I glance at Sora desperately, and our eyes meet. As if reading my mind, she cuts in.
“Hey, uh, I hate to interrupt, but we’re behind schedule for our next confessional. Isn’t Jean-Luc supposed to be here?” shesays, flipping through the pages on her clipboard as if she’s looking for something.
Glen whirls, swiping the clipboard from Sora and scratching the stubble along his jaw nervously as he peers down at it.
“Shit, you’re right.” Glen marches to the phone on the wall beside the door and punches in a few numbers. Before I can sneak away, Demi steps closer to me, placing a delicate hand on my arm. Her skin is soft, but her grip on me is firm.
“You really know her?” she presses, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes?” I shake off her grip, and she lets her hand fall to her side.
“Interesting.” Demi considers this, and I can practically hear the gears of her brain whirring behind her narrowed eyes. “Do you have any information that might help with her, uh, character development?”
“You mean, her ‘villain arc’?” I quip flatly, folding my arms over my chest. She sighs and glances over her shoulder at Sora and Glen, who are conversing rapidly with their heads bowed over the clipboard, likely trying to reconfigure their confessional timeline. I can hazard a guess that, based on his absence, Jean-Luc might be too hungover from last night to get out of bed. When she turns back to speak to me, her tone is bitter.
“Look, you don’t have to act like this whole thing is beneath you. I get that you think you’re better than this show, better than me, but for some of us…this is our career.”
I reel back like I’ve been slapped. Have I really been that transparent about my distaste forLove at First Sail? I can admit that I haven’t exactly been a ray of sunshine, but who can blame me?
“I don’t think it’s beneath me,” I say carefully. “I just don’t agree with selling out someone I know so you can humiliate her on TV.”
Even if that someone is the spawn of Satan.
Demi sighs, and her expression softens slightly.
“This is the kind of TV she signed up for, Chloe. You know that. I know that. You don’t go through the multiple levels of casting interviews, psychological testing, and background checks if you’re not fully expecting to bare yourself to the world. Besides, I’m not going to humiliate her. That’s not part of my job, and she’s perfectly capable of doing that herself as is. I’d just like to get to know her better; find out what makes her tick, what she believes about herself, or the world around her, so I can nudge her to make decisions that will be more layered, morereal. You know what I mean?”
“Go askher, then,” I mutter. “You’ve heard her talk. She’s not keeping anything to herself.”
“You know that’s not how this works.”
I roll my eyes. This is ridiculous. Why would I tell Demi—the one person who seems to hate me only slightly less than Molly herself—how to emotionally blackmail my ex-best friend?
She’s right, though. I do have information. Maybe I don’t know Molly as a twenty-something, but I knew her completely in high school and college: the years that made her. I know about her home life, and the trauma her parents inflicted on her. I know how she craves attention, as a salve for whatever wound is still festering from her parents’ emotional and verbal abuse.
But to take that pain and use it to help a producer on some trashy dating show push her to a breaking point? Or make her do something she doesn’t want to?
I can’t do that.
Iwon’tdo that.
“Look, Demi. I don’t know much about her other than she’s kind of a bitch. Which I’m sure is already painfully obvious to you and literally everyone else on this ship.” That, at least, isn’t a lie. “If I think of anything, I’ll tell you. But right now, nothing helpful is coming to mind.”
“Alright,” she concedes. For a second, I think she’s actually going to drop it, but then she takes my forearm again. This time her touch is gentle, and she levels me with a look that almost feels…sincere. “But if somethingdoescome to mind, you should reach out. I know reality TV isn’t your thing, but Glen mentioned you’re hoping to break into docs. I have a few contacts who are high up at Key Five. I’d be happy to introduce you—we women have to help each other out in this industry, right?”
I freeze.
Key Five Productions is a big name to drop. It’stheproduction house for documentary filmmaking. Their last ten docs won numerous awards, they work closely with Netflix for most of their originals, and their mentorship program has become one of the best in the industry.
You don’t just throw around an offer like that—unless you can follow through.
The thought makes my stomach flip.
As Demi drops her hand from my arm, her lips curl into a coy, knowing smile, and it tells me exactly what she’s thinking.
That I can be bought.
Or, at least, that she believes I can be bought.
