Episode 197
LONELY GIRL
Misty
The waves stretch before me, rolling in slow and steady, their rhythm a whisper against the shore. The sand is cool beneath my bare feet, the air thick with salt and the warmth of the mid-morning sun. The others are back at the mansion, probably fawning over the new doctor who arrived.
She seems nice enough.
But I’ve learned never to take anyone at face value.
When I found the documents showing I’d been adopted by my parents and that my birth mother was a woman named Lisa Patterson, I was devasted, of course.
But the more I’ve allowed myself to consider it…the more it makes an eerie kind of sense.
I kick at the wet sand.
Maybe it explains why my mother never really looked at me—why she treated me like another investment instead of flesh and blood.
Money was her love language, her way of showing affection—or rather, not showing affection.
When I fell off my bike and scraped my knee, she bought me a designer party dress.
When I was sick, she sent a nurse and a brand-new dollhouse.
And when I was drowning—truly drowning—she turned away and let my father do as he pleased.
The tide rushes up and curls around my ankles. I stare out at the horizon, where sky meets water, where the world feels endless. My father used to tell me drowning wasn’t real. That it was all in the mind.
“Your body wants to survive,” he would say, pushing me beneath the surface. “It’s weak. It panics. But if you control it, you won’t drown.”
I was a young child the first time he tested me, pressing his hands down on my shoulders, his grip unyielding. I fought, of course. At first. Clawed at his wrists. Kicked against his legs. But the water swallowed me whole, and soon, the only thing left was silence.
I used to think he would let me die. But that was never the point. The point was breaking me. Teaching me that suffering is survival.
I wrap my arms around myself as the breeze pulls at the hem of my sundress.
My father was wrong, though. I didn’t drown.
I lived.
I became something colder, sharper. I learned to survive in ways he never expected.
And now I stand here, on this island, the weight of my past pressing against my ribs like a corset.
Adopted or not, nothing changes the truth of what I endured.
Nothing erases the ghosts of his hands or the echoes of her indifference.
But here, in this moment, the waves can’t touch me. The past can’t reach me.
And for the first time in a long while, I don’t feel like I’m drowning.
I have a birth mother. A brother.
All tangled up in the four men on this island.
I thought River would be the answer. He’s the handsomest of all of them—at least in my mind—and he still lives in the town where they all grew up.
The town where my mother lived.
And my brother.
The brother I’ll never know.
But I need to know.
I need to fill in the gaps.
And I will.
I’m no longer that helpless little girl pushed beneath the water by an unfeeling man who was supposed to protect me. I’m not that wounded child, ignored and overlooked by a woman whose love should have been a given.
No, not anymore.
I sigh and kick at the sand. Brett said I look a lot like him. Like Jake. My brother.
Well, my half-brother.
Maybe there are photos somewhere. Did Brett and the others keep any old pictures? Or was it too painful for them, losing a friend?
The waves keep rolling in, steady, indifferent. They don’t care who I am, what I’ve done, or how I got here. The ocean swallows secrets and regrets.
I wish I could do the same sometimes.
But sometimes I don’t.
I was never soft.
He made sure of that. She made sure of that.
I learned early that power doesn’t come from love. It comes from control. The ability to read people like open books, to find their weak spots, to twist them just enough to get what I need. A well-placed lie. A carefully timed smile. A whispered secret that never belonged to me.
It didn’t make me any friends, but it’s how I survived.
I’ve played people like chess pieces, made them move the way I wanted. I learned how to shape myself into whatever someone needed, only to turn it against them when the time was right.
I tell myself it’s not malicious. That I don’t do it for sport, only necessity. But is that true?
Sometimes, I enjoy myself.
I told the women to lay off River. I told Emily to sabotage the cookoff. I manipulated Evie to get here in the first place, knowing full well she’d been through hell at my father’s hand, and I used it against her.
I’m not a nice person.
I used to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault. That my parents made me who I am.
The wind picks up, carrying the scent of salt and something faintly floral. I close my eyes and breathe in the fragrance of the sea as I try to imagine a different version of myself. One who doesn’t use people, but who instead cherishes them.
And maybe someone will eventually cherish me back.
Right.
I’m not sure that version of me exists.
Besides, the women are already all divided up into friendships—Ariel and Emily, June and Heather, Sienna and…
She’s kind of a third wheel. Maybe I should try to—
Oh, hell. No one would buy it.
I’m not buying it myself.
I stare out at the water.
I could turn back now, slip into old patterns, weave myself deeper into the game. It would be easy. It’s what I know.
Or I could try.
Just once.
Not to manipulate. Not to win.
Just to be.
The thought feels fragile, like a flickering candle against a storm.
I could—
I turn when I hear voices interrupting my thoughts.
Alex and Ariel are walking toward me, hand in hand.
They’re obnoxiously perfect for each other. It’s kind of disgusting.
But maybe it’s time to try out new Misty.
I wave. “Hey, you two. How are the lovebirds?”
Ariel flashes her adorable smile. Just days ago, I was mocking her behind her back, amused by her wide-eyed innocence, her sugar-sweet drawl.
“We’re looking for the perfect place for our wedding tomorrow,” she says, “and I think we’ve found it. Don’t you agree, Alex?”
“Whatever you want, baby.” Alex cups Ariel’s cheek.
God, I want to puke.
But I force a smile instead. Like my shrink used to say, “Fake it until you make it.”
“What can I do to help?” I ask.
Ariel’s eyes go wide.
Hell, I can’t blame her. I’ve hardly said two words to her since we all got here.
“Not a thing,” Alex answers. “Evangeline’s got it all under control, and—”
“Alex!” a voice yells.
We all turn to see Sebastian running toward us.
“What?” Alex asks.
“Fuck, bro. You’re not going to believe it. It’s the best fucking news.” He wipes at his forehead.
“What?” Alex asks again. “Seb, you don’t look like yourself.”
“It’s Jake,” Sebastian says, his breath coming in rapid puffs. “God, you’re not going to believe it.”
“What?” From Alex for the third time. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“He’s alive,” Sebastian says. “And he’s here.”