Red Light Duex

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N:

Chapter 25 (Taking the First Step)

"I'm glad you could be here," Tori hugged her sister tight in the doorway of Sam's office. Tears filled her eyes and drenched her cheeks while Trina only replied with a grunt. "Cat said you were staying with her. I was worried. I'm glad you're okay."

"Yeah." Trina hugged her sister back and breathed out slowly. "Cat has these friends of hers, they're nuts." The girl laughed gently and shook her head. Sam looked to her mentor and boss beside her with a grin. Alice knew about Dice and Goomer, there were many stories she'd been able to tell that made her laugh. "Also I've been doing some babysitting with her, so I haven't had much time to get out of the apartment. Visiting her grandmother is…interesting."

"Good, I'm glad she's kept you busy."

"Funny." Trina sat down with her sister and looked across the room at Alice and Sam. "So you wanted me to be here, Tori. I don't think it'll do much good, but who am I to judge without giving something a chance? I hope you've been alright with mom and dad…"

"They've…been quiet lately." Tori brushed her hair back and shrugged. "I've kind of been avoiding them by hanging with Jade and the others. Though Robbie hasn't been around much anymore, not that I'm terribly upset over it. With the shit he caused."

Trina curled her fingers around her bangs and swept them back over her head. "Don't curse, Tori, it's not like you to curse." Tori laughed once and leaned into her sister, throwing her arms around her.

She turned her head up and set her chin on Trina's shoulder. "I can't have a sailor's mouth like you? That's hardly fair." Her sister scoffed in response and teased a smirk.

"I do not have a sailor's mouth!" Trina looked over and mouthed for them not to believe Tori. It was amusing and nice to see the two sisters sharing in this moment of playfulness, especially with all the tension that they dealt with. It gave Sam some more hope and belief that she could reach them, to help them.

"Do too! You say 'fuck' and 'shit' a lot more than most people I hear."

"I get frustrated and pissed easily, does that mean I am a sailor as well?"

"I tried counting one day. I lost track multiple times." Tori's eyelids fell halfway and Trina laughed. Tori hugged her again and let her body relax. "I miss you. I wish daddy didn't kick you out. Still, I'm glad you're staying with Cat."

"Yeah well, I almost said no, but then she decided to make it mandatory."

"I don't like being alone in that house, Trina. Knowing Daddy's been drinking a lot more, I'm scared. He's not come home drunk since that night, but you know how it is. I also want to find Robbie and punch him in the jaw."

"He isn't worth it, Tori."

"I know." Tori let out a heavy sigh and started to chuckle. "Beck was distraught over his golf club. He spent his entire allowance on it. I don't think Cat has been able to explain what she used it on or why, but then…I really don't want them to know what dad's like."

"I know." Trina cleared her throat and gestured to Sam as a reminder of where they were. Tori looked over and flashed a small smile. "Let's get this session dealt with, Tori, then maybe you and I can grab a quick bite or something. Cat wants me at the apartment after this to help babysit."

"Okay…I guess she knows? She was there for Dad's outburst."

Trina rubbed the back of her neck and let out a soft groan. "She knows a little more than that. I kind of lost it, ended up revealing some stuff to her." Tori tensed as Trina glanced to the girl. "I'm sorry Tori."

"Does anybody else know about it?" Sam inquired, deciding to ask the first question. The girls looked at her and Trina's brow furrowed. "About what your father did, what he's like?"

"The only other person would be Jason. Obviously when he and I, you know…I had to tell him something, to explain why I was acting a certain way." Trina's gaze faltered and her nose crinkled. "He was…kind to me, gentle and understanding. Though, I was still suspicious, thought maybe he'd want nothing to do with me. I opened myself up to him, it was painful…He was the first person I ever told."

"You know you don't have to tell anybody you don't want to." The girls nodded. Sam crossed her legs and leaned back. "Even me, even Alice. We're here to listen, to help, but you don't have to say anything that you don't want."

"Thank you. Really."

"If you're up to it, why don't you girls tell us what happened the other day? What's going on with your parents, that you got kicked out of the house?"

"Prostituting." Trina shrugged as though it wasn't that big of an issue. "I mean, Dad found out and threw a shit fit with Cat and Robbie there. He was drunk."

"Has he been drunk before?" Alice inquired. Trina nodded and Tori spoke up quickly.

"He's never been an angry drunk though! He's never come to violence. Just…other things." Tori paused, long enough for Alice to ask her to explain. The girl closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't want to say. If I don't acknowledge, then it never happened, right? Never existed."

"Many things happen in life we don't want to acknowledge or accept." Alice took a deep breath and smiled calmly at the girl. "Yet the way to healing is to accept and move ahead. If you fight to ignore something, then it still rules you, still holds power over you. If you accept and work to recovery, it ceases to hold power over you."

"I…understand." Tori took her sister's hand and squeezed it for comfort. "There's just-we have a lot of anger and pain to work through, I don't want my family to fall apart, but I don't think I can stop it." Tori folded her hands in her lap and started to shake. "I've heard talk of forgiveness, but I don't know what it means really. I don't want to say what our father did was okay."

"Forgiveness isn't about saying something is okay, it isn't at all condoning something, but rather telling the offending subject that it will no longer control you, no longer harm you. It is taking a step forward to healing, to coping and recovery."

"It doesn't feel like this sort of pain will ever go away."

"It will get easier with time, but you have to be open to the recovery process." Alice looked from Tori to Trina. The elder sibling slouched and crossed her arms.

"I'm open to it," Trina scoffed, "I just don't think it can get better. Not when I've put myself in a hole this deep." The important thing was that she was talking, and whether she realized it or not, talking would help. It let things out that a person holds in, and can make a person feel better once it's in the open.

"You mentioned Jason…" Sam uncrossed her arms and waited for Trina's gaze to slink into hers. "Would you like to tell us a little more about him? How'd you meet, what was he like? I'm aware that I already know a little, but I'd like you to remind me of him."

"Well. He's a great guy." Trina tucked her hair over her ear and let out a gentle sigh. "Caring, understanding, and I thought the world of him. Still, a part of me does. We met at camp, and I was attracted to him-I didn't understand it at the time, or I did and I just didn't want to-I don't know."

"So you had feelings for him."

"I guess. Yeah, I did." She closed her eyes and a faint smile grew on her face. "I don't really know how or why, but we had sex and-" Trina's eyes opened and stared at the wall in front of her. Tori took her hand and gave it a squeeze, causing the girl to react with a flinch. "Sorry, I, it's hard to think about. Jason wasn't bad, he understood me, I-I told him what happened. What dad did to us when we were growing up…Jason said things, made me feel good."

"What did he say?"

Trina shrugged and tightened her grip around Tori's hand. "You know, things like, good fathers don't do that. He said he wouldn't hurt me, and he wouldn't do anything I didn't want to. I think I was curious, to know if…" Her voice broke and tears started to well up in her eyes as her body trembled.

Tori leaned her head against Trina's shoulder, tearing up as well. Alice handed Trina a tissue and she took it, using it to wipe her eyes. "The way I felt with him, whether it was just spending time together at that camp or during that one moment of sex, I felt secure. Safe. I don't know enough about love to say whether or not I felt that, but there was something."

"He was good to you, a good man."

"Yes. A good…" Seeing the wordplay, Trina lifted her head. The skin around her eyes tensed and the corners of her lips pulled back into a straight line. "I never really thought about it like that."

"There are many good men in the world," Alice began, " but it's hard to find them when you've been through the things that you and your sister have been." Trina nodded once as Alice set her coffee mug on the coaster nearby. "A father is someone you're supposed to be able to trust, and when a man like that oversteps the line that a father never should, then it's even harder to find a man that you can be with. When you do find that good man, it's hard to distinguish him from others." Alice leaned back in her chair and studied Trina for the moment. "You mentioned that you've gone into prostitution. Why is that?"

"I just wanted to feel what I felt with Jason." Trina's eyes lowered and her hands clutched the fabric of her dress. "I couldn't. Every man that I've been with since has-they've been demeaning, degrading, disgusting…"

"Yet, you're still in that life?"

Trina inhaled sharply and clenched her eyes shut. "I don't know anything better." Her eyes shot open and her voice started to rise as she locked her eyes with Alice. "You tell me. You tell me what a girl like me is worth." Her nostrils flared and she ignored Tori's attempt to shake her arm and console her. "If the best type of guy I can get is a drunken sleaze with his own agenda-isn't that what's real? That's the image I get, you know. My father slinking into our rooms, mom crying in the living room." Trina pressed her hands to her chest and voice seemed now to bounce off the walls. "All the bastards that pay me for sex-that's all I'm good for."

Sam breathed in, remaining calm as she thought of a response. It caused a great deal of pain to see Trina like this. Then there was Tori, the distress in her eyes told an entirely new type of situation. Or, perhaps not that new to Sam. It was a look that Melanie had once, of fear and confusion.

"It's hard, I know." Sam spoke with careful steps, trying her best to choose the words that would help Trina the most. "The struggle to see any worth in yourself when you've only seen men and women who want to use you for sex." She swept a tear from her own eyes and cleared away the roughness in her throat. "It's easier to ignore the worth that we are to other people."

"I just-"

"Know also that you're not alone, and you don't have to be. You have someone sitting right next to you who knows exactly what you're going through." Trina scrunched her face and turned her head to Tori. "She's been where you are, and still is. Still needs her older sister because you have been somewhere that she hasn't."

"What do you mean?"

"When you spoke about Jason just a minute ago." Trina looked back and Sam curved her lips into a smile. "There was a light in your eyes, a single glimpse of hope." Trina let out a dry chuckle and moved her hand to scratch at her neck. "When I want to know how much I'm worth to someone, all I have to do is look into Derek's eyes, and I know. That man thinks the world of me. It sounds like, to me anyway, that's what you struggle with."

Trina started to scoff, but said nothing. Sam took a deep breath and uncrossed her legs. She leaned forward and looked directly into Trina's eyes, gaining the girl's attention. "When you were with that man, you say you don't understand the way you felt. That is normal, and given what happened to you two, it's going to take some time before you fully realize what that feeling is-but know that the way you talk about him and how he made you feel-that is what's real. Maybe you saw your 'worth' when you were with him, maybe he thought the world of you…loves you."

"No, I-I don't know what love is."

"Doesn't mean it doesn't exist." Sam motioned to Tori and leaned back. "You love your sister?"

"Of course!" Trina's eyebrows moved together and she looked to Tori, then back to Sam. "Not in a sexual way or anything-"

"No. You see, what you and Tori went through with your father distorts that. What you've been through with prostitution, further distorts-just as my past did to me." She tapped her foot on the ground once and watched as Trina started to tense. "There are different types of loving someone. There's the love you feel for a sibling, the love you feel for a parent, a child, or a friend-then there's the love you feel for a spouse or a lover."

"It is also not about sexual intimacy," Alice added. "Love is trust, it is respect. Caring for somebody on a deeper level. That is why when it comes to sex, there's the term 'lovemaking' which connects two people who are deeply in love with one another and they trust the other with something as important and sacred to them as their body."

"You may have felt that when you were with Jason." Alice twirled her pen around her fingers and raised her eyebrows. "Which, it seems to me is a place that Sam says you've been to which your sister hasn't. It isn't a place that neither of you can never reach, it's a good place to be. Only, first I would focus on the question you have of what you're worth. All you have to do is look around you. Your sister, your friends-both of you are worth a lot more than you may realize. I want you to think about that, okay?"

Tori moved her head away from Trina's shoulder, chuckling weakly as she wiped her eyes. "Jade, Beck and Andre keep telling me they want to be good friends. I told them a lot, and a lot of it backfired, but they seem to be sorry and they want to be there for me-Cat too. It's…It's really strange to see them so different. Jade's being less critical than she normally is, or she's trying to be anyway. It's hard for me to think they're doing it for me."

"Right." Alice smiled at her and looked towards Trina. "And you're dealing with the same scenario, are you not?" Trina rolled her eyes and held onto her faint smile.

"The minute dad threw me out, Cat comes running. Tells me she wants me to be her new roommate. Later on, she insists-now she's got me spending all this time doing stuff with her."

"Then girls, I want you to think about something for me. If you were worth nothing to these friends of yours, would they make all this effort? I'd also like to leave you with some 'homework' before our session next week." Tori and Trina exchanged looks and shrugged. Alice turned to Sam. "I think Sam, would you go first?"

"Gladly." Sam turned her eyes between the two girls and breathed in slowly. "This next week focus your time on each other and your friends. Spend time with them as you have been, but I'd like you to carefully observe how they are around you. Write down what you see, how they treat you and how they talk to you. Next week, we can discuss that."

"I guess we can do that," Tori remarked, "At least I'll try."

"I'll do it too," Trina muttered. "So far it's only Cat." The girl paused and gave Sam a suspicious look. "You say nothing about my prostitution, or about talking to Jason. Why?"

"Well. What do you want to do, Trina? I can't tell you everything you have to do, Alice and I are only able to guide you. You have to want to improve your life, to recover and move forward-we can't do that for you."

"I see." Trina looked at Tori and exhaled at her sibling's sorrowful look. "I don't enjoy prostitution." She tilted her head back and her chest trembled. "It's funny, I kind of enjoy working with Cat. Babysitting. At least doing that feels…well, it feels worthwhile."

"There's that word again."

"I know. Shit." Trina ran her hand through her hair and chuckled once Tori smacked her arm for the curse. "I'm still skeptical about this process, but…I do want to get better. I want to be happy."

"Then what will make you happy, Trina?"

"I don't know. But working with Cat-I guess it's a start." Cat does have her charms, this much was certain. It was a spark of hope, so Sam could utilize this to help Trina the best way she could.

"So then start with that." Trina raised an eyebrow and Sam smiled with reassurance. "Instead of going out at night, having sex with strangers…I want you to continue focusing on this new roommate situation. Spend time with Cat, help her out with babysitting, chores and so on."

"So then, don't be a prostitute? I don't know if it's that easy, I mean-"

"It's not easy." Her voice softened momentarily and she shook her head at Trina. "Once you get into a life like that, it's never easy to just walk away. Believe me, I know. It's going to take time, and you need to be patient with yourself. Allow yourself the time to heal. Alice and I will be here for you two all along the way, so will your friends. It's a step at a time, but it'll be worth it in the end. I guarantee you that."

"Yeah…and Jason? I mean, I know he's probably still in LA-still looking for me or waiting for me to show up."

"Go to him only when you feel like you're ready to. It doesn't have to be tomorrow, it doesn't have to be next week."

"What if-he won't wait around forever. I know that…"

"Maybe, maybe not, but I think he understands that you need time." Trina nodded, and for a brief moment, Sam caught a glimpse of joy in the girl's eyes. When she looked to Tori, she saw the same with her. This was a grand sign, and it was only the first step. "So if you two are up to another session, we can set one up for you next week."

"Yeah, sure…" Trina rubbed her chin and looked at Tori. "Um, joint though. I don't know if I'm ready to separate from my sister in these things." At times individual sessions could be harder for a person, simply because there wasn't another person to take up some of the talking. Sam understood this, and she would be more than willing to accommodate.

"Gladly, I'll set one up."

First joint session seems to have gone well.