Trin moved back from the table. I followed them over to the couch. "I'm glad I did," they said as they sat down. "Coming to Trinity House saved my life."

  I was sure that that was true for a lot of kids.

  "If you did ever look me up, would you tell me if my dad was still alive? Sometimes I want to know. Sometimes I don't. But if you happened to look and then told me, it would be different than me caring enough to look. Because I don't care if you do. Or if he is. Not at all."

  The abrupt change in conversation startled me. But Trin still caring about their father didn't. "I'm not planning to look, but if I do I'll let you know if he is alive or not. Would you prefer that he is?"

  Trin shrugged. "I don't know. I want him to be alive, because I don't want to wish that my father was dead, but after how he didn't believe me, and then made things worse by telling his friend what I'd said... I don't really know how to feel or what to think."