Chapter 18

© Copyright 2011 by Elizabeth Delayne





“I never watched the show—not a lot of it anyway. Not when it first came on,” Felcity said, then drew in a deep breath. “My mom found out she had cancer my Freshman year in high school. We just ... didn’t spend a lot of time with television. Not at first. We did stuff together. Anything, outdoors, just as a family. We got that from my dad.”

“How long’s he been gone?” Jamie asked.

“He um ... he died that summer before my freshman year. He was a ... he was in the army. Reserves. He was shipped to Iraq, third deployment. Car bomb came. He was gone.” He voice grew soft. “Just like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said, having experienced death through the hospital, and the grieving of families. She knew there wasn’t much more she could say.

“So I had my mom,” Felicity said, and threw up her hands with an attempt at a smile.

Who’d they found had cancer, Jamie thought.

“Anyway, you um, didn’t ask about that. You asked about the show. Or I was telling you about the show,” she pressed a hand to here forehead. “Things were fine, I went to college and my roommates were all over the show. They were high school friends, in this four person mini-apartment we had and I was placed with them. It was ... like a ritual with them. I don’t know. It was just part of being with them. Even now.”

“So you got into it when you started college?”

“Sort of,” Felcity swallowed. “I guess I should get it all out now, right? The truth is ... I hated the show. Anna–she was my roommate. We actually shared the same room that semester. She still laughs at me. Because I ... seriously hated the show. But I watched it because they watched it. And it was fun to discuss it, argue about it, laugh with them. And now ...”

“You’re on it.” Jamie laughed. “Seems like we have something in common.”

“You don’t hate the show,” Felicty reasoned. “And neither do I. You just think you rise above it. But you can’t. It’s an experiment in human orientation. Sociology. And we’re all human. That’s what George says. That’s why he’s here.”

To experience being human, in an out of the ordinary, time capsule sort of way.

Away from the hospital, and her grandmother, and the farm ... Jamie thought, where she’d felt stuck and lost and lonely for far too long.

Yes, she had been lonely.

It had been time to look for something else.

She supposed that’s what her grandmother wanted for her.

Be on the journey for yourself. That’s the only thing that will make it worthwhile.

“Anyway ... my mom ... her cancer came back ... I—“ Felcity stopped. “I need to ...”

“Here—there’s a log,” Jamie said. “We’ll sit down.”

“No—“ Felicity shook her head. “You don’t sit. Your muscles will relax. Cramp.”

Jamie nodded and watched as Felicity leaned against the tree. Stopped, they were now completely on camera. Jamie shot a look at the camera, at the camera guy, but it remained trained on them. She supposed this was his lucky day.

Felicity pressed a hand to her face. “She had cancer. And ... it came back. She didn’t want to tell me, but when I got home at Christmas, she ... You could tell. She ... just looked sick.”

“So I quit college, came home ... within three months she was on morphine and within six, we were in hospice.”

“Felicity.”

Jamie had seen it so many times. Families who were told hospice was the next step. Families who were told to start down the long or short grieving process toward death. At one time in her life, she’d been pulled toward geriatrics, but it wasn’t just the elderly in hospice. The young, with so much potential ...

At least in the OR she was actively doingsomething. She wasn’t helpless.

“Anna kept in touch. They were all so good about that. And we had our show, right?’ Felcity laughed. “I would sit in my mom’s room, and I’d pretend that we were watching tv, just the two of us. Before the last season came on, they ran all the episodes back to back on one of the cable stations. Several times. I just sat there, watching. I just watched. I couldn’t take my eyes off.”

“And you lived,” Jamie guessed. “It was a way to get outside.”

“Yeah, I guess. It was something to ... feel real. So much felt off. I just sat there, alone in that little room, and when it got to the seasons I had seen with the girls, I could tell my mom about them, even if she couldn’t hear. And then ... she died. My mom,” Felicity reached up at brushed at her face where tears fell freely now. She looked down at the moisture on her fingertips. “I haven’t cried since I got here.”

“You can’t hold it in,” Jamie said.

“But I don’t want to be that girl. Just like you think you don’t want to be known as the mom of the group, or Tyler’s girl,” Felicity said, and some of the sadness faded from her eyes.

“Actually,” Jamie said, “I don’t want to be known as they girl Tyler breaks up with. Or anyone breaks up with on television, or the one that grabs one of the cameras and tosses it away. Or the one that they try to catch up with in six months, just to find out that after my heart was laid bare on national television, we’re no more.”

“So you would like—“

”All I said was what I don’t want and that’s really all I know.”

She got the laugh she was expecting. Felicity pushed away from the tree and they started down the trail again. “Anyway, Anna and the girls showed up one day and kidnaped me, sort of, and took me with them to the auditions. They wanted to get in, but they wanted me to be part of it ... then I got in and ...”

“You’ve been texting them.”

“Who else would I text?”

Not her family, Jamie realized. Not the other team. “You were so secret about it. You know there was talk.”

Felicity frowned. “You’re talking about the first competition, right?”

Jamie shrugged.

“I just ... you know Carson on the other team? It’s not like that. At first, maybe he seemed interested and it felt neat to be one of those girls that catches the eye of that guy ... I guess. Why not? You’re afraid of the on screen romance, but I really ... really thought it was like my mom looking down on me. For a moment. You know, I thought, he’s cute and he made me laugh. And he sent text messages that were sweet and said that he’d see me in the competition, try to carve some time out to do it.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was on the trail and he showed up and we stopped to talk. And ...” she shook her head. “I don’t know. It must have been longer than I thought.”

“They delayed you and got to your pieces.”

“They used me. He used me. I must have had a big ...” she passed her hands over her face, “loser stamp on my face.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“But we lost.”

“Felicity—“ Jamie said. “When it comes out on television, they’re going to look like the jerks.”

“And I’m going to be poor Felcity.”

“Only,” Jamie said, “If you let him know it hurt you. Only if you let it hurt.”

“I’m really afraid he’s going to contact me again. Use me again. And that I’ll let him, because it’s easier to let him then be alone.”

“No–“ Jamie said, “You’re afraid you’ll let yourself be used again. We’re not going to let that happen.”

“How?”

“We’re a team, Felicity,” Jamie said as they walked on. “We’re part of a team. We’ll handle it together.”


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