Emeralds

by K. A. Linde

“I guess just wait it out. I know it’s torture, but wait until you and Lydia are alone, and you’re not blindingly angry.”

  “What should I do in the meantime?” Trihn asked.

  “Make him jealous?”

  TRIHN STAYED HIDDEN AWAY IN HER ROOM.

  There was no way that she was going to dinner. She wasn’t ready to tell Lydia or confront Preston about what had happened, and she certainly wasn’t ready to sit across from them at dinner. She could already hear them moving around in the room next door. She was sure Preston had his own room. He could at least be respectful enough to stay in it. She didn’t even want to think about what they were doing in there.

  She pulled her Bose headphones back out of her bag and enjoyed the wonderful noise-canceling capabilities. She thought she was successfully avoiding the world until her door swung inward, and she practically jumped out of her skin.

  Her heart beat wildly as she was both terrified and hopeful that it would be Preston.

  But as she dropped her headphones around her neck, Ian walked into the room. Shit! She had forgotten that she had invited him for dinner.

  “Hey. What are you up to in here?” he asked, taking a casual step inside and leaning against the doorframe.

  “Nothing. Listening to music.”

  He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side as he examined her. “You okay?”

  “Never been better,” she lied.

  “Really?”

  Trihn cleared her throat and looked away from him. If he looked too closely at her, he would probably see what was churning inside of her.

  “Are you carrying a sweater?” she asked, trying to force the joking tone back into her voice. “In August?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject,” he said.

  From where she sat, she could see that his ears were pink.

  “Just come here.”

  “What?”

  “Come here,” he insisted.

  Trihn left her headphones on the bed and walked across the room. “You’d better have a good reason for this, Peterson.”

  As soon as she was standing in front of him, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in for a tight hug. She didn’t even know what to say. She stood there stiffly for a moment and then leaned into his chest, circling his waist. She breathed out heavily and tried to hold back the tears.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he murmured.

  She panicked for a split second, wondering how he knew what was going on.

  But then he spoke again, “Your mom mentioned your breakup to me when I came in.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  She wished that were the real issue. That might be bearable compared to what was really going on.

  Ian didn’t have to say anything else though. They had known each other long enough for words not to matter. She had been there for him when his parents were going through issues. He had always been there when Lydia outshone Trihn and brought her pesky boyfriend on vacation. It was an easy friendship that Trihn appreciated more than ever at the moment.

  Just as she was about to pull away, Lydia’s door popped open, and Preston walked out of the room. He eyed them standing there in an embrace and raised his eyebrows. Whether from surprise or interest or jealousy, she didn’t know.

  Trihn quickly stepped away from Ian, her face burning. She couldn’t even place the emotion hitting her head-on. She couldn’t even look at Preston.

  Thankfully, Ian stepped in. “You must be Lydia’s new boyfriend.”

  He extended his hand, and Preston firmly shook it. Was that too firmly? Could he be jealous? Of Ian of all people?

  Hypocrite.

  “That’s right. I’m Preston,” he said. “And you are?”

  “Ian Peterson. We live next door during the summer.”

  “I see.”

  Lydia stepped out of the room next. “Ready?” she asked, oblivious to what was going on in the hallway.

  “Yeah, babe,” Preston said. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

  Trihn tried not to gag. Dinner was starting to sound like a horrible idea. Maybe she could just hang out in her room for the rest of break and pretend Preston wasn’t here.

  “You know, on second thought, I’m not really feeling that great. I’m going to pass on dinner. Sorry, Ian.” Trihn started backing into her room.

  “What?” Ian said. “No, come on, Trihn. You can’t stay, locked away, in your room all night because some idiot broke up with you.”

  Before she had a chance to respond, Ian hauled her back out of her room and started forcing her down the hallway. She opened her mouth to protest but knew it wasn’t going to work. Ian rarely put his foot down with her, and if he thought all that was wrong was some breakup, he wasn’t going to change his mind.

  “There you are!” her mother said when they walked into the dining room.

  It was set for six, and her mother was already arranging dinner onto some fancy-looking china.

  “Lasagna! Score!” Ian said. He took a seat next to her father, who was seated at the head of the table, reading on his iPad.

  “Your favorite, if I remember,” Linh said.

  “Definitely.”

  Trihn bit her lip and slid into the spot next to Ian. For a split second before Preston took the chair in front of her, it’d felt like every other summer with just Trihn, Lydia, and Ian joking around and having a good time. Then, a pair of big blue eyes met her eyes from across the table, and that image disintegrated.

  Trihn hastily looked away. Making eye contact was a bad idea.

  Linh took her chair across from Gabriel with a smile. “Okay. Dig in!”

  Food was passed around, and everyone filled their plates with Linh’s amazing home-cooked food. Trihn stared down at her helping of lasagna. It was one of her favorites, too, but she didn’t even have the stomach for it. She poked at it, swirling it around on her plate, before taking a small bite.

  “So,” Linh said, “are you two excited to start college in a couple of weeks?”

  “Yes! I’m so ready to be back in the city,” Ian said enthusiastically.

  Trihn nodded halfheartedly. “Yeah. NYU is going to be…different.”

  “NYU is going to be wonderful,” Lydia cried. “Just think, I’ll be there, and Preston will be there! Renée and Ian will both be just uptown. I don’t see how it could get any better.”

  “I guess.” Trihn tried to imagine what college would look like next year, and all she visualized was static. “I was offered a job,” she said, just to see what everyone would say.

  “That’s wonderful,” Gabriel said.

  “You won’t have time for that!” Lydia cried.

  “Another modeling gig?” her mother asked, brimming with excitement.

  “No. Dancing,” she said flatly.

  “Dancing?” Lydia asked. She almost looked offended that Trihn would continue to pursue dance when Lydia never had. “With a company?”

  Trihn let her eyes travel to Preston. He smirked when she glanced at him, and she remembered the recent night he had seen her perform at Slipper.

  She swallowed hard. “You could say that.”

  “Well, as long as it doesn’t interfere with school, it sounds like a good idea. Tell us more about it,” Linh said.

  “I don’t have all the details yet,” Trihn said.

  “Look at my two daughters. Both motivated and independent young women.”

  Trihn tried not to roll her eyes, but Lydia just beamed across the table. After a minute of silence where everyone was digging into their food, Lydia glanced around and then finally settled on Trihn.

  “So, what happened with your boyfriend?” Lydia asked.

  Trihn met her gaze and just wanted to call her out for being a heartless bitch. Clearly, Trihn was fucking upset. What the hell?

  “Lydia,” Gabriel warned. Their father only butted in on rare occasions.

  “What?” Lydia asked, acting all innocent. Loving, carefr
ee Lydia would never be anything but a pleasant, caring, wonderfully meddlesome older sister who liked to stick her nose in other people’s business.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it,” Trihn ground out.

  “You’re just going to leave us hanging?”

  “I said,” Trihn snapped, dropping her fork, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  Linh cleared her throat and turned her attention away from the drama unfolding in front of her. “Ian, dear, you aren’t dating anyone at the moment, are you?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said.

  Trihn noticed how pink his ears were, and she just wanted to bury her face in her hands. This was even worse than she had expected, and Preston hadn’t said a fucking word.

  “And you’ll be in Manhattan next year!”

  Her mother’s pretend innocent routine wasn’t fooling anyone. It was clear what she was insinuating, and that was not going to happen.

  “Mother!” she snapped. How embarrassing!

  “Geez, Mom,” Lydia piped in. “She’s only been single a couple of hours, and already, you’re trying to hook her up with the neighbor.”

  “I said nothing of the sort,” Linh responded.

  “I can’t hear any more of this,” Trihn said. “I can’t even believe this is a topic of conversation.”

  “Well, this lasagna is delicious,” Preston said, speaking up for the first time. All heads swiveled to him. “Thank you so much for the invitation, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  Trihn saw red. Thanks for the invitation? Yeah. Thanks for the invitation to ruin my life.

  “Please call me Linh,” her mother insisted.

  “Mom, Preston is a marketing genius working for Glitz right now!”

  “I didn’t know you worked for the magazine,” Linh said, clearly intrigued.

  “Yeah. Well, I didn’t realize you were related until very recently.”

  “Is that so?” Trihn asked. She leaned forward. “How recently?”

  “What does it matter?” Lydia chimed in. “What matters is that he’s so amazing that he should be leading the marketing team down there.”

  Trihn snorted. “He’s entry-level for the summer.”

  “How do you know?” Lydia asked.

  Trihn froze. Oh, yeah. “Some people can infer things, Ly. You’re both doing work study.”

  “Well, I’m sure he’s doing a fine job in marketing,” Linh insisted.

  “Anyone can be good at marketing,” Trihn snapped.

  “I couldn’t,” Ian said with a short laugh.

  “But you’re a genius at computers. See? This is what real skill looks like. Not just people who know how to twist words,” Trihn said. She knew she was upset and on the verge of losing it, but she couldn’t stop. “People will believe anything if you say it with enough conviction, isn’t that right?” she spat Preston’s words back at him.

  His resulting smile only infuriated her more.

  “God!” Lydia cried. “I know your boyfriend just broke up with you, but you are just being a bitch for no reason! You only dated him for a couple of weeks!”

  Trihn’s mouth dropped open, and then she shoved her chair back. “Excuse me, but I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”

  “Trihn,” Lydia murmured, as if realizing she had gone too far.

  But Trihn didn’t want to make up with Lydia. She didn’t even want to look at Lydia. She saw Preston stamped all over her. Jealousy was a fiery inferno in her gut, and she had to hold back the tears as she stormed out of the room.

  “DO NOT OPEN THAT BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE,” Ian said, lunging for Trihn across the cellar.

  Pop.

  “What did you say?” she asked coyly.

  “My mom is going to kill me.”

  “Your mom won’t even notice,” Trihn insisted. She pressed the bottle to her lips and tipped it up in the air. “Oh my God, this is so good.”

  “Well, enjoy it. It’s the last thing you’ll ever drink.”

  “You’re so dramatic.”

  “It’s her favorite!” He winced.

  “Then, I guess we have to drink the whole bottle before the party and stash the evidence, huh?” she asked. The logic seemed sound to her.

  Ian gave her a skeptical look but took the bottle when she passed it to him. There was no going back now. They couldn’t recork the bottle or anything at this point.

  “You’re going to be the death of me.” But he drank from the bottle without another word.

  At least she was getting him to drink.

  The last three days Trihn had stayed over at Ian’s house to escape the insanity that was happening at her place. She couldn’t stand another second of Preston and Lydia being together or her mother trying to make her feel better by forcing her on Ian or really anything at the moment. Mostly, she had spent her days in a haze of inebriation by the pool. Margaritas, daiquiris, mojitos…vodka, rum, gin…and even a few Coronas for good measure—anything to keep her tipsy enough not to give a shit.

  But she couldn’t avoid the Petersons’ party.

  Ian’s parents would throw a huge party every year, and their friends from all over would come to the Hamptons to celebrate. It was one of the biggest events of the season. Trihn should be looking forward to seeing the friends that she and Ian had made over the years, but all she could think about was confronting Preston and Lydia.

  “So, are you going to tell me why you’ve really been spending every minute over here this week?” Ian asked. He placed the expensive bottle of champagne on the bar next to him.

  “I don’t know what you mean. I always spend time over here.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “But it’s normally not this much, and some of the time, Lydia is usually here with whatever new guy she’s been seeing.”

  “So?”

  “So…I was there for that awkward dinner conversation. What’s with you and Ly? Do you just hate the new guy? Are you worried about sharing her time when you get to NYU? What’s up? I know something other than the breakup has been simmering,” he said intuitively.

  Trihn grabbed the champagne back off the bar and took another swig. “Can we not talk about this? I’d rather just keep drinking and dancing.”

  She took his hand in hers and forced him to twirl her around in place.

  “You know I can’t dance.”

  Trihn laughed. “You can when you’ve had a little bit more to drink. Here. Drink up.”

  He retrieved the bottle that she’d practically launched at him. “I don’t consider that dancing.”

  “What is it then, Ian?” she teased. “Sex on the dance floor?”

  His whole face burned at the comment. “I know you’re just trying to change the subject.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” she asked, turning away from him.

  He set the bottle back down, grabbed her shoulders in his hands, and stopped her in place. “Because I know something is bothering you. I can’t fix it unless I know what it is, and I hate when I can’t fix a problem.”

  “I’m not a computer, Ian. You can’t fix me,” she said calmly. But her heart was racing. No one could fix what had happened.

  “I know, but you’re not the problem. Something is bothering you, and I can fix it. Why won’t you tell me what it is?” he demanded.

  She saw a fire in Ian that he didn’t normally bring out. He must be really worried. Normally, he was so shy that he would never demand anything from her.

  “Preston is cheating on Lydia,” she spat out.

  Ian dropped his arms and stared at her in surprise. “What? How do you know?”

  “Because I saw him with someone else.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah. I saw him in the city.”

  “Are you sure it was Preston? I mean, there are nearly nine million people in New York City. It could have just been someone who looked like him,” Ian insisted.

  “It was him.”

  “You’re certain?”

&nbs
p; “Ian, yes.” She had never been more certain in her life. But the words that she was the person he had been cheating with somehow got stuck in her mouth. He had been cheating on both of them. They’d had a relationship. He had been her boyfriend, too, not just Lydia’s.

  Now, Trihn was just…empty.

  “You must not have told Lydia.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Are you going to?”

  She nodded. Yeah, she had every intention of telling Lydia as soon as they weren’t all locked together in this insufferable house. Just a few more days, and then Lydia could know the truth.

  “I will when we get home.”

  “Maybe we should go tell her now. She deserves to know the kind of scumbag she’s dating.”

  Trihn blanched. “Give me that bottle back.”

  He grabbed it and held it high over her head, and even though she was tall, there was no way she was going to be able to reach it.

  “We should go tell Lydia.”

  “We?” Trihn asked. “No, I’m not going to tell her, Ian. Definitely not right now while we’re here with him. She’s never going to believe me, especially after that catastrophe of a dinner. You heard her call me a bitch. She’s just going to think I’m jealous.”

  Ian lowered the champagne bottle as he considered her words. “Are you sure Lydia would do that?”

  Trihn leveled him with a flat look and snatched the bottle back from him. “You know Lydia.”

  “Yeah, I do,” he conceded. “She probably would go ballistic.”

  “I know.” Trihn brought the bottle to her lips again. “By the way, you’re going to need to help me finish this.”

  They finished that bottle and started in on another—cheaper—bottle.

  By the time the party was in full swing, Trihn was in her new favorite place—abandon.

  She had gone home only long enough to change into her new emerald-green dress that she had bought for just this occasion, and she’d reassured her mother that she was going to the party. She had stayed home long enough to listen to her mother go on about how she wasn’t spending any time with the family, and then she’d left. And she’d convinced herself she was drunk enough that she didn’t care that Preston was stealing her last family vacation before she would go to college.