You should read "You make my whole world feel so right when it's wrong (That's why I know you are the one)" and "The enemy of my friend is my friend (or something like that)" and "You've got a friend in me" before this one, because this is the four part of the series.
"Tell me again why are we sitting here while we could be cuddling in your bed?"
It's Sunday morning and the girls have woke up at an ungodly hour just to be able to avoid the rush hour at the road. The stadium isn't that far away from Angel Grove, but Kimberly wanted to be earlier just in case. After a second cup of coffee, Trini still misses the bed.
"Because you decided to befriend the captain of one of the best cheerleading teams in the state." Replies Kimberly, grinning proudly at how easily she was able to persuade Trini to make this trip.
"I didn't decide shit," Trini grunts, leaning back in the really uncomfortable chair where she's been sitting for almost an hour, "She just bulldozed herself into my life and now I can't get rid of her."
"I did it. It's not that difficult."
Trini turns her body towards her girlfriend, staring at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Too soon?" Kim says.
"Hey, if you can joke about it, it means that you're getting over the guilt."
"Not really," Kim shrugs, "But this helps." She says, gesturing to the stadium.
"This? As in spending a whole day under the sun, watching countless of cheerleading teams competing against each other?"
"There are only ten teams, but no, I didn't mean the being here for the competition."
"Hey, I know what you mean," Trini takes Kim's hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.
"This is important for her. Before, when I was still on the team, every time we had a competition, my parents would always be sitting at the stands, cheering four us. But Amanda's family never showed up. There was always something else more important than this, than her."
"That's why you insisted on dragging me here?"
Kimberly nods.
"Well, you should have told me sooner," Trini diverts her eyes towards the stage, where a bunch of girls are trying to raise a really complicated pyramid, "I would have been less of bitch about it."
"No, you wouldn't have." Kim remarks.
"No, I wouldn't have." She says through a smirk, while she watches the pyramid collapse, "I hate cheerleaders."
Kimberly smacks her girlfriend's arm playfully.
"What?!" Trini exclaims, pretending to be hurt by Kimberly's vicious attack, "It's true! And you don't count. You're not one of them anymore."
"You like Amanda." Kim points out.
"I tolerateher."
"If that's tolerating, how are you around someone you love?"
"I don't know, you tell me," Kim hasn't been expecting an answer, and much less one like that, and followed by Trini's perfect smirk.
She can see the surprise in her girlfriend's face. It's not like Kim doesn't know how Trini feels about her; they can literally be miles apart and still feeleach other. It's just that the words, the I love you, is still left unsaid for some reason.
"Why do you always do that?"
"Do what?" Trini asks feigning ignorance.
"You know what. Saying it,without really sayingit."
"And why is that so important to you? They're just three words, Kim, and highly overused, in my opinion. There are a lot of ways to express the same without saying them."
"Like what?"
Kim has turned completely towards Trini, and it's staring at her expectantly, while the music, the crowd shouting around them, and the cheerleaders at the stage, all forgotten.
"Like…," Trini takes her girlfriend's hand with both of hers and starts rubbing her thumbs over Kim's smooth skin, clearly thinking about what she's going to say next, "Like changing my coffee order to a caramel latte because you always ended up drinking half of mine, and you hated my three shots of espresso."
The other girl snorts at that.
"That was disgusting and you know it."
"But you kept drinking it, and making that face like you were about to puke, so I sacrificed my perfectly good coffee for you."
"And I appreciate that very much," Kim emphasizes her statement leaning to give Trini a light peck on the lips, "So, what else?"
"Sharing my rock with you."
"The one where you do your yoga?" Trini nods to answer the question, "I shared my special place with you, too." The other girl just hums at that, and leans a little closer, "What else?"
"I let you put your own playlist of pop songs in my sacred phone."
"Yeah, well, I saw your All Time Broadway playlist."
"Andthat's another reason," Trini points out, "No one else knows about that."
"So, I'm thatspecial, uhm?"
"You know you are, Hart."
"And that's why you…"
Kimberly doesn't finish her sentence, but instead leans even closer to her girlfriend, so close that Trini can feel the other girl's breath in her lips, waiting for her to say the words. She's not stupid, she knows what Kim really wants to hear right now, even if they're still surrounded by hundreds of people and the moment is anything but romantic.
"You really want me to say it, don't you?"
"It would be nice to hear it, yeah."
Trini closes the small gap between their lips. The kiss is chaste, but longer than the last one, and she can feel Kimberly's mouth curving into a smile.
"Okay," She whispers, breaking the kiss and staring at Kim, who still has her eyes closed and a blissful smile on her face, "Kimberly Ann Hart, you've been a pain in my ass since the day you threw me from that cliff, and yet I lo…"
"Trini?"
The sudden interruption comes from two rows above them, and Trini doesn't really want to think why that surprised voice has sounded so familiar. Reluctantly, she moves away from Kimberly's personal space, and turns to look at the owner of the voice, just to have her suspicions confirmed.
"Oh my god, it is you!" The stranger says excitedly.
"Hey, Linds."
Trini stands up from her seat and smiles awkwardly at the other girl, who doesn't waste any time and climbs down the couple of rows separating them, just to end up engulfing Trini in a crushing embrace, while Kimberly just stares at them with a mix of confusion and amusement.
After a long minute, they break the hug and the newcomer seems to notice Kim's presence.
"Hi, I'm Lindsey Logan,"
The girl is smiling and extending her hand to greet Kimberly. She seems to be a few inches taller than her, with honey colored hair, and perfectly tanned skin, with a body tonned enough that she could be one of the cheerleaders out there, and a pair of green eyes deeper than a forest.
Kimberly is instantly jealous of her.
"Nice to meet you," She says shaking the other girl's hand.
"Lindsey and I went to school together the year before I moved to Angel Grove," Trini rushes to explain, probably aware of what was going on in Kim's mind at the moment, "Linds, this is Kimberly Hart," Then she stops for a hot second to take a deep breath, "My girlfriend."
Trini's friend seems to make a double take at those words, and then gives Kim an once-over, before turning back her attention towards the shorter girl again.
"Damn, T. You always had good taste but, damn."
"Believe me, I now," Trini replies, now clearly more at ease than five minutes ago, "Linds..., tell me you're here for a friend."
It's evident by how Lindsey's face turns into a grimace, that the answer to that question is no.
"You know I wouldn't be caught dead here if it wasn't family mandatory."
Obviously confused by the exchange, Kim is staring at both girls not really catching what they're talking about, but it's clear that Trini's mind has gone to a very dark place in a matter of seconds.
"She still regrets it, you know?" Lindsey continues, "Not choosing you."
"Yeah, well," Trini shrugs nonchalantly, but Kimberly can feel the anxiety rising inside her, "Bad choices, good choices, it's all in the past. Nothing we can do about it."
"Hey, at least you got it right this time, right?"
"Yeah," Trini finds Kim's eyes starring worriedly at her, and gives her a soft smile, "Yeah, I did."
After a few minutes talking about Angel Grove, they announce the next team, and Trini suddenly excuses herself saying something about going to the bathroom, leaving Lindsey and Kimberly alone.
"Trini is too stubborn to tell me what happened, she never really talks about her past," Kim says, wanting to understand what was going on, "But I know that something big happened, that someone hurt her, and she's still not over it."
Lindsey nods at her and points towards the stage.
"See the Eagles captain? That beautiful blonde standing in the middle of the mat? That's my sister Gabrielle."
And, just like that, all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
Because yes, Trini told her about the first girl she kissed, about that crazy party, and that stupid dare, and that gorgeous cheerleader with green eyes, that also happened to be one of her best friends, making her see stars for the first time while kissing someone.
But she never told her what happened after that.
Judging by Trini's hatred towards anything related to cheerleading, Kim can almost imagine how the story went.
Trini has been wandering around the place for at least fifteen minutes. The funny thing is that she actually needs a bathroom now, for real this time, and there's no sign of any. The inside of the building is fucking huge, and all the corridors look the same so, she's pretty much lost.
She should have stayed with Kim or, at least, she should have taken her girlfriend with her. But she heard the Eagles being announced, and she freaked out.
"God, I'm so stupid." She says to herself, leaning against the wall of the corridor.
Turning around to face the concrete, she lets her forehead rest against the chipped paint of the wall, and takes a deep breath, trying to concentrate on feeling Kim through the ranger bond.
She's too focused on her girlfriend's calming aura that she doesn't hear the voices approaching.
"Wait..."
No.
"Girls, I'll catch you in a minute."
Fuck.
"Trini?"
No, no, no.
"What are you doing here?"
She can hear the hope in the question.
"Not talking to you, that's for sure," Trini answers, sharp and cold, and not even stopping to look at the girl before turning around, she starts walking away.
"Wait, Trini!"
Gabrielle starts running after her.
"No! I'm not doing this!" Trini shouts back.
"Please!"
They turn around at the end of the hallway, suddenly finding themselves in a big space full of other cheerleaders. The room goes into a dead silence.
Everyone is staring at them, and just when she's about to turn around and leave, even if she has to dodge Gabrielle reaching for her, a familiar silhouette approaches them.
"What's going on?" Amanda's voice sounds like heaven to her, "Not that I'm not happy to see you, Tiny, but what are you doing here?"
"Right now?" Trini nervously runs a hand through her hair, "I'm running away from my past," She sighs, "Literally."
Amanda stares weirdly at her, then at the obviously distressed Eagles' cheerleader that's been running after her friend, then at Trini again. Something in her head clicks.
"Oh my god," She says, pointing at Gabrielle, "Is she the reason for your no kissing cheerleaders rule?"
The only answer that Trini gives her is a low growl, so Amanda angrily addresses the other girl instead.
"What the fuck did you do to my friend?"
"I… I'm…" Gabrielle stutters, trying to get the words out of her mouth, "I'm so…"
"Yeah, I heard that before," Trini cuts her off abruptly, "I remember how sorry you were."
"I was afraid!" The other girl exclaims.
"And I wasn't?! I was fucking terrified!" Trini is trying to control herself, but she's stomped into the floor with such rage, that she's pretty sure that something cracked under her boot, "Remember when I told you about the party and that dare that went too far?" She asks Amanda, "Well, it didn't stop there, you know?
"Trini…" Amanda says, trying to warn her friend before she says too much.
"It kept happening, again and again, and I wasn't the only one invested in it. But Miss Popular here was too worried about her reputation to…"
She doesn't get to finish the sentence.
Trini is so caught off ward by Amanda's lips on hers that she's frozen in place.
"WHAT IN THE FUCKING HELL AMANDA?!"
And a new player enters the field. A new, very pissed, player.
At least, Kim's angry voice seems to clear the fog that's been clouding Trini's mind since she saw Gabrielle in the hallway. The first thing she notices is Amanda stepping back, getting some distance between their bodies, and letting go of her face.
"Calm down, Kimmy," The cheerleader says, clearly not threatened by Kimberly at all, "I was just stopping your girlfriend from saying something stupid that she was going to regret later," She turns back to look at Trini, who seems to have just realized what she was about to do in front of a room full of people. Then, she addresses Kim again, "Now come and kiss her in front of all these cheerleaders. She could use some of your annoying confidence right now."
Even if she's still fuming, Kimberly does exactly as Amanda has asked her, and in four strides she's standing in front of Trini, taking her face in her hands, and furiously capturing her lips in a searing kiss.
"I should make you mad more often," Trini mentions once they break apart and she catches some air.
"Don't you dare going around kissing any more cheerleaders," Kim warns her.
"Hey, it wasn't my idea."
"Just in case. And that goes for all of you, too," She says, addressing the room full of girls.
Surprisingly, one of the girls steps forward, glaring back at Kimberly, and stops right in front of them.
"You can punch me later for this, Hart."
Said that, the girl abruptly moves Kimberly aside and plants a closed mouth kiss on Trini's lips.
It's done before either ranger could realize what was happening.
"I just wanted to know what all that fuss was about," Harper says once she's taken a step back, crossing her arms and biting her lip, as if she is contemplating what she's just done.
"I definitely wasn't expecting that." Amanda turns to look at the rest of her team, "Was any of you expecting that?" The girls all shake their heads, "Yeah, I thought so. Kim, take Tiny Yoda away before there's a riot here. She seems to have a magnet for cheerleaders' lips and I need my team focused. I'll see you after the competition, okay?"
Kimberly nods, taking Trini's hand, pulling slightly so she starts walking.
"And hey," Amanda calls for them before they have time to leave the room, "Thanks for coming here today. It means a lot."
When Kimberly returns after making a quick trip to buy a couple of water bottles and a bag of chips, she finds her girlfriend curled in her seat, facing the stage but not really watching the competition.
"Hey," She says, handing one of the bottles to Trini, "I heard our team is after the next one."
"Yeah. They better have something good prepared, because those Blue Ravens were pretty good."
Kim hums back and sits next to the other girl.
"So...," She starts to say, "About what happened back there..."
"Do we really have to talk about it?"
"I'd like to. You're still freaking out, and I hate feeling you like this. Maybe it will help you saying it out loud."
Trini sighs in defeat, because she knows her girlfriend too well, and Kimberly won't let this go until they talk. So, better have it all in the open already.
"When I left San Francisco, I thought I'd never have to face that part of my life again." Trini starts to explain, and Kim stares at her expectantly, "You know how difficult it is for me to open to people, so God knows what my mom was thinking when she suggested that I joined a group of girls that spent their free time jumping around with pom-poms."
"Wait," Kim can't believe what she just heard, "You, Maria Trinidad Kwan, were a cheerleader?" Her voice goes an octave higher with the question.
"How do you think Gabby and I got so close? It was just for a few months, anyway. Then the party happened and everything went downhill from there."
"So, what happened?"
"Gabrielle spent that night at my house. We were still high from the dare, and really, reallydrunk, so we stumbled into my room and just... kept kissing until we fell asleep. When we woke up, she didn't seem to remember what happened, so I tried to forget it as well. But next party came and it happened again, and again, until we didn't need the parties or the alcohol to pretend, and just keep finding stupid excuses to be alone. I'm not sure if I was ever in love with her, but I know there was a strong connection between us, and that and the fact that we were both girls, were freaking me out. I knew she was scared too, but we had each other, you know?"
"Mhm," Kim nods, "I guess someone found out?"
"A couple of girls in the squad saw us," Trini continues, "Not really kissing, but we were close, and my hands weren't exactly touching her in a way that could be considered friendly."
"She freaked out."
"Big time. The next thing I know, the whole team thinks I was molesting her and she's calling me a dyke. Can you imagine how much it hurts when the first person saying that word to you is your best friend?" She takes a moment to gather herself, drinking some water before continuing, "In a matter of days I was out of the squad, out of the closet, I started to get bullied, and the only friend I got left was Lindsey, because she was the only one who knew about what really happened. She was furious with Gabby for what she did, but in the end they were family, so I kept my distance, too."
"Then you moved to Angel Grove."
"And I kept my mouth shut and my head low, so no one noticed me."
"Did Gabrielle ever apologize?"
"She tried. She came by our house the night before we were leaving. She had been avoiding me until that moment, and right when I was ready to move on, when I was going to start a new life away from her, she wanted to say sorry. I asked her if she would have done anything differently, but she just kept saying sorry over and over again, so I closed the door in her face."
"I'm not going to try to justify her actions, because what she did was horrible, but coming from someone that also fucked up her best friend pretty badly; I kind of understand why she did it."
"That's the thing, Kim. I do understand why she did what she did, or at least I understand why she rejected me in front of the others. We could have talked about it, though, kept some distance or something for a while but, instead, her answer to the problem was turning me into the school's pariah. Shewas the one who started the bullying."
After that, Kim doesn't have any more arguments. She wanted to help Trini and Gabrielle the same way her girlfriend helped her and Amanda, but at least she had learnt from her mistakes and would have done things differently if given the opportunity. But this girl, though, this girl was the reason why Trini had been hiding herself from the world, and that is something that Kimberly won't forget easily.
And now, let's make some noise for last year's runner up team, the Tigers from Angel Grove High School!
They are standing by their school's bus, waiting for Amanda to finish the conversation with their coach, when Kimberly decides to bring up something back from their previous conversation, something that has been in the back of her mind since Trini mentioned it.
"So… You were a cheerleader."
"Yeah…" Trini replies cautiously. She knows perfectly how Kim's head works.
"Did you keep the uniform?"
"No."
"Why?" The question sounds more like a whine.
"Because I burn it."
"What?!"
"I was hurt, and furious, and I needed to make a statement."
"At least tell me there's a picture somewhere."
"Kim, I love you,but not gonna happen," Trini says, surrounding Kim's waist with her arms, and smirking at her, "That boat sailed longtime ago."
"By my zord, I swear that I'll find evidence, Trini Kwan. Mark my words."
Next day at school Trini keeps getting weird looks from some of the students. She doesn't understand what is happening until later, when she sits at the table for lunch with her friends and Zack breaks the news.
"Hey Crazy Girl, rumor has it that you didn't have enough with Kim and now you're kissing cheerleaders!"
FIN