Caleb is selected to be a contestant on a popular dating show. You’re devastated.
Modern day AU. Caleb lost his arm and does not have a high-tech replacement. Longing. A bit of angst. Fluff. Jealousy. No beta.
——
Six months ago, when the accident took Grandma, you remember collapsing from relief when you found out Caleb had survived. But now, as you watch Caleb stuff essentially his entire closet into a suitcase, you realize just how wrong you were. Because apparently, you’ve lost Caleb too.
He’s been distant since he was discharged from the hospital — ignoring your texts, dodging your calls, finding excuses not to visit — and the first time you see him in months, he’s sitting you down to tell you that he’s leaving to be a contestant on a fucking dating show?
“It’s not a big deal, pipsqueak.” He sounds completely unbothered. “I told you, Gideon signed me up as a joke. I’m pretty sure they only picked me ‘cause of the arm…” He flexes the robotic prosthetic at his side — more advanced than the prosthetics of years past, but the fingers move slowly. He folds his shirts with difficulty. The ease in his smile grates against the tension in your chest. “Most contestants don’t even make it past the first night, y’know?”
Of course, you know. You’ve watched The Bachelorette before. But Caleb wasn’t most people. What woman in their right mind could resist him? The mirth in his eyes, his boyish smile, the high slope of his nose, his warmth…
“You don’t honestly expect her to fall in love with me, do ya?”
Of course I do, you want to say. Because I love you. I’ve always loved you. Instead, you leave without saying anything at all. You don’t leave your room for dinner that night, not even when he makes your favorite braised wings, and you pretend to still be asleep the next morning when he leaves for the airport.
—
You spend the next two weeks alternating between uncontrollable sobbing and hopeless delusion. Maybe the very pretty, very likeable bachelorette had terrible taste. Maybe she was the only person on earth immune to your charming not-brother. These delusions crumble when you see a post from the show’s official Instagram account — Caleb and the bachelorette, smiling after a one-on-one date. His left arm is around her shoulders. She looks radiant, and he’s painfully handsome, wearing the old suit you remember picking out for him for graduation.
You throw your phone across the room, and the screen shatters. The next day, you get a new phone and a new number, and you don’t bother texting Caleb about it.
—
After that, you successfully avoid anything to do with Caleb or the show for another four weeks, until a TV producer literally comes knocking at your door. He apologizes, because he couldn’t reach you by phone and had no choice but to come in person. Caleb made it to the top four, he says, and next week will be the hometowns episode, where each contestant brings the bachelorette back to meet their family.
“I’m not interested.” You grit out as you slam the door in his face. First, Caleb abandons you for months, and now, he wants to broadcast your heartbreak on national television? You think you’re going insane.
“Wait!” You hear the producer yell from the other side of the door. “Look, if you don’t agree, he’ll be the only contestant who doesn’t have family there next week. A few of his friends agreed to come on the show, we’ll be filming at a rental house on Tuesday at six.” He slides an address under the door. “Please come.”
—
In the end, you go anyways, driven by morbid curiosity and the visceral ache of missing him. There are cameras everywhere in the room, surrounding you, Gideon, Zayne, and Zayne’s parents. A microphone is clipped to the front of your shirt under the collar, and the rest of it is taped down your back. You feel like an animal in a cage.
“Okay,” the producer from last week calls from the corner of the room. “Caleb and the bachelorette enter, in three, two…” He silently mouths “one” and points at the door.
She comes in first, and everyone stands to greet her. She’s smiling wide, so pretty, and when she gives you a hug, you note that she smells like flowers. Great. She turns to Zayne’s mom, shyly handing over a colorful bouquet and a bottle of wine. “This is for you, Auntie, I’m so glad to meet you!”
You briefly consider leaving the room to throw up, but when you turn around to make your escape, your entire vision fills with Caleb. He looks exactly the same, which isn’t surprising considering he was only gone for a few months, but for some reason, you expected to see a stranger. He brings you in for a hug, left arm winding around your back to crush you to him, and buries his face into your nape. When you part, he guides you to sit on the couch, completely ignoring everyone else in the room.
“Hi, pipsqueak. Still mad at me?”
“Yeah.”
He chuckles at your response, but there are storms in his eyes. It seems as if he doesn’t know what to say, and you don’t either, but you also don’t want to look away. So you stare at him, trying to memorize his face, in case this is the last time you’ll ever see your Caleb before he willingly gives himself to someone else. Caleb stares right back.
—
You stay in a trance until Caleb is suddenly tearing his eyes away from yours, arm reaching out to grab Zayne’s wrist as it hovers above your shoulder, before it actually touches you.
“Keep your hands to yourself, yeah?”
Zayne looks between the two of you contemplatively, almost suspiciously, the way he did during your childhood when you would cling to Caleb too closely, or kiss his cheeks, or cry when you had to let go of his hand.
“Excuse me. The producer asked me to sit here, since you’re supposed to be on the other couch with your girlfriend—”
Caleb springs up, pushing Zayne back, his eyes flashing and fist curling at his side. “She’s not my—”
He doesn’t get the chance to finish before the producer is yelling again. “Let’s get ready for the second shot!”
—
When Caleb finally sits down beside her, the anger has been erased from his face and he’s all smiles. They're holding hands, leaning into each other, and telling everyone in the room about their 'once-in-a-lifetime romantic journey’. You think it’s a load of bullshit.
“Caleb is really special to me,” she says, as if he wasn’t already the most important person in your life, looking up at him with stars in her eyes. “I’m so lucky to be here with him tonight, and I can’t wait to get to know each of you!”
You want to set her on fire.
—
You end up talking to her first. You learn she’s a nursing student, that she’s passionate about helping people. It hurts more that she’s genuinely nice, clearly making an effort to be kind to you and make sure you’re comfortable in front of the cameras.
Eventually, she starts getting into the details.
“Caleb’s really great." She seems a bit nervous, twirling one perfect strand of shiny hair between her fingers. “He really is, it’s just that I’m worried we’re not as far along in our relationship as I am with some of the other guys.”
For a second, you’re hopeful. “Why?”
“He’s not really open with his feelings. I know that the accident — losing his grandma and his arm — really impacted him, so it’s understandable that he’s closed off. But I’ve already told him that I’m falling in love with him and well,” her long lashes are a bit wet. “He hasn’t said it back yet.”
Then, she’s grabbing one of your hands in both of hers, looking at you with a hopeful smile. “Will you talk to him about it? Get him to open up? Ask him how he really feels?”
Suddenly, want to set yourself on fire instead.
—
Before you can talk to Caleb alone, the producer pulls you aside for an 'important chat'.
You learn from him that the night wasn’t necessarily going well, because Caleb spent his entire conversation with Gideon talking about sports, and his entire conversation with Zayne trying to figure out how many times the two of you hung out while he was away, what you did, where you went. It was hardly good material for the show.
“Please,” the producer begged, looking as if he were asking you to spare his life. “You gotta help me out here. Please focus on his relationship with the bachelorette and for the love of God, please, do not bring up Zayne, alright? I can’t handle another hour of whatever that was”.
—
And that's how you end up on the balcony swing outside the house, interrogating the love of your life about some other girl.
“So,” you ask, trying to sound casual, “how’ve you been?”
“It’s been wild, pips. We went to France and Italy — you’d love it, I’ll take you — and I got you souvenirs.” He doesn't sound as excited as he should be. One hand holds yours, stroking the back of your hand with his thumb. The prosthetic hangs limply from his other side. “I’ll give them to you later.”
“And how’s it going with, uh… with her?”
“She’s nice. You met her, what do you think? Was she nice to you when you talked?”
“Yeah, she said she really liked you.” You clear your throat. “But she didn’t know if your relationship was as far along as with the other guys.” You try not to read into the way eyes follow your tongue as it pokes out to wet your bottom lip.
There's silence. And then Caleb seems to deflate before your eyes. “I’m not surprised. I have some tough competition, you know.” He sounds defeated, and it hurts you more than the thought of losing him to someone else.
“Not like that, Caleb.” You scoot closer to him, so that your knees are touching, and bring his hand into your lap. “I’m sure she likes you the most. Loves you, even. She’s just waiting for you to tell her you like her, too.”
“Does she?” His eyes are intense, searching yours, and he gestures to the mechanical limb on his right side. “What woman would want this?”
It hits you suddenly - after the accident, you were so overwhelmed with grief, and then relief that Caleb wasn’t dead, that you never stopped to consider how he felt. How painful it must’ve been, how lonely. How debilitating, to go from being capable of doing anything to suddenly losing a part of yourself and having it replaced by a slow, metal imitation of what was once flesh and bone.
You hated yourself for being so selfish about the accident, the show, everything.
Without realizing, fat tears are rolling down your face and splattering on your lap. Caleb removes his hand from yours and starts to rub under your eyes—the right, and then the left, and then the right again. He’s still smiling in that wry, sad way that you hate. “Protecting you is my life’s mission. Look at me now, princess. I can’t even wipe your tears away.”
Your chest hurts, and you start to sob. He pulls you onto his lap by the fat of your hip, and you bury your face into his nape, shaking.
“Gege can do anything,” you get out between hiccups. You feel so small, as if you’re a kid again, crawling into your brother’s arms for comfort after scraping your knee. “There’s no one better in the whole world. She's an idiot if she doesn't want you."
When you calm yourself down enough to look up at him, he's wearing an expression you’ve never seen before; face flushed, ears red, eyebrows turned up, looking as if you held his whole heart in your hands.
“I love you, Caleb,” you say, and before you can clarify— add ‘as a sister,’ or something, anything, to make the moment less intimate—Caleb is responding, his grip on your hip bordering painful.
“I love you, too.”
—
Two days later, Caleb shows up at your doorstep looking sheepish. He didn't make the top three. You don’t ask for details. He doesn't pretend to be upset, and you don’t pretend to be upset for him.
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