Sariah didn’t go straight back to camp with the others. 

Production always pretends the forest around Tribal is “off-limits,” with some sacred neutral zone bullshit lore Preston made up for dramatic flair. She had learned years ago that if you kept walking past the torches, no one actually stopped you. 

This time, no one wanted to stop her. Not after that vote. 

Her breath steamed in the dark like a raging bull as her adrenaline fueled her forward. 

That blindside vote had rocked her. Not the numbers, she knew they were always going to be messy this early in the season. It wasn’t even the betrayal; she saw that coming the moment she caught Tara clasping Ryan’s hand earlier out of the corner of her eye. 

No, what rattled her was how close she’d come to snapping. On camera. 

She sank onto a fallen log, elbows on her knees, heartbeat in her throat. The sounds of Tribal—Jack’s voice, the rustle of parchment, Ryan’s stupid smirk replayed over and over in her mind. 

She was supposed to be Sariah: the cool-headed one. The one who doesn’t spiral. The producer who knows where every camera hides like the freckles on her own skin. 

But tonight? Tonight she felt stripped raw. 

“We’re only on Day Three,” she whispers to herself, rubbing both hands over her face. “Get it together.”

A twig snaps behind her. For a split second she tenses…contestant? Stray camera op?...

“I thought I would find you here.” Leah’s voice slips around her in the night. 

Sariah didn’t lift her head. “Did you come to tell me your vote wasn’t personal?”

Leah eases down next to her, tucking her knees up like she is settling in for a sleepover instead of a reality show meltdown. 

“I came to tell you,” Leah says evenly, “that you scared the hell out of me today.” 

Sariah lets out a shaky snort, “good.” 

“No,” Leah snaps her attention toward her. “Not like that. I mean…you looked like you were about to—” 

“Break?” Sariah’s voice comes out rough, as if she had been running uphill. She watches Leah nod, and her chest tightens. She hates that someone else had noticed her mask drop. 

Leah continues softly, “You’re usually…I don’t know…steady. When the tribe freaks out, you stay calm. That moment at camp when you told Noah to breathe? You grounded all of us. But tonight…”

Sariah swallows hard. “Tonight, it felt like the ground wasn’t there.” 

There was a long silence between them before Leah spoke, “you don’t have to perform for me, you know. I’m not the audience.”

Sariah huffed a humorless laugh, “everyone here is the audience.”

“Except right now.” Leah nudges her shoulder, “right now it’s just you and me, which means you can be a human for five whole minutes.” 

The quiet settled again, still heavy but not suffocating like before. 

Leah whispers, “what was that look Jack gave you?” Sariah shrugs the question off, swiping at bugs using her legs as their personal buffet. 

“I don’t know. I worked so damn hard today. I felt like I put out every fire, talked to everyone, managed their nerves and paranoia, only to still have the vote go sideways.” Sariah looks Leah in the eyes, begging her silently to not harp on the Jack thing. 

“Sariah, that’s Day Three…really any day out here.” She shrugs, breaking Sariah’s gaze. 

“I know that, I just feel like I need to stay ahead…like I need to—”

“Control it?” Leah smiles gently, “you can’t. Not all of it.” 

Sariah doesn’t respond, she doesn’t have to. Because the truth of it, the truth she had tried so hard to shove into the deepest darkest part of her mind was simple: she wasn’t afraid of losing control. She was afraid of what might happen if she ever let herself go and have fun.

A rustle in the trees behind signaled that production was growing restless with their off-camera girl-chat. It was time to head back before someone was sent to check on them. Leah stood first, brushing leaves from her shorts, then she held out her hand. 

“You coming?”

Sariah took it, allowing herself to be pulled up onto her feet. She wasn’t steady, not yet. But she wasn’t breaking, not yet at least. 

As they walked back toward camp, the ocean hummed beyond the palms. The tribe would be whispering, alliances reshuffling like cards in a dealer’s hands. Tomorrow the game will continue, the cameras will catch their next mess. 

But tonight?

Tonight Sariah would let herself breathe.