Chapter 35 #2
Seyoon is the first one on the dock! Better catch up to her if you want to make it to the finale!
There’s no time to strategize the best way to tackle the obstacle course.
Between me and the next dock are five giant beach balls and a long, inflatable mat floating on the water.
I get a running start and leap onto the first beach ball, so huge my outstretched arms don’t even wrap halfway around it.
The soaked fabric of my swimsuit helps me grip onto the plastic, and I scooch carefully up to the top, find my balance on wobbly legs, and jump onto the next ball, and then the next.
I knew this wasn’t as hard as they make it look on one of the few game shows I’m actually aware of, Wipe Away.
I land on the fifth ball less than gracefully, but without falling off. A leap away is a large, Styrofoam mat floating on top of the water. It doesn’t look even a foot thick. How is that supposed to support my weight? Whatever—guess I’ll find out.
I hop onto the mat, and water pulls up fast, licking at my ankles. “Shit shit shit,” I mutter. There’s no good way to get across this before the whole thing sinks, so I put those years of track practice to use and sprint as one side curls up and the water pools up to my shins.
Eight quick strides later and I’m lunging for the other dock. I catch it with just my upper body, my sternum hitting the wood and punching the air from my lungs. I scramble up and check out the scene behind me.
I look just in time to see Carter flailing as he misses the last bouncy ball and falls into the water with a terrific splash.
Vendredi quickly takes his spot, agile on the beach balls, not even stopping to catch her balance and instead hopping from each one with ease.
Dean is nowhere to be found. I hope he’s—
No. Quit that. I need to stop wasting time worrying about him, because Vendredi is catching up.
I turn back around and survey the distance between myself and shore. Half a mile, 800m. I can do this. I went to state champs for this event.
I got second place in this event.
My blood turns cold even before I dive back into the unforgiving water.
It shocks my system every time. The lake is so murky, I can’t see or hear through the walls of water on every side of me. I don’t know where the others are. Vendredi must’ve made it to the dock by now, probably Carter, too. Maybe even Dean.
I don’t even know if I’m swimming in the right direction—but I can’t think like that right now, so I swing my right arm over my head, and then my left, my right, my left again, pushing myself through the water as hard as I can, over and over for what feels like an hour.
And then something grabs my foot and pulls.
I scream. Lake water floods my mouth as I’m dragged under. Whatever it was lets me go, and I quickly bob back up, hacking and coughing, my ears ringing. Scrubbing the water out of my eyes, I whip my head to both sides.
Two feet in front of me and cutting through the water with the ease of a shark is Carter.
No. Fuck. No.
I swim faster than I ever have before. Even faster than at state championships when I thought Appa was watching. In no time, my knee hits a rock, and the next time I swing my arm, my hand slams into a pebbled shore. Pain shoots up my wrist, but I ignore it.
I lift my head up, the ground finally shallow enough that I can kneel. Carter collapses on the algae-covered rocks in front of me. The adrenaline from almost drowning ravages through my body. I can’t stop shaking. I push myself up on weak, trembling legs and limp over to him.
“You fucking cheater,” I hiss between my teeth.
Carter pools his strength enough to crane his neck up and look at me. Between pants, the corner of his mouth twists up in a grin. “What are you going to do about it?”
He jerks his head to the side. I notice then that the film crew, Garrett, and Blake are already here, the Land Cruisers that brought them parked to the side.
Pure, white-hot rage batters against my rib cage. I bite down on my tongue until the pain nearly blinds me.
The sound of somebody gasping and clambering up the shore has me turning around. Vendredi. Vendredi.
I look to the water, where Dean is still trying to pull himself to shore.
That’s it! That’s the conclusion of our semifinal challenge!
Carter is our winner, with Seyoon in second place, Vendredi in third, and Dean in fourth.
Still twenty meters out, stranded in the lake, Dean bobs like a lost buoy.
It’s some time later when Dean finally drags himself out of the water and onto the rocky shore. I gnaw on my bottom lip, conflicted. I’m pissed at him. I’m devastated he got last. I’m relieved he made it at all.
It doesn’t matter that our partnership—our friendship—is over to him. It isn’t to me. I still care about him.
I care a lot about Dean.
“Are you alive?” I bite, standing over him where he lies on the ground. With his eyes shut, he nods, just once. My lip trembles. I bite my cheek until it stops. I think about early-morning chats in our bunk beds, floating on the lake together, his lips on mine, and everything in between.
“Why?” I ask, hoping he hears what I mean without having to say it all.
He finally cracks open his eyes. Dean weakly reaches out and wraps his hand around my ankle with a touch gentler than the one that dragged me underwater, running one finger along the back of my Achilles’ heel.
“You’re bleeding,” Dean says, brows pinching.
I look down, surprised to find blood running from a huge gash on the side of my hand, dripping onto the rocks below. I must have cut it when I slammed it onto shore.
“Why?” I repeat.
His eyes glimmer with that same something that shone in his eyes on the dock last night. It gives me hope for one brief, fleeting moment.
But then he says, “Because only one of us can win.”
And just like last night, disappointment sours my stomach.
Even as the crew members pack up their equipment and the others trek back to the bus, I linger, shivering in my wet swimsuit on the rocky shore.
The waves of the lake roar at an abrasive volume, grinding down my nerves like water turning rock into sand.
I feel myself slipping just the same, the last of my composure crumbling at the seams. Only several minutes and many rapid, heaving breaths later do I realize that it’s not the lake roaring in my ears; it’s the blood rushing in my head.
It’s so loud, I don’t hear footsteps behind me until they’re right there. Vendredi.
She takes a seat next to me. “So,” she says. “What happened?”
I bark out a laugh. “What happened was, I thought Dean and I were real friends. But I was an idiot. He was just playing the game.”
He was just playing me.
It was fake. All of it. That’s why this hurts so much.
Not because our alliance is ending but because I had thought Dean and I were really friends.
With the way he threw me to the side so easily, it’s obvious now it was all an act—on his part, at least. God, I should have known.
He’s the reality-show expert, the strategist, the one who pushed us to play pretend in the first place.
Of course he’d pretend to be my friend too. But I wasn’t pretending.
“I’m sorry, Seyoon,” Vendredi says. She pauses. “On the plus side… I ran the math. If you and Dean were going to split points this challenge? I’d be going home.”
My brain clicks and sputters. That means… that means I’m making it to the finale.
I did it.
I thought I’d feel happier when this moment came.
I turn to Vendredi, who’s here with me when she could be back on the bus. I think, maybe, I’ve wasted too much time thinking about the ones who leave me instead of appreciating those who stay.
It won’t happen again.