I'm Gonna Give All My Secrets Away

"That was pretty rough, what happened to Liam," Kathryn said as she walked with Turner towards the hotel. "Although, to be fair, it wasn't like Kendra did it just randomly off the cuff, there was some reason behind it."

"Some reason," Turner echoed. "Although, was there really any reason to bring her-I mean him, and everyone else onto this island at all?"

"No, not really," Kathryn agreed. "Kendra's gotten better over the last couple days though, and I think she's really trying to have us al get along with one another for whatever reason."

"Are you only saying that she's gotten better because she let you win that competition without taking any of your clothes off?" Turner's eyes narrowed a little bit.

"No, not at all!" Kathryn asserted, but modified her claim a bit. "Well, maybe a little, but with the way she worded it, she couldn't reasonably say what I was doing was wrong without changing the rules on everybody. What I meant was that she hasn't been nearly as insufferable as she usually is on a weekly basis."

"Wow, I know I said this the other day, but I'm surprised how quickly you've come around to this idea," Turner mused.

"I haven't come around to the idea, per se," Kathryn corrected. "More like I'm glad that the host of this show has some semblance of decency...sometimes."

"Decency, that's an interesting word for it," Turner raised an eyebrow before shaking his head. "Sorry, I know she's been better, but I'm still in shock about what happened to La-dammit-Liam. That's exactly what I'm talking about, she's messing with our minds."

"Join the club," Kathryn smirked. "I'm 3 for 3 on mind-scrambling transformations."

"Anyways, what d'you got planned for tonight?" Turner hopefully asked. "Although, you did just hear that you were going out with me first a few hours ago, and haven't had any time to plan-"

"You might think that I haven't had time to set anything up, but you should remember who you're working with," Kathryn interrupted with a smirk. "I'm not a procrastinator like Emma or Sara, I have things laid out for months."

There was a question on whether or not she should get on the train of getting bonus points. Obviously, Paige and Abby were likely candidates to get even more bonus points this round, but neither of them were going to be passing her. Emma and Becca were wildcards about the round.

Kathryn did want to enjoy herself, but she couldn't help and analyze the situation she was in. Part of this enjoying herself was going to be these nights out with Turner. She had thoroughly enjoyed their "date" night out at the escape room last week. So what if it wasn't as well-liked by the fans as Sara's or Abby's? She needed her well-being to come first.

---

All that work for a whole zero points.

Abby really had tried hard, and she had mended things with the young girl by essentially forfeiting her chance to get first place. She was probably leading the charge near the beginning, but oh well. This game wasn't all about victory points, especially as she was more than willing to make up the difference with Turner on her night. It wasn't like Sara was going to win the game this round, unless she managed to find a way to get 76 points in one week.

She had tried to suppress these thoughts that kept cropping up as the challenge was going on, her transformation coming into effect with all of Turner's fantasies coming into her head as her own. She did feel vindicated that she had him pegged...not in that way...but in the sense that she was right when saying that he was fairly vanilla. It meant that it wasn't as much of a mental shuffle. She already had to deal with coming to terms with these new memories about...Liam. It was made worse because the two of them were roommates. How would she even bring it up between the two of them? Obviously, it was something that needed to be talked about, so she could clear the air, but he always seemed so touchy about these sorts of things.

Fair, though. If she was **** to change gender, she would feel kinda touchy about it too.

Liam had also been doomed to yet another severe punishment-esque transformation, although he did deserve it in a sense. As much as she didn't want to make enemies with her roommate, she couldn't deny that he was being an idiot during the challenge.

"What're you doing?" Becca asked, startling Abby.

"Jesus Christ, don't sneak up on me like that!" Abby responded after screaming and taking a few deep breaths.

"Sorry, you know I can't resist that sometimes, Abs," Becca answered, more lightheartedly than she had been in the last week. "Anyways, what's going on with you?"

"Just pondering all that's happened," Abby replied nonchalantly. "You seem more...upbeat than usual, sis. What's up with you?"

"I was going about this all wrong," Becca shrugged. "I'd just been trying to ignore everything that's been going on, and that's not really good for my mental health or point totals."

"I take it that your fourth place finish didn't hurt either?" Abby raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, not really, but I am a bit nervous about Kathryn," Becca changed the subject.

"Worried about Kathryn?" Abby echoed. "Why?"

"Did you hear what she asked Mandy about during the challenge?" Becca asked.

"I don't think so..." Abby wracked her brain trying to remember if she heard Mandy say anything during the challenge. Similar to Lana, she wasn't exactly a bit talker. "I was a little bit busy helping Emma look for her top."

"Oh, that's right," Becca recalled. "Well, anyways, she asked Mandy about ways to seduce Turner or something like that. And it's her date night tonight."

"That's weird," Abby made a confused face. "I don't really know Kathryn that well, but it seems like she knows exactly what she's going to do at every moment of the day, why would she ask Mandy for advice? It's not like she's 20 years old, inexperienced, and naïve. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you."

"But why would she say that?" Becca restated. "It's not like her either to be random and spontaneous, unless she was trying to get a rise out of me specifically. That begs the question, why would she want to do that?"

"Woah woah woah," Abby stopped this runaway train, holding her hand up. "This is exactly what you didn't want to do, sis. You shouldn't be thinking about this like a boulder that just started heading down the mountain, you're going to collapse under your own thoughts if you keep this up. Just let loose a little bit and relax!"

"I'm not like you, Abs, I can't just sit back and let whatever happens happen," Becca protested.

"Sure you can!" Abby ignored her contradiction of her previous statements. "You know what we need to do with you? We need to find you a hobby or something that you can do here. Let's take a stroll downtown, see if we can get you engrossed in something so that you're not worrying about Kathryn."

"O-okay," Becca stammered, swept up in her sister's sudden shift.

---

"See, that was better!" Charlotte clasped her hands together. "Did you feel better about that one?"

"I guess so," Sara shook her head after resurfacing, flinging water everywhere. "Thanks again for teaching me how to do this, I can't wait to show up Kathryn in a few days!"

"Of course!" Charlotte excitedly responded, before switching back to her instructional voice. "Alright, why don't you go up to the second one there and try the same dive, just from higher up?"

"Aye aye, captain," Sara mock-saluted as she ascended out of the pool and walked over to the diving boards that Charlotte had been teaching her how to dive off of. Ever since Charlotte and Kathryn had been such experts at it the first night, she'd wanted one of them to teach her how it was done. Since her roommate was gone tonight, it was the perfect opportunity to, and then she could surprise Kathryn with her impressive skill tomorrow.

Okay, maybe the skill wouldn't come that fast, but she could surprise Kathryn with her new abilities sometime soon.

Charlotte was also really good at teaching, something that must've come from her days as head cheerleader or something. She'd been informative and given Sara loads of different pointers, but never made her feel stupid for not understanding something or messing up.

"Hey Becca, Abby," Sara greeted as she saw the siblings walking towards town.

"I didn't know you were a swimmer, Sara," Abby pointed out, looking at the girl on the diving board.

"Oh, I'm not," Sara dismissed. "Charlotte's the expert here, she's just teaching me so I can show up Kathryn sometime, who is also really good at diving and swimming."

"Hey, Sara, you know Kathryn pretty well, right?" Becca suddenly asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Um, I guess?" Sara answered, confused. "Probably better than anyone else here, aside from Turner, why do you ask?"

"Well, I was wondering, do you think she's gonna do anything with Turner?" Becca continued.

"Oh brother," Abby closed her eyes and shook her head disappointedly. "You don't have to answer that, Sara, c'mon Becca!"

With that, Abby grabbed her sister's hand and dragged her away from the pair at the pool, who were both bewildered.

"What just happened?" Charlotte slowly and comically turned her head back towards Sara, who was still standing on the middle diving board, mouth agape in wondering what just happened.

---

Emma sat on the shoreline, throwing little shells she found along the shoreline into the ocean as the sun set in front of her. She'd never felt this alone before in her lifetime. There was always something going on with her life. In high school, she always had a clique of friends to spend time with, whether that be Turner, Becca, and Paige or other friends who were closer to her age. In college, she had all these parties that she would always go to, just to pass the time every now and then.

But now, it seemed like everything was going bad for her. Becca was still mad at her, Paige was being her usual self, and while she wouldn't say anybody else was really hostile to her, she didn't feel a sense of connection with anybody else here. Of course, there was Turner, but she wasn't going to see him until the end of the week, a far cry from the first date billing she had gotten in the previous round.

Why couldn't she catch a break here? She had always been well-liked by the people around here, but it just seemed like everyone here didn't want anything to do with her.

Oddly enough, she saw Liam, or whatever they were calling him now, digging his feet into the sand farther up the shoreline and just sitting there, staring off into the sunset.

"Should I go up and talk to him?" she thought to herself. "It's not like I don't know him, we shared a mutual friend in school. He seems lonely, I'm lonely right now. At the very least, we could be alone together, which would help take some of the edge off."

Having made up her mind, she started slowly ambling over to the gamer girl, with a bit of energy inserted into her demeanor so as not to come across as imposing. Although, it was a bit difficult for Emma to come off as imposing even if she wanted to be, but that was a separate problem.

"Hey Liam, how are you?" she started, causing Liam to look up at her.

"Well, let's see, I started my day by being awoken by some crazy Southern lady on a power trip who decided to make me grow fucking massive tits, then tries to **** me into competing in a challenge where we have to basically strip down, and then when I decide I don't want to **** myself like that, just goes ahead and rewrites my history," Liam ranted. "So, yeah, I think I'm doing pretty well, how about you?"

Emma sat there for a moment. Thinking about it, it was a pretty stupid question to ask how he was doing, but it was just so ingrained in her head as a classic greeting.

"Do you want to do something, take your mind off of everything going on?" she suggested.

"No thanks, I really just want to be alone right now," he declined.

"C'mon, you've basically been alone the last 11 or whatever days!" Emma pressed. "We could go get some ice cream or something."

"I have not been alone, I've spent a lot of time with...Abby," Liam protested.

"Abby's been out doing stuff almost the entire week," Emma countered. "Let's go, we can find something to do in town!"

"Fine," he resigned, slowly standing up and joining the upbeat girl.

---

"You know me so well," Turner said as he filed into the seat adjacent to Kathryn.

"Woah woah woah, just because I decided to go to a concert tonight doesn't mean that I did it just because you're a music aficionado," Kathryn backed up a bit. "I mean, that was definitely a part of it, because I know how much you love your music, but I'm a pretty avid fan of concerts as well."

"Really now?" Turner raised his eyebrow. Not out of suspicion or negativity, but just adding that bit of information to his brain.

"I am," Kathryn asserted. "I was in my college orchestra. Played the cello."

"Y'know, you do seem like a cellist to me," Turner studied her for a second.

"Oh, I seem like a cellist?" Kathryn echoed. "Why might that be?"

"I don't know, you just have this sort of cellist aura around you," Turner shrugged.

"You seem to have an aura around you too," Kathryn joked back, holding out her hand as if she was reading waves emanating from Turner. "I'm detecting some hints of...pianist and trombonist. Like you played in your school's jazz band or something like that."

"Wow, how did you know?" Turner sarcastically asked.

"Almost like you told me," Kathryn winked. "Although you didn't tell me about the jazz band, was that part true?"

"Bullseye," Turner admitted. "That's where I met some of the people I know today...some of which are here. People like Emma, or Becca, or Paige..."

His voice trailed off as the memories of Paige and what she had done to him right before a jazz band concert rose to the forefront of his mind, which of course caused all sorts of memories that he had created with Paige to pop up in his head, ones from the days when they were together and having fun, ones from the time that he was with Becca and Paige was just in the back of his mind, and ones that he had created on his night with her, as little as he wanted to remember those.

"Y'know, isn't it considered bad manners or something to talk about someone else you'd dated while you're on a date with another girl?" Kathryn teased.

"You're right, you're right," Turner seriously responded, causing Kathryn to drop her jokey attitude. "This is your night, I shouldn't be spending it-"

"Hold on a second," Kathryn held up her hand. "This thing here? We're not doing that. We're not gonna spend our night doing some sort of heartfelt thing, whether that be reminiscing over your time with someone else or apologizing for reminiscing over your time with someone else. We're gonna listen to the concert, you're gonna have a good time, and we're gonna get some grub at the end."

Turner wished he could've responded to her in some way, but as he opened his mouth to speak, the lights in the concert hall dimmed and the stage lit up with prominence.

---

"So what did you and Turner get up to on your date night?" Charlotte prodded, as the two of them were too tired to keep going with Sara's training. "I mean, whatever it was, it must've been enough to surpass even Paige, who probably did quite a bit."

"I...I don't really want to talk about it," Sara blushed, remembering the prior night. "I mean, I feel so bad for Becca, because everyone's trying to steal her boyfriend here, and I didn't want to be a part of it, but I just sort of lost control for a bit there, and..."

"Slow down, slow down," Charlotte soothed, putting her hand on Sara's shoulder. She smiled a little bit at the role reversal here, since Sara was normally the person responsible for calming other people down and she was normally the hyperactive one that needed calming down.

"Sorry, sorry," Sara shook her head rapidly. "I would be lying if I said I hadn't already had my eyes on him. I mean, I used to see him a lot before Phoebe—my friend, Turner's sister—and I left for college. I used to spend a lot of my time over at their house, it was almost like he was a brother to me. That's gonna sound really weird combined with what I'm gonna say next, but it's the best analogy I could come up with. Anyways, I saw him all the time there and he was always so nice, so respectful, but also had a great sense of humor and was very wide-eyed and ambitious. Then one day he brought this girl home, Paige, and I got kinda upset."

"You wanted to get with him?" Charlotte confirmed, to which Sara slowly and reluctantly nodded. "Even though you're the age of his older sister?"

"I know, every guy's fantasy come true, right?" Sara jokes, which did very little to help the tense atmosphere. "But then, Paige came and went, and was replaced by Becca. After a few years, I kinda thought I had lost my opportunity because I kept thinking 'Oh, I'll do it tomorrow'. Now, I have that opportunity back, but whenever I even think about doing anything scandalous with him, there's always this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that reminds me that I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing because of Becca."

"Because they're dating?" Charlotte asked.

"Yeah," Sara responded.

"Pssh, dating isn't married," Charlotte waved in a surprising change of tone. "Hell, they're not even engaged!"

"What, so you condone cheating?" Sara asked. She knew it was a bit of a fallacious argument, but hoped Charlotte wouldn't pick up on it.

"No, ordinarily not," Charlotte relented. "But live a little! We're on a show where he's the center of attention, where trying to appeal to him and doing, as you said, 'scandalous actives' is encouraged! Even if after this, we all go back to our lives before, at least you have the opportunity to experience whatever you've wanted to in your years of knowing him, without really much consequence!"

"I guess so," Sara acknowledged. "That still doesn't mean that I'm gonna suddenly think it's okay."

"No, just like me simply being here isn't gonna suddenly turn me heterosexual," Charlotte admitted. "But even I'm willing to experiment while I'm here. Weeks without having to worry about those duties that we had back on Earth? I don't have to pay for food here, I get whatever the hell I want from the dining hall, whenever I want! I don't have to study for my exams tomorrow, because, well because I don't have any exams. Just relax a little bit! You're usually good at that, right?"

"Ordinarily I am good at relaxing, but the gravity of what I'd done last night just hit me when you asked me that," Sara countered.

"Ooh, yeah, that reminds me, what did you do?" Charlotte suddenly remembered what had brought this whole conversation up in the first place.

"Nothing really, just a nice dinner and a romantic night stargazing," Sara offhandedly said, flustering a little as she remembered the details of what happened after the stargazing.

"Well it must've been a really good night of stargazing for you to climb that high," Charlotte remarked.

"Speaking of, I wonder what Kathryn and Turner are up to," Sara commented. "I know she and Turner didn't really get up to anything last week aside from an escape room, but I bet she'd be willing to go for points. Who knows, she may have written up some sort of risk analysis report or something about the pros and cons of doing everything with Turner."