‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘At least I can turn you crying into something. Can you turn your head a little to the left?’
Dylan hadn’t broken up with me, I reminded myself. I’d broken up with Dylan.
It wasn’t even a break-up. Because we weren’t together. We’d never been together. We were so not together that he’d dumped me on the first night we’d met and he had multiple other girlfriends.
He hadn’t kissed me like he’d dumped me on the first night we’d met, though. He hadn’t kissed me like someone with multiple other girlfriends. I still had the scratches on my back from the hedge to prove it.
But I wasn’t the only one he’d kissed. ‘All right, how many of you pashed him?’ Naya asked when she arrived at the Convent a few days later. Belinda and Jess K both raised their hands.
Immediately, I wanted to ask him about it.So a little bird tells me that you’ve been spreading the love around, I’d say, sitting cross-legged in my friend-zone armchair as he shoved his face full of toast.
He’d look at me quizzically. I’d make kissy noises at him. He’d laugh.What if I ended up with someone and I hadn’t kissed her and we were bad at it?he’d say.It’s only sensible.
Oh, yes, I’d say solemnly.It’s definitely sensible to make out with as many women as possible. It’s all for science, really.
And he’d scoff and say,What would you do in my shoes, not kiss them and have them all cry because you don’t like them?
Then I’d say,Someone’s got a big ego.
He’d throw a pillow at me and say,I will no longer be participating in this conversation.
You know I’m not really kissing people for science, right?he’d tell me on the verandah later, when I walked him out.They make me do it.
I’d raise an eyebrow.
Really,he’d insist.Cece, they made me kiss Lily Fireball. Lily. Fireball. I think you know me well enough by now to know that’s not a decision I’d make on my own.
His eyes would be dark in the moonlight. I’d look up at him, and he’d cup my face in his hand, callused fingers rough against my jawline.It’s for the cameras, he’d whisper, his breath hot against my lips,but this isn’t,and he’d—
No.No,James.
The Dylan in my mind might kiss me on the verandah, whisper in my ear that I was the only one, that he wanted to be with me, that he’d never been in love before but he’d fallen in love with me, that everything else was for the cameras, that he’d made a terrible mistake that first night.
But the real Dylan wouldn’t. I knew that for a fact.
Because he hadn’t.
He was the Romeo. If he wanted to, he could come down here and ask me if I wanted to be back in the competition. If they really were spending as much time building our story as Murray said they were, the network would let him do it in a second.
He didn’t come.
Of course he didn’t. I was a grown woman who had told a grown man that we couldn’t see each other any more. I’d set a boundary, and he’d respected it. Of course he had. He was Dylan.
But there was a part of me that was still eight years old, and that part of me was waiting. Waiting for someone to want me. Waiting for someone to love me. Waiting for someone to come for me, even though I’d pushed them away.
If they love me, they’ll come back for me, I’d rationalised to myself in that group home, curled up in my bunk late at night, trying to cry quietly so the other kids wouldn’t hear me. It might take them a while, but they’ll come back.
They never had.
And neither did Dylan.
The days in the Convent were unbelievably long, and they were all the same.
Get up. Fight the increasing number of women for shower time. Accept that you might never have a hot shower again. Try to find somewhere in the house where you won’t wind up on camera or around the other women too much.
Fail. Be forced into a conversation with one (or more) of the other women on Convent Cam, where they try to work outwhy Dylan isn’t coming down here any more. Channel retail self, smile, say, ‘Oh, we’re getting so close to the end we agreed he should be spending the bulk of his time with the Juliets, but we’re still friends.’
Lie. Be unconvincing. When that doesn’t work, be boring, so they go away.
