IA Day 11 - Clarity

Angela spends the day with you. You were hoping that by talking to her that maybe you could find some clarity about your relationship with Riley, but that didn't happen. Instead, she helps you feel more comfortable with the lack of clarity. She reminds you that there's nothing stopping you from telling Riley how you feel. You feel like you could find the courage to do that, but you wouldn't know what to say. You have to figure out how you feel before you can share it.

You eat, shop, and chat. Angela is very frank with you, even about embarrassing things like sexual excitement. She says that her relationship with Fareeha started with a sexual spark and then took shape after that. What shape? She doesn't know yet.

The point she tries to make to you is that there's nothing wrong with the exciting, physical part on its own. She's telling you to enjoy life.

You go back to camp at dinner time, and there's no sign of Riley anywhere. You think about texting her, but you don't want to seem like you're too demanding. So you eat with a few other members of Team Pink, who are in good spirits. It's been a nice Saturday for everyone. For you too. You're feeling better than you did earlier. You're so lucky that you have someone like Angela here in this country that you can talk to. The time zone issue makes it hard to call your family for advice, and you are not quite ready to tell them that you are intimate with a girl with a penis anyway. You feel like you could if things were more official, but...

You find yourself just like everyone else who doesn't have anything particular to do, lounging around on the sofas on the Lodge's first floor.

Beside you, Rebecca and Viti are watching clips from the games on FUTA's website and cringing.

"You look so cool," Rebecca is saying.

"I do not," Viti moans.

Rebecca looks around suddenly. "Hey! Leader! Leader!" It's something that some of the other girls have started doing because it embarrasses Riley. Calling her fearless leader and stuff like that.

You turn around to see Riley climbing the stairs. Maybe she didn't see you.

She disappears without taking the bait from Rebecca and the others.

"Oooh, oh yes," Sam says. She has the remote and has just found something on TV. It's a sex scene, and the screen is just this guy's rear end going up and down as he thrusts into some lady with a lot of tattoos.

You get up from the couch and go up to the room, where you find Riley sitting on her bed, looking overwhelmed.

"Are you OK?" you ask her.

She smiles at you, but looks tired. You sit beside her.

"What is it?"

"Tiff just told me about next week," she says with a deep sigh. "It's going to be hard."

"We know who we will play?" you ask excitedly. That would be huge.

Riley shakes her head.

"But there will an event every day. They're going to be weirder. Hornier," she says with a scowl. "It's to keep us busy and make us uncomfortable. It would be easy to play good soccer if we could just... you know, focus on it, but they don't want to let us. They want us to be sloppy and messy. They want chaos and drama."

You take all that in. "It is TV," you say finally.

Riley smiles and nods. "We signed up for it. It's just annoying. It's going to be a long week. And we have to get comfortable with..." She pauses. "Being sex objects, I guess. Tiff says there's lots of costumes and stuff. We can still win, we just have to..." She trails off and flops on the bed.

She must be feeling a lot of pressure. You kind of understand. She's going to take full responsibility for whatever happens. Right now she's being crushed under that pressure. Maybe Tiff should have waited until Sunday to lay all that on her.

You hesitate, unsure of yourself, then kick your shoes off and lie down beside her, scooting closer and putting your arm around her.

"Mmm," Riley says, closing her eyes and sighing. "Thanks. I'm not supposed to be the little spoon. Sorry."

"It's OK," you say. It's quiet and peaceful. Her hair smells nice. Angela seems to think it's OK to just go with things, so that's what you're doing. This isn't a bad way to spend an evening.