She blinks, nodding, but she doesn’t seem as reassured as I’d hoped she’d be.
The game goes on, with more questions being tossed left and right, some no-brainers, some that we all struggle with. I manage to sneak a few more points in, but none of it seems to settle Seyoon, who looks out of it every time she glances at her mom on the sidelines.
Garrett shuffles his cards. “Alright, this question is worth double points. You hear that?” Seyoon leans forward. “When didForest Feudswitch from a voting-based elimination to a point-based system?”
Not even a single millisecond after all four options appear on screen, a buzzer goes off.Who the hell can readthatfast?
In shock, I realize it was Seyoon.
Fuck me.
“Well?” Garrett asks.
“Um,” Seyoon says. She turns to me expectantly, desperately. I quickly look back at our table to review the answer options.
Siddharth yells and points at us. “Hey, hey! That’s cheating! They didn’t finish reading the options before buzzing in! They’re buzzer-happy!”
Garrett throws his hands up. “Seriously?”
Her mouth opens and shuts like a fish. She looks between her mom, then me, then Garrett. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice thin and nervous in a way it never is. “I panicked. Sorry, it won’t happen again.”
But a noise like the Pac-Man death sound effect plays over the speakers anyway, and we both watch in dread as ten points drain from our counter.
Vendredi leans across the aisle to hit Seyoon in the shoulder. “Dude! Get it together. What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m…”
Her hands are shaking. There’s motion just past her, at the side of the stage. Her mom is standing up now, expression folded with worry. Seyoon notices, and the tremors start to wrack her arms. Dad’s still standing too. He’s shaking his head with a frown, looking right at me. My stomach knots.
Despite everyone’s eyes on us, I grab her hand. Seyoon looks up, her face a bright, cherry red.
“You promised yourself you’d never freeze again. That’s what you said the other day.” I try to smile for her. “Come on, sunshine. We can’t lose, right?”
Something about my words has the opposite effect than I intended. Her face pales like she’s going to faint or be sick or some other non-Seyoon-ish reaction. She shuts her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Then she clambers off the stage.
“Seyoon!” I call, but she ignores all of us and hurries away from the set, embarking down the road we came on. Her mom doesn’t hesitate before chasing after her. I move to follow, but Vendredi holds her arm up to block me.
“If you don’t play,neitherof you will earn any more points,” she says sternly.
I swallow. I look after Seyoon’s rapidly disappearing form; at Garrett, Blake, and the cameras; and at Dad. I can comfort her later, but only if we’re both still here.
I continue to play. It’s the best thing I can do for her.
Somehow, I’m able to push Seyoon’s terrified expression out of my mind and focus on the trivia. I crack my knuckles. Wipe the sweat from my palms. I focus. I will the muscles in my hand to jump to the buzzer faster. Inevitably, the questions get harder and include more obscure references that only someone who has watched reruns of the show every week for their whole life would know.
Just my luck.
“Final question, folks, this one for bonus points as well,” Garrett says. “In season five, the runner-up blamed one thing for his loss. What was it?”
Everyone else stares puzzled at the options on screen. Everyone but me. I hit the buzzer. “D. The runner-up was Tate Pillipchuck. He blamed his competitor’s annoying breathing for distracting him, not knowing they had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He later went on an apology run on all the major morning talk shows.”
I get the points, and an eyeroll from Carter. Finally, I feel confident about a challenge.
After the game ends, Garrett goes to the tech setup and reaches over the woman working it to stab his finger on her keyboard. All our point boards fade to black.
“No spoilers,” he says, doing a pretty good job at forcing cheer and playfulness into his voice. If I hadn’t just spent the last month listening to him blabber, I’d think it was real. “We’ll reveal the final point standings at elimination.”
