Chapter Eight Hell Is a Surprise You Didn’t Mentally Prepare For
Chapter Eight
Hell Is a Surprise You Didn’t Mentally Prepare For
The tiki bar is near the pool. It’s an intense setup, complete with a wet bar, a built-in display rack, and of course a bunch of tiki torches. You can tell that whoever built this place was serious about having enough liquor to knock out a frat house because there’s a door leading to a storage shed that must contain even more alcohol.
But when Leah positions me and Daniel in front of the shed, arranging us just so, I get the feeling that it’s not to show us the expensive champagne.
“What?” Leah frowns as she presses her headset into her ear. Now that she’s plugged her earpiece into her walkie-talkie, we can’t hear anything. “Really? Dawn, I don’t know. Are you sure you want to do it like this?” From the way Leah winces, I assume Dawn Taylor isn’t happy with being questioned.
Leah grimaces, then sighs and rakes a hand through her curls. She says, “I’m—I’m really sorry about this. Open the door.”
I hesitate, and my gaze goes to Daniel. He widens his eyes at me and lifts his shoulders in a tiny shrug. What kind of trap is this? Is there some kind of Survivor -style immunity idol challenge waiting for us behind the door? Is a celebrity preparing to prank us? Have the producers trained a viper to bite our faces?
Finally, Daniel steps in front of me, squares his shoulders, and throws the door open.
What’s inside is a million times worse than a poisoned viper launched straight at my face. At least maybe I could’ve dodged that.
No, inside is Chase and Selena, looking like they’re two steps away from having full-on sex in the supply room of the tiki bar. Her bikini is askew, his hair is rumpled, and they only look up when they hear me gasp.
“Ohmygod!” Selena wrenches away from Chase. “Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit.”
“Wha—” Chase looks around, bewildered. When he catches sight of me, he has the grace to look stricken. “Alice! I—”
He struggles to sit up, forgetting that Selena is straddling him, and instead lands in a heap on the floor, taking Selena with him in a tangle of limbs.
My eyes flick to Lex, who lowers the boom mic closer to us, just in case our regular microphones somehow aren’t sufficient to capture this moment of stunning humiliation. I wouldn’t say that I thought Lex and I were friends , but I do shoot them a look and Lex just shrugs—they’re just doing their job.
I’m suddenly hyperaware of the cameras pointed at me and Daniel. There are multiple, because I guess they need to have footage of us reacting from every possible angle.
It’s clear what our roles are right now: the jilted lovers. Half of me wants to scream, or run to the tiki bar, grab a drink, and throw it in Chase’s face. But the other half of me knows all too well that this moment didn’t happen on its own. Dawn Taylor told Leah to bring us here. They knew what was happening. They didn’t stop it. Hell, they may have encouraged it. And now they’re trying to get the most out of this moment by filming my reaction.
I should probably give in to what I’m feeling and let them have their big blowup. But part of me is too stubborn to play this part that they’ve written for me.
I can’t stop the tears welling up in my eyes, but I can freeze my hands to my sides, fix my expression, seal my lips together. I won’t let them have this.
Chase ducks his head in an “aw, shucks” gesture. Like he ate the slice of cake I was saving or forgot to fill the car up with gas again. Not like he just betrayed my trust, ended a three-year relationship, and threw away our chance at winning the one million dollars that I so desperately need.
My mind goes to very small, very stupid things. We’re on a cell phone plan together. Neither of us can afford our current apartment on our own. We only own one frying pan. The logistics of breaking up are drowning me. Did he even stop to think about who would get the couch before he cheated on me? How is he going to cook without a frying pan?
Oh, who am I kidding. He doesn’t know how to cook. He barely knows how to bake frozen pizza. For our entire relationship, I’ve been the one holding his hand. I should’ve gotten to choose when to let go. Not him. And not like this.
When Chase and I first got together, I wasn’t thinking about forever. But as the years went by, I got used to how things were between us. I always knew exactly what he wanted for dinner, or what he felt like watching on TV, or what he liked in bed. And I knew that he’d always text me back, and that he’d remember my birthday and make a huge deal out of it, even if I asked him specifically not to. He was stable, consistent, safe. That’s not terribly romantic, I know. But when you’re someone who runs on anxiety and caffeine, having one less person to worry about is nice.
Once my mom got sick, when everything was crashing down around me, Chase was the one constant I could hold on to. Cindy and Tara were there for me, too, as were so many other people, but they all had their own lives. I didn’t want to burden them too much with how crushing everything felt, how my world was falling to pieces.
Despite the sun beating down on us, I’m starting to go cold all over. I feel like any second now, I might throw up or pass out. The tears in my eyes are starting to spill over, and I turn away from Chase and Selena and this whole nightmare scene—and see Daniel, watching me, not Selena and Chase. He looks—I’m sure this can’t be right, but he looks worried.
But then his gaze flashes to the cameras, and that look is gone. He turns to Chase and Selena.
“What the hell, guys? We were in a secret alliance,” Daniel says, leaning into Lex’s boom mic. Then, quietly to me, “You’re not breathing, Alice.”
He’s right. I suck in a deep breath, and I feel a little bit less like I’m going to faint.
Just then, Dawn Taylor materializes at our side, summoned like some kind of sultry drama demon, with Seth right behind her.
“What a turn of events,” she says in a tone that borders on sympathy but doesn’t quite make it there. “Tell us what you’re thinking.”
“I’m sorry, Danny,” Selena says, reaching across to grip his hand. He lets her touch him, but he doesn’t take her hand, doesn’t return the clasp. “We were just hanging out, and it was so hot, and this PA said we could cool off in here, and then—” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”
“I think someone locked us in by accident,” Chase says, scratching his head. “It was like seven minutes in heaven, or something.”
“Alice, Daniel, this is your chance to get things off your chest,” Leah prompts us.
I shake my head. If I talk, I might start crying in earnest, and I can’t think of anything that would make this worse.
Dawn Taylor places a hand on my shoulder. “Alice, don’t you have anything to say? Your fiancé just broke your heart—”
At that, Selena glares at Chase and hisses, “You were engaged?!”
She glances at my ring finger, and I realize she’s seeing the engagement ring for the first time—which makes sense, because I wasn’t wearing it yesterday.
Dawn Taylor is still going. “—and that’s a pretty big betrayal. How are you going to move forward?”
How do I move forward? I don’t. I can’t. I feel frozen in this moment.
“Babe, I’m so sorry,” Chase says, reaching out to touch my arm. “I didn’t think—”
That does it, that destroys me. A sob escapes before I can stop it. I cover my mouth, willing myself to stop. Feeling. Anything.
“Hey, this sucks,” Daniel says. Immediately, Dawn Taylor and the crew shift their focus back to him. “Selena and I only just started dating a month ago. She needed someone to go on this show with her, and I thought it’d be fun. We never talked about being exclusive, but obviously, I thought competing on this show together meant we’d at least see this through.”
“Danny,” Selena says, her own eyes brimming with tears.
“Daniel,” he says. “Please call me Daniel.”
“Daniel,” she repeats. “I should’ve talked to you first. I really am sorry.”
“I know,” he says. He turns to Dawn Taylor. “Look, at the end of the day, we’re all adults. I wish Selena the best. Yeah, I’m bummed, but I’m not going to go berserk and flip a table here or anything.”
“Of course not,” Dawn Taylor says, looking like she definitely wanted one of us to go berserk and flip a table. “We’re all adults here.”
“So what happens now?” Daniel asks.
The answer’s obvious to me. How can we be in a competition for couples if none of us are couples anymore? I mean, maybe Daniel and Selena can stay together after this. It’s not like they experienced a massive betrayal of trust like I did. But I can’t stay with Chase. Not after seeing him with someone else.
I look down at my ring finger, at the discounted ring I made Chase exchange my original engagement ring for. Why did I even get engaged to him? Because my mom wanted me to, and she had cancer, and I didn’t want to let her down. Did I really want to spend the rest of my life with someone who I couldn’t count on, someone I was always cleaning up after? Maybe, in an alternate universe where none of this happened, he could’ve changed. But in this universe, I didn’t care enough to make him change, and he didn’t care enough to try.
Dating him had been easy. He’d asked me out, and I’d gone along with it. And I’d loved him. I loved that he was silly and fun and overflowing with this effortless, easygoing charm that made people want to be his friend. And when I was with him, I could convince myself that I was silly and fun and easygoing, too.
But I’m not. I’m anxious and overcompetitive and ambitious in a way that is deeply uncool. I work too hard and try too hard and want more than I’ve been given—and I don’t think Chase has ever felt that way.
I look down at him. He’s still on the floor, tangled up with Selena. I say, “It’s over, Chase. We’re over.”
Dating Chase had been easy. In the end, breaking up is easy too.
Dawn Taylor breaks into a bright, megawatt smile. This is what she wanted. Drama. Scandal. Emotional damage on all sides. Everything you could want in a tight sixty minutes of reality TV programming.
“Selena, Chase, I’m sorry to say that for you and your partners, your journey through hell is over.” Dawn Taylor glances around. “Someone, bring me a torch. This feels like a torch moment.”
Freya sidles her way past the cameraperson. “Not yet. Peter Dixon wants to weigh in. He’s in the war room.”