With a smile, I pull away from him, dive back into the water, knowing he’ll follow. He does. Hip-deep in the water, he slides into me, eliciting a small gasp. Over his shoulder, I watch the blood drying on his skin as he slides in and out, not giving himself over to it, not letting me give myself over to it, until we can’t take it anymore. We are fucking like two broken, brokenhearted people who can’t quite give in and can’t quite let go.
And when it’s over, I collapse against him, sticky skin, panting, sand on our hair and faces and upper bodies. I go completely under the water, my hair falling flat and soaked again. Henry swims after me, grabbing me from behind, his naked body pressing into mine.
“Hey,” I whisper to him. “What’s wrong?”
He presses his cheek into the warm skin of my shoulder and laughs.
“I’m sorry,” he says, but never why.
Women Tell All
[Cut back from commercial with Becca and Brendan smiling at the camera, sitting on a dais in two armchairs side by side, directly facing the contestants with stiff, Botoxed smiles on their faces.]
Becca: Welcome back to the 1 season 32 Women Tell All. We’re once again joined by the beautiful women of season 32.
[The camera sweeps over to show all of the women sitting in two rows of chairs on the stage in beautiful dresses, in order of when they were eliminated, with Rikki on the last chair in the bottom row, having been the last eliminated prior to Women Tell All airing. The audience claps appreciatively.]
Brendan: Now, we think it’s time to discuss the elephant in the room.
[Aaliyah covers her face, already laughing.]
Becca: That’s right. Let’s talk about the girl most of you love to hate. Jac Matthis.
[The audience boos. A montage begins, showing Jac getting out of the limo, calling hello to Marcus.]
Hannah, voiceover: She’s so calculating.
Jac, sitting in an interview room: The other girls? I don’t think about them at all.
[In quick succession, the clip shows Jac confronting Stasia on the first date, Jac telling Hannah she will never compare to her, and Jac dismissing Kady during her final cocktail party.]
Jac, at the mansion by the pool at night: You have to tell me that so I’ll be invested in this stupid show.
Kendall, crying in an interview room: She’s awful.
Jac, back at the pool: I might be a bad person.
[Cut to Jac sitting in an interview room in Cancun crying.]
Jac: I guess I just really want to be loved.
[Marcus, being interviewed at Jac’s hometown.]
Marcus: Two of the other girls have told me they’re in love with me. Jac hasn’t. [smiling self-consciously] I guess she’s just making me sweat it like she always does.
[Shae is sitting around a pool with other girls.]
Shae: How far do you think she’d go to win?
[Cut to video of a closed door, splashing sounds, and then a whisper, captioned on the screen.]
Jac, whispering, voiceover: Send Andi home. Tonight.
[The screen cuts to black, then opens back on the girls onstage, some with smirks on their faces, others with eyebrows raised. Hannah mouths “wow.”]
Becca: Andi, do you want to start?
[Andi swallows, once, as if to start, but then stops herself, hand on her chest. Kady rubs her arm tenderly.]
Andi: It was so hard to watch my breakup with Marcus back because I could see how dumbfounded I felt at the time. It was so out of nowhere and then to find out there were such negative intentions behind it? It’s just really, really hard.
Brendan: And what would you say to Jac, if she were here tonight?
Andi: Your actions have consequences. We weren’t all here as game pieces for you to clear out of your way.
Hannah: Jac was never willing to see any of the rest of us as people, and now she wants sympathy for how the show is portraying her? It kills me. We were all there.
Rikki, turning her head, looking at Hannah sitting in the row behind her: I don’t think Jac has ever asked for sympathy. As far as I can tell, she hasn’t said anything since the show started airing.
Kady: Because she’s too big a coward to face up to what she did.
Rikki: Maybe because, unlike all of you have been claiming, she isn’t in this for Instagram followers?
Aaliyah: Oh, please, Rikki. Jac doesn’t need you to be her attack dog.
Grace-Ann: We all heard what you said to her when you left. She said she loved you [Bonnie scoffs] and you said, ‘Just not enough to not use me.’ What was that even about? What did she make you do?
[Rikki swings back around to the front, crossing her arms.]
