Chapter Eight
Savannah couldn’t stop crying. The tears kept rolling, and although she wasn’t particularly sad or upset and her neck pain was at a manageable six out of ten, she couldn’t stop the waterworks.
Some people were happy drunks. Others became aggressive or wildly over-affectionate.
Somehow, Savannah had the misfortune of falling into the category of a weepy philosopher.
It didn’t take much alcohol to affect her.
Two cups of spiked slushie were enough to drag every bad memory back and play them on a loop in her mind.
She could see the cold, wind-whipped sand of Coopers Beach in the Hamptons, her little feet freezing in the frothy surf as Miles, her older brother, handed her a smooth stone to skip while he told her he was moving to London with their dad.
Then she saw herself coughing through her first stolen cigarette at fourteen, the sticky velvet-lined booths of the basement clubs in the Meatpacking District, the dizzying blur of strobe lights at an illegal warehouse rave in Bushwick, the Chanel blazer her father sent her for her eighteenth birthday, which she’d ruined with spilled champagne on a rooftop in Bushwick.
Then the haze of after-work parties as she climbed to senior culture editor at Rosewood Media Group.
Then she saw the Range Rover barreling directly toward her, its headlights blinding her moments before the deafening crunch of metal.
She saw the blinking heart monitor, the blur of faces rushing around her, and then the endless cascade of Instagram notifications lighting up her phone screen.
Then there was the absolute madness of the fame that followed: first-class flights out of state for literature festivals, late-night talk show after-parties in Los Angeles where she drank top-shelf vodka with people whose names she forgot by morning.
Finally, she saw Sheri, her ex-girlfriend, telling her she couldn’t be with someone who used words as a weapon.
A pathetic, watery hiccup escaped Savannah’s mouth. She sounded like a dying bird in the dead silence of camp. She froze and pressed her lips together so hard that her teeth bit her tongue.
To her left, Erica let out a rattling snore, which was followed by Brenda’s wheezing.
Although Savannah was quite certain everyone was asleep, she was still desperate to stop the crying.
She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that might do it, but it only squeezed out two fresh, hot rivers down her cheeks.
Ugh! Why was this happening? Why hadn’t she just stuck to the blue raspberry slushie?
Savannah suddenly felt desperate to escape, desperate enough to brave the darkness.
Moving as quietly as possible, she crawled out of the front of the open lean-to and then bolted toward the sea.
She took a sharp right, using the sound of the waves as guidance, and continued all the way until her knees hit the rock at the very far end of the beach where no one could hear her crying.
“Are you alright?” a voice asked suddenly behind her.
Savannah snapped her head back so fast she nearly toppled over, but thankfully the rocks pressing against her shins gave her just enough balance.
She smacked her hand to her chest in case her heart jumped out of her ribcage.
The last thing she had expected was a voice in the darkness. Especially Amy’s voice.
“Are you following me?” Savannah asked breathlessly.
“I thought you might need some help getting around,” Amy said. “If you’re looking for Moon Pit, you’ve gone the wrong way.”
“I’m not looking for Moon Pit,” Savannah replied, though she was quite certain that if she were, she wouldn’t find it.
It was tricky enough to get to the small clearing hidden by the umbrella-shaped leaves of the embúaba trees in the daytime.
With her night blindness, it would be entirely impossible to locate the place where everyone did their business in the dark.
“I just couldn’t sleep.” She tried to sound dignified, but before she could stop it, a violent snort-sob ripped past her lips.
“Are you crying?” Amy asked. “What’s wr—”
“Of course not,” Savannah interrupted, scooting back onto the rock.
She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, her chin, and then her slobbery nose.
“I’ve got allergies.” How could she explain that she wasn’t crying because something was wrong; she was crying because once upon a time something had gone wrong in her life and the far too many slushies had made her relive it?
“You’re night-blind and allergic to air,” Amy said. Then, without asking for permission, she sat down on the rock beside her. Savannah could feel the heat of her knee from half a foot away. “How many other medical conditions are you hiding?”
Savannah huffed.
Amy laughed, and the next second, Savannah felt a bump against her shoulder.
“If it makes you feel any better, my family line includes a long list of assholism. And alcoholism and basically anything with an -ism. We’re not night-blind, but we are blind to anything tasteful.
My childhood house had wall-to-wall shag carpet.
In mustard. Do you know how painful that is to look at?
And don’t even let me get started on the sofa and the curtains.
They were both the same hideous chintz pattern. I mean, who even likes cabbage roses?”
“We didn’t have curtains in my house,” Savannah said, because saying anything else, especially addressing Amy’s apparent familial issues, felt a little dangerous.
“Really?” Amy frowned.
Savannah remembered waking up every morning to the sweeping views of Central Park and going to sleep with the sparkling Midtown skyline. “We were on the fortieth floor of The Brown Building,” Savannah said. “We didn’t need curtains.”
“Oh, that makes sense, I guess,” Amy said, though she sounded entirely sarcastic. “But what about all the perverts out there with their high-powered telescopes? Don’t they get a free show?”
“I’ve never thought about it,” Savannah said. And truthfully, she hadn’t.
“Well, I have,” Amy said, shifting around on the rock.
Savannah couldn’t see her clearly, but she could make out just enough to see Amy leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
“I nearly made Christine from my book, You’re My Problem, into a little Peeping Tom.
I wanted her to actively spy on her neighbors.
But I also wanted the readers to love her, and if I made her into a voyeuristic creep who stared into bedrooms, no one would root for her. ”
Savannah wondered if Amy was going to ask her if she had read her book.
Then she wondered if Amy would ask her to give her honest opinion.
And, well, how could Savannah mention that giving Christine a dark, slightly obsessive edge might actually have injected some much-needed life into that rather flat character?
“Why did you follow me out here?” she asked instead, which, frankly, was a very reasonable change of subject. “I can manage walking in the dark all by myself, despite my night blindness. I’ve been doing it my entire life.”
Amy didn’t speak right away. She shifted again. This time her fingers brushed against Savannah’s fingers where they were planted on the rocks. It seemed entirely accidental and quite possibly had gone unnoticed by Amy. But Savannah had noticed.
“Well,” Amy started, folding her legs beneath herself with an effortful oomph. “I thought it would be a good time to tell you that I’m not voting with Brenda and Avery. I don’t want to send Kate home at the first Sending. It’s not part of my plan.”
“Your plan?”
“Yes, my plan,” Amy said firmly just as a wave crashed against the rocks. A few drops of water sprayed against Savannah’s cheek. She wiped them away with what remained of her tears. “You can’t tell me you didn’t have a plan coming into this game.”
Savannah started wondering how to go about this without admitting that she didn’t really have a plan.
“I think getting Kate out would be best for both of us. She’s Hollywood’s sweetheart.
If we don’t watch out, she’ll be Outlast Her’s sweetheart and before we know it, she’ll be winning the whole thing. ”
Amy didn’t look convinced. Or at least, not from what Savannah could make out of her face in the darkness. “What is your plan?” Savannah asked when Amy didn’t say a word.
Another pause from Amy. Savannah expected her to say something along the lines of redemption. Wasn’t that the only reason someone would decide to play the game again? But then Amy sighed. “I came here to get inspiration for a new book.”
“What?” Savannah asked, shocked. “Are you serious?” She’d heard of writers embedding themselves in underground cults, getting deliberately arrested to experience holding cells or traveling abroad hoping for a steamy summer romance aboard a yacht, but she’d never thought anyone would be so desperate for inspiration that they would be willing to play Outlast Her again.
“Yes,” Amy said matter-of-factly. “The last time I played, I left Greece feeling like a dam that had just cracked open. I spent the entire flight back with words pouring out of me. I was so inspired by Valerie and Adrienne’s behind-the-scenes love that I wrote Outlasting Love in two weeks.”
“You what?” Savannah asked, still not believing what she was hearing.
Not that she should be so surprised. Amy hadn’t written anything in almost two years.
It made sense that she was suffering from writer’s block.
Most writers did so at some time in their lives.
“You came back on Outlast Her to find a plot?”
“Exactly,” Amy said, her voice dropping low as if she were embarrassed.
But was it as embarrassing as Savannah agreeing to Outlast Her just to show her country club girlfriends that she was better than them?
“For example, when you groped me during the challenge today, I wrote a mental paragraph about it.”
If there were any tears left, they dried up instantly. Savannah let out a shocked choke, her cheeks suddenly burning. No, not just burning; they were hotter than the Brazilian sun. “You what?” she spat out, her voice sounding hoarse.
“You’ve got a surprisingly firm grip, Rigsby.”
Savannah couldn’t see herself, but she knew her expression was the very definition of horror. Not only had Amy felt Savannah touch her breast, but she’d also written some erotic scene in her mind around the moment. Could it get any worse? “I... I—”
“It’s alright.” Amy chuckled when Savannah couldn’t get the words out. “But next time you want to feel me up, at least give me enough time to enjoy the moment. I am not against a little fondling.”
Savannah would’ve jumped into the ocean if she could see it. Surely this was one of those earth-swallowing moments. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this embarrassed in my life,” she muttered through her teeth.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Amy said. “It’s exactly the kind of inspiration I need. The hated rival accidentally grabs the heroine’s breast in the heat of the battle. Now the heroine can’t stop thinking about the warmth of her fingers, wondering if the next touch will be just as erotic.”
Savannah groaned, burying her face in her palms. Amy had not just said that. “Please don’t use me as a character in your next book. I beg you.” She would literally go down on her knees if she needed to. The last thing she wanted was to be a steamy sapphic romance author’s muse.
“Why not?” Amy asked, sounding way too happy. “You’re exactly the kind of character my readers would love. The feisty book critic who is all sharp teeth and angles acting like you want to fight when you’re—”
“Please stop talking,” Savannah interrupted.
She had no inclination to hear the rest of that sentence.
She reached out, intending to give Amy a shove to shut her up, but then somehow she misjudged the distance in the dark, and her hand sliced through empty air, missing Amy’s shoulder completely.
The next moment, Savannah was moving headlong into Amy’s space.
Then, before Savannah could tell up from down, she had Amy pinned against the rock, her palms bracing on either side of her.
Savannah’s face was so close to Amy’s face that she could feel her breath.
“Tell me you did this on purpose,” Amy muttered softly. She sounded as if she’d been winded. Then she smoothed a hand along the small of Savannah’s back, and although her touch was featherlight, it didn’t stop an electric heat from flooding Savannah’s veins.
“No,” Savannah replied, although it came out considerably quieter than she’d intended. “I didn’t.” She was acutely aware of Amy’s soft, pillowy breasts beneath her and of Amy’s thighs bracketing her thighs in a way that made it impossible to breathe.
Amy’s fingers tightened on Savannah’s waist. “Well, what I’m going to do next is entirely on purpose.”