Twenty-nine
Nate
Idon’t really have to lie when I claim I don’t feel well and hole up in my hotel room. At first I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. Yeah, hearing that Becca slept with Preston felt like getting punched in the stomach and leaves me nauseous for hours. But the full body aches that follow feel like I’ve caught the flu, and I wonder for a minute if I have.
No, I realize finally. It’s not viral. It’s grief. Until now, some part of me was still holding out hope that she’d forgive me, that she or Preston would decide to end things, and then maybe when we all got back to LA and away from this hell, Becca would give me a chance to show her that I can be worthy of her trust and that I never meant for it to go like this.
The look on her face in that interview was undeniable, though. It’s over. She doesn’t want me, and maybe she never did. At the very least, she doesn’t feel about me the way I feel about her. Despite the pain, I still love her. I don’t know how to stop; I can’t turn it off like a faucet.That’s not how love works, and if she felt even a fraction of what I do, she couldn’t just turn it off, either.
I never could have carried on with someone else in front of her and then bragged about it. It would have destroyed me to do it.
The way this is destroying me now.
I give myself twenty-four hours to wallow. I crack the door when Olivia stops by to see if I’m feeling better and tell her I feel like death and am probably contagious. Except for a couple of impatient texts from Levi, I’m left alone.
And I’ve never felt more lonely in my life. Jason texts me a couple of times for updates and I think about calling him, but instead I send him something noncommittal in response and then turn off my phone.
There’s nothing anyone can say to make this better. I’ve been an idiot and let myself get carried away by the show, by the romance of it all. I’m supposed to be engineering people to fall in love, not falling under the spell myself.
Becca clearly isn’t the person I thought she was, so I can’t be in love with her, not really. I’m just caught up in feelings for someone who isn’t real. I’m in love with a person who doesn’t exist.
And she saw how badly it hurt me, I know she did. She knows, and there’s nothing I can do about it now. All that’s left to do is to get through the end of this with what scraps of dignity I have left. When it’s time for production to pack up and head to Italy for the proposals, I take a shower and pack my room and tell Levi I’m feeling much better, thanks. It was probably just food poisoning. He gives me a look like he doesn’t entirely believe me, and yeah, okay, there were several people who got a long look at my face when Becca gave her recap of the DallianceTower. She and I have been so obvious, it’s a wonder he didn’t start to suspect something before now.
But it doesn’t matter, because there’s nothing between Becca and me, so there’s nothing to be suspicious about. God knows she’s willing enough to forget about it entirely. Neither of us will say anything, and with the exception of Jason and Emily who now know, it’ll be like it never happened.
I help with the remainder of the packing, and hang out with a couple of the other producers for long enough to hear that Preston is still saying “There’s just something different about Becca,” and making noise about choosing her over Addison or Madison because “being with her would mean growing up and having a family, really giving to someone else in a way I never have before,” as if Becca and her children are some kind of rite of passage or lifestyle choice instead of people who need to love and be loved. I feel sick all over again.
Of course he’s going to choose her. Of course he is. And Becca will say yes and have her happily ever after, and while it’s hard for me to imagine the woman I knew being truly happy with the Preston I’ve met, it’s probable I never really knew her to begin with.
Good for her. If that’s what she wants, then it’s just as well she cut me loose before I got in any deeper.
But no matter how many times I tell myself that, I never feel any better.
At the airport, I’m put in the group that’s flying with the women, while Levi and Dan and a couple of the other producers take an earlier flight with Preston. I’m glad, because I have the irrational urge to punch Prince Charming right in his chiseled jaw. At the airport, I say something about being tired and sit apart from the others, who are more than happy to give me space in case I’m still contagious. I put in ear buds and read the news on my phone and try to pretend that Becca (and Addison and Madison, who keep eyeing each other warily and dancing around the inevitable bitch fight) aren’t sitting three rows of airport seats away.
Until Becca sits down next to me. “Nate?” she says.
God, I don’t want to do this right now. I don’t want to do this ever. But I remember my goal to keep what’s left of my dignity and pull out one ear bud, trying to look disinterested.
“Yeah?” I say, glancing over at her.
This is a mistake. Becca looks nervous as hell. She’s sitting with her shoulders hunched forward and picking at her cuticles and looking at me like she’s racked with guilt.
Fuck, this is not what I need right now. I’m not going to feel bad about walking out of that interview. I’m not.
“I just wanted to tell you,” she says in a low voice, “that I didn’t sleep with Preston.” She looks over her shoulder at the others, like she doesn’t want them to hear, which is probably a good call.
I hate how my heart does a cartwheel in my chest. It shouldn’t matter if she slept with Preston. It doesn’t change that shetoldme she did and broke me all to hell. She and I are not a thing, and we’re never going to be. She’s made that clear enough.
“Okay,” I say, trying to act like this is the least interesting news I’ve ever heard. “If you say so.”
That was snotty, and I know it, and I hate how my heart squeezes when she looks like she’s been slapped. “I swear I didn’t,” she says. “I know I made it sound like I did, and it was awful of me to do that to you, and I’m sorry.”
“Whatever,” I say. “Look, I get it now, okay?This whole process is confusing, and we got caught up in it.That’s all it was.”
Becca blinks at me, and I can tell this deeply bothers her, but I don’t know why. Obviously that’s what happened, right? Because the alternative is that she played me like this on purpose from the beginning, and if that’s the case, then Becca deserves a fucking academy award.
“The reason I said it,” she says slowly, “is because Preston told me he hadn’t been the one to decide that I should stay, not for weeks. Not until after our one-on-one. And it hurt that I asked what you thought of our relationship, and you didn’t say anything. And it seemed to solidify my belief that you had known about the cameras there, and I just—”
