Beck does so. Everyone looks at me. The sound director gestures urgently at the boom mic operator on the other side of the room, who runs closer. Every camera has swiveled to train on me. My body turns to ice.
“Um—” I say.Everyone I know will see me be a blubbering, blustering idiot in love.It’s setting in for the first time. “Well, first off, this is still new, you know? ‘Love’ is a little strong. Maybe?”
Seyoon has a satisfied smirk on her face.I’ve won,it screams.
I want to wipe that smirk off her faceso bad,it turns me feverish.
“However,” I say. I pause to smother the nerves buzzing deliriously in my bones. It takes all my strength to keep my hands and legs from shaking. I lick my lips. Seyoon’s eyes dart to my mouth, then back up to my eyes. Whatever shows there makes her smugness falter. Good.
“If I had to trace when I knew Ilikedher down to a single moment…” I start again, my voice taking on a gentler, more raw tone, not necessarily by choice. My gaze trails over Seyoon’s face.The best lies need to have some truth to be believable. It’s how we’ll convince Blake to give us that clue.
Seyoon’s hand on my knee twitches, heavy and hot. The sensation brings me back to the first time she touched me. It was during Mountain Marathon. Like the reckless, overeager moron she is, she leaped onto my zip line. We could’ve fallen. I nearly did—until she reached out and grabbed me, uncaring of how it opened her fresh wounds back up.
“It was probably when she kept me from falling off the zip line in the first challenge,” I answer. I’m only looking at Seyoon now. It’s easier than at the cameras for some reason. “And it wasn’t because she saved my life. It was because she did it without thinking. Like… like helping someone was a reflex for her. Even in the heat of competition, she helped a rival out. That’s what made me start to like her.”
Silence punctuates my words. Seyoon is stiff, like she’s not breathing. At some point, I leaned in. I watch her watch me, uncaring for once of the others and the cameras circling around us for several long moments.
Adin hiccups—and it rips me from the trance I had tripped into.
“Holy crap,” he says. “That issoromantic.”
Garrett erupts into cheers from where he’d sprawled across the pool table. I expect Blake to yell at him for ruining her scene, but she’s too busy fist-pumping the air behind the couch.
“Beautiful,you two!” she shouts. Loose silver hairs fall carelessly across her bright face, her usually perfect bun now falling apart on her shoulders. “Yes,yes!Okay, let’s keep this energy, everyone. Siddharth, I have a question for you to ask the group now…”
Blake expertly directs the rest of the scene, her enthusiasm bleeding into the following conversations about family, each of our hopes, what we stand to lose if we’re cut from the game. Questions—and their heavy answers—that would usually have me on the edge of my seat. Having this information about my fellow competitors is crucial, so I try tirelessly to tune in. But it’s impossible with Seyoon’s incinerating, weighty stare on me.
I’m snapped back to reality when it’s Vendredi’s turn to answer a question. She looks miserable, still nursing a headache and leaning heavily on the arm of the couch.
“No, I actually don’t care what my mom thinks about me being here,” she sighs. “I’m not interested in fulfilling a family legacy or anything like that. I’m doing this because it’s my dream to be an actress.”
On the opposite couch, Carter scoffs. “What a shallow answer.”
Vendredi stills. “Excuse me?”
“Your mom is the whole reason you’re here, and you’re not going to give her any credit?”
Vendredi leans forward, gripping the sofa arm. “You don’t know shit about the situation between me and my mother.”
Blake creeps up on Carter’s side. “Ask her to explain,” she says like the devil over his shoulder.
Carter crosses one leg over his knee. “Then, explain it to us.”
Vendredi is clearly restraining herself. I glance between her and Carter, then the cameras. Which are, thankfully, finally off us.
Her voice is steady when she speaks, but heavy, like the calm before a storm. “You think you know who Mariah Dillworth is because you watched her on television. Well, I don’t care how goodof a player she was. I know how terrible of a mom sheis. And that’s none of your business.”
Carter gives her a once-over, his long nose scrunching with distaste. “No one here cares if she was a good or bad mom. What we care about is how entitled you are to not acknowledge that you’re only here because of her.”
She shoots up to stand, face twisted with fury.
“What are you going to do? Hit me?” Carter drawls. A small smirk ghosts his mouth. “That wouldn’t be a good look for you.”
Everybody stays still, even the crew members.
Vendredi clenches her fists. Unclenches them.
“I’m leaving,” she spits.
