I’m a good player, sure—but am I a good friend?
I want to be.
“Vendredi, wait!”
She turns around at the door. I know if she leaves and I don’t say anything, what we have will forever change. Just like it did with Amelia. I can’t let that happen again.
I can’t lose another friend.
“What about this?” I say. I wear my teeth into my bottom lip. “If… If Dean, bysomechance, happens to go home before either you or I do, we team up then. How’s that?”
Vendredi thinks about it. She shuffles over slowly, giving me nothing to work with. Eventually, when she’s in front of me, she holds up her pinky. Her mouth turns halfway up.
“I’ll take what I can get,” she says. “Deal.”
I lock my pinky with hers, relieved.
It’s fine. I’m not betraying Dean or his trust. Because I won’t let it get to a point where either of us goes home before the finale.
31
ARE YOU SERIOUSLY HITTING ON MY MOM RIGHT NOW?
SEYOON
Garrett greets the five of us gathered around the bonfire pit later that morning. He’s dressed in a particularly ugly blazer this time. Is that—is that zebra-print? I can’t take this any longer. He needs to be jailed.
There’s a bounce to his steps as he prepares to launch into the spiel for today’s challenge. I can’t tell if he’s excited or nervous. Either way, not a good sign.
Can you believe we’re already over halfway through the season? We started with twelve, and now, only five of you remain. Oh, my heart could break thinking about it. It hasn’t been easy getting here. You know, I think we could all benefit from a mid-season morale booster. So, before I get to today’s challenge, I have a surprise for you all. Don’t say I never did anything for you.
A trumpet blares through camp. Not a real one; it’s just Garrett pressing a button on his sound remote. Who gave him that? All of us tense, waiting for whatever awful surprise he has in store for us to jump out… but nothing.
And then, from the camp’s entrance, somebody whistles.
A woman with brown skin and bright red lips stretched in a sly smile climbs up the hill and walks toward us, waving. She looks maybe in her early thirties, and given her nice sweater and slacks, she decidedly doesn’t seem like a producer or tech for the show, but who knows what—
“Didi!”
I startle at Siddharth’s voice. He jumps up and sprints full speed at the woman. She beams and opens her arms. Siddharth launches himself at her, choking her in a hug.
A few others crest the hill now. A big, burly man with a thick goatee practically runs into camp. Dean stiffens. “Oh my God,” he says. “Dad?”
No way.No way.Hope balloons in my chest. I’m already walking toward the hill. Two more people pass under the entrance arch, blocking my view—but then there she is.
It’s Umma.
I’ve sprinted over to her before I make the decision to run. Her arms encircle me. Wetness gathers at my lash line, and I can’t push back an overwhelming surge of emotions when I feel her gentle hands rub my back. I hug her tight and blink back tears on her shoulder.
I mean to say a million things, from shouting in excitement to yelling in confusion, but what comes out of my mouth is a meek, “?????.”1
“I missed you, too.” Umma kisses the top of my head, then pulls back and beams at me. All of my worries from this morning melt away.
Garrett makes a big speech off to the side about how kind he is to have orchestrated this, but it’s easy to tune him out. All around us, happy families reunite, laughing and catching up. Umma asks me to tell her everything. I hold her soft hands in mine and fill her in, from the challenges, to the terrible food, to the very real friends I’ve made.
“What about you?” I ask, pulling back and scanning her face to see if she’s succumbed to starvation or an illness or some other terrible thing that could have happened in the time I wasn’t with her. “How have you been?”
Something flits across Umma’s face that makes me anxious. “Actually, Seyoon—”
