Chapter 17 #2
Ashraf is voted out that night, which I’d like to think comes as a surprise to absolutely no one.
This time, the two of them target Cole, but I doubt that even they believed their votes would be anything more than throwaway ones.
Cole is annoyed to see his name written down, and Alina is obviously sad to see her alliance member go home, but everyone else seems okay with how it turned out.
I wouldn’t say any of us really had anything against Ashraf, but somebody had to go, and better him than any of us.
We wake up the next morning to full-on rain, which means there isn’t much strategizing going on despite being stuck in the shelter.
It’s hard to think about the game when you’re just trying to conserve your energy and not freeze to death.
At one point, Cole turns to me, his voice pitched low.
“You know, it’s times like these when I kinda wish I were back home,” he says.
“Honestly, same,” I reply, my teeth chattering. “But this is what we came out here for, right?”
“If you say so.” He gives me a grin that fades away quickly. “Ry, you’ll stay in touch, won’t you? After we get home, I mean.”
“Of course I will,” I tell him, my heart beating faster. “Why do you ask?”
He opens his mouth to respond, then closes it. “No reason,” he eventually murmurs. “I just don’t want you to forget about me.”
Without thinking about it, I wrap an arm around his shoulder and give him a quick side hug. “Like I’d ever do that,” I reply. “You’re unforgettable.”
He laughs quietly. “Thanks, Ry. I appreciate that.”
We settle back into silence, and there’s a hollowness in my chest that wasn’t there before.
I haven’t really thought about what happens when we all go home in ten days or so, but now that I am thinking about it, I find myself less than enthused.
Being around Cole all the time hasn’t exactly been the best thing for my mental health, yet I really am going to miss him.
Sure, I’ll probably visit him once in a while, but it won’t be the same.
At least out here, I get to see him smile, cheer him on in challenges, and just generally know that he’s there, close enough to touch.
I can even tell myself that things would be different if we weren’t competing for a million dollars.
I shake my head at that last thought. We’re going to go our separate ways soon enough, and I might as well get used to that now.
I just wish the idea didn’t feel quite so devastating.
Days 24-25
Thankfully, the rain trails off in the afternoon and fully stops just before sunset, giving us a chance to build a fire and dry off before bed. “My kingdom for a towel,” Tamika says, shivering as she holds out her hands. “Or, better yet, a dryer. But I’ll take what I can get.”
I sit next to her, with Marina on my other side, trying to glean some sort of warmth from the flickering flames.
Now that I don’t have to worry about dying of hypothermia, I have a chance to think about our next immunity challenge, which I assume will be tomorrow.
I’d love to win, but mostly I just want Alina to lose.
If she’s immune at the next tribal council, my alliance will have to turn on itself a few days early.
Then I’d have to consider who I want to vote for, and, more importantly, how to make sure nobody else is voting for me.
I spend a good portion of that night and the morning of day twenty-five thinking about those two things.
If Alina does win, the easy choice is Tamika.
I like her a lot, and she did save us at the merge, but I only met her a week ago.
Sure, I haven’t known the others for much longer than that, but in this game, two and a half weeks truly make a difference.
I did promise Tamika that I wouldn’t get rid of her at the final six, but technically, that doesn’t mean I can’t vote her out before that.
Granted, she’d probably still hold it against me, and I’d basically be ensuring she doesn’t vote for me if I make it to the final two.
But then, if I don’t vote her out, whoever goes in her place might not look too kindly upon me either.
In the end, all my musing comes to naught because Cole wins the challenge.
Even though I lost, I’d be lying if I said it’s not a relief that I don’t have to worry about voting out one of my alliance yet.
It’s clear I’m not the only one, since I swear there’s a collective sigh of relief over the usual polite clapping when Alex puts the necklace around Cole’s neck.
When we get back to camp later that day, I expect Alina to put up a bit of a fight. But apparently she’s decided that her position is hopeless, because she spends her last afternoon relaxing on the beach. I can’t say I blame her. This game is hard enough on our mental health already.
In that vein, tribal council that night is a rather relaxed affair.
The only one who seems upset is Alex, whose questions to us seem more pointed than usual.
I’m sure that the six of us eliminating the minority alliance one by one by one won’t make it easy for the editors to create exciting, unpredictable episodes that the audience will rave about, but he’ll just have to deal with it.
Besides, he has to know that things are about to get a lot more dramatic once the minority alliance is gone and the rest of us have to turn on each other.
In any event, we get to the voting much quicker than we usually do, and there are no surprises when the votes are revealed.
Cole gets one vote, I assume Alina’s, but the other six are against her.
She has a tiny smile on her face as Alex snaps her insignia, and when he finishes, she turns to wave at us.
“Good luck, guys,” she says. “I’ll see you on the other side. ”
Then she walks down the ramp, leaving the rest of us behind to face the next battle. And then there were six, I think, as we all stand up and take our leave, heading to the motorboat that will take us back to camp. Now it gets really tough.