“Long day, huh, girls?” Aliona asks, settling onto her own seat. She crosses one leg over the other, balancing a tablet on her knee as she ties her hair up.
“Very long day,” I answer. As excited as I am to get to the challenges and do theAdventureversepart ofThe Adventureverse, I see why they’re giving us a night to rest. Humans were not meant to endure two (Three? I can’t keep it straight) days of cross-ocean flights in a row.
She smiles. “Well, let’s jump right in. What did you think when you saw Blair and Art went home in Paris?”
As expected, Blair and Art, the Goths, weren’t at the airport when we arrived this morning. Yesterday morning? “It isn’t surprising that Art and Blair went home. No goth team has ever made it past the first episode.”
“Huh,” Aliona muses, and I wonder if she genuinely didn’t know that statistic. Makes sense, I guess. My dad probably knows the Boston Bruins’ stats better than the Boston Bruinsthemselves. “As superfans, can you give me your predictions for this season’s elimination order?”
I sure could, but I know this is a trap. If we say something bad about a fan-favorite team, we’re setting ourselves up for public harassment. No matter what we guess, there’s a high chance production will use it against us.
“Oh, definitely,” Yumi says, her voice dripping with confidence. “Winning team: Yumi Panganiban and Noelle Breland. Easy.”
I smile, waiting for the next question, but Aliona just looks between us. After a beat, she frowns. “Let’s take that again. Yumi, I loved that answer, don’t change a thing, but can we get more…” She cups her hands and brings them together. “Connection between the two of you?”
It’s the same thing Petter and Bo asked for back in Paris. Interaction. I tense. That doesn’t feel like something a couple on an all-couples season would need to be prompted on. For now, we can pass it off as superfan jitters, but that won’t work forever. Ineedto win this show. I need production to believe us.
“Sorry, I’m just so nervous,” I lie sheepishly, shaking my wrists out.
“That’s okay,” Aliona says the same way a teacher might say,But don’t do it again. “What are your placement predictions for this season?”
“As superfans, we definitely know the boot order for this season,” Yumi says, light in her eyes as she turns to me. “Winning team: Yumi Panganiban and Noelle Breland.”
“Hell yeah!” I say, high-fiving her. Our hands shift, slotting into each other, palm to palm. Yumi holds my gaze, biting herfull lower lip. Her dimple is visible, a comma at the end of her smile. I forget what I’m saying and where we are and who we’re with. She is sounfairlypretty.
“Better,” Aliona approves with a clap. It breaks the spell. She asks a few more leading questions and we give a few more evasive answers before she sends us back to solitary confinement. Depositing us in our room, she says, “Girls, a word of advice: We cast you for your chemistry—remember that.”
“Yes, Aliona,” we say. It’s second nature at this point.
“Good night.” She closes the door, and we hear the sound of masking tape again.
“We’re fucked,” I say.
Simultaneously, Yumi says, “We’re so cooked.”
Great. At least we’re on the same page about that.
Dingy floral wallpaper stripes down the wall, too beige to be yellow and too yellow to be beige. I stare at it and not Yumi as I say, “I know you don’t want to be here.”
“You’re wrong.”
That makes me turn to face her bed. She sits propped against the headboard with her notebook resting on her lap. In her oversized T-shirt and loose pajama pants, she looks like every childhood sleepover we’ve ever had. It only makes me feel worse. So many things are the same as what they used to be, but not the most important things.
“I love this show. I do want to be here,” she continues, biting the cap of her pen. “I just don’t want to be herewith you.”
There it is. I knew a sucker punch was coming. Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say I deserve it, I think Yumi has every right to feel what she’s feeling. She doesn’t need or want to be here. Every moment that she doesn’t quit, she’s doing me a favor. And she doesn’t owe me any favors. Still, does she have to be such an asshole about it?
My dad, my dad, my dad.I reach up and spin my globe necklace.My mom.“I know. I know.”My dad, my dad, my dad, my mom.“I’m sorry. If I—I wish things were different, Yumi.” I stare at the ceiling. I will not cry.My dad, my dad.“But we can’t keep going like this. If we lose because we lose, then fine, that’s just howThe Adventureversegoes. But if we get kicked off because we couldn’t pretend well enough? I will never forgive myself. I know you don’t care about that, or about me, but if you care about…”
My mind wants to float out of my body like a helium balloon, but I grab it with both hands, wrap my fingers around its ankle. It’s not something I like to do—pushing through the dissociation. If it were easy, I would never dissociate. I am in a war of attrition against my own brain, and I will always surrender once I have nothing left to throw at myself. But for a brief moment, I can look like I’m winning. I can prove I am not a lost cause. “I’m so fuckingtiredof begging for things, Yumi, but I ambeggingyou to fake it for the cameras.”
She doesn’t say anything. I can’t bear to look at her, and anyway, I’ve already taken pity on my mind and let it drift on up into the stratosphere. So, I just sit there, waiting. The generator outside shuts off suddenly; the silence in the room swells until I can hearboth our breaths falling into rhythm. It makes me claustrophobic, and a little unsettled.
“Will he be okay?” she asks quietly. “If you get the money, I mean. Will it help?”
I shake my head. “It’ll help, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be okay.”
She exhales. “I wish I could’ve been there.”
