Page 45 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

[Footage: Extreme close-up of Alice and Daniel in the hot tub together.]

DAWN TAYLOR:Welcome toDawn Tay’s Inferno, baby. You never know what might happen in the fires of hell. On this island, your love will test you, push you, and even change you.

[Gasps from the crowd, close-up shots of dropped jaws.]

DAWN TAYLOR:These new lovers made their case to me, and I’ve decided to give them a chance to prove their love to the world—and to each other.

[Interview footage: Ava and Noah (Co-CEOs)]

AVA DAWSON:To be perfectly frank, this is unfair. They failed to stay together as a couple. They should be out.

[Interview footage: Brittany and Jaxon (DTFarm)]

BRITTANY LEGARE:Oh, I’m not worried. I mean, these new couplesjustgot together.

JAXON HILL:Yeah, we’ve been together for seven years. They won’t be able to keep up with us. So let ’em stay. They won’t last long.

[Footage: Brittany and Jaxon kiss and high-five each other over their heads without looking.]

[Interview footage: Selena and Chase (Naughty Hotties)]

SELENA RIVERA:I hate how things went down, but I talked to Daniel. We’re all good. And I’m so excited to embark on this adventure with Chase.

CHASE DE LANCEY:Babe, I feel like a million bucks when I’m with you.

[Interview footage: Alice and Daniel (The Asians)]

DANIEL CHO:This isn’t exactly what we expected, but life has a weird way of working out. I’ve always admired Alice, ever since high school. And the tension between us when we reconnected on the beach—well, you’ve seen it. It feels like fate, getting this second chance at a romance together.

ALICE CHEN:Yeah. A hundred percent.

DANIEL CHO:Sure, everything that went down today was a little crazy, but I’m choosing to see it as a blessing in disguise.Dawn Tay’s Infernobrought us together, and I’m not going to take that for granted.

ALICE CHEN:Yep. Daniel and I are a couple now. We’re together. Romantically. And physically.

Chapter Ten

Hell Is Breaking Up on Reality TV

The screen freezes on my face, and Leah taps on it with her emerald-green fountain pen.

The last couple hours have been a whirlwind of announcing the partner swap, doing interviews, and now having Leah drag me up to the third floor to review my subpar performance. We’re in the Video Village, where an army of PAs and editors huddle over a dizzying array of screens. Elaborate computer setups cover the rows of desks pushed together, lit overhead by sterile fluorescent lights.

The cramped room is packed with exhausted-looking people, and the recycling bin by the door is overflowing with empty cans of Red Bull. Lex and a few other members of the crew are there, presumably uploading audio or new raw footage. Someone is curled up on the floor in the back corner.THE CRYING CORNERhas been written in Sharpie on a takeout menu taped to the wall.

I’m starting to feel like Leah brought me here to scare me into submission, and it’s working.

“So, Alice, do you see the problem here?” she asks, tapping the screen again.

This must be what my students feel like when I ask them to stay after class to talk about their grades. It’s not that I don’t want to be a team player, but I’m still reeling frommy fiancé cheating on me five hours before.Leah rewinds the footage back to a moment when Danielis looking at me with an affectionate smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Meanwhile, I’m staring blankly ahead like one of the fish on ice at Pacific Market.

“You might not have heard of her, but our lead editor over there”—Leah points at a slight woman massaging two fingers into her temple like she has a migraine from hell—“is Shawna Vasquez, one of the best in the biz. Shawna has all of our PAs combing through every second of footage that you’re in. They’re working around the clock to edit together something usable, and you are making it very hard for them.”

Shawna certainly seems to be proving Leah’s point. Her curly dark hair has been tied into a haphazard braid, and she wears a stormy expression on her face as she gives instructions to three PAs at once. Her stern scowl is at odds with thebe happywritten in retro psychedelic text on her tee.

I do a quick head count. There are about ten PAs stuffed in here, and sure enough, they’re all watching some version of me on their screens. Aside from the crew member curled up in the corner, only one other person isn’t eyeballing my face on a screen: the PA with slicked-back blond hair and sunglasses. He’s decked out in a white polo that’s open at the collar, salmon shorts, and a gold watch, and he’s lounging on a pool chair on the balcony. Everyone else may be hard at work, but he looks like a finance bro on vacation. He guffaws at something playing on his phone.

Shawna notices, and with a very impressive middle-school-teacher voice, she yells, “Anton, get back to it, or I’m gonna throw your phone off that balcony!”

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