Page 73 of Unscripted

I looked up at the rocky outcropping at the edge of the cliff above me, the same one I had stood on that first day of filming. Thinking of the girl I was back then, the one who was so scared of change, I couldn’t help but smile. I might have been on a glorified adult spring break, but I felt worlds away from the petrified person I had once been.

Maybe blowing up my life and coming on the show had been the right move after all.

As I stood on the beach, feeling rather sentimental at the thought of the past, I took in the scene around me. We were still separated from the boys, who had not arrived yet, and the sound department was flittering between us girls. A microphone had been threaded up my dress and was currently clipped to its neckline.

A flutter of anticipation and dread swept through my stomach. There were two hand-held cameras set up on body mounts and ready to go, just as there had been when we filmed our arrivals. A small video village had also been set up at the base of the stairs down to the beach. Something big was happening, and after a week of relative peace in the villa, I found myself wishing it could all stop. That we could press pause and live in the comfort of the bubble that had been the last few days.

“Poppy, over to your mark, please,” Harry called out from beside one of the cameramen.

Realizing I was the only one not lined up with the rest of the girls, I hurried over to where they were. We were told that we needed to film an introduction to whatever this episode would be. That primarily consisted of walking up and down the beach, playing in the water as it rolled in, and splashing each other in the low tide. Real groundbreaking cinema over here, I thought.

We were eventually told we could relax as the boys had arrived, and it was their turn to shoot. It gave me a pretty good laugh to watch them walk back and forth again and again, being yelled at by Harry and Ben behind camera to “flex more” but also “relax.” No one pointed out that those instructions were direct opposites.

The cameras eventually went down, the scene finished, and hair and makeup teams, who had arrived at the beach at some point in the previous hour, descended on us all, spraying down flyaway hairs and powdering noses. It wasn’t full glam, but I was surprised that they were here at all. We hadn’t been professionally made up since the first episode.

Once we were all primped to their liking, Harry and Ben directed us to walk farther down the beach, around a rocky bit of shoreline to a small cove. There, large, blanket-sized towels had been set up across the sand. Six towels for six couples. It looked like we were getting back to business.

I walked over to the towel that had Callum’s and my name embroidered on it and sat down. Callum followed suit a moment later.

“Okay, everyone,” Ben called out, “Just converse with your match as normal. The cameras will be moving around between you all. If anything needs to be repeated, we will let you know, but other than that, carry on as you would in the villa.”

Ben scurried away around the rocks and back to the main beach, and the two cameramen set out between us, winding through the matches and getting various shots.

When it was Callum’s and my turn to be filmed, one camera man hovered above us while the other kneeled in front of us, just at the edge of our towel, his camera jutting into the space, only a foot away from our faces. I tried to ignore it and focus on Callum. We both gave it our best, talking about the weather, our week in the villa and the beautiful beach in front of us until finally the cameras pulled away and moved on to the next pair.

It was a bit jarring to be filmed this way. I knew the thought was ridiculous, as I had been on television every night for three weeks, but something about being physically in front of a camera, seeing video village, and having producers present made it all feel a bit too real.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Callum asked, nodding at the camera guys. It was as though he had read my mind.

“It is. I know, in theory, that it’s been happening since we got here. But this makes it feel more . . . ”

“Invasive?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, there are worse places to be right now, I suppose,” he said as he leaned back on his elbows and looked out at the beach in front of us.

His biceps flexed with the movement, and something dipped in my stomach at the sight.

Ignoring it, I nodded. “It really is beautiful. I can’t believe this is all real.”

“It’s wild,” he said, and somehow, I knew we weren’t talking about the landscape anymore.

“Do you regret coming here?” I asked, lowering my voice even as I was aware of the microphone clipped to my dress. We had been told from the beginning that we were not allowed to talk about the show, or cameras, or anything having to do with filming. But sitting on this gorgeous beach, actually being outside of the villa, I found myself not caring about the rules so much. Besides, the camera wasn’t pointing our way at the moment, so there wouldn’t be any real footage to use from our conversation anyway.

Callum paused, looking at the vast sea in front of us before turning his head toward me. We stared at each other for a beat before he finally replied. “At first, I didn’t realize exactly what I had gotten myself into. It was all quite overwhelming, to be honest.”

He paused again, as though he was trying to choose his words carefully.

“But now?” he asked. I held my breath, not daring to move a muscle as he found his way to an answer that suddenly felt very important.

“No, I don’t,” he said, his voice soft and raw.

He was looking at me so intently that it felt like maybe what he was really trying to say was that he didn’t regret me. Didn’t regret the insane plan we had become entangled in.

Or maybe that was just what I wanted to believe he meant.

“Me either,” I replied.