“Don’t worry, I get it,” she says. “I’ve got a sob story about my mom, too.”
“Let’s hear it.”
Sue-Ellen stares out over the water and is silent for a long time.“Well,” she says, tentatively, “mymom nagged me so much about my weight that I started dieting when I was seven, and was fully anorexic by the time I was thirteen, which sheloved, by the way. She was so proud of how thin I got. But it wasn’t sustainable with all the swimming, and I loved swimming more than anything, even more than being skinny, so I started to eat what I needed to. When I qualified for the Olympics, she said I’d better go on a diet so I wouldn’t look fat on TV, so I basically starved myself, and then I had to quit swimming altogether to go to a treatment centre. So, yeah, that’s my mom.”
I want to hug Sue-Ellen, but I know she won’t allow it, so I just say, “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. It is what it is. Can you let me rest now, please?”
“For how long?”
She closes her eyes like she’s trying to gather strength. “As long as it takes,” she says through clenched teeth.
I scoot back, gently lowering Kei’s head and shoulders to the ground. On shaky legs, I hobble up to the tree line where the ground is a little softer. I lean back against a tree trunk and close my eyes. It’s so quiet. The only sounds are the wind rustling through the trees, the water rolling onto the shore, and the occasional bird. I listen for human sounds—engines or voices or industry—but there’s nothing.
The next thing I know, Sue-Ellen is nudging my leg with her foot. I open my eyes. She’s backlit, which means the sun has finally made an appearance.
“Come on. We fell asleep. Time to get going.”
I stand up and stretch. The fatigue is still heavy in my muscles, but the nap did me good. I walk, more steadily this time, to where Kei is sleeping. I stand over him for a moment, taking him in. Like he can sense it, he opens his eyes, looking right at me, and smiles.
He eases himself up to a seat, hugging his knees into his chest, making a ledge to rest his head. I crouch down, rubbing my hand against the smooth skin of his back.
“You guys saved my life,” he says. His voice is muffled between his legs. I breathe a sigh of relief that he’s lucid.
“You can thank Cleo for that,” Sue-Ellen says.
He lifts his head. His face is pale, but his eyes are focused again. “You’re my hero,” he says to me.
His praise makes me glow, but I try to contain it. I still don’t want to look like a lovesick asshole in front of Sue-Ellen.
“Here, have something to eat,” I say, offering my granola bar.
He holds up his hand. “I’m good. Just some water.”
We chat about our strategy for the hike as Kei takes small sips from his water bottle. We’ll stick to the shoreline until we come to the beach we left from on the first day. The sun is out in full effect, so it’s going to be hot, but it’s the surest way to the trail. Or, at least, that’s what Kei says, and Sue-Ellen agrees, so who am I to argue?
We trudge up the beach toward the rocky outcrop I saw from the water. From this vantage point, I can see that they’re actually giant boulders, forming a sizeable barrier, and climbing them will be a feat in itself. We start to clamber over them, carefully choosing our hand placements and footfalls. It’s slow going, and between the effort and the sun beating down, our hands and feet become slick with sweat. It takes so much longer and it’s so much harder than just walking the same distance of flat ground, and by the time we get past it, we are spent.
“That sucked,” Sue-Ellen says, wiping her forehead. She looks ahead, and nods to the next crop of rocks just up the beach. “Should we go into the woods, see if we can get around it?”
Kei takes a gulp of water. He nods ahead. “Those rocks look more manageable. Let’s stick with the devil we know.”
Thankfully, these rocks are smaller and easier to traverse, though the field of rocks is much bigger, the length of the beach at camp, at least. The sun is merciless, and without any protection, I can feel my skin crisping with every passing minute. The bottoms of my feet are smarting on the hot, jagged boulders.
“I need some shade,” I call, when we’re about halfway. I head for the tree line and sink down. The cool of the shadow is instant relief. Kei and Sue-Ellen follow, and we sit in silence, staring over the water, lost in our own thoughts.
I think of Tyler and Gabby. Is this what they envisioned, when they left us? This ragtag rescue crew? Or did they even think of us at all?
“Do you think it was ever real?” I ask. “Like were they even trying to make a real show?”
“I’ve asked myself the same thing,” Sue-Ellen says.
“Me too,” Kei says, “and I think they were. I mean, why go through all the trouble to get us here and hire staff and organize challenges and all that, if they weren’t actually trying to make a show?”
“So they’re evilandincompetent,” Sue-Ellen says.
“A winning fucking combination, if I’ve ever seen one,” I grumble. But I’m also mollified. Somehow, the idea that they were trying to make Camp Couple-Up, that it wasn’t all fake, is comforting to me. Like, if they had just been smarter, then we never would have gotten scammed. This subtle shift of the blame from myself to them is a relief, like letting air out of an overfilled balloon.
