The Final Rose

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Final Rose

A/N: Hold on to your hats. Here we go.

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After sitting through the premiere, I tortured myself by watching the rest of the season with my mom, first mortified by my brief appearances on the show and later transfixed by Lee's effortless beauty and aching for her sweet demeanor. Each week I laughed at Candace's antics, I grit my teeth whenever Patience appeared, and I did my best to keep my emotions in check when Lee had screen time. In between weekly installations I continued to get my life back on track and avoided online spoilers about who would be the next to be eliminated and what America thought about the Native American girl from Canada.

I had made it to episode six out of twelve before being eliminated, just before the women went to Boston to visit Jacob's hometown. Each subsequent episode, Jacob eliminated someone new. Samantha, and then Heidi. Emma, followed by Renee. Jennifer, Brittany, and Irene were the final women to be dismissed, until he'd narrowed it down to only  three—Jade, Stephie, and Lee. Lee, predictably, cruised through one selection ceremony after the next, clearly capturing the country's heart, along with Jacob's.

The final three women were flown to Tahiti. Jade was eliminated in the penultimate episode, leaving Jacob to make a decision between Lee and Stephie. For the season finale, the episode where Jacob would presumably propose to one of the two remaining women, the network traditionally flew in that season's eliminated contestants for a live viewing of the finale. At the end of the pre-taped episode, Jacob and his new fiancée would make a live appearance, and the announcement of the next season's single girl—typically the runner-up—was made.

I had declined the opportunity to return. It would have been nice to reconnect with some of the women—Candace and Stephie in particular—but watching the finale live, waiting to see if Jacob would propose to Lee, would have been too much torture, even for me. Instead, I chose to watch at home with my mom. It was her habit to make a special dinner to eat after the season finale. She liked to make an event of it like others did for the Oscars or the Super Bowl.

The rich aromas of dinner in the oven wafted into the front living room where my mom and I awaited the start of that night's finale. The program opened not in Tahiti, but in a Los Angeles-based studio where a live audience of mostly women along with a majority of that season's contestants waited to discover Jacob's decision.

"Are you regretting not being there?" my mom asked.

"No. There's no point," I dismissed. "It would have only made things harder having to see them together live."

With each new episode that we sat through together, my mom became increasingly sensitive of my feelings. We hadn't spoken again about the girl in gold. I could tell she wanted to ask me questions each time Jacob and Lee shared an intimate moment on TV, but she wisely had remained silent for the duration of the season. I'd never told my mom about the fluidity of my sexuality. It wasn't that I feared her reaction, but I just didn't see the necessity of discussing my sex life with my mom.

"So you think he chooses her?" my mom questioned.

I leaned forward on the couch and stared at Lee's image on the television as the program began its pre-taped portion. "How could he not?"

From the beginning of taping to its finish, Jacob had had six weeks to find his future wife. Six weeks to fall in love. At the time, it had seemed awfully unlikely to me, but I'd managed the same feat in far less time.

The season finale was two hours in length, but it felt much longer as I watched Lee and Jacob cuddling on a sailboat together, watched them smiling across a candle-lit table at each other, and watched them holding hands as they strolled down a beach as a couple.