After what felt like much too long of a wait, Netflix’s second season of Temptation Island dropped on April 10, introducing the world to four new struggling couples and two dozen new tempting singles. One of the couples was 24-year-old aesthetician Sydney McGregor and 24-year-old DJ and host Mikey Bivens, who met at North Carolina A&T and appeared on the show after just about a year-and-a-half of dating. And while (spoiler alert!), the couple didn’t end up making it out of paradise together, Sydney did get something (and someone…) out of the experience.

During an exclusive interview with Cosmo ahead of the season 2 premiere, Sydney revealed that—when a “casting producer reached out” and asked her to be on the show—she was fully on board. Mikey, however, needed some convincing. “We got on a call with [the casting producer], and he’s telling us how the show with run, and everything that happened last season, and how one couple got engaged,” she explained. “And from that conversation, Mikey was like, ‘Okay, you know what? We’ll do it.’”

According to Sydney, she had every intention of leaving Temptation Island alongside Mikey. “We went in like, ‘Oh, this is going to be a cake walk, and we’re going to leave together,’” she said. She hoped the experience would make their relationship stronger…and ideally, give Mikey a chance to “do deeper digging on himself.”

As she explained it, “I really wanted him to show me a different side of him, somebody that wasn’t just trying to make everybody happy and live in a bubble.” But then the first bonfire rolled around, showing Mikey with the “three amigos,” and Sydney decided she was done.

“The whole three amigos thing really made me feel triggered from our past,” she said, adding, “Just see him talking to them in a flirtatious way really triggered things inside me, and it showed me, ‘Oh, he hasn’t changed. So why am I still putting myself back in the same cycle?’ So I chose to move on with my experience and make it a personal one.”

Cue: Xzavier Odom, who was more than ready to make Sydney feel like a prize. “One of my love languages is words of affirmation, and just seeing how hard he had worked on that [card] really spoke volumes to the person that he was and what he thought of me, and what he saw in me,” she said of her connection.

And no, btw, she definitely did not expect to fall in love with someone else on Temptation Island. “When I first met Xzavier, it really felt like a friendship. And I didn’t look at him in terms of like somebody I could possibly like, somebody I would possibly date, or anything like that,” she said, adding that when she did fall for him, “I was just shocked. I was blown away.”

So…were Sydney and Xzavier able to make their love last after leaving Hawaii together? Unfortunately, it seems like we’ll have to wait until the inevitable reunion special to find out!!