Chapter Seventeen #2
Barra checked the vacuum-sealed bag even though she already knew the answer. Three. Which wasn’t a lot at all, considering they had to keep them for strategic reasons. “We should probably save those.”
“Why?” Allie asked, looking as panic-stricken as if Barra had said she’d chopped off her arm.
Barra didn’t blame her. What if rice and beans were the only things on the menu for the next few days?
What if it continued pouring down and any chance of a reward challenge washed straight out with the tide?
She felt a twinge of panic stab her gut.
This game was like childbirth. Barra had never been through it, nor ever planned on it, but she’d heard enough from friends to know you forgot how bad it really was, enough to convince yourself it might not be so terrible to do it again.
“Because we might need to convince someone to vote with us in the next Sending,” Barra said, remembering how easily she’d been bribed by Isla and Tamsyn in her last season.
She’d given up her vote for a few chocolate chip cookies.
Watching the season back later had made her want to disappear into the floorboards.
How loose of her. “We need to think ahead.”
Allie seemed to contemplate this while she wiped a few crumbs off her bottom lip with the side of her finger.
The rain had returned with a vengeance. It poured in a steady silver curtain right in front of them while they sat on the raised roots of a tree.
The canopy of broad leaves overhead was doing a surprisingly decent job of keeping them dry.
“Do you think the others are wondering where we are?”
Every few minutes or so, a fat droplet would gather at the tip of a leaf and fall straight through, landing cold against Barra’s shoulder or back.
But Barra didn’t care. Between the brownies and Allie sitting right up against her like they were glued together, she couldn’t think of anywhere else she wanted to be.
“They probably think we got stuck out here,” Barra said. “And we found a nice little shelter to keep us dry. Every one of them would’ve done the same.”
Allie nodded, but whatever she was thinking brought a glum look to her face.
“Do you think they’re talking about us? Working on a plan to send us home?”
“Does it matter?” Barra asked, leaning into Allie.
“We’ve got the protection bracelet and the double-elimination advantage.
I don’t want to get cocky, but I think we’ll be just fine.
” The thought made her feel just a little nervous.
She’d won Season Five without any advantages. What if this was her undoing?
Again Allie nodded, and again she seemed to ponder this. She reached for a twig on the ground and snapped it between her fingers. “You know, earlier, before we did anything, I had a little fantasy about you,” she said, tossing the two halves into a thicket.
A fantasy, Barra thought. Had she heard correctly? But she didn’t ask, fearing that Allie might not elaborate, and Barra would give up eating for two days just to hear the rest of that sentence.
Allie hesitated, then groaned as if she regretted bringing it up at all. Barra was just about to push when Allie said, “You were wearing a headmistress outfit. Think Gemma Arterton in St. Trinian’s.” She paused, then winced. “You might even have been holding a ruler. Or some kind of whip.”
Barra couldn’t help it, even though she tried, she really did. But she laughed out loud, so loud that even the macaw, which she had no idea was perched on a branch above them, flew off, startled.
Allie’s cheeks flushed crimson immediately. She leaned over and smacked Barra on the knee. “If I knew you were going to make fun of me, I wouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m not making fun of you, I promise,” she said, reaching over to grab Allie’s fingers. “And I’m so glad you told me. I’ve always wanted to wear a headmistress outfit and whip my lover when they didn’t say ‘yes, ma’am’ to my demands.”
“I have no words,” Allie said, smiling. Then she squeezed Barra’s fingers back and added, although a bit softer, “Do you think after this game is done, we’ll see each other again?
I mean, I know you live in New York. We’re basically on opposite sides of the country, but.
..” She let her words trail off just as Barra felt something dip inside of her stomach.
She would be lying if she said she hadn’t considered seeing Allie again.
Those scenarios in Huntington Beach, in Central Park, felt more like plans than daydreams. The truth was, Barra couldn’t imagine saying goodbye to Allie—not in this game and not afterward.
She wanted to visit Allie in LA, to wander through one of her gallery openings with a plastic cup of mediocre wine, nodding at paintings she didn’t fully get just to hear Allie explain them.
She wanted to take Allie to New York, to drag her up the spiral ramp in the Guggenheim, to walk past the glass edges of the Seagram Building at golden hour, to kiss Allie beneath the great brass clock at Grand Central Station.
Which was the problem. The big, glaring problem.
Because hadn’t Barra once upon a time felt the exact way about Dominique? Hadn’t she spent weeks, even months, agonizing over those feelings, wondering if they were real, if they weren’t, and if she would ever feel like herself again?
It was beginning to seem like it had taken coming back into Outlast Her and spending time with Allie to realize she’d been wrong all along. It seemed that whatever she’d felt back then for Dominique had been blown up like a balloon by the pressure of the game.
But then... what if she was wrong again?
What if what she felt for Allie—though she had to admit it felt different—was just a repeat of the last time she played? Maybe this was just another version shaped by exhaustion, by closeness, by the all-consuming nature of the game.
Barra couldn’t trust herself. She couldn’t trust this.
And so, the easiest thing to do would be to say, “No, I don’t think we should see each other after the game.
” But the way Allie was looking at her, with those soft brown eyes, those slightly parted lips, that faint, delicate scrunch between her brows.
.. damn it. Barra had to tell her the truth.
With a deep breath in, Barra shuffled a little to the side, away from Allie.
“There’s something I need to get off my chest,” Barra began, her stomach turning to liquid.
She needed to say this out loud. “The last time I played Outlast Her, I fell in love with Dominique,” she muttered softly.
“I knew she was engaged to Kiara, but I couldn’t help it.
We were spending so much time together and before I knew it, I had feelings for her. ”
A small gasp escaped Allie’s lips.
Barra expected Allie to gasp, to choke on her shock.
Because it was shocking to fall in love with an engaged woman.
But she didn’t. Allie simply flicked her eyes to a mound of dirt Barra assumed had once belonged to a colony of ants and muttered, “Do you still have feelings for her? Is that why you’re telling me this? ”
“No,” Barra said honestly. “I don’t have feelings for Dominique anymore.
To be honest, I don’t know if I ever really did.
It’s hard to explain,” Barra admitted. Maybe it was the sugar rush from the brownies or the aftermath of sex in the jungle, but Barra’s brain seemed to be malfunctioning.
How could she possibly explain this to Allie?
“Try,” Allie said firmly.
Barra stared at her hands for a second. Then she pulled air into her lungs and exhaled as she said, “You know how everything feels so much bigger out here than it is in the real world. How your emotions are heightened because you’re exhausted and hungry and you miss home, you miss family.
” She swallowed down the apple-sized lump in her throat.
“Well, I don’t know how much of what I felt for Dominique was actually love, or how much of it was just being here. In this game.”
“So you think—”
“Yes,” Barra interrupted before Allie could ask the question. Barra didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what Allie was thinking. Barra was thinking the exact same thing. “I have feelings for you. But I’m scared that what I’m feeling is the same as what I had for Dominique. That it isn’t real.”
A pause followed, long enough that Barra imagined Allie standing up, walking away, and leaving Barra sitting there with nothing but her own honesty, and absolutely no idea how to take it back. Seriously. Whoever said honesty was the best policy knew nothing about real life.
But then Allie scooted closer to Barra until the sides of their legs were touching again. Allie’s thigh was so warm against her skin, Barra nearly moaned at the contact. “It feels real to me,” she said, then coughed out a laugh. “As crazy as that sounds.”
“It does?” Barra asked so quietly her voice barely made it through the rain.
“Yes,” Allie said, glancing at her like it was obvious, like the question were ridiculous. “You’re the favorite part of my day.”
Barra let out a breath that sounded halfway between a laugh and pure disbelief. “I am?”
“Yes,” Allie nodded. “I’d pick you over a double cheeseburger and sweet chili fries any day. Hell, if Vivian made me choose between you and a shower...”
Barra laughed so loud that leaves rattled above their heads, sending a fine spray of droplets down on them. “I will never come between you and a shower.”
Allie pulled a face, then nudged Barra with her shoulder. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sure it was hard to do.” She smiled, and Barra felt her chest heat up. She’d worried that telling Allie was a mistake. Turned out it was the opposite.
“So then yes to your question,” Barra said, grinning. “When the game is over—”
The rain suddenly stopped. It was so sudden that both Allie and Barra snapped their heads forward.
There had been no warning, no soft tapering.
Instead, the absence of rain was like someone had reached up and turned the faucet off.
Then, even more miraculously, sunlight spilled through the canopy in broken golden shards and caught on the wet leaves, turning everything glossy.
“We should probably get back to camp,” Barra said, looking up at the faint speck of blue already coming in through the small gaps in the trees. “Before anyone thinks we’re out here conspiring.”
“If only they knew the truth.” Allie chuckled, then winked before pushing herself upright. “Come. I’ll race you back to camp.”
Barra didn’t rush up right away. Her legs were still jelly. And her chest felt lighter than it had in ages. In fact, she couldn’t remember when last she’d felt like this, like she’d lost the backpack filled with stones she hadn’t realized she was carrying. “I’d rather not have you trip and fall.”
“I’ll be fine,” Allie said. Then, before Barra could remind Allie about sneaky roots sticking out in unlikely places, Allie jerked her hand away and started running.