Sidecar Crush

I was afraid he might say he had to leave. I knew the way I’d just looked at him hadn’t been right. The thoughts that had raced through my mind were not things an engaged woman should think when she was with another man. Jameson was just a friend. Running around in the dark with him after drinking a little moonshine was making me stupid.

“Should we go sit and watch the rest of the fireworks?” he asked.

I let out a breath in relief. I hadn’t ruined the evening. “Yeah, sure.”

We went back to the blanket and sat down. I made sure to keep plenty of space between us. But even just sitting on the beach with him, tilting our faces up to the sky, guilt washed over me. Hanging out with an old friend was fine, but my thoughts were straying to places they shouldn’t.

I didn’t wait long before deciding the best thing for me to do was go back to my cabin. It was late, and we’d had a fun day. The most fun I’d had in… I couldn’t remember how long. But I was feeling things I didn’t understand. Having thoughts about a man who wasn’t the one who’d put this ring on my finger. That wasn’t fair to Kelvin, and it wasn’t fair to Jameson either. He’d always been a good friend to me, and I didn’t want to ruin that now.

Jameson offered to walk me home, but I declined. I could see my cabin from where we were sitting, and the walk wasn’t far. I glanced over my shoulder when I got to the door and saw him standing near the edge of the crowd, watching. Like he was going to wait and make sure I got inside okay.

In fact, that was probably exactly what he was doing. Ever the gentleman.

I gave him a little wave and he held up his hand. Despite the part of me that didn’t want to say goodbye, I went inside and shut the door behind me.

12

LEAH MAE

Seeing myself on TV was stranger than I would have thought. I’d seen videos of myself walking in fashion shows. And a photo shoot I’d done had been part of a documentary on modeling. But that wasn’t the same as being on a TV show. Even a so-called reality show.

It didn’t feel like watching myself. That girl on the screen seemed like she was someone else. She looked like me, with her bony elbows and gap between her two front teeth. Sounded like me, too. But with each episode that aired, she became less and less the Leah Larkin I knew. The Leah Larkin I believed myself to be.

Some of the strangeness was probably because the show was supposed to be real, but it wasn’t. I knew I’d been acting—knew about all the coaching and retakes. But most people didn’t, so they believed the Leah they were seeing was true. I didn’t know how to feel about that, especially with how much they’d altered the show in editing.

I sat on my dad’s couch, the remote in my hand. I hadn’t seen Jameson again since the last Sunday when we’d lit off the sparkler bomb. It had been almost a week—it was Friday night—and the thought of it still made me smile. It was such a silly thing. So juvenile. But between the obstacle course, the food, the fireworks, and the little stunt with Jameson and his brother, it had been one of the best days I’d had in years.

“What are you smiling about, sweetheart?” Dad asked.

He sat in his recliner, a tray of dinner on his lap. His skin tone looked better, and although he was still hooked up to his oxygen tank, his breathing sounded much clearer. I could probably go back to L.A. soon and he’d be fine.

My heart sank at that thought.

“Aw, where’d it go?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your smile,” he said.

I shrugged. “I’m okay.”

He eyed me for a second, like he didn’t really believe me. “This show you’re on is a bit odd, don’t you think?”

“It’s almost all faked,” I said. I had no qualms about telling my dad the unvarnished truth. “They told me a lot of what to say and coached me through all those side interviews you see. I was acting.”

“Hmm.”

The show came back on and I sat with my back stiff. The way they’d edited the episodes made it hard for me to predict what was going to happen. It felt strange to watch clips of myself and not know what I was going to be shown doing or saying. I could tell how they’d pieced together different moments and conversations—in the industry, they called them frankenbites—but I knew most viewers wouldn’t be able to tell.