Kate wouldn’t let me finish talking, but honestly, I wasn’t sure what to say.
I wanted to tell her this was the only way to win the prize.
I wanted to tell her I’d split the money.
I wanted to tell her this was the hardest decision I’d ever made and there wasn’t a way out without losing everything.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I’d woken up only a few minutes before Kate, and barely had time to think of a cover story. Lying to her made me queasy, like at any point while we were speaking I could have projectile vomited. I tried to keep my cool and not say too much. She knew me well enough to know if I was hiding something. I didn’t turn on the light because she’d see my usually-under-control restless leg syndrome in full swing, and my eyes brimming with tears when I suggested I’d go the rest of the journey alone.
I hated this.
I hated myself for this.
But what was most important now was to win, so I could make it all worth it. She’d have money to go live in New York, and I’d have money for my parents, college, and my business. The knot forming in my stomach told me that I was doing something wrong for the right reason. Or maybe I was doing something right for the wrong reason. What scared me was I couldn’t tell which was which.
There was no one to discuss this with now. I was on my own. In this freezing, rainy gloom, I was all alone.
I would win alone.
* * *
Behind a barely-wide-enough pine tree, a deep feeling of unease set in as I watched a group of contestants pack up their camp stuff. There were four of them, and only one of me.
“We don’t have much farther to go. We might finish this evening, possibly even late afternoon,” the girl with the long braid and blue bandanna said. She had a thick German accent.
Her partner, a raggedy wilderness man, had a grizzled beard so bushy that forest animals could be hiding in there and he wouldn’t know it. As he took down their tents, he grunted to his campmates, “What’re you gonna do with the money if you guys win?”
The other two scruffy guys laughed. One yelled, “Coke,” as the other shouted, “Hos!” They fell back in laughter on their sleeping bags.
Bandanna Girl and Grizzly Beard Guy didn’t show any signs of repulsion as they packed up their cooking gear. They didn’t even notice when the two scruffalumps stood up and came around from behind and smacked them both in the wrists simultaneously with these bug zappers that looked like tennis rackets. The jolt made the couple yelp in pain. More importantly, though, their wristbands unclicked and fell on the ground.
Comrade betrayal, for coke and hos. These guys were brutal, attacking their own pack like that.
The woman screamed, “What the fuck, Hans? Andreas? We had a pact!”
The scruffier, doughier dude scratched his belly. “We did what we needed to win. Fuck the pact.”
Without hesitating, Bandanna Girl and Grizzly Beard Guy both jumped him. He went down hard, and they took turns pummeling his face. Instead of helping his partner, the coke guy grabbed his backpack and ran down the path as fast as any stoned person could, partnership be damned. Coke and hos all to himself. Too bad he didn’t have his map, which had been next to his bag but had blown toward me when he left his former tribe. He would’ve figured out he was running full speed the wrong way, heading in the direction of the cave.
I folded the map in my hand and stuck it in my cargo pants back pocket.
With these four contestants accounted for, it meant there were only two others left in the competition other than Kate and me. I didn’t know if they’d be together or competing separately. But with the coke guy heading the wrong way, I did know that these two other people were the only ones who could stop me from winning.
My heels dug deep into the muddy path, making me adjust my backpack every few steps and use my bo staff as a walking cane. Gnats and mosquitoes took turns landing on my face like it was a runway, so I took a brief break to douse myself in deep woods bug repellant. The smell of decaying leaves, pine, sweat, and Deet filled my nose with each inhale.
After a couple of hours of walking, I crept into the woods to break for water and food. Parking myself under a fir tree, I leaned against the soft bark and closed my eyes. I’d gone through nearly all of my water reserve and was relying mostly on the Capri Suns to keep me hydrated.
Twigs crunched nearby, startling me awake. Before I reacted, Kate came around the tree and held out her palm, in a “stop right there” formation.
She unsheathed the stun gun I’d given her. Irony at its best.
“You’re here?” I gaped. “How?”
She snapped. “I followed your footprints. Surprised I made it this far?”
No point in lying now. “Yeah, I am. How are you even walking?”
“This German guy came running up to the cave and saw me wrapping my ankle. I traded him my map for some heavy-duty painkillers. And steroid tablets. He was a walking dispensary. He grilled me with questions and assumed I wasn’t a threat since I was injured. I didn’t bother to tell him he had the map upside down when he walked away in the wrong direction.”
A roar from my stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten anything before I passed out from exhaustion. “Well, good for you.” My tongue was chalky with those four words. I needed water. Not Capri Suns. Badly.
As if sensing my thirst, Kate pulled her canteen from her side and took a long swig. “I’d offer you some, but you know. You’re an asshole.”
Kate was smaller than me. It would be easy for me to take everything she had, along with her stun gun and backpack of supplies, with a swift tackle, headlock, or choke hold. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Because it was Kate.
I swallowed hard. “It’s still the best this way.” Her dad sure as hell made that crystal clear with me. “When the steroids and pain meds wear off, you’ll slow down.”
Her chin thrusted up. “I don’t want you back, anyway. I’m leaving. May the best person win.” She took a few steps and turned. “After all of this, I never want to see you again,” she spat. The look on her face said everything. She loathed me.
Her words pierced through my heart, and air left my lungs. I was doing this for her, but she could never find out.
Up and over the hill, with her back to me, she disappeared.