I am. I’m ready for a lot. More than this plunge, more than the end of this Adventure. I’m ready. “Never been readier.”
Same, she mouths with her eyes fixed on me.
Yumi doesn’t look away when she pulls the rip cord. The swing drops out from beneath us. We enter a freefall, plummeting face-first toward the ground so fast my heart skips a beat. And I want to close my eyes against the fear, but Yumi is still staring at me. So I keep them open.
The swing catches with a jolt, and immediate relief fills me as I feel the harness take my full weight. We swing forward, free-falling for a few seconds before being tugged back.
As our pendulum slows to a stop, Yumi is laughing. Like, a full-throated belly laugh that I can feel the vibrations of through the harness that connects us.
“Still never doing this again?” I ask, prompted by her glee.
“Never,” she forces out between peals of laughter, eyes sparkling. “That’s why I’m so happy. No more falling.”
“What about for me?” I joke.
Yumi turns her big brown eyes on me and, with all sincerity, says, “Always.”
Chapter 46
Superfans
Hand in hand, Yumi andI stroll toward the mat, and there’s a weird amount of power in not rushing up to JSP for once.
His eyes track our feet, right up to the moment we stop and jump onto the mat in sync. He looks up then, crinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes.
“Yumi, Noelle…” He looks between us for an uncomfortably long time. I can’t believe it: our last dramatic-pause-for-effect moment. “You are, unfortunately, the last team to check in here in Singapore.”
I know he’s not going to tell us that it’s a non-elimination round. I know that. They have never done a non-elimination leg at the final four. It wouldn’t make sense. It would undercut the whole season, and it would immediately be clear when you looked at the episode count, as any superfan would. But the hope is there in my body. I wrap an arm around Yumi and tug her closer, my fingers digging into the soft skin above her hip. She rests her head against my shoulder, both of our breaths coming in shallow, measured lengths.
“And I am very sorry to tell you that your adventure has come to an end.”
All the air goes out of my body. It’s not good news, but it’s arelief. Yumi presses a kiss against my upper arm, squeezing me for just a second.
“I know you two were our superfans of the season. I’m sorry to let you go right before the final three, but you should be proud of yourselves for coming this far. What’s going through your minds right now?” JSP looks between us expectantly.
Yumi answers before I can. “Obviously, this isn’t the ending we envisioned for ourselves. We were hoping for a more ‘Here’s two million dollars’-type goodbye.” She pauses as JSP laughs. He’s so good at a prompted laugh. I genuinely can’t tell if it’s real or fake. “But we’re lucky that we got to be on the show at all.”
“Do you feel like the show strengthened or tested your relationship to each other in any way?”
It’s weird to have Jonathan do this interview, like he knows us.
I recognize that it’s my turn to answer, but I want to hear what Yumi has to say.
After a beat, she goes again. “I think Noelle and I started this show in a weird place.” She pauses, chewing on her lip. I trust her, but my stomach still tightens at the possibility that she might blow our cover. As if she senses this, she circles a thumb, massaging my shoulder to comfort me. “We were the youngest couple this season, and a lot of people we were competing against had, you know, marriages or had been dating for six or seven years. And…and right before we began filming, Noelle and I weren’t sure…”
Jonathan leans in at the edge of the gossip, sensing blood in the water. Apex predator behavior.
Yumi clears her throat. I want to help her, but I need to hear the rest of this. “We were going to different colleges; we thoughtwe wanted different things from our futures, and those differences felt unbridgeable.”
“And now?”
“I’m not…” Yumi darts a glance at me, her expression unsure.
I understand. She needs to hear my answer as much as I need to hear hers. “Now, Jonathan,” I say, rolling my shoulders back. “Yumi has been there for me through the most stressful moments of my life. And I—” I choke on the words. Shit.
“Noelle,” Yumi cuts in, “is a different person than she used to be, Jonathan. We’ve watched each other grow, and maybe at some points in our past she ran when things got difficult. But I think we both know now that, after all of this, a single measly state border isn’t going to end our relationship.”
Smiling, I reach up to spin my necklace, but it’s not there. I panic, running my hand over my chest, my shirt, my pants, my pockets. It’s gone.
