Metamorphosis
Disclaimer: I own nothing
A/N:
Chapter 28 (Peak of Emotions)
Trina stumbled into the bedroom the next morning, making sure not to disturb Lindsay on the chance that her friend was still awake. Her legs were still weak and her body trembled. She hadn't moved from Jason's couch at all after they made love for the first time, and neither did he.
As she looked towards her bed, she saw Lindsay sitting on the edge of it. The girl's right leg was crossed over her left, her arms were folded over her chest and she had a smug grin plastered across her face. "Good morning, Trina."
"Um, hi." She made her way towards the bathroom, ignoring the watchful eyes of her friend the best she could. "Did you sleep well?" Her mouth was still plastered in a wide grin and she was in a pleasant, yet excited mood.
"Oh I had an interesting night. How about you?" She looked at herself in the mirror and let out a startled gasp. Her entire body was red from the rich blood rushing to the surface of her skin, her hair was still a crumpled mess, along with her clothes that were sloppily put on. "Trina, you're positively glowing. Is a certain lover-boy responsible for this?"
She chuckled nervously and grabbed her hairbrush from the countertop. "Whatever do you mean?" In the mirror she watched her friend. Lindsay unfolded her arms and set her hands down on the edge of the mattress, her red painted lips slid into a widening smile and her right eyebrow rose beneath her auburn bangs.
"What I mean is you and Jason were missing all night. The two of you vanished sometime last evening, never showed up for dinner at the café and Travis couldn't get ahold of you guys."
"Would you believe I fell asleep on the upper walkways of our camp's strong fortress?" She pushed the brush through her hair with a slow and cautious motion. Her heartbeat pulsed rapidly and the excited rush of blood could be felt sweeping across her skin.
"Really now? Alone up there with your fear of heights, all night?" Lindsay stretched her right leg outwards and laughed. "I believe Jason is a 'strong fortress' for you, and he does have an office up there…"
Trina spun on her heels and cleared her throat. "What are you saying, that he and I had sex or something?" Lindsay chuckled once and bowed her head.
"Oh sweetie, I didn't suggest you had sex with him. Cuddling up and falling asleep at the most." The slick tone in Lindsay's voice suggested she knew better. Trina slanted her eyes and lowered her hand to her side.
"Liar." She tapped the bristles of the brush on her leg and flattened her eyebrows. "You're totally lying" Her friend grinned and Trina bowed her head.
Lindsay pointed to the door, nodding in the direction. "Right now, Travis is having the same conversation with Jason, so you might as well fess up, you can't hide anything from your best friend."
"Okay yes." Trina took a nervous step forward, watching as Lindsay grinned and rose from the bed. "You know the typical one thing led to another? Well…"
"I don't need the details. What I want to know is, was it what you wanted?" She stopped to raise an eyebrow and Lindsay approached her. The girl moved her hands to her forearms and looked into her eyes. "I know you care about him, and I know he cares about you, and I want to make sure you didn't feel pressured into it."
"Do you think Jason would do that?"
"No, but it's just standard concern. Travis likely is asking Jason the same. You're my friend, and I want to know that you're happy. You look happy, so are you?"
"I love him." Lindsay smiled and Trina breathed in and moved her hands up to Lindsay's upper arms. Her eyes bore into Lindsay's and her heart rose as she remembered the night before. "Is that good? We made love. We-you remember when you told me that I could have something that lasted?"
A lump swelled in her throat and she swallowed it quickly. Her lips curved up and she watched the joyous mist in Lindsay's eyes. "It feels like this will last. I'm scared, but it feels like that, and yes I am happy. I wanted it, I wanted to be with him in that way, it felt like-it felt like that was the best way to really show him that I do love him and I do want to be with him."
"So it's not just a fling, sweetie?"
"No. I swear it's not." She took a deep breath, waiting for her pounding heart to steady. "This is real." Tears spilled over her eyes and glistened as they ran past her widening grin. "I've never felt so-I've never felt like this before, like somebody could actually love me."
"So I don't have to hunt him down and string him up." Lindsay's voice fell into a whisper as though she were trying to avoid a break in her speech. "Good." The girl pulled her into a hug, holding her tight. "I'm so happy for you, Trina."
Sensing something more was on Lindsay's mind, she followed the girl towards her mattress and sat with her. "Lindsay? Do you have something you want to talk about? You said you and Travis were trying to find us last night, were you just wondering where we were?"
"Yes, but don't worry. This is about you, it's your day." Lindsay ran her hand in circles on Trina's back. The girl's eyes were lit up with excitement, but it wasn't enough for Trina. "You and Jason took like a giant leap forward, you don't need to worry about me."
"But you're my friend. I think I know where I stand with Jason now, at least we're seeing where that's going and I couldn't be happier, but that doesn't change anything with us. I'm going to be here for you no matter what."
Lindsay inhaled and averted her gaze. "It's something we can talk about later." Trina put her hand on Lindsay's, squeezing it until her friend's gaze fell back into hers.
"Is it about Travis? Is something wrong?"
"What? No! Travis is great, and I love him very much." A sense of relief came over her and she responded with a nod. Lindsay pulled her hand away and leaned back on the bed, sighing heavily. "We were looking for the two of you last night because we were talking about something and wanted to discuss it with our best of friends. I made a decision about something with him last night…"
Her brow furrowed and she folded her hands together in her lap. "Okay…" Lindsay swept her hair over her right ear and started to tap her foot on the ground.
"I decided that after camp…" Lindsay took a deep breath and then rose from the bed. "I'm going to move to Los Angeles to be with my dad." Trina's heart jumped up and she covered part of her mouth with her fingers.
This was a huge decision, and there was no doubt in her mind that Lindsay made that decision based on Travis. "Are you sure?" Lindsay pushed her hand into her hair and let out one laugh of disbelief.
"It's just-look, you love Jason or you're in love with him, right?" She nodded as Lindsay turned towards her. "You want to be with him, be close to him. You said once you wanted to leave Los Angeles, but now that you know Jason's there, do you still want to leave?"
"I…" She shook her head, it was a choice she hadn't made lightly or without thought, but she didn't want to leave Los Angeles if she knew Jason would be there. "I do want to be with him, but what does this have to do with you?"
Lindsay sniffed and moved towards her, taking Trina's hands and looking into her eyes. "I want to be with Travis. I want to be near you, you're my best friend. I mean, I know it's not like my dad's a murderer or anything, all he ever did was steal things, but…I need to be near people that I care about and people that care about me."
Trina stood up and held her friend's quivering gaze. "So you've decided to give your dad a chance then? Are you sure it's what you want? Yeah he's not like Jason's dad, for instance, but is this something that you want?"
"Where am I going to go? Travis will live in the campus apartments, and so a guy and girl can't live in the same dorm room. Still, I do want to know my dad a little more…"
"Anyone can change, Lindsay. I'm happy for you making that decision, and of course I'll be there." She hugged Lindsay close and pat the girl on the back. "I'm sorry Jason and I were…busy…last night." Lindsay's eyes flew open and she leaned back, throwing her hands to Trina's upper arms.
"Do not apologize for that, you have nothing to apologize for." Lindsay pulled away and walked towards the door, chuckling under her breath. "Though, you know what's funny? When Travis went looking for you and Jason, and he stopped by Jason's office, he came back joking about how the two of you were probably just busy having sex or something."
Trina's blush returned to her cheeks and she looked away with a sigh. "Oh Travis, perceptive as always." Lindsay leaned against the wall, studying Trina for several seconds.
"So again, I'm not asking for details, but how was it?" She turned her head and her eyebrows rose up. "I mean, I don't know." Lindsay's shoulders rose and fell. "Did you enjoy it? Would you do it again with him? Was it painful?" All questions asked by someone who hadn't made love to someone before, Trina wasn't surprised but she never anticipated that she'd be the one to experience certain life experiences before Lindsay.
Lindsay was always the older one, at least mentally. She was the brave one, the stable one, the experienced one-never before camp had Trina seen the girl in the way she was now.
"It was enjoyable," Trina said with a smile, "And meaningful. He looked at me during the act, just really looked into my eyes and told me I was beautiful and that he loved me. We held each other, and I guess we fell asleep on that couch."
"Good. I'm glad you're happy, and I'm glad it meant something to you, and to him."
"I would like to have that experience with him again. Maybe less of a nervous and awkward wreck." She pulled at her hair while laughing nervously. "Some things I just couldn't do, but he understood. He treated me with respect, and for the moment? I was the only thing in his world and he was the only thing in mine. I couldn't ask for anything more…"
"That's great." Lindsay moved to her own bed. "Now, we have a little time, so I'd like to take a nap." Trina took a seat at the desk and nodded to Lindsay; she wanted to go ahead and write to her sister.
"Alright, go for it. I need to write a letter to Tori, it's been a couple days." She'd been meaning to write yesterday, but of course events didn't pan out that way.
Lindsay rolled onto her side, with her back turned to Trina and her face burying itself into the pillow. Trina pulled her gaze away and peered down to the sheet of paper already neatly positioned beneath a pen on the desk, just as she'd set it up the day before prior to Dr. Wyatt calling her down to the office.
She picked up her pen and pulled it to her lips, nipping at the end while trying to think of how to start the letter out. Jason was fresh on her mind, but she didn't want to give away too much information.
"Tori. I'm extremely-" She crossed out 'extremely', replacing it with 'really', then scratched that out to write 'very'. After she stopped second guessing herself, she settled back down with 'extremely'.
"Happy here at camp. I know I told you that Jason and I started to date, and well I've been getting to know him and getting to trust him and then last night we spent some time together and…it was remarkable. I love him, he loves me, we're extremely happy together. We shared a moment that was, well I think I-no I know I want to be with him. I've never experienced anything like what we shared last night, I don't know how to explain-what to say, I, oh Tori this has been the greatest time of my life. I never thought I'd find someone who could truly care about me, inside and out. He was so respectful of me, treats me right and Tori, he loves me for me. I can't believe I've found someone that could make me as happy and as giddy as I feel."
She raised her head and smiled as the sunlight poured through the window and lit her face with a pure glow. Her eyes closed and she breathed in slowly.
"My heart is racing," she wrote. "My body is shaking from all this excitement. I have a boyfriend now, a relationship I think and hope will last. As a side note, my friend Lindsay finally made a decision about what to do with her life, and so have I. There are at least three acceptance letters from the universities I was looking at stashed away in my desk in my room…one of them is from the University of California in Los Angeles. I want you to place that letter on my desk beneath the lamp, I choose that University…"
Trina went on to write some more about what led her to making that decision, and it wasn't just that Jason was going but that the friends she made here at camp would be there too. She thought the college would be the best of the universities that sent her acceptance letters as well, and it would be the easiest college to start up at right when she got home.
Of course she hadn't decided whether to live on campus or not, a big part of her wanted to stay away from family, but she had yet to make that decision.
Her letter continued on to explain the things that were happening around camp, along with some of the activities she'd done with Lindsay, and with Jason. As she wrote, she noticed her excitement from the night was bleeding into the letter; she hoped Tori wouldn't notice. At the very least, she didn't see any way Tori would be able to interpret or guess the 'activity' she and Jason had done the night before.
It wasn't like Tori was experienced in the art of making love. At least, Tori hadn't had sex that Trina knew of.
Right, Tori hasn't had sex yet, keep thinking that Trina. Your little sister is still the same sweet, innocent shy little sister that you remember...So everyone, what are your thoughts through this? What do you think of Lindsay's decision and concerns? Of Trina's? She's made a big decision as well as her letter would indicate. You suspect that Tori might catch on to the nature of Trina's letter? It was written in rushed excitement after all, and more than half of it is about Jason.
