The Sun in My Eyes

45 Weepin' in a Sunlit Room

Bobby's home and he's fine. No seriously. He's fine. Totes Magotes fine-eriffic. Everything's coming up, McKenzie. Mmyep.  

**

"I had the oddest dream the other day."

Lili shifted in the giant wicker chair in the beach hut, her smile dreamy and wide. "I was laying on a bed of meringue. It was raining and the rain smelled like tea. The trickles on my skin were so warm, and Bobby was there, holding a daisy. He asked me to be his girlfriend, even though it frightened him. He wanted us together in and out of the villa. I've never had such a vivid, like, dream. I nearly cried when I woke up because I so badly wanted it to be real."

Bobby pushed aside the five-day old container of Chinese takeaway on his coffee table with the toe sticking out of the hole in his sock, and rewound the scene again.

"I've never had such a vivid dream."

She'd heard him, the day he'd asked her to be his girlfriend, and she thought she'd dreamed it.

He laughed. Because he'd run out of tears three weeks ago.

The camera shifted to Lottie's drama of the moment. It was odd seeing their lives so curated and crafted for public consumption. Some of it was exaggerated, but it was more accurate than he would have guessed. He fast-forwarded through that nonsense.

He'd watched the entire season only once. Pushing past Lili's departure and then his own emotionally numb one a few hours later. Through the new girls that had shown up, the dumping of Blake and Noah, and the return of Rocco and Hannah. And ultimately, Hope and Lucas winning the whole damned thing.

After that, he'd simply begun re-watching it by fast-forwarding to every single Lili moment. They were all painful, so he didn't bother to skip any. Not her talking about how much she fancied him, or her telling Hope that they were over. Telling off Lucas for using her as a shield to hide from the real person he came there to be with. And her telling off Priya for refusing to be honest about her feelings for him. That one was a surprise.

He found another Lili scene and stopped on it.

"Enough about me." Hope looped Lili's hair around her fingers as she wove it into a pair of sleek french braids. "What's going on with you and Bobby?"

Lili groaned. "Same as always. Sweet words. Great sex. Slow self-destruction."

"I don't understand. It seems like he really cares about you. More than cares."

"He thinks he does." Lili winced as Hope pulled those braids tight. "He's a romantic and he wants this to be something. And for a while I got caught up in that. But it's not reality. He's... he's just not ready for what we could be."

"Girl, maybe you're overthinking it. I didn't think he was being serious either, but the other day he said—"

She waved her hand. "Don't tell me. It'll just get my hopes up for nothing. That part is over. Every time I feel like we're real, he shows me that we're not. I'm not going to be that girl who keeps trying to hold onto someone who's pulling away. We're having fun. And great sex. That's enough."

Hope snorted. "It's not enough. And I don't think you believe it is either."

"I'm trying to make myself believe it. Otherwise... it hurts too much."

His heart lurched as if it could climb out of his chest and into the telly. He skipped past the scenes of the boy's time during Casa. Stopping only to again, laugh at the painful twist of fate, that the worst thing he'd ever done in his life had never aired on television.