Chapter 6
ON THE SEASON FINALE, Aaron dropped down to one knee, produced one of the three rings I’d preapproved from LovedBy’s jewelry sponsor and said, “I’m ready to start my Happily Ever After with you.”
After, we rode the famous LovedBy carriage away from the house and into the sunset.
There’s a long, lingering shot of us. The sky fading from periwinkle and pink to a darker velvety blue.
The carriage cresting over the hill behind the LovedBy mansion.
I’d seen other couples take that ride before, having watched the dozen or so seasons before mine, and I’d never thought about where the road led to.
Just some warm and hazy Happily Ever After like the show promised.
But the truth is, it didn’t go anywhere.
The second we were out of the camera shot, the driver stopped the horses, and we got out to wait for the production car that would actually take us to our hotel.
I’d felt happy, of course, but overwhelmingly, I’d felt relief.
I’d done it. I’d found the perfect guy. I’d been flung up into the air and told to perform a perfect basket toss, and I’d landed it perfectly. I just hadn’t realized at the time that I’d landed in quicksand, and my whole world was about to get sucked away.
But I should have known.
Of course an open-air carriage wasn’t going to merge onto I-10 and spirit me away to Happily Ever After. Of course I hadn’t found my one true love on a TV show. Of course it was too good to be true.
Maybe for some people, it really works. For people who happen to find that gem of a man who came on the show for all the “right reasons” and knew how to see through the facade and the fairy tale.
But that wasn’t my experience.
The truth about Aaron had trickled out bit by bit. There were enough hints that I should have figured it out. The way he always kept his phone facedown when we were together. The smell of santal on his clothes when he came in the door.
Yet the full truth still hit me like semitruck.
Aaron had been dating another woman—Cara Lancolm—the entire time.
The whole show shoots for about two months, but then for another two months, the final couple goes into hiding while the show airs, so viewers don’t get spoiled about which guy is the last one standing.
Then, they film the finale, live. At the finale, Aaron and I were supposed to get married on TV.
That was the day—of all the days she could’ve chosen in between—that Cara went public with her story.
We were literally in the middle of filming the “getting ready montage” in the “bridal suite” when a producer delivered the news to me on camera.
Cara had just posted online claiming she and Aaron had been dating for about a year, and she had no idea he was going on the show—saying Aaron told her he was going to be competing in a golf tour in Asia and would be “hard to reach” for a few months.
But it was clear to me that the whole thing was just a publicity stunt orchestrated by the two of them.
Cara’s jewelry line skyrocketed—everyone wearing those stupid gold strawberry charms—and then, just a few weeks after the story went viral, she released a new line of necklaces, featuring a delicate anchor charm…
identical to the anchor tattoo Aaron had on his forearm, and the matching one on Cara’s shoulder. It was like salt in the wound.
The shock of it all was so brutal, I didn’t even get the confident, satisfying breakup I deserved.
I should’ve been able to put Aaron in his place, but when it all came out, during filming of the live finale, I could barely process what was happening.
I was a mess of tears and ruined makeup, and the cameras caught it all.
Even to the end, Aaron was groveling, saying we could still do this, we could still get married…
if I wanted. It was humiliating; I felt sick.
I finally got him to leave, with the help of the producers who had to physically drag him out.
And that’s it. I never got any more closure than that.
The wedding was canceled, and because of the travel logistics, I didn’t even get to see my family.
I was taken backstage, and they were flown straight home.
And maybe that was for the best—I wouldn’t have wanted them to see me as I was once the cameras went off.
I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see me like that.
I still don’t.
I STORM UP THE back stairs and down the hall to my room, flinging open the door. A waft of rose and plumeria body spray scent hits me, somehow the permanent smell of this bedroom since 2010, as I take in my unchanged childhood room.
Two twin beds, each with pink floral bedding, and monogrammed pillow shams with my initials.
A white wooden desk, still home to my rainbow sticky notes and the ceramic owl pencil holder Linney made me at summer camp.
And of course, my awards—or at least, the ones that could be affixed to the bulletin board above the desk (most of the bulkier trophies had been relegated to attic storage).
There are dance rosettes, pageant ribbons, and the lone “Most Improved Math Student” award Mom insisted on hanging, all sun-bleached and curling at the edges.
Leaving my suitcase by the door, I flop onto my bed. My head is spinning, trying to figure out what to do. I wish I hadn’t had that champagne. I can’t even think. I’m still processing the fact that Cara is here. In my house.
Trying to insert herself into my family.
Forever.
I’ve never met her—never even seen her in person until today.
I’ve seen pictures of her, of course. Lots of pictures.
More than I should have. Stalking her Instagram profile was one of my favorite pastimes for months after the news about her and Aaron came out.
Like picking at a hangnail, I pulled at it over and over again.
I pored over posts trying to figure out what she had that I didn’t.
The worst part was that we were so similar.
We were both Southern. She was from Alabama, and I was from Georgia.
I’d gone to USC, and she’d gone to UC San Diego.
We both lived in LA right after college.
We both started our own businesses. She has her jewelry line, and I have my athleisure line, NikkiB.
It was almost uncanny. So why had Aaron chosen her and not me?
Though, in the end, I suppose he didn’t choose either of us. A few months after the live special debacle, I saw paparazzi pics of Aaron on Instagram, at dinner with an Olympic gymnast.
Not that this made me feel any better whatsoever.
After all, Aaron basically trampolined out of the scandal and into the arms of one gorgeous girl after another, while my love life suffered a near-fatal vaulting accident.
No one wanted to date the girl who was left at the altar on LovedBy—or if they did, it was just because they were chasing their own fifteen minutes of fame.
My personal brand took a massive hit too.
The story was broadcast everywhere; I became the punchline of jokes and the headline of cruel tabloids.
It was surreal, believing that the whole world was laughing at me, shaking their heads at my gullibility, blaming the result on me: saying I’d chosen wrong or deserved what I got.
It took me over a year to find an athleticwear company willing to partner with me to develop my athleisure line, to take me seriously as a businesswoman and not see me as just a reality TV hack.
But what was far more difficult to deal with than what everyone else thought of me was the complete and utter loss of trust in myself.
Maybe Sybil’s right: I’ve been clinging to my list of reasons, making sure each guy I date fits the requirements because I don’t trust myself to follow my heart anymore.
Thanks to Aaron.
And thanks, in no small part, to his accomplice.
I ROLL OVER ON the bed and find my phone, immediately firing off a text to the group chat: Code Red. Cooper’s new fiancée is Cara Lancolm.
I let out a long exhale and turn my head toward the other twin bed, Mom’s words from this morning coming back to me: She’ll be staying in the other twin bed in your room. I’m hit with a fresh wave of horror. She’s staying here. In my room.
“Nooooo.” I allow myself an unladylike groan. That is not happening. If she’s going to sleep in here, I’m going to have to find somewhere else to stay. Possibly Brazil?
My phone vibrates at my thigh as all three of my best friends call nearly simultaneously. I patch everyone into a video call.
“Did I read that text right?” Emma asks. “Cooper is dating—”
“Marrying!” I interject, my voice bordering on hysterical.
“—the girl Aaron was cheating on you with?” I can see her cheeks turning pink with anger on my behalf.
Right after we’d broken up, Emma came across Aaron at a random taco joint and threw a burrito at him.
One of the patrons caught the whole thing on video, and it went viral.
I still can’t post anything on socials that even vaguely references Mexican food without getting at least half a dozen comments about #burritogate.
“Yikes, I’m sorry, Nikki,” Sybil says. “That’s seriously messed up.”
Willow nods. “Yeah, wow—the fates are really messing with you.”
“The fates are sadists,” Emma chimes in.
“She’s here. In my house.” I groan. “With her stupid strawberry shortcake jewelry designs.”
“Actually,” Emma says, “technically she has five distinct lines now: There’s the strawberries, and the bumblebees, and the foxes, and the lockets, plus the anc—” She cuts herself off.
“The anchors,” I supply.
“Sorry,” Emma squeaks.
I let out another groan and roll to my side, curling into the fetal position, facing the bed where Cara Lancolm, my ex-fiancé’s ex-girlfriend, is going to sleep for the next week.