‘Carys?’ Reb calls through the door. ‘Are you alright? Lina came to get me.’
Bless sweet Lina.
‘Um, no,’ I call back. ‘I’ve been sick a few times.’
That’s a bit of a lie. It was just once, and entirely bright yellow stomach lining because I’ve not eaten anything for hours (likely part of the problem).
‘Okay, honey, do you want me to call a doctor?’
I’m not sure any GP can help me with this particular existential crisis.
‘No, I just think I need to sleep it off.’
I close the lid and flush the toilet, and manage to open the door without getting up.
‘Oh, you do look bad,’ Reb says, which is not actually comforting.
‘Can I get out of filming this evening?’ I croak, admittedly hamming it up a little.
I can’t help but notice Reb’s nervous look, the way she glances down at her phone for confirmation. ‘Erm. I can ask.’
‘I think we should send her to bed,’ calls Dolly’s disembodied voice, and urgh, she’s the last and somehow the only person I want to see me right now. ‘She might be contagious, and you don’t want your entire cast of women going down with the shits and voms. Let the girl go to bed, and the rest of us can make sure we’re filling any gaps on content today.’
She’s been looking after me so well this whole time, but I don’t want her to see me covered in vomit. Not right now. I bum-shuffle backwards so that I’m more hidden behind the door, pretending to fiddle with the toilet paper while Reb taps away at her phone.
‘Okay,’ Reb says wearily. ‘You’re cleared for tonight. Dolly, are you fine to still share the room if she’s sick?’
‘It’s not a problem at all. Then someone’s keeping an eye on her too.’ The last thing I want to think about, when I have my head in the toilet, is the possibility of Dolly watching me.
‘Do you need a hand getting into bed?’ Reb asks, and I get the sense she might collapse if she tries.
‘No, I’m just going to stay down here a little longer until it’s definitely stopped.’
Reb passes me a bottle of water. I take it and sip slowly, the cold liquid a balm to my hot insides.
‘Okay, we’ll leave you be. Everyone out,’ Reb calls, as she pulls the door behind her.
It’s only when I lean my head down on the toilet seat, pressing the cold bottle to my wrists, that I hear Dolly call through the door. ‘I really hope you feel more yourself later.’
If only she understood the irony of what she’d just said.
Chapter TenDolly
Zack Allen, 31, Kent
You want me to explain what a nice guy is? Isn’t it obvious? I’m nice. I’m respectful. Perhaps I don’t look like some of the other guys in here – Warren’s a basketball player for God’s sake. Unfortunately, that’s often what women really want, and that’s really why I came here. I wanted someone to fall in love with me, for me. To see how good I am, without all the other distractions of looks and that. What’s that? Oh yeah, well, my type is usually petite and brunette.
I’m glad I didn’t have to go hard on Reb, who looks to be stuck together with masking tape at this point, because really, it’s not on, making contestants work when they’re vomiting. If someone is going to reinforce the protections for contestants’ health, it should be our handlers. Apparently, it’s just me.
Hopefully production won’t hate me.
My evening date with Warren is a silent disco, which is really just me dancing in a room with headphones while trying to hear his disembodied voice through the speakers. Honestly, kind of a nightmare, but we have fun anyway. Turns out, my partner in crime is a total goof. I can’t wait to see the footage of him attempting the worm, which endedwith a loud crash as he backwards wormed into the side table his sushi was on. He took it well, laughing it all off, which is a good sign. Being in the public eye is going to be hard enough without having a sense of humour.
I try to slip back into mine and Carys’s bedroom as quietly as possible, but I find her awake and reading with the bedside table lamp on. She looks peaky, with big dark lines under her eyes like Mum gets when she’s done too much.
‘Hey,’ I say quietly. ‘Did you get any sleep?’
Her eyes dart up to me over the top of her book. ‘No,’ she croaks. ‘But I’m feeling better for the rest.’
