Page 39 of Heart to Heart
Come again?
I stood like a deer in the headlights, my feet refusing to move. Surely, this must be some sort of fever dream, and I hadn’t just beaten out everyone for the spot of favorite contestant by a vote of millions of people.
“Avery,” Sasha whisper-yelled. “Get your ass up there and get your pin.”
Stunned, I forced my legs to move, climbing down the risers and walking to Kamila, who now seemed to be getting farther and farther away with each step.
“Baby, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Kamila laughed, reaching behind them to pluck a pin from the bowl. “Maybe that’s why the audience seems to love you so much, eh?”
“I…I have no idea,” I answered, “but I’ll do my best to keep up whatever it is I’m doing.”
“Damn right, you will.” Kamila smiled. “So, Avery, will you accept the will of the United States of America and take this key to Tristan’s heart?”
On hearing his name, my eyes traveled to Tristan, expecting the big smile he’d given to the other contestants. But there was no smile on his face for me. Instead, all I saw was pain in his eyes, as though my being here was putting him in an awkward position.
“Are you playing hard to get, Avery?” Kamila asked, snapping me back to reality.
“Yes, of course, I will,” I answered them, accepting the pin.
Without sparing another glance back at Tristan, I turned around to head back to the risers, being met with a death glare to end all death glares from Bianca. A nobody from the Midwest had bested her, and her ego had suffered a severe blow as a result. I looked her in her eyes, refusing as an adult to be intimidated by the mean girl who never matured past high school.
“Game on,” she whispered as I passed her on the way to my spot next to Sasha, who threw her arms around me, congratulating me even though her spot in the competition had yet to be secured.
“That was epic,” she whispered in my ear.
“It won’t be until you get your pin,” I whispered back. The show went to commercial and I pulled away from Sasha. I squeezed the butterfly clutch, freeing it from the back of the pin, and slid the pin through the fabric on the strap of my dress. After securing it in place, I snuck a glance back up at Tristan, who, to my surprise, was looking back at me. Our eyes met for the briefest of seconds before he dropped his gaze back down to the ground, his brows creasing in concentration. I would give almost anything to know what was going on inside his head.
“And now, it’s Tristan’s turn,” Kamila announced seconds after returning from commercial break. “Who will our leading man choose to keep in the race to capture his heart? That question is about to be answered by the man himself. Tristan, in no particular order, who is your first choice to remain in the competition?”
Tristan scanned the risers with dramatic effect. I could almost hear the heartbeats of each lady without a pin poundingin their chests. After several seconds of scanning faces, Tristan’s eyes landed on…
“Jacqueline,” he called to the woman who bore a striking resemblance to one of my favorite recording artists.
With all the confidence of, well, Halsey walking down the catwalk at one of her concerts, Jacqueline gracefully descended from the risers, seemingly floating over to Tristan and grinning as she accepted her pin and reclaimed her place back with the rest of us.
For another five nerve-wracking minutes, Tristan proceeded to call the rest of the names of those contestants moving forward. Charlie, Courtney, Macie, Amelia, Brittney L., Brittney B., Kennedy, and a woman named Juliette who I’d been calling Brandy. Every name but the one I wanted to hear.
I gripped Sasha’s hand tighter. She responded in kind, squeezing my hand back. With tears beginning to form, I turned my head to look at her just as she was doing the same. Her mouth formed a tight smile that screamed worry.
“Tristan,” Kamila interceded, “you have one more lady left. Who’s going to be your final pick tonight?”
Averting my eyes from Sasha to Tristan, I noticed his gaze fixed on my and Sasha’s hands, still clutching each other tightly as though the ground beneath our feet was about to give way at any second. Seconds later, he called his last name of the night.
“Sasha.”
For the briefest of moments, I thought I was going to have to catch Sasha when her knees buckled, and she began to crumple to the riser. Only as quickly as she sank down did she recover and make her way safely to Tristan on both feet to accept her pin.
“He scared the shit out of me,” she whispered in my ear after we hugged each other when she returned to her spot next to me.
“Me too,” I confessed.
“On a normal season, this night would be over,” Kamila said. “But as we all know, this is not a normal season. As you all know, this season marks the introduction of the veto, which can only be used once by Tristan if he disagrees with the results of the audience vote and wants to replace one of the ladies voted in with another pick of his own.” Kamila turned to Tristan, raising one of their perfect eyebrows. “The choice is yours, Tristan. Will you be using your one and only veto tonight?”
My heart fell when, as Tristan scanned over each of our faces, his face landed on mine. We stayed locked in a stare, his eyes conflicted as I did my best to keep my fear from reflecting outward.
He’s going to do it. He’s going to use his veto on me. He must not want me anywhere near him.
I closed my eyes, mentally preparing myself to accept my fate, hoping I could catch a plane home yet tonight, return to my life, and maybe change my name, when Tristan made his decision.
