“What is there to say? She doesn’t want me, Grant. The least I can do is step aside so you and Ivan can be happy.”
He slaps his hand onto the doorframe. “Fight for her! Tell her you want to stay!”
“What’s the point of that? One of us needs to leave to keep her safe! I won’t let Ivan leave knowing she wants him here. This is what has to happen. It makes the most sense.” The tremor in my hands makes it hard to zip up my suitcase.
I’m trying to hold it together, but Grant is not making it easy.
“This is bullshit!” He crosses my room and slaps the screen of the TV like it’ll wake it up. “I know you assholes are listening! This whole thing is bullshit. If this is really inAriana’s best interest, to keep her safe, then let us out of the contract. We’ll all leave. You’re splitting us up for ratings, not for her. At least admit it and don’t pretend you’re being altruistic. If you cared about Ariana, you’d send her home, not Derrick.”
They don’t answer him. The TV doesn’t flicker on to one of our hosts’ faces.
I didn’t expect it to.
Maybe asking one of us to leave is for ratings. A way to add dramatic tension. Will they make Ariana look evil for sending me away? Maybe they’ll edit Ivan as the martyr and me as the jilted lover.
It’s possible that they were telling the truth about the FOS specialist’s advice, and this is a legitimate way to reduce her risk of contracting the disease.
Either way, I have to go.
“We can refuse.” Grant is grasping at straws, and his eyes are red. “We can refuse to send either of you out of the house. What are they going to do, come in here and drag you out? They wouldn’t dare.”
I take his cheek in my hand. His skin is so soft. He’ll say that it’s his fifteen-step skincare routine, but that’s his way of discrediting how beautiful he is.
They’ll look amazing together. Grant’s Achillean beauty wrapped in Ariana’s goddess-like allure is the stuff of fantasy. What the ancient Greeks wrote poetry about, carved statues of.
“We’re not going to refuse. If they’re telling the truth about the specialist, then I need to do this for her. I’m not going to ruin her life any more than I already have.”
He places his hand over mine, holding me there. “Please, Derrick. If you leave, I don’t think we’ll be able to come back from this. How is she going to become comfortable with our pack if a third of it is missing?”
The emotion that’s been threatening to boil over is barely contained. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping to prevent it from overflowing. “We will. This isn’t forever. It’s just a few days. I’ll figure out how to get her to forgive me. I’ll think of something, and I’ll be waiting as soon as you guys leave, okay?”
“You promise?”
I press my lips against his. It’s a silent plea for him to trust me. “I promise.”
Suitcase in hand, I make my way to the front door. Ivan and Ariana are exactly where I left them, and neither looks happy.
For some reason, that makes me feel better. At least I’m not the only one torn up about this. If Ariana were continuing her morning as usual, it would destroy me.
“Ariana?” She looks at me, and for a moment, I see regret flicker across her features. “I’m not upset with you. I need you to know that. I love you. I’ll see you when this is over, okay? We’ll pick up where we left off.”
I don’t wait for her to speak. I don’t know how I’ll react if she tries to apologize or starts asking me to stay. It’s better not to give her that opportunity.
I can’t lose my nerve now.
The door looms ahead of me. In this moment, I feel like it’s not just to the house. If it closes, will it ever open again?
No one speaks when I wrench it open and step out into the sunlight.
“We understandthat this is an unusual circumstance. The network believes that making this change will maintain the integrity of the show while also highlighting how seriously we take Ariana’s health.”
Bradley has been kind to me, explaining why they removed me.
It doesn’t make me feel any better.
I’m glad that they’re taking her health seriously, but it hurts that, in doing so, I have to leave her behind. I know she’s safe with the guys and that they’ll take care of her, but I should be there with them.
I need her to see that I may have lied about a lot, but my feelings are true.
