31. Thirty-One
thirty-one
ELLIOT
I haven’t cried since I was ten years old and my parents told me they were getting a divorce. My tears did nothing to salvage the situation then, and they won’t do any good now. But this is as close as I’ve come in all that time. The same morose mix of feelings are there—the sadness, the helplessness, the frustration of being powerless to change the outcome—the oppressive understanding of a singular truth: Love doesn’t matter.
She’s leaving, and I can’t stop her.
She’s giving up, and I can’t force her to fight. Love doesn’t make a difference.
That same hot thickness fills my head and chest, suffocating the breath out of me. What’s worse is I can’t argue her logic. This may all be a commercial construct to me, but to her it’s her life—her job, and she’s drawn the line.
Yes, I knew it was inevitable, but I also hoped we’d figure something out. Hell, with Cassie on my side, I was halfway to a solution, but what’s the point anymore? Ginger is all but giving me away.
Hand on the doorknob to leave her room, I have to bite my lip not to say anything when she lets out a muffled sob. Any words out of my mouth could be met with more horrible dismissals, and like she couldn’t watch me “fall in love” with someone else, I can’t take any more rejection from her. My reasons for coming here were spot-on. Too bad The Panel can’t see me now. They’d understand my reasons, finally, and they’d leave love out of the equation.
Opening the door, I startle at the sight of Jenna, knocking on my hotel room door.
She whirls to face me, wide-eyed with surprise.
Without thinking, I glance over my shoulder at Ginger—within eyeshot of Jenna, head in her hands, crying her face off.
Jenna’s mouth opens with a slight gasp, and I’m completely torn. I don’t know which fire to put out. The sight of Ginger crying is like a knife to the chest, but Jenna’s presence on my doorstep is a hurricane just off the coast. A severe threat. I could either step back into Ginger’s room, slam and lock the door, or slip out like nothing’s happening, when something is obviously happening.
Instead, I take a page from Ginger’s book and attack. “What are you doing here? Where’s Kat?”
“I—You—Um—” Her words skid until they find some traction. “I wanted to?—”
On second thought, I don’t want to hear it. I close Ginger’s door and lean into my anger. “What kind of game did you come here to play, Jen? Because you already destroyed the playing field. You adding new rules, too? You can do whatever the fuck you want no matter how unfair it is?”
Still trying to regain the ground she lost, her eyes go soft, sympathetic. “Elliot, can we talk?”
I refuse to take one step nearer. “I don’t want you here. They made me keep you. The Panel saved you. You weren’t even supposed to be in Paris.”
Her eyes glaze with tears. “Please, talk to me. I’m not trying to make things harder. I want you to understand—I want you to remember?—”
“I remember. I remember all the promises you made, and all the ones you broke. I remember every second. You don’t have a chance in hell with me.”
For a moment she’s quiet, arms loose at her sides, lips partly open. Then her gaze shifts, landing on Ginger’s door. “Did any of us?”
Without another glance at me, she pivots, back stiff as she walks to the elevator.
Storming forward, I hold the card key up to my room and slam inside. I pick up the first thing I find, a boot, and hurl it against the wall above my bed. The thunk is unsatisfying.
Moments later, I hear another bang, but this one sounds like it’s coming from the next room. I glare at the adjoining door. “Can you people not leave me the fuck alone?”
My neighbor knocks again.
“What?” I whip the door open to find Matt in a T-shirt and sweats, his hair a disaster like he was woken from a dead sleep.
“You need help with anything?”
“No.” I try to shut the door, but Matt’s big hand comes up to stop it.
“I got a text from Ginger,” the producer says. “She says she’s packing it in.”
“And?”
Matt has those deep-set eyes like Al Pacino in The Godfather . Makes him a little scary to look at. “And I can’t help but think you’re partially responsible for this.” The grave tone of his voice is just as intimidating.
“I have no control over her. I have no control over anything, in case you assholes were worried you weren’t doing your job thoroughly enough.”
“Hey, brother. You’re the one who signed on for this. I wasn’t the one moving the pen across those papers for you. So how ’bout you calm it down a little?”
Matt and I are the same height, but when it comes down to who would win in a street brawl, Matt’s bigger, and he looks like he’s had some experience with it. I back off, leaving the door open between our rooms.
Instead of coming through it, Matt leans on the frame. “Sucks not being able to have what you want.”
“It does.” I sit on the edge of my bed, elbows on my knees, head hung, gathering my thoughts to try to make some sense out of them. I need my wits about me if I expect to make it through the next two weeks.
“For what it’s worth, I think she cares about you,” Matt says.
“Jenna can go to hell—along with the rest of you.”
“Wasn’t talking about Jenna.”
I look up. “Doesn’t matter though, does it?”
“I said for what it’s worth. I know it’s not worth much.”
“It’s not,” I agree. “Drink?”
“Sure.”
I break open the seal on the minibar and pull out all the mini bottles. I toss them onto the bed, selecting a gin and drinking it down in one swallow. Matt takes the whiskey.
“Also—for what it’s worth,” Matt raises his bottle for me to clink, “I know how you feel.”
I lower my voice. “You better not be talking about Ginger.”
“Nah...”
This time, we both have a seat on the bed, choosing from the remaining alcohol. I go with vodka.
“I take it you’re not even trying anymore,” he says.
“Nope.”
“There’s two weeks left,” the producer says. “You never know what’ll happen.”
Whose side is this guy on? Oh, yeah. That’s right. The show. Always about making good TV.
“Well, let me tell you what’s not gonna happen, Matt. I’m not gonna wake up one day and suddenly want to spend the rest of my life with Jenna Gibson. That’s a guarantee. So you can quit barking up that tree. I’d rather die alone.”
“Tell me your secret, then. How’d you get over her? Because if there’s a pill to take—some kind of seminar I could go to?—”
“There was something else I ended up wanting more.”
“That’s not helpful.”
I clink bottles with him. “Also, her choosing the other guy ended up being a big turnoff.”
Matt looks at me like I’m full of shit. “Did you not love her, then?”
“You can’t believe everything you see on TV.”
“Right.” Matt chuckles, then sighs heavily. “Maybe it’ll be the same with Ginger. Out of sight, out of mind.”
The thought of Ginger being out of my sight demolishes my will to go on. The alcohol sours in my stomach. “Ginger’s different.”
“So what’s the plan?” Matt asks.
“Plan is I pick Cassie, and we do a slow fade into oblivion. She can have the money. I just want out.”
“If that’s the case, I gotta let you in on something, Hale.”
I unscrew another mini bottle of vodka. “What’s that?”
“Cassie’s who we want for next season.”
“She’ll be happy to hear that.”
“Good. But it means you have to wind up with someone else.”
My blood hardens in my veins. My entire body goes rigid. “Thought you didn’t get to decide that, Matt.”
“Your choice at the end will be Jenna or Hannah.”
Matt works closely with The Panel so he would know, I guess.
“Hannah? What about Maggie? Or Daisy?”
“Michelle knows you won’t pick Hannah over Jenna.”
“The hell I won’t—” I stand, the floor tilting in my vision. The alcohol hits me all at once.
Matt rises to meet me eye-to-eye. “I think it’s time to reconsider what you came here for. Ginger’s a lost cause. She’s gone. Cassie’s ours now. You need to dig deep, consider what you’ve been through with Jenna. If you hadn’t gotten distracted with Ginger, admit it—Jenna coming back would have ended the show right then and there.”
Is he right? Getting drunker by the second, I try to imagine it. A world without Ginger in it. The show without her breathing down my neck and looking over my shoulder. All the lackluster connections with the other women, the missing spark.
If there were no Ginger, would Jenna’s return have been the light at the end of the long, depressing tunnel I entered when she rejected me?
Is Michelle right, too?
“People don’t come here and put themselves through this because they trust themselves to do the right thing, Elliot. They come for help. That’s why you came back, right?”
That’s what I told myself.
Matt doesn’t need an affirmation on his theory, though. “I see it. Your entire Panel sees it. Hell, I think Ginger even sees it, and that’s why she’s leaving. Your path is clear, but you have to trust the show. It works.”
“It didn’t work for her.” It’s my final argument. The one thing Matt can’t argue. The show stuck Jenna with Eric. She didn’t want Eric.
She wanted me .
“She’s back, Elliot. The show’s still working for her. Her journey was just a longer one.”
“I can’t believe this.” Unwilling to stand anymore, I drop onto the bed, my head spinning, my mouth bone dry.
“You have to trust us. We know what we’re doing.”
“I need to speak with Michelle.”
“You’ll get to. Once they give their blessing to the final three.”
“When does that happen?”
“Tomorrow you’ll see Maggie and Daisy. One of them will go home. Thursday you’ll be with Hannah. Friday is Jenna. The Panel’s decision comes Saturday.”
I bend forward to hold my head in his hands. “So that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
When I arrive at the Louvre on Friday morning, Jenna stands in the Tuileries Garden beneath an umbrella to protect her perfect hair from the misty rain.
I approach as the challenge grows in her eyes. “It still hasn’t been fifteen minutes yet?” I ask.
She gives me a snarky smirk. “Not yet.”
“We’re rolling,” Kat reminds us.
I force a smile. “You look beautiful.”
She snorts before letting her face relax into a grin more genuine. “Thank you. So do you.”
“Ready to go hunt down some art?”
“Ready if you are.”
With my hands tucked safely in my pockets, I extend my elbow for her to link an arm through. I take her umbrella, and we walk toward the pyramid entrance. I scan the crew, double- checking, and triple-checking to make sure Ginger is gone. Days ago, in the gardens of Versailles, we walked hand in hand.
Missing her sits like a dead weight in my chest, and the day grows four shades darker.
“So what’s good here?” Jenna asks.
It would be funny if Ginger were asking. “Depends what you’re in the mood for.”
“Obviously the Mona Lisa .”
“Obviously.”
“Is the Venus de Milo here, too?”
“Last time I checked,” I say.
“Well, what do you want to see?”
“I was under the impression we have a list.”
Jenna stops walking, turning to stare up at me. “Are you planning to give me a chance or not?”
She’s right. I’m not even trying. With Ginger gone and The Panel already locked into a decision, I either have to find a way to be okay with the ending they scripted or leave the show.
I do well financially, but I’m not sure my low six-figure income will be enough to fend off the lawsuits I’d have to deal with if they find me in breach of my contract.
“Why did you come back here, Jenna? And don’t give me the flowers and hearts reason. Tell me something real.”
A sharp dose of reality might be exactly what we both need.
She grimaces. It’s not what I expect, and my doubt kicks in again.
“You’ve made mistakes before. Haven’t you?” she asks.
“Of course.”
“We all get carried away sometimes. This environment is...intimate. Everybody knows everything, everyone’s studying you, watching every move, judging how you act every second of every day. Right?”
I frown. “Sure.”
“It makes you question everything. Even the deepest feelings, the ones that feel truest to who you are. My feelings for you scared me. So they scared my Panel. It was all happening so fast, the emotion, the connection...the love.”
I understand. I was swept up in it, too.
“They said it couldn’t be you,” she says.
“The Panel?” I think about what Matt told me last night. That Cassie was off the table. Did they do the same thing with Jenna? Had they already picked me to be here now, starring in my own season?
Ginger knew all along...
Jenna nods, but her eyes tell the truth. She wasn’t allowed to choose me. Not really. She’d been talked to and manipulated the same way I was last night when Matt and I drained the minibar and commiserated about unrequited love.
“But I’m here now.” Her voice softens, an echo of the intimacy we once, briefly, shared. “Free to follow my heart. I wish you were glad to see me.”
“I am,” I whisper, my head lowered in thought.
Jenna runs her hands down my arms. Finding my curled fists in my pockets, she encloses them in her cold grasp.
“I think,” she says quietly, “we should go find this little painting everyone’s so jazzed about and make up for a lot of lost time. What do you say?”
Something in me breaks. Some shred of hope for a different outcome, or my will to beat the system. Ginger is gone. She gave up. She left me here, knowing exactly what was about to happen. She let me go. For the show.
There’s no point resisting it anymore. Matched got to me, and now they have me right where they want me.
I’m all out of plans. “I say let’s do it.”