“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.
Eric had dropped them off earlier and returned with some football player friends. Stacia was currently hitting on Marshall Matthews, the star quarterback for the LV State football team. Her dream in life was to marry an NFL quarterback. She had been going from one quarterback to the next in the hopes that she would snag her guy.
That was not Trihn’s objective, and the assortment of men that Eric had provided for a rebound weren’t exactly her type. She wasn’t even sure what her type was, but douchey hot college guys who liked to promise her the world and break her heart were not it.
“You are having fun and not thinking about that asshole,” Maya called from behind the bar. With raised eyebrows, she pushed a shot toward Trihn.
“I don’t want to get drunk,” Trihn said.
Maya shrugged. “You’re not paying. You’re not driving. Take the drink. It’ll heal the wound for a bit.”
“So, you’re really on board with Bri’s rebound plan?”
Trihn took the shot in her hand and stared down at the clear liquid. Maya pushed a lime and a salt shaker toward her. With a determined glare, Trihn licked between her thumb and index finger and shook salt onto the area. She raised the tequila to Maya in a cheers motion, licked the salt off her hand, and then tipped the glass back. The alcohol burned all the way down, and she quickly sucked on the lime to try to mitigate the painful aftereffect.
“Completely,” Maya said, pouring them each a shot. She raised her glass to Trihn, and they threw it back. “Go fuck someone else, and you’ll feel much better.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.”
“Oh, yeah?” Maya asked, as if it were a challenge. She looked around at Eric’s friends and then picked out a guy in the group. “Excuse me,” she said to him.
The guy turned around. Trihn was sure she had seen him before, but she couldn’t remember his name. He was one of the many football players who hung around their group of friends.
“Yes?” he asked, confused but appreciatively looking at Maya.
Everyone did. She was a bombshell.
“What’s your name?”
“Drayton, but my friends call me Dray.”
“Well, Dray, I get off at three thirty,” she said with a wink.
He raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Maybe I can buy you a drink.”