“You and your dad will figure it out, Noe. It’s going to be okay.”
I remain silent, biting down hard on the truth. I spin my necklace.
Yumi sighs, leaning back into the sand. “You’re not talking about your dad.”
“No,” I say, glancing up at the cameras.
“I told you, didn’t I? It’s real,” she says quietly, studying my face.
“Yeah, you said that.” I look up at the trees swaying above us. “I’ve been thinking about that show,Heavyweights. Do you remember that show?”
“Ugh, yes. Those poor people. Terrible era of reality TV, do not recommend,” she says, pointing to camera. “What about it?”
Tracing a circle in the sand, I say, “I’ve been thinking about…what happened when the contestants went home.” It takes so much of me, but I turn to look at her. She’s so steady, unwavering. She holds eye contact. “You know?”
“I know. But, Noelle, we aren’t onHeavyweights.”
“Okay, butThe Bachelor?Survivorshowmances?”
She doesn’t back down. “What about the money? What about the friends? What about Boston Rob and Ambuh?” she asks, referencing the original reality TV love story and doing a terrible job mimicking Rob’s accent. “Not everything isHeavyweights, Noe.”
“But you said…” I stare at her. I can’t say it in front of the camera.After we win, I’m never talking to you again.“In the hotel, in Buenos Aires. After our interview with Aliona.”
Yumi smirks. “I know what I said, Noelle. But we haven’t won. So.”
I chuckle under my breath. “I just…” I trail off, scooping up a handful of sand and letting it fall through my fingers. “I wish it wasn’t like this.”
“Me too. But look where we are, Noe.”
When I don’t glance up from my shoes, she cups my face with one hand and guides my gaze up. Her skin is soft against my face, so I let her fingers rest there as I turn my head and take in thebeach. When she lets go, I relax back into the sand, looking at the garbage that’s she trying to convince me is beautiful.
“We were onThe Adventureverse,” I whisper.
Yumi tilts my jaw in her direction before finally letting go of her face. “Still are,” she says, leaning forward to kiss me.
My mouth settles against hers like a declaration: I don’t care. I don’t care if this ends tonight. I don’t care if—that—we loseThe Adventureverse. I care about Yumi. I’m here for Yumi. I love Yumi. So I tell her. But first, I reach back and swiftly turn off her mic pack, then mine. It doesn’t matter anymore; we’ve lost. I angle us away from the camera, from the boom mic, and cup my hands around her ear. I want her to know that this isn’t for the cameras, not for the audience, not for anyone but her.
Her intake of breath is sharp, a gasp extended into something more durable as she asks me to repeat it. Because she asked, I do, running a thumb over her cheekbone, tracing the smattering of freckles there.
She presses the side of her face into my palm, eyes falling shut. Her whisper traces down my jaw, the line of my neck, setting into my chest with an incredible lightness.
I let us sit in one more moment of unperceived tranquility before clicking our mics back on. “I don’t want to quit,” I say.
“Then we won’t.”
“And if it takes another three hours?”
She grins, shrugging. “What, like I have places to be?”
My laugh is soft, easy, and very tired. “I’m so sorry, Yums.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.” She pulls me into a side hug, then gently noogies my head. It feels right. “It just wasn’t our day.”
I go back to searching. She doesn’t help. She can’t. But she does start singing a series ofsupercopyrighted songs that will render this footage completely unusable unless the production team is willing to pay a firstborn-son’s worth of licensing fees.
Another half hour passes, the sun sinking lower in the sky, casting long shadows across the beach. Soon it’ll be too dark to reasonably keep looking without flashlights, but I continue dutifully picking up each discarded glass jar and severed electronic cord. There’s a hypnotic rhythm to it. The swoop of my body as I arc down for more garbage, the rustle of the plastic, footsteps on sand. I enter a meditative trance that’s almost pleasant.
At this point, I’ve grown confident in my theory thatThe Adventureverseis fucking with us and there actually aren’t even four emblems, so it doesn’t automatically register until Yumi screams.
