by Lianne Oelke
R
Yeah. We should get farther off the trail, though. They’ll catch up eventually.
JS
Yeah.
We walked through the brush in silence. R led the way with a flashlight. I followed, shivering.
JS
Your bike. I saw some just like it at the rental place. You got there first, didn’t you?
R
Yeah.
JS
What did you give him?
R
He just wanted to be on TV, I think. I told him I’d put a good word in for his store if he turned you away.
JS
And how did you get away from the crew?
R
Luck. They got a flat tire soon after I left town. About an hour before you rode into me.
JS
You picked a stupid place to stop.
We came up to a large rock wall that leaned in slightly—a good place to camp.
R
I never posted your journal online, you know. I never read it.
JS
Yeah. I know.
R
Then why do you still hate me?
I dropped my backpack to the ground with a heavy thud.
JS
Plenty of reasons. You stabbed me in the back, for one.
R
Yeah. I know. It was strategy. You would have done the same.
JS
No. I was the one who gave you the immunity idol, remember?
R
And yet you chose Marc as your partner in that prize challenge, after we made an agreement.
JS
I apologized for that! You never did! And it was only a pair of hockey tickets you lost, not the entire game. And you got the tickets anyway.
R
I tried to apologize, but you were too stubborn to listen. And you got back in the game, anyway.
I wished I had lost R on the trail. I wished the paramedics had gotten him.
R
What’s the difference? Voting you out sooner rather than later? That’s how the game works. Only one person wins. So why do you still hate me?
I sat down cross-legged on the grass, thinking about the vodka in my backpack. Hoping the bottle was still unbroken.
JS
I don’t hate you.
R
You don’t care at all, do you?
JS
R
Fuck, Jane. There are no cameras around.
No. But we still had our lav mikes. I turned around, pulled the mike out of my shirt, and switched it off. They must have been out of range, but it made me feel better anyway. R did the same.
JS
I care. I did.
R gave a short laugh.
R
You did? I don’t get it.
JS
What don’t you get?
R
On your birthday. Another guy hit me in the face because he was jealous. And you just stood there. You didn’t do anything.
I stood up.
JS
I was in shock! What were you expecting?
R
I don’t know, maybe a little sympathy? Maybe any indication at all that what happened was not okay?
JS
Of course it wasn’t okay.
We faced each other, almost nose to nose. Too close.
JS
What does it matter now? Let’s just go to sleep.
Robbie didn’t reply. He stared at me, angry or hurt or full of contempt, before pulling the insulating blanket out of his backpack. He didn’t bother sweeping twigs and leaves off the grass before lying down.
I collected a few dry branches and rocks and made a pathetic fire with Marc’s lighter, then started writing in here. I am strangely awake for an exhausted person. Half of me wants to wake up R so I can argue with him some more. The other half doesn’t know what it wants.
I was about to curl up in my sleeping bag and blanket when I noticed that Robbie was shivering. It was pretty cold out, and he didn’t bring as much warm clothing as I did. I fished out an extra pair of socks, a toque, and a sweater and threw it all on top of him. As he sat up and put everything on, I tossed the last of the dry wood onto the fire.
R
Thank you.
JS
Don’t worry about it.
I took a sip of vodka and offered the bottle to him. He judged me with his eyes but sat down next to me and drank anyway.
JS
I ran out of water.
R
Keeps you warm I guess. You’re not cold?
JS
(Yes.)
No. One of the perks of being cold-blooded.
R
Why do you always do this?
JS
Do what?
R
Pretend like you don’t have a heart. Like you don’t care.
I took the bottle from him.
JS
Maybe I don’t.
R
Why can’t you ever say what you mean?
JS
(Who are you, my psychotherapist?)
I do. I’ve been told I’m very blunt.
R
Not when it comes to this.
I didn’t know what to say to that. So I took another drink.
R
I like you.
I met his eyes for a brief moment. Long enough.
R
I voted you out because I knew I didn’t stand a chance against you. When you left I thought it would get easier. But everyone kept talking about you. I didn’t want to be distracted by you. Or hurt. But then I’d see you in the hallway and I’d give anything to know what you were thinking. But you always kept walking. I voted you out because I thought I wanted to win more than anything. [Pause.] I was wrong.
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Isn’t that what I wanted too?
JS
You helped me get back on the show. Why?
R
Because you deserved another chance. You deserved to be on the show more than anyone else. Especially Marc.
JS
Good thing Marc lost the sudden death challenge.
R
Yeah, well. He had a little help.
JS
What do you mean?
R
I filled his water bottle with vodka. I encouraged him to drink.
JS
So you did it because you wanted it to be you and me at the end.
R
Is that what you wanted?
I wanted to make eye contact and hold it and hold my breath until my lungs smothered whatever else was happening inside my rib cage. I imagined my heart as something smooth that I could turn over in my hands, free of messy attachments. Something I could keep to myself.
It didn’t work.
R
Please be blunt right now.
I had nothing to say and no way to say it. My mind forgot all the words I’d ever known. I wanted to be honest, though. I wanted to say what I meant.
So I kissed him.
He kissed me back.
We pulled away from each other, and it took me a while to notice everything else—the smell of smoke, the half of me that was warmed by the fire and the half that wasn’t, the soft call of an owl. Everything that wasn’t him. We sat together in comfortable silence, the warm pressure of his leg next to mine. He reached for my hand, and I let him hold it until we fell asleep.
I woke up with Robbie on one side of me and a camera on the other. I tried to get up, but my muscles wouldn’t let me. Every part of me weighed ten times as much as it should. My mouth was dry.
JS
(It’s not what it looks like.)
Uhhmphh.
I flailed around, slowly and painfully, until I was able to sit up. I reached for Robbie’s backpack and grabbed a water bottle. It was empty.
JS
Uhhmggh.
A HOOtoque handed me a full bottle. I let it dangle in front
of my face.
HOOTOQUE
It’s all right, you won’t get in trouble for taking it.
JS
. . .
HOOTOQUE
I promise.
I grabbed the bottle and drank most of the contents. The rest fell on my sweater because my hands were shaking. I looked over at Robbie, who was still sleeping, then back at the HOOtoque.
JS
It’s not what it looks like. We were cold.
HOOTOQUE
. . .
JS
(Sigh.)
After I managed to get up, I changed my sweater, popped some Tylenol, and restarted the fire. The HOOtoque gave me four liters of water, and I made coffee with Robbie’s camping pot. I caught up in this journal, and now I’m waiting for him to get up.
He’s taking forever.
DFS
Maybe we should talk about what happened last night.
JS
All right.
DFS
I think you are making progress.
JS
In what way?
DFS
In most ways. What are you afraid of?
JS
Looking stupid in front of the camera.
DFS
And yet you tripped and fell down a mountain. You finished a stranger’s half-eaten dinner. You spoke to an entire bar. You woke up next to Robbie.
JS
You don’t need to rub it in.
DFS
And then there’s Robbie.
JS
What about him?
DFS
Don’t tell me you’re not afraid of him. Or afraid of yourself.
JS
I won’t.
DFS
But you kissed him, for Christ’s sake!
JS
Please keep your voice down.
I looked up at the HOOtoques in case they could see what I was writing, but they were still chatting softly on the other side of the fire, my back to their cameras.
JS
I’m still afraid of other things. Like losing.
DFS
All I’m saying is that you’re making progress.
After Robbie woke up and had some coffee and granola bars, AP made a surprise visit. He was fresh and clean and smelled like cologne. It was annoying.
AP
Congratulations on making it this far! It’s nice to see you two getting along.
Robbie and I kept our faces blank, but I hope he was laughing on the inside. I think he would also rather be amused than mortified.
AP
I have a surprise for both of you—a video message from your families.
We waited for the catch.
AP
No strings attached.
AP opened up his laptop and played Robbie’s message first. His parents filled the screen, smiling. They told him how proud they were of how far he had come this year, how they were sending him a care package full of his favorite food and extra socks because he never threw his out when they got holes, how excited they would be if he won the car and could visit in the summer. How he should call as soon as the show ended. How much they loved him. Robbie smiled to himself as he watched, not saying anything except to ask if AP could play it again.
AP opened my message, and there was Carol, sitting on our living room couch. When did she start using lipstick?
CAROL
Hey, Janie. I have no idea what you’re doing right now because they won’t tell me, but I hope they’re making you work for it. If you win the car, I call dibs on the first ride! That’s not why I want you to win, though. You should win because you deserve it. Sorry, Robbie. If you win tonight maybe you can make it to my party tomorrow afternoon. A bunch of friends are coming over, and there’s someone I want you to meet. I’m not naming names though because this is probably on TV and that would be super embarrassing. Um. The producers wanted to interview Mom and Dad, but I asked if I could do it instead. I wanted to say sorry for what I said the other night. I never want to be the one to make things harder for you. We’re on the same team, remember? Anyway. I love you. GO TEAM SINNER! SINNERS ARE WINNERS! Has anyone else thought of that before? Um. Sorry. This is embarrassing. Okay bye.
By the time AP closed the laptop, my heart had fallen out of my chest and splattered on my feet. Carol’s birthday was today, and I had completely forgotten. She must have recorded this message yesterday, which meant her party was today. Her sweet sixteen party.
I had never missed her birthday before.
JS
Hey, Alexander—how long will it take to bike to Calgary from here?
AP
At least nine hours. But since you’re already tired and sore from yesterday, I’d say ten or eleven. Not including breaks.
JS
So I’d get there around . . .
AP
Around eleven, maybe. Then interviews.
JS
I see.
Robbie and I started again soon afterward. It was already past noon. I wanted to fly down the trail, but my body refused to cooperate. The Civic was waiting for us on the main road. We didn’t stop. In a way I was glad we were going so slowly—I needed to figure out how to make it up to Carol. If that was even possible. We’d slept in the treehouse on her birthday every year since she was old enough.
Carol took my suicide attempt the hardest. She refused to visit me at the hospital. I desperately wanted her to come so I could see that some part of my life was still okay and innocent and the way it was supposed to be. I assumed she was mad at me because I did something I wasn’t supposed to do. Like when we were young and she was angry that I kept my loonie instead of putting it in the offering plate because Pastor Ron would just know, and he’d know Carol hadn’t done anything to stop me.
Eventually I realized she wasn’t mad, not at first. She was scared. She wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating, couldn’t go to school. “Do you know what it would have been like,” she told me when I finally came home, “to lose your only sister?”
Then she punched me as hard as she could.
She hit me square in the shoulder, over and over. I let her.
My skin turned red and purple. I wore that bruise as a badge. Proof that however fucked-up I was on the inside, it wasn’t all in my head. It was real, it was visible, and eventually, it would get better.
Carol slept on my floor that night and bombarded me with reality TV and sugary junk food so I wouldn’t drift off to sleep and leave her alone. I’ll never forget the relief of being with her and no one else, exhausted and hollow and scared myself, but okay. We were going to be okay. We were together.