Chapter Thirteen Carys #2
I blink. This feels off course too. Because, yes, I think we should talk to production, but wouldn’t it make sense to bring this whole situation to them together? Perhaps we speak to Louise and Reb at the same time?
I realise belatedly, that I’ve been blabbering my thoughts out loud.
‘Carys,’ she says slowly, and a nervous ache grows in the middle of my torso. ‘What do you think is going to happen today?’
‘We don’t have to,’ I say, waving my hands.
It all comes out in a nervous rush. ‘I don’t want to pressure you, or anything, and I know you probably want time to break things off with Warren first. But maybe we can talk about the easiest way to tell production so that we can leave without ruffling too many feathers.
Or, you know, whenever we decide to go? I don’t want to rush you. ’
That ache turns into a pit when Dolly shuffles off the bed stiffly, roughly throwing last night’s dress back on. She doesn’t look at me the whole time.
Still turned away from me, she takes one long deep breath in, like she’s preparing to monologue. ‘Carys, what are you talking about?’ she asks, her voice steady and flat.
‘Us?’ It’s supposed to be declarative, insistent, but it comes out as a question. I can’t get a handle on any of the words or how they sound because my heart is beating so loudly in my ears that I can barely hear myself.
Dolly looks up at the ceiling, and I understand this behaviour.
It’s not the same as my lack of eye contact, which happens because it’s easier for me to concentrate if I don’t have to think about reacting or emoting or reading the other person properly.
The kind of not looking Dolly is doing is about not wanting to look at me. And that is terrifying.
‘Carys,’ she says slowly.
Why won’t she look at me?
‘Carys, last night you said it would be just once.’
The whiplash of this conversation is unending, and I scramble through the script of last night to try and remember what she’s talking about. ‘I said I wanted to feel the fireworks.’
‘Just once,’ Dolly insists.
‘I don’t think I said that. I meant… like… for once.’
‘Carys, you said just once. I remember it. I wouldn’t— I went along with you because I thought we understood each other.’
That can’t be right? Wasn’t it obvious that I meant much more than a one-night stand? Because after we kissed everything changed?
Didn’t it?
Panic floods through me because she’s misunderstood or maybe I’ve confused things by not being clear.
Dolly shakes her head and backs away from me slightly like I’m a wild animal. I feel like one, caged and ready to snap.
‘Fuck,’ Dolly whispers, wiping her hand down her face.
‘You’re coming with me,’ I say, cursing myself that I forgot the pesky question mark again.
‘What?’
‘I’m leaving.’
‘Yes.’ She nods once as though this was the obvious part.
‘And you’re coming with me?’ I ask properly this time.
But there’s a familiar look in her eyes, that look of pity and regret, the look I’ve seen too many times.
‘Aren’t you?’ My voice falters.
Dolly closes her eyes for just a second, and I watch in slow motion as she kneels on the floor next to the bed to take my hand.
I wish I had put my clothes on too. With my free hand, I clutch the sheets up against me, as though they might protect me from the emotional barrage that is coming for me.
‘Carys,’ she says, very slowly like she’s talking to a frightened animal.
‘I really enjoyed what we had together last night, and I’m really glad that you seem to have got some clarity on some things.
I am so happy we had that moment last night, and I’m sorry if there’s been some confusion about the boundaries going forward. ’
It feels stupid to hope that she’s going to say she wants to be with me.
And yet I do.
Right up until she says, ‘But Carys, I’m not leaving the experiment. I’m staying, and I’m going to marry Warren.’
I didn’t realise you could feel your heart break in two.
‘Why?’ The words are barely more than a whisper.
‘My reasons haven’t changed.’
‘And they are?’
I feel the frustration radiating off her. ‘I have responsibilities, Carys.’
Responsibilities? What is she even talking about? She’s never mentioned having responsibilities. Does this just mean she doesn’t want me?
I can’t do this naked, so I pull on my pyjamas as she stands up and moves away from me. The distance feels like a wound.
‘So you’re going to marry a man you don’t love,’ I say, and I hate that I can hear the desperation in my voice.
‘Yes.’ She says it so flatly, like this is a totally normal thing to say. Wait? She doesn’t love him?
‘A man you can’t love,’ I murmur as I realise what’s going on.
Now she looks pissed off. ‘That’s right. I’m a lesbian.’ She slow claps. ‘You worked it out.’
‘And last night didn’t change anything?’ I’m hot and angry and I know I should be pleading or supplicant, but I am just so fucking furious. ‘You’re a lesbian, Dolly.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ she growls, her eyes dancing to the door. ‘A little note from me to you: I’m almost certain that we’ve both had plenty of people throwing that word at us pejoratively, but I’ve reclaimed it for myself and I’d rather you didn’t weaponise it either.’
I feel scolded.
‘Fine.’ That stings and I feel dizzy, because she is right. But that doesn’t override the shaking, horrible bad feeling coursing through my body.
I swing back to desperation as the spinning, spirally feeling of rejection claws at me. There must be some way we can salvage this.
‘What if we recouple? Together?’ I suggest hurriedly. ‘That way you don’t have to leave the show, if that’s important to you? Would we be their first same-gender couple? That must be a big deal.’
The look she gives me now is harder to read, sadder. ‘You know that’s not what this show is, Carys.’
I don’t really, because I barely watched it beforehand, which continues to be one of my most pointlessly self-sabotaging decisions. Apparently it was a lucky guess that there’s not been an LGBTQ+ couple yet.
‘Do you know how little airtime queerness gets on reality TV?’ Dolly continues.
‘That’s why we’re always relegated to our own spinoffs – The Queer Ultimatum not The Ultimatum.
That one season of Are You the One? where everyone was bisexual for a gimmick.
The I Kissed A franchise that has only queer people dating the same gender.
Perhaps, if we’re lucky, one couple a season on Married at First Sight. ’
Obviously I have no idea what any of these shows are, which means I can’t argue back. I can feel the tears welling up because everything she’s saying is so fucking sensible and all I want is to hear her tell me that she wants to be with me. Is that stupid? I feel stupid.
She looks quite sad when she says, ‘Wedded Bliss is not ready for lesbians. Nor are, in my opinion, half the brands out there waiting to work with a nice heterosexual couple from the show. The exact brands I’m banking on giving Warren and me some financial stability.’
This makes me angrier, this time on Warren’s behalf. ‘So you’re just going to lie to him?’
Dolly’s hand goes to her forehead like I’m giving her a headache. ‘He and I have an understanding.’
‘What does that mean?’ I cross my arms, deeply aware that I sound like a toddler asking why over and over. ‘Explain it to me.’
‘Fucking hell, Carys,’ she hisses, fully exasperated with me now. ‘It’s not about feelings for us and that’s fine. That is the relationship we are building, that works for us. Centuries of marriages were built on business arrangements.’
‘But you’re faking being in love with him,’ I point out.
‘Well, yeah,’ she says, like I’m stupid. ‘We’ve got to sell it, haven’t we? This is a television show after all. Most of us are not actually here to find someone to fall in love with.’
This stings. Not just because that’s exactly why I’m here, but it’s just another reminder that I’m operating on another planet from most people. ‘I am,’ I say quietly.
‘And look how well that’s going,’ Dolly whispers, not unkindly.
My last remaining hopes crumble into dust. She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t want me, not enough to give up on this business arrangement for the chance at something real with me.
What’s so wrong with me?
I drop back down onto the bed, the room still spinning.
‘I can give you some names of people to look up on the outside,’ Dolly continues.
‘They’ll be discreet but can talk through all this early coming out stuff, if that’s what you want.
Guide you towards some help, some community.
There’s plenty of that in London at least. It’s a lot to process your own sexuality, especially when you realise at an inopportune time. ’
I feel like I might be sick.
‘Carys?’ Dolly reaches out for my hand but I cannot cope with processing her touch right now, or all the different meanings of it, so I slap her hand away.
She looks surprised and hurt.
Fuck.
Shame hits, and I want the floor to swallow me.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
Clearly, this is enough to run Dolly’s well of sympathy dry. ‘Carys, I have responsibilities. I have made commitments. I can’t leave the experiment just because you’re having a late-in-life-lesbian crisis.’
‘I’m twenty-seven,’ I hiss, as though that’s the most egregious part of this conversation.
I can’t believe it. She’s breaking up with me. After last night, she’s breaking this off.
‘We’re not together, Carys,’ she says, and I realise I said some version of this out loud. ‘There’s nothing to break up.’
Nothing?
Is that what she thinks of me?
Nothing?
I need to get out of here. I need some air.
Dolly stands between me and the door, her face buried in her hands. ‘God, I knew I shouldn’t have slept with you. Of course this would be a mistake.’
Heat races through my veins. I can’t tell if I’m going to cry or scream. ‘I’m not a mistake. I’m not nothing.’