chapter 6: far more significant

Trinity's Point of View

I closed the door with the biggest grin on my face. The weird thing was, last night was the worst of my life up until Taylor came, and I was smiling. All the other times I've smiled, it's to please someone. At least now I have a real reason.

TAYLOR HANSON, my mind screamed. I hadn't really thought much of his band until now. I knew it existed, but I didn't pay much attention. I hadn't known he was "the" Taylor Hanson, though, until I saw his family. His brothers, Zac and Isaac, though with haircuts now, looked familiar in a way.

My brain reeled as I realized I had a boyfriend now. He was my first boyfriend. Michael wasn't a boyfriend. I'm not counting what he did to me as my "first kiss" either. So Taylor is my first boyfriend, and he gave me my first real kiss. He loves me. Someone actually loves me.

I danced up to my room, glancing at the answering machine. A bright green number two blinked quietly before my eyes. Absentmindedly I punched the "Play" button.

"Hey Trin, this is Donna. I've got to talk to you as soon as possible. I don't want to explain, so please call me before your date with Michael tomorrow, okay? Please? Thanks. Bye." I heard a pause, as if Donna was wondering if she should say anything more, then a click.

I gasped. The thought that Donna might have known about Michael's plan clouded over my brain. She had tried to contact me. I wasn't mad, really, just a little bit freaked out. I'll call her after I listen to the other message, I decided.

"Hey Trin, this is Michael. Listen, I'm really sorry about last night…I didn't mean to make you so mad. Anyway, I hope you're okay and that we're still-"

I slammed my finger on the delete button and thought nothing more of it.

I dialed the numbers carefully, biting my lip. I took a deep breath and sat back on my bed. Donna picked up on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Donna…"

"Trinity! Are you okay?"

I thought. I felt okay. But considering the events of last night, I didn't quite feel stellar. "Last night, Donna, you won't believe what happened with Michael-"

She cut me off. "Oh my God. Did he try to have sex with you?"

She knew. I don't know how, but she knew. "Yes. But tell me what you know."

Donna took a breath. "It was Friday. The night before the day of your date with Michael. I'd heard things at school sometimes, things I guess you didn't hear. Not very many things, but enough to make em suspicious. People said that Michael was a player, and I wasn't quite sure. I wanted to be safe and protect you, so Friday night I biked down to the school, and sure enough, there he was. Michael and some of his friends, I guess. They were standing in a circle and smoking. They had some alcohol too. I think it was vodka."

I just laid on my bed in silent awe. I couldn't believe that all this could have been prevented somehow.

"Michael was talking, and he asked if anyone knew who you were," Donna continued. "They said they did and he told them he was going out with you. They asked why, because for some reason they don't like you or something."

I sighed. "Well, that's no surprise."

"Don't say that. Anyway, his friends asked why he was going out with you and he simply replied, 'she's a virgin.'"

I gasped. So no love had ever been there. He was a sneaky character, and he played his part well. Seducing little girls and convincing them that he was prince charming. I could feel tears creeping to the edges of my eyes as I relived the moment in my mind.

Donna gulped. "A couple guys said that wasn't a good idea. Others asked what Michael would do if you didn't want to have sex with him. He said he'd still try…"

I swallowed and tried to hold back my threatening tears.

"What all did he do to you, Trinity? If he raped you, we have to go to a doctor…"

I wiped my eyes. "He didn't get that far."

ooo

Still hungry since I hadn't eaten much at Taylor's, I went into the kitchen and found a box of frozen tator tots. Dumping them onto a plate, I slid it into the microwave. I knew to heat them for two and a half minutes, but I looked at the back of the box anyway. Then I pressed the numbers, three twice because it got stuck, leaned against the counter, and waited. The tator tots finished with a startling buzz. My father would have yelled at me, had he been home. Luckily, I knew he wasn't. I glanced out the window to make sure that he hadn't appeared within the last two minutes and thirty seconds, then put a cow hot pad over my hand and pulled the plate out with its mouth.

The tator tots were hot and greasy, so I finished eating them with crumbs still clinging to the tips of my fingers. I washed my hands thoroughly after putting my plate in the sink, and dried them on a paper towel. As I threw the wad into the garbage, I noticed a trace of blue ink on it. Horrified, I looked at my hand, only able to make out a faint shadow of Taylor's name.

My mind raced. The phone book wasn't an option, since I knew he wouldn't be listed. I couldn't walk to his house because his parents would kill me. My last resort was to just give up and wait. Wait for him to call me.

I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling, bored. The lights swirled and lumped before my eyes. Soon I got annoyed with the continuous ticking of my wall clock, and I began to breathe heavier to block out the noise. Looking around, I felt like I was stuck to the bed with Elmer's glue. No part of my body moved except my eyes, but it didn't matter because I didn't need to get up. Every second seemed like an hour as I waited, desperately, for Taylor's phone call.

I wished my ears would transform the sound of our front door opening to the phone ringing, but as my father lumbered up the stairs and crashed through my door, I realized that would not be happening anytime soon. My breath quickened.

"Trinity!" he groaned, his eyes far off.

I sat up instantly, the imaginary glue long since forgotten.

"Where were you this morning!?" he demanded.

As he said 'morning,' I knew I was home free. If he didn't know I was gone all of last night, things would be okay. It only took me a few seconds to formulate a believable story.

"I was returning books to the library."

"Without asking!?" he was drunk. Anyone could've figured that out. His words slurred together and his breath was heavy with the smell of whiskey.

"I-I'm sorry…" I stammered, moving backwards.

He groaned. "Never again!" he slammed the door with such force that the framed picture of Donna and I at the beach last summer clambered off my dresser and to the floor. Luckily, the frame was cheap plastic, and didn't break.

I laid back down on the sheets, my heartbeat reducing its rapid rate.

The phone rang. I jumped up like a fish out of water and raced to my desk. The voice of my father downstairs bellowed through the receiver before I could greet the person on the other end, which I hoped, was Taylor.

"She's not home!"

Click. My father hung up, I knew, because his heavy breathing ceased as soon as I heard the noise.

"Taylor?" I asked quickly, as to catch him before he hung up. If it was him, that is.

"Trinity?" It was his voice.

"My dad's drunk," I apologized. He had to know that right off the bat.

"Oh. Why haven't you called me?"

"I accidentally washed your number off my hand," I blushed, glad that he wasn't sitting right there noting my embarrassment.

"Do you want it again?"

"Yeah, hold on. Let me get my journal." I fumbled with the phone as I found my journal. It was pretty big, with a spiral notebook type of spine. It was fuzzy, and zebra striped. It was black and white, with large margins that fit my curvy and girlish handwriting perfectly.

"You keep a journal?" Taylor was surprised.

"Yes…" I asked myself if that was a bad thing. I supposed not.

"I do too!"

It was as if we both had the same favorite animal or something.

"Awesome!" I exclaimed, thoroughly amazed. I didn't know guys kept journals too.

"Okay, you ready for the number?" He didn't wait for me to answer. He repeated it immediately.

I scribbled his number, barely legible, on page sixty-two, and folded over the corner. I thanked him with a smile.

"You're welcome. Anyway, I told my parents."

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but somehow it did. "Did you tell them that I'm your girlfriend?" the term made me shiver a little, more of delight than anything else.

Taylor paused. "No. Not yet."

"I haven't told my dad either." I noticed, as I said the words, that it was starting to seem natural to say 'my dad' instead of the traditional term, 'my parents.' I continued on. "In fact, he doesn't even know about you. He doesn't know I was gone last night, just this morning."

"What'd you tell him?"

"That I was returning books to the library."

"Oh," there was a long pause, customary, I realized, as Taylor changed the subject completely out of the blue. "Are you allowed to date?"

He was practically asking me to see him sometime soon. It was so tempting. But I knew I wasn't allowed.

"No, I'm not, but I'll break the rules if I have to. Are you?"

"Well…" Taylor obviously didn't have a clear picture in his head of what he could and could not do. "I guess I am. I've never really gone out with anybody before. My parents never set laws down for me."

"You're so lucky. So, when and where do you want to meet?"

"How about where we met?"

I guessed from the way he formed the statement that people were suddenly around him, hanging on his every word.

"Alright. Is eight o'clock okay?"

"Sure,"

"Okay. Well I'd better go. My dad's going to find me, and then I'll be in trouble."

"See you."

I slowly put my phone down and breathed a sigh of great relief that my father hadn't caught me.

ooo

Somehow, the picking out of clothes this time seemed far more significant than when I dressed up for Michael, except for this time I wouldn't be seen by anybody but Taylor.

We would be outside, in a tree house, so I needed to dress warmly. My final decision, after throwing many shirts back into the closet and stuffing them back into their drawers, was a fuzzy, purple, long-sleeved sweater to go with my favorite pair of worn, but still in good condition, dark blue jeans.

The clock read 7:41 P.M. as I finished brushing my teeth and returned to the bathroom. Spitting in the sink, I threw my toothbrush into the Garfield toothbrush holder and glanced at my reflection in the sticker-bordered mirror.

Ever since I was a kid I had stuck stickers onto the corners of the mirror, and I still do to this day. Different types of stickers populate the area now. My favorite bands' symbols, stickers of my favorite animal, the zebra, and other miscellaneous pictures that could never be fit into any category whatsoever are all deposited on the edge of my mirror.

I loved the way my extremely dark brown hair fell over my shoulders in loose waves. The way the brims of my eyes were gold and the centers green reminded me of a framed picture.

The thought of being early and alone in the tree house bothered me, but I decided to leave myself time to sort out any problems I might have with my father.

I knew just what to say when he stopped me near the front door. I was so close.

"And just where are you going?" the beer had worn off. I wished it hadn't. Luckily, I had planned in advance.

"Donna's," I didn't specify if I was spending the night or not, because I was unsure of what would happen at the tree house.

Unfortunately, he asked the only question that I had really hoped he wouldn't ask. "To spend the night?"

I gulped. Only a few seconds was what I had to decide if I could trust Taylor to let me spend the night at his house again. I finally determined that if push came to shove, I could always go to Donna's to spend the night anyway. Then what I said wouldn't have been a lie.

"Yes."

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye Daddy."

I left before my father could notice that I didn't bring any kind of sleepover bag with me, and made my way down the street to the tree house.

To my great surprise, Taylor was already up there, dressed especially for the occasion, I could tell, from his tight black leather pants and white shirt. It was hard to keep my eyes off of him as we hugged.

"Hey," his voice was hoarse, but it sounded wonderful.

"Hi," I greeted him back, and pulled away. Scanning his body, a smile spread across my lips and I licked them.

"You look…amazing," I said, trying to find the right word. Even 'amazing' sounded like an understatement.

"You do too," he complimented me, and I blushed at the words.

Taylor started on the subject. "So, I told my parents that you were my friend. I'll tell them that you're my girlfriend, but that will be later."

"Sounds good to me. I don't know if I should tell my dad about you or not. I don't know how comfortable he would be with me seeing anybody, let alone a star like you."

Taylor nodded slowly. "How old are you, anyway?"

I almost gasped, realizing that I didn't know how old Taylor was. Hopefully he wasn't too much older than me. I already knew he wasn't any younger.

"I'm sixteen," I replied.

"I'm seventeen," he confessed.

Only a year. A year isn't that much older. I smiled in hope that Taylor felt the same way about our age difference. He smiled back.

"You want to go out sometime this weekend?" I asked, although it was a faraway day. It would be five days at least. I cringed inside at the thought of waiting so long to see him again.

"Out?" Taylor asked, confused. "You mean like…?"

"To eat, the movies, shopping, or something," I finished for him.

"I can't."

The words puzzled me. "You can't?" I repeated in disbelief.

"I wish I could, but I can't just 'go out.'" I slowly understood as Taylor explained. "People will notice me. It would be too much of a pain than it's worth. We have to keep meeting in places that aren't public."

The fact that we could only meet in secret quickly became more of a good idea to me. I didn't want people from my school to see us together anyway. Then they would bother me about Taylor at school. I didn't want that at all.

I nodded to tell him that I understood. "You're right."

"I can't wait until this weekend to see you again, anyway," Taylor confessed, a hint of pink flushing over his cheeks that I found incredibly cute.

I smiled, agreeing more than he would ever know. "How about you come to my house after school tomorrow?"

He then said something that surprised me more than anything else he'd said that night. "Well, I'm home-schooled."

With so many schools in the area, I was certain that he either went to a different one than me, or that he went to Union High school with me and I just never recognized him, but I realized, as he kept talking, that a star like him would not do very well in a public school, anyway.

"If I finish my work early, I can get away at about two. What time do you get home from school?"

"The bus drops me off at about two-thirty." I answered, wishing that I could be home at two o'clock and see Taylor right then.

"I'll come at about ten to three, then. I'll give you some time."

"You don't have to do that," I blurted. After saying it I realized how foolish it sounded, and corrected myself. "I mean, I want to see you as soon as possible. Please come at two-thirty if you can."

Taylor smiled a smile that I would've paid a million dollars just to witness. "Of course," he assured me. "But what about your dad?"

"He'll be at the bar. He goes there every day after work. He'll be there for about an hour. I know it's not very long, but it's all we can get."

"Yeah."

I grinned, glad that I had a plan laid out to see Taylor again, and crawled into his arms.

Taylor's arms were strong and muscular, and warm even without a jacket covering them. As I cradled my head in his chest and curled my legs onto his lap, I didn't want him to ever let go.

His lips were so light on my forehead that it felt like a feather was dropped onto my skin. Perhaps a feather from one of Taylor's angel wings, I thought happily. I like to think of Taylor as my guardian angel sent from heaven to protect me from harm on earth. In reality, though, he was just a normal guy. But to me he was much more.

I hesitated not a moment as I embraced Taylor's waist. I quickly became extremely aware, and almost obsessed, with the fact that my fingers were dangling very near the back rim of his leather pants.

My eyes were still closed when I whispered, "Will you sing for me?"

"What would you like to hear? Something from the new album?"

"New album?" I didn't know much about his band. I only knew of their old bubble-gum hit, "MMMBop," which I could barely stand, let alone sing to, since the notes were so high.

"Yeah. It comes out in a couple weeks. It's really different."

"It will be nice to hear how you've changed," Even though I didn't know anything about their old or new music, I decided to take his word for it.

"This is called 'Runaway Run,'" Taylor introduced.

I hoped that it was less poppy and more rocky, and surprisingly, the song he sang fit my specifications perfectly.

"Just a picture and a feeling and face. How could I forget your touch, your warm embrace? And the shoes you wore with long black satin lace, as you walked into my-"

"Wait," I interrupted him, opening my eyes. "I don't wear black lace! Is there something I should know?" teasingly, I moved my hands closer to and tighter on his butt.

Taylor laughed nervously, as if trying to hide something. "No, no. I haven't cheated on you. I wrote the song before I even met you. Besides, the only thing that rhymed with 'face' was 'lace.'"

"Ace, race, space…" I smiled as I named various words he could've used instead.

Taylor, grinning, just shook his head. "You're silly," he said, and ruffled my hair.

I smiled wider, if that is even humanly possible, and laid my head back down into his lap. I was closing my eyes when he pulled me up by my chin and leaned in to kiss me.

I murmured a welcoming signal into the kiss and moved my arms around his neck instead. His hair felt like strips of velvet between my wandering fingers. I loved touching his hair, but I couldn't help thinking about how good it would feel to touch him in more places than that.

His hands soon found my hair as well, and I finally experienced the joy of having someone else run their fingers through my hair. It felt wonderful.

We kissed like that long into the night, taking hungry gulps of air between, but always coming back for more. It was nearly fifteen minutes later when I collapsed, exhausted, on the tree house floor. It was the only time in my life that passing out wouldn't have been that bad of a thing. I didn't pass out, though.

Taylor noticed my energy depletion and said he was sorry.

"Oh no, don't apologize." I breathed, smiling weakly.

"I should walk you home. How's that?" he suggested as he helped me sit up.

"No, I can make it myself," I told him.

He nodded, a little disappointed, I could tell. "So, I'll see you tomorrow?"

I smiled encouragingly. "Yep," I kissed his cheek. "I love you."

The sound of Taylor's soft voice saying, "I love you too, baby," rang through my head even as I climbed silently down from the tree house and made my way to Donna's through the deserted streets of the town.