The Waiting, Part 3

Erin had never thought of herself as solar-powered, but the longer she spent in the dark sanctuary of Room 143, the more her mind started to drift. She’d curled up in bed with Claire, waiting for the world to stabilize, but the lightless hours had left her dull and off-balance, like a moth with no lamp to spiral toward. When she finally **** herself out of the room and into the hotel’s unfiltered morning, she felt not only exposed—she felt like she was about to be erased.

But the real reason she’d left Claire’s side was the sun. The need for it. Even now, as she navigated the wide stone walkways of the upper pavilion, she could feel the bright white pressure of sunlight pulling her forward, making every other desire seem incidental. The air outside was oven-hot and smelled of wet stone, salt, and blooming things. The moment she stepped from shadow into light, the sensation was electric: every pore on her skin opened, and the dull ache that had been rising behind her eyes evaporated instantly. She had been a plant for two weeks, and already she could tell when the chlorophyll wanted to party.

It was more than mere relief. It was hunger, then satiation, then—inevitably—arousal. There was no elegant way to describe it. The longer she stood in the sun, the more she could feel her blood thickening, pooling, surging to all the wrong places. Her clit throbbed in sync with her pulse. Even the sweat along her inner thighs felt charged, as if each droplet was a bead of focus, a new point of access for the light’s inexhaustible appetite.

For five minutes, Erin did nothing but stand there, letting the sun work on her. She shut her eyes and let the color saturate her skin, the light painting a peppermint after-image under her eyelids. Her mind didn’t exactly quiet, but the urgency of her thoughts began to dissolve, melting into a single, powerful craving for warmth, for now, for more. It was such a relief to feel something elemental again—a need with no moral complication, no strategy, no calculus. Just want.

She drifted over to the nearest lounger and flopped onto it. The white plastic was so hot it almost burned, but Erin just shifted until the backs of her thighs got used to it. She closed her eyes and stretched, enjoying the way her body felt too big, too soft, almost like the air itself was a second skin. Her mint green breasts spread luxuriously across her chest and onto her ribs, too heavy to sit up even if she’d wanted to. The loungers were angled toward the pool, but the only sound was the wind and the distant thrum of the filtration system. No Mildred, no harem girls, not even the sound of a cart or a leaf blower. Just her and the sun.

Five minutes became ten. She let her mind drift, replaying fragments from the night: the look on Andy’s face as he’d carried Laura up the sand, the blonde shadow of Claire’s tail around her own ankle, the moment when Sam had asked if anyone needed water and meant it, as if a sandwich or a soda might be the difference between falling apart and staying together. She remembered the look on Liesa’s face, the way she’d watched Andy like a starving person watching someone else eat.

She drifted on the edge of sleep, half-hoping to doze off and not wake until the world made sense again. She didn't, of course. Instead, she woke with her arms and legs gone numb, her thoughts smeared across the inside of her skull. At some point she rolled over to expose her back to the sun, then overcorrected and nearly slid off the lounger. Her breasts were so heavy that it took a minute to reposition them comfortably; there was no possible way to look casual or dignified in the process, but with no one around, she could pretend she didn’t care.

She’d just started to drift again in a faint haze of arousal when Sam appeared, crossing the flagstones with the slow, deliberate gait of someone who’d been up all night. Sam was in full rec-mode: worn shorts, ancient university tee, the same blue hair knotted into a coil on top of her head. The only sign of her stress was the way her jaw clicked each time her foot hit a stone.

"Hey," Sam said, not raising her voice above the bare minimum needed to traverse the deck.

Erin lifted a hand in greeting, instantly regretting the effort as her arm flopped off the chair. “Hey yourself.”

Sam glanced up at the sun, squinting. “You gonna roast out here all day, or what?”

“Only until I combust,” Erin said, “or until I lose ten pounds by evaporation. Whichever comes first.”

Sam grunted and plopped herself down on the edge of a planter, the only other seat in range. She looked like she was running inventory in her head—counting teeth, limbs, the remaining stores of emotional fortitude. After a minute, she reached for the hose spooled on the wall, turned the tap, and let a thin stream of water trickle onto her hand. The sound of it was hypnotic, and for a long while, neither woman spoke.

Eventually Sam broke the silence. “You hear anything from upstairs?” she asked.

Erin blinked. “Nope. You?”

“Nope.” Sam turned off the water, wiped her hand on her shorts, and stared at the pool as if she could will it into revealing the fate of the universe. “I think they’re still in there.”

Erin nodded. She tried to imagine Andy and Laura together in the Suite, the kind of conversation that must be happening, but her brain rejected the image outright. She felt herself folding in on the idea, retreating to the part of her that knew how to survive by not imagining things too hard.

“So,” Sam said, “how are you doing?”

The question wasn’t casual. It was the kind of question you only asked when you already knew the answer, but wanted to see if the other person would lie about it.

“I don’t know,” Erin said, surprised to realize it was true. “I can’t get a handle on anything. It’s like the rules got rewritten overnight and nobody told me the new ones.”

Sam nodded, lips tight. “You want a rule? Here’s a rule: everything hurts more after it gets better. That’s why hangovers suck. That’s why heartbreak is worse after you try to move on.” She shook her head, almost smiling. “Sorry. I’m full of wisdom today.”

Erin tried to smile, failed. “That’s okay. I’m fresh out.”

The sound of footsteps on stone interrupted them. Erin glanced up to see Norah approaching, moving with the deliberate grace of a ballerina in a suit of armor. Norah’s hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she wore her standard-issue “fuck you, I’m in control” outfit: teal pencil skirt, sleeveless blouse, and four-inch heels that made her calves look like they could crack walnuts. Norah’s breasts strained the buttons of her blouse so much that Erin half-expected the top to pop off at any moment.

Norah didn’t acknowledge either of them at first; she just walked to the far edge of the pavilion and leaned against the railing, staring out at the sea as if she might catch the next boat off the island if she glared at it hard enough.

After a moment, Sam called, “You want a chair, Norah?”

“No,” Norah said, her voice cool and sharp as a martini. “I’m fine here.”

Another silence. Erin wondered if this was what the rest of her life was going to be: endless, awkward waiting, everyone hoping that someone else would say the first thing that mattered.

It was Norah, surprisingly, who broke the spell. “Do you think he’s going to be the same?” she said, her eyes still on the horizon.

Sam blinked. “Who? Andy?”

Norah nodded, just once. “You saw him. After. On the sand.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I saw him.”

“He looked like someone who’d seen the other side,” Norah said, her voice lower now. “That’s not something you come back from.” She looked at Erin, eyes narrowed. “Are you prepared for that?”

Erin’s first instinct was to snap back—what kind of question was that, of course she wasn’t prepared, who would be—but she stopped herself. She let the words hang, weighing them, before answering. “No,” she said. “Not even a little.”

Norah nodded again, as if she’d expected as much. She shifted her weight, the heel of her shoe making a soft clicking sound against the stone.

Sam shifted on her planter, then glanced at Erin. “How’s Claire?” she asked, softer this time.

“Quiet,” Erin said, and for the first time that day she felt the urge to laugh, if only at the absurdity of the understatement. “She hasn’t written a single word since we left the room. Just… listening. Thinking, I guess.”

Sam smiled a little. “That’s probably good.”

“Is it?” Norah cut in, her voice sharpening again. “Because right now, the only people who seem to be holding it together are the ones who used to fall apart at every challenge.” She looked at Erin, then at Sam. “When did we become the fragile ones?”

Sam snorted. “Maybe we always were.”

Erin let herself smile, if only to keep from losing it completely. She remembered all the times she’d seen Norah play the ice queen, the way she’d cut down anyone who dared question her. Now the same woman looked like she was holding herself together with spit and willpower.

Erin turned back to the sun, letting its warmth soak into her chest. The arousal was back, a low hum under her skin, but it felt more like energy now, less like a compulsion. She wondered if Andy was awake yet, if Laura had asked about any of them, if there was even a version of the future where this didn’t end with someone being erased.

She heard Norah exhale. “You know what I think?” Norah said, voice flat. “I think this was the whole point. I think the Producers wanted to see if he’d do it. If he’d break the world to get her back.”

Erin didn’t answer. She felt her breath hitch, then steady.

Sam spoke up. “Maybe. But it’s not over. They wouldn’t have left us here if it was.”

Norah looked at her, a rare flash of doubt in her eyes. “Are you sure?”

Sam shrugged, looking at Erin for backup.

Erin said, “If there’s anything I know about this place, it’s that there’s always a next round.” She let the words sit.

That caught Norah off guard. She turned to face Erin, her eyes sharp and searching. “You really think that?” she said.

Erin nodded. “Yeah,” she said, “I do.”

The silence that followed was different. After a while, Sam stood. “I’m going to see if I can find Liesa. She looked like she could use a rescue.”

Erin grinned. “She always does.”

Sam gave a salute, then started off, her steps slow but steady.

Norah lingered by the railing. She was still, but her hands twisted the edge of her skirt, and her breathing was faster than before. Erin watched her, waiting, until finally Norah said, “Was there anything about the Fourth Challenge that gave you answers?”

Erin thought about it—the visions, the memories, the way the Garden had shown every failure in a single, glittering instant. “Yeah,” she said. “It made me see how much everyone here actually cares.” She smiled, the admission surprising even herself. “Even you.”

Norah scoffed, but it was softer than usual. “You’re too sentimental,” she said, but she let herself slide down to sit on the deck beside Erin, her knees tucked to her chest.

They sat like that for a long time, side by side, not speaking, just letting the sun and the silence do their work. The heat pooled between them, and the wind pulled at their hair, and for the first time since Laura’s return, Erin felt like maybe she could survive this. Maybe they all could.

After a while, Norah spoke, her voice so low it was almost lost in the wind. “Who do you think is turning into a sexy coat hanger?” she asked.

Erin looked up at the sky, the blue so bright it hurt her eyes. She thought about Andy, about Laura, about every promise he’d ever made. Then she looked at Norah, and said, “No one. I don’t think he’ll let anyone go.”

Norah stared at her, searching for a crack in the confidence. “Why?”

Erin shrugged, feeling the truth of it in her bones. “Because he can’t,” she said. “He’ll find a way.”

For a moment, Norah looked like she might laugh, or cry, or both. Instead, she just nodded, once, and let her head fall forward to rest on her knees.

The library was stone-cool and tomb-silent, even in the harshest light of afternoon. Claire relished the way the filtered sun barely reached past the deep, dust-caked windows. Her whole body wanted a nap, but her mind was an overclocked processor, jittering with loops and recursion and the urge to analyze every variable in this new, impossible world. She ran her fingertips along the spines of the shelves as she drifted through the main reading room, trailing the ghost of her own presence—just in case Arabella or the hidden cameras needed proof she was still there, still thinking, still in play.

Claire had never felt comfortable in her own skin, not until the transformations. It was strange, how quickly she’d adapted to cat ears and silence and the casual way her tail liked to signal moods she’d never learned to name. But there it was, flicking and coiling around her ankle as she made her way to the desk at the far end, where the light was weakest and the air smelled of resin and old glue. Claire tucked her legs under the chair and set her notebook flat in front of her, along with a glass of ice water and her favorite fountain pen.

She paused, letting her eyes adjust, then uncapped the pen and touched its nib to the first blank page. Her hand trembled at the start, but it didn’t stop her. She wrote the way she always did when she was hiding from herself: fast, small, too dense to be read by anyone but her. Words spilled out, unfiltered. She tried to think what she would say to Andy, if she could speak; but the words came as if she already knew he would read them, and only him.

She did not begin with "Dear Andy." Instead, she wrote:

I used to believe I was the only one who could never be replaced. I don't know why I thought this was a virtue. I realize now the miracle is being wanted in the first place, not the guarantee of it.

She paused, biting at the end of the pen, then wrote:

You once told me, on the fire escape at Warrenville High, that everything worth loving would be taken from us. It just never occurred to me that some things could come back.

She thought about the last sunrise—about Andy on the beach, about the look in his eyes as he carried Laura up the sandbar. She thought about the shudder in her own chest, the weird relief, the immediate recalibration: not anger, not even sadness, but the instant pivot to Okay, how do I fit into this?

She wrote:

I am not afraid of her. I am only afraid that you will stop needing me. I no longer like the person I was before being yours.

She let the pen hover, then, for the first time in hours, let herself really feel what she was feeling. It was strange—a numbness and a burning, tangled together. She wanted to see Andy, wanted to talk to him, but also wanted to let him have space to do what he had to do. She wanted to hold Erin and tell her it would be okay, but also wanted Erin to be brave enough to sit with her own fear for a little while.

She thought about the proposal, about how she’d asked him because she believed Andy was finally whole. She had meant it. She had meant it so fiercely it made her stomach hurt. But now she was starting to realize that there was no such thing as wholeness, not really. Not in this world.

She drew a line across the page, a hard black slash, then started a new paragraph:

We never got to be the people we were supposed to be. Not you, not me, not any of us. But I’m grateful for what we became. I don’t regret asking you to marry me. I just want to know what comes next.

She let the words rest for a minute, then closed her eyes and pictured Andy, imagined his hands, the green of his eyes, the way his mouth never quite settled into a smile but always seemed to threaten one. She missed him. It was a sharp, physical ache, somewhere between the longing for touch and the longing for oxygen.

She didn’t sign the letter. She left the page unsealed, the ink still glistening, and tore it from the notebook with a careful hand. She folded it once, then again, then set it on the table in front of her and placed the fountain pen on top as a weight.

For a long time, she just sat there, staring at the paper, waiting to see if she would regret writing it. She didn't.

When she finally rose, her knees were stiff, and her tail had left a spiral on her shin where it had wrapped too tightly. Claire gathered her things, left the letter on the table, and slipped out of the library as quietly as she had entered, wondering if Andy would ever read it, and what kind of man he would be if he did.

Sunlight slashed through the library’s high windows, catching dust motes and making the air look alive, like the inside of a snow globe just shaken. Some time after Claire had left, Emi had claimed the corner table nearest the stacks, her six hands fanned around a heavy sketchbook, the topmost page already crowded with graphite. She wore a loose, sleeveless top, and her hair—shioulder-long, black, slightly mussed—kept slipping into her eyes every time she leaned closer to the paper. She looked not exactly happy, but profoundly, contentedly occupied.

Riley hovered at the threshold for a moment, not wanting to break the spell. She watched the way Emi’s lowest right hand held the page steady while two others moved with swift, almost choreographed precision. The lines she drew were easy, unhurried; nothing of the frantic, spiraling motion that had dominated the memory Riley’d seen in the Garden. It was mesmerizing.

After a minute, Riley walked over and slumped into the chair opposite. “Drawing the aftermath?” she asked, voice pitched low enough to avoid echoing in the stone vault.

Emi’s eyes flicked up, and for the first time since the night on the sandbar, she smiled without apology. “Not really.” Her upper left hand gestured vaguely at the page. “Just… didn’t want to sit idle.” She rotated the sketchbook so Riley could see: a half-finished composition of intertwined hands, each with slightly different proportions, some clearly Emi’s, some maybe not.

“Looks good,” Riley said, meaning it.

Emi shrugged, but didn’t look away this time. “I’m not thinking so much today.”

Riley considered that. “Must be nice.”

“It is,” Emi said. She set down the pencil, flexed her fingers, and looked at Riley with an expression so open it almost hurt. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Riley snorted. “Is anyone?”

“I mean it,” Emi said. “I thought you might… I don’t know. Want to talk about what happened.”

Riley shrugged. She watched Emi’s hands, the way they kept busy: picking at the eraser, smoothing the paper, fiddling with the corner of the table. “I’ve been thinking about that day… the day of the river,” she said. “I remember how sure I was. How right it seemed to send Laura down there.” She hesitated, swallowed. “I’ve replayed it a thousand times. I know I should’ve—”

Emi reached across the table and caught Riley’s hand. The grip was gentle but absolute, and Riley felt the surprise bloom in her chest. Emi’s skin was warm, a little dry from graphite dust, but the contact was steady. “She’s back now,” Emi said. “That’s all that matters.”

Riley tried to look skeptical, but the conviction in Emi’s eyes was infectious. “You really believe that?”

“Yes,” Emi said. “I do.”

Riley shook her head, a half-laugh, half-sob. “You’re different than before the Garden.”

“I feel different,” Emi admitted. “After the thing in the Garden… and then seeing her, on the sand—” She trailed off, then looked down at her hands. “It’s like all the waiting is over. I don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

For a long time, Riley didn’t say anything. “I saw you in the vision,” She finally admitted. “You were young, in college. You were… not okay.”

Emi smiled, but it was soft, not sad. “I know. I think that’s why I’m okay now. Because I got to see her again. Not as a ghost. Not as a memory.” She paused, searching for the right words. “In the Garden, I saw her—Laura. Grown up. I think it was really her. Not just a trick.”

Riley squeezed Emi’s hand, not wanting to let go. “What did she say?”

“She told me she forgave me,” Emi said, voice barely above a whisper. “She said, if she ever got another chance, she’d do better. That she’d try for real.”

"Did it help?" Riley asked, her voice careful, not wanting to break whatever delicate thing had wrapped around them. She kept her hand in Emi's, not gripping, but letting the contact linger as if it might help some of the certainty transfer. Emi nodded, looking away for a second, and wiped her cheek with the back of her free hand.

"I think so. Maybe." She set down her pencil, flexing her fingers. "It felt real. In the Garden, it always felt like a trick, like somebody else's dream. But with her—" Emi shook her head. "It wasn't a dream. She was there. I could smell her hair, Riley, I remembered what it was like when she was alive and would fall asleep in my lap during movies, how her hair would always get in my mouth and I'd pretend to be annoyed but I loved it, I loved that it was real." She paused, then gave a small, sharp laugh. "I know that's stupid. But it's the first thing I've felt in a Challenge since this whole game started that was… transcendent."

Riley watched the way Emi's hands moved, how they trembled just a little at the ends, the same as they always had before a big reveal or a hard confession. "It's not stupid," Riley said. "You always did have a thing for the details."

Emi looked at her, startled, then smiled. "I'm sorry," Emi said, a little more present now. "I know you probably think it's not a big deal, after everything we've seen here, but—"

"I think it's a big deal," Riley said, cutting her off. She looked around the empty stacks, at the way the light caught on Emi's hair and the fresh white of the paper. "I'm glad she's back, for you. And for Andy. Even if it means we all have to start over again."

Emi squeezed Riley's hand, then let go and fanned her arms out, reaching for her pencils, her eraser, the cup of cold tea by her elbow. "It's not starting over," she said, her voice steadier now. "It's more like… getting a new chapter. The waiting's over. We get to actually do something now, not just hope for it." She paused, looking at Riley, and her smile was suddenly so bright it made the dust in the air seem to shimmer. "Are you okay with it?"

Riley rolled her eyes, but there was no heat in it. "I'm not the main character here, Sparkles." She leaned back in her chair, letting her own hair spill over her shoulder, and watched Emi start a new drawing, this one a swirl of lines that might become a face, or a flower, or just an abstract tangle of wanting. "But I'll survive. I always do."

Emi laughed, the sound nervous and beautiful. "You always do," she repeated.

They were quiet for a while, the silence filled with the scratch of graphite and the distant sound of someone, maybe Claire, shelving books in the next room. Riley studied Emi's face, the way she seemed lighter now, less haunted, more here. She seemed anchored, even happy.