The water drizzled out of the island showerhead in a thin, metallic ribbon. Sariah stood beneath it wishing it were a downpour. She watched as mud and sweat circled the drain at her feet. Soap burned the areas she had fresh cuts. Her ankles still ached from the challenge; her shoulders throbbed where someone’s elbow had caught her. 

She pressed both palms to the cold tile, letting her head hang in the pitiful water pressure. Her first week on the show replayed in flashes behind her eyes. She thought about everything in the way she was trained to, in terms of cuts she would’ve judged if she were still behind the monitor. 

She saw Ryan flexing before the camera, while Tara and Noah pressed together like a teenage drama subplot. She heard Jack’s voice booming across the challenge arena, bright and confident, while she shivered beneath palm fronds not even twenty-four hours ago wondering what the hell she’d gotten herself into. 

And they say TV makes you glamorous, the thought passed through her as the water ran down her hair in rivulets. 

The water began to cool from lukewarm to straight-up cold, and she finally reached up to shut it off. The silence that followed swallowed her whole. She wrapped her towel around her midriff before pulling her hair into another towel.

She left damp footprints on the tile as she stepped out of the stall and—

A knock. Just one, firm and professional. The kind of knock someone gives when they’re hoping the person inside is decent, but knowing they probably aren’t. Sariah froze, she had a feeling she knew who was behind that knock. 

“Uh…one second,” she called out, tightening the towel so it wouldn’t betray her. She cracked the door open, and her stomach fell to her feet. Jack Preston was looking at her. 

No cameras. No mic pack that she could see. No producers shadowing him from behind. It was just him. His hair is a little mussed from the humidity, shirt half-unbuttoned from leaving the Tribal Council area, eyes too tired to hide what's shimmering beneath them. She refused to break the silence first. 

“Producer Vale,” he said softly, his voice rough from filming. “Or is it contestant Vale now? I wasn’t sure which one I should be asking for.” 

She exhaled sharply, then pulled the door open the rest of the way before stepping back.

“You shouldn’t be in here.” 

“I know.” He stepped over the threshold anyway. He didn’t look at her towel, thank God for that. Instead he looked at her face, searching her, like he expected to find something she was keeping buried. 

“What do you want, Jack?”

“I want to ask why you quit.” The question hit like a blow to her gut. 

Her pulse spiked. She turned away, pretending the damp counter suddenly needed straightening. “I told you why. I was tired.” 

“No,” he said, voice low. “Tell me the real reason.” 

“Jack—”

“Sariah.” The way he said her name made her fingers curl against the counter. 

“Don’t do the bit. Just tell me.” 

She laughed even though this situation was the furthest thing from being funny. “You really want honesty? From me? Now?”

“Yes.”

She spun on him. “Fine.” Her eyes bore into his, “you didn’t see me.” 

His brows furrowed. “What does that mean?” 

“It means,” she said, her voice shaking with exhaustion and anger, “that I worked my ass off for you. For this show. I saved contestants from quitting. I got you the emotional beats that made the network happy. I kept you sane on days when the schedule was held together with duct tape and wishful thinking.”

She stepped closer to him, but he didn’t back away. 

“And then I pitched something real. Something I believed in. Something that could’ve changed the show for the better, and you shut me down. Publicly. Like I was a fucking rookie. Like I hadn’t earned anything.”

Jack’s jaw flexed, “It wasn’t like that.” 

“It felt like that,” she screeched. “And the worst part? You didn’t even notice me leaving. I knew your coffee orders for five years, Jack. You didn’t know mine.” 

The silence that followed wasn’t defensive, but wounded. 

He stepped closer, and she felt the tears begin to well up. “I noticed,” he said quietly. “You quitting…it gutted me.” 

She scoffed, wiping at her tears before they could fall. “Oh, please—”

“It did. I didn’t say anything because…Sariah, I was scared.” 

She blinked. He hadn’t said that word before. Not once. Not in five years. 

“Scared of what?” she whispered. 

“If I crossed that line with you,” he said, “I’d lose the best person on my team. And I couldn’t afford that. The show couldn’t afford that. You mattered too much.” 

Her chest tightened painfully, and she reflexively grabbed at the towel she was still standing in. “That’s what you denied me,” she whispered. “Not romance. Not a moment. You denied the…the truth of what we were. You made me feel like I imagined it.”

Jack swallowed, and for the first time since she met him, he looked unsure. He lifted a hand, slowly as if to give her time to step away if she wanted, and brushed a stray strand of wet hair that had escaped her towel back behind her ear.

Her eyes fluttered closed at the touch. God, she hated that. 

“If we weren’t in this world,” he murmured, “if it didn’t matter…I never would have let you walk away.” 

Her breath trembled. She leaned in without meaning to. Their foreheads touched. Warm. Dangerous. Too much for Sariah. 

“This is the world we’re in,” she whispered. 

“I know.”

Neither moved for a long time, lingering there together. His thumb brushed her cheekbone. Her hand, without her permission, lifted to his chest. It was reassuring to her that his heartbeat seemed just as erratic as hers. 

Jack exhaled shakily before taking a full step back. The distance between them felt like a cliff’s edge to Sariah. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said, his hand wiping his face as if he could erase his true feelings. 

“No,” she whispered, voice frayed. “You shouldn’t.”

She kept her eyes on her feet as he opened the door. He hesitated for half a second before leaving, the lock clicking slowly behind him. Sariah pressed her back to the door as her heartbeat echoed in the tiny room. 

Some lines were never meant to be crossed. And some…once you reached them, you could never unreach them. She didn’t know which one this was. 

She pulled her knees close to her chest before exhaling. The tears fell as she let the emotions wash over her. Deep in her bones she knew, this wasn’t over.