The Sight of You Sends My Heart Racing

"That was...phenomenal," Turner marveled as he walked out of the concert hall with Kathryn. The entire experience had raised a lot of questions about the island, such as why there was a massive concert hall set to seat 1000 people when only around a dozen lived here, or where on this planet they found the musicians to perform.

"Who knew that one German guy could've written such sentimental music?" Kathryn concurred.

"So, you want to do anything else or just retire to the room for the night?" Turner offered.

"Up to you, but I guess we can just go up for now," Kathryn answered. "I can't use all of my ideas today, I got weeks more of date night ideas, and I can't just do them all in one night because I'm super excited or something."

"Oh, so you think you're still gonna be in the game for a few weeks?" Turner raised an eyebrow.

"You think I won't?" Kathryn countered. "I think you're forgetting that a certain someone here managed to get a first place win earlier today because of her superior intellect."

"I didn't say that, I just wondered what you were thinking about your current place in the game," Turner amended.

"Well, you know, my current place in this game is fifth, which I think is a pretty comfortable place to be sitting at," Kathryn joked. "Although, it does kinda suck having the first date of the week, because then I don't know what all the rest of the girls are gonna do throughout the week and plan based on that."

"I would've said that Emma had the same problem, but she had other problems," Turner noted.

"There you go again, talking about other girls on your date," Kathryn flippantly waved her hand around.

Kathryn wanted to not let it bother her. Of course he was going to talk about other girls, he was surrounded by them whilst he was here. In fact, she hadn't seen a single male walking around this island aside from the one standing right beside her. Why did it matter to her anyways? It's not like she was in love with him. Her coworker? Please, that would be completely unprofessional, especially since she was supposed to be his superior, the one who was supposed to train him for the job he currently had.

"Sorry, you know I-" Turner began, before raising his head to see Kathryn's **** smirk. "Oh, you're not serious again."

"C'mon, loosen up a little bit here," Kathryn poked. "I know I've got a reputation for being a bit imposing and domineering, but even I think you're a little too serious for your own good. Let's get you back in a good mood, what was your favorite part of that last piece they played there?"

Kathryn didn't consider herself too much of a music theory nerd, and she incorrectly assumed that Turner was gonna be the same way. She figured that while he did know what he was talking about when it came to music, it wasn't gonna be like a full-blown thesis paper of an analysis on a piece.

Boy, was she wrong.

She was then treated to a treatise that would've put the works of all the Greek philosophers to shame, of Turner nit-picking every minute detail that he could and talking about the effect it had on the overall piece. She did find it a bit of a chore at first, trying to keep up with him whilst he was off in La La Land, hyper-focusing on this one subject, but she slowly started understanding his in-depth scrutiny of the music, and began to even enjoy it. After all, analysis was the one thing they had in common, because it was both of their jobs, so she could definitely appreciate a little bit of examination every once in a while.

She just had to stop that stupid part of her brain that kept getting jealous when he brought up Becca, which was shockingly often for a monologue about music. Sometimes it'd be "Oh, this song reminds me of her", other times it could be "Which reminds me, she recommended something like this piece to me". It should've brought up joy in her that they had such a nice relationship, right? Not jealousy. She wasn't jealous of Becca. Her life was, admittedly a bit boring at times, but it was fulfilling.

In order to try to curb his enthusiasm, she just grabbed his hand, rolling her eyes and failing to conceal a smile, and led him out of the building as he was still talking about the music. She didn't really have many more ideas for a date night. Well, she did, but not any that she wanted to use now. Therefore, she started walking him back to the hotel.

"...and that's why, in the advent of contemporary classical music, Mahler was a true genius in that last movement of his ninth symphony!" Turner finished, satisfied.

"Wow, that's quite the...analysis," Kathryn responded. She didn't mean to be dismissive, but how the fuck was she supposed to keep track of what he was talking about the whole time?

"Oh, sorry, was I boring you?" Turner backtracked, worrying a bit.

"Nah, not at all," Kathryn half-lied. Her mind was working overtime, trying to keep all of those thoughts she was having earlier suppressed, especially around Turner. "I just started walking us back towards the hotel because it was starting to get a little stuffy in that room."

"Oh, that's understandable," Turner acknowledged.

Paige paced around her room, mentally strategizing about what to do in a few days.

"Sara's only three points ahead of me, and she goes before me in dates, so I shouldn't have any problems overcoming whatever she does on her date," she thought to herself.

Her strategy generally wasn't this formulaic, she usually never had a solid strategy, just seeing opportunities as they presented themselves and exploiting them for what she could. This was a different game, though. It was played on so many levels, and opportunities may not always be visible unless you created them.

Still, 79 points was so far out of reach, especially on the second week. Even if she could magically convince Turner to do whatever she wanted, it was near impossible to reach that number; there weren't enough words in the dictionary to describe the lengths at which she would have to stretch the word "sex" in order to even come close.

"Lost in thought?" Mandy asked at the doorway, which had been left ajar. Her sudden statement caused the blonde girl to jump in surprise.

"Shit, you don't get to do that to me!" Paige responded, after quickly turning around and seeing the source of the voice. "But yes, I am a bit lost in thought. Just trying to figure out how I can easily win the game and get that oh-so-valuable prize."

"You're already thinking about the end of the game?" Mandy incredulously asked. "I mean, props to you for trying to do that, but you're just gonna drive yourself mad doing that."

"The end of the game's not that far away though," Paige pointed out. "Sara and I are already over a fifth of the way there, and I bet she'll be about a third by the end of the week."

"That is true, but these BP that we have can be used to...dampen that lead a bit," Mandy countered.

"What do you mean?" Paige asked.

"Well, let's say a certain somebody like Sara was getting a little too far ahead from the competition," Mandy explained. "There's nothing stopping me from spending 3000 BP and triggering another transformation vote on her, which might screw her over. Plus, the closer somebody gets to that magical hundred points, the more people are going to want to try to lessen that gap or sabotage that person, because there can only be one winner."

"That's just great then," Paige sarcastically said, angrily flopping back down onto her bed. "Everyone here loves Sara for some unknown reason, it's like she can do no wrong in their eyes. Contrast that with yours truly, who everyone seems to view as a slimy, bitchy, disgusting liar and cheater who is just trying to get ahead in the competition. I'm sure people are going to be just peachy to me if I pull ahead again."

"Well then change their view of you," Mandy simply stated.

"Why didn't I think of that?" Paige's voice continued to ooze sarcasm. "I should just tell everyone 'Hey, I'm no longer a scheming bitch anymore, and you should believe me because I said so, so it's true'! I'm sure they'll believe me completely and not have any second thoughts or think there's anything fishy with that!"

"I didn't mean it that way," Mandy narrowed her eyes, signaling to Paige that she wasn't joking around about this. "You saw what happened to my daught-I mean son, right? In a matter of seconds, an entire history was rewritten, so much so that some of my past memories are a bit fuzzy, I don't know which ones are true sometimes. Now, yes, that was done with supernatural powers, which are a bit outside your price range, but you don't need magic in order to change people's perception of you. It's pretty easy to do with some elbow grease, and you could start by not trying to manipulate people like Emma."

"You heard about that?" Paige shamefully asked.

"I'm pretty sure everyone heard about that," Mandy amended. "Seriously? Emma was your target? You didn't expect that the most gossipy girl on the island would go parading around, telling everyone who had two ears and a spare moment what happened? Especially the person who's assigned to be in a room with her every night?"

"Okay, okay, point taken," Paige relented. "But how am I gonna get ahead in the game if I'm not doing that? Everyone else seems to have something to rely on! Becca has her status as Turner's girlfriend, Emma is endearing and naïve, Abby is level-headed, Sara is adored by everyone here, Kathryn is crafty and powerful, Charlotte is agreeable and non-confrontational, Lauren is easygoing, Lana...I mean Liam has people looking after him 24/7 because he's acting like a lost puppy, and you're resourceful. I've got nothing like that, all I have is my ability to lie, cheat, mudsling, and manipulate people to my heart's content."

"Then figure something else out," Mandy answered. "You know what I saw while I was out there? Charlotte was teaching Sara how to dive. That's a bit of a far cry from changing your entire persona, but you can still learn things while you're here. You're not an old dog like I am, you can still learn dozens of new tricks. I'm not saying you have to do this, but you're certainly not going to be making many friends with the way you're operating right now. You're just going to make people scared of you, and I know a few people who are gonna call bullshit on that and not feed into that fear, which'll leave you hanging high and dry. You said you were thinking about the endgame, but it's not just you here. There are eleven others you have to factor into this equation, and that's without Kendra throwing any new curveballs into this game."

"I guess so, I have been wanting to try to improve myself for awhile now, but I really haven't ever had the time to," Paige acquiesced.

"Well, while we're here, we've probably got at least five more weeks, that should be more than enough time to improve yourself," Mandy responded. "Especially since we don't have to do anything like work a 9-5 job, cook three meals a day, or pay utility bills while we're here."

"That does come at the price of being transformed though," Paige pointed out. "And unlike you, some people haven't exactly had transformations they can more or less ignore."

"That's what I thought about my transformations too, but then Kathryn decided to stroll up to me in this morning's challenge and ask me for advice about Turner," Mandy recalled, still seething about what had happened.

"Yeah, well you still got third place," Paige waved. "It's not as big a deal as someone's history getting rewritten."

Sara threw a ball against the wall, letting it bounce once on the floor before it fell back into her hand. Ordinarily, she'd be sleeping at this hour, but her conversation with Charlotte had left a nagging feeling in the back of her head.

"What if Kathryn does follow through?" she asked aloud to nobody, her roommate currently doing who knows what with Turner. "She's smart, she has to know that it has to happen eventually, right?"

It didn't bother her to think about the prospect as much as she thought it would. She knew Kathryn was pretty down-to-earth and told it like it was, which was more than could be said for a certain hot-tempered redhead that was just a few doors down.

"What does he see in her?" she continued. "Honestly, I don't see the two of them clicking well. She's a bit too fiery and he's a bit too much of a doormat for her."

"I'm sure there's a lot less romance in that relationship than there could be in one involving you," she internally added, but didn't say it out loud.

"I don't really know what to do with him," she admitted. "He came up with some excuse of how we should wait while we still have control or some bullshit like that. It's not like we even have much agency here to begin with though, how much longer does he want to wait? Until I'm **** to come crawling on my knees to him? Until I have literal hearts in my eyes and can't help but swoon when I see him?"

She chuckled nervously, but realized that both of those were very real possibilities of what Kendra could do to her. There was cold comfort in knowing that she was safer than most of the other contestants for the round, remembering Mandy's relatively insignificant transformation options.

"Well I don't feel comfortable waiting," she resolved. "I want to be with him while I'm still myself, I don't want to have to wait until my psyche has been chipped away at and molded into something unrecognizable. I want him to know the real me, the same person who knew him when he was younger. Charlotte was right, dating isn't married, and we're in a place where Turner is explicitly not exclusive to Becca. Tomorrow's my chance."

The stress ball that she had been nervously bouncing around the room landed in her hand again with a satisfying sound. Sara stood up, put the stress reliever on her bedside stand, and finally felt some peace of mind that would allow her to sleep. No more nagging thoughts about what to do tomorrow, no more overthinking the situation, just simple resolve and a plan for the following day.

"I've got this in the bag," she thought to herself as she slowly fell asleep.

"So...what's been going on in the two days since I saw you last?" Turner somewhat jokingly asked.

"Not a whole lot," Kathryn responded. "Honestly, you probably had a more interesting time than I did since our last date, what with your dates with Becca and Sara. How did those go?"

"Oh, look at the pot calling the kettle back, now you're talking about other women on our date," Turner jabbed.

"Yeah, but that's me talking about them," Kathryn teasingly retorted. "A whole different ball game than you."

"Sure, whatever you say," Turner smirked a bit. "Well, anyways, Becca and I-"

"Wow, don't you know it's rude to do that?" Kathryn interrupted, before bursting out in laughter with Turner.

After a moment of hysterics, Kathryn wiped her eyes and said "Sorry, I couldn't resist. Continue, what happened with you and Becca?"

"Uh...that's a bit of a sore subject," Turner rubbed the back of his neck nervously as he recounted the uncomfortable details of that night. "Really nothing happened on the night, she just kinda broke down as she realized what had happened over the last couple of weeks."

"Broke down?" Kathryn echoed. "Like she was yelling at you? Or did she start crying? Or did her engine malfunction? What do you mean by breaking down?"

"I choose D, none of the above," Turner answered. "I'm guessing it was her transformation, but she just kept acting strange whenever a new tidbit of information planted itself in her mind."

"How rude," Kathryn tutted teasingly. "You're not supposed to call your girlfriend 'weird' like that."

"Oh, shut it," he picked up a pillow and threw it at her, which she caught.

"Careful now, you don't wanna start something you're not gonna win," she warned, before putting the pillow down so she could directly face him again. "So...it wasn't all that it was made up to be?"

"Not at all," he solemnly affirmed. "It wasn't exactly the relaxing night that I thought it was gonna be."

"Well, what about Sara?" she asked. "She went all-out, didn't she?"

"She did," Turner responded, causing Kathryn to do an arm pump as she realized she was right. "I'm not sure how much I'm at liberty to say, but I'm sure that she'd be willing to tell you if you asked her."

"Boo, you're no fun," Kathryn pouted. "Anyways, it's getting kinda late, you wanna hit the hay?"

"Definitely," he smiled, happy to get an out from the current conversation.

As Turner was in the other room, Kathryn reminisced over the night. It hadn't been as interactive as the first date she had with him, but it was a lot more peaceful and a lot less taxing, especially after challenge day and transformation day.

He seemed to have enjoyed himself as well. Obviously he had a lot to say about it, able to fill in fifteen minutes straight with his thoughts on the concert, but his generally positive remarks had to have meant that he had fun. She figured he'd been to many concerts before, whether he played in them or just watched them.

"Not tonight," she said to herself as the thought of possibly doing something to get points rose to the forefront of her head. "I'm not **** like some of the other people here are, I'll hold my cards close until the right moment comes."