Page 79 of The Cuffing Game
They’d also asked the contestants, who pretty much said the same thing.
Mia knew everyone was right. Celinewasmost likely fine. But she still couldn’t shake off the guilt and worry that pressed down against her chest.
First Noah, and now Celine. Somehow, Mia had gone into the show with her crush and roommate and walked out with neither. And not just on camera, but off, too.
Maybe the mistake was having my roommate and crush involved in the first place.Mia winced. But it wasn’t like she had a choice this time around. As a freshman, she’d had virtually no power. She promised herself to only cast complete strangers for her next show. If she was ever allowed to have another one. Right now, with two missing cast members, her chances were getting slimmer by the minute.
In her bed, Mia mentally went over what had happened yesterday. There were so many little interactions to sift through, to turn over and over again like a rock in the palm of her hand. She went through everything that had transpired both on and off screen, wondering if she could have somehow prevented things from happening the way they did.
She’d just drifted to sleep when her phone rang.
It was Celine.
Mia bolted out of bed.
Not wanting to wake up Kallie, she grabbed her phone and ran out of the room. Some part of her brain was still stuck in Big Bear, so when she opened up the back door to a stunning view of the moon shining over the dark-blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, Mia did a double take. This was something she could never see back home.
Breathing in the cool, salty air, Mia answered her phone. “Hi.”
“Hey,” Celine said. Mia could barely hear the other girl’s voice above the rush of people. Music blared nearby and,at first, Mia wondered if Kallie had been right and Celine really was at an EDM show. But then she heard sporadic car horns. So, Celine was outside. But where?
“I got your messages,” Celine continued. “All ten of them.”
After she had heard about Kyle’s plans for Las Vegas, Mia had spiraled and left Celine a broad spectrum of messages in the last twelve hours, ranging from the quick and casual “Just checking in!” to the heavy-handed “Hey, please call me back so I know you aren’t dead.”
In retrospect, they were all so embarrassing.
“Are you okay?” Mia asked. “You’re in a safe place, right? And you and Kyle didn’t elope?”
Celine laughed. “Wait, what? Of course not! He did ask me to be his girlfriend, but I told him it was way too soon. And I’m okay!”
A loud car honk burst through from the other line. Mia jerked her phone away from her ear and brought it back in time to hear a guy—Kyle?—laugh. Celine giggled and cheerily said, “Sorry! That was Kyle jaywalking. We just got out of a show and are headed back to the car right now. Should get a lot less chaotic in a few minutes. Hold on.”
More loud voices and traffic noises ensued. Mia held her phone at a distance until she heard the car door slam shut. The background noises subsided, and Celine yelled, “Be quiet, please! I’m having an important conversation with Mia on the phone!”
“Hello?” Mia asked. “What’s going on?”
“Hi, yes,” Celine said, her voice a lot more audible than before. “I’m in the car now. Sorry, it’s been a wild twelve hours. My phone died while we were at Big Bear, and after I dropped off my car back at school, Kyle drove us to a show in Vegas! I thought everything would suck since we’re not twenty-one yet, but we’ve been finding a lot of fun eighteen-plus things to do, especially since it’s only a couple days until Christmas.”
Celine sounded happier than she had all week. Somehow.
“That’s... good!” Mia did the math. The drive back from Big Bear to school was at least two hours, and then the drive to Las Vegas was another four. And that waswithoutfactoring in SoCal traffic, which added even more time. To a “plan everything” type A individual like Mia, that kind of long-distance, last-minute trip sounded like a nightmare. She always knew she and her roommate were different types of people, but she never realized just how different they were from each other until now.
“Sorry I left you and everyone else in the dark,” Celine continued. “If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t think you’d care that much. Considering we’re not exactly friends. But then I listened to all those voice messages... and I was surprised.”
Mia blinked. “You were?”
“Yeah. I mean, come on, you barely talked to me in the entire semester we lived together,” Celine said with a sharp laugh. “You were always off doing cool film school thingswith your cool film school friends. You only really started chatting with me after I agreed to be on your show and got Noah involved.”
Mia looked down at the white sand beneath her feet, processing Celine’s words. It was true that she had always thought of Celine as more of a “roommate” than a “friend.” But she was surprised to hear Celine’s side of things.
In Mia’s eyes,Celinehad been the one that was almost never in their room, always going out to the coolest parties or hanging out with influencer friends who would never give the time of dayto dorky freshmen like herself. Until now, Mia had no idea that it went both ways. That while she was feeling left out by Celine, Celine was feeling left out by her, too.
“I do care about you,” Mia said. “Roommate, friend, whatever. And I care that you’re happy and doing well.”
She told Celine about howshe’dbeen feeling the past several months, and the other girl let out a long sigh.
“Being someone’s roommate isn’t easy, huh,” she replied. “But yeah, it’s okay. Now we know. And I’m fine! I’ve just been trying to relax and have fun. This week has been hard. I thought I knew who I liked, and I thought I knew what kind of person he was. I wassowrong on both counts. And to top it all off, I discovered that the roommate who invited me to be on her show actually has a crush on the very same guy as me!”
