SWNOVELS Coast to Coast: Chapter 1
It feels strange, flying back to California after I had just spent the past week at my brother’s house. He’s a total grump, but I missed being around him. And now that he’s dating my best friend, it’s like a win-win. He finally has someone who makes him happy and I get to see both of them a hell of a lot more.
Well, only when I’m in Vermont.
Instead, I’m flying back to the West Coast, where I’ve been building a new life for the past year. I have a few weeks left of my freshman year and then I’ll be flying back to Vermont to spend the summer there. It was my brother’s idea and when he offered his apartment, I wasn’t about to say no.
Sterling and Olivia are finally moving out and they are getting their own place. That will leave an empty room where he’s living with two of his teammates, Simon Murray and Lincoln Reid. Vermont isn’t my favorite place to be, but I don’t have anywhere to stay on the West Coast for the summer. My best friend here, Helena, and I had talked about getting a place but never went through with it.
My flight was a few hours earlier than anticipated after they had some last-minute changes. I decided that I would just come home early so I could stop by Trey’s place on my way home. I didn’t bother telling Trey about it and I didn’t tell him when I got to California since it was supposed to be a surprise for him.
He had given me a key to his place a few weeks before I left for Vermont. I tried to get him to come along with me but he said he wasn’t able to take the time off from work. I didn’t push the issue. We were still new. Three months of being in a relationship isn’t very long, especially when you’re trying to navigate the early years of college.
It still bothered me a little bit. I wanted him to be with me. He made sure to call me every day and text me while I was gone, so that made it a little better. After I got through the first few days in Vermont, it didn’t bother me as much. Simon had an uncanny way of distracting me, although I shouldn’t think of him that way.
Especially not when I’m standing out in front of my boyfriend’s apartment door.
Sliding my key into the lock, I turn it to the side and let myself into his place. It’s quiet and with how early it is in the morning, I’m sure Trey is still in bed. He works for a tech company, but he gets to make his own hours since he’s salary. He’s the type of person who works better at night and is the furthest thing from a morning person.
Quietly closing the door behind me, I leave my suitcase by the front door and kick off my shoes before I make my way through his apartment. As I walk past the dining room area, I notice there are still dishes on the table from what must have been his dinner from last night. But instead of there only being one plate, there are two. Two plates. Two wineglasses.
My stomach sinks and I inch closer to the table, grabbing one of the glasses. As I lift it into the air in front of my face, I notice the lipstick stains around the rim of the glass. The air leaves my lungs in a rush and I feel the bile beginning to rise up my throat.
Part of me wants to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he just had a friend over last night and forgot to clean up before he went to bed. The other part of me knows Trey doesn’t have any female friends. And definitely not any he would have over for dinner without me here.
Fuck.
Just like that, the pieces start to fall into place and suddenly, everything makes sense. Trey didn’t want to come with me because I wasn’t the only one. He wanted to stay home so he could sneak around with whoever he was seeing behind my back.
His bedroom door opens and I slowly turn around, holding my breath as my grip tightens around the stem of the wineglass. I’m ready to face Trey, but then the rug is ripped out from underneath my feet as Helena—my best fucking friend—walks out of my boyfriend’s bedroom wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts.
She stops in her tracks in the center of the hallway as she sees me. The wineglass falls from my hands, shattering as it crashes into the wood floor. Helena’s eyes widen and a flash of panic and guilt washes over her.
“Oh my god!” she exclaims loudly as she begins to take a step toward me.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Trey says to her as he walks out into the hallway, running his hand through his dirty blond hair. His gaze follows Helena’s and lands on me.
It’s like all the air is instantly drained from the room. I can’t fucking move, but I know I need to. My stomach rolls and I want to vomit all over his hardwood fucking floors.
“It’s not what it looks like, Stella,” Trey says quickly as he moves away from my best friend and begins to walk in my direction. “Helena came over and one thing led to another.”
I back away, shaking my head at him. “Don’t even bother, Trey. Save your bullshit for someone else who will believe it.” I turn my attention to Helena, who looks both horrified and equally hurt. “I can’t believe you would do this to me.”
“Stell,” she says softly as she steps up beside Trey. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this and I didn’t know how the hell to tell you.”
I stare at her in disbelief, a choked laugh escaping me. “Well, for starters, you could have avoided fucking my boyfriend.”
“Stella.” Trey’s voice is strained, like he’s torn between what to do. Who he should choose. “Let’s just talk about this, okay?
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I tell him as I make my way over to my suitcase. Part of me is in complete and utter shock. The other part of me just wants to disappear and never see either of them for the rest of my life. I can’t believe this happened. “I just want to know… how long has this been going on?”
Helena glances over at Trey, like she doesn’t want to be the one who tells me the truth. Trey’s lips purse and he hangs his head in defeat. “About two months.”
My breath catches in my throat. “We’ve only been together for three. You’ve been sleeping with my best friend behind my back, like, the entire time we’ve been together?”
“We slept together before the two of you started dating,” Helena adds in, almost as if she’s defending herself and validating them doing this. I can see it in Helena’s expression that this is killing her and it isn’t because of what they did to me. It’s because of what she’s afraid to lose.
She wants him to herself and me knowing what was happening between them threatens that.
“You can have him, Helena,” I tell her as I slide Trey’s key from my keyring. Tossing it onto the counter, I look at my now ex-boyfriend once more. “Fuck you for this. Fuck you both, actually.”
“Stella, wait,” Trey interjects, but I shake my head at him and watch Helena reach out for him with her manicured hand wrapping around his wrist.
“Let her go, babe,” she says simply, and I can taste the fucking vomit on the back of my tongue.
“Yeah, babe,” I sneer at him. “Let me go. This is over. I never want to hear from either of you again. You both deserve each other.”
There’s so much more I want to say to the two of them but I can feel the emotion welling inside. I’ve been holding my composure because in reality, Trey doesn’t mean that much. What he did doesn’t hurt me nearly as much as what Helena did and how she’s acting.
It just proves she was never my friend to start with.
I slip outside of his apartment, taking my suitcase with me. The betrayal hits me like a ton of bricks and the tears blur my vision as I head back out to the front of the apartment building to order an Uber. Part of me wants to take it back to the airport instead of my dorm.
For the first time in my life, I actually feel homesick. I never thought I would see the day, because I was not built for the cold. And even though I had lived in Vermont my entire life, I never did adjust to it. It’s not the place that I miss, though… it’s the people.
My brother is a complete pain in my ass, but I miss being around him. I miss his grumpy attitude and giving him shit. My best friend, Olivia. I swear, that girl couldn’t be more polar opposite than me, but she’s practically my soulmate. I hated when we first separated after high school to go our separate ways for college, but every time I see her, it sucks leaving her even more.
And then there’s Simon.
I shouldn’t even be thinking of him, but I almost feel like a weight has been lifted since Trey is gone from my life now. Losing Helena hurts more than the failed relationship. It’s not like we were together that long. I may have had an attachment, but it’s nothing I won’t be able to move on from.
Thoughts of Simon are a welcomed distraction, even if my brother’s roommate loves to grate on my nerves. Things are easy with him, almost as if we are old friends. He and my brother have lived together for a couple years now, so he’s become a constant when I go back to Vermont. I never thought I would see the day where I was feeling like I was missing him, but here we are.
I didn’t get to talk to him this morning because I left in the early hours of the day, well before he was awake. And there was a weird part of me that didn’t want to say goodbye to him. He’s a total flirt and I honestly love it. Sure, he’s annoying. But there’s something about him I thoroughly enjoy. Perhaps it is the banter and how he keeps me on my toes.
Or maybe it’s the way he looks at me with those metallic eyes of his.
He might be one of my favorite people to be around when I’m back in my hometown.
And I’ll be spending all summer with him.