Page 65 of Unscripted

I looked at Callum and again had the urge to dive into everything with him; knowing that we had a decision to make, I instead tried to keep us on course.

“You already know what my vote is,” I said to him.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m good with that. I like Jess. I think she deserves a shot at finding someone.”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit awkward. The weight of words left unsaid permeated the air around us, and I looked away, not able to deal with choosing to send someone home and my issues with Callum at the same time.

I was saved from having to say anything else to him as Gemma called out, “Okay, Bellas. Now it’s time to vote. If you’d like Jess to stay in the villa, please raise your hands.”

Mine and Callum’s hands went up, along with Chiara and Hugh, and Ella and Liam.

I was surprised that Olivia and James didn’t vote for Jess, as Olivia had been here with Jess from the start.

“Well, it looks like that is the majority. So Jess, you will be staying in the villa. Sara, I’m sorry but this is the end of your Bella Amore journey.” Gemma moved to give Sara a hug, and soon enough everyone else followed suit in bidding her goodbye.

I, for one, was happy to see her go and even happier that Jess had been saved.

I wanted to pull Callum away then, but we were interrupted by a producer calling for boys and girls to separate and debrief.

After that, we all had to film confessionals, and by the time I had finished mine, all I could think about was the exhaustion coursing through my body.

Crawling into bed, however, I found sleep hard to come by. Callum wasn’t back from his interview yet, and the empty space on his side of the bed felt like it was taunting me, keeping me awake. My mind swam with thoughts of the night’s events as I stared up at the darkened ceiling until, finally, Callum slipped into bed next to me.

I wondered if he would roll away, onto his side and away from me, but he didn’t. Instead, he also lay flat on his back, looking up.

I looked over at him, and he must have felt me staring or heard my head move, because he soon turned his own and returned my look.

“Hi,” I whispered.

“Hi,” he whispered back.

“I—” I started, but a giggle sounding from a few beds away interrupted. I was suddenly very aware that we were not alone or out of earshot of the rest of the group.

Callum must have been thinking the same because he looked around and, with a hint of a smile on his face, tugged the duvet cover up and over his head.

He looked ridiculous, fully covered by the giant throw, and I had to stifle a laugh.

Following his lead, I also pulled the duvet over my head. Underneath, it was surprisingly cozy and, with the hall light left on for the rest of the group still doing their confessionals, light enough that I could see Callum’s face. He had rolled over on his side to face me, so I did the same.

We lay like that, facing each other under the duvet, for a long moment until he finally broke the silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said, whispering so no one would hear us. “I know this whole thing was my idea, and then I was the one to be standoffish. You were just trying to make this work, and I was acting like a total knobhead.”

I was a bit stunned, both by his apology and the substance of his words. He was much more self-aware than I had thought him to be.

“I’m sorry, too,” I replied. His candor opened a door, and I felt the need to walk through it with my own. “I should have just talked to you from the beginning about Sara and what was going on.”

He might have been the one to shut me out first, but I hadn’t acted much better in response. I had let my own anxiety about being left behind run wild; I assumed he was going to ditch me without even talking to him about it and then punished him based on that worry.

“I didn’t think you were going to pick me,” I continued.

“Honestly?” he said, almost asking for permission to say what he was going to next. I nodded at him, understanding that he needed me to be okay with whatever it was, good or bad.

“I almost didn’t.”

I let his words wash over me, only they didn’t sting quite so badly. I understood where he was coming from. If the roles had been reversed, I’m not sure if I would have picked him or James. It was all too much, the game we were playing both on the show and privately between us. There were no rules, no guidebook on how to navigate any of it. What was supposed to be a simple deal had somehow become a tangled mess.

“Why did you?” It was barely a whisper, but I had to know.