Chapter 20 #2
I had to give a speech that night, and I was so nervous.
It was the same night as Paige’s school play.
The Sound of Music, I think it was. I asked everyone not to come to the benefit but to support Paige instead.
It was just a silly little speech, after all.
But going alone, without anyone familiar nearby, made my nerves so much worse.
But then I’d gotten on stage, and I saw you—I saw you clear as day in the crowd, handsome in your tux and all.
But when I went to find you after, you were gone. You never admitted to being there that night, but I knew you were. You were there for me when no one else was.
That moment is actually one of the main reasons I wanted to start a nonprofit. I want kids to know what it’s like when someone shows up for them.
Okay, my younger self would murder me with a dull knife if she knew I was admitting all this to you. But I guess it’s safe to say that you’ve made an impression on me, Colton, and I’m grateful for you.
You looked beautiful that night, you know. So confident and poised. It’s hard to look away when you’re on stage, or just anywhere.
I have no doubt Something to Glow About will be a success. And if you really are serious about me playing a part in your decision to start your nonprofit, then I’m honored.
But since I’m part of your nonprofit’s origin story, I expect to have a picture of my likeness hung on the wall right behind the front desk for all to see my dashing smile and perfectly coiffed hair.
Don’t push your luck, Downing.
(P.S. I like how your hair looks now. And the beard.)
What about the beard?
It’s rugged.
Wait, like, handsome rugged?
Just rugged, okay?
Missy Jean, you like my beard, don’t you? I saw you eyeing it today.
Do you think tomorrow’s Mayday Challenge will be more physical or mental? I’m feeling like a physical challenge would be good. Maybe something to do with swimming? It’s wild that this is the last Mayday Challenge before the finals. Isn’t that crazy?
Nice try, but you can’t distract me from your fascination with my beard. Don’t fret, I’ll let you stroke it tomorrow. It’s nice and soft.
I am not stroking your beard for the public to see. I have my limits. Speaking of tomorrow, we should probably head to bed. We’re going to need all our wits about us if we want to win Mayday Challenge Four.
Whoever said you had to stroke my beard in front of the public?
Good night, Colton Downing.
Good night, Missy Jean.
I hear the shuffle of feet in the plane’s cabin just beyond the galley and feel my time alone coming to a close, so I speed read this morning’s messages, finding too much joy revisiting every word as Missy and I dissected and hypothesized about the results of Mayday Challenge Four.
This morning, each of the four remaining teams had to send out a member to one of four wooden poles that protruded out of the ocean. The first team that fell off their pole and into the water would be part of the Black Box Elimination tonight.
Joseph, Maria, Silver, and I had stood on the poles while the team members who weren’t on them did their best to make us fall.
Tyrone had taken that to heart and spent the majority of the game splashing water on me or attempting to shake the thick pole beneath my feet.
But in the end, all four of us on the wooden poles stood for a record-breaking ninety-eight minutes before a thunderstorm rolled in and the show had to call a four-way tie.
Neither Missy nor I knew what that meant for the Black Box Elimination tonight. If no team was clearly the winner or the loser, will the show choose who will be eliminated? Will America?
I trail a finger down the last of our messages in the coloring book, laughing when I read the note about how Tyrone guiltily offered me front-row tickets to his opening MLB game after today’s Mayday Challenge. Missy had called it a make-up bribe, but I called it an opportunity.
Missy Jean, when we get home, what would you say to going to a baseball game with me?
A baseball game? You mean, an entire nine innings of the slowest game on planet Earth? I think I’d rather stick glass in my retinas. Or spend my life making only left turns across a highway.
Okay, okay. What if I said there would be some salted steak fries with ranch there?
You should have started with steak fries. My stomach is currently digesting itself. I guess I’m going to a ball game.
I take the pen and scribble my response in the minuscule slit of blank space that’s left in our coloring book. I just manage to squeeze in my three words by curling a few letters up the edge of the page.
It’s a date.
I smile, feeling like I just won the World Series when I hear a voice next to me.
“Colton.” I turn to find a woman with waist-length brown hair held back by a sun visor that matches her coral polo shirt.
She’s a Sunsets and Sabotage staff member that I’ve seen several times on set but have never actually spoken to.
“I’m here to inform you that there will be no Black Box Elimination tonight.
Instead, you’ll be participating in another Mayday Challenge tomorrow, except the team who loses this challenge will automatically be eliminated. ”
Panic grips me. But this time, it’s not about my typical intrusive thoughts, the ones where I watch my dad smile as he greets me at the airport, telling me how excited he is for me to spend the next five years of my life working at his old firm.
Instead, I’m filled with a new worry. A worry that if I go home tomorrow, this island bubble will pop, and this new and delicate relationship between Missy and me will disappear with it, becoming just another memory.
Even though my stomach begs for food and my body could do with a long shower, I wish I could stay here. Because on this island, I’ve felt more alive than I have in years, and I know that at the center of that feeling is Missy.