Chapter Twenty-Nine Hell Is Saying Goodbye
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hell Is Saying Goodbye
Eleven minutes is how long it takes to explain everything to Dawn Taylor and the rest of the crew. Dawn, with the world-weariness of someone with a long and storied career in Hollywood, takes it in stride.
Eleven hours is how long it takes for the local authorities and paramedic teams to get clearance and make it to the island after Leah calls them. It turns out they’d been trying to come here ever since the eliminated contestants alerted them a couple days before. Once she’d left the villa, Selena had led the other contestants and some of the injured crew in staging a coup. They’d managed to get their phones back and get in contact with the mainland. Unfortunately, their calls had coincided with the last wave of the storm, so no one could get to us until now.
In short order, many things happen at once. After ten days of having the island all to ourselves, insulated from the outside world, suddenly the pristine white beach we’d landed on is crawling with people.
Daniel and I give our statements separately and then together. I immediately track down Lex after I find out their last name. They tell me that it’s “a bit” that they have “fully committed to.”
Afterward, a team of very apologetic and stressed-out representatives from FlixCast arrives. We’re reminded of our NDAs and our contractual obligations, then given our phones and our updated travel itineraries to go home.
The real icing on the cake is getting to see Peter Dixon hauled out. He’d spent the last day or so locked in the villa’s makeshift hold—the pantry—with a bunch of granola bars and H2Whoa for sustenance. I manage to catch a glimpse of him as the authorities lead him away to be officially taken into custody. His hair is frazzled, his linen shirt is rumpled, and he’s glaring mutinously at everyone around him. Freya and Bryan are being escorted just behind him, Freya sobbing quietly and Bryan cursing out everyone who gets within three feet of him.
“Fuck you, and fuck you, and especially fuck you ,” Bryan spits out when he sees me, Daniel, and Chase watching.
“Which one of us do you think gets the special ‘fuck you’?” Daniel asks us.
“Probably Alice,” Chase says. “She figured the whole thing out.”
Peter Dixon looks back at Bryan. “Knock it off,” Peter Dixon says. “There’s no need to be rude.”
“Oh, really? Most of all, fuck you!” Bryan says. “If it weren’t for you and your big ideas, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Shut your mouth,” Peter Dixon snarls, finally losing his cool. His face is turning lobster red. “That was all you. I didn’t do a damn thing.”
“No, you didn’t do anything. You just planned and funded it all,” Bryan says.
“Shut up, Bryan,” Freya hisses.
“No, no, please keep talking,” says the detective dryly as Peter and Bryan continue to bicker over Freya’s protests. He directs them to a boat waiting at the dock. “I’m very interested in what all of you have to say.”
Finally, as the sun sets, the boat sails out of sight, and it’s over.
—
Afterward, Daniel and I wordlessly head back to the villa, where we stumble into our suite, exhausted beyond belief.
At the very top of the volcano, when I didn’t know if we’d make it out alive, it had been so easy to hold on to Daniel, the boy I’d wanted so badly to beat in high school becoming the man I’d come to care about so much.
Surviving this show feels like a gift, but one I’m not sure what to do with. Could Daniel and I work?
I technically still live with Chase. We share an apartment and a bank account, among many other things. Plus, Daniel doesn’t live in our hometown anymore, and while the flight to see him might be short, realistically I don’t have the money, time, or vacation hours to visit him all that often. And of course, my mom needs me. I can’t just hop on a plane and leave her to visit Daniel.
Daniel and I would be looking at a long-distance relationship borne out of a short and intense eight-day partnership on a reality show. I don’t know how any of this would fit into my regular, everyday life. My brain, usually so good at logistics, is spinning up all the ways it’s impossible for us to be together.
And most importantly, I don’t know what Daniel wants.
“Alice?” Daniel asks.
I realize he’s said my name a couple times already. I focus in on the present moment. I may not have all the answers, but that’s okay. Whatever happens next, this is our last night together in the villa. After tonight, everything will change.
So when Daniel holds out a hand to me, looking so lovely and hopeful, I don’t hesitate to let him steer us into the shower. All my thoughts and doubts are pushed aside as we shed our clothes and step into the hot spray.
After a day like this, being together and alive is a balm. We lather each other up, not because it’s sexy but because we need to check on each other, to know we’re both in one piece, to know we survived.
And then—because it is sexy—I pull him close, our bodies sliding together. The scent of him wafts around us, keying me up as I tug his mouth down to mine. He mirrors me, the kiss deepening from warm and tender to intense and heated as his tongue nudges my mouth open. Electric desire surges down my body and up again like a live current. My hands start moving on their own, my fingers tangling in his hair, relishing how soft it is, as he groans into my mouth.
He pushes me up against the shower wall and kneels before me, his mouth tracing a dizzying path down my body and straight to my center. I arch into the mind-melting pleasure of his tongue. I don’t know what sounds I’m making, but when Daniel hums his approval, I feel like I’m going to fall apart.
“Wait,” I gasp right before I lose my mind. Daniel immediately lifts his head, his face concerned. I groan and stroke his cheek. “It’s just, I want you so much.”
He kisses my fingers. “Alice, I don’t know how I’ll get through the day without touching you.”
In answer, I drag him up and kiss him deeply. I’m about to ask about condoms when he grabs one from behind the shampoo.
“Clever,” I say, kissing his cheeks with a laugh.
“I heard organization was sexy,” he says, grinning, and pushes the condom into my hand.
His hands wander while I tear it open, and I take immense satisfaction in how his fingers tighten on my hips as I slide the condom on and run my own fingers up and down the length of him.
His breathing goes ragged, and the noise and the sensation of stroking him is like throwing gas on an open flame. In the next heartbeat, I need him desperately. He must feel it too. He braces me at the same time as I wrap my legs around him, using the leverage to take his face in my hands and kiss him messily, ardently.
When he sinks into me, it feels like everything and not enough all at once. I beg him to move, and he obeys, every drag of my hips wrenching a moan from him. His hands trace a circuit on my bare skin, at first whisper-light, then more demanding with every thrust. My world narrows down to the solid grip of Daniel’s hands on my thighs and the building fire between us until finally, finally I can feel myself unravel into bliss.
Later, we wash each other off again. Once we’ve toweled off, we fall into bed together. I rest my head on his chest.
I still can’t find it in myself to ask the hard questions, but I also don’t want to go to sleep.
“If you could do anything, what would it be?” I ask him softly. There’s no need to whisper, but it feels right in this small, precious moment between us.
“I’m not sure. I’m not sure. It’s been a while since I dreamed about the future like that.” He looks thoughtful for a moment, then he grins, a dimple popping up in his cheek. His eyes light up, and I’m overwhelmed with the need to kiss him.
“There! What were you just thinking about?”
Daniel looks a little embarrassed. “Your face when you ate the tteok.”
Even though we literally just had sex in the shower, I find myself blushing, too. “Weird. What about it?”
“It just made me so happy to share that with you. I wish I could share that with other people. It’s not like I want to be a chef, though.”
“Well, you have lots of time to figure it out.”
“And you, Slayer?” he asks, turning my question back on me. “Is there anything you want to change about your life? Anything you dream of doing?”
“Well, I like my life. I like my friends. I’m happy that I live near my mom. And I love teaching.”
“That’s what I admire about you,” Daniel says, his fingers tracing circles on my arm. “You knew what you wanted, and you went for it. You wanted to win Quiz Bowl, so you worked until you won. You wanted to be a math teacher, so you became a math teacher.”
“But it’s not everything I want.” I sigh. “I wish I could help other kids struggling with their studies, not just my own students. I don’t think it’s fair that only students who can afford tutors get that extra help. And of course, I wish I had more time and energy to take care of my mom.”
“And yourself,” he prompts me.
“Yeah, yeah.” I snuggle into Daniel, tangling my legs with his.
He presses a kiss to my head. “I mean it,” he says warningly. “If you don’t take care of yourself, then I will.”
“You know, if you’d asked me just a month ago, I never would’ve believed that the great Daniel Midas Cho would be talking about taking care of me, rather than, oh, crushing me into dust.”
“Hey, you were the one who was always trying to crush me, if I recall correctly. And can we drop the Midas name now that we’re no longer mortal enemies?”
“You don’t like it?” I ask.
“King Midas turns everything he touches to gold. He’s doomed to live a lonely and unfulfilling life, even though it seems like he’s surrounded by so much that should make him happy,” Daniel says.
“When you put it like that ,” I say, “it does sound pretty dismal.”
“Please, tell me what I ever did to you to make you wish that on me, so I can apologize,” Daniel says. “I know it was because of the Quiz Bowl Regional Finals, but believe me when I say that I wish you hadn’t been at a disadvantage that day. I hate that our last match together wasn’t a fair one.”
I roll on top of him. “Daniel. Midas. Cho. That’s not why I call you Midas at all.”
He peers up at me. “Oh?”
“I called you Midas that day because you were the golden boy.” I search for the right words. “It’s like…everything you did came so easily to you. Everything you touched turned to gold.”
Daniel laughs, low and deep, as he reaches up to brush a stray strand of hair away from my face. “That does make me feel better. But you know, I didn’t have everything I wanted. Because even then, what I wanted was you. And that hasn’t changed.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, but I already know the answer. I can see it his eyes, feel it in the way he touches me.
“I love you,” Daniel says simply. I can feel the heat simmering under those words. I want to bask in it, the way you’d bask in sunlight. “But I don’t want to mess this up. You’re too important to me. I think we should take things slow.”
I nod, feeling relieved and nervous all at once. I’m still mourning my old life with Chase, still processing the near-death experiences I had on the island, and I still have my mother to think about. She has to be my focus—not this blossoming romance, no matter how exciting and wonderful I know it’ll be.
Take it slow. I can do that.
There’s still more conversations we need to have. But as we lie beneath a sliver of moonlight, bathed in the sounds of the ocean, with my head on his chest and his arms around me, it feels like this moment exists separate from all of that—a weightless point in time, unattached to reality. It feels right not to say anything at all and to just soak up this last night together, before reality can force its way in.
—
The next day, the crew and the cast members who were at the finale take a boat from the island to the mainland, then from there, a shuttle to the airport.
At the airport, it finally hits me that this is it. This odd adventure I shared with everyone is coming to an end, and after this, we’re all stepping back into our regular, everyday lives.
Before she goes, Ava actually stops me to shake my hand. I’m so shocked that I stare down at our linked hands for a moment before remembering how to be a normal human and returning the handshake.
“I wasn’t expecting much out of you and Chase, or you and Daniel for that matter,” Ava says.
“Okay?” I’m wondering if there’s a way to get a refund on handshakes.
“But I’m very impressed with your initiative in stopping Peter Dixon and saving Dawn Taylor’s life,” she finishes.
“You certainly made us work for our win. Thanks for being such great competition,” Noah says, clapping me and Daniel on the back. “You were real value-adds.”
Before their flight, Lex comes over and lightly punches my shoulder. “Take care of yourself, kid.”
“I’ll miss you too,” I say, wrapping Lex in a hug.
“Yeah, yeah, get off me,” Lex says, brushing me off with a laugh. They ruffle my hair. “Stay in touch, okay?”
When she sees me, Leah tries to unruffle my hair. “Of all my contestants, you were—” She pauses, searching for the right word.
“Your favorite?”
“The most trouble,” she concludes. “But you did stop our executive producer from literally blowing my boss up, so I guess that also makes you my favorite.”
“I’ll take it,” I say.
Dawn Taylor has already left on a private jet, but one of the PAs does give Daniel and me a handwritten note card from her, which reads:
Thanks, Alice & Daniel.
xoxo Dawn
Chase finds me later as I’m waiting to board the plane back to the States. I hadn’t gone out of my way to talk to him these last couple days. I knew we’d end up at the same gate.
We are going to the same place, after all.
Chase and I are together again, a mirror of the day we arrived less than two weeks ago—but our relationship has irreparably changed. When Chase approaches me, his hands are in his pockets, and he looks sheepish, like he wants to ask me a question but hasn’t decided how he’s going to do it. He starts with, “Can we talk?”
We should. But I don’t want to.
But, as I thumb the engagement ring in my pocket, I know we have to be on the same page. Plus, we’re going to be both flying and driving home together, so there’s no point in making things awkward. I pat the seat next to me on the bench, and Chase sits down at an appropriate distance for formerly engaged exes.
It’s a far cry from the first day of filming, when I was cozied up to Chase on a yacht, desperate to say the right thing on camera. Everything has changed so much since then, in ways I couldn’t ever have predicted.
“I still can’t believe that asshole did it,” Chase begins.
“There’s a unique and very specific body of evidence that indicates that he did, indeed, do it,” I say, and Chase laughs.
“Yeah, I get it, Detective Pikachu,” Chase says. He clears his throat. “So we’re not getting back together, are we?”
“No,” I say. “We’re not.”
“I really love you, Alice. I’m sorry about everything,” Chase says earnestly.
“I love you too, Chase, but—” I stop because tears are welling up, and for once I don’t do anything to hold them back.
There are no cameras around. No one cares what I look like—and the truth is that Chase has seen worse. He’s seen me at my lowest—when I had to retake all my second-semester midterms because I’d burned out in my senior year of college, when I couldn’t land a job and I didn’t know where I was going to teach post-credential, when my mom had been diagnosed, and the nightmarish days that followed.
And while we’d loved each other through all of it, I’d always been looking for something more. Someone I felt I could truly count on. Someone who could challenge me and push me to be better. And someone who would always surprise and delight me.
I take a steadying breath and face Chase. “We can’t be together. I think this hasn’t been working for a while, for either of us. Even if we still care about each other, that’s not enough, you know?”
Chase nods. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Maybe you and Selena should give it a go if that’s still on the table.” I take the engagement ring from my pocket and hand it over to him. “Here.”
Chase shakes his head and pushes the ring back. “Keep it. It’s yours. You can return it or do whatever you want. Buy your mom the best bedsheets there are at Macy’s or replace her wok.”
“Are you kidding? You know she loves that thing.”
“True, she did tell me once that it’s her second child,” Chase says. “Alice, if there’s anything I can do to help with your mom, just let me know, okay?”
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. I reach over and hold his hand until it’s time for us to depart.
—
It’s much too late when I finally let myself into my apartment. Chase is crashing with a friend to give me space. It’s strange, coming home alone.
I’m so tired, I practically faceplant into my bed, only stopping long enough to pull off my clothes and pull on an oversized tee. But instead of going to sleep, I take out my phone and tap out a text.
ALICE
hi
DANIEL
Hi
ALICE
oh no are you the type that uses caps and punc and stuff when they text
DANIEL
I might be one of those. Aren’t you a teacher? I feel like you should approve.
ALICE
a math teacher
DANIEL
Why are you texting so late, Slayer?
Shouldn’t you be asleep?
ALICE
i was thinking about you. when you say we’re taking things slow, what does that mean?
DANIEL
Slow enough to not screw it up, but not so slow that we (I) go crazy.
If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll draft you up a rubric.
ALICE
that would be THE most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me
DANIEL
Go to sleep, Alice. I’ll send you my thoughts tomorrow.
ALICE
i’m counting on it
STORY NOTES FOR EDITORS: “DAWN TAY’S INFERNO HELL-ALL: JOURNEY BACK TO HELL”
[Image: All-black screen with words in italicized white, “In memory of Anton Brophy.”]
[Footage: In front of a studio audience, twenty tulip chairs circle a raised platform that holds two armchairs and a tufted love seat. The show host for the evening, Tony Warren, dressed in a gold-trimmed suit, walks onstage to applause from the audience. He turns to face the camera.]
TONY WARREN: Welcome to the highly anticipated tell-all reunion special for hit reality TV show Dawn Tay’s Inferno !
TONY WARREN: This show became the center of attention last summer when it took a left turn from a sexy, up-and-coming reality TV show to a show plagued with scandal and a death on set.
TONY WARREN: Tonight, we’re bringing everyone back together for a tell-all segment where no topic is off-limits. We’ll be revisiting the iconic moments, hearing untold perspectives, and getting exclusive, behind-the-scenes insights from the cast themselves!
[Footage: The couples from Dawn Tay’s Inferno walk onstage and each take a chair. The final three couples are not present. Their chairs remain empty.]
TONY WARREN: Get ready for an evening of heartfelt confessions, dramatic revelations, and maybe even a few twists!