“Yeah! We’re in the same program at NYU to receive credit for our summer internships. We met months ago at the orientation meeting.”
All the air whooshed out of Trihn’s lungs as realization hit her. This wasn’t some fling. This wasn’t someone who Lydia had been fooling around with and invited on vacation on a whim. She was actually seriously dating Preston. They had been dating for several months. Fucking hell! They had been dating even longer than Trihn had known Preston—a month longer, if memory served, since that was when Lydia had started her photography internship.
“All summer?” Trihn asked, her voice sounding small and distant due to the ringing in her ears.
“Yes,” Lydia snapped. “And if you get off your high horse and give him a chance, you might even like him instead of judging me and the guys I bring home!” She shook her head and then started to head back inside.
Trihn didn’t like Preston. She was madly in love with him. And all of this was so, so wrong.
“Lydia, wait!” Trihn called before Lydia opened the door.
“What?” Lydia asked. Her anger dissipated as quickly as it had come. It always did with Lydia. She always won, and her life was perfect. What reason would she have for holding on to anger?
“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Trihn said. She tried to find the words to warn her sister without coming right out and saying it. “What do you even know about this guy?”
Lydia sighed heavily, pushing forward into the house again without an answer.
Trihn anxiously followed behind her. “Lydia, I’m serious!”
“Look, just because your boyfriend couldn’t come with you doesn’t mean you can question mine. You guys have only been dating for a short while, too, right?” Lydia asked.
Lydia’s words carried down the hall, and their mother stuck her head through the doorway. “Is everything all right, girls?”
Trihn looked up to see her mother, her father, and Preston staring at them. She gritted her teeth but didn’t look away. She was ready to explode at any second.
“Yes, we’re fine,” Lydia said. She bounced from one foot to the other with a giant grin. “I was just asking about Trihn’s boyfriend.”
Preston’s eyes burned into her, and when she met that look, she could see the challenge within. He was wondering if she was going to rat him out. She should. She wanted to. She wanted to tell everyone what a dirty fucking liar he was, but she also didn’t want to ruin everyone’s vacation and have all the questions flying at her about what the fuck had happened.
Because she didn’t even know what had happened. How could any of this have happened to me? She was used to being around players like that. She was used to model assholes. God, hadn’t I given my virginity to one of those assholes? Another fucking asshole to add to the list.
Her face burned red at the thought. Everything seemed to fall into place at once—the phone calls when she had been over at Preston’s place, him not responding to her late at night, him always having to work. She hadn’t been looking for the signs because she felt safe with him, right with him. But she hadn’t been safe at all, and here was the proof right before her eyes.
She didn’t even know which way was up or down. She loved Preston. She wasn’t ready for this to be over, but at the same time…she hated him, so viciously. She loved him as much as she hated him.
“So, tell us about him. Where is your boyfriend, Trihn?” Lydia asked.
“Yeah,” Trihn murmured, ignoring her question. “Past tense.”
“Past tense?” Lydia asked, confused.
“Yes. Past tense boyfriend.”
As Lydia seemed to realize what Trihn had said, her face fell. “You guys aren’t together anymore?”
“We broke up,” she choked out. Her vision blurred as she stared at Preston. “He wasn’t the guy that I thought he was.”
“Oh, Trihn,” Lydia said.
She placed her hand on Trihn’s shoulders, and Trihn collapsed at her sympathy.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She shrugged Lydia’s arm away from her. “I’m going to call Renée. Just…give me some privacy.”
Then, she barreled down the hallway, leaving the nightmare awaiting her behind. She needed to talk this out with someone. She needed to figure out what the hell to do about all of this.
Her feet carried her past the back deck, out to the trail to the beach, and all the way until her feet sank into the sand. She pulled her phone out and pressed the number for Renée as she hurried down the beach to the small cove where she and Ian had hidden away to escape the world when they were kids.
“You made it!” Renée said when she answered.
As soon as Trihn heard her best friend’s voice, she burst into tears. Everything that she had been holding in rushed out of her. She was hiccuping over the sobs.
“Trihn! What’s wrong? Are you okay? What happened? Oh my God, stop crying. Tell me what’s going on!”
“Preston,” she muttered through the tears.
“What about him?”
“He’s here.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s…dating…Lydia.”
There was silence on the other end.
“That motherfucker.”
Trihn laughed hoarsely through the tears. “I know.”
“How did this happen? Trihn, calm down. Breathe for me, hooker. You can’t fall apart. You need to just breathe.”
Trihn listened to her words and tried to follow her advice. In through my nose, out through my mouth. She closed her eyes and shut out everything, except for the sound of Renée’s voice and the crash of the waves in the distance.
“Okay. Now, tell me everything.”
So, Trihn spilled the whole sordid story of walking onto the property to find out that Lydia and Preston were together. She still couldn’t quite believe that this was happening.
“So…have you talked to either of them about this?” Renée asked.
“No. It just happened. I was going to say something to Lydia, and then the words got stuck in my mouth. I was so shocked.”
“I think you need to talk to Lydia,” Renée said.
“What? Are you crazy? That is the last thing I need to do.”
“I’m not crazy, Trihn. You’re dating your sister’s boyfriend! You need to talk to her.”
Trihn covered her face with her free hand. “I don’t know what to say. They started dating at the beginning of the summer. I can’t even remember if I mentioned Lydia or anything to him. I seriously can’t remember anything, except that I love him and I invited him here and he couldn’t come because of work. Now, he’s here with her!”
“What a douche bag!” Renée sighed. “Do you need me to come get you? I can borrow Matthews’s car and drive out there.”
Trihn swiped the tears off her face. Black mascara came off, and she didn’t even want to know what she looked like. “I’m not going to make you drive all the way out here. And what would I even tell my parents? And Lydia…”
“Okay, I see your point,” Renée conceded. “Lydia goes through men like most people go through socks. The likelihood that she’s going to ditch him in a couple of weeks is really, really high.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better!” Trihn cried into the phone.
“I know! But you’re moving in with Lydia in three weeks. Three weeks,” she repeated. “Just imagine that living situation if she finds out.”
“Imagine the living situation if they stay together!”
“But what’s the chance of that?” Renée asked.
“I don’t know. All I know is that I cannot go back in there and look at them together. I know that he cheated on me and that he’s cheating on her and that I hate him. But…I also thought I loved him. And if I tell Lydia what happened, then it will really be over with Preston.”