Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky opens up to PEOPLE about choosing between two men and risking everything for love. With the season finale of the hit reality show set to air on August 2nd, millions of viewers are wondering if the 25-year-old former Facebook employee picked down-to-earth landscaper Chris Lambton, 33, or sexy insurance salesman Roberto Martinez, 26 - or if, as some rumors have suggested, she simply walked away solo. Ali had been doing a good job of keeping the answers to herself - until, finally, she cracked.

"It was seriously killing me inside!" Ali tells PEOPLE, confessing that it was one of those times when a girl needs her mom. "I was bursting at the seams. I had to call someone I love." And so Ali's mom, Beth Fedotowsky, finally learned whether or not someone had captured her little girl's heart - not that her family had ever doubted her wisdom. "They trust my decisions," she says. "If I'm happy, they're happy."

True to form - spoiler alert! - Ali broke the rules when it came to the show's final rose ceremony. "It isn't what people are used to seeing," Ali concedes. "It came from a very real place. It was not scripted." (A rep for ABC confirms that the finale "does not follow the normal routine.") Knowing that 90 percent of the show's couples - including the two most recent pairings (Jake Pavelka and Vienna Girardi; Jillian Harris and Ed Swiderski) - do not last, Ali tells PEOPLE that she was "hyperaware" of the risk she was taking, first by agreeing to be on the show and then by sticking with it even after one of the last three men remaining, retail manager Frank Neuschaefer, confessed he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend, which reduced Ali to a sobbing mess. After a season in which she witnessed not one but two potential mates betray her, "I've moved on," she says.

Of her two final suitors, Ali agrees that either man would be a fine catch. "Both of these guys are drop-dead gorgeous, and so kind and sweet and genuine," she enthuses. But who's the better man for Ali? "I've heard people say Chris is too sweet and that Roberto is just a charmer," Ali says - before dismissing both notions. "That wouldn't concern me one bit with Roberto or Chris." Even though she believes "both are great guys," Ali struggled with whether or not she was ready to trust that one of these men would love her forever. "I asked myself, 'Am I going to feel strongly enough to get engaged?'" she tells PEOPLE. "To me, an engagement is almost the same as saying 'I do' when you're married. I wasn't going to give up that moment in my life for the sake of picking someone. I wanted to make sure it was right."

And while she says the resulting choice was "the easiest decision I ever made," she admits that it came at a cost. She quit her job, moved out of her apartment, and put her heart on the line - while millions watch. Engaged or not, Ali says it has all been worth it. "I knew going into this that there was a chance that I could be with someone at the end, and then four months later we're over," Ali says. "There are no guarantees." But in the end, the other ill-fated romances only inspired Ali to stay true to her heart.

"I knew that if I didn't find someone I truly, in my heart, wanted to marry, then I wouldn't be with anyone. I don't think the public would want to see another breakup."

Also In This Week's 'People':
-Exclusive - At Home With Jersey Shore: Snooki Has "Accomplished Her Lifelong Dream"
-George Clooney & Elisabetta Canalis: "George Is Very Sweet To Elisabetta," Says Source
-Depleted Bank Accounts, Isolation From Friends: How Simon Controlled Brittany
-Zac Efron Shares Revelations About Himself: "My Buddy Calls Me 'Zacky Farms'"

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