Page 41 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

That does it, that destroys me. A sob escapes before I can stop it. I cover my mouth, willing myself to stop. Feeling. Anything.

“Hey, this sucks,” Daniel says. Immediately, Dawn Taylor and the crew shift their focus back to him. “Selena and I only just started dating a month ago. She needed someone to go on this show with her, and I thought it’d be fun. We never talked about being exclusive, but obviously, I thought competing on this show together meant we’d at least see this through.”

“Danny,” Selena says, her own eyes brimming with tears.

“Daniel,” he says. “Please call me Daniel.”

“Daniel,” she repeats. “I should’ve talked to you first. I really am sorry.”

“I know,” he says. He turns to Dawn Taylor. “Look, at the end of the day, we’re all adults. I wish Selena the best. Yeah, I’m bummed, but I’m not going to go berserk and flip a table here or anything.”

“Of course not,” Dawn Taylor says, looking like shedefinitelywanted one of us to go berserk and flip a table. “We’re all adults here.”

“So what happens now?” Daniel asks.

The answer’s obvious to me. How can we be in a competition for couples if none of us are couples anymore? I mean, maybe Daniel and Selena can stay together after this. It’s not like they experienced a massive betrayal of trust like I did. But I can’t stay with Chase. Not after seeing him with someone else.

I look down at my ring finger, at the discounted ring I made Chase exchange my original engagement ring for. Why did I even get engaged to him? Because my mom wanted me to, and she had cancer, and I didn’t want to let her down. Did I really want to spend the rest of my life with someone who I couldn’t count on, someone I was always cleaning upafter? Maybe, in an alternate universe where none of this happened, he could’ve changed. But in this universe, I didn’t care enough to make him change, and he didn’t care enough to try.

Dating him had been easy. He’d asked me out, and I’d gone along with it. And I’d loved him. I loved that he was silly and fun and overflowing with this effortless, easygoing charm that made people want to be his friend. And when I was with him, I could convince myself that I was silly and fun and easygoing, too.

But I’m not. I’m anxious and overcompetitive and ambitious in a way that is deeply uncool. I work too hard and try too hard and want more than I’ve been given—and I don’t think Chase has ever felt that way.

I look down at him. He’s still on the floor, tangled up with Selena. I say, “It’s over, Chase. We’re over.”

Dating Chase had been easy. In the end, breaking up is easy too.

Dawn Taylor breaks into a bright, megawatt smile. This is what she wanted. Drama. Scandal. Emotional damage on all sides. Everything you could want in a tight sixty minutes of reality TV programming.

“Selena, Chase, I’m sorry to say that for you and your partners, your journey through hell is over.” Dawn Taylor glances around. “Someone, bring me a torch. This feels like a torch moment.”

Freya sidles her way past the cameraperson. “Not yet. Peter Dixon wants to weigh in. He’s in the war room.”

Chapter Nine

Hell Is a Surprise Meeting That Wasn’t on Your Calendar

Dawn Taylor and Leah usher us to an upstairs parlor in the villa, which apparently the crew calls “the war room.” But this space feels a world away from the one we’ve been living in. Gone are the tropical centerpieces and cream-colored sofas. We must be where the dirty work gets done, away from the cameras, because instead of opulent displays and high-end furniture, there’s a long dining table strewn with half-full cups of coffee and schedules with scribbled notes in the margins, with mismatched chairs clustered around it. At the back of the room, a wall of monitors display footage of what’s going on around the island, in real time and scenes from the last couple of days.

This room isn’t meant for contestants, and I have a feeling that under typical circumstances, we would never have been allowed in here. Even though I’m out of the show, I can’t resist trying to take advantage of the moment. I quickly scan the timelines and notes scattered on the table, channeling my teacher skills to read upside down and decipher the scrawled writing. Most of it is pretty mundane—contact sheets, catering schedules, headshots of the contestants—but I spot one piece of paper with each couple listed below their producer’s name. And next to some of the names of the couples are initials. It takes me a second before I realize that the production crew is making bets. By the looks of it, almost half the crew is gambling on Daniel and Selena winning. Noone is betting on me and Chase.

Well, I guess they weren’t wrong, given where we are now. I don’t have to look to know that Chase is giving me sad, puppy-dog looks.

Peter Dixon is seated at the head of the table, lounging in a very expensive-looking armchair. He doesn’t look up for a moment, clearly absorbed in whatever’s on his tablet. But when Dawn Taylor taps her nails on the table, he glances up and breaks into a broad smile. He sweeps the papers I’d been reading out of sight. Damn.

“Here we are, Pete. What do you want?” Dawn Taylor gives him an icy stare like she wants to either exile or murder him. Instead of taking a chair, she perches on a nearby filing cabinet, giving her the height advantage.

Peter Dixon chuckles. “Just give it a minute, DT.”

I stay standing, arms folded, and Daniel falls in beside me. Chase sinks down onto a cardboard box, which sags under his weight. Selena finds a chic white stool and hops up onto it.

Minutes later, Seth storms into the room. Unlike Leah, whose outfits scream harried corporate mother of two, Seth is dressed in an odd mix of high-end and low-key. He’s sporting an oversized tie-dyed tee and Valentino jeans, paired with garishly colorful sandals, as if he got dressed inside a secondhand store in the dark. He doesn’t look happy to be pulled into this meeting on short notice. Bryan is right behind him, looking far more serious than the last time we saw him.

“What did you do to my couple?” Seth demands, rushing up to Leah.

Leah rolls her eyes. “Cool it, Seth. How do I know that all of this isn’tyourfault? I saw you lurking around earlier.”

“Hold up,” Peter Dixon interrupts. Leah and Seth, listen up. “Let’s take the temperature down, guys. We have a really interesting opportunity here.”

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