Page 42 of Never Ever Getting Back Together

“Truth,” Francesca says, “is a lot less romantic thanfables.”

As they work through filming the rest of the interviews, my group fills the endless hours with small talk and champagne. I wouldn’t have expected six interviews to take hours, but between retakes, and shuffling around the lighting as the sun moved, and water breaks and food breaks, we move through things about as fast as a sloth sprinting across a major highway.

As the sun drops lower in the sky, I shuffle around to see what Jordy’s doing. Perhaps naively, I’d thought I would be spending more time with him than this, at least on filming days.

Right now, he’s by the shore, being filmed as he stares wistfully into its depths. The ambient light starts to take on an orange glow, and, suddenly, on what looks to be Gwendolyn’s instruction, he unbuttons his shirt and starts walking to the camera with his six-pack bared.

Someone makes a strangled noise behind me, and I turn around in alarm, only to find out it’s Maya, who’s enacting a pantomime of gagging.

“She’s going home tonight, right?” Kim whispers, a little desperately.

The rest of us nod in unison.

Still unbuttoned, Jordy and his abs walk up the hill and straight to the blankets, holding a full glass of champagne. He offers it to me, as the camera crew surrounds us. “Hey,” he says. “Wanna go for a walk?”

The first thing I do is look to the other girls. Even if we did sign up for this, there’s an air of awkwardness. The girls give me strained smiles that look a little too thrilled to be sincere. With an apologetic smile, I accept the champagne and join Jordy for a romantic walk. Just us and the lake and Gwendolyn and Isaac and the camera crew.

“Skye, something you said last night has been on my mind,” Jordy says as we walk.

“Hold on, hold on,” Gwendolyn yells. “Hold that thought.”

We freeze in place as a makeup artist sprints over and applies what looks like oil over Jordy’s bare chest. Gwendolyn looks through the camera and whispers something to the operator.

Jordy looks down and frowns. “Maybe a little bit more on the bottom left,” he says, and the artist obliges. “Perfect.”

“You’re glistening.” Gwendolyn beams.

“You look like a model,” the operator says.

“You look like a vampire,” I say lightly, because I think honesty is important in a budding relationship redo.

“Aww, thanks, Skye. Just be careful if you touch them, it’s a bit sticky.”

“I will keep that in mind if I’m overcome with the urge to caress your bare stomach. So, uh, you were saying something about last night?”

Walking backward, Gwendolyn mimes sticking her chest out. Jordy copies her. The new pose transforms him from a glistening, oiled-up, shirtless guy to a glistening, oiled-up, shirtless guy who’s walking like Tarzan.

“Well,” he says. “I get the whole ‘traveling Europe’ and ‘living in London’ thing. But why are you going alone? Isn’t it kind of dangerous for a chick to be by herself?”

He sounds like my dad did for the past six months. “I’m fine,” I say, my tone icy.

“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean it in a feminist way. Like, girls are always talking about how they can’t travel alone. I’m just wondering why you didn’t bring Chloe or someone, at least for the traveling-around part?”

I shrug, then hold onto the hem of my shirt. “I like being alone, remember? I don’t need to worry about what someone else wants to do, or see. I’m not on anyone else’s schedule.This way, I make the plans I want to make, and the only time it gets changed is if I decide to. I recommend it. It’s been the best eight weeks of my life.”

“You haven’t been lonely?”

“I’m surrounded by dozens of outgoing strangers every day. How could I be lonely?”

Jordy lets out a peal of laughter. “Oh, man, that’s the most Skye thing I’ve ever heard.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Just, I always loved that about you. You aren’t the ‘let’s make each other our entire worlds and sew our hearts together’ type. You’re like, ‘Yeah, cool, I like you, I guess, but I don’t need you, I’m going to go have fun, woo, bye.’”

I start. “Am I like that?”

“One thousand percent, but it’s a good thing. A really, really good thing, trust me. You’re fun, you’re not intense or clingy, you’re…” He pauses. “You’re the dream girl.”

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