Thirty-two
Becca
Ten weeks later
Nate and I are sitting backstage on a leather couch in front of a mounted flat screen, on which is playing the reunion of my season ofChasing Prince Charming. We watch as Swiss Barrington introduces the show and hypes it as the most dramatic finale inCharminghistory.
He says that every season, but at least for Nate and I, it’s the truth. We’re gripping each other’s hands, and I’m tucked up under his arm, exactly where I like to be.
Nate and I survived the last two and a half months mostly by holing up in my apartment with the kids. He snuck out to work with Jason, and I’m glad he won’t have to do that anymore now that the finale is airing. He tried to pretend it was no big deal, but it was pretty obvious that being a Black man who’s secretly living in a white woman’s apartment was terrifying enough without having to skulk through the alley at the back of the complex a couple times a week for Jason to pick him up and take him to a climb.
After this, that will all be done—though it’s possible we’llbothbe having to sneak around to avoid aggressive press. Nate swears if it gets bad enough we’ll move to a gated community or hire security, but while Nate’s a lot better off financially than I am, he’s not exactly celebrity-wealthy, so I hope it doesn’t come to that.
Swiss stops talking and the footage from the show starts airing.This is a live finale, so we’re all here in a studio with an audience of women who will no doubt be convinced over the next forty minutes to hate me to the point of hair pulling and eye gouging.To say I’m not looking forward to actually going on that stage and facing this is an understatement, and I’m so glad to have Nate here beside me.
He didn’t have to be. His contract was over after that last day on set. Mine isn’t fulfilled until I face Preston again at this live finale, where they’re airing the pre-recorded proposals and doing live interviews between them. Nate didn’t want me to have to take the brunt of this alone, though.
Really, I wish neither of us were here.
I try to watch as Addison approaches Preston on screen with her one-shoe limp—why do they make us do that?—but I can’t really focus on the dramatic moment where she discovers the glass slipper in his hand doesn’t fit.
I grip Nate’s hand so tight I’m probably hurting him, and he holds mine back, firm and steady. It won’t be long before they reveal my “affair” on screen.
We’re probably about to become America’s most hated couple, but at least the anticipation will be over. I hope I feel the relief I expect to feel when that happens, because dreading this day has eaten me alive these last few months.
Thank god for Nate. He’s been my rock and my center, and I’m so grateful for him, even if the way we handled our relationship has turned our lives upside down.
Addison leaves sobbing and does a tearful interview about how she can’t believe Preston didn’t choose her, how their connection was so incredible, and “Why does Madison always win, that bitch!”
Oh my god. She has no idea.
Nate and I have watched every episode of the show, of course, and we decided it was better not to suffer through it alone, so we let Jason and Emily make us the center of their usual viewing parties, which had to switch to my apartment for the sake of privacy. No one in the press seems to have caught wind that Jason ofClimbs Sh!tfame has been showing up at my house everyTuesday night for the last several weeks. Having them there has helped a lot, though it still didn’t make it easy.
There were definitely plenty of hilarious moments—Nate laughed his ass off at my pronouncement that “cocks are great,” which was footage he actually hadn’t seen back on the show. But it was so painful watching myself date Preston, especially the episode with the terrible makeout footage the night of the DallianceTower, which looked a lot more sexy on film than in reality. I was so afraid that Nate would remember how horrible I’d been to him and break up with me, but he held me through every episode, and late at night, after Jason and Emily went home, we’d talk it all through.
If whatever happens tonight is the price to be with Nate, I’ll gladly pay it.
But I still close my eyes as the screen switches back to Swiss, who makes some bland comments about how heartbreaking that was and then invites Addison out to talk about and then confront Preston.
Nate lets out a long breath. “I knew how long it was going to take for them to get to us, but I had no idea how long it was going tofeel.”
“No kidding.” I’m glad they have us in a room by ourselves, if only so we don’t have to pass any more smug production staff who are no doubt looking forward to seeing us get ours for taking the show off script. I desperately want to be back in the apartment with Nate, me cooking and him reading to the girls. He’s been practicing his signing skills by reading picture books to Rosie withThea on the other side of the room refusing to correct him and instead laughing at all of his grammar mistakes. He’s a good sport about it, and they’ve ended up with some pretty great sign-related inside jokes, some of which I still don’t completely understand.The girls have been almost as happy to have him around as I have. He’s just so natural with them. I never would have imagined finding someone who could fit so perfectly into my life.
Which is good, because getting to this point wasn’t easy, and I don’t know how easy this next chapter is going to be, either.
Addison tearfully leaves the stage after telling Preston several times that no, shestilldoesn’t understand why he didn’t pick her, and no,thatexplanation doesn’t clarify things. Not that Preston is being particularly forthcoming, speaking mostly in the canned answers this show is so fond of. She leaves crying again about Madison always getting everything she wants, and I wonder if Addison remembers that I exist.The show hasn’t actually revealed yet who Preston chose, though from the murmuring in the audience when Swiss cuts to the footage of Madison arriving at the proposal stage, I think everyone assumed it was going to be her.
I can’t blame them. Even though the show used the footage where I tried to convince Nate I’d slept with Preston, our relationship still had the least on-camera steam by far. According to the internet, I have my own contingent of fans, but the general opinion seems to be that I’m too good for Preston.
I doubt that notion is going to remain in anyone’s minds very much longer.
Nate squeezes my waist and looks down at me. “You okay?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “You?”
“Terrified,” he says. We both laugh nervously, even though it isn’t really funny.
When Preston rejects her, Madison holds it together a lot better than Addison did, but she does give an impassioned speech about how obvious it is that Preston is making a huge mistake not picking someone as gorgeous and accomplished as she is. She storms off, and I take a deep breath.They won’t cut it there.They’ll show my proposal and refusal, then bring me out, saving the actual engaged couple for the very end.
