Page 59 of The Compound

“It’s obviously Tom,” Candice said.

“And why do you think that?” Tom replied evenly.

“You probably didn’t sleep with anyone,” Candice said. “You’re as innocent as Becca.”

Becca. She was sitting on the ground, running her fingers across the fibers on the rug. I couldn’t help but recall the morning I’d woken her up to help in the kitchen, and how Sam had said her name, half asleep. They had shared a bed for far longer than we had. I glanced at Sam: I couldn’t help it. He was already looking at me. I don’t know if it was because things worked so differently in the compound, isolated as we were, bound to a small group of people, but at precisely the same moment that I wondered if Sam had been sleeping with someone else, I also wondered if I hadn’t fallen in love with him. I wasn’t sure if the feeling had been rising in me steadily, or if it came to me in the panic that he might leave me. He met my eye steadily. Neither of us looked away until we heard Tom’s voice, soft and snakelike, thrashing through the silence.

“Don’t you know who’s lying, Candice?”

Candice looked confused. The expression sat strangely on her face.

We all turned to look at Andrew. He was looking at the ceiling.

“Eloise,” he said, “and Carlos.”

The screen turned green.

Andrew lifted himself from the couch and left. I heard the front door swing shut behind him.

“But that’s not true,” Candice said. “We’ve been together since the beginning.”

“I’m sorry, Candice,” Sam said. She glanced at him, irritated.

“I’m going to sort this out,” she said, and rose from the couch. She followed after Andrew; I could tell from the distance of their voices thatshe’d caught up with him by the pool. After the quiet of the previous weeks, hearing snippets of their conversation, their heated and raised voices, seemed wrong to the point of obscenity.

“Did you know?” I asked Sam.

“I wasn’t sure, but I’d suspected.”

I thought for a moment. “Did you know he was bi?”

“Oh, sure,” Sam said.

Becca smiled at me from her spot on the floor. It wasn’t a particularly nice smile. “Did you think that everyone here was straight, Lily? We’re all here living the perfect, hetero life?”

“Easy, Becca,” Sam said. I threw her a dirty glance, but didn’t say anything. Since we weren’t yet in the bottom five, I couldn’t reveal personal information without punishment, so I couldn’t say that I was queer, too. In retrospect, I fancied Candice nearly as much as I had Ryan.

Tom was looking at Becca too, frowning slightly, either because he was surprised by her comment, or because he was considering the possibility that she wasn’t straight, either.

Sam stood, pulled me up with him and led me to the shower. We unpeeled our clothes and stood under the spray. It felt good. I closed my eyes and imagined that we were standing in a rain shower outside my house. I could see the red door, could imagine the curtain twitching at the window and my mother peeking out. When we were ready, we could open the door and go inside. Sam asked me what I was thinking about, and I lied and said I was thinking about how tomorrow I would make an effort to clear away some of the mess in the front yard.

—

Candice woke mein the middle of the night. I jerked at the touch on my elbow, and Sam stirred beside me. She lifted a finger to her lips. I nodded, gently lifted Sam’s arm off me and followed her out of the room. She brought me to the dressing room, where one of the lighted mirrors had been left on. The room was otherwise dark. She sat at the bench, and I sat beside her.

“Candice,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

She began to weep. I put my arms around her and hugged her tightly,stroking her hair, murmuring kind words. She pulled away after a few minutes and wiped the tears from her eyes. Despite the tears, despite the questionable haircut, she was still the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you better, Lily,” she said.

“I know you, Candice,” I said. “I know you well.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, and laughed, still a little tearful. “I spent too much time with Andrew. I spent a long time making sure that he chose me, and then longer still making sure he kept me. Well, it’s all a joke now, isn’t it? I’m sure that’s what everyone’s thinking now. Candice, the joke!”

“You’re the best of us,” I said. “You’re the best of us, and he knows it. Everyone knows it.”

“How did I let myself become so pathetic? When the jobs were assigned, I didn’t mind that I’d be doing the dinners. At the time food was scarce, and I thought I was the right person for the job; I’m crafty, and—well, I can say it now. Everyone knows that there’s power in being in charge of a scarce resource.”

I said nothing, and she picked up a bottle of nail varnish that I had left on the bench. It was a siren-red color, loud and brassy. She examined the color and put it down.

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