Chapter 24 #2
She holds me while I let it all out, allowing the pain and sadness and regret to wash over and through me.
I know there’s no use in fighting it, so I just ride the wave, and after a while it recedes, slowly at first and then quicker, as my sobs turn to tears, then hiccups.
In a weird way, it feels good to get all of it out, and when my tears are finally dry, I feel like a new man.
Apparently deciding that I’m in the clear—for the moment, at least—Arielle lessens her hold on me just enough to lean back, so I can see her face. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, her eyebrows raised.
I nod, wiping a stray tear away from my cheek.
I know Neema told me not to spoil anything, but I trust Arielle not to spread it around.
Besides, if I don’t get all this out, I think I might burst. “Yeah, I do. Just give me one second.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself a bit more, then open my eyes again and look at her.
“Okay, I should probably start at the beginning. There was this guy named Cole on my tribe, and he …”
I continue my story, telling her absolutely everything: how I fell for Cole even though I tried my best not to, how I eventually found out that he felt the same way for me, how I feel like I lost everything even though I might have won the grand prize.
Just like when I was crying before, it hurts to remember everything, much less put it into words.
But at the same time, it also feels cleansing, like my memories were venom flowing through my blood that’s now being purged.
When I finally get to the end, we’re both quiet for a few moments. “Ryan, I’m so sorry,” she eventually says, her voice low. “I can’t begin to imagine what that must have been like.”
“It was terrible,” I reply, my throat scratchy. “But if I end up winning, it was worth it.”
She frowns. “Do you really mean that, or are you just saying it?”
“I mean it. I’m not saying there’s nothing I would change, but if it makes your life better, then I’m happy.”
She just rolls her eyes at that. We had this debate several times before I left, and I don’t think either of us really wants to re-litigate it now.
“We’ll find out whether you won soon enough,” she says, gently poking me in the stomach.
“In the meantime, how about we get an early dinner? You look like you haven’t eaten in a month. ”
I laugh despite myself. “I mean, yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what happened.”
“I know, that’s why I said it.” She grins at me. “Pizza or Chinese?”
Over the next few months, I gradually slip back into my normal routine.
At first, it’s more difficult than I expected, because in some ways, my mind is still out there on the island.
I eat far more than I usually do those first few weeks, partially to replace the weight I lost, but also because each time I sit down for a meal, some animal instinct the back of my head worries that it could be days until I eat again.
And when I go back to work, I have to stop myself from analyzing every little thing my coworkers say, just in case they’re planning to vote me out.
Thankfully, as time passes, I find it easier and easier to unlearn those habits, and my time in Samoa seems to fade into a distant, hazy memory.
Of course, I can recall details if I stop to think, or if someone asks me what it was like.
But I no longer have a moment of confusion when I wake up in the morning, wondering why I can’t see the sky through palm fronds or hear the roar of the waves on the sand.
Meanwhile, I hear from a few of my fellow contestants, mostly through social media.
Marina and Katie both follow me on Instagram; the former posts pictures of delicious Cuban food pretty much every day, while the latter and I incessantly trade the nerdiest memes we can find.
Tamika reaches out through email, and I give her Arielle’s contact information—with Arielle’s permission, of course—in case she has any questions about becoming a teacher.
It'll be nice to see them in person once the show airs, but for now I’m content to keep in touch online.
Early on, part of me hopes that I might hear from Cole, too.
After all, he did say he needed time rather than rejecting me outright.
But I hear absolutely nothing from him, and as time goes on, the tiny spark of hope in my chest grows dimmer and dimmer, until one day I wake up and realize it’s gone.
I’m not sure what hurts more: the fact that he hasn’t even tried to contact me, or that I’ve apparently accepted that he doesn’t want me.
But after a few days of agonizing, I manage to convince myself that it’s better this way. At least now I can move on.
It doesn’t take long for that conclusion to be tested, because I have a few first dates in the months after I get back, and not a single one of them goes anywhere.
It’s not that the guys I meet are bad, or anything as easy as that.
No, the problem is that my heart isn’t in it.
Every time I start to wonder if maybe this one will work out, I inevitably start comparing them to Cole, and none of them match up.
Eventually, I stop going on dates altogether.
It’s not fair to waste their time when there’s a Cole-shaped hole in my heart.
I feel like I’ve almost gotten back to normal by the time the first episode of my season of Marooned airs, about four months after I got back from Samoa.
Arielle plans a watch party at a bar near Dupont, and my friends and I watch as I meet the rest of the Merus on the very first day.
They cheer during the first immunity challenge, groan when Meru loses, and debate whether the tribe should vote out Cole or Ashley.
I cheer and groan and debate along with them, even though it hurts to see Cole when I know what’s coming.
Fortunately, he doesn’t get a ton of screen time, not when there are seventeen other contestants still in the game, so I’m mostly able to sit back and enjoy watching myself stumble through the first three days.
We do the same thing the next week, and the week after that.
To my mild surprise, the show hews pretty faithfully to what actually happened, albeit with a few changes.
The editors seem determined to present me as some sort of strategic mastermind, which I personally find hilarious.
Sure, I think I played a good game, but in reality, it was much more luck than skill.
Meanwhile, it’s fun to find out what was happening on the Sika tribe those first few weeks.
Tamika told us some of it, but it’s one thing to hear about it and another to actually see it.
As a fan of the show, I’m happy to see that the first few episodes are actually pretty good, and they only get stronger as the season goes on.
The merge episode is my personal favorite: Randy is portrayed as an over-the-top villain, Tamika as his unwilling victim, and me and the Meru alliance as the plucky underdogs who flip the tables on him and use his own cockiness to bring him down.
Somehow, the editors manage to make it feel even more satisfying than it was in real time, and I give them a lot of credit for that.
Early in the season, Cole and I don’t get much screentime together.
Of course, they had to show the reward in the pirate ship after the second immunity challenge, but that’s about it.
In fact, in the first episode, they even make it seem like I was set on voting for Ashley from the beginning, and present Katie, of all people, as being the swing vote.
That all changes after the merge, though, when it seems like Cole and I have a scene or two together in every episode. I almost can’t watch the episode with the reward at the spa. It’s just too painful to watch when I know how it’s going to end.
At least now I have Arielle with me. When the scene with the spa reward finally ends and the show cuts to commercial, she leans over and takes my hand, squeezing it gently. “I see why you fell for him,” she says quietly. “You’ll get over him. I promise. All you need is time.”
I try to give her a grin in return, but it feels fake, even to me.
If only it were that easy. Still, I power through, and as the days go by, the pain lessens, and I can almost start to believe that things might go back to normal someday.
Sure, I still think about him all the time, but at least when I do it’s a dull ache, like an echo of remembered pain, rather than a knife to the chest.
The upturn in my mental health only lasts a few weeks, though, because as the live finale draws closer and closer, I begin to feel a rising sense of dread.
I could lie to myself and say that I’m worried about finding out whether I won or lost—and, to be fair, that is a rather large part of it.
But deeper down, I can’t deny that part of the reason I’m ready to tear my hair out is that I’ll have to see Cole again.
Part of me wonders if I’ll ever truly be able to get over him, and seeing him now, just when I was beginning to heal, feels like it could make everything worse.
The reality is that I don’t have a choice. I can’t skip the finale—even if I wanted to, I’m contractually obligated to do so unless I’m on my deathbed or something equally ridiculous—and I doubt Cole will miss it. The least I can hope for is that he’ll avoid me, and I won’t have to talk to him.
And yet, something tells me that’s not going to happen. Maybe it’s a premonition, or perhaps it’s just pure pessimism, but somehow I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m not done with Cole.
But, as bad as that is, it’s not even the worst part. The part that really scares me is that I don’t even know if I want to be done with him.