Chapter 7

Krystin is running out of ways to occupy herself between filming. She didn't bring that much to do because, really, she figured she wouldn't be bored, what with all the dramatics. But with the near real-time airing schedule, they can only shoot one episode a week, so there's a lot of downtime. Tomorrow the remaining Devotees are almost certainly going on another group date, though they're withholding the activity for prime on-camera reactions. At least that'll be something to do.

She's lying prostrate on a pool chair as the Palm Springs sun bores its UV into her back. She thought she'd have more friends by now. She thought she'd have any. She'd thought about texting Delia during the week's allotted Instagram-posting time, but couldn't bring herself to type out anything even mildly insinuating that Delia had been right. Lauren C. could have been her friend, or friend-adjacent, but any possibility of that had been left behind in the mud pen. What do they do with all of that mud, anyway? Do they drain it, or scoop it up with a massive shovel, or recycle it for the next match, or—

"Hey!"

Krystin pulls her head up from the chair and waits for the sun-blur to clear from her vision. Kaydie's standing in front of her, holding two cups of green juice and a folded-up Women's Health under her arm. She extends one drink to Krystin.

"Thanks," Krystin says, mildly surprised, but no less appreciative. "What's this for?"

Kaydie unfolds on the chair beside hers, pushing her hair back with her tiny sunglasses. "Nothing, really. I made too much green juice and figured I'd share."

Krystin sits up, and tries not to look too disappointed. "Oh."

"Also," Kaydie says, turning her highlighted head to hers, "I think we should be friends. You know, since we're both gonna be here for a while."

"You think so?"

Kaydie nods. "Oh, yeah. We're both front-runner material. I feel it." She takes a sip from the glass, careful to avoid any green residue around her mouth.

Krystin isn't sure how to feel. Is Kaydie proposing an alliance? Or does she actually want to be Krystin's friend, which she was literally just thinking she needs? She decides to hope for the best.

Krystin drinks her juice, and the lemony kale tastes genuinely refreshing. She guesses Kaydie's had a lot of time to perfect her recipe. Or maybe she got it from Instagram. "So does this mean you're not mad at me for taking you down in the ring?"

Kaydie laughs, a light, chiming thing. "Please. I knew coming in that the physical dates would not be my forte. I prefer my exercise to take the form of yogalates in a heated room."

Krystin smiles. "I think you held your own."

"Well, I'm glad I got out when I did. Otherwise I might be the one with my arm in a sling."

Krystin reddens. She puts the glass down on the side table a little too hard.

"I'm kidding. Look, Lauren C.'s full of shit. She told Josh her hair is naturally wavy when I see her using her Dyson AirWrap every single morning."

Krystin laughs half-heartedly. "I just don't want everyone to think I'm this, like, competitive freak. Or a petty bitch."

"Oh." Kaydie sips her drink. "They do."

Krystin sits up so violently the chair teeters a little. "What?"

"I mean, they don't think you're gonna leave used tampons in their suitcases like Shauna from season twelve, but yeah, you're not a huge hit in the chateau right now."

"No one's even said anything."

"That's because they don't want to end up in an ACE bandage."

"But it was the date! It was, like, a challenge."

"Yeah, on Hopelessly Devoted, not Survivor." Kaydie swings her tanned legs around to face her. "Listen, who cares what they think? Lauren C. thinks I'm a bimbo with fifty thousand followers. But you know what? I worked hard to build my business, which I own, and frankly I make a lot of cash doing it. She's just jealous that she doesn't also have a Revolve deal."

Krystin's not exactly sure how Kaydie's successful influencing career fits into the conversation at hand, but she lets it go. "Yeah," she sighs. "You're right."

Kaydie nods, then leans back in the pool chair and tips her sunglasses onto her nose.

Krystin does the same, but inside she feels squirmy. She hates the idea that the other women don't like her, and especially that it's not for a good reason. If her reputation is ruined because Lauren C. decided to fake damsel, she'll be pissed. And she doesn't even know how the editors are cutting it together. What if they make her look insane? Krystin combs her memory for what she said in her confessional. She didn't sound too cocky, did she?

Krystin finishes her juice. She wonders what Lauren's doing right now. Actually, why isn't she at the pool? That's where she usually is, and probably why she always smells kind of like coconut tanning oil.

The French doors facing the pool open and Gabi walks out, silky animal print billowing out behind her. She's trailed by Madison, the camera crew, and one of the producers. They don't even look in Krystin's direction.

"I'm SO excited for this week's dates," Madison gushes, stepping gingerly into the pool, as if it isn't heated to seventy-eight degrees.

"What are you most excited about, Madison?" Jim prompts, standing off to the side of the cameraman.

"I just can't wait to see what Josh chooses next," Madison continues, looking back at Jim for approval. He shakes his head and points to Gabi. Madison directs her attention there. "I mean, he's been so creative."

"Totally," Gabi agrees. "This whole experience has been so magical. And I can't wait for my one-on-one." Then Gabi looks at Krystin. "Krys, doesn't it kind of suck that yours is already done? I mean, if I were you, I would have wanted mine to come later, after we'd already gotten more serious."

Kaydie looks up at Krystin from her Women's Health in expectation. Krystin feels her face get hot from the inside, distinct from the sun hitting her cheeks.

"Actually, no," Krystin responds from her seat in the chair. "I'm really happy with how everything's gone so far. It shows he's interested in me and excited to see where things go."

Gabi smiles and clearly doesn't mean it. She looks like the girls who are bad at losing gracefully to Krystin in competitions. Then she continues, trying another angle. "I would just be worried. I mean, personally. I wouldn't want my spark to burn out too quickly, you know? There's still six weeks left."

Gabi's mouth is twisted in some imitation of concern. She unties the zebra-printed sarong from her waist and drops it daintily on the poolside. The only thing you should worry about is your self-tanner polluting the pool water, Krystin thinks.

She wants to defend herself, but she also doesn't want to add fuel to the apparently spreading Krystin's-a-crazy-bitch fire. "Like I said, I'm confident in our connection," Krystin says. She should leave it at that, but she can't help herself. "The only reason I'd be worried at this point is if we hadn't … tested our physical attraction."

Gabi's mouth drops into a line. She hasn't kissed Josh yet, and everyone knows it.

Krystin stands from her chair. "I'm gonna go make a sandwich," she says, and then she does.

Krystin doesn't listen to podcasts. She kind of missed that wave, along with furry loafers and matcha. And there isn't a lot of time to listen to them anyway, except for in the car, which is when she listens to 102.4 The Bear. She likes the radio, how it feels somehow more special to hear her favorite song when it comes on, instead of playing it herself. She tried to listen to Serial once when she was driving to Missoula for a bachelorette party, but her thoughts kept wandering off about how her friends kept getting married to the guys Krystin thought were just something to do at frat parties, and then she had to rewind, before eventually turning the podcast off altogether.

So when she listened to Josh's podcast When One Door Closes on the plane to the chateau, she was committed to paying attention. Every detail was important, every pause, every laugh, every lead-up to a door-themed punch line. She stared at the seat back in front of her and traced the edges of the tray table; she looked out the window at the cloud cover, terrifying in their bigness, in their deceptive denseness.

What she learned: that each episode of the podcast revolves around the love life of its guest, their relationship highs and lows, and why they're single—or, usually, why they're not. At least, that's how they start out. After about twenty minutes of relationship talk, Josh and his Hopelessly Devoted–sourced guest pivot inevitably to the show and what goes on behind the cameras.

It was interesting to hear then, before she was on the show herself—but now, sitting at a round table in a sound booth, it feels uncanny.

Josh looks at home in his swivel chair, one big padded headphone covering his ear, and one nestled behind. "So, usually on this podcast, I'll have on one guest, and we'll talk about their love life, and we'll learn a bit about each other. This time is a little different"—he smiles—"because the love life involves me. Say hi, ladies."

Everyone leans into their mic. "Hiiii, Joooooosh!" A few giggle at the novelty, but some look comfortable with the recording equipment. Gabi strokes hers like the nose of a horse. Kaydie rests her wrist on the microphone stand like she would the arm of a couch.

"I'm gonna ask some questions, but I really want this to be a natural conversation. Almost forget the mic is even there, you know? Except you do have to speak into it. Sometimes I forget and then I have to go in and re-record, and it's a whole mess." Josh laughs.

Usually, they're telling Krystin to forget the cameras are there, but now she has to forget about a microphone on top of the cameras, which are also set up in the corners of the studio. Krystin is suddenly very aware of the several versions of herself that are being recorded. Except, wait, they're not versions. They're just her.

"Anyway, this should just be a good time. How are you ladies doing today?"

McKenzie leans in immediately. "I think I speak for a lot of us when I say that we're always happy to be with you."

Josh laughs. "Don't make me blush."

"I'm just happy to be in a studio again," says Gabi, twirling a piece of curled hair around her finger. "As much as I love the chateau, it's been so hard to be away from my recording booth."

Krystin looks at Kaydie, who bites her lip. Gabi's father had paid for her song "Rich Like Me" to be produced when she was twelve. After it went viral on YouTube, he built her a home studio so that she could keep making music, which means he must really love her, because Krystin's heard Gabi sing in the shower. Actually, Lauren had been there too, but Krystin is still too annoyed to share any knowing glances with her right now.

"Right," Josh says. "Gabi, you've got some experience in front of a microphone."

"You could say that," Gabi responds, feigning humility. "I mean, I'm no Rachel Platten. But yeah, music is my passion."

Lauren H. leans in. "I actually remember when your music video blew up. I was in seventh grade."

"Oh my God, same," says Sara-without-an-H. "We all watched it on our walk to school."

Everyone is talking around the real uniting quality of Gabi's song and corresponding music video, which is that they all made fun of it, because it was really, hysterically bad. Even in Montana. A handheld camcorder framed twelve-year-old Gabi, lounging poolside in a fuchsia Juicy Couture tracksuit, fanning herself with plumes of feathers; when she smiled, you could see a small dark cavity next to her incisors, where she'd lost a baby tooth.

But Gabi seems to be enjoying the attention anyway. She turns to Josh. "What about you, J? Did you ever listen to ‘RLM'?"

Josh runs his hand through his curls. "Hey, I'll be honest. It was a carpool staple that year."

Gabi meets his eyes across the table and drops her voice real low. "I think that sounds like a sign."

Now Krystin can't help but look at Lauren, who is looking right back at her with a wicked gleam in her eyes, her lips quirking up in a smirk. Krystin looks away.

"Let's get down to business," Josh segues, and Gabi looks more than a little miffed that the spotlight has flicked away from her. "I know why you guys are on the show, and that's to form a connection with me—at least, I hope that's why." Josh pauses, then smiles. "But what brought you here? We all walked through a new door to get to this place, here with each other. What, or who, was in your hallway?"

When she'd listened to episodes, Krystin had assumed Josh read these kinds of lines from a script, but it appears they just come to him on the fly. To be honest, Krystin is a little impressed by his seemingly infinite arsenal of cheesy lines.

Madison raises her hand. "For me, it was my ex-boyfriend Steve. We were homecoming royalty, king and queen junior and senior year." She pauses for a reaction, which doesn't come. "Anyway, we were high school sweethearts, and I thought—I thought he was the one. But …" She trails off, looking at something that isn't there. "Then we went to college. He was unfaithful."

"I'm so sorry, Madison," Josh says gravely. "That's really hard."

"It was." She nods, and her balayage flares out. "It left me with a lot of trust issues, you know? But I think it was actually good in the long run. It taught me a lot."

"Sometimes we have to close the door on a relationship, even if it's hard, in order to open the next door ahead," Josh says. "Thank you for sharing, Madison. Who wants to go next?"

Lily talks about how her last boyfriend dumped her when she beat him in an arm wrestling match. "My strength emasculated him. Which, like, screw you. I can bench ninety pounds and I'm sexy as hell."

"Damn straight!" Pia yells. Then she elaborates on her struggle as a tall woman to find men who aren't intimidated by her height.

The more they talk, the faster Krystin's heart beats. It jumps over itself and into the base of her throat, which makes her feel like she's choking. She wipes her palms on her jeans, but they just get sweaty again. What is she going to say when it's her turn? That the last guy she kissed was Logan Bullock at the last Sigma Nu party before she graduated two years ago? That she can't even remember the last devastating crush she had on a guy? That the two times she'd had sex were weird, uncomfortable, and generally unfun, which made her feel guilty during and embarrassed after? That she couldn't even talk about any of this without feeling like a total prude?

Kaydie clears her throat next to Krystin. "I'll go. I was actually with my last boyfriend when my influencing career started taking off. I was getting a lot of followers from my lifestyle blog, and then a bunch of companies just started reaching out, and all of a sudden I was just swimming in brand deals. And it was actually really hard, because even though I was getting exactly what I'd always wanted, I was losing something too—Brad." She takes a dramatic breath, then continues. "He couldn't deal with my success, and it ended our relationship. But I'm glad, because I don't want a man who can't handle being with a girlboss."

"That's so effed up," says Sara. "Your man should support your dreams."

Kaydie nods. "But Josh, like you said, I closed the door on that relationship. I closed the door on Brad."

"And I'm really glad you did," Josh says. "Because it brought you here."

"Thank you so much for saying that. It really means a lot."

"Actually, it makes me wonder …" Josh swivels in his chair. "Lauren C., you're also a content creator. Have you ever experienced anything like this?"

Lauren's eyes widen at the question. "Honestly? I wish I hadn't. But yes, unfortunately, it's not uncommon among our community."

Josh gestures for her to continue. Krystin knows she would have even without his prompting.

"With my ex, I wouldn't say that was why we broke up, but my career was definitely an aspect of it." She looks up at the ceiling, considering. With her head tilted up, Krystin can see her lash line, the dark feathers flowering out from her eyelids. "We had a lot in common, but it was almost too much. Kind of like how magnets repel each other? We're best friends now, actually. It just didn't work out romantically."

"Wow," Josh says. "That's really impressive, that you're still close."

Gabi cocks her head to the side. "Yeah, how do you manage that?"

Lauren shrugs. "I think when someone's really important to you, they stay that way. I mean, we were together through high school and college."

The revelation mildly shocks Krystin. She can't imagine Lauren staying with anyone for that long, let alone anyone staying with her. And she would be impressed if she didn't think Lauren was lying out of her StairMastered ass. But everyone else is nodding along, even Kaydie—which means she was either lying yesterday at the pool about distrusting Lauren or is lying now. How did Krystin get to be surrounded by liars? What happened to just being yourself?

"But I'm sure this experience isn't unique to content creators," Lauren says now. "Men get jealous of successful women all the time. Krystin," she says, and turns to face her, a saccharine smile on her ever-glossy lips. "What about you? I'm sure guys get intimidated by all those blue ribbons."

Krystin feels hot all over, and now she's not sure if it's from anxiety or anger. She decides to play it off.

"Yeah." She exhales a laugh. "I once beat my boyfriend's steer-roping time and he was a real sore loser."

Lauren rests her chin in her manicured hands. "When was that?"

Krystin swallows. "Eighth grade."

Everyone laughs, thinking it was a well-timed joke. Everyone except Lauren, who's still looking at Krystin like she can see right through her. "But like, be serious. When was your last boyfriend?"

Krystin wishes she really had broken Lauren's arm in the ring. She doesn't know how to explain that her last boyfriend really was Brady Tucker in ninth grade, or that she only went along with it because all her friends said he thought she was pretty and just liked her sooo much, and her parents said they looked sweet together. Or that when they kissed for the first time, her first time, she could feel the seconds tick by and she didn't know what to do with her hands, and after a few minutes she asked if he wanted to stop and play a card game. And even though he obliged, he went and told everyone that she was weird, and broke up with her the next day.

But they were young, she was young, and that was around the time she'd started to get serious about competing, really considering it as a career path. And after that, she didn't have time to even think about dating, or to feel guilty about not wanting to.

Krystin smiles, even though her lips feel tight, which means it's not going to seem natural on the camera. She wipes her hands on her jeans again, and then she imagines she's riding Ringo, rhinestone-bedazzled hat on her hairsprayed curls, and faces her judges.

"Actually, I've never had a serious boyfriend before," she says. She keeps going, even through the overdramatic gasps. "Rodeo queens contractually aren't allowed to be in a public relationship—it can literally cost you your crown. And competing has really been my whole life."

Even Josh looks taken aback. "I had no idea," he says. "So you've never been allowed to date? That's like having the world's strictest parents."

Krystin shakes her head. She feels a little calmer now that she's said it. "You can't even be seen holding hands."

"I could never do that," Sara announces. "That's actually insane."

"Me neither," Madison agrees.

"Okay, but you said in public." Lily puts her hands on the table. "What about in private?"

Sara slaps her hand over her mouth. "OMG, like in secret? That's so hot."

"What? No," Krystin says. She tries not to sound too defensive. "I mean, I was always focused on training anyway. It would have been a distraction."

Lauren isn't even talking anymore, just watching the whole thing devolve.

Josh points a finger into the air. "So, wait a minute. If you're here, does that mean you're forfeiting your title?"

Krystin pauses, then nods slowly. It's technically true, even though her tenure was coming to an end soon anyway.

"Wow."

Krystin considers her words. This is her chance to prove how serious she is about this process—to Josh, to Delia, to everyone. "This is important to me. I did sacrifice a lot to be here, but it's because I'm committed to finding love."

She feels a warmth around her hand, and then realizes Kaydie's squeezing hers for support. Krystin looks up at her and smiles, and then her eyes flicker to Lauren, who's staring blankly at Kaydie's hand on hers. Krystin squeezes Kaydie back and pulls her hand away.

"Well, that was really illuminating," Josh says, rubbing his hands together like a fly. "From the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much for digging deep with me. I really feel like we crossed a threshold today."