Indulgent

Chapter Four

"Dammit, Tristan," Victoria pulled Tristan from her place on the floor up onto the bed. "Look at me. You're fucking beautiful, and if that's not a good enough reason for anyone to want to be with you, then you're smart and you're funny and fucking cool."

"Not cooler then Ms. Nilsson…" Tristan murmured, unable to meet her friends eyes.

Victoria looked confused. "Ms. Nilsson from school?" Tristan nodded. "How does she have anything to do with this?"

Tristan felt a lump rising in her throat, the same lump that came when realized that Addison wasn't single. "They live together," Tristan shrugged, "For like four years."

"Oh…" Victoria understood, deflated. She realized why Tristan was so down about the whole idea. "Then…"

"Then she's probably just fucking with me, and I'm wasting my time even pretending she likes me," Tristan blurted out her take on the situation, her eyes filling with tears. She wasn't so much saddened by the situation as she was completely frustrated, her inability to read Doctor Addison making it next to impossible to decide what the woman really wanted from her. All fantasies aside, the likelihood of Addison wanting a relationship was slim, and Tristan knew it. "If she tries to kiss me again I'm just going to ignore her."

"Why?" Victoria frowned, "Why not just go for it. You like her, she likes you -"

"That's just it," Tristan interrupted, falling back onto the bed, "I don't know if she likes me."

"How many doctors do you know that try to kiss their patients?" Victoria reasoned, her powers of persuasion slowly working on Tristan. "How many doctors go out of their way to talk to you for longer then your time? How many doctors fucking shower while they have someone waiting for them?"

Tristan shook her head. She'd already thought of answers for all of those questions because she'd spent hours mulling over them herself. "If I was as covered in blood as she was I would have showered, too," Tristan sighed, "And she was just being nice to me. She's absolutely rude when she's not trying to kiss me."

"Rude how?" Victoria asked, nibbling on a cookie. As interested as she was in Tristan's story, she could feel cramps in her stomach signaling the start of her period, and sugar cravings just couldn't be ignored. "Why would she try to kiss you if she's rude to you?"

Tristan shrugged, that was one question she hadn't figured out. "She just really likes to...push my buttons, call Sharon my mother, tell me I'm gay like I don't already know, things like that."

"She's probably just trying to get you to react. That's what psychologists do," Victoria ventured. She was well beyond processing the situation, having made up her mind that if she did anything, she would make Tristan go back and see just what would happen.

During dinner that night at the Beckham residence, Tristan remembered the tiny promise she had made to herself when her father died that she would do something every day to make Sharon's life hell. She hadn't been keeping her promise to herself for almost a week now, too distracted by Doctor Addison and the start of the new semester to remember her task.

But tonight Sharon Beckham was being more then the overbearing stepmother she usually was. Tonight she was prying, an action that Tristan loathed more then any of the woman's most annoying traits. Sharon could be scolding, nagging, lecturing, begging and assuming all at once, and still it would never equal up to prying. Tristan gritted her teeth when the first questioned was posed, already prepared for the downhill spiral that was sure to ensue.

"So how are your meetings with Doctor Addison?" Sharon ventured a question. She was rearranging the assortment of steamed vegetables and wild rice on her place with her fork, trying to decide between eating them separate or together. "I got a call from her office for the bill and I realized I hadn't asked you about it."