Falsettos College AU

Life Isn't Fair

Trina

"Do you have this in a smaller size?"

I turn around. A woman is standing by the rack where I'm hanging some clothes from the dressing rooms, looking irritated. She's holding out a size medium dress as if she's accusing me of something. I raise an eyebrow. "Let me come and look."

She leads me to the rack where she found the dress, and I search for a small or an extra-small, but there are none. Which is fine. Sometimes we run out of sizes. I look back at the woman and smile as much as I can.

"Sorry, we don't have any smaller sizes at the moment. I'm sure that one will be just fine, or you can come back later when we get more in stock."

She glares at me. "My son's bar mitzvah is in two days, and I don't have a dress to wear. I can't come back later."

"Then you should have gone shopping earlier," I reply simply. "Like I said. The medium will be fine. They're really not that different."

"This one is too big in the hips," she protests, shaking the dress in front of me.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from blowing up at this woman. "You can pick a different dress then," I tell her slowly.

"But this is the one I've had my eye on since—"

"Hey, hey," a voice interrupts her. A young man gently pushes past the woman into my view— and of course it's Marvin. "Get over it, lady. Life isn't fair." He turns to me. "Hi, Trina."

The lady's face turns red. "What kind of service is this? Aren't you supposed to work here?"

"Aren't you supposed to go away?" snaps Marvin.

I frown. "Sorry, give me a minute," I say to the frustrated woman. I take Marvin by the arm and hiss, "What are you doing here? I'm trying to deal with an annoying customer. Get lost."

"I'm trying to help you deal with her," he informs me. He looks over his shoulder and calls, "Are you a magician. Can you magically make a smaller size appear? No. And neither can Trina. So fuck off."

"Marvin! You're going to get me fired!" I whisper, but the woman just gives him a dirty look and walks away.

"That's how that's done," he replies, dusting his hands off. "So, now that you're not busy... how's it going?"

I stare at him and cross my arms. "Not well. Why are you at my work?"

"I wanted to check on you. You've never really told me how your job was going, so I came to see for myself."

"It's fine, it's fine," I sigh. "Just don't tell any more customers to 'fuck off,' okay?" I walk past him and to the dress rack, rearranging the dresses I was sifting through.

Marvin, not getting my point, follows me through the store. "I mean, how's life otherwise? I feel like we haven't hung out in forever."

"Because I'm at work," I tell him. "But, I guess, it's also been fine. You know, the new job is kind of stressful, but I'm managing. And I'm making... some money."

"Yeah. College jobs almost always suck," he responds with an exhale. "Hey, I might buy some stuff from here. It's kind of decent."

"Can you come back on a day when I don't work?"

He laughs. "Trina. You're so funny," he says, like we're joking around. To tell the truth, I don't mind him being here. It's something familiar in this weird new experience. I follow him through the aisles of racks, relieved that I'm not on my own.

"Y'know, you're right about one thing," I go on. "We haven't spoken in a while. So how is everything? Anything new happen with Whizzer?"

"Yeah, kind of, but I don't need to tell you about our sex life."

I give him a look. "...Okay."

"Nothing much is going on. I should probably go now. Just wanna make sure that lady isn't going to bother you anymore." He grins.

"Thank you very much, Marvin. I'll see you later."

He gives me a two-fingered salute and heads toward the door. The woman at the counter watches him leave and then turns to me.

"If you're done flirting now," she remarks, "could you get back to work?"

My face goes hot. "I wasn't flirting with him. Actually, he's my ex-boyfriend. And he's gay."

"Mm-hmm." She goes back to her book, which it's ironic that she's reading after just asking me to get back to work. Still, I don't feel like arguing, so I head back into the aisles.

-

I'm with Mendel in the library later. Well, we're sitting together, but we aren't really talking. It's nice, though. It finally feels like we're friends again and not just a potential couple, which may still happen, but probably not this year. Not only because I've been busy, but I think it would stress him out too much. Which is okay, because we're fine as friends.

Right?

"How's the job?" Mendel asks.

I give him the same answer I gave Marvin. "Fine."

He nods. "Great."

Okay, maybe we don't have much to talk about, but it's still a relief to be able to hang out without any tension— especially sexual. Or if there is, I can't see it. Then again, I've apparently been blind to it this whole time— Nope, I'm not thinking about us as a couple anymore.

"Actually," I begin, "my life is going pretty great now. At least to the point where I don't cry in the shower and break down during our meetings anymore." I give him a smile.

"I'm proud of you," he replies. "Really, Trina. You've made a lot of progress."

"Thanks to you."

"I can't take all the credit."

"Yes you can."

I can see him trying not to grin. "Okay, Trina, you win. It's all thanks to me," he says.

I elbow him. "Don't get cocky."

We both start laughing, at what I'm not sure. I've loosened up so much around Mendel. It's refreshing to have somebody I can joke around with, and although the school year's getting considerably worse and worse due to the piling on work and my new job, I've been getting that more and more.

Once we've calmed down, I try to focus on my work, but I don't really want to. I start biting my fingernails. It's a bad habit, but it's hard to stop.

Mendel watches this. "Maybe you should stop biting your nails."

"Maybe you should stop nitpicking everything that I do," I tease, but I pull my hand away from my mouth. "Ugh. Why is college so boring?"

"Are you kidding? This year has been more eventful than the rest of my life combined."

"The sad thing is I can see that," I reply.

He shakes his head. "Anyway, I guess I know where you're coming from. These classes are the least I'm going to remember. The only reason I'm still paying attention is so I can fulfill my dream of being a psychiatrist."

"Oh, wow, I didn't realize."

"Why are you being so sarcastic now?" he wonders, squinting at me.

"I don't know," I admit. "I should probably get going now. I'll see you around, 'kay, Mendel?"

"Of course," Mendel answers. We share a smile as I pick up my books, and then head out of the library. And, once again, I'm relieved that we're getting along.