They are, however, trapped in this hotel room together until dawn without cameras. And she still seems uncomfortable about something.
“Daphne?” he tries. “Can I ask you something? Why did you come on this show?”
“For love,” she says, almost too automatically.
“Yeah, but you don’t love me, and you’re still here.”
She narrows her eyes at him. “You think I don’t love you because I won’t have sex with you?”
“No, I think you don’t love me because you don’t love me.”
Quite frankly, he isn’t even sure if she’s attracted to him. He could feel it in every stiff touch earlier, every passionless kiss. Now that he has a point of comparison, he realizes he’s not the only one who has been faking. Kissing Daphne is like kissing himself. The version of himself he’s always been with everyone but Dev.
“I should be falling in love with you,” she says after a tense silence. “If I’m ever going to fall in love with… It, uh, it should be you. You’re perfect.”
He snorts. “I am so far from perfect.”
“Well, okay. Sure. No one is perfect. But you’re perfect to me.”
“Perfect looking, you mean?”
“Well, no, actually.” She gestures to her shoulders. “Muscles don’t really do it for me. I mean perfect. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, and you’re so sweet, and you make me laugh.”
“Laugh at me?”
“No.” She finally reaches out for his hand. “Charlie, you’re so clever and witty. I wish I were as funny and comfortable with myself as you are.”
Well. Now he’s crying in a sex suite in Franschhoek.
“Oh, hey. What’s wrong?”
“Your perception of me is what’s wrong. Daphne, there is so much you don’t know about me.”
“Like what?”
Since he can’t say like hooking up with my producer, he says, “I have OCD.”
And all she says is, “I know.”
“What?”
“I mean, I figured.” She shrugs. “I thought maybe it was just severe anxiety.”
“I have that, too.”
Daphne smiles at him. “I’m sure that’s been difficult to live with, but you don’t really think that makes you any less wonderful, do you? I think you’re perfect just the way God made you.”
“Wow.” He exhales. “I kind of wish I loved you.”
She drops his hand. “I wish I loved you, too.”
He can feel there is still something else she’s holding back. “You know, I’ve watched this show since I was a kid. On Monday nights, my mom would let me stay up late, and we’d swoon over the princes together. It’s what I grew up dreaming about. Carriages and candlelit dinners and happily ever after. And I haven’t been able to find it in real life. With all of my boyfriends, it never felt right.”
He can’t help but picture little Dev, also watching Ever After past his bedtime, and all at once, he’s not mad at Dev at all. He’s just sad for him, for the little kid who fell in love with love stories where no one looked like him, no one thought like him, no one loved like him.
“I came on this show because I thought it might finally feel right,” Daphne says.
“But it doesn’t?”
She shakes her head. She’s crying now, too. They make quite the sexy pair. “I want it so badly. Love. I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I can’t find it.”