Chapter 24
THE MOST DIABOLICAL THERAPIST THE FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY HAS SEEN SINCE FREUD
DEAN
CONFESSION TAPE—Dean Parker, Contestant
[rehearsed, stilted]
Getting us enough points to stay in the game doesn’t mean I don’t have a backbone. It means I’m a smart player. I’m not the bad guy here, okay?
[He shifts awkwardly, then starts again.]
Sure. I didn’t have to call Seyoon arrogant for not wanting to bow down and beg forgiveness from the guy who started it. I get where she’s coming from. But Carter’s obviously never going to take the high road and apologize. So, somebody has to, right?
… Maybe to Seyoon, though, the high road was standing up to him.
I shut up. I don’t think I’m helping my case as much as I hoped.
I lean back against the wooden wall of the confession booth with a heavy sigh. The studio ring light around the camera burns my retinas. I drag my palms over my face, feeling more drained than I did after Mountain Marathon.
I just need to get my side of the story on tape so that the editors can’t spin the narrative too far from reality.
And so my intestines will stop twisting and tying themselves into knots when people cast me long side-eyes around camp.
That’s all. I’m not trying to convince myself I was in the right.
I am right. Well, I’m not wrong. But… neither is Seyoon.
There’s a knock at the door. I lean forward and push it open.
“I was just wrapping up,” I say, only to see it’s Garrett, leaning on the side of the shed.
“By all means, don’t let me interrupt,” he says. “We hardly ever get you in the confession booth. We have a severe lack of your vulnerable side on tape, Mr. Brick Wall.”
I give him a tight-lipped, straight frown but say nothing, and he points at me and goes, “Yeah, see?”
Dealing with Garrett’s antics, especially without Seyoon here to help, is the very last thing I want to do right now.
Oh, the thought of Seyoon makes my stomach hurt worse.
Maybe I should see if the medic has Tums. The elimination scene got pushed to tonight, so I can hide in the infirmary until then.
“Well, I was done. The confession booth is all yours.”
“I’m not here to confess my sins.”
“That’s not what I was doing.”
Garrett half smiles. It’s not as condescending as usual. He opens his mouth, and I brace myself for something idiotic or exhausting, but he surprises me by asking, “How you holding up, kid?”
I blink. He almost sounds earnest. Maybe he is. “Fine.”
“You’re more like your dad than I thought you’d be.” That makes me feel good about myself for the first time today, until Garrett continues. “You’re just as hardheaded.”
“My dad’s not—”
The instinct to defend Dad dies on my tongue. Even I can’t deny that.
Garrett steps into the tiny shed. “Scoot over.”
There’s barely enough room for one person on the makeshift bench, let alone me and a grown man.
I stifle a sigh and press myself against the wall as Garrett plops himself down.
He reaches over and fiddles with the camera, turning it off.
I raise my brow. I figured Blake sent him over, but she’d want this on camera.
He should too. Garrett sits back, crossing his leg and holding his knee like he’s a therapist. The thought of Garrett as a therapist, even as a hypothetical, is so horrifying, I can’t suppress a shiver.
“So,” Garrett says. “How are you really doing?”
“I said ‘fine.’”
“Well, you did kind of get dumped in front of everyone.”
“Fake dumped. You know we’re not actually together. It was your idea. Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
“Because you’ve been prattling excuses in here for the last half hour like you’re trying to prove to yourself that you are.”
The ring light is still on, and it lets me get a good look at Garrett’s face.
It’s jarring, how he can be such an overeager idiot for the cameras one second, then so eerily intelligent the next.
I swallow, shifting under his intense, curious gaze.
I cross my arms over my chest and lean farther away.
“You don’t need to pretend like you care, one way or another,” I say. I nod to the camera on the other wall. “You turned that thing off already.”
“Do you really think that little of me?”
“Yes?”
Garrett doesn’t laugh it off like I’d expected him to. “With my history with your dad, I guess I can’t blame you. We were good friends, though. Up until the end.”
“Then, why’d you betray his trust?”
“Like you did with Seyoon today?”
The blood drains from my face.
Some of that sharp brightness in Garrett’s eyes softens. “Hey, I get it. If anyone understands what you’re feeling right now, it’d be me. That’s why I asked how you’re doing. ’Cause I know it’s a pretty shitty feeling to play the game, and to play it as well as you did.”
Viewing Garrett and myself in the same light makes me uncomfortable, but now that he’s drawn the comparison, I can’t help but see it.
I’m not the strong, macho player Dad was in his day.
Seyoon’s mom was athletically inclined, too, and clever.
Garrett was the odd one out in their trio, the runt.
I didn’t expect him to make it to the final three, but once he did, I thought the other two would sweep him.
But then he tricked them into going down the wrong path in the final obstacle rope course, and I realize that’s exactly why he won.
Because everyone underestimated how smart he was.
No one expected much from him. The same way I still don’t, now.
The same way people never expect much from me, either.
Seyoon, though? Seyoon expected more from me.
I stuff my hands into my hoodie pocket, twisting my fingers. “Do you… regret being that kind of player?”
He hums, sucking his teeth, thinking. “No. But I do wish I had made things right after.”
It just confuses me more. Why would Garrett want me to make things right with Seyoon? How does he benefit from that?
Garrett chuckles and stands. “Those wheels are turning so hard in your head, I can practically hear them. You know, you can just take some things at face value instead of overthinking every single thing anyone says to you.”
I have never done that before in my life and have no intention of starting now.
Garrett pats the wall of the shed as he exits. The guilt sloshes against my insides, painting them slick, threatening to drown my lungs in oil. I try to ignore it the whole trek to the infirmary, thinking it’ll wash away any second now.
I’m an idiot. The whole world will see how I let my emotions, my fears, get the best of me.
Dad and Meredith will see that I didn’t take Seyoon’s side, that I didn’t speak up for what was right.
Because even though I know I was right, she was too.
Thinking about the fool I’ve made of myself in front of everyone at camp—and, once this airs—the nation, makes my stomach sink like I swallowed a stone.
But what sticks with me through it all, heavier, worse than the embarrassment, is the shame. I disappointed Seyoon.
I finally admit what I’ve been repressing all day: that I’m more upset with myself for letting her down than anything else. Why? What she thinks of me shouldn’t matter. We’re competitors at the end of the day. I shouldn’t care about her.
But I do. I really do.