When I arrived at the bar, running late, Miranda waved and offered me a club soda. I nodded and headed to the table where Bryce and Zane had already taken up residence. Bryce had been eliminated, but he’d come to support his boyfriend.
There were only five of us left in the running, so assuming three people would be cut tonight, we’d be down to the final two—or final three if I got knocked out since I had a free life. Zane had used his card, and Tristan would presumably play his tonight. Nobody besides the three of us had won one.
My best shot at winning the whole contest would be to knock out either Zane or Tristan tonight, though I wanted Zane to win it all if I didn’t.
“I’m gunning for Tristan,” I said.
“Good.” Bryce pressed his lips together in smug disgust. “He deserves it after what he did last week.”
“Thank you.” It was nice to have someone on my side. I was ready for this to all be over with. “Good luck, Zane.”
“Oh, I don’t need luck. I’ve got the bird-poop story from hell to share.”
I guffawed. “For real?”
“Totally true.”
“I can’t wait.”
Alfie came out from the kitchen. When I waved, he smiled and made a beeline for me. I tilted my head back as he leaned down for a quick kiss.
Bryce said, “Y’all need to get a room or something.”
I saw Tristan at a table behind him, watching me. He looked away immediately, as if he hadn’t been spying. Whatever. He could stare all he wanted.
Beyond him, Reynold leaned against the wall. I caught his eye and he jerked his chin up in acknowledgment. What would he make of the presentation I had planned?
Finally the show got started.
Alfie started us out with a quick limerick.
“There once was a boy with a bar
Who picked a girl up in a car
They kissed in the park
Exclamation mark
Now guess who’s a rock star?”
I giggled and slapped palms with him as he made his way to the bar.
Heather and Quinn went on next, but neither of them wowed the audience. Maybe everyone was running out of ammunition.
When Miranda called me up, I couldn’t help but cast a glance at Tristan, unaware of what I was about to unload on him. If he’d been public enemy number one the week before, this would cement him as the bad guy nobody would vote for. I was about to cost him a thousand dollars, and he’d surely never forgive me for it.
But he deserved to hear how he’d hurt me since he didn’t seem to understand the consequences of his actions. While I’d tweaked the details of my journal, the whole story was true.
Once in front of the mic, I remembered how easy it had been to talk to that video game fan at the hospital. I looked out to where I knew Zane and Bryce sat and imagined I was speaking only to them.
I cleared my throat and opened my journal to the entry from hell. Then I began.
“Today, my entire class saw my ass.
“My speech about the impact of violent video games finaled in the competition for my comm class. All I had to do was read it one last time for the win. This was supposed to be a cakewalk. Writing the essay had been the hard part, after all.
“The contest came down to six students: Me, Alexis, Dmitri, Jedidiah, Romi, and Tristan. I knew I had the best presentation. It was TED Talks good.”
This was all true, though I’d added some context for the benefit of the current audience. I’d actually bragged about my stellar presentation skills, like a fool begging for karma to laugh at my arrogance. That confidence was about to be lost forever, but I didn’t know that at the time.
“I’d come dressed in a professional suit—knee-length navy blue skirt, three-inch heels, the works.
“This final round was held in the conference center, on a real stage, four to five hundred students in attendance. A monitor hung behind the podium, and a slideshow cycled through images of the university, mixed in with scheduling information.
“I took my seat with the other finalists in the front row, scanning the program that listed the order we’d be reading. Tristan was first. I’d be following him. Or so that was the official plan.
“But Tristan arrived and sat beside me, urgently whispering, ‘I’m gonna be sick. Can you go first? Please?’ He made baby eyes at me and added flattery. ‘You’re so much better at this than I am.’
“I was better at it, but going first was suicidal. He leaned over and said, ‘I’ll love you forever.’
“Gah. Why’d he have to be so cute? ‘Fine,’ I said, like it made no difference to me. At least I’d get it out of the way faster and then sit back and relax.
“I should have been leery, though, because Tristan never had a problem presenting his stuff to the class. In fact, he relished the attention. Everyone always laughed at his jokes.
“Maybe he really was sick. ‘You should ask to be excused if you aren’t well,’ I said.
“He scoffed. ‘And lose?’
“Typical. I should have challenged him and made him take his place back, but the program began. Ms. Maxwell gave a brief introduction about the speech competition and what it had taken for the six of us to end up on that final stage. I felt giddy with pride as she complimented us on the quality of our work. Then she called Tristan up.
“When I stood and communicated to her with silent body language that we’d changed things around, she corrected the names, and I climbed the steps onto the stage.
“ ‘Good morning,’ I began, smiling and projecting my confidence. My speech would take no more than ten minutes, and then I’d be done. I stepped across the stage, with a raised hand. ‘Violence begets violence,’ I said bringing the invisible hammer down, dramatically glaring at the upturned faces of the audience, expecting them to return looks of awe or fear or at worst glassy-eyed boredom.
“The laughter that followed didn’t match my content at all.
“I pressed on, talking about the perceived connection between video games and the uptick of violence in society, but the energy from the audience changed, grew disruptive, rowdy. A couple of people pointed toward me and whispered. Others took out their cell phones and snapped pictures or shot video, like we were at a rock concert. The chatter and laughter continued to rise. I stopped talking and looked around to figure out what was going on.
“Behind me, on the monitor, images of Tristan flickered by. Dumbstruck, I watched as he made a face, tongue sticking out, rawker hands framing his head. The slide dissolved. A new Tristan appeared, red-eyed, sitting by a pool, a bottle of beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. In the next, he stood on a beach with a bunch of barely clad girls laughing around him.
“I shot a glance at the real Tristan sitting in the front row, fake confusion on his face. I glared at him.
“I looked at the screen, then back at the crowd, who were now laughing at Tristan in a bathrobe and funny slippers.
“Then a picture I’d never seen of him with his arm around my shoulder, both of us holding a shot of tequila, my eyes so bloodshot, I looked like a laboratory experiment.
“My head was burning from anger or embarrassment. My heart raced with a fight-or-flight urgency. I wanted to tear Tristan’s head from his shoulders. Instead, I stomped off to go hide my face forever, but when I hit the top step in those fucking three-inch heels, my ankle twisted, and I missed the step. Just like earlier in the semester, I fell, but this time face-first, with my feet pointed up the stairs, skirt flipped to reveal my ass, while my ankle screamed in pain. So much pain.