Chapter 26 #2
Anxiously, I walk past several crew members and spot Legend and Silver in a pair of nice street clothes.
Like me, they’ve showered and been gussied up, but since they came in second place, they will only take part in the more casual postshow interviews—short segments that get aired on Sunsets and Sabbotage’s YouTube page but are not part of the official live television episode today.
Silver scans my dress, her fake lashes flattening until her eyes are nothing but slits. “That dress would have looked better on me. But the sunburn on your cheeks goes nicely with dark blue.”
My eyebrows rise. “Thanks.” Though likely an insult to anyone else, coming from Silver’s lips, that was a compliment. I send her a small smile. “You both played a good game.” A vicious and amoral game, but a good game, nonetheless.
“Don’t bother placating us. We’ve already gotten an offer to appear on The Heartless. We’ll easily win that,” Legend says.
A game show all about lies and stealth—they’ll be fantastic. “Oh, well, congratulations. You’ll be an excellent team.”
“Ugh. Again, we don’t need your consolation.” With a wave of Legend’s hand, I’m dismissed.
“Okay, then.” I give a parting smile, which Silver and Legend completely ignore, and I turn on my heels.
I head toward a small area specifically set up for an intimate interview.
Two spotlights shine down at the center of a wooden platform with a large Sunsets and Sabotage logo splayed across it in vibrant corals and yellows.
Atop it are two familiar chairs in a bright teal.
These are the chairs we sat in during our opening interviews that, unlike the ones we occupied on the island, are void of any tears or missing padding.
Once more, my emotions rise to the surface—the stress of being filmed, the joy and responsibility of winning, the sadness of leaving the island—all of them expand uncomfortably inside me.
But then my eyes latch on Bill’s gray head of hair as he talks to someone standing just behind the fabric of a large rectangular light reflector.
Bill’s features are not filled with the usual joviality I’ve come to know, but instead, his eyes zone in as he speaks with intention and urgency to whomever he is with.
Curious, I walk farther into the hangar, my heels clip-clopping on the floor, until I see who Bill is talking to. My heart stammers.
Colton nods at Bill. Just the image of Colton blocks my airways as he stands handsome and tall in a tailored tan suit.
But unlike all the other times I’ve seen Colton in formal wear, he’s without a tie, with the collar of his light-blue shirt unbuttoned.
His hair is combed neatly like it always was before the show, but this time it’s visibly less gelled, giving his hair a natural wave.
And though his hairstyle is devoid of any of those cute little flyaways I’ve grown to love, I like how this new style captures him so well; it’s laid-back and sophisticated in one.
And to top it all off, he’s kept a thin layer of facial hair, reminding me of the Colton I’ve come to know on the island.
Oh, goodness gracious. Either the heels I’m wearing are too high, or I’m going weak at the knees.
The feeling inside of me is instantaneous and undeniable.
I feel at peace. One look at Colton, and it’s like someone’s slammed a lid on all my boiling emotions.
I try to hold back a smile. How did I go from hating him to feeling so completely at home with him?
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would fall for Colton, let alone trust him as I do now.
Colton’s eyes flick from Bill over to me, then back to Bill, then instantly back to me.
His eyebrows shoot up his forehead. The way his eyes appraise me makes my heart skip a beat.
I bite my lip, trying to quell my bout of sudden nerves under his all-consuming stare, but when his eyes light with obvious admiration, I feel lighter than air.
Bill follows Colton’s gaze, and he smiles just as Colton mouths the word wow in my direction, followed by you look beautiful. At least, that’s what my shoddy lip-reading skills interpreted it as. I can only hope he wasn’t actually saying “Wow. Look at that sandwich table.”
I look behind me, where there is indeed a sandwich table bursting with ham-and-cheese sandwiches, and despite how tasty they look, I deflate.
I really hope the sandwiches weren’t the target of Colton’s admiration.
But then I spot Maria limping toward me, and all thoughts of stupid sandwiches disappear.
“Maria!” I hike my dress above my heels and close the distance between us, my eyes glued to the bloodstained gauze around her calf. “What happened?”
Maria brushes off my comment, swishing her bright floral skirt around her calf as if to hide her injury, but I saw what I saw. “Maria, you need to sit down,” I say with all the concern I feel. “How did that happen?”
“I’m fine, Missy. I’m just so excited for you and Colton. Bill and I couldn’t be happier for you two. Are you hungry, Mija? I’m hungry.”
“Maria, no, no, no. You are not changing the subject,” I say with my sternest voice.
“Maria Luciana Christina, what happened?” Bill rushes to Maria’s side, worry on his face, and together we double-team her.
Maria rolls her eyes. “Oh, you two. It’s just a little scrape I got from the raft.”
“Maria,” Bill presses.
“They said I don’t need stitches. It’s hardly painful.” Maria shrugs.
“The entire gauze pad is bloodied,” I say, hands on hips.
“I’ll be fine,” Maria claims, yet again.
“Last time you said that, you’d been walking around on a fractured foot for a month and ended up in the surgery room,” Bill says.
“Okay, so it hurts a little,” Maria finally admits.
Bill rolls his eyes. “That’s what I thought.”
“Men—they always think they are right.” Maria shakes her head teasingly at me.
I smile. Even in an argument, they are one of the sweetest couples I know.
“Let’s go get you some medicine, or at least fresh gauze,” Bill says, stabilizing Maria with an arm under hers.
“Bossy. Bossy.” Maria winks in my direction.
I point toward the back of the hangar. “I believe I saw the medical team near the tech table.”
“Missy,” Shannon’s firm voice calls from behind me, and I turn to face her. “We are on in two minutes. I need you in your seat.”
Turning back to Bill and Maria, I scrunch my face in concern for my friend.
“I’ve got her. You go,” Bill says.
Still worried, I watch as Bill walks his limping sweetheart to one of the members of the medical team who helped bandage my foot after my nighttime tumble in the jungle. Knowing Maria is in good hands, I walk to the interview set.
A few minutes later, I sit in an unblemished teal seat next to Colton, who, just like in the opening interviews, taps his thumb and forefinger together nervously, a movement I haven’t seen him do since the early days on the island.
I wonder what’s changed to cause his sudden burst of nerves, but with the cameras on us, I know that I’ll have to save that question for another time.
A time when we’re not being broadcast to millions of viewers, and when Niall, in his now-perfectly-pressed pilot’s shirt, isn’t addressing the cameras right in front of us, welcoming everyone to the final episode—the winners’ interview.
The live episode starts with a video recap of the final challenge, but unlike the previous recaps at the Black Box Meetings on Sabotage Island, the footage is set to epic instrumental music, making Colton and me look like gladiators in the heat of battle.
I nearly laugh at how they manage to take a shot of me with mud on my face and frizzing hair and make it look like I’m an warrior princess.
Once the recap ends, Niall asks us a slew of questions, ranging anywhere from our feelings on winning to the snake under the bunk bed last night to the way we’d managed to steal back our pocketknife and Team Fuchsia’s rope while we were in the nets.
But all this time, I sense Niall is building up to a very specific question.
“Colton, now, it was evident in your earlier challenges and in the votes that you and Missy got off to a rocky start on your Sunsets and Sabotage journey.”
Colton straightens and adjusts a glittering cuff link that matches the crystals on my dress.
He flashes the camera a signature Downing smile: pleasant, charming, controlled.
“You’d be right. There are always a few growing pains when working with a new teammate, but in the end, we figured things out. ”
“Teammate?” Niall lifts a single brow. “Is that all you were?”
There it is—the question about our relationship I know Niall’s been leading up to.
“I have more than a few minutes of footage that would suggest that you two have developed something beyond ‘teammates,’” Niall says.
I cross my ankles and do my best to look moderately interested, while on the inside, I’m bursting to know just what Colton will say.
How much of his feelings will he confess?
I lean closer to the armrests separating our seats, eager to hear the words I know will come from his lips.
After all, we haven’t exactly been subtle about our feelings lately.
I have the sudden urge to shift my hand ever so slightly and link my fingers with his in a show of support, to let him know that I feel what he’s feeling.
Throwing caution to the wind, I slide my hand toward him, but like repelling magnets, he slides his hand away from mine before I get a chance to make contact. He folds his hands neatly in his lap.
A bright fire heats my cheeks.
Colton chuckles at Niall before briefly glancing in my direction. “Do you think we should tell them?”
“Tell them?” I say, my voice rising an octave.
Colton must take this as a yes because he waits no longer. “There are many forms of sabotage, some of which take place as physical gameplay—stealing, cheating…”
Niall laughs as if recalling all the moments players stole or cut corners during the game.
“But Missy and I chose to go a different route,” Colton says. “One that could endear us to the American people and help us get further in the game.”
“A strategic romance,” Niall deduces.
“A strategic romance.” Colton’s face lifts in a devilish smile.
All the while, I feel like I’ve been tricked by the devil himself. Little beads of sweat form at my hairline as my heart pounds.
No, no, no. Obviously I am missing something.
It may have started off as a strategic romance, but it didn’t end that way.
I will my heart to settle down as I wait for Colton to clarify.
But moments of unbearable silence creep past as the merciless heat of the spotlights sends a stream of sweat trickling between my shoulder blades.
“So, your romantic relationship was all for show?” Niall says, breaking through the awkwardness.
Correct him, Colton. Say something. I beg Colton with my eyes to tell Niall and the rest of America the truth. The truth of how he really feels, the truth I felt back on the island, but he refuses to look at me. He’s stuck with that crooked little smile on his face.
He can’t be serious.
“It was all for show,” Colton says, the words a knife to my gut.
My eyeballs burn as I try my best to hold back tears.
But no. Colton and I … we are … he’s my perfect kindling.
He couldn’t really have been acting this whole time.
Unless, maybe he was. My mind flashes back in time, recalling every single instance that Colton had truly shown me affection off camera so that I can prove to myself it wasn’t just for show, but to my horror, I come up empty-handed.
I find that every time he’d shown me true affection, a kiss, a handhold, there’d been a drone, a cameraman, a mic.
And the coloring book and our messages back and forth—we weren’t exactly secretive about passing notes.
It was plain as day for our lapel cameras to see.
There may have been that time on the beach with just him and I and the almost kiss, but was he really trying to kiss me? Was it all in my head?
A ball of emotion rises in my throat as I try to comprehend this terrible new light shed on our story. A story that I’ve been interpreting wrong this entire time. I look to Niall, only to find him staring at me expectantly. Did he ask me a question?.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?” I mumble, hoping beyond hope that he can’t see the sheen of tears across my eyes.
“Is Colton right? Was it really all for show? For your strategy?”
His question presses into me until I feel like a glass bottle being crushed for recycling. I do my best to hold it together, even though the floor is littered with the pieces of my broken heart. “Right, our strategy.”
In one desperate move, I look over at Colton, giving him one more chance to correct Niall, to take it all back, to change the past, but he doesn’t.
Colton’s brows make the slightest twitch, as if asking what’s gotten into me. Then he nods in my direction, smiling at me just as he had last night in the Bunk Hut. I feel sick, nauseous with how wrong I’ve been.
I’ve done it again. I let someone occupy the center of my heart, only to walk away shattered inside. I feel the familiar cage close around my heart, its steel bars keeping me safe and secure. “Colton’s right. Our relationship was all for show.”