I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends (27 page)

I started off by apologizing: “I have many regrets. I’m disappointed in myself and the way I acted and treated the women. Looking back there’s so many things I would have done differently.” Eye rolls from the peanut gallery. It was obvious there would be no forgiveness tonight no matter what I said.

Blakeley was one of the first to confront me: “Courtney, what did I ever do to you for you to call me a stripper? What did I ever do for you to say I’m the kind of girl your boyfriend cheats on you with?”

In Utah, after the fly-fishing date, a bunch of the girls were dancing around and I saw Blakeley jokingly give Kacie B a very skilled striptease and lap dance. That’s where that came from, but I couldn’t say that on-air.

Elyse pounced next, calling me “trashy” for going skinny-dipping right after she was sent home.

Jaclyn, who I thought was my friend, jumped on the attack: “When I hear you drag my friends’ names through the mud, that’s what really gets me.”

Jennifer called me out for not knowing her name for six days. I barely knew her name now.

Kacie B was the most civilized of the bunch, asking me why I made constant jabs. Casey, my best ally, jumped to my defense, pointing out that I wasn’t the only one shit-talking the whole time. But then they all jumped down her throat. Emily ripped me to shreds when I said it was intense living with all of the girls. She refused to accept my excuse that the process was hard for me. “It was hard for every last one of us!” she ranted. “Did we all react by making these jabs or being negative and rude to everyone?”

Um, yes, you
hypocrite
? I kept that jab to myself.

“Guess what we did,” righteous Emily continued. “We made friendships to support one another and get through it. Courtney did exactly the opposite. We were human beings and tried to make connections to get through it.”

I absolutely despised this walking disease expert, but this time I had no choice. I had to swallow my pride, bend over, and take it up the tailpipe. I wanted so badly to talk about how they all alienated me from the very start and talked constantly behind my back and in their ITMs. I wanted to say that Emily threatened me in the hallway in Utah and said I had a personality disorder. It took every fiber of my being to not be defensive as they attacked me, but I let them put me through the ringer. “I want to say I’m sorry,” I said, more tears streaming down my face. “I came into this with the same hopes and dreams. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I’m really sorry for that. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me. I’m not a meanspirited person. It brought out the worst in me. I can’t apologize enough.”

After Chris said there was nothing left for me to apologize for, they mercifully ended the segment, and I walked off the stage defeated. Some of the girls were still rubbing salt in the wound. Nicki leaned over to Kacie B and said, “I’m
not
going to hug her.” Samantha barked, “She’s a bitch, end of story.”

I was already emotionally drained and now I had to wait for Ben to finish the taping so we could have our “talk.” I was driven over to a small Happy Couple house off Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, crying the whole time. I cried so much I had vertical streaks down my face where my tears washed away my makeup. In the bathroom I looked in the mirror and saw my busted, tear-stained face. I decided not to clean myself up so that Ben understood the pain of what I’d just been through.

Ben walked into the house carrying groceries and a bouquet of flowers. When he saw me, he stopped in his tracks and smiled sweetly at me. Oh boy, I knew that look. He’d come here to get back together. Well, I was not having it. I thought he was a coward and that I was stronger than he was—a major turnoff.

Ben went into the kitchen to prepare a gourmet swordfish dinner. He was trying to be charming and didn’t even criticize my knife cuts. But I still was not letting him off the hook or being affectionate toward him.

When we sat down to eat, it was crickets—until he had the audacity to ask, “What are we doing?” Actually I was glad he said it because now I was entitled to go nuts on him.

“What are
you
doing!” I yelled. “I’ve completely lost all faith and trust in you! I’ve never felt this bad in my life. You are supposed to be my fiancé and you haven’t been there at all for me!”

He looked into my eyes, reached across the table, and grabbed my hand. Then he apologized. I’m embarrassed to say that’s all it took for me to cave. We both got up and embraced. It felt so good to be held by him. Then we went into the bedroom and had sex.

Raise your hand like Kacie B if you’re disappointed in me right now. Well, what can I say? We had a natural chemistry that was undeniable. I was in love with Ben and he promised to make it all right again. I believed him. Plus, I really didn’t want to go on “After the Final Rose” and explain to 8 million viewers that we failed as a couple, that we didn’t make it. I couldn’t deal with the “I told you so’s.” I wanted us to work so badly.

Ben even toyed with the idea of us giving the ring back and bailing on our commitment to finish the show. “We’ll do our own thing!” he proclaimed. But we both knew contractually that was next to impossible. Plus, I really wanted that darn ring.

The next morning Ben left and it was like nothing bad had ever happened. We flipped the switch again and we were back to being in love and engaged. He left to do a wine tasting event in Detroit but we would see each other in a week to tape “After the Final Rose.” I was so excited. We were just two weeks away from coming out publicly as a couple. We wouldn’t have to hide or defend our love anymore to
anyone
.

YEAH, WELL, THE BLISS
didn’t last long. Two days before the “After the Final Rose” taping, Ben called me. “Hey, just giving you a heads-up that
Us Weekly
has some photos of me,” he said nonchalantly. “I’m trying to stop it.”

“Well, what are the photos?” I asked.

“The paparazzi were following me and I had some friends over. I kissed someone on the cheek to say hello. But they’re making it look like I’ve been kissing girls.”

“Were you?”

“No!”

“Don’t worry. I believe you,” I assured him. I’d seen enough of the garbage and lies that had been printed about me to know it probably was made up.

The next morning I asked my roommate to go to pick up a copy of
Us
. The paparazzi had returned to my front lawn and I didn’t want to be seen picking up a tabloid story about myself. That’s so Kardashian.

My roommate brought it back and handed it to me nervously. “It doesn’t look good, Court,” she warned.

I brought the magazine into my bedroom so I could look at the pictures privately. There, in photographic evidence, were three potential women Ben cheated with after he told me he “needed space.” While I was home nursing a broken heart, he was out drinking and groping. One picture, dated February 18, was particularly incriminating. He was definitely kissing this girl and it was not a friendly peck on the cheek. He had his hands on her ass and their pelvises were glued together like puzzle pieces. They were walking Scotch together, which really bothered me.
Us
also had photos of the girl, allegedly a friend from college, leaving his apartment the next morning.

I lay in bed sobbing, ignoring phone calls and rapid-fire texts from Ben.

Fml.

Sorry you had to deal with all of this for so long, you’re much stronger than me.

Sorry for being so naive.

I’m stressing big time.

I went online to read stories about the cheating scandal and, again, the headlines and comments were vicious. Especially about Ben. Everyone seemed thrilled that we would have no choice but to break up now. I even heard from my mom, who e-mailed, “Do you really want to be with a cheater?”

Instead of being sad, I got mad and protective of our relationship. I oddly also felt bad for Ben. Now he finally knew firsthand what I’d been going through the last few months with the press. Now he knew what it felt like to be the villain, the bad guy, and be railroaded in the media. To be stalked and hounded and despised. I felt vindicated and decided to stand by him, even though I wasn’t sure at this point what really happened with the ass-grab girl.

I just wanted to send a really big
f-you
to the world and confuse the hell out of everyone who was buying into the tabloid frenzy.

I jumped out of bed and got dressed. I had a new mischievous plan. I let the paparazzi follow me to the Mark Zunino bridal shop in West Hollywood, where I proceeded to try on multiple wedding dresses. I posed brazenly in the window for all to see and snap. For shits and giggles, I even tried on a gown that looked exactly like the universally mocked dress Angelina Jolie had just worn to the Oscars, with the giant slit up the leg.

By the time I left the bridal shop, the sidewalk was teeming with photographers, two of whom got into a shoving match in front of me. I tried to drive home, but it was like the Indy 500, with about twenty paps in cars and on motorcycles in hot pursuit. I’d started this madness, but now I was terrified for my life. Andy from
Splash
called me. “You don’t want these scumbags to know where you live. Follow me.”

He drove up next to me and pointed at the Twentieth Century Fox studio on Pico Boulevard. I drove up and begged the guard to let me in to escape my tormentors. He lifted the gate and I was safe. I drove through the lot and out another exit. Ha! I lost all of them! Special thanks to Andy.

Within an hour the wedding dress pictures were up online and my plot was a huge success. I’d stumped the media. They couldn’t figure out why I was trying on wedding dresses the very day Ben’s cheating scandal hit. Was I sticking it to Ben? The show?
Us Weekly?
Were we together? Broken up? I was the only one on the planet who knew the answer.

I finally called Ben: “I did this for you. We can get over this.”

“I never kissed her!” he insisted. When I didn’t believe him, he sheepishly admitted, “She
did
sleep in my bed, but I promise I didn’t have sex with her.” He even swore on his father’s grave.

Nice. We were engaged, yet he let another woman sleep in his bed. I knew it. I’d closely studied the picture of her leaving his apartment the next morning and the evidence was pretty clear. She had her hair in a bun, a classic post-hookup hairstyle—and she had that walk-of-shame look all over her face.

Ben had the nerve to play the victim, as he barraged me with lame excuses. “I’ve been having such a hard time and I was going out a lot and acting out and flirting, but I swear I never cheated on you.”

Ugh. Enough
. Like a stupid idiot, I told him I believed him.

Do I think he cheated? Hell yes, I think he cheated.

But I couldn’t take any more pain and lies. There were only three days until we taped the “After the Final Rose” special and we had an interview for the cover of
People
magazine to get through. There was no
way
I was going to give up now. That’d be like Sid in
An Officer and a Gentleman
and we all know how that ended. He went DOR with less than two weeks until graduation, and then killed himself. (Sorry for the spoiler for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie. But really, if you haven’t seen it, that’s not right. Netflix it now.)

When the “After the Final Rose” taping day arrived, I hadn’t heard much from Ben and had no idea what we were going to say when the cameras rolled. I called him and asked, “Do we have a game plan?”

“The story is that we’re good,” he said simply.

Only it wasn’t so simple. It had definitely crossed my mind to completely blindside him and dump him right there on the spot. “Once a cheater, always a cheater!” I thought about screaming at him.

But, deep down, I was in love with Ben and not ready to end it. I didn’t even see him until just before we walked out on the stage. It’d been almost four months since Ben got on bended knee, so they had us watch the proposal together again to get us back to that fairy-tale bubble, to be in the
Bachelor
frame of mind.

Usually on “After the Final Rose” the runner-up goes first and gets a chance to ask the Bachelor why she was rejected. Poor Lindzi showed up, but got bumped—and never got her day in court. They wanted the entire episode to be about Ben and me. Lindzi got her revenge by doing press in New York City the morning after the finale. While she was gracious and her usual chipper self on
Good Morning America
, she joined forces with that little freckle-faced troublemaker Kelly Ripa, who got her to say Ben needed a new hair stylist and that I kept him on a short leash.

I don’t blame Lindzi. We deserved that. And she deserves a guy who will appreciate her quirkiness and unique sense of humor. She’s got a good heart. I have nothing but respect for Lindzi and the way she handled herself after the show—just like a lady who’d never chew gum.

The audience at “After the Final Rose” obviously did not respect me; they booed worse than at the “Women Tell All” taping. I felt like I had no support from anyone. Though Ben confirmed during the interview that we were definitely together and on the path to marriage, we both had tears in our eyes almost the entire time. Sure, he slid that $80,000 engagement ring back on my finger, but it was obvious to anyone with a pulse that our future was about as shaky as a dog shitting razor blades. (Full disclosure: I stole that one from UrbanDictionary.com.)

As Ben and I watched the proposal again—for the camera this time—I whispered to him, “I can’t stop crying.” I wanted him to comfort me, but he kept watching the screen and wouldn’t look at me.

I threw him under the bus about abandoning me when things got really tough and for not getting me a gift on Valentine’s Day. “He didn’t send flowers or a card or anything,” I said. “It was awful. There were days where I didn’t leave the house, and I just laid there and cried … I needed him.”

Ben admitted he messed up, swore on his father’s grave again that he didn’t cheat on me and promised to be true to me from now on. “There was never anything wrong with us,” he claimed. “What’s wrong was everything that surrounded us.”