Chapter Twenty-One
They were the last two contestants, and just like the last time Barra played, she experienced a strange, unreal lightness that came with making it to the end.
It was as if her body were beginning to realize that living in survival mode was almost over, and that in a few days she’d be on a plane, clean as a whistle, returning to a life that would never be the same again.
But somehow, it felt different this time.
Maybe because last time she’d been too focused on winning and too focused on what she couldn’t have to enjoy any of it. Maybe because this time, Allie was here.
Even camp looked different tonight. The firepit where they’d gathered every night talking about nonsense was somehow brighter.
Their lean-to shelter, which had nearly collapsed during the storm, looked somehow sturdier.
The little tally marks scratched into a palm tree, one for every day they’d survived out here, were painfully clear.
Even the path to Moon Pit felt sentimental.
And the stack of scallop shells they’d used as bowls gave her a chuckle.
The makeshift washing line they’d strung between two trees, fashioned from strips of Juniper’s abandoned T-shirt, was still intact.
In fact, everywhere Barra looked, there was a memory attached to it: Tilly crying over a burnt pot of rice.
Connie splitting open a coconut with one hard, impressive whack of a rock like she was She-Hulk.
Sutton unknowingly standing two inches away from a crab while everyone placed silent bets on whether it would pinch her big toe or not.
It hadn’t, to everyone’s disappointment.
Juniper trying to convince everyone why Bones was wildly unrealistic.
And Allie.
The poultice Connie had made for her to smear on her welts.
The infection she’d picked up afterward and the antibiotic ointment she had to use.
Allie practicing duck diving under the waves while everyone shouted encouragement.
Allie, half asleep, curling instinctively into Barra every night with her back pressed to Barra’s front, while Barra nuzzled her nose into Allie’s neck and wished she could somehow freeze the moment.
Now it was quiet. Just waves folding onto the shore, just the fire crackling between them and the soft rustle of a breeze blowing gently through the jungle behind them.
“What’s the first thing you’re doing when you get back home?
” Allie asked, inching closer to Barra. They were sitting with their backs against a rock that Toph had dragged from the jungle to the firepit a few days ago.
Allie bumped her thigh against Barra’s and Barra pressed back.
“What did you do the last time you played?”
Barra picked up a small stick she found in the sand and stuck it between her teeth. “When I got back to New York the last time, I went straight to Café Grumpy in Grand Central Terminal and ordered a double-shot cappuccino.”
Allie frowned at her. “The train station?”
“Yes,” Barra said, rolling the stick to the other side of her mouth with her tongue.
She could also tie the stem of a cherry into a knot, and hoped to show the useless skill to Allie one day.
“After weeks of sleeping in the dirt, seeing nothing but red gums and blue sky, I needed to look up at something brilliantly man-made.”
“Understandable,” Allie said, smiling.
“And you?”
Allie tilted her head up to the sky. It was a dazzlingly clear night. “I want to book myself into a spa, somewhere like King’s Spa, where a woman named Lucia or Kimberley exfoliates my body like they’re resurfacing a countertop.”
Barra laughed so loudly that the jungle rustled. Whatever she scared away was gone for good.
“I want a full-body massage,” Allie went on. “The kind where they fix all the structural damage this game did to me. And a steam room. A salt room. Then I want to sit in a hot tub and drink an overpriced glass of rosé while eating chocolate-covered strawberries from Edelweiss.”
Another laugh escaped Barra. But this time Allie shushed her.
She touched Barra’s lips with her fingertip, then replaced her finger with her lips.
Barra didn’t even care that the camera crew was in the vicinity, or that the viewers would finally witness their kiss.
Anyone watching would think it was highly romantic. Which it was.
Allie pulled back. “Do you think you’ll miss sleeping next to me?” she asked, her voice softer than before. “Because I’ll miss that.”
Barra didn’t answer straight away. Instead, she thought about the mornings over the last week: Allie’s elbow digging into her ribs, the small sound she made when she stretched, the sharp little pops when she cracked her neck, the way Barra would instinctively look over just in case Allie snapped her neck right off. She’d miss it all. Every single moment.
“We’ll visit each other,” Barra said, though she didn’t say when.
Allie nodded, but Barra could tell she wanted to push the subject. Understandable, given how close they’d grown. Barra didn’t want to say goodbye to Allie, but she also didn’t want to drag real life into this yet, not while they were still here, in this game. A game so far from reality.
So, she did the only thing she could think of. She kissed her.
Barra slid her hands to the back of Allie’s neck and pulled her in until Allie’s mouth opened against hers. Then Barra kissed her deeper, slower, like she was trying to memorize this feeling. And maybe she was. Maybe she was trying to freeze this moment into her brain forever.
Barra’s chest tightened, and before she really thought about what that meant, she was guiding Allie onto the sand. She followed until she was half above her, one hand braced beside Allie’s head, the other settling at her waist.
Allie’s fingers slipped into her hair, and for a second Barra let herself forget everything else: the game, tomorrow, the fact that one of them was about to lose.
Then, before things got too heated, she muttered against Allie’s mouth, “We should get some sleep,” she said, then sat up and ran her fingers through her hair. “Tomorrow is a big day.”
“YOU NERVOUS?” ALLIE whispered out of the corner of her mouth.
She was seated beside Barra on a tree stump at the center of the clearing.
In front of them were three raised wooden benches where the Final Council sat, squeaky clean and impeccably dressed.
Elodie had been cleared by Maureen that afternoon, though she still looked a little pale beneath the glow of the lanterns.
Behind them was the jungle, dense and dark.
And to their right, standing in front of the jagged wall of volcanic grey rock, were family and friends.
Barra glimpsed her mother, grandmother, her father, two of her beloved cousins who’d flown in from Amsterdam, and Gabi, her old faithful.
In Allie’s corner were four women around her age, all whispering to each other, all as glamorous as Allie had looked that night at Dominique’s wedding.
Barra couldn’t help but notice that there was no sign of her parents. Or grandparents. Or any family, for that matter.
“No,” Barra lied, shaking a head that felt way too heavy on shoulders that were so tight they could crack glass. “Are you?”
“I feel like I’m dying,” Allie replied softly.
Barra couldn’t help the laugh that gurgled out of her chest. Then, before production could scold her for talking to Allie, she swallowed the laugh down. “You know what they say in situations like these... if you’re nervous, imagine everyone naked,” she muttered under her breath.
Allie rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to imagine. Elodie spent half her time walking topless around camp, and I think I’ve seen Tilly’s ass more than I’ve seen yours.”
Another laugh bubbled up, but this time Barra managed to swallow most of it. “I wish that wasn’t true,” she muttered under her breath.
Her gaze flicked to the Final Council. In a few minutes, the six of them would decide which of them deserved to win the title of Ultimate Outlast Her and a million dollars.
Barra had to admit that they cleaned up well.
Tilly sat beside Toph in the front row, with a burgundy shirt tucked into blue jeans.
Her golden hoops caught the flicker of the hundreds of lanterns hanging from the trees above, and her ice-blonde hair was styled back, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct style.
Toph was dressed in a black, sleeveless suit.
Her hair was slicked back in a Kristen Stewart faux hawk.
Then there was Elodie in a soft pink slip dress with thin, barely there straps, Anna wearing a pale blue jumpsuit with a sweetheart neckline, Margaret in a floral print dress, and Valerie in a suit so lime green she glowed radioactive.
Vivian suddenly stepped out of the shadows. Barra had the urge to reach over and grab Allie’s hand. So she did. Their fingers found each other easily. Barra brushed her thumb over Allie’s knuckles, and Allie returned the gesture with a squeeze.
“Welcome to the final Sending of Season Seven,” Vivian said, her voice carrying smoothly through the space. “Tonight, everything comes down to this. Barra. Allie. After weeks of challenges, alliances, and betrayals, the two of you are the last contestants standing.”
Barra glanced sideways. Allie was already looking at her.
Just for a second, in the middle of it all, it felt like they were the only two people left in the world.
If someone had told her twenty-eight days ago that Allie would end up being the person she trusted the most, her confidant, her lover, she would’ve scoffed in their faces and asked them what they were smoking.
But now? Barra couldn’t imagine this ending any other way.
Just as she couldn’t imagine saying goodbye.