Page 29 of The Twelve Days of Christian
He’s right. It’s probably not the best idea, but not because I’m worried about Ollie. I hold the whisky directly responsible for latching my mouth onto Christian’s last night. I thought he enjoyed it asmuch as I did, but he hasn’t said a word today. What that means I don’t know—for me or him.
My feelings for Christian flicker like the fairy lights on my fabulous tree standing over there in front of the window. They’re like bright eyes blinking at me as they rotate through all their different programs. Sometimes they pulse slowly, a steady, comforting rhythm, almost hypnotic. It’s a mantra, telling me it’s fine to feel this way; this is how it’s meant to be. Other times they flash rapidly, like an excited beating heart. And then they launch into a wild random sequence, both delightful and unnerving. That’s what they’re doing now, the perfect accompaniment to the swirling inside of me that’s growing every day he’s here.
I’m jolted back from gazing lovingly at the tree, as beside me Christian lurches forward, a sudden intense fixation on the TV. His eyes are torn wide, hands pressed to his mouth.
“Fuck, no,” he says, his tone lethal.
In front of us there’s Loreena, crying, suitcase in hand. Other contestants crowd around her. One guy wraps an arm across her shoulder, rubbing at her back with a soothing hand. The mics seem to have failed. Their words are erratic, a faint burble. What the hell is happening?
A burly guy in a security uniform approaches, putting a large paw on Loreena’s arm. She flicks him off; her plump lips contorted in a scowl, her brows fighting against the Botox, plunging downwards in an angry frown. He steps back, startled, as she pushes past him, and dives into the waiting car.
She tries to drag the suitcase after her, but it’s too big and sticks in the doorway. She gives it a violent shove, and it lurches back. Loreena leaps out of the car after it and screams at the driver to open theboot. He gets out and tries to help her wrangle the case, but she’s not having any of it. She hisses at him like an enraged wildcat, poking at his chest with one of her pointed red nails, a threatening scarlet talon. He raises both hands as if to placate her, backing away, and sliding back into the driver’s seat. Finally, she wrestles the case into the boot, slams it with a deafening crash, and stumbles into the rear seat of the car. The security guy thrusts the door shut, and it races away.
It’s déjà vu. Just like Christian, Loreena Bunt is no longer onWild For The Win.
Christian grabs the remote, turning up the volume so there’s no possibility of missing the conversation between the contestants, hanging on their words. All of us are trying to make sense of what we’ve just seen.
“You can’t blame her,” says Kelly, a scrawny blonde who never even made it to the altar in the last season ofLove By Arrangement. “After being alone in that tent with him, of course she’d want to leave.”
“Surely you’ve read about him in the papers? He’s a shit,” says Tiffany Rose, the soap star, her character recently killed off in a fiery car crash. No doubt she needs all the screen time she can get and isn’t missing her chance here.
Tiffany’s co-star, who goes by the unlikely name of Chardonnay, is equally damning. “Honestly, what woman puts up with a guy like him?”
And so it goes on. Bit by bit, person by person, the producers fabricate an elaborate lie. With snippets of comments taken out of context, then stitched back together again, they’ve created a monster worthy of Dr Frankenstein.
Although it’s not said directly—because suing for slander is still a possibility—anyone watching will come to the same inevitable conclusion: Loreena wasn’t asked to leave; she chose to. And Loreena chose to leave, not out of solidarity with Christian, but because she’s upset by something Christian didto her.
“Can they do that?” I croak, my horror at what’s happened here rendering me almost speechless.
“They can, and they have,” Rachel says quietly.
Beside me, Christian is a man frozen in time, anguish carved on his face, unable to take his eyes off the screen, unable to turn away from the vile insinuations that continue to swirl back and forth.
Finally, they cut to ads, offering a chance for him to break free. When he moves, it’s an explosion. He slams his hand on the remote so hard it skews off the table, flying through the air and landing with a clatter. He’s a storm cloud tumbling down the hallway. His bedroom door crashes shut, the house quaking as the sound reverberates off the walls.
“Do you think he really…”
“No!” I blurt, leaping to Christian’s defence.
Rachel’s brows fly upwards. “You seem awfully sure about that.”
“I am. He’s not like that Rache.”
“You know, as my mum always says, where there’s smoke there’s fire.”
“That’s the thing here, Rachel. There never was any smoke. All that stuff about him and his girlfriend? A heap of crap. Just like they did to Ollie.”
She has the decency to look a little ashamed, as she should be. She might be engaged to another guy, but like all my friends, Rachel hasa soft spot for Ollie. Everyone hated what they did to him as much as I did.
“Fuckers,” Rachel spits. How she manages to control that potty mouth in a courtroom I’ll never know. “He’s screwed.”
“Why would they do that?” I can’t understand what they hoped to gain from this.
“An insurance policy perhaps? In case he was brave enough to out them, take his chances—if they discredit him, who will the public believe?”
“Yeah, but was it necessary? To go that far?”
“No,” she says, looking thoughtful. “But it did make for some pretty memorable TV. No one’s going to forget that in a while. If the programme’s been struggling, hooking viewers in with a big controversy will make sure they get another season.”
