The Theory of Second Best (Cake #2)

by J. Bengtsson

  I knew, at that moment, that I’d lost. It was as if karma had come back to give me a swift kick in the ass. Not only was I not coming home with the money, I wasn’t coming home with the guy either. And I was surprised to discover that I was way more devastated about losing Kyle than the million dollars. I realized then that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.

  TV Confessional

  “Do I take credit for Carl’s newfound social skills? Unfortunately, yes.”

  —Kenzie

  31

  Kyle: The Decision

  Even with a day to stew, I was still pissed when I walked into final vote. I didn’t want to see her, but then at the same time I did. Despite everything, I missed her. I’d lain in bed for hours the night before, unable to sleep because she wasn’t beside me, and I was mad at myself for wanting her to be there. Taking my spot among the losers, I purposefully kept my eyes averted, knowing they would betray me if contact was made.

  First Lena poured out her soiled, blackened heart for all to hear. I wanted nothing more than to call her bluff, but I stayed rigid in my seat. The producers wouldn’t take it kindly if she and I had another screaming match. So I let her finish her story, not buying a second of her bullshit. If there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that Lena was not getting my vote.

  When Kenzie spoke of her mom and raising her siblings, I could hear the hesitation and tremble in her voice, and I remembered that morning on the beach when she’d shared her story with me. She’d already had so much responsibility in her young life, raising her siblings and working to keep food on the table. What had I accomplished, other than being a pain in the ass to my rock star brother? No matter how I felt about what she’d done to me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she deserved to win.

  But then Carl opened his soul for the jury, and shocked us all by the depth of his character. All this time, he’d sat there stewing, and he had this story to tell. When it was over, all the women, as well as Dale, were crying. I felt for Carl, I really did; but I’d heard sad stories before, ones that were ten times worse than what he had to offer. Hopefully I could be forgiven for not crying him a river of tears.

  The confessions ended, and I actually had to console an overly emotional Dale. He had been adamant about voting for Kenzie earlier in the day, but I wondered if Carl’s story had changed his mind. Going into the night, I still had no idea what I was going to do. In the height of my anger, I’d sworn to myself that Carl would get my vote, but I felt myself wavering now.

  One by one we were each allowed to address the three finalists. Lena fielded the most attacks on her character, but Kenzie got her fair share of hate as well. Several of the ousted players knocked her for riding on my and Dale’s coattails, when in reality I’d ridden on hers. They could say what they wanted about her – hell, I could say what I wanted – but I knew the truth. Kenzie was a strong, fierce competitor, and she wasn’t sitting up there in the winner’s circle because she’d been hiding behind a man hoping for her moment to shine.

  When it was my turn to speak, I kept my questions generic. I didn’t care what any of them had to say. My decision would not be based on their answers tonight, they would be based on the people I knew them to be. And for that reason, despite the fact that Kenzie had betrayed me in the cruelest of ways, I wrote her name down on the paper, voting for her to win.

  TV Confessional

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  —Kyle

  32

  Kenzie: Homecoming

  After the voting was complete, Lena, Carl, and I were whisked away for physical checkups and later to a hotel away from the other players. Because the winner wouldn’t be announced until the final show aired in December, they didn’t want us discussing the vote with the members of the jury. I was thankful that I didn’t have to face Kyle one-on-one. His anger hadn’t surprised me, but the fact that he couldn’t even look at me spoke volumes to the level of hurt he was carrying with him. He viewed his ousting as a personal attack. He felt betrayed. I couldn’t say I’d have reacted any differently if I’d been in his shoes.

  Once in the privacy of my own hotel room, I finally broke down and cried. I was exhausted both physically and mentally. The verbal beatdown I’d received at the ceremony left me feeling conflicted and dejected. I showered four times that day, yet I still felt dirty. I wanted to explain myself to Kyle, but I knew he wouldn’t listen. Obviously any chance I might have had with him romantically had been destroyed, but what I worried about more was losing his friendship. That was going to be a harder pill to swallow.

  I didn’t see Kyle again until the flight back to Los Angeles. I was already sitting in my seat when he came walking down the center aisle. Our eyes met. His were hard and unforgiving; mine were sad and remorseful. He looked away immediately. I reached for his hand as he passed by, and although he did not recoil, Kyle continued walking until his hand dropped from mine. And that was that. We made the trip home without a word. My island boy was no more.

  Once I arrived at LAX, I had to rush to catch my connecting flight to San Francisco. Dale was already there waiting for me at the gate, since we were headed to the same airport. When I saw him, I broke down. Gallantly, Dale embraced me.

  “I’m so sorry. I know you and Kyle hate me. I’m so sorry,” I cried on his shoulder.

  “I don’t hate you, Kenzie. And neither does Kyle. He’ll come around. Give him time.”

  “You didn’t see the way he looked at me.”

  Dale hugged me until the flight attendants announced the last call. They seemed a little hesitant to move me along, obviously feeling compassion for the emotional state I was in, but certainly not willing to hold up a flight because I was being a crybaby.

  “This will all blow over. I’ll talk to Kyle. I promise.”

  “Okay.” I snorted the snot back up my nose in a less than ladylike fashion. I was a mess and didn’t even try to hide it. “Can you give him my phone number?”

  Dale took out his phone, and after an overly extended period of time trying to bring up the address book, I took the phone from him and added my information in fifteen seconds flat. I felt better knowing that Dale would go to bat for me. If Kyle would listen to anyone, it would be him.

  After landing in San Francisco, I boarded the third and final flight of the day. It was a short jaunt to Eureka. As I descended the stairs and walked across the tarmac and into the terminal, my dad and siblings were there to greet me, and the sadness melted away. This was my family. The reason I’d played the game. No one here cared that I was a lying, backstabbing bitch… well, they probably would care if they knew, but I planned to omit that distasteful piece of information until shortly before the show aired in a few months’ time. Honesty was always the best policy, but in this particular instance, I just didn’t give a crap. What I needed now was some unconditional love.

  My first week home was spent sleeping and eating. Life went on around me, but I needed time to readjust to the real world. One morning I woke to find my dad in the kitchen making his breakfast. He scooped some eggs onto a plate and handed them to me instead.

  “Here, you need to put some meat on those bones.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  He nodded, staring at me for an uncomfortably long time.

  “What?” I asked, looking up from my breakfast.

  “You seem different.”

  “I feel different,” I agreed, in a low, passive voice.

  “Is everything okay? You’ve been subdued since you got home. Did anything happen that I need to know about?”

  “You know I can’t talk about it, Dad.”

  “I know, but I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  My eyes filled with tears.

  “What happened?” he asked, going from sympathetic to ‘Who do I kill?’ in two seconds flat. That was my father – always jumping to the worst conclusion without any supporting facts.

  “It’s nothing bad. It’s about a guy.”
<
br />   “A guy?” Dad’s voice instantly turned hard and condemning. His fists clenched into balls. “What did this… this guy do to you?”

  “Easy there, Chuck Norris,” I said, grabbing his hands and uncurling them.

  “If he hurt you, Mackenzie, I swear to God…”

  “If you’re going to act like this, I’m not going to talk to you,” I warned.

  My father took a step back and stared at me. He wanted to argue but knew better than to cross me. We had a different relationship than most fathers and daughters in that we were equals in every way. Well, maybe equals was the wrong word, since most of the time my father deferred to my judgment. Thank god, because if I’d left it up to my overprotective father, the triplets would have been wimpy little balls of anxiety.

  That’s not to say that my dad was a bad guy – he meant well, but after losing my mom, he took helicopter parenting to whole new extremes. Everything the triplets did was too dangerous or too messy or too loud. It was my job to remind him that Mom let me do this or that. Maybe he wouldn’t listen to me, but he always listened to her. And although I’d only had my mother in my life for a short time, I was very much her daughter. In fact, I basically became her, or what I remembered of her, in order to give my siblings the childhood they deserved. So if I sometimes had to step in and remind my father to act like a grownup, that was a dance we’d been swaying to our whole lives.

  His face relaxed. He laid his hand gently on mine and said, “Sorry. Tell me what he did.”

  “It’s not what he did to me, it’s…it’s what I did to him,” I whispered, lowering my head in shame.

  “Oh,” he replied, still looking flustered. “I’m confused.”

  “I really liked him, Dad. So much, and…”

  “And what? What did you do?”

  “I lied to him. I betrayed him.”

  My father exhaled, looking immensely relieved, as if it made everything better knowing that his daughter was the bully and not the victim.

  “And now he hates me and there’s no way for me to turn it around.”

  “Did he feel the same way about you?”

  “I… no… I don’t know. Maybe. He was hard to read. At the very least we were really close friends.”

  “But isn’t that what the game is all about? Backstabbing people in order to win?” he asked, as if he really didn’t see the problem.

  “He was my ally. I turned on him, and the worst part is… he never would have done the same to me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Oh, I do. Kyle’s loyal to a fault. He trusted me one hundred percent.”

  “So if you didn’t want to betray him, why did you?”

  “For us. For our family.”

  “For us? Why in the hell would you do that for us?”

  “So you wouldn’t have to work so hard. So you could find a good woman and have love in your life again. And so Cooper and Colton and Caroline could have a secure future and have money for college. And… and… I did it for myself because…” I stopped myself before I said too much.

  “Because what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing. Tell me.”

  “I need to leave, Dad,” I whispered. “I’m moving away. It’s time.”

  He didn’t respond right away. Something in his coffee cup seemed to mesmerize him. Finally his voice cracked, and he said, “I don’t think I can do this without you.”

  “You can and you will.”

  He shook his head. “This last month was really tough while you were gone. They walked all over me.”

  “But you all survived. The triplets are older and more self-sufficient now. They can drive and cook and do their own homework. You just need to be firm with them.”

  There was a long silence, and then my father sighed and asked morosely, “When are you leaving?”

  “Not until after the final taping in December. Probably January or February.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “South.”

  Neither of us spoke after that. I saw tears in my father’s eyes. He’d relied on me for far too long. It was time he stepped up to the plate. He was their father. And despite spending the last sixteen years playing their mom, I wasn’t. I was young and had dreams of my own. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid to follow them.

  33

  Kyle: Self Discovery

  I stepped off the plane at LAX, relief taking hold of my tired body. Although my experience on the island overall had been incredible, the last days had put a sour taste in my mouth. I just couldn’t shake the anger and disappointment over what Kenzie had done. Just looking at her on the plane upset me. It almost felt like she’d cheated on me, and trusting her again seemed impossible. For that reason I’d decided to just end our friendship. Obviously it hadn’t meant anything to her in the first place.

  My mom and Grace met me at the airport in baggage claim.

  “You’re so tan,” my sister fussed. “And skinny. You look like you’ve been drifting in the ocean in a rowboat for a month.”

  “Wow, thank you.”

  “That means you got far,” mom said, her eyes twinkling as she winked at me.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” I grinned as I hugged my welcoming committee.

  “And you know it’s going to drive me absolutely insane not knowing.”

  “Oh, I know. That’ll be half the fun.”

  “How long are you planning on staying?”

  “I don’t know. Originally I was going to fly back to Europe as soon as I got home, but it appears Jake has not been as lonely as I thought he would be.” I arched my eyebrows knowingly.

  “No, you got that right,” mom agreed.

  “He’s in love,” Grace said, making kissy-faces.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I asked, and he told me.” She shrugged, like it was no big deal. “I’ve got a direct line, you know.”

  “Oh, right. I forgot. The two of you are like this,” I said entwining my fingers.

  “We are,” she shot back defensively. “Jake even Snapchats me sometimes, so there.”

  I held my hands up, conceding defeat. It was no secret Grace adored Jake, and all he had to do was throw her a bone once in a while in the form of a text, Snapchat, or a gift, and that was enough to secure his place in her heart. She was always a little starry-eyed around him, probably because he hadn’t lived at home since she was eight, and Grace knew him more as a rock star than as a brother. I’d heard her with her friends acting like the supreme authority on all things Jake when, in reality, she didn’t know the first thing about him. In fact, I found her expertise rather ironic, given their rocky past. There had been a time when the two of them couldn’t be in the same room together without her throwing a screaming fit.

  Growing up, Keith and Jake had always been the nice brothers, with Quinn and I being the pricklier sort. Whether it was playing music together or riding Grace on the front of his skateboard, Jake had always carved out time for her. When he’d disappeared, Grace had been too young to really understand what was happening. During that time, when she’d ask for Jake, the answer was always, ‘He’ll be home soon,’ so it was possible she’d thought he was away on vacation or something. The day he arrived home, after spending nearly a month in the hospital, Grace still had not seen him, nor did she have any clue as to where he’d been or the extent of his injuries. She was just excited to have him home. In retrospect, we should have prepared her better. Obviously she’d been expecting Jake back and not the battered, broken boy Dad pushed through the door in the wheelchair. Grace took one look at him and started screaming. We never really figured out what terrified her so much, but she refused to be alone with him in the same room for a very long time. Needless to say, Jake was not pleased by her reaction, and he made it a point to stay as far away from her as possible. Their relationship had only in the past few years morphed into what it was today.

  “Did you know Jake had a g
irlfriend before you left?” Mom asked me.

  “No. I mean, I knew he really liked her after they met at the wedding, but I had no idea she went on tour with him or that they were together.”

  “I guess it was a good thing you were gone, or it would have been real crowded on that bus,” Mom teased.

  “Yeah, that would have been awkward, especially with my bunk right up against the bedroom wall.”

  “Ew… Like I want to hear that,” Grace complained.

  “Oh, sorry. I thought you already knew, being best friends with him and all.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Grace,” Mom admonished, shaking her head. “Anyway, it shouldn’t be a problem now. Casey is back home for school. Did you know she moved to LA?”

  “I talked to Jake yesterday and he filled me in.”

  “I can’t wait to meet her. When Jake comes home, he said he’d bring her by.”

  I nodded. Little did my mother know I’d been planning to bring my own girl home to meet her… until that girl crapped all over me.

  “Wait… I thought you met Casey at the wedding,” I said.

  “Well, I guess I did, but I don’t remember her. I just thought she was another groupie. I don’t think I even looked at her,” Mom laughed.

  It wasn’t a joke. She was not subtle when it came to her dislike of the women who hung all over Jake. She took on that judgmental face that screamed, ‘You’re not good enough for my boy.’

  Mom grabbed my arm. “Enough about your brother. I want to hear everything about your adventures.”