Xtina is playing with some computer graphics when Coby comes home. As soon as Xtina hears his steps at the door, she leaps out of her chair and hugs him warmly. "I'm so glad you're home," she tells him, happy to see him even though she's been dreading this moment all day. She can tell he's tense, afraid of what happened in his absence. She's tense, too, afraid to tell him.

He tells her about the surfing, and Xtina smiles, though inside she feels like dying. She spent the night in a hotel with Rainier while he was away & she feels too guilty to look at him. "What's up with you, Ti?" he asks gently, with a pained expression in his eye.

Xtina cannot take it any more & drops to her knees to make her tearful confession, "Coby, I slept with him, I slept with Rainier while you were gone." Coby rocks for a second as though she'd hit him, as though he might fall. But he catches himself and leans down to lift her off the floor.

He asks her outright if she's with him or Rainier now. She can't have them both. She can't resist Rainier. "I'm so sorry," she whispers, "I love you so much Coby, but I can't stay away from him, I'm so sorry," she says, her words rising & falling over her sobs as she starts crying like a child.

"Ti," he says, his voice husky & raw, "Do you know you've never said you love me until now, while you're breaking up with me?" Xtina nods, her sobbing making impossible to talk. "Don't do this to yourself, Ti," he whispers, "I love you, too, you know. So I'm still your friend. Do what you have to do, I'm still around if you need a friend, okay?" She nods again, shaking & crying. He turns away from her then, saying he's going to unpack, and takes his things upstairs. Xtina stands crying alone in the lounge. She just broke up with Coby for Rainier, but she wouldn't feel comfortable going to Rainier for comfort. A strange urge makes her phone Gavin, she thinks somehow he would understand. But Justin just laughs when she asks for him, "Gavin is never around anymore since he started this movie thing," he says. Xtina holds in a sob. "What about Eleanor, is she around?" Justin pauses, and says "Yeah, Xtina, Eleanor's kind of tied up right now...if it's important I can get her for you?" Clearly, she's interrupted her friend's romancing, Xtina needs a friend to talk to, but not one eager to get back to lovemaking. "No, it's okay, Justin," Xtina whimpers & hangs up, not waiting to hear his reply.

So she goes up to her bedroom to cry alone on her bed, until she hears a soft knock on her door. It's Rainier, he wants to go clubbing. "I'll be ready in 20 minutes," Xtina calls back, and gets up to wash her face.

NEXT