I hope so too, Sienna … but somehow now that you’re leaving, I doubt it will.
“Sienna,” I call out as she walks toward the gate.
She stops and turns around.
“Remember what I said about your photography.”
I smile a little.
She smiles back, nods, and walks away.
TWENTY-TWO
Sienna
I burst into tears the moment I walk into my new hotel room. I had been holding them in the whole way back to Oahu, from the moment I went into Luke’s bedroom to pack my things. Why am I crying like this? Why do I feel like my heart was just ripped right out of my chest? I’ve never met anyone like Luke before, who seemed too good to be true, and I guess who turned out to be, after all. But what I felt being with him was different from anything I’ve felt with any other guy before. The way he effortlessly made me laugh, how he could make me blush, how he could say anything to me and I couldn’t find it in myself to not trust him, or feel comforted by him. I wanted to get lost in him. I did get lost in him.
“She actually said, ‘when she finds out about us’? Are you sure that’s what you heard?” Paige has been talking my ear off for the past five minutes since I called her.
“Yeah, that’s what she said.”
“Sienna, you were right to leave,” she says into the phone, her voice carrying through the room from the speaker. “I dunno, but that whole situation really seems weird to me. Obvious, but weird. They definitely had a thing goin’ on at one point—that’s the obvious part.” She pauses and sighs contemplatively. “The weird part, well, whatever happened between them, it wasn’t normal.”
“What do you mean ‘normal’?”
“I don’t know,” she says, adrift in thought, and then she becomes energized. “Oooh, maybe she’s like his cousin, or something.” My face twists with disgust. “Yeah, I mean think about it: You said he told her she needed professional help, and all that stuff about her being obsessed with him—ewww, but you said she’s his brother’s ex, so that would mean—”
“I doubt that’s it, seriously.” I shudder at the thought. “Maybe you should cut down on the time you spend watching Game of Thrones, Paige.”
I slide open the balcony door and sit down at the table outside, propping my bare feet on the empty chair. I’m in a room on the opposite side of the building this time and now I know the source of the live music I’d heard before: drums pounding and shouting, voices echoing in the night—Hawaiian fire dancers are performing for the tourists.
“But what else could it be?” she asks and then answers her own question. “Exactly what it seems like: They used to go out after Kendra and his brother broke up—maybe they even broke up because something was going on between Luke and Kendra; that could explain why Landon stayed in China. And it does seem like there’s bad blood between Luke and Landon.”
I shake my head, listening to Paige ramble on and on. I guess if anybody could figure this out, it’d be my trusty wannabe PI best friend.
“Well, then, I’ll say it again. You were right to leave. You don’t need that kind of crap in your life.”
“I know. I don’t.” But I still miss Luke enough that if I saw him right now I could easily change my mind.
“But why China?” Paige asks. “That’s weird, too. Seems to me like this guy was holding in a lot more about his life than he should have.”
“Maybe,” I say, gazing out at the swirling fire batons moving rapidly in a circular motion against the surrounding darkness. “But when it came to his brother, it didn’t feel like he was keeping things from me because he might be ashamed of them, but more like they were just really painful to talk about.”
“Well, did you at least ask for an explanation on the stuff you overheard?”
“No,” I say. “He started to tell me—he did tell me some, but I stopped him.” I look down at the smoky glass texture in the tabletop, reflecting on the hour earlier. “I was scared to know—but I knew I was going to have to leave Hawaii anyway and I didn’t want to get more invested … more invested than I already was. But Luke and Kendra being involved at one point isn’t what would’ve bothered me, Paige; it was him lying to me about it that I knew I couldn’t forgive. He swore to me that he’d never kissed or slept with her, and he was pretty adamant about it. I can’t stand a liar, Paige. More than anything, I can’t stand a liar.” I sigh heavily and rest my forehead on my fingertips, my elbow propped on the table. “I was falling fast and hard for him. I liked him too much”—I like him too much—“and if it turned out that he’d lied to me about his involvement with Kendra, everything I felt for him would’ve been a lie, too, and I don’t want to give any of that up. I guess I just wanted to leave with the memories intact, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I guess I understand,” she says. “If it were me, I would’ve confronted them both, but I still get where you’re coming from. But what did he tell you?”
“That it was something about their lifestyle,” I answer, though with difficulty as I try to understand it myself. “That there was something they were involved in that he hadn’t told me about yet.”
“Another red flag,” Paige points out—I wish she’d stop doing that. “These people could be serial killers or something.”
“Paige,” I cut in before she goes off on another tangent, “they’re good, normal people. That much I’m confident about. I just—”