I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends (20 page)

Everything in Panama was like a melodramatic telenovela. Kacie B was now bad-mouthing Rachel to anyone who’d listen. She made the mistake of telling me she couldn’t stand her and that the other girls started a new drinking game: every time Rachel talked about herself, they had to take a sip. Rachel had been testing my last nerve with her snoring and moodiness, but she’d
always
had my back. I told Rachel what Kacie B said about her, which started a huge fight.

It just wasn’t Rachel’s week: She and Blakeley got the dreaded two-on-one date with Ben, where one girl gets a rose and one girl gets dumped on the spot. As if this double date weren’t awkward enough, they were forced to out-tango each other. You’d think Blakeley would have had the advantage in this dance-off, being a VIP cocktail waitress and all. But there wasn’t a pole within miles so Rachel got the rose and Blakeley got rejected.

Sadly, the alliance with my BFF also blew up in Panama. Casey, who rarely had any quality time with Ben and didn’t care, couldn’t just hang around being my sidekick forever. Somehow, the producers found out that she still had a boyfriend back home in Chicago. Chris Harrison did one of his classic on-camera confrontations and kicked Casey off the show. She cried like a baby. I’m still not really sure why because her interactions with Ben were painfully awkward and miserable for both of them. It all ended well for Casey though. Months later she started dating a handsome producer.

As expected, the Panamanian Rose Ceremony was a shitshow again, especially now that we were down to seven overly emotional women on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Jamie realized if she didn’t do something drastic soon she was doomed. She knocked back a few too many drinks, then, in her private time with Ben, straddled him so clumsily that she ripped her dress. She also tried to give him a kissing lesson/instruction manual that went down as one of the least sexy and most humiliating moments in the history of
The Bachelor
.

Once again, Emily was saved by another girl’s epic fail. Jamie, stumbling and swaying by the time the Rose Ceremony started, got the heave-ho. Ben gave Emily the last rose again, making her sweat it out until the very last possible second.

I knew Ben was doing that for me and it was a sweet gesture. But by the time we landed on a tropical island in Belize, our next location, I was hanging on to this whole thing by a thread. Despite our quickie in Puerto Rico, I hadn’t had an official one-on-one date since Sonoma. I’d been on three lousy group dates and had little private time with him at the Rose Ceremonies, to make sure the other girls didn’t get jealous.

I really liked Ben. I was falling for him for sure, but I was also losing sight of why. My feelings were slowly evaporating and I wasn’t missing him that much when he wasn’t around. Sure, skinny-dipping was fun but Ben hadn’t done or said anything to make me feel special since Sonoma. I didn’t doubt my feelings for him but the spark was gone. With the Hometown Dates just around the corner, I didn’t feel ready to introduce Ben to my family. I didn’t feel connected enough to him to do something so intimate, and I knew my mom wouldn’t want camera crews in her house if I weren’t 1 million percent serious about Ben.

KEEPING IT REAL

Production Lingo

I just didn’t know if Ben was “the one” yet. I felt it was a good time to walk away.

The girls talked about the possibility of bringing Ben home about a billion times on several different couch configurations. I came up with a new strategy: I decided to let everyone and their mother know that if I didn’t get one of the three available one-on-one dates with Ben in Belize, I would not accept a rose and would go home.

It was manipulative for sure and it served one major purpose. If the other girls thought I might take myself out of the game, it would get them off my back. We only had one more week together before we’d all go our separate ways and I couldn’t wait to never see any of them again.

You know that feeling when you have to go to the bathroom really badly, and when you finally get home, you almost pee your pants at the front door because you’re so close you can’t hold it anymore? That’s what Belize felt like.

I had such a strong hatred for the girls by this point and they hated me back just as passionately. Kacie B held a boot camp on the condo’s front lawn and even though they all could see me running up and down the stairs nearby, nobody invited me to join their makeshift exercise class.

I felt so bullied that when Emily got one of the date cards, I broke down on-camera and cried. Turns out that Ben had the worst time on his date with her but I had no way of knowing that then. In my mind, I was starting to believe that he liked her, I was getting played, and I would be humiliated on national television. She wasn’t the only problem. Kacie B and Nicki were now declaring like town criers that they were in love with Ben and during their group date, swimming with sharks, ganged up on me and begged him to get rid of me. Rachel, who was also on the date, didn’t say anything but she didn’t defend me either.

“I’m concerned she’s just in this to win it,” Kacie B, who had now taken to calling me the Black Widow, told Ben.

“We want you to be conscious about Courtney,” Nicki added with faux concern for Ben. “It’s what comes out of her mouth. I want you to be happy in the long run. I want you to be with someone who’s going to be there for you and give you one hundred and ten percent.”

I felt like I was the one swimming with sharks. By the way, Ben must go down in
Bachelor
history for having the most adventurous/least romantic dates. So far, he’d made Emily climb the Bay Bridge, Jennifer spelunk three hundred feet down into a deep dark cave in Utah, Lindzi jump out of a helicopter into the Great Blue Hole in Belize, and now he was turning Kacie B, Nicki, and Rachel, who was having menstruation issues, into shark bait. It didn’t hit me while it was happening but his choice of activities was a major red flag. These were all things Ben wanted to do and it was incredibly selfish and immature. He never took into consideration that some girls might want to look sexy, not sweaty, wet, and/or scared shitless. Patti Stanger,
The Millionaire Matchmaker,
would have ripped him a new one if he arranged any of these asinine dates on her
Bravo
show.

So, my diabolical plan to threaten to leave worked and I did snag the last, best one-on-one date in Belize, a visit to a Mayan temple that dates back to 100
BC
. Rachel told me about Kacie B and Nicki’s witch-hunt during their date, so when I left for my date, I infamously shouted at them, “Bye! Can’t stand you all!” After a short flight in a small plane flown by Jimmy Buffett’s personal pilot, Ben and I arrived at the ruins. Of course, the date included a rigorous workout, climbing up a hundred steep stone steps in hundred-degree humidity. Our hair was plastered to our faces and we were dripping in sweat. But the thing is that this was the moment I realized that nothing Ben could do would ever gross me out. We looked absolutely awful, we had BO, and yet I was still so attracted to him and thought he was super sexy (I was hoping he felt the same way about me, especially the next morning when I caught Montezuma’s revenge and he came into my hotel room to say hi right after I’d hit the pot for about the hundredth time).

Producers suggested I teach him how to model when we got to the top but I thought that was corny. Instead, we had the most intimate conversation we’d ever had. We talked honestly about how the girls, especially Emily, had been torturing me. I admitted having a hard time not feeling “special” in this setting.

He opened up about his dad dying for the first time. We talked about our past loves, how none of the guys I’d dated wanted to get married. We came up with a baby name, Forrest, in honor of his grandfather Forrest Flajnik. It was also the first time we discussed living together in San Francisco after the show was over.

I could have spent forever with Ben but the night portion of the date didn’t last long. We pretended to have dinner when he again brought up getting along with the other girls. I tried not to be offended but he could tell I was getting defensive. We laid in a hammock together for another five, then jumped into a hot tub for the last five.

I didn’t really need more time. After this date I had that “aha” epiphany moment. Not only was I ready to take Ben home to meet my family, but I was also ready to admit to myself that I was falling in love with this man. I was 99.9 percent sure he felt the same way about me. And I felt confident we were going to end up getting engaged in a few weeks.

I was the only girl feeling confident in Belize. The other girls were so desperate to bring Ben on a Hometown Date they were losing their minds. Before the Rose Ceremony, Nicki asked, “Does anyone feel safe?”

“I do,” I said snottily. “Nicki, you’re safe. I’m not worried about you.” I shot a smug glance at Emily.

At this point, I was hours away from never having to deal with any of these women again. I just didn’t care anymore. But then I kind of felt bad.

“There are plenty of fish in the sea,” I added, trying to be helpful. I knew Ben and I would end up together. “Ben’s not the only man to have ever existed. The spark is there, or it’s not.”

Emily and Kacie B were flabbergasted that I was so blunt.

“Did she just say Ben isn’t the only fish in the sea?” Emily whispered to Kacie B, hoping that might be the ammunition she needed to finally convince Ben that I wasn’t really here for him.

But these girls had no idea how amazing my date with Ben had been. They had no idea we’d gone skinny-dipping and had already sort of had sexual relations. So when he pulled me out of the Rose Ceremony for “a talk” on a bench, they thought their trash-talking finally got through to him and he was kicking me to the curb. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Before we go further, I just want to make sure you’re not going to leave,” he said when I got out there.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I reassured him. “I think we could be happy together.” I paused. “Did you do this to make me feel special?”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “I just wanted to spend a little time with you.”

I skipped back into the Rose Ceremony, admittedly a bit obnoxiously, beaming. Rachel was eliminated, and I was sad, even though she was so moody lately we’d drifted apart. And last but not least, drum roll please, Ben eliminated Emily. I was over the moon. I rotated away from her so I wouldn’t have to give her a hug or handshake good-bye.

“See ya. Wouldn’t want to be ya!” I said very childishly.

After the champagne toast with the final four—Lindzi, Nicki, Kacie B, and me—it hit me like Chris Brown. I was
done
living with the other girls! It was over! It was a miracle! I was so proud to have made it through this exhausting, unnatural, emotionally draining process without having my eyes scratched out or my weave yanked out of my head. Barely.

The four of us were immediately split up. We hopped on a ferry and, as each girl got dropped off at her individual hotel dock one by one, I felt the oppressive weight that had been on my wide shoulders lifting. My guard dropped and I finally felt like my old self again.

Nicki was first to be dumped off, then, when Kacie B got off the boat, Lindzi let out a gigantic sigh of relief.

“I thought you guys were besties!” I asked, in disbelief. They had been roommates almost the entire time.

Lindzi shook her head and made her signature stinkface.

“Wow,” I marveled. “Yeah, Little Miss Sunshine gets a little bit old.” In that moment, I really respected Lindzi for miraculously staying out of the fray for six long weeks. I was blown away by her stamina and her class.

Speaking of being blown away (perfectsegue.com), the next day a scary Category 5 hurricane threatened to hit the island and we all had to be evacuated immediately from Belize. I never saw the other girls but hoped they were making it out safely. Sure, I hated them but I didn’t want them to
die
. At 5:00
A.M.
, I was flown back to civilization by Jimmy Buffett’s personal pilot, then hopped another flight back to L.A., where I’d stay until my Hometown Date.

In hindsight, I’m not sure what was more terrifying—escaping the hurricane or the thought of introducing Ben to my mom.