Page 8 of The Compound

I waited for him to say something else, but he continued to look at a point in the distance.

“That’s all I get?” I asked. He shrugged. He didn’t say anything else for the remainder of the two minutes, and we stood, not quite looking at each other, until Jacintha called out to switch.

Next I was facing Tom, the bodybuilder. He started speaking without prompting, and, like Seb, gave a short list of girls’ names, with no other details. Then he spoke quietly and at length about one girl, Amy. He detailed her with surprising tenderness—I could have painted a picture of what she looked like, her doe eyes and petite frame. I thought that he was finished, but then he said, “She was a very sweet girl. She needed help with everything, but I liked helping her. She used to say that she couldn’t last a day without me.”

“It sounds like you still love her,” I said.

“No, I don’t,” he said sulkily. He looked away, and I was left with about twenty seconds to recount my own romances.

After repeating the same thing several times, to several different boys, it became easier. I could recite it like a list, without thinking. I still felt a faint sting of embarrassment as I spoke, thinking of how I must sound to the people watching, how blatantly unsuccessful I was at relationships. I wished I hadn’t said that Brian had cheated on me. It occurred to me around the fifth boy that I shouldn’t have given Mr. Donovan’s name, but it was already out now. It was easier to repeat the same spiel without variation than to focus enough to edit details.

The array of beautiful boys before us was overwhelming, and yet I automatically found myself filing through them to find the best looking. I decided that the one called Ryan was the most attractive. He was tall with a spectacularly angular jaw, and blue eyes framed by long eyelashes. But all of this was secondary to his physique—so incredibly chiseled that he seemed to be a teenage dream come to life, the kind of boy that girlswould giggle at the sight of. Even the boys were glancing at his torso, but Ryan had an easygoing way that showed no hint of self-consciousness. He smiled whenever he spoke, no matter what it was he said. He had no tattoos or piercings, and his chest was clean-shaven. I fixed my hair before he got tome.

He hadn’t been in a relationship over the last two years but had been deeply committed to the girl he had met after college, with whom he had been in a relationship for a year. Before that, he’d had a number of brief relationships, a fact I chose to ignore. He got through his spiel quickly, and I did the same. As I was speaking, I saw him watching me closely, smiling all the while.

“You’ve got a great smile,” he said.

“Thanks. You do too.”

“Well,” he said, smiling, “I guess we have that in common.”

The last boy I was paired with was Sam. He said, “You can go first, if you like.”

I gave him my history, and he held eye contact and nodded. I felt more conscious of my words when I was speaking to him, perhaps because he seemed to be paying close attention. He had an intelligent, watchful gaze. When I finished, he said, “I’m sorry to hear about that. The cheating, and your teacher.”

“It’s whatever. It happens to everyone, I think.”

“You were seventeen, you said?”

I had been sixteen, but it didn’t matter. I could see that Sam was trying to compose some tragic backstory for me. I didn’t want that. I didn’t have a troubled past. Nothing bad had ever really happened tome.

“I want to hear about your relationships.”

“It’s a pretty short list. I had two girlfriends in school—not very serious. I was with Laura for, oh, three weeks? And then I was with Naya for about four months. Then I was with Shannon for six years. She moved abroad last year, and I’ve been single ever since.”

We had a few seconds to spare. This was our last chance to reveal personal information until the next task that allowed us to do so. “What age were you when you and Shannon broke up?”

“Twenty-six.”

He was twenty-seven, then. He opened his mouth, but Eloise, standing at the edge, called that time was up. The girls moved away at once and grouped together to discuss what they had learned. The boys huddled together in turn, glancing over at the girls. I stayed for another moment with Sam. Now that we couldn’t discuss our lives outside the compound, it was difficult to think of something to say.

“Are you enjoying your time here?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “The girls are great.” I looked shyly at my feet, feeling like a teenager meeting a cute boy on holiday. When I glanced up, he was looking at me intently.

“It’ll get easier,” he said.

I went to the girls, and he went to the boys. When I glanced back, I saw Sam look at me, and then look away. I turned and lifted my hair off my neck, as though to tie it up. I let it fall, then looked over my shoulder to check again. Ryan was watching me, too.

—

When we returnedto the screen, it was lit up green, signaling we had successfully completed our first task. We went to the delivery area behind the house, and the chairs were there, all nineteen of them. The rewards were delivered through underground vents that connected the compound to the producers’ base of operations. I knew this only from online discussions and speculation around the show. They never showed the tunnels or the producers on television, but I knew that the producers were close by and could intervene if needed.

The boys carried away two chairs each and settled them along the patio with pride. High on our success, we completed another task straightaway. Everyone had to jump in the pool, an easy task for which we were each awarded a much-needed bottle of sun cream. We lay on the grass afterward, giddy and laughing. Susie was wiping mascara from under my eyes, and Evan, small and scrawny, was resting his head on my knees.

“We should check the little screens,” Seb said.

“No, no,” Andrew said. “We’ll get nothing done if we all peel away. Let’s do one more as quickly as we can, and then we can check our little screens.”

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