Chapter 25
My heart pounds as I walk into the studio building on the night of the live finale. Tonight I’ll find out whether I’m going home with the million-dollar prize or empty-handed.
But first, I’m supposed to attend a reception with the other seventeen contestants, and to say I’m nervous would be an understatement.
This episode will show everything from the final five on, which means I’ll have to relive my heart breaking all over again.
And that’s not even considering that Cole will be here, whether or not I want to see him.
Arielle glances at me as we walk up to the front desk and frowns, as though she can read my mind. “Don’t worry,” she says quietly. “Just ignore him and think about how happy you’ll be when you win the million.”
I glance at her and give her a quick smile. “Is it that obvious that I’m freaking out?”
“You’re about as subtle as a bull in a china shop,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. “Now, come on. I know you can do this.”
I nod, feeling slightly better. We step up to the security desk, where a suited guard gives us both badges and directs us deeper into the building.
Tonight’s schedule is, unsurprisingly, quite packed.
According to the invitation Neema emailed me, first up is the aforementioned reception for the contestants and their families.
Then, the guests take their seats in the auditorium while the eighteen of us go to our dressing rooms and get our hair and makeup done.
After we’re suitably coiffed, we’ll gather in a private room to watch the first part of the episode together, while the guests watch on a big screen.
Once it gets to the final tribal council, Rhonda, the jury, and I will move to the auditorium stage so Alex can reveal the winner on live TV.
Honestly, I wish they could just tell me and Rhonda who won now, but that wouldn’t make for good entertainment, so it’s not going to happen.
To my surprise, when I scan the room, I don’t see Cole, even though it’s clear that just about everyone else is already here.
Did he get delayed? Maybe he just went to the bathroom or something.
Whatever the reason, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I stride into the room before my brain can tell me to stop. Worry about him later.
Rhonda spots me almost immediately and comes up with a huge grin on her face. “Ryan!” she exclaims, giving me a warm hug. “I missed you, honey.”
“I missed you, too,” I tell her. It’s the truth; hopefully, now that the show is ending, we can actually see each other once in a while. “How have you been?”
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old.” She turns to Arielle and gives her a hug, too. “And you must be Arielle. I’m glad we finally get to meet in person. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Is that so?” Arielle gently pokes me in the side. “I don’t know what this one said about me, but I’m sure it was all positive.”
Rhonda laughs. “Of course it was,” she says, winking at me. “Why don’t you both come over and meet my family?” She motions us to follow her, heading deeper into the mass of people.
I look at Arielle, who nods, and we catch up to Rhonda in short order. “By the way,” I say to the latter, “have you seen Cole? I didn’t see him when we came in.”
Rhonda turns to look at me, her eyebrows slightly furrowed. “Can’t say I have, but I’ll let you know if I do.”
I nod silently and continue to follow her, trying to keep my expression normal despite the fact that my thoughts are roiling.
What is he waiting for? I don’t really want to see him, but if I have to, I might as well get it over with now, so I don’t have to worry about it anymore.
If I’m going to have to see him, I’d at least like a little bit of a warning.
I don’t want to have him come out of nowhere and surprise me when I’m not expecting it.
It’s for that reason that I keep one eye on the entrance as Rhonda introduces me to her husband and son, although I try my best to seem engaged and outgoing.
I continue to watch the door even after Rhonda and I finish our conversation, and I go say hello to the other contestants.
But Cole doesn’t show up, and with each minute that passes, I grow more and more confused. Where is he?
By the time production lets us know that we need to make our way to the dressing rooms, Cole still hasn’t arrived. As I bid Arielle goodbye and follow the other contestants deeper into the studio, I’m starting to wonder if he’s going to be here at all.
Having my hair and makeup done takes less time than I expected, and before I know it, I’m in the green room with the other contestants.
There are plush chairs facing a big-screen TV showing the local news, which usually airs in the hour before the show comes on.
Most of the others are here already, either seated in one of the chairs or filling up a plate at a buffet table in the back of the room, but Cole isn’t among them.
For a brief moment, I consider getting some food, but my appetite is completely gone.
Instead, I just take a seat between Tamika and Rhonda, wondering why the hell Cole is doing this to me.
I try to make small talk with the two women as we wait for the show to start, but I’m just too nervous to focus, so after a little while we just sit in silence.
Hopefully, they’ll chalk any awkwardness on my part up to anxiety about the winner reveal, rather than anything to do with Cole.
Then, just as the clock hits eight, there’s a commotion at the entrance.
Cole walks in, looking incredible despite appearing harried, wearing a blue button-down shirt that matches his eyes and white chino pants.
I quickly look away before he catches me staring, my ears hot.
A pulse of pain beats somewhere down low in my chest, and now that he’s here, I almost wish he wasn’t. At least I don’t have to talk to him.
Thankfully, the episode begins just then, and I let myself get lost in the spectacle of watching myself on the big screen.
Instead of getting straight to the action, the first few minutes are spent recapping the season up to this point, interspersed with confessionals from each of the final five, where we talk about our strategies and how we got here.
Next, they show us at camp the night after we voted out Marina, with a voice-over from Cole saying how he’s happy it wasn’t him, and Rhonda explaining why we targeted Marina over Cole.
Then the editors cut to the next morning for a quick scene with all of us sitting around the fire, and a confessional from Tamika where she says how important it is for her to win the next challenge.
After that, they cut to the challenge itself, and I watch as I run around on screen, collecting sandbags and shooting them at the targets.
My heart pangs as screen-me picks Cole to share the pizza reward, and it gets even worse when the editors show us digging into our pizza, laughing and smiling like everything’s fine. If only I knew what was coming.
After a minute or so of torture, the show cuts away from the reward to a shot of Tamika, Rhonda, and Katie walking back into camp, followed by another confessional from Tamika.
“I really needed to win immunity today, and I came up short,” screen-Tamika says, her shoulders slumped.
“Lucky for me, there’s one person out here who’s a bigger threat, and my only chance is to convince the others to get rid of him instead. ”
Next is a shot of Tamika talking to Rhonda and Katie around the fire.
“How would you two feel about getting rid of Cole?” she asks, her voice betraying only the tiniest hint of the desperation she must have been feeling.
“He’s a huge challenge threat, and he’s likeable, too.
If any of us are sitting next to him at the end, it’s basically a guaranteed loss. ”
Cut to Rhonda doing a confessional, leaning up against a tree not too far from the ocean.
“Tamika asked me and Katie what we think about getting rid of Cole,” she says, tapping her finger against her lip.
“At first, I thought there ain’t no way I’m gonna do that.
Cole’s my ally, and I’d like to think I’ve built a pretty good bond with him.
” She frowns, clearly torn. “But then I realized that she’s right, that he is a threat.
And for all I know, this could be the last chance for us to get him out.
” She shakes her head. “But at the same time, there’s one glarin’ problem that we gotta fix before we can pull this off. ”
Back to the women sitting around the fire. “I might be interested,” Rhonda says, while Katie nods. “But only on one condition.”
Tamika lets out a long sigh. “What is it?”
Rhonda looks Tamika in the eye, her expression dead serious. “We cannot let Ryan find out about this,” she says. “Not even a whisper. If he gets the slightest hint o’ what we’re thinkin’, he’ll try to stop it. We gotta make sure he thinks it’s you goin’ home tonight, Tamika.”
A feeling of mounting anguish rises in my brain as I begin to get the full picture.
I knew they had lied to me, but actually seeing it happen—the effort to keep me from finding out, the way they strung me along like a lovestruck fool—makes me feel even worse.
I glance at the real Rhonda, and she gives me a shrug and a guilty smile. I can’t believe they tricked me.
I look back at the screen just in time to see the editors return to Rhonda’s confessional.
“I don’t know what’s goin’ on between them boys,” screen-Rhonda continues, her chin held high, “but all of a sudden they’re like two peas in a pod.
” Shots of Cole and me enjoying ourselves at the reward are shown while Rhonda continues to speak.
“I’m afraid they’re gonna take each other to the end, and that leaves me high and dry. ”