Olivia walks in, all smiles. “Sorry, Becca,” she says. “Nate wasn’t feeling well, so I’m going to take over.”
“Is he—” I try to see around her out into the hallway, but of course he’s not there. He left because of me. Because Ihurthim.
Because I had the power to really hurt him, and I used it as a fucking weapon.
Just like Rob did to me, over and over again.
“Oh, he’ll be fine,” she says with a dismissive hand wave. “Probably just something he ate. But let’s get started again.” She must have been listening to the interview, because she dives right in with, “So we’ll get to that question Nate was asking, but first, let’s have some serious girl talk.” Her eyebrows waggle. “How hot is Preston under that prince getup? It sounds like you got a front-row seat.”
“I—um.” I can’t talk. I can’t move. But I have to do one of these things, and I don’t think I’m getting out of this room without answering these questions. “He’s hot, yeah.Totally hot.”
Olivia eagerly continues on with the questioning, pushing hard for sexual sound bites that I am no longer wanting to give, but I manage to sputter out enough to pacify her. She gets back to the “Are you falling in love with Preston?” question, and all I can see is Nate’s watery eyes, the hurt there.The betrayal.
I had convinced myselfhewas betrayingme. But that look was so raw I felt it in my bones.
“No,” I say, before I can consider the ramifications. “I’m not.”
Olivia gapes, then recovers. “Because you’realreadyin love with Preston,” she says hopefully.
Shit. Nate’s job. I can’t cost him that now, after everything. And if they haven’t put two and two together yet, if I deny having feelings for the prince, they’re going to start working on that math. But I also don’t want him to watch footage of me lying about telling Preston I love him.
Ahhhh, what have I done? Why did I stay on this show?
I stayed here because I couldn’t leave Nate, that’s why. Because no matter how betrayed and hurt and angry I was at him, I couldn’t let go of the hope that I was wrong.
“When I admit that I love someone,” I say slowly, “I want to say it first tohim, you know?”
Olivia grins. “Okay, I got it. Maybe that’ll happen at a certain proposal?”
Good god. “Maybe,” I say coyly, like there’s a chance in the world I am telling Preston I love him in any situation, let alone at a proposal which isn’t going to happen. We both agreed there wasn’t anything between us.
After a few more questions, Olivia finally lets me go. I wander around the hotel a bit, but I don’t see Nate. I don’t know what I’d even say to him right now if I did.
I go back to my room, which I’m thankfully not sharing with anyone else this week. I sit on my bed, my mind tracing along every emotional note of these last few weeks, and I’m still confused. Do I really believe him now? Because of that hurt? But what about how it really seemed like he must have known the cameras were there?
My gaze lands on my overnight bag, where my journal is. Not that I was planning on doing a lot of writing in the tower, but I’ve grown increasingly paranoid about leaving it where someone could read it.
I’m not planning on writing now, either, so I’m not sure at first why I get it out and sit back down on my bed, flipping through it. Reading from beginning to end. Every word, starting from recipes for the restaurant of my dreams and then moving on to talking about meeting the man of my dreams. How Nate makes me believe in that future, how he makes me want that futurewith himmore than anything. I read myself falling desperately in love with him, well before I could admit those words to myself.
I’m coming up to that night, the most incredibly passionate, amazing night of my life so quickly turned the worst. I try to prepare myself—
But before I turn the page, my eyes snag on something I’d written and read over and barely thought about, because it just read so naturally to me.
P is the best man I’ve ever known. Maybe the best person. So good and kind and hilarious and smart and sincere.The kind of man who I know would be the most incredible husband, the most incredible father. I know I don’t deserve someone like him, but more than ever before, I want to.
My eyes flood with tears, and everything—all of it, every twist and knot of emotions that I couldn’t untangle—suddenly makes complete and horrible sense.
I know I don’t deserve someone like him.
I’ve worked for years trying to build my self-esteem up after my marriage, and I have come so far, but here is the truth.
I didn’t feel like I deserved someone like him, so when it got too real, I took the first excuse to push him away. Yeah, I might have had reasons to doubt, given the situation and his job. But I didn’t listen to him at all. I let fear brick up those walls around me that he had somehow slipped through before. And every time my gut tried to tell me that he didn’t do anything wrong—an instinct I refused to trust, because trusting that would make me vulnerable again—I found something else to cling to, to pile those bricks higher and thicker. My in-laws, which had nothing to do with him.The thing with the producers picking me, which wasn’t actually proof of anything, no matter how much I tried to make it so.
I read down to the next line.
But he’s the first person who makes me feel like I do deserve everything. And that maybe, hopefully, that everything includes him.
I close the book, the tears making it impossible to read. Hope was too scary after a lifetime without it. So I pushed him away and kept pushing. I was petty and cruel in a way I’ve never been before, not even with Rob, who deserved it.
Nate never did. I know this, like I can finally see through smeared glass to what was actually on the other side.
I was just so much more afraid with Nate, because there was so much more to lose. I’ve been acting like a terrified child, recklessly lashing out as if to prove that I’m not worth loving, while still clinging to the desperate, subconscious hope that he’d still feel that I am.
But I’m not a child. I am a grown woman, and I can’t blame my mistakes on my parents, or Rob, or Paula and Kurt. It was me that hurt Nate, not them. I’m done acting this way. I’m done hurting him.The next time I get the chance, I’m going to talk to him like an adult. I’m going to tell him the truth about last night, and try to explain why I said the things I did, even if it’s not an excuse. I’m going to try to be vulnerable again, and if he’s willing to talk, I’m going to listen to him this time. Be there for him the way he’s been there for me.
He might be totally done with me, might not want to hear a single word I have to say, and I wouldn’t blame him for that, no matter how much it breaks my heart.
But I need to try.
