Blind Reality (27 page)

I’
ve never seen the look of jealousy on a man before, until now. Sure, Tony would scoff when I professed my undying love for Joshua when I watched him on TV or saw him in a magazine, but he knew it was just an infatuation and something that would never come to fruition. Looking at Josh now, as he watches Bronx and I in the pool, tells me that he’s jealous, but of what? Is it the fact that I have a friend in the house or the fact that my friend is Bronx? Neither should really matter because he’s already tossed me out like yesterday’s trash. The end is looming for us. It’s flashing like an airport beacon getting ready for a plane to land. Even after we’ve been together, he hasn’t said things are different. Words are usually spilled in the heat of passion, but not from Josh.

I can’t change Josh’s mind. I’ve tried repeatedly and have only continued to hurt myself in the process. Would I rather be with him right now, and not when we leave this house? Yes, in a heartbeat, but he doesn’t want that. He has Jules waiting for him on the outside and I don’t care what he says, he’ll end up with her. He always does.

I tap Bronx’s shoulder, letting him know I want to get down, but it’s not soon enough. Josh is already back in the house with a weak attempt at slamming a sliding glass door. I don’t even know why I was up there to begin with, or why I didn’t ask to be put down right away. When he swam under my legs and lifted me up, it caught me off guard, but I thought it was all in good fun. Seeing Josh’s expression, though, tells me that he finds nothing funny with this situation.

“I should go find Josh,” I state as soon as my feet touch the bottom of the swimming pool. Bronx holds my waist and allows tiny water droplets to fall onto his face without a care in the world. I find it rather annoying myself, but whatever. His hazel eyes make up for my annoyance and there’s no mistaking how women can become lost while looking into them. Maybe it’s an actor thing and part of the mystery of being so sickeningly beautiful. I’m not sure, but looking him in the eyes is dangerous and should be avoided at all times.

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Bronx half slants his head toward the door and as I glance around, I notice that Josh is the only one inside, and he’s alone. Normally, I’d be an eager beaver and go running to find him especially since I haven’t seen him all day.

“I have to go,” I say as I step away from his grasp. Even though his fingers linger on my skin when I move away, I don’t turn back as I rush out of the pool and into the house. As soon as I step inside, I regret not grabbing a towel because the air conditioner is on full blast and the house is freezing. I cross my arms over my chest and run toward my bedroom where I find Josh packing his clothes.

“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t stop or look at me as he continues throwing his clothes into his bag. I’m half wondering if he emptied the contents, and this is his way of organizing his things, since neither of us have actually unpacked due to always changing rooms.

I find a towel and quickly dry off the water and step into a pair of sweatpants, slipping a T-shirt on over my head before placing my hand on his.

“Josh?”

His gaze meets mine and I wish it hadn’t. His eyes are on fire; he’s angry with me. He rips his hand away from underneath mine and continues to throw his clothes in his bag.

“Joshua,” I say his name again in hopes that he’ll at least talk to me.

“Don’t. You don’t get to talk to me right now.”

“Excuse me?” I commit the most childish act known to mankind and pull his bag away from him. He sighs and drops whatever piece of clothing he has in his hand.

“Joey, I don’t want to fight.”

“Well I do, so let’s have it.” I cross my arms in defiance and stare him down. Maybe this was the problem with Tony. When he said he cheated, I accepted it. I didn’t try to fight for us, not that I would have, but I was so indifferent with everything. Yes, my heart broke and I shed far too many tears but I didn’t call him, text him, or even answer his emails. Once he said the words, I ran and never looked back.

I can do that with Josh, too, because we’re ending. We have an expiration date, as much as I wish that weren’t true, it is. However, I’m not willing to end on bad terms. I want to say that things were happy and fantastic for the ninety-days we were married. I don’t want to walk out of this house with regrets.

Josh runs his hand through his hair and offers up a pained half ass grimace. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s got a broken bone or something with the way he’s looking at me.

“I don’t want to fight, Joey.” His voice has changed. He’s not angry, but sounds defeated, almost sad.

Did I do this to him? If so, it wasn’t my intention. The last thing I want to do is hurt him even though he’s hurting me. He’ll never know it, though. I’ll never be able to tell him how much it hurts knowing he’s walking away from me, from us, before we’re even given a chance.

I sit down on the edge of the bed, pulling my leg up under me. “I’m not looking for a fight either, but we need to talk about what you saw outside.”

He shakes his head and sighs. When he walks past me I think for a moment that he’s leaving me here, but he’s just shutting the door to give us some privacy from our housemates. I can’t take my eyes off him. He’s showing me a vulnerability that is often hidden behind the walls he keeps up.

Joshua sits next to me, keeping the standard “friend” space in between us. “I know I made a mistake last night by asking you to stay away from Bronx. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”

“You didn’t,” I say, slightly confused as to why he thinks he did. I try to reach out to him, but he shies away. Any progress I was making in bringing down his walls has evaporated.

“I must’ve because you didn’t come to bed last night—”

I hold up my hand, telling him to stop talking. But before I can finish, Linda instructs us to all go to the living room.

“Figures,” he says as he gets up. I expect him to wait for me, but he doesn’t. The door slides open fast, and he’s muttering something as he disappears down the hall. I follow behind and by the time I reach the living room, he’s already sitting on the love seat.

I take the seat next to him thinking he’ll lean into me like he usually does, but he’s still angry, even more so now that we were interrupted. As soon as everyone’s in the living room, Patrick Jonas appears on the screen. His smile is creepy and I’m starting to despise him.

“Newlyweds, how are we all doing?”

Bronx and Rebekah are the first to answer with a rambunctious ‘super’. I roll my eyes and try to focus on Josh. I can tell his teeth are grinding by the twitching in his jaw. His leg is bouncing up and down, and it’s obvious that he’s eager to get the hell out of here.

“We have a luxury competition for you tonight, a night out at the movies. Before you get too excited—this is a singles competition. One husband and one wife will win. You will not be competing as teams in this one. Everyone to the backyard, please.”

“What the … are they …” Josh grabs his hair in what I can only guess is frustration and lets out an awful sound. It’s a cross between a grunt and scream. I don’t know what to do to because aside from how ridiculous this game sounds, he wants to win, and that’s what we usually try to do together—as a team.

“Come on, let’s go win,” I say as I grab his hand and pull him outside. As soon as I see the setup, it’s clear that the producers have upgraded this particular game to obnoxious levels and it’s complete and utter crap.

“This is so cool,” Gary yells out as he claps his hands.

“Do they really expect us to fight each other?” Millie asks, standing next to me.

“No, they expect Bronx and I to fight, and for the rest of you to pick sides.” Josh walks toward the ring that is set up in the middle of the yard. Hanging from eight different hooks in different colors are sumo suits. I’ve seen these in videos—they might look fun but it’s something I’ve never wanted to try.

“I’m going to ruin my nails.” I look at Amanda and shake my head. Millie and I walk toward the hooks with Amanda and Rebekah on our heels. We stand there, inspecting the awful plastic looking suits that they expect us to climb into.

“Oh God, I’m going to chafe.”

“You know, for once, I agree with you, Amanda.” I give her a wink. She’s right, we’re going to chafe, and it’s not going to be pretty.

“Well, you could always just lose,” Rebekah suggests as she takes her suit down from the hook.

“Oh the hell we will,” Millie replies as she grabs her suit.

“I’m not going to like this,” Amanda says, and for the second time today I agree with her. I’m going to hate this game, but there’s no way in hell I’m losing. Even though we aren’t competing with each other, Josh has to feel the same way. That’s been our goal from the beginning, to win. Win the competitions so we can win the fan votes. Sure, we’ve lost a few, but the effort has been there.

“Look on the bright side,” I say to Amanda as I pull my suit down.

“And the bright side would be that I can kick your ass and not get kicked off the show?” She smirks, which only fuels my desire to whack her upside her head.

“If you’re lucky, you may end up with a night at the movies with either Josh or Bronx,” I reply with a highly sarcastic tone as I lean into her. “But be careful, neither of them like women who pick their seat.”

Her hand moves forward, away from her butt check so fast I have to catch myself from laughing. Instead, I bat my eyelashes and step back to my spot. After I step into my suit, Josh is there to secure the back. It’s ridiculously big and uncomfortable, but I have a feeling, that despite my earlier reservations, I’m going to have a lot of fun.

“We did this on the force as a team building project. The trick is to knock your opponent off their feet and fall on top of them. Just try not to fall,” Millie tells us as she wobbles toward the ring.

“Now that everyone is set, we’ll announce the match-ups and rules. All rounds will be three-minutes in which you have to successfully knock your opponent off their feet and pin them on the ground for three seconds in order to move on to the next round.”

“Told you,” Millie whisper yells as she attempts to jab me, but is met with sumo plastic.

“You must win at least two matches to advance to the final round. Rounds one through four will be qualifying rounds. Round five, if necessary, will be a battle round used to determine who will be in the championship. Round six will be the final round and one husband and wife, not necessarily yours, will win. We wish you the best of luck. Up first are Amanda and Rebekah.”

We watch as Amanda and Rebekah roll into the ring. Gary and Bronx are there to help them stand. I pull on the rope to test its durability and lean into Josh.

“If you fall, roll to the rope and use it to stand up.”

He nods and pulls on the rope to test my theory. “Don’t fall,” he says, making it sound like it’s my intention to put my fat sumo self on the ground. I know I used to play with Weeble Wobbles when I was a toddler, but the idea of being an adult one doesn’t exactly appeal to me.

The bell dings and the only thing missing is a woman clad in a string bikini walking around holding up a sign announcing that it’s round 1. I’m kind of sad that she’s not here because that would make this display of human suffering all the more enjoyable. Patrick’s voice booms from the loud speaker telling Rebekah and Amanda to get ready. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Millie wobble over to me with a mischievous look on her face.

Millie leans into me, her sumo boob touching mine. In fact, as she tries to get closer, they rub together and I catch Josh looking at us with his eyebrow raised. I roll my eyes and earn a nod from him. “I heard Rebekah and Gary talking last night. They know each other,” she says a little too loudly because she can’t reach my ear.

“Interesting,” I reply as Amanda and Rebekah prepare to face off. Both Gary and Bronx are with their respective spouses, each taking a corner.

Amanda attempts to jump up and down, moving her head from side to side. Her feet barely leave the mat, but that doesn’t seem to bother her. She’s trying to intimidate Rebekah, but by looking at the latter’s face, it’s not working.

The bell dings again signaling it is time to fight and Amanda is full on trotting to Rebekah, but Rebekah sidesteps her and Amanda goes tumbling, bouncing off the mat.

“Ooh,” Cole exclaims as he claps.

“Come on, Amanda,” Gary shouts words of encouragement at her while he pulls on the ropes, jumping up and down.

Rebekah wastes no time falling onto Amanda, preventing her from getting up. Patrick starts his count of one, two, three and calls Amanda out by count. We’re not sure if we should clap or what, so we just stand here, thinking about our fate.

Don’t fall down
, I repeat in my head over and over again. That seems to be the sure fire way to lose. And I don’t want to lose. I want to spend a couple of hours cuddled in Josh’s arms without any disturbance from the others.

Rebekah seems to stay on top of Amanda longer than what I’d deem necessary and it isn’t until Amanda lifts her head that Rebekah starts to roll off of her and out of the ring. Once she’s standing on the ground, she’s trying to pump her extremely fat arms into the air.

“Next up, Gary and Joshua.”

“Woohoo,” I cup my hands around my mouth and holler for Josh. I waddle over and help him into the ring and he takes me by surprise when he kisses me. I smile sheepishly and pray that he wins this battle, putting us one step closer to a night at the movies.

“Come on, babe,” I yell as the bell rings and he thunders toward Gary. By all accounts Josh could easily take down Gary, but when you’re ballooned out and covered in plastic it’s a bit hard to be yourself.

Millie and I laugh when the guys bounce off each other. Neither of them falls as they continue to grapple for some type of leverage.

“You know, this would be so much better if we were watching you ladies wrestle in oil.”

Millie and I both turn and glare at Bronx, who shrugs as if he hasn’t said anything to irritate us. I’m not stupid, I know men do that sort of thing, but come on we’re on national television.