💗💗"The Villain Edit" by Laurie Devore

“It’s not just about the success or failure of your career, you know that, right? It’s about why you write. What it means to you. Why you write about romance yet seem so opposed to experiencing it in an open and vulnerable way.”

“Testing out storylines, are we?” I mutter darkly.

She shrugs. “Maybe we’ll save that for the second one-on-one.” She’s not looking at me now; she’s texting.

“You ready?” Charlotte asks me after she puts her phone away.

I take a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

THEY REALLY DID the damn thing for this date with a table set up far on a ledge overlooking the ocean. Andi had mentioned to me that the dinner portion of her one-on-one date was at a generic hotel, but the backdrop of our date is beautiful, perched up just above the blue water of the Pacific Ocean with the flashing lights on the Santa Monica pier stretched out below us, palm trees swaying next to a long bike path, and the mountains just over my shoulder.

It’s easy to talk to Marcus, looking especially dashing in his perfectly tailored blue sports coat. He’s open and smiles often, in on a joke with himself. He tells me about his life back in Chicago, the tech sales job he’s still able to hold down, even with his extended time on the show, the restaurants he likes to visit, and the things we’d do together there.

I lean into my hand, staring at him across our untouched food, a plate of red Italian sausage pasta that looks mouthwatering, but fits in with neither my diet nor the sound design of the show. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can see it. Us together in Chicago.” And then I laugh at myself because it’s embarrassing.

“Why do you hate to say it?” he asks, interested. I’m surprised by the question. Marcus had never quite seemed at ease with this process on Shailene’s season either, so I’d thought he’d picked up on my discomfort.

“This,” I say, gesturing around at the menagerie of people watching us not eat and talk, “is insane. I just wasn’t sure how I’d cope. I’m not sure I am coping, but something about this whole thing, about you, is sucking me in.”

He likes that, leans in closer and grabs my hand. Truthfully, talking to men has never been particularly difficult for me because I do have some idea what they like. What they want to hear. I feel myself retracting into that role because it’s one I know well. It’s the most ideal time of any in my life to playact, but some part of me wants to stop it.

“Can I tell you something that might weird you out?” I ask, unable to meet his eye, trying to flex my hand he’s holding. “It’s—” But I feel myself being too real and want to stop it. “I don’t know, maybe it’s—”

“No,” Marcus says, tilting my chin up so he can see me, a bounciness still in his voice, “now you have to tell me.”

“Fine,” I say, blushing deeply. I push my hair back from my face. There’s a breeze on the air. “Meeting you has been so wonderful and being with you really has lived up to every expectation I could’ve imagined, but—and this is going to make me sound so ridiculous—a little part of me fell in love with you last season.”

I notice then that Marcus has absolutely been whitening his teeth because his smile is so bright, it almost blinds me. He lets me go on.

“But not—not just what the edit showed of you. There was this moment, when you were talking about your dad’s cancer diagnosis, and it was so vulnerable and so real, and you were so damn articulate.” I almost choke on that, but I manage to keep it together. “I don’t know, my grandmother had cancer, but it was different. I just—it was devastating, what you said, you were devastating, and something about it—it just clicked.”

It really hadn’t been a part of my game plan—it might have been the first time I really just let my narrative go with no thought—but I can see the effect it’s had on Marcus, the way tenderness has crept into his eyes, his expression so open that even I momentarily buy into our love story. His hand caresses my face, his index finger feather-light as he rubs it against my skin. “Why are you so amazing?” he asks.

“I’m glad he’s okay,” I say. “Your dad.” He kisses me softly.

I still remember it, his tears falling onto Shailene’s shoulder—a purple sleeveless dress with a high neckline—as he told her about his father’s cancer diagnosis. “Every day, I feel like I get closer to the reality of life without him,” he said. “I go to sleep imagining living in that world, and it’s worse than a nightmare, to imagine losing the one person who made you who you are. It’s like losing an essential organ, but not all at once. You slowly watch them go, turn brittle, lose more of themselves, and you hang on for dear life. You hurt them with your wish for them to stay, and you hate yourself for that, too.”

His dad had told him to go on the show; I don’t think I could have left my dad under similar circumstances, but I don’t know. I never had to make that choice. And then he’d gone into remission. Even Marcus’s most virulent critics had been ecstatic.

“I feel like you know so much about me, but you’re still a mystery to me. A good one,” Marcus adds quickly. “You used to live in New York?”

Did I tell him that? I can’t remember.

“Yeah,” I say, wanting quickly to change the subject. Things had been going so well. “But I just moved back to South Carolina to be closer to my family. My brother is getting married next year.”

“How long were you in New York?”

I swallow. “Five years.”

“And . . . were you happy there?”

My skin is prickling dangerously. Everything in New York is over, but failing feels like it never stops being over.

“I guess not,” I finally say, hearing the walls going up in my voice.

“A lot of people have told me New York wore them down. Is that what happened to you?”

It’s nothing, I’ll just brush over it, but my throat starts feeling like it’s closing up. New York. Failure. Empty bank accounts and shitty mattresses on the floors of shitty apartments and drinks and more drinks and publishers telling me my book is canceled.

“It’s a great city,” I manage to say. “But I was homesick. Family is so important to me.” That’s what people watching the show always wanted to hear, how much you love your family.

Betrayed, I look at Charlotte, who’s whispering to Janelle. I feel tears pricking my eyes. Angry tears. That story wasn’t meant for the show.

“Jac,” Marcus says quietly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I say, but then a tear escapes down my cheek, cementing me as a liar. “Sorry,” I mutter, grabbing up a napkin and dabbing my face.

“I didn’t mean—” he begins.

“It’s nothing you did,” I tell him, feeling more raw and exposed than I ever want to feel. “It’s hard to explain.”

“I’m listening,” Marcus says, squeezing my hand tighter. I try to give him a closed-lip smile. His dad almost died and I’m crying over a fucking city.

“New York was hard,” I finally settle on saying, since I know that’s what they want from me. “Turning thirty and feeling lost was hard. It’s just—” I take a deep breath. “I’ve spent a lot of my life searching out happiness. Which seems ridiculous. There’s nothing wrong in my life, no reason I shouldn’t be happy, but I keep looking for it like it’s a hidden treasure everyone else understands and I don’t.”

“It may not seem like it,” Marcus says to me quietly. “But I know what you mean. That’s how I felt last season, like that happiness might be right there. Might be Shailene. And it broke my heart when it wasn’t.”

“But it’s not just—it’s not just love, Marcus. It’s everything. It’s all of it.” I think I should be able to explain it to him, to this man who could be so straightforward and real with his father dying. A dating show didn’t fix that.