London looked wounded.
“I don’t think trying to be with me would be a failure, Dahlia,” they said softly, the hurt in their voice evident.
But something about that hurt slotted inside Dahlia’s brain, felt right in a sickening way. She wanted London to be angry, too. It was so lonely, being angry alone.
“You don’t understand, London. I know you have money, okay? I bet you could probably start that nonprofit no matter what, even without the prize money. But I needed it. You have no idea how humiliated I am right now. That I finally have to face it, what a mess I am.”
“Dahlia,” London said, an edge finally entering their voice. “You’re not—”
“Stop.”
Dahlia needed London to stop lying.
“Okay.” London dropped their hands and took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m sorry. For trying to tell you where you belong. What if . . . what if I come to Maryland?”
“What?” Dahlia shook her head, shuddering at even the idea of that. Why couldn’t they get this? She had lost. She was lost. But they . . . they were going to shoot their shot. They had so much good ahead of them. She’d go back to her life, try to reshape it again, and they’d start their nonprofit in Tennessee. If they threw that away for her, she’d never forgive herself. Or them. “No. No, London. I don’t want that.”
London stared at her, the color that had been in their cheeks fading away until they looked pale and gutted. It was the worst thing Dahlia had ever seen.
“London.” She put her hands on her hips, looking down at the floor. Tried to be the voice of reason, focus back on the here and now. “I have to go, but you have to stay. You can’t let Lizzie win. Okay?”
“Dahlia.” London scoffed. “You have to know that I don’t give a shit about Lizzie right now.”
Dahlia needed to keep moving. She’d been standing still too long.
She was running out of things to say, things that could keep this overwhelming sadness at bay. Nothing was working, and a pressure was building behind her eyes. She knew if this conversation didn’t end soon, or get better somehow, the tears would start. And she didn’t know, if she let them start, if she’d be able to make them stop.
She picked up a book she had started three weeks ago and never finished, and tossed it into the suitcase.
“Although maybe that was how this all was supposed to shake out in the end anyway,” she muttered, half to herself. The effort to keep it together was starting to make her feel half-delirious. “Lizzie wants to start a bakery, right? Isn’t that why people normally try out for this awful show? To actually start a career in food? Why’d they even the let the two of us on here? God. Maybe we are just two idiots.”
Dahlia slammed a bra on top of the book. “I don’t . . . ” London’s voice wavered. “I don’t think you mean that.”
She didn’t. She barely understood what she was saying at this point. It did seem kind of funny to her, though, now that she thought about it. That neither of them fit the narrative of this show, how it was supposed to be. That they had both somehow found their way here anyway.
“I don’t think we’re idiots at all,” London said quietly, after a horrible, awkward minute of silence as Dahlia looked under her bed for missing socks. “But I do think you’re acting like an idiot right now.”
Ouch, Dahlia thought. At the same time that she thought, Fair.
The pressure was prickling at the corner of her eyes now. Danger zone. She stood, spinning in a circle, seeing what else in the near vicinity she could throw into her suitcase.
“Dahlia,” London said, frustration ringing in their voice now. “Can you please stop fucking packing and look at me ? Show me I mean anything at all to you? I don’t . . . I don’t understand why you’re being like this.”
Dahlia ran a shaky hand through her hair. She needed them to go, now. It was too much.
She turned to face them.
With David she had learned what it felt like to break your own heart slowly, torturously, fight after fight, month after month.
Now she knew what it felt like to break it all at once.
“London.” She licked her lips. “We knew this would happen. You don’t even know how grateful I am for . . . you, for everything, but now we have to both go back to—”
“Don’t do that.” London took a step closer. “Don’t you dare fucking do that. What are you saying, that this was a fling ? You’re just declaring it over? Don’t I get a say?”