With Bob, Lurch, and Jeri dogging Zach and Liesa all day, I’m left with time enough to visit Diana. At least I don’t have to perform the real duties of Liesa’s maid. Tom stayed behind at the house to repair equipment, maybe check the feeds from the still cameras and microphones planted all over the house. Simone is locked behind her bedroom door.

According to my initiation by Tom—when I was given my role and instructed to keep the drama high—the bedrooms are off limits to surveillance. My bedroom doesn’t have the style and luxury of the resident’s rooms, but it’s a far cry from the room I share with Diana. This one is twice as big, with generic but new teakwood furniture and a queen-sized bed all to myself. My window opens onto the driveway. No ocean view for me. On the third-floor with three other empty bedrooms, it’s as much of a sanctuary as I’m likely to find.

A handsome young guy carrying a massage table had been allowed entrance into Simone’s cave and I can only imagine the happy ending he‘s giving her. Maybe it will relieve some of her tension and she’ll leave Zach alone.

I spent most of the day at the hospital. While Diana sleeps I play dominoes with some of Wanda’s visitors. Marie had been released and a younger woman occupies her bed. She had complications with her pregnancy and doesn’t have many visitors. Wanda’s ailment must be serious to keep her here so long but whatever the prognosis, everyone keeps a happy face. I envy their ability to weather the health storms with such joviality, like a hurricane party.

Diana’s surgery went well and she’s recovering, according to Dr. Bodden. But she keeps her eyes closed most of the time, hardly moving at all. I doubt she sleeps that whole time and I worry she’s sinking into depression.

When Blake arrives around sunset, she’s sitting up allowing me to style her hair, careful to avoid the still giant goose egg on the back of her skull. Blake brings her a red hibiscus flower that I tuck behind her ear.

She lights up a little for him and he flashes her his usual friendly grin. If Diana notices that Blake ignores me, she doesn’t say anything. I leave them to head back to Liesa’s house and hide myself behind my bedroom door.

I watch as Liesa and Zach arrive home somewhere after one o’clock. They both look spent. Liesa dangles her spiked-heeled sandals from a finger. The flippy little chiffon party dress that barely covers her ass even looks droopy.

Zach’s shoulders slump. They both look like battle-weary soldiers tromping back to camp. In this battle, we’re all losers.

Just before Zach steps from the driveway to the front porch, he raises his head to my window. I should step back but I can’t.

I flatten my hand on the pane as if I can touch Zach. Liesa’s hand reaches out from where she must be waiting for him under the eaves where I can’t see her. He flinches but lowered his face. I feel abandoned the moment we lose eye contact.

Exhausted, I plop on the bed and close my eyes. Behind them, the film begins to play. Zach diving with me. Zach carrying me from the waves and watching over me on the beach. Zach bringing me out of my funk at the ocean wall downtown. Zach in my bed, touching me with tenderness and then with a burning need.

I snap my eyes open and stare at the ceiling fan turning lazily. Zach is one floor below me. Is he with Liesa on the deck or the living room, having one last drink, kissing and petting for the camera? Or maybe all that TV drama is turning into reality and he’s in Liesa’s room with the door closed and no one watching? My imagination refuses to stop rerunning images of Zach and Liesa fucking in her massive four-poster bed.

Stop being ridiculous.

None of this is real.

Zach isn’t with Liesa.

But he isn’t with me either.

And as long as Jonas has his way, he never will be.

.