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After Jessica Brody left the set of Bachelor in Paradise seven months ago, she wrote a pro-con list about her experience.
Pro: The beauty of Fiji.
Pro: The new friendships she made with cast members like Mary Viturino.
Pro: The romantic, rain-soaked kiss she shared with Ciarran Stott, and how it helped remind her that those moments do happen.
And..Con: The chilling feeling she had when Ciarran returned from his first date with newly arrived Kiki Morris and told her he just wanted "to be mates".
Watch: the moment Ciarran suddenly broke things off with Jessica.
Plenty of viewers were having feelings of their own as the situation unfolded on Monday night's episode. A sort of empathetic, second-hand cringe that comes with watching someone being so casually cast aside. Particularly after all the romantic dates, the genuine affection, the talk of their "connection" in the days prior.
"I just felt on top of the world when I was with him. He was just so funny all the time, and so happy. Everything was just easy," the Melbourne woman told Mamamia. "And then obviously there's a physical attraction and chemistry. So I just thought that there was definitely a dynamic there that was worth discovering."
Then, after Kiki arrived, it all changed.
"He was just so cold towards me... it was like a different person," she said. "I didn't feel like I was speaking to the Ciarran I knew. I felt like he was almost reading a script. It was just very, very bizarre."
At least, it seemed bizarre at the time...
Speaking to Mamamia in the wake of her elimination, Jessica speculated that she was just a "stepping stone" in a pact he and Kiki had made prior to the show.
It emerged during Monday's episode that the pair had spent the night together just days before the start of filming. Considering that, Jessica said, and the robotic way he cut things off with her, it's likely they've pledged to take each other to the end.
"We had such a great dynamic. How can one date change that? That doesn't make sense to me," she said. "To be honest, I think it was all planned from the start."