Last Girl Standing

October had never been so nervous before in her life. She would never have let that on, but she was terrified. Her hard looking exterior, her tattoos and her piercings generally pushed people away from her, but that was something she’d accepted.

Except when all the boys in a fifteen mile radius avoided her like the plague. This game, this stupid love reality show, was her only chance at possibly finding love for herself. People had used her and abused her since she was a child, growing up in the inner city limits of the Bay area in California.

San Francisco had been a rough environment for her to grow up in. Though her childhood was short, October had more spunk and more pep than an entire cheerleading squad.

Tapping her foot on the cold marble floor of the holding room, October waited to be called in. A girl named Regina sat across from her, her eyes wide and dull as she stared emptily at the floor. “I didn’t want to be here when I first came. I only came because my mother was going to set me up with her best friends son and he’s a total pervert. I thought maybe I’d be able to find a respectable boy here, but they just shot me down.”

October frowned. “They can’t be that bad.”

“They said I didn’t have enough personality. They said I was like a piece of soggy white bread.” Regina wiped at her eyes and sniffled.

The other girl in the room, whose name October could not remember for anything, rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a pussy, you little bitch. Just because they said you didn’t have enough personality doesn’t mean that you’re going home. I’ll bet the tattooed chick is going home.”

October cleared her throat. “I’m sitting right here, you slag.”

“I’m not the one covered in ink and metal.” The girl rolled her eyes again and uncrossed her legs.

“Drop it,” October hissed.

“Drop dead,” the other girl retorted.

The door opened and the teary eyed girl who had just gotten out of interrogation, or interview as Tanisha had called it, wiping at her eyes. The girl nodded to October who stood up and pulled down the bottom of her black tank top, covering her midriff and the small songbird tattoos on her hip bones that were visible from her low cut black skinny jeans.

She took a deep breath and stepped into the elimination room, breathing heavily to calm her racing heart. If she got eliminated, she would lose hope and she might never find love again. Inside the elimination room was a table where the five boys. Niall, the blond, one sat on the far right edge and next to him sat the dark haired boy with the earrings and the tattoos. He was the one October had her eye on. All the other boys were irrelevant to her, save for the curly haired boy named Harry, the one who was the Alpha Male.

October took her place in the center of the floor about six feet away from the panel table where the boys appraised her.

“So, please state your name.” Harry said casually. He sat next to the tattooed boy in the middle of the table.

“October Marie Hudson.”

“And how old are you, October?” The one sitting to the left of Harry. He had extremely short dark hair and brown eyes.

She took a deep breath. “I just turned nineteen a few weeks ago.”

Harry nodded. “Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?”

October shrugged. “There’s not much to tell, really. I grew up in the ‘burbs in San Francisco with my grandmother. My parents skipped out on me when I was sixteen and before that, they were really harsh to me.”

“What do you mean, harsh?” Niall, the blond one, asked quietly.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
 He drew back, recoiled like he had been hit. The tattooed boy rested a hand on his friends’ shoulder. “That was a bit uncalled for. Niall was just trying to get to know you.”

“I mean no offense,” October began. “But I don’t see how my family life when I was a kid pertains to this interrogation.”

The final boy, with brown hair and blue eyes frowned. “This isn’t an interrogation, October.”

“Then what is it? If you’re going to judge me and tell me I have the personality of a soggy piece of white bread, just get to it already. I don’t want to waist my time on some pretentious assholes who will judge me based on how I look and how my parents treated me when I was a kid,” October growled. She folded her arms in front of her chest and set her weight on her left hip.

The tattooed boy sat back. “No one was judging you on how you look, October. I know for a fact that I wasn’t. If you haven’t noticed, I have tattoos too so it would be a bit hypocritical to do that.”

October rolled her eyes.

“Alright, we’ll each tell you what we think about you now,” Harry interrupted diplomatically. “We’ll start with Niall.”

The blond boy took a deep breath. “I think you’re very beautiful. I think you’re the most beautiful girl here, but your attitude says otherwise. I don’t think you truly want to be here.”

The tattooed boy, Zayn sat up. “I don’t like your attitude either. You’re too defensive and you’re too angry inside.”

Harry cleared his throat. “I agree with Niall. I think you’re stunning, but you have no people skills to think of. Your personality is a bucket of hot piss. I don’t think anyone really wants to be around you, October.”

The words Harry spoke stung her heart. She felt pain in her stomach and searing heat in her eyes, but she merely stared ahead and kept her chin up. The short haired boy beside Harry smiled kindly at her. “I disagree with all the previous statements except the one about you being beautiful. I think something awful happened to you when you were a child and you’ve built up walls. They’re defense mechanisms so no one will hurt you if they get close to you.”

The last one shrugged. “I agree with Liam.”

Harry nodded. “You can go ahead and bring the other girls in.”

October nodded, turned on her heel. The other girls followed her into the elimination room where the boys still sat.

Harry smiled at each of them, the charming dimple appearing in his cheek. “What’s going to happen is each boy will give the vote for who he thinks should go home. The girl with the most votes goes home. If it comes to a tie, I will break it. That is it. Boys, vote for your least favorite girl. Let’s start with Louis.”

Louis thought for a moment before he sighed. “I’m voting for Regina. I’m sorry, love, but your personality just doesn’t come through enough for me.”

She sobbed as Liam nodded in agreement. “Regina, I don’t know why, but you faded into the background. I see something in all these other girls.”

Zayn frowned. “I’m voting for October. Your defensiveness was not attractive and I didn’t appreciate the way you talked to Niall and the other boys.”

“I’m voting for October as well.” Niall glanced up and frowned. “I was just trying to get to know you better, but you blew up and you went extremely defensive. I don’t like it when girls are so defensive like that.”

All the girls turned to Harry. Regina sobbed and sniffled loudly and extremely obnoxiously. Harry looked between Regina and October. “I don’t like the responsibility to decide who gets to have a chance at love and who doesn’t. It’s not something that appeals to me. But I see something in one girl. I see a potential for a great relationship with one of these boys and I think it could really work between these two. That’s why I’m voting for Regina. I’m sorry, Regina, but I don’t see a relationship with any of these boys including myself. Thank you for being here.”

Regina sobbed loudly and turned wordlessly, leaving October alone with the boys who called her a bucket of hot piss and several girls who had the personalities of we mops.

As they turned to leave, Zayn cleared his throat. “Remember, it’s not about looks, ladies. It’s about personalities and how we relate to you. It’s about how we feel when we’re around you. Keep that in mind this next week.”

October sighed and felt relief wash over her. She survived the first week.