Read Excerpt Of Carrie's New Book

The other girls began to react to what had transpired between Perez and me as soon as the lights went down. Miss Vermont later told FOX News, "A lot of people were shocked. We were all kind of giving each other those eyes. We couldn't believe it."

As soon as I got back to the tent behind the stage to change, someone shouted, "California, Access Hollywood wants to interview you."

"Why me? I didn't win."

As I walked back and put my flowers down, I felt all eyes on me, which was strange because I wasn't the winner, but there was this sort of buzz in the air, and it seemed to be buzzing around me. Part of it was that many of the house moms, who looked after the girls at the pageant, were coming up to me and whispering that I did the right thing in standing up for traditional marriage; they told me they were proud of me. I appreciated their kind words, but really my primary thought, after the letdown of losing, was to get out of this tight gown, take off all my makeup, eat a cheeseburger, and just go home and recover from the stress and strain of the last three weeks-weeks in which I had not seen my family, except in the audience.

I also wanted to get to a private room, turn on a computer or TV, and see what I had said. When you give a response under so much pressure, your memory of your own words isn't terribly reliable. I really couldn't remember my full answer. While I thought I had answered honestly and well, I no longer felt sure, and I wanted to see the tape and judge my performance. Given the reaction from the judges, I worried that I might have said something that I had not meant to say. Was it possible that I had said something truly awful?