Page 17 of Alice Chen's Reality Check
The contestants all cheer, and Chase and I join in, the thrum of excitement infectious.
“I’m Peter Dixon, one of the executive producers here on the show.Normally, I’d be in some cushy office in LA, but this show is my baby, so you’re going to be seeing a lot of me. Between us, this is going to be big.Huge.Think of whatever show is your favorite, and double it, and then double it again. That’s what this show is going to be, thanks to all of you. Now, in just a few moments, the cameras will start rolling, and your journey through hell will begin.”
Laughter ripples through the crowd. I catch a few couples eyeing each other nervously.
Peter Dixon grins. “Maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words. This is why I’m not the host. You’ll be meeting her very soon.”
A few people glance around, liketheDawn Taylor is going to emerge from the frothy waves, ocean water cascading down her age-defying, swimsuit-model body.
“But first,” says Peter Dixon, “to get to our tropical island, we’re asking you to trust your partner and take a leap of faith off this boat together!”
Producers and production assistants swarm in, escorting contestants to the bow of the boat. Chase and I are brought to the highest point of the bow, and I realize the crew is waiting to see what we’ll do. I reach out for Chase.
But he’s already gone.
“Awesooooooome!” he shouts, doing a backflip over the edge of the boat. It’s a twenty-foot drop, and the water is so clear that I can see the jagged rocks that line the bottom of the bay.
I can’t move. My brain starts calculating the speed at which I would fall, the force with which I’d hit the water, the impact needed to cause a concussion that would take me out of the show.
Chase calls something to me from the water, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. Everything sounds fuzzy and far away. All I can hear is the boom of my heartbeat—until I feel a hand, solid and warm, on my shoulder.
“Slayer?”
That nickname.
That voice.
Suddenly I’m sixteen again, in the auditorium of the community center where all the league competitions for our local high schools were held, staring down my nemesis: the only person who could match my arguments in Model UNandmy SAT score. The one who always had a clever comeback no matter what insult I threw at him, and who’d witnessed my greatest victories and my most humiliating losses.
He can’t be here at this place, at this time. There’s no way.
“Daniel?” I whisper. I turn to look, praying I’m wrong. And there he is, with those sharp, curious brown eyes, his dark eyebrows tilted with amusement, and his full lips quirked into a smile. The mole dotting the space between his eye and his temple. I keep looking for something, anything, to prove that I’m hallucinating, that I’m dreaming, but he’s really here. “Daniel Cho?”
His smile widens as he steps closer.
“I thought that might be you. I didn’t recognize you at first. In that.” His gaze briefly darts down to my bikini and then quickly snaps back up to my face. “What are you doing here?”
I open my mouth, but to my horror, I can’t find anything to say. But I’ve never been speechless in front of Daniel. Ican’tbe speechless in front of Daniel. I need to escape. And there’s one way out.
I jump off the boat.
The weightlessness is a relief, all my fear coalescing into the triumph of actually following through, and I hit the water, sliding underneath the waves. Underwater, it’s beautifully blue and quiet, almost blissful, and then I start floating upward, and everything seems to speed up again. When I break through the surface, I gasp for air, desperately combing my hair out of my face and frantically adjusting my bikini top, which has ridden up.
“Knew you could do it, babe!” Chase says, surfacing next to me.
“You left me!” I shout, splashing him. I hope it looks playful, but honestly, I’m pissed, and I’m shaken by my encounter with my old high school rival. “We were supposed to do it as a couple,” I say, justloud enough to be heard over the water. Around us, other couples are making their way to shore, their shouts and laughter mingling with the sound of the ocean.
“Okay, okay.” Chase holds up his hands in surrender as he treads water. “Point taken. Let’s get out of this water, huh?”
Swimming far, far away from here as quickly as possible seems like a great idea. We paddle to the shore. Chase tries to wait for me, but he can’t resist swimming faster and catching up to the others. By the time I’m able to stand up in the surf, I find myself arriving at the beach with the one person I was trying to avoid.
“You beat me to the beach,” says my living nightmare personified. “I’d expect nothing less from you, Slayer. It’s been what, seven and a half years since I kicked your ass at Regional Quiz Bowl Finals?”
“I remember that somewhat differently,” I huff. He’s talking like no time has passed, and without meaning to, I fall back into old habits. “And it figures that you’d remember one of the few times you came out on top. Remember the state spelling bee? Mock Trial? The interschool performing arts bake sale?” I wave three fingers in his face.
He puts his hand over mine, curling my fingers down. “You’re overcounting, Slayer. Bake sales aren’t a competition.”
I stare at him. People don’t usually interrupt me when I’m in the middle of making excellent points, but of course Daniel isn’t just anyone.
