Chapter Fifteen #2
From below, we can hear Lainey berating the poor park employee. I’ll be surprised if he’s still alive by the time we make it down.
“Remain calm!” Norbert shouts. “We’re calling in backup! We’ll get you down before the storm hits!”
Addison glances at me. “You look a little green.”
That’s probably because my avocado toast is threatening to make a reappearance in my mouth.
“Fine,” I mutter. “I’m fine.” Maybe if I keep saying it, it’ll become true. The wheel will start working again, the storm clouds will vanish, and I will be able to crawl under the covers in my bunk bed.
From the direction of the highway, sirens start to wail, and a few seconds later, a fire truck careens into the empty parking lot.
“Backup has arrived!” Norbert shouts into the bullhorn. “I repeat, backup has—”
“Give me that thing!” Lainey shrieks.
There’s a loud squeak as the fire truck brakes beside the Ferris wheel, and then the huge ladder swivels toward us.
“You’ll have to climb down yourselves,” Norbert calls.
A muffled male voice comes over the bullhorn, “We usually go up and help people down—”
“No!” Now it’s Lainey. “Absolutely not. We can’t have you putting yourself in danger like that!”
“Ma’am, I’m a firefighter.”
“Nonsense,” she says. “Is this thing on?” Her voice booms up over the bullhorn. “Come on down, you three. It’s perfectly safe. Roland first. We only have the park rented for another hour and I want to get some individual shots before the rain starts.”
Roland stands shakily, holding out his arms for balance. He reaches out and grabs the ladder positioned next to the cart.
“Be careful,” Addison says. “Don’t hurt your knee.”
It’s so unlike her that I do a double-take, but the concerned expression on her face seems genuine.
“Don’t worry,” Roland says. “I’ll be fine.” He hoists himself over the edge, sending the cart rocking horrifically, and clambers onto the top of the ladder. “See? Nothing to it. And they’re setting up a crash mat just in case.”
He smiles like this should make us feel better. It doesn’t. All I can think about is that if I die in five seconds, his face will be the last thing I ever see.
He starts to climb down, and soon his head is out of sight.
“Of course he didn’t wait,” Addison mutters.
I look up at her in surprise.
“So are you going first, or should I?” she says.
What I really want to ask is if she thinks they’d let me wait up here until the Ferris wheel starts working again, but instead, I say, “You go first.” Olie warned me about waterborne-date danger, but I didn’t consider what Addison could do to me a hundred feet in the air.
Thank goodness this date doesn’t involve wrestling—I could end up like that woman a few seasons ago who won the “Battle of the Boobs” but permanently damaged her left nipple.
Addison steps over the side of the cart and onto the ladder. “I’ll wait for you.”
“You don’t have to do that.” As terrifying as climbing down is, doing it with Addison right below me is scarier.
She shrugs and tugs her body mic loose, then drops the battery pack onto the floor of the cart.
“Suit yourself.” Her head disappears too, and then it’s just me.
Oh, and the cameras. I’m sure my own microphone is capturing every one of my shallow breaths, so I follow Addison’s lead and untangle myself from the wires, then place the microphone and battery pack on the seat.
The producers don’t need to hear whatever embarrassing things I say to myself on the way down.
With shaking hands, I grip the edge of the ladder and hoist one leg over the edge, then the other, until they’re both firmly planted on the second-highest rung.
So far, so good.
“Nicely done, Miss Georgia,” Norbert calls. “Easy does it now.”
I take one step down the ladder, shimmying my hands down the edges. My chest squeezes with panic as I take another step down. Then another. Then another. Then—
My foot slips and I let out a shriek, clinging to the ladder for dear life.
I don’t want to die on reality TV. I don’t want to die on reality TV. I don’t want to die on reality TV.
It would be too humiliating to bear.
Something touches my ankle, and I shriek again, clinging harder to the metal rungs.
“Relax,” Addison says sharply. “It’s just me. You’re fine, you didn’t even lose your footing.”
I shake tears from my eyes and glance down—a mistake—but once I get over the sheer height, I focus on Addison’s face.
“Please don’t kill me,” I beg. “I’ll do anything you want—I’ll leave the show, I’ll lie and tell Roland I pushed you during tennis. Just don’t do this.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The two-on-one date,” I blubber. “‘Only one can survive’ and all that bullshit. I just thought…”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m helping you get down. All that villain shit is just for the cameras anyway.” She pouts at me, her expression daring me to believe her.
“Why would you—” I grip the ladder more tightly, shuffling my feet further onto the rung. “Why would you pretend like that?”
She lowers her voice, but I doubt the mics on the cart above will pick up what she says. “Why does anyone come on this show? I want to get more followers.” She shrugs. “Lainey said if I went along with the villain edit, she’d give me more screen time.”
My head is spinning. In and of itself, this isn’t surprising—it’s an open secret that producers trade favors with contestants, that some villains are made, not born.
Even the Love Shack prep book I tore through mentioned the possibility.
I’m more surprised that anyone would consent to being so publicly awful, just for a brief moment of fame.
“You can do this,” Addison continues. “Show all those bitches they were wrong about you.”
I blink in confusion. She was supposed to be the “bitch” that I was proving wrong.
She scoffs. Sexy scoffing should be illegal. If I tried, I’d sound like Presley coughing up a hairball.
“You seriously think that the Ferris wheel just ‘stopped working’? Come on—if you don’t start moving, I might be forced to push you.” I look at her in panic, but she smirks. “Kidding.”
She begins her descent, and I take another step down the ladder, trying to distract myself. “You think they did it on purpose?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them.”
The scoffing is the same, but the way she’s talking is nothing like the Addison I’ve gotten used to.
I have ten or so rungs left when my foot slips again.
I barely manage to hang on, gripping with all the arm strength I have.
The ladder shakes as Addison hurries up until she’s right beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist. When Rhett did this back in the mansion, I felt safe.
But now, despite what Addison said, I can’t help but feel panicked.
Only my toes are hanging onto the rung of the ladder, and Addison is much stronger than me.
“Addison!” Lainey calls. “Are you really helping her down?”
Addison grimaces, but the expression vanishes quickly. She looks at me, then heaves a breath like she’s working herself up for something. My limbs surge with adrenaline. Forget the cardio Serena suggested, I should’ve taken self-defense lessons.
“Sorry,” she says quietly.
My stomach drops. “No—”
Her arms disappear from my middle, and she gives me a little push. It’s enough to send me flying off the ladder. A scream leaves my mouth as I scramble to catch myself, but my fingers only find empty air.
I am going to die on reality TV.
How utterly humiliating.