Trinity awoke to what felt like a hammer crashing into her skull. She let out an almost silent scream and buried her forehead into her pillow, praying for the pain to go away. She lay there for what seemed like hours as the sharp ache faded away. Once it was gone completely, Trinity sat up in bed shaking her hair out of her eyes. Her hand reached over to her bedside, where she grabbed her cell.
Blinking at the bright light that shone when it came on, Trin squinted at the time. 4:28. And on a Wednesday too. Trinity groaned, knowing that her day was going to be absolute crap. Nonetheless, she got up out of bed, knowing that she wasn't going to be able to fall back to sleep.
She went through her routine of getting ready, glad that she had her own en suite so she didn't wake her parents. By the time she was done, it was barely five. She had almost two hours to kill before school. Trinity blew a few tendrils of hair out of her face and she thought about what to do for a second.
The first thing that came to mind was to head down to the park down the street. It had a pretty dock and she could just relax for a while with her music. Tiptoeing downstairs, she stopped by her kitchen to write a note saying where she was for her parents. She set it in front of the coffee pot, knowing that's the first thing both her parents checked in the morning.
Making sure she had her school supplies along with her iPod, Trinity set off. It only took her fifteen minutes to get to the park. It took about five more to reach the dock she was looking for. Smiling at how pretty everything looked, Trinity sat down, taking off her vans and socks so she could dip her toes in the water. She grinned at the cold water and how it tickled the bottom of her feet.
Unraveling her earphones, she leant back on her elbows and closed her eyes. Music flooded her ears and she immediately recognized the song playing. Laughter Lines. The lyrics nagged her brain.
I'll see you in the future when we're older
And we are full of stories to be told
Cross my heart and hope to die
I'll see you with your laughter lines
The song reminded Trinity that there wouldn't be a future for her. Nobody would be waiting for her in fifty years to reminisce over their lives. Fifty years from now, her corpse would have rotted away in an old dusty coffin. The thought made her stomach heave a bit and made her eyes squeeze together even more. The song continued playing and towards the end, Trinity noticed the wetness on her cheeks. She was crying, not that it bothered her. There was nobody around to see her. The song ended, and the tears continued to fall as the next one came on. As soon as she heard the first verse, Trinity let out a loud laugh.
Gotta keep your head up, ooh oh
Trinity finally opened her eyes and looked straight up at the sky. "Is this your way of communicating, God?"
Suddenly, someone spoke up from behind her, "Are you talking to yourself?"
Trinity sat straight up, quickly wiping her face, and turned towards the voice. Julian was stood behind her with a very large camera around his neck.
"What are you doing here," she questioned him.
He shrugged, "Taking pictures for my photography class." He walked further up the dock, and ended up sitting next to Trinity, shoes off as well.
Julian glanced at Trinity from the corner of his eye. Her eyes were still wet from her tears. He was standing at the dock next to her, taking pictures for class, like he mentioned, when he saw her from his lens. She had been crying. Not being able to help himself, he snapped a picture. Not even a second later, she had begun laughing, and he caught a picture of that as well. Not that she would ever know.
Trinity nervously laughed, "Do you like photography?"
Julian cocked his head, looking her evenly in the eye. "I guess. The class is fun; my pictures don't come out too badly. It's a decent way to pass time, you know? But I wouldn't exactly say it's a passion of mine."
Trinity raised an eyebrow. "Well, than, what would you consider a passion of yours?"
He glanced away from her then, "I don't know."
"My passion is dancing," she blurted out. "Uh, I dance a lot. Well, I used to before... yeah." She let her sentence trail off, not feeling eager to let her secret slip to this guy. This guy who was almost a complete stranger, no matter how cute he was, or how adorable she found his dimples or beautiful she found his eyes.
Speaking of eyes, their eyes met and some sort of understanding flashed between them. They both knew that the other person had something going on, but neither of them was really comfortable speaking about it.
Julian smiled, showing off his dimples. "You know, we spent a lot of time yesterday talking about music. Since we're both up, and both here, want to go over some of the stuff we didn't cover?"
Trinity was surprised. She didn't think he would care about tutoring, but she liked that he was serious about it. She didn't want to be wasting what little time she had left on a careless jerk.
"Yeah, I've got my books here, we can start with history." She tore through her bag and pulled out their history worksheets. "Oh, do you mind if I unhook my headphones? We can listen to music while we study."
Julian just shrugged, "Nah, I don't care. Go for it."
Trinity immediately took her headphones out of their jack, slightly blushing when she realized what song was now blasting.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly as she went to change it. However he grabbed her hand before she could.
"Wait, I like this song."
Trinity was surprised. "Seriously?"
Julian laughed, "Yeah! Kansas is great, and Carry On Wayward Son is a classic. Plus, its practically Supernatural's theme song and who doesn't love Supernatural?"
Trinity's eyes widened. "Right? Wow, I didn't think you would like Supernatural. You kind of give off that 'too cool for dorky tv shows' vibe."
He rolled his eyes, "Don't judge Trinity. But before we get too off track, lets study, yeah? We shouldn't have a repeat of yesterday afternoon. We didn't really get anything done."
She giggled, "Alright, lets get this done."
They studied for around an hour and a half, taking a minute or two ever so often to comment over the song that was playing. By the time it got to the point where they should wrap up, both were in good moods and smiling playfully at each other. Julian offered her a ride to school, and she happily accepted.
On the way to the car, her phone started ringing. Glancing down and seeing that it was her home phone, she signaled for Julian to wait a second and answered.
"Hello?"
"Trinity? Baby? Are you alright?" her mom questioned from the other line.
"Uhm, yeah, Mom, I'm great. Is there a reason you called?"
"Yeah, I saw your note, but I still wanted to know if you were okay."
"Mom, you don't have to check up on me. I'm perfectly okay."
Her mom sigh worriedly, "I know, its just that with everything that's been going on and you only having a few months-"
Trinity cut her mother off, glancing at Julian to make sure he hadn't heard that. "Hey Mom, I've got to go. I need to get going to school."
"Oh," he mom replied. "Okay, I'll see you when you get home. Love you."
"Love you too, Mom." Trinity hung up, and looked at Julian, who was staring at her with a question in his eyes. He didn't ask though, and she was happy for that. Instead, he just put his arm out, signaling that she go first.
They made it to school in no time, and were really early. Only a few people were parked in the lot, and most of them were teachers.
"Thanks for the ride Julian," Trinity said as she unbuckled herself. "And thanks for keeping me company this morning.
"Actually, I think I should be thanking you. Without your help, I'll probably fail this semester. So, yeah, thanks Trin."
Her stomach fluttered at the sound of her nickname coming from his mouth. "I'll see you later."
She smiled at him as she got out of his car. "Bye Trinity."
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Trinity spent the whole day waiting for her tutoring session, until she got to lunch and saw that she had a message from Julian. He wasn't going to be able to come today.
She was disappointed, and texted him back to make sure he couldn't come. He was sure, and after apologizing for missing, he scheduled to meet up this weekend and study at the downtown library. Trinity was definitely okay with that. She told him the time she wanted to meet, and he texted her back saying he'd try to be on time, along with a playful smiley face.
Even though she was upset about the situation, Trinity could now look forward to basically spending the weekend with Julian. It wasn't meant to be anything more than studying, but she found him interesting and fun. She needed somebody like that in her life, especially now. She was going to enjoy their time together as much as she could before her time was up.
-_-_-_-_-_-
Songs I used were:
-Laughter Lines//Bastille
-Keep Your Head Up//Andy Grammar
-Carry On Wayward Son//Kansas
Enjoy!!!
~Alyssa xx