As the two swung the door open together, their eyes were finally able to land on the bed where Tristan lay comatose.
Trinity's breath caught in her throat as she noticed that the hospital staff had allowed his hair to grow out since the last time she'd seen him. While she stood frozen at the doorway, Carson gently swept past her, squeezing her arm in an assuring manner as he moved. Trinity shifted her gaze to watch Carson as he made his way over to Tristan's bedside. She watched him as he looked down at her brother, saying nothing, doing nothing, just looking.
"Do you talk to him?" Carson asked after a few moments.
"I used to." Trinity sounded like she was about to cry and hearing how broken her own voice sounded made her grow even more sad. The truth was she'd had so much hope for Tristan to wake up in early days. Those were the days she would come to see him everyday after school and bore him with details of how her day had been. Those were the days when the doctors insistently told her to keep talking to him and allowing him to hear her voice.
The doctors hardly ever came by anymore.
"Trin, do you mind if I had a moment alone with him?" Carson looked up at her this time when he posed his question. Trinity found herself nodding in response.
"Of course. I'll be right outside."
When she stepped outside, she felt her heart palpate even stronger in her chest. It was the same feeling she'd felt when she first found out her brother had been in a life-threatening car accident.
She remembered how she'd rushed into the hospital on her own accord with tears streaming down her face the night her life changed course for the second time in fifteen years. Her father had told her to wait in the car, but she hadn't listened.
When she'd finally arrived by the room where Tristan was being operated in, it wasn't the room that caught her attention first but the two teens who were brawling on the ground right next to the closed room.
John B had Carson pinned to the ground. Trinity watched as the Routledge boy slammed his fist into Carson's face just as Victor and another deputy jumped forward to try and pry the two boys apart.
"Trinity! Sweetie, common– come this way." Sheriff Peterkin had tried pulling her aside.
"Why is he doing that!" Trinity had cried. "John B, stop!"
"Trinity, your dad will handle them."
"John B—!"
"You did this, John B!" Trinity had heard Carson yell after her dad had pulled him up to his feet and away from John B. "You did this to Tristan!" She'd seen the way the blood was dribbling from his nose, coating his lips and chin as the hot red liquid dropped to the floor.
"Don't you fucking dare pin the blame on me—!" Sheriff Peterkin had finally ushered Trinity into a different hallway just as John B lurched forward again in another deputy's restraining hold.
That was the last night she'd seen Carson Kheelagan until the day she saw him again after getting a job at the Island Club. He'd been bloodied and beaten by his best friend while her brother had lay fighting for his life in the room next door.
Carson had already been in the process of moving to a new home in Figure Eight that summer. His mom had remarried a developer from the rich side of the island and though Carson had promised the pogue boys– John B, Tristan, JJ, and Pope– that he wouldn't abandon them just because his family had scored kook status, after Tristan's accident, that was exactly what happened. None of the boys ever spoke of Carson again and Trinity knew how Carson's story had ended up considering he now hung out with Topper and Kelce.
She'd always figured that both John B and Carson blamed themselves for what had happened to Tristan. In the moment of seeing with their own eyes what had happened to him, they'd started pointing fingers at each other, refusing to accept that their own actions had caused their best friend to nearly die that night. John B hadn't been able to get to Tristan before he'd tried driving himself home drunk while Carson had been Tristan's last outgoing call before he'd gotten behind the wheel.
Trinity never blamed either one of the boys. When her father also joined her side, she knew that what had happened to her brother had been an accident– not something his friends could have prevented and definitely not something they had caused.
Knowing this didn't make it that much easier for her to deal with seeing her brother in a coma.
By the time Carson stepped out from the room, silent tears were streaming down Trinity's face.
"Shit, Trinity," The boy called out to her when he noticed her crying. Trinity tried hastily brushing away the liquid painting her rosy cheeks.
"I'm fine. I just—" She choked down a sob. "It's so hard to keep seeing him like this. I– honestly, I stopped coming to visit him because my memories of him are being infiltrated by the ones of him in the coma. I want to remember him by the good things, you know?" Trinity bit down on her trembling lip as she thought long and hard about what her brother's smiling face looked like.
"I'm sorry I made you bring me here." Carson somberly apologized as he watched her continue to brush away her tears.
"I told you I could." She shook her head. "You don't have to apologize, Carson."
"Can I, um, can I take you somewhere?" He asked her hesitantly. "You said you wanted to remember Tristan by the good things, right? I can take you where I go when I want to feel close to him."
As the two stared at each other, Trinity realized how she'd never gotten close to any of her brother's friends until after his accident– Carson especially since he'd only befriended the pogue boys when he moved to the Outer Banks in the ninth grade. Despite not being able to get close to her brother's friends then, getting close now was one of the few things that helped her remember who Tristan was before his accident.
Trinity found herself agreeing to Carson's request.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
it's officially october and this year that means social distancing and salad fingers marathoning.
if it's not completely obvious yet, i replaced rafe with carson for this story. i wanted a kook love interest who has a backstory with the pogues beyond just hating them for being pogues and so i created carson to ~intensify ze drama~. do i miss rafe? yes 🥺 but is the carson drama gonna be worth it? i think so!!
there's a whole lot more to the "ex"-friendship between carson, john b, and tristan. trinity and her dad only know top-of-the-iceberg level info about what happened between the three. as trin gets close to carson, maybe secrets will come out?
