Gage to Ellie: No. Things worked out as they were meant to. And I’m really glad we’ve been able to stay friends.
Ellie to Gage: Right! My thoughts exactly.
Ellie
Friends.
Gage Barrett and I are friends.
He said so in his text, I agreed, and it’s true, and…
I slam my laptop shut and slap my palms on top of it, annoyed that I’m not able to focus on work.
For the millionth time since I got back from Maui, I realize that my company no longer feels like enough. High Tee is thriving, I have everything I thought I wanted, and yet…
I tap my fingers against the laptop, then stand up and go into the kitchen to get ice cream. And I pour a glass of wine for good measure. It doesn’t take away the pain, but it does dull it a little.
I miss him. I miss him, and watching him on the show is killing me. I survived the episodes with me in them—and yes, I watched them, despite telling my mother that I wouldn’t. Seeing myself on camera? Super awkward. But those early episodes haven’t been as hard to watch as the ones filmed after I left.
It stung to watch him casually tell the remaining contestants that I’d been just a fling. Yes, I know he did it for me. He let me go because I asked, but I’m doing that girl thing where maybe I wish he’d protested just a little bit.
I know. I’m the worst. I make him let me leave and then I’m mad at him because he did.
It’s not that I’m mad at him so much as…
Brokenhearted. My heart is broken.
I stick a spoonful of peanut butter ice cream in my mouth and lean forward, resting my forehead on the cool surface of the fridge, and then, like the worst sort of chick flick cliché, I cry into my ice cream.
Ellie
ELEVEN WEEKS LATER, DURING THE AIRING OF EPISODE 15 OF JILTED
“Are you sure you won’t come over to watch it? Your mom’s coming!”
I roll my eyes as I pull eggs out of my shopping bag and place them in my fridge. “Oh, gosh, well, if my mom will be there to watch my ex marry someone else…”
Marjorie sighs on the other end of the phone. “Is that what we’re calling him? Your ex? Because I saw the way he looked at you when you got eliminated, El, and if you’d given him any hint—”
“Can we not?” I say a little sharply.
My best friend goes quiet for a long moment. “Okay, don’t bite my head off, but I really don’t think you should be alone tonight.”
“I’m fine.”
“Really? Gage is marrying either Brooklyn or Paisley on national television, and you’re fine?”
“We don’t know that he’s marrying either one of them.”
“It’s pretty likely, sweetie,” she says gently. “He said last week that he was in love.”
“It’d better be Paisley,” I say, placing the milk beside the eggs. “There’s something about Brooklyn I don’t like.”
“Maybe that she’s not you?”
I slam the fridge door.
“Did you at least tell him that you’re moving to L.A.?”