As Seen On TV

9. It's Celery, What's Not To Love?

Saturday came faster than I had previously thought possible, and I woke up feeling quite lethargic and more than a little homesick. I sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. 

My room in the mansion was small, but luxurious. There were separate male and female wings of the house ("So no one can get up to any midnight shenanigans," Veronica had said), and I assumed everyone had an identical room. It was actually more like two smaller rooms, conjoined, one being a living space and the other the bedroom area, with a little bathroom added on. In the living area, there was a mahogany table with two chairs pulled under it, and next to that, a sofa and an armchair, with a walk-in closet behind them that had a floor-to-ceiling mirror in its back wall.

The bedroom area consisted of a large dresser made of wood to match the table, as well as a bureau with a large flatscreen TV mounted on it. Also, there was the four-poster queen bed I was currently stretched out lazily on, with a nightstand adjacent to it.

I rolled out of bed and pulled on some checkered pajama pants and a T-Shirt from a 5K that Dylan and I had done together ("C'mon, babe, it'll be good for both of us"), gathering my unruly bed hair into a messy bun atop my head. 

Today was the day that the first episode of Dating Democracy would premiere on television. The team had finished editing all the footage, and we would all get to see the final product tonight at 6 o'clock, Pacific time. Veronica had said they would have the episode running on the big TV down in front of the fireplace in the main living room of the mansion, and we were all free to watch it together, if we liked. If not, we could stay in our rooms and watch alone. I wasn't sure what I would do yet; watching myself talk to other people with those other people sitting next to me sounded horrifying, but watching myself do stupid things by myself sounded equally as horrifying.

I yawned and stretched my arms out, walking over into the bathroom to brush my teeth and swipe on some mascara. No sense in letting my future (Boyfriend? Partner? Lover?) see me natural-faced and sleepy-eyed quite yet.

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand, slipped on some flip-flops, and wandered out into the hallway, making sure to close the heavy door behind me quietly, so as not to wake anyone. It was only about 7 a.m. If I wasn't so hungry, I would definitely be sleeping in.

As I padded down the long, carpeted hallway and made my way down to the kitchen, I thought about my options:  the only guys I had talked to for any serious amount of time during filming were Patrick, Andrew, Uriah, Diego, this nice Irish guy named Keegan, a stunning, sandy gold-haired Adonis named Theo, and the blonde guy with the green eyes that was with us when we got pizza, whose name, asI later found out, was Cole. 

7 plausible options out of 12 possible options. And if I was being honest, maybe, there were 3 probable outcomes: Uriah, Andrew, Patrick.

I honestly wouldn't mind if I was matched up with Uriah, and it seemed likely that I might be. He was really nice, and I found him strangely attractive, but the whole high school situation was a little bit awkward and I couldn't shake a weird feeling that I got when I was around him. I was probably just being excessively paranoid. He was handsome, hilarious, and had muscles for miles. I'd be lucky to date someone like him.

Andrew presented a whole different set of problems. First, there was the fact that he was just plain rude during our meeting, despite the initial hope I got when I had felt a real connection with him. Then, there was the mystery surrounding why he would do the same thing to two girls. Why would he lie? Jazmin and I hadn't gotten the chance to talk much over the weekend, but for now we were keeping quiet. There would be plenty of time for drama and exposure during the other episodes. I liked Andrew, though I really didn't want to admit to myself that I did. I just didn't feel he was a great match for me, and hopefully, there was enough onscreen evidence for the audience to see that. I felt in my heart it was just unlikely for us to end up together.