I ignored her, but being boring was no defence against Lily. ‘What was it you tried to tell me at the First Night Party?’ she trilled, surreptitiously angling us so one of the Convent Cam cameras could get her face. ‘That I didn’t know who I was messing with? I’m ready, Cece. Finally, we’re together again, and you can show me!’
I turned to leave, but just as swiftly, she was in my path, blocking the exit. ‘Who am I messing with, Cece?’ she said. ‘Please! Show me!’
‘Move out of my way, Lily.’
‘Or what?’ she said, smirking. ‘You’ll get your best friend the Romeo to come in and give me a talking-to?’
‘Just—move. Please.’
‘Oh, that’s right, you don’t have a best friend any more,’ she said. ‘He dumped you.’
‘Lily—’
‘Do you have any friends, Cece? Does anyone here give a single shit about you?’
‘Does anyone here give a single shit aboutyou?’ I snapped.
‘Of course they do,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘They’re afraid of me. Fear is better than love, sweetheart, any day of the week. Oops.’
And she poured her orange juice down my front.
‘What the fuck was that?’ I demanded later, when she came into the laundry to put on a load. I was standing over the sink in my bra, trying to scrub the juice out of my shirt.
‘Don’t take it personally,’ she said. ‘It’s for the cameras. I’ve got to keep up my brand.’
‘Can you keep up your brand in a way that doesn’t involve pouring shit all over me?’
She closed the washing machine with her foot. ‘It’s storytelling 101, Cece,’ she said. ‘You came at me on that first night, so we needed to put a button on that. Lily Fireball would never give a pass to someone who told her that they didn’t know who she was messing with.’
I shook my head.
‘You’re angry with me.’
‘You just poured juice all over me.’
‘I got you screen time,’ she said. ‘But look, if you don’twant to feud with me, I’m happy to discuss other storytelling options. Perhaps we have a heart-to-heart and you forgive me. You can join my girl gang. Naya and Jess K and I—’
‘I don’t want to join your girl gang.’
‘It could be a distraction. Being a bitch is fun.’
I scrubbed harder at my shirt.
She sighed. ‘I meant what I said,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I know you want to talk to Dylan. I’ll make it happen.’
This wasn’t the first time in my life someone had made me a grandiose promise.Of course we’ll move you to another group home if this one isn’t working out for you. Of course we’ll make long distance work, babe. Of course we want you to be our little girl, Cece, all that’s left are the formalities.
Most of the time, people were full of shit. So was Lily Fireball. A day passed, and another, and another, and Dylan was nowhere to be seen.
‘How are things on the outside?’ Rani asked Murray as he gathered us in the living room to await the next Necklace Ceremony victim.
‘You know I can’t tell you that,’ he said. ‘Naya, you and Marija switch places, please.’
‘I’m not asking for huge details,’ Rani said. ‘Just a little bit of info. The restrictions were for six weeks, right? What are the virus numbers like? Are the restrictions going to be extended? Are we going to be stuck here beyond when the show stops filming?’
The bottom fell out of my stomach. The thought of having to live here even longer, trapped on the same property as Dylan and his new girlfriend Hero Nurse Dylan, was horrifying. What if they let us roam the grounds when filming wasfinished, and I saw them? What if he just looked at me and was like ‘Oh hey, Cece’ as though I was no one and nothing?
‘I’m not an epidemiologist,’ Murray said, ‘but it doesn’t look that way, no.’
