Page 58 of Searching for Sadie
"That sounds amazing."
Sadie climbed the basement stairs like she was on her way to her own execution. This would not kill her. You couldn't really die from embarrassment, right?
She'd been thrown off all day since her mom showed up, and knowing she would have to face her mom tomorrow made this all even worse. But even though she'd only known the four women in the room upstairs for a matter of weeks, she knew Liam was right. As she walked into the TV room she saw all of them settle with a buffet of yummy appetizers.
"Hey, do you want a drink? We have wine, beer, and I think we have some of those flavored bubbly waters."
"Wine," she said as she sat down.
Before she knew it, she was sitting with a plate of yummy food and a glass of wine in her hand and the Before First Sight Streamflix logo on a very large screen.
"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath.
Kate turned to look at her with a discerning eye. "We got you."
Sadie just nodded and swallowed down the lump in her throat.
And just like that the group of people she'd spent a couple months with showed up on the screen.
Even in just a few short interview clips, she could see the narrative forming. She'd been very aware that there were only two girls besides her there who were plus size. When you grow up you learn to look for the people who look like you to feel like you belong, but when you are spending the whole time being filmed it was even more important.
But by the second day of filming, she was the only one left. When you no longer had any matches to go on your ‘blind dates’ in the rooms with, you went home. It went from twenty women in the beginning to the six that made it to the trip before moving in together when they came back to their real lives. After thatthey had to decide if they wanted to get married at the end of the six weeks. Looking back at it know, the whole thing seemed crazy, but hindsight and all.
The dates they aired of her with Ryan were hard to watch. It was a surreal experience to watch him charm her. She'd fallen in love with him in that room. The show only showed a couple conversations, but they'd spent hours in those booths talking to each other and getting to know each other. She'd truly thought she knew who he was.
There was a clip that made her laugh in the women's living space. There was one night that after all the dates had been finished and the woman all ended up dressing up and having a fun and silly dance off. Those were the moments on the show she looked back and smiled on. Even the quiet conversations on the couches about who they were dating and how they were feeling all made her happy. Yes, there were a few pick me's, trying to cause drama. But for the most part the vibes in that room had been supportive.
The men's room on the other hand was different. They showed a clip of him talking in the men's living space. Ryan and one of the guys who she couldn't stand were talking.
"What would you do if she's ugly?" he'd asked Ryan.
"I really don't think she is," Ryan said.
"I know, but what if she is. What if she's got red frizzy hair and a snaggle tooth?"
"Or bad breath?" another guy offered in.
"As long as she's not fat," Ryan said.
The women in the room audibly gasped and she wished she could crawl under the sofa. Watching this show in company was a bad idea. She should have just stayed home. She knew fat wasn’t a bad word. Fat was a descriptor, and it was a correct descriptor of her body. She’d long ago let of the shame of that word, but that was harder to do when it’s wielded like a weapon.
After that comment Sadie watched the show, but she was dissociating. She picked up her phone to scroll, but her had an insane number of notifications, so she just put it down and sank into the feeling of disappearing.
As her scrolled her phone a text popped up.
Rebecca – Ryan’s a douche. I hope you know that. We miss you. I know you don’t want to hang out with us, but if you want to get coffee, please let me know.
Part of Sadie wanted to text back. There had been good moments of the show. Rebecca was a wonderful woman who had fallen in love on the show. If Sadie was in a different head space maybe they could have been friends, but everything just felt so messed up.
When that episode finished, she was ready to head home. Together they’d watched two of the episodes that dropped. Those were the episodes that she thought would be easier to watch. She'd been there with him in the rooms, talking to each other without seeing each other. They'd fallen in love, at least she had.
That fatphobic comment was unexpected, but not surprising. The thought of still having ten more episodes to watch before filming the reunion seemed unbearable.As the room around her started to get up and get ready to leave, she still found herself in a bit of a fog.
"Are you okay?" Poppy asked. "That guy is a douche."
A rough chuckle erupted from somewhere deep inside of Sadie. "You have no idea. It's about to get so much worse."
"Really?" Poppy said with a face somewhere between caution and sympathy.
