As Seen On TV

14. Double Trouble

I woke up with a raging headache. The sun piercing, uninhibited, through the glass wall of my bedroom did not do anything to help. I flipped over in bed and pushed the pillow over my head, in a futile attempt to block out the pain. This evidently did not work, either, so I groaned and pulled myself out of bed, accidentally pulling the comforter off of the mattress and onto the floor in the process. 

After wandering downstairs into the kitchen, I found that someone was already up at this ungodly hour. The coffeemaker was humming and dripping methodically, and the door to the patio was slightly ajar, letting a salty California morning breeze waft into the house. I could hear a voice speaking animatedly, but I couldn't be sure what it was saying. From the high tone of the voice, I gathered that it must be a woman. 

I grabbed a mug and poured myself some coffee, hoping whoever had been kind enough to start up the batch wouldn't mind me taking a cup. My headache was growing steadily worse, and I needed to find some Advil, fast.

I debated quietly sneaking back upstairs and going back to bed with the TV on in the background, but today was a date day and we all had a briefing meeting with Veronica and the crew this afternoon. I needed to wake myself up a bit. After last week's episode, I couldn't afford any more slip ups. 

It had been horrible. I had already expected that the episode wouldn't portray me in the best light, so I had watched it alone in my room while the others gathered in the living room. The scene of me and Patrick in the weight room was there, right after my date with Andrew aired. The bowling date would have been incredibly adorable, if I do say so myself, and I went ahead and ruined any momentum I had going for me by letting things get so close with Patrick. Luckily, the episode had also included a bit of my make up talk with Andrew, and surprisingly, it had shown our little encounter in the hallway. All while I was watching, I tried to put myself into the shoes of a passive viewer on their Saturday night binge, but it was incredibly hard to do when my face was being shown on the screen; when my life was being put out there for all to see.

At best, I looked like a fun, flirty, outgoing redhead who had simply come to make friends and maybe find love. Any messing around was seen simply as collateral and part of the natural flow of life. It couldn't be helped. At worst, however, I looked like a two-timing skank, too focused on the attention I was getting to act like a decent human being. I hoped for the sake of all that I had been through to get here that most people thought the former. 

I was done moping about the episode, though, and I had convinced myself by this point that this next date would go better. It had to. No more fooling around with Patrick, or anyone else for that matter. It didn't matter that I had met him first, or that we had what I felt was palpable chemistry. Andrew was who everyone had picked for me, and Andrew was who I was going to focus on, no matter what.

My curiosity got the best of me as the female voice floated through the door once again and derailed my train of thought. I wandered outside slowly, gingerly placing my bare feet on the hot patio and peering around the corner of the house to find Jazmin, seated on a lawn chair, with her long, tan legs stretched out in front of her, a mug in her hand and a plate with what looked like a blueberry muffin balanced precariously in her lap. She was talking loudly at this point, her back to me, but as far as I could see, there was no one else around. 

So who was she talking to?

I wanted to step up and ask her just that, but at the same time, I hadn't really spoken to her since the last episode aired, and it didn't exactly paint me in a good light, talking to who was supposed to be her man. So far, she had been nothing if not extremely nice to me, and I actually really liked her, despite us being on seemingly opposite sides of the show's built-in drama setup. I could see us becoming really good friends, if we had met each other in normal life, but as things were, I didn't want to cause any unnecessary vendettas.