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“Really, Tony? That’s my mom.”
“Oh, sorry! You’re a gorgeous woman, Mrs. Madden. This girl is the other contender. You guys look awfully cozy in those secluded woods...”
Before the image changed, I just knew it was one of Savannah and me from our last summer here. The summer after we found the creek. And sure enough...
“Tony. I’m pretty sure this is illegal,” I said instead. “None of those women gave you rights to use their images on television.”
“Fine, fine.” Tony had the audacity to sound resigned. The left screen changed back to his webcam. “What happened, Ryan? Everyone wants to know. You and Bella were jiving. Everything was great right before that last night...”
“I know it’s not something people want to hear, but I knew that Bella wasn’t the one for me—”
“The mystery woman back home was. Is.”
“It sucks that it took going on the show to figure it out,” I continued, ignoring him, “and if I could apologize to Bella more, I would. It was wrong of me to stay...”
And even though I wanted to, I didn’t add that I tried to leave, but that was because I wasn’t allowed to. It was expressly forbidden.
Go figure, I had a list of things I was allowed to talk about, and things I wasn’t allowed to talk about...but I couldn’t extend a similar list to them.
“After the break, you will have that opportunity! America, we will be right back.”
The signal for the commercial break came on and I slouched in my seat for just a moment before leaning into the table, away from the phone and toward Savannah.
“What did you find?” I whispered.
“Your account has blown up, Ryan,” Savannah whispered back, turning her phone toward me. Sure enough, Instagram pictures that hadn’t seen the light of day in years had hundreds of comments, thousands of likes...
“Shit. I don’t even know my password to shut it down,” I mumbled, scrolling through the feed.
“Who do you have with you?” Tony’s voice came through my phone. “Is that your mystery girl?”
Annoyed, I pulled myself back to look into my phone. “Do not bring her up. Do not mention her.”
“Tsk tsk, Ryan. You left the show and still managed to smell like...well...roses. Does she know—”
“She does.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
When I didn’t say anything, he continued.
I should have said something...
“Your overnight with Bella. Does she know about that?”
“She’s watched the show.” Still, I glanced across the table back to Savannah, who was once again looking at my Instagram feed. The image that was up was the one Tony pointed out of her and me. After a moment of staring at it, she slowly started to scroll through the comments.
I nearly said her name to get her to stop, but managed to stop, covering it up with a clearing of my throat.
“Ah, but does she know that you fulfilled your relationship with Bella that evening?”
“We didn’t.”
“We have footage that says otherwise.”
“No. You don’t.”
I couldn’t believe this guy. He was truly slimy, just trying to get the best story for television. It was surprising to me then that the show did as well as it did.
