Platinum (All That Glitters #3)(9)

Trihn wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “At least I didn’t waste my mascara on him,” she said to avoid the question.

“That’s good because that shit is expensive.”

“Really f*cking expensive.”

Trihn burst into tears again. She rolled onto her side and cried into Bryna’s pillow.

Everything hurt, and her mind was moving a million miles a minute. She didn’t know if there was a way that she could have avoided this or fixed it. If I had stayed in with him last night, would it all have been okay? Had he been planning this all along? Every possible scenario ran through her mind, but she couldn’t find one situation where she could have made this right.

Bryna ran her fingers through Trihn’s long black-to-blonde hair and waited until her tears subsided before speaking, “Tell me what happened.”

“He said we weren’t compatible and that it was over. He said that he didn’t miss me when we weren’t together,” she groaned. Another sob escaped her. “Then, I asked him if there was someone else…if he had a girl with him right now, but he refused to answer me.”

“Bastard!” Bryna cried. “Do you think he was really cheating on you?”

Trihn looked up into Bryna’s blue eyes and felt like crying all over again. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Ugh! I’m sorry, Trihn.”

“He said that it didn’t matter whether I thought he was with someone else because he didn’t want to be with me. How could he say those things, Bri? We’d been together for so long. We were so good together.”

“Well, I think it matters whether or not he cheated,” Bryna said.

“I know. That’s what I tried to yell at him, but he slammed the door in my face.”

Bryna clenched her jaw. “You’re making it really hard for me not to call Eric and have him send half of the football team over to Neal’s house to beat the shit out of him.”

Trihn’s laugh turned into a moan of despair. “Don’t do that. I still love him.”

“I won’t send them, but you know Eric has your back. The whole team would go to the ends of the earth for any of us.”

“I know.”

“You’ll get through this. You’re strong and beautiful and smart. I’m biased because you’re my best friend, but you’re not a cold, heartless bitch, like me. When you let people in, you give it all, a hundred and fifty percent. I know you don’t want to hear this, but you can do so much better than Neal.”

Trihn laid her head back and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m surprised that wasn’t the first thing you said to me. You hate Neal.”

“I don’t hate Neal. I hate the way he treated you, and I hate that he made you feel like less than the incredible person you are. You know the shit I’ve gone through in my past,” Bryna said with a sigh. “Jude made me feel amazing, but bit by bit, he stripped my confidence from me and morphed me into something I wasn’t. I hadn’t even seen it until I got away from it. I think you’ll see that soon, too.”

“You think I changed because of Neal?” Trihn asked.

“I think Neal wanted you to change, and it’s hard to ignore that forever.”

Trihn just lay there. Bryna had good points, but all Trihn wanted was for Neal to take back everything that had just happened.

“I just want him back,” she whispered.

“I love you, Trihn, but I honestly don’t know why you want to be with him. He abandoned you last year at my party. You ran out of that party in tears, and that was nearly a year ago. He canceled plans to see you after you were apart last summer. He sabotaged Halloween and avoided you all last semester. Don’t even get me started on the emotional abuse of wanting you to only be an artist and have no other life outside of him.” Bryna sat up in bed and stared down at Trihn. “Everyone else saw this but you. You made excuse after excuse for him, but I didn’t think his behavior deserved to be excused. You’re better off.”

Trihn groaned. “I know. I know you’re right. I just wanted this to work out so bad.”

“You shouldn’t have to force it. Like this Damon guy,” Bryna said with a twinkle in her eye. “Maya told me he was hitting on you, and you were into him.”

“Ugh! She did not.”

“I have one word for you, Trihnity Hamilton,” Bryna said dramatically. She hopped out of bed, and in the tiny blue slip she had worn to sleep, she walked over to her closet.

“Do I even want to know?” Trihn called out to her.

A minute later, she returned with a slinky little black dress. Trihn had seen that dress on Bryna, who was a solid seven inches shorter than Trihn, and it barely grazed her mid thigh. On Trihn, she would be lucky if it covered her nonexistent ass.

“What is that for?” Trihn asked.

Bryna smirked, and Trihn knew what that meant—trouble.

“Rebound.”





“REMIND ME WHY I’M HERE AGAIN?” Trihn asked.

She was standing with Bryna and Stacia at Posse, their local hotspot, where Maya worked as a bartender. Bryna had forced Trihn into the tiny black dress, and it looked pretty amazing, but the amount of makeup that she’d had to use to cover her puffy eyes, not so much.