51. 51 #2
A pit formed in my stomach as I realized I could actually be in legal trouble, and it took everything in me to focus on the present and not let my mind go down that rabbit hole.
“So,” I said, needing to break the silence to stop myself from spiraling. “Have a nice drive out here?”
Cecilia inclined her head at me, and I could feel that intense gaze of hers piercing through her dark glasses. But instead of scolding me, instead of telling me off or threatening to take me to court, she simply said, “It was great.”
I nodded, even more confused. If I wasn’t in trouble, then why was she here? Maybe she was dragging things out for effect.
“You look well. Rested, too,” she said, as we reached the coffee shop.
“It’s been nice to get away, get some air.”
“Not be hounded by people wanting to take your picture?”
“Exactly.”
We slipped back into silence as we entered the shop and placed our orders.
Once we had caffeine in hand, we walked down the main road to a little park.
It was small, only the size of a few parking spots, really, but it had a pretty fountain in the middle and was well-maintained with flower beds lining the footpath, their colors fresh and bright in the late summer sun.
“So,” Cecilia said as we sat on a bench. “How have you been, really?”
I sighed and looked out at the quaint space around me. It was miles away from where I spent my summer, from the craziness that had become my life. Something in the calmness of the park had me answering freely.
“Not great,” I said.
“I imagine you’ve seen better days.”
I nodded at her and sipped my coffee.
She carried on. “I was sad to hear that you and Callum broke up.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “I’m sure you were.”
“Look, Poppy, I’ve been doing this show for seven seasons. I’ve seen it all. Some things even you wouldn’t believe. The villa can bring out the worst in people.”
I nodded along. The show was all I had thought about for the past week, and yet discussing it with her now, out in the open instead of obsessing over it in the recesses of my mind, felt odd.
It suddenly felt so far away, like it hadn’t really been me living there, but an alternate reality version of myself.
“I knew something was off with you and Callum,” Cecilia continued. “I may not be on the ground for the whole shoot, but I watch all the footage. Hours and hours of it. I know you; I know your likes and dislikes. I can read you and the other Bellas like a book by the end of day two.”
It sounded like this was headed somewhere I wasn’t going to like. Maybe she did come all this way just to scold me.
“When you picked Callum that first matching, instead of James—something about it felt off. You two were barely hiding the contempt you had for one another. It didn’t add up for me.”
My knee was bouncing up and down, the nerves I had managed to get under control over the last week unraveling as she spoke.
“But then the oddest thing happened,” she kept on.
“There was this moment, during week two. You lot had been tense; there was all that drama with Sara and James. Callum was in the kitchen one morning, making a tea, and he looked across the way at you. And there was just something in his gaze, some kind of unguarded openness that I hadn’t seen on him before. And it was directed at you.”
Was I crying? I might have been crying. I didn’t know he had been looking at me like that so early on.
“It was small, not enough of a moment to put on air, not anything anyone would have noticed had it not been their job to, but I knew then that this thing building between you two was real.”
She looked over at me and then reached into her bag and pulled out a tissue, handing it over. I had gone all day without crying, and now here I was, a mess again at the mere mention of Callum.
“It was real,” I said to her. “But I am sorry that we lied like we did. That we conspired to cheat the show.”
She looked at me, tilted her head, and let out a laugh. An actual laugh.
I thought I might be hallucinating.
“Oh, please,” she said, reining herself in.
“You don’t think contestants have been self-producing since the beginning of the show?
Each and every season there’s someone who fakes one thing or another to stir up drama where there was none.
You’re not the first and you certainly won’t be the last. Although, I will say, none have been as successful as you two. ”
She wasn’t mad. No, she was actually smiling. A real, full smile. Something I’d never seen her do in the few times we’d previously interacted.
“Now,” she said, straightening up a bit. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your little mini-break because I’m going to need you back in London by Sunday to tape the live reunion special.”
I opened my mouth to reply but she cut me off. “I’m not asking. I’m telling. You might be a bit down in the dumps, but you’re still under contract.”
There was the Cecilia I was knew, back to business with no room for nonsense.
It was a bit unnerving, and yet the directive didn’t send me into an immediate tailspin.
My pulse was normal, my palms decidedly un-clammy.
All I felt was the overwhelming urge to get it all over with.
I was done with solitude, done with hiding and pretending none of it was real, and while the thought of answering questions about my fake relationship on live television sounded like the worst form of torture, I knew that it was ultimately necessary if I wanted to resume any kind of a normal life.
I would play my part one more time and then, hopefully, move on.