message man ✁ trinity & alfie
It felt sick and dizzy and wrong to say yes. It felt cool on his skin like a shower. And God, would he give anything to share this shower with her. Maybe she already felt it. Maybe her skin tingled with promises he couldn’t make. Maybe her skin tingled because he couldn’t make those promises. And maybe this was ultimately a bad decision.
It was sad, the way he thought it, or the way anyone thought it, but he never deserved these things – a bed, a home, regular intake of anything, so he strayed from them. Because people got used to having what they didn’t deserve. He had his paint supplies and luckily, thieves didn’t tend to take them. No pawn shop wanted half-empty tubes of paint. He knows because at his lowest point, he tried to trade it all in so he could score twenty dollars. He’d have sold it all for ten, the bulk of his supplies worth a few hundred, at the very least, but all half used and so much less valuable. And he had grown too used to them, the luxuries of having his paint, his paper and few canvases. He refused to be so careless in attaching himself to anything else she might have.
Including her.
But Alfie did not have the heart to say, “no” to her again. So he breathed, nodded, and, because he felt so utterly non-entitled and he wanted to be, he took her hand to, again, pull her to him. His arm itches very suddenly and he remembers why. He tries not to let the sudden tick of a shock pull him away, but his free hand reaches up to itch, his other hand dropping hers. She noticed. And if she looked, she’d have finally saw the marks, mostly scars, but two new ones. His eyes glossed over, despondent, and waited for her to kick him out, a deep inhale as they landed on a lock of deep blue near her shoulder.
But he didn’t push her away. He stayed still, stayed close, and he hoped. He hoped her kindness would exist now, despite all this time she’s been harbouring it. He suddenly wishes he’d have vocalised that he’d stay. But now it was far too late.
A little flicker of a smile started to crawl back on to Trinity’s face, and she felt guilty for it. She bit the inside of her cheek to suppress it, as she looked down at Alfie’s hand that touched hers for a flash of a moment that gave her a spark of hope-- but that was gone in not even a blink of an eye. She never asked for this to be a big deal, she didn’t want to cause any problems, yet it seemed to that it was she was good at-- making things complicated, that is. Nothing was ever simple with her, and she fought with herself daily to try to convince her wired mind that it was alright to be complicated. She wondered if he could actually stand her, or if he was just around because he felt bad for her and wanted to humor the poor lonely girl who worked with flowers for a living. She had no idea, and she hated that. The unknown, unanswered questions, not being able to read him at all.
Everything he did was unexpected to her, it seemed. From the very beginning when he came in and made her question everything she once thought as ‘normal’-- whatever that means -- and now, for the first time in a long time, whether she could admit it out loud or not, there was a tiny speck of a light growing inside her that had been blown out for so long. Being haunted by her past of unhealthy relationships and toxic people constantly surrounding her... she just wanted to be around Alfie. That was it. But what if he ended up being just as bad? What if she was the one who would end up ruining everything? She hated testing the waters or getting sneak previews to things that could she taint before they ever have a chance to grow.
After he dropped her hand, her eyes fell on his arm for moment, not knowing what to think at the given time. She softly exhaled, and then lifted her hand to gently rest over his on his arm, where it seemed like he was trying to shed his own skin. “What’s going on, Alfie?” she asked quietly, while looking up at him, not entirely expecting an answer but the quiet wouldn’t be able to silence her concern.
