Platinum (All That Glitters #3)(26)

“And a horrible one.”

“Ian—”

“She chose a guy over you, her own sister. I was there. I remember how you were that day. Renée and I both do. Just think about it. She wouldn’t do this if the roles were reversed.”

Trihn buried her head in her pillow and reconsidered this wanting-to-be-in-New York thing. Her friends knew her a bit too well.

“Shouldn’t I be the bigger person?” she mumbled into the phone.

“If you want to be miserable,” he said.

There was another scuffle on the other line, and then Renée was talking again, “You do not want or need to be the bigger person. Lydia never apologized to you, and she’s still dating the douche bag. He’s probably cheated on her and given her some kind of disease by now. She’d deserve it.”

“I don’t know. I just found out. I need more time to process.”

“Yeah, well, if you come back to New York for this shit, I’m going to beat your scrawny ass. That’s a promise.”

Trihn laughed a real laugh for the first time in what felt like weeks. “I miss you.”

“We miss you, too, beautiful. But we have to get to class. City never sleeps, hooker.”

“Love you guys. Bye.”

When Trihn hung up, she felt an eensy bit better. It was enough to send Damon a text that said she was alive and had made it home in one piece. But it was not enough to get out of bed.

In fact, she spent the next three weeks either lounging around or hiding out in the studio at school.

All design students were given after-hours access to the studio. Most of the time would be spent putting extra hours into the techniques they had been learning in class or working on various fashion show projects. The senior students in the fashion show would work overtime all week, tweaking designs and patterns into beautiful creations. The show wasn’t for another two months, but everyone had seemed to be in a constant fever.

The studio was the only place Trihn could find inspiration anymore. And even though she was supposed to be helping the models for the show, she found herself sketching her own clothes and working in the studio to see her designs come to life. Since she was a kid, she had done some of sewn her own clothes at home, but it was always a hobby, just something she did for fun. It was easy to fall back into it when she needed to take her mind off of everything.

Trihn was sewing the final touches on a skirt that she was going to give to Maya to wear at work when she felt a presence over her shoulder.

“Can I help you?” Trihn asked, stopping the sewing machine. She glanced up at the person standing behind her. She had never seen the woman before. She was probably one of the senior students who Trihn didn’t know.

“Whose design are you helping with?” she asked. The woman was in a fashionable black skirt suit that looked as if it had been made for her with a bright purple silk blouse that tied around her neck. Her red hair was pinned back off her face, but it clearly had its own natural bounce.

Trihn raised an eyebrow. “Mine.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” Trihn couldn’t help sounding snappish. Normally, she could work in here all alone without anyone even noticing her, let alone bothering her. It pulled her out of her Zen.

“And this dress?” the woman asked.

She fingered the black dress Trihn had nearly finished this afternoon. The design had been stuck in her head for days, and she had it almost perfect. It was an all black number that crisscrossed across the collarbones with cutouts at the sides and hugged every inch of her body. She wanted to wear it out the next time she had enough energy to go to Posse, but it wasn’t quite ready yet. And neither was she.

“Mine, too.” Trihn went back to sewing the skirt.

“Hmm…”

Trihn sighed heavily. “What?”

“I love the lines, but if you pull in this hem right here and hand-sew darts here,” she said, pointing out the very problem that had been staring Trihn in the face all day, “I think it would be spectacular.”

Trihn snatched up the dress and assessed what the woman had said. “Wow. Yeah. I hadn’t thought about that. Thank you.”

“I assume I’ll be seeing this piece in the fashion show later this semester.”

“Yeah, right,” Trihn said with a laugh. “Not unless someone steals it.”

“What does that mean exactly?” the woman asked. “You are one of the senior fashion majors, are you not?”

“No, I’m a sophomore. I just came to do this for fun.” Trihn shrugged. “But one day.”

The woman shook her head and then glanced between the skirt and dress. “Do you have any more pieces in the work or sketches I could look at?”

“Um…yeah. Sure,” Trihn said. “Hold on.” She pulled out a notebook from her bag and handed it over to the woman. She looked through it for several minutes while Trihn worked on the skirt, humming to herself all along.

“Well, it seems that your day has arrived.”

Trihn looked at her with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. I normally attend the courses for juniors and seniors. I’m Teena Hart.”

She held her hand out, and Trihn numbly took it.

Teena Hart.