She nodded. They hugged. And then, pursued by one of the camera crew, Belinda left.
Leaving me to – do what, exactly?
Romeo-Dylan sank down on the bench again and buried his head in his hands. ‘Fuuuuuuck,’ he groaned.
‘No swearing, Dylan,’ Murray said. He was standing next to the remaining camera.
‘Fuck off, Murray,’ Romeo-Dylan said, without looking up.
He wasn’t the only one who wanted to swear. I wanted to tilt my head up to the sky and scream FUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKK a thousand times louder than he had.
For once in my life, I’d made an actual, proper, adult decision. I’d made a plan, instead of acting on impulse. I’d thought about what I was going to say, and I was going to follow through.
But now what was I supposed to do? Sit down beside this man who’d just been kicked in the nuts and kick him again, just for good measure?
There was only one thing I could do, really. Only one way I knew how to handle this situation.
‘Are you all right?’ Mummy Mandie said, sitting down beside Romeo-Dylan on the bench and putting her hand between his shoulder blades. ‘That was horrible.’
He looked up at me, wild-eyed. ‘Was I – was I horrible to her?’
‘No, no, of course not!’ I reassured him. ‘That’s not what I meant. Just that it was a horrible situation. It’s not nice, to be broken up with.’
‘No,’ he said faintly. ‘It’s not.’
He took his head out of his hands, but he stayed hunched forward, curled into himself. His elbows were resting on his knees, his hands hanging down between them, the thumb and middle finger of his right hand tapping together furiously. ‘But that’s what I’m doing,’ he said. ‘Every single time I come to one of these Last Chance Parties, that’s what I’m doing. Breaking up with someone. Hurting them.’
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘We all knew what we signed up for.’
‘I thought I knew what I signed up for!’ he said. ‘But I never knew it would feel like this.’
He let out a long, shaking breath. ‘I’d already decided what I was going to do,’ he said. ‘At the Necklace Ceremony tonight. I was going to eliminate Belinda. I was going to send her to the Convent anyway. So I should be relieved. She did the hard part for me. But instead I just feel…’
‘How?’ I asked, after he’d been silent for a few moments. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Guilty,’ he said at last. ‘I feel guilty. That I can’t be everything to everyone. That I can’t give everyone what they want. That I can’t make everyone happy.’
‘I’m not going to tell you that your feelings are wrong,’ I said. ‘They’re your feelings. You can feel however you want to feel. But this show isn’t about you making everyone happy. It’s about you finding someone who makesyouhappy.’
I scooted a little closer. I kept my hand on his back, but angled myself in towards him, putting my other hand on his knee. ‘I think you and I are quite similar, in a lot of ways,’ I said. ‘We’re both people-pleasers. We want everyone around us to be happy. It hurts like hell when they’re not.’
He let out another breath. ‘Yeah.’
‘The realisation that I wasn’t making my ex happy – that I couldn’t make my ex happy, no matter how hard I tried – that just about broke me,’ I said. ‘But it didn’t. I survived. And you will too.’
‘You remind me of someone,’ he said suddenly.
‘Oh?’ I asked. ‘Who?’
‘I have this friend,’ he said. ‘A good friend. A close friend. Sometimes, it feels like I’m carrying the world on my shoulders, but when we talk, I get to take it off and set it down for a while. It helps me believe that things aren’t as out of control as they seem.’
I thought of my Dylan. Of her hand on the base of my neck as I sobbed on the steps at auditions, of that text she’d sent me telling me to look at the best features list on my application, of the affirmation flashcards under my pillow. Of how every time someone cut me down, or I cut myself down, she’d build me back up. Of how she had my back, no matter what.
‘I have a friend like that,’ I said softly.
‘You’re totally different people,’ Romeo-Dylan said. ‘Nothing alike, really. But sometimes, when I sit down with you, it’s a bit like sitting down with my friend. You make me feel calm, Amanda. You make me feel steady.’
I already knew I had no chance of winningMarry Me, Juliet. But if I did have tender little hopes that it might be me at the end, that would have been the moment I knew I was screwed.You remind me of my friendandwhen I’m with you, the grounddoesn’tmove beneath my feetweren’t exactly romantic declarations for the ages.
