We love you too.
I lock my phone and continue making my way to the living room. It gets louder with every step I take. The TV is frozen and queued up for the watch party of the season finale ofNailed It or Failed It. There’s a sign hanging slightly crooked under the TV that Lily insisted on. The coffee table is buried under an assortment of food. Lily brought baked goods, obviously. Poppy and Dallas brought a charcuterie board. Blair and Griffin brought drinks. And Nan brought something in a very old crockpot, announced it contained “something different,” but refused to elaborate.
“All right,” Nan announces, coming in from the kitchen andclapping her hands. “Where’s my seat? I need to see myself on this high definition TV.”
Lily laughs. “Nan, you were in like two episodes. Briefly.”
“Yeah, but I was also in the background of the front yard episode. You can see me hackin’ away in the bushes. I stole the season.”
Blair holds up the phone in her hand. “The internet agrees.”
“I’m a star,” Nan says, face lighting up.
Dallas points at Tucker standing in the archway of the kitchen, arms crossed. “You ready, Hollywood?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Oh, come on,” Dallas says, face pulled into a grin. “You’re famous now. People are making edits of you all over social media.”
Griffin reaches for a piece of cheese and a cracker. “He’s been pretending he hasn’t seen them.”
“I haven’t.”
Blair grins. “You have.”
“He has,” Lily agrees.
Poppy leans in, stage-whispering like Tucker can’t hear. “He definitely has.”
Tucker shoots them all a flat look, then his gaze slides to me. His expression shifts instantly into something soft like the rest of the room fades when he finds me.
It’s been strange watching our story turn into something other people consume. The house. The rooms. But more than that, watching us. Because the show aired exactly the way I asked Andrea for, with all the real and raw stuff. I watched every episode before this one and saw every part where my smile slipped when I thought the cameras weren’t watching, the nights my hair was a mess and eyes puffy, the moments Tucker was far too close, touching me carefully, and every single mess that was made.
They showed me sweating through the porch demo.
They showed Tucker almost falling off the ladder, and my hands on his legs.
They showed the ceiling collapsing and memories falling from it.
They showed my parents.
That part still makes my stomach turn over on itself, even though I’ve watched the episode twice already. The internet didn’t just watch with me, they felt it.
The comments on social media were overwhelming. People started sharing stories of their own families, of never being enough, and finally feeling seen through the show. People cheered for me like they were waiting for that moment my whole career.
After that episode aired, my mom and I cried on the phone for an hour about how we’re so happy that was behind us. She hates that it was aired publicly, and part of me does, too. The internet has truly painted her in a terrible light because of it. The next day, I went online and shared a photo of her and I in front of the house with a long caption about conversation. She didn’t ask me to do that, but she’s made an effort to change. And the least I could do is show them that.
But what really surprised me, was how much they fell in love with Tucker.
They called him everything from hot to protective to steady to the funniest man alive. Someone even wrote what felt like an essay about how he touched my back every time my parents spoke, as if he were holding me together. Another person made a video titledTucker Daniels: Walking Green Flag.
I still don’t know whether I want to laugh or hide from it.
“I don’t care what the internet thinks,” he says simply, lifting his chin in the air.
“Here we go,” Nan mutters.
His eyes are locked on mine from across the room. “I only have eyes for one person.”
