43. 43
Week six of Bella Amore kicked off hot and bright as another heat wave rolled through Italy. Everything was sticky and sweaty, and the sun was unbearable. Even spending the entire day in the pool did nothing to cool anyone down.
Despite the physical discomfort, I found myself at peace in a way I hadn’t been in years. Everything was on the table with Callum, and he hadn’t walked away. Hadn’t deemed it too much or too complicated. He wanted to be with me, past bruises and all.
Just one single dark cloud remained on my horizon: Gavin.
I still couldn’t quite believe our past came out the way it did.
That whatever he was doing while I was in the villa was enough for me to be asked about him on the live show.
It all felt so unnecessarily public, and even the bubble of the villa couldn’t save me from wondering what I would be walking into when this was all over.
I knew, in theory, that anyone, anywhere, could watch the show. My parents, for one, had told me they downloaded a VPN so they could keep up with it. But knowing that and actually seeing the effects of it in real life were two different things.
To me, Bella Amore felt like a distinctly British phenomena; something I could participate in while still being able to return to the US like nothing had happened. I would have never thought anyone back home would care to watch.
But could I have been wrong? Had the popularity of the show made its way across the pond? Would it be impossible to escape no matter what continent I was on?
Those were all questions I wouldn’t have the answers to until I was out of the villa, so I tried my best to push it all away. The broader impact of Bella Amore on my normal life was something I could sort out later. I simply wanted to enjoy the present and not be dragged down by the past.
It was our last week in the villa. Even with my deal-turned-relationship with Callum securely in place, I was still shocked that I had lasted so long; that I had really been here for almost a month and a half. It felt like a lifetime since I boarded that flight to Italy.
So much had changed.
I had changed.
Bella Amore had been transformative. I couldn’t remember the last time I allowed myself just to be; to settle into where I was and root myself in the present.
There had always been another job to get, another milestone to mark, another box to check.
Looking back now, I could see clearly the path that led me here and how things had gone so wrong with Gavin.
I had been constantly looking forward, so far forward that I didn't realize what was happening right next to me.
This show had been a stressful, wildly emotional ride, and I had initially spent most of it second guessing my decisions and what I was doing with my life. But at some point, I had stopped worrying and simply starting being. I had learned to let go of expectation and to be present in the moment.
It was in this wonderful head space where I now found myself; simply glad to be here, happy that I had said “yes” to the opportunity all those weeks ago.
***
Tuesday night there was a dumping.
Gemma sashayed her way in, read out the results, and swiftly took her leave.
It was all quite simple, really, as far as dumpings went.
Samantha and Louis were voted the least compatible match, so their time in the villa came to an end.
It was sad, especially knowing it was the beginning of more goodbyes I knew were right around the corner.
The villa was rather quiet the next day. There was a certain fragility that had come over the place. As if everyone was aware the clock was ticking down, and soon it would all be over.
That evening’s cocktail party, however, relit the spark that had been missing all day. When we walked out to the garden, a row of picnic baskets was set up on the kitchen counter.
“Bellas, grab the basket with your name on it and spread out around the garden. Do not open your baskets until instructed to do so,” a producer’s voice rang out across the yard.
This was new, not something I had seen done on other seasons, so I was excited to see what would happen next.
Callum and I grabbed our basket and settled down on the lawn by the pool’s edge.
He snagged the card off the top of the basket and read it aloud.
“Poppy and Callum,” he said, putting on a ridiculously fancy accent.
“You will be going on your final fantasy date tomorrow. In this basket are clues as to where you are headed. Cheers!”
“A date?” I exclaimed.
“A date!” he exclaimed back.
When the producers called out the okay, we opened the basket and started pulling out items from inside: a snorkel, fins, an assortment of plastic toy fish.
“I've always wanted to go snorkeling!” I told him.
Callum smiled over at me, and he looked so sincere, so ridiculously cute, that I couldn’t help it; I wrapped my arms around him and knocked him over to the ground. He laughed and rolled us around until he was the one on top of me.
Staring up at him, something warm and solid hummed out into my veins and coursed through my body.
“You’re spectacular, Pop,” Callum said softly as his hand caressed the side of my face.
And then he kissed me, and it was so gentle and so caring that it took my breath away.
When we pulled apart, he kept looking at me with that heated gaze of his. “I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else,” he said.
“Me either,” I replied, my words barely a whisper but their meaning strong and true.
Laying there, wrapped up in each other on the grass under the hot night sky, it felt like the things I had been missing in life had finally been found. At long last, the pieces were clicking into place.
I never wanted it to end.