THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

Trihn peeled her eyes open and frowned. She had a splitting headache, and the noise wasn’t helping anything. It was a consistent boom against the wall at the head of her bed. And it wasn’t going away.

Seriously, what the fuck is that?

She wiped sleep out of her eyes and slowly eased into a sitting position. The noise had pulled her from a dream, leaving her disoriented. Last night was a blur of bad decisions. She hadn’t returned to the party. Instead, she had gone back to her room and passed out to try to forget what had happened.

Looking at the alarm clock on the nightstand showed her that it was still too early for her to be awake. The thumping stopped, and Trihn sighed back into her pillow. She would just get a few more hours of sleep before she thought about what the morning would bring.

“Yes!” a scream split through the wall. “Yes. Yes. Fuck, yes.”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Trihn bolted upright. Her eyes snapped open. She ignored the stab of pain in her skull as realization dawned on her. She knew exactly what that sound was.

But no…he wouldn’t. There was no way. She couldn’t believe it. Her mouth went dry as the noise escalated in the other room.

Oh, but he would. He would absolutely have sex with Lydia in her room next to Trihn’s the morning after having just had sex with Trihn. That was exactly what he had been doing the whole time she was dating him.

She was so angry that her hands shook. She wanted nothing more than to wring his neck.

And cry. Crying seemed like a viable alternative.

But her tear ducts were dry. She didn’t want to shed a tear for him anyway. She just wanted to hold on to this anger. This anger would drive her, fuel her, rather than crumple her and make her collapse under the weight of the deception.

She had known how wrong it was to let Preston fuck her last night. It was an infinite amount of wrong. She had walked away, knowing that it was the end—the official end at least.

But she hadn’t thought that meant he would be fucking her sister the next morning. It hadn’t even been twelve hours, and already, he was getting off with someone else.

Trihn jumped out of bed and threw on shorts and a T-shirt. She slipped into a pair of sandals, grabbed her backpack and headphones, and then rushed out of her room. She noisily slammed the door behind her. Hopefully, they would realize that she had heard, and they would feel bad about it, but she knew Preston wouldn’t. He probably wouldn’t even stop. Nothing could change the fact that she had heard it anyway.

She trotted down the stairs two at a time and went through the kitchen. She had almost made it to the back door when her mother stopped her.

“Trihn, is that you?” Linh called.

“Yeah, Mom. Just going over to Ian’s,” Trihn called back.

“Wait, just one minute.”

Trihn sighed and slunk back into the kitchen. “What?”

Linh raised her eyebrows. “What’s with the attitude?”

“Just on my way out.”

“That’s fine, but don’t spend the whole week over there. Ian will be in the city next year, and you can spend your time with him then. We’re going out on the sailboat later, and you two should join the family.”

“Ian and I aren’t together, Mom,” she quickly clarified.

“No one said you were.”

Trihn snorted and started walking away. “Everyone is just insinuating it.”

Linh shrugged her shoulders. “He’s a nice boy.”

“Ugh! Mom!”

“Fine. I’ll see you two later, but please try to change into something more suitable for the boat.”

Trihn rolled her eyes and quickly left the house. The last thing she wanted to do was go on a sailboat with her family and Preston. Besides the fact that no one going on that sailboat should be wearing fucking white, she couldn’t handle another family outing. She couldn’t handle Lydia. She couldn’t handle Preston. She just wanted out.

And out was the only thing she was thinking about as she dashed across the yard and over to the Petersons’ house. She didn’t bother knocking. Even though it was early, she knew Ian had likely been up, gone for his morning run, and eaten breakfast. It was his MO. Didn’t matter that he had drunk nearly as much as her last night. He was a stand-up guy.

She found him back on the patio. His parents were seated around the table. His mother was carefully slicing a grapefruit while his father read the paper. Ian had his computer in front of him and was typing away at the speed of light.

“Hey,” she said when she walked in on them.

Ian’s head shot up. He had circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t gotten any sleep last night. Or maybe he was hungover. She had never seen him hungover, but it was possible.

“Trihn,” he said. His voice was calm and controlled with none of the playful tone she had heard from him every day this week.

“Hi,” she said cautiously. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Peterson.”

“Trihn,” Mr. Peterson said, not looking up from his paper.

“Good to see you again, dear,” Betty said.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked Ian. She tilted her head to the side, gesturing for them to go inside.

He answered by closing his computer and walking past her into the house.

Once they were in the den, Trihn fidgeted from side to side. She didn’t normally feel uncomfortable around Ian, but something was definitely off. He hadn’t really even looked at her since he had gotten up from the table.

“So, what’s up?” Trihn asked.

She wanted to launch into what had happened this morning and freak out. She wanted to cry and scream and have someone who actually cared listen, but she didn’t do any of that. Instead, she just stood awkwardly and waited for him to say something.

“You’re the one who came over,” he said.

“Yeah. And you’re the one not looking at me.”

Ian glanced up into her eyes, and she saw pain. He was in pain. Both of them were—though clearly for different reasons.

“Now, I’m looking at you.”

“Okay,” she said. “Are you mad at me?”

“Mad?” he asked in disbelief. “That’s not the word I would use.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” he demanded.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“You told me that Preston was cheating on Lydia. You made me hate the guy. But you didn’t tell me that he was cheating on her with you.”

Trihn’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“I saw you last night!” he cried, the words erupting out of him, as if he was releasing a caged animal.

Trihn stood stark still. “When?” Her voice was so quiet.

“You know when.”

“I—”

“You had sex with him, Trihn!” His hands visibly shook. “On the pool deck where anyone could just walk up and see you two together. And guess who did just that?”

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

“What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t.”

“Clearly!” Ian was barely keeping it together.

Trihn covered her face with her hands and shook her head. She could not do this right now, not with Preston and Lydia having sex next door while her whole world crumbled down around her.

“We were dating,” she told him.

“What?” Ian asked in confusion.

“Preston is the guy I was dating before I got here. We didn’t break up.” She looked back up at him. “I just said that when I saw him with Lydia because I didn’t know they were dating…or really that he was dating anyone else. I was blindsided, and then I didn’t know how to tell her. Everything swiftly got out of control.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Trihn sighed and sank down into a chair.

“I still can’t fucking believe you had sex with him last night,” Ian said. He crossed his arms over his chest.