Page 15 of The Compound

“Did you?” he said. “You haven’t spoken to me for days.” There was something dry about his tone that I didn’t like.

“Well,” I said. “You’ve been with Becca.”

“And you’ve been with Ryan.”

“Right,” I said. I felt that I had soured things. I had been so excited, when I had sat down beside him and it was just the two of us. “That doesn’t stop us from talking to each other.”

“You’re absolutely right. I guess it’s kind of interesting that you’re only talking to me now, when a girl is going to be banished tonight.”

“So?”

“So, the last time that we spoke properly was the last time a girl was going to be banished. I guess it’s starting to feel a bit transactional, no?”

I wanted to get up, and walk around the compound, and then return with some breezy answer. “That’s not true,” I said. He was right—but it didn’t take away from the fact that I wanted to speak with him.

“Well, you have nothing to worry about. You’ve got plenty of interested parties.

You won’t be going any time soon.” His tone wasn’t particularly nice, and I wanted to storm out of the room, as though he had suggested something vulgar.

I felt angry that our nice moment had been ruined, and just as angry that he had seen right through me.

I didn’t want to be confronted with my selfish decisions.

I wanted to be absolved through his regard forme.

“Why are you being so mean right now? You’re not like this.”

“Maybe I am,” he said. “You don’t know me either.”

“Can’t you just be nice ?”

“Is this you being nice?”

“Fuck you,” I said, and got up. I didn’t go to my postbox.

I went back to the pool, though I had only just dried off.

I dove straight in, arms over my head, back arched.

I stayed underwater for as long as I could, trying to ignore the sound of other people’s laughter.

When I came to the surface, I floated on my back for a while, then treaded water in place, focusing on keeping my expression pleasant.

—

I searched for Ryan, but couldn’t find him. I looked in the tennis court, empty of racquets or balls, and by the dumpster, and at the swings, but didn’t see him anywhere. Andrew spotted me by the gym, and said, “Hey, Lily. You looking for someone?”

“Ryan,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, grinning. “And here I was hoping you might have been looking for me. He’s just finished up here. I think he went to take a shower.”

“Oh, cool. Maybe I’ll see him around.”

“Hey, will you do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“If you see Candice,” he said, “will you tell her I’m looking for her?”

“Sure.”

“Did you see her…ah, speaking to any of the boys today?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I shrugged. “You’d have to ask her yourself.”

He looked disappointed. I wanted Andrew to like me, so I said, “If I see her I’ll tell her to go find you.”

He smiled. “I’ll find her first, don’t worry.”

When I got to the bathroom, Ryan was just pulling back the sheet, steam billowing behind him.

There was a towel wrapped around his waist—we had recently earned a luxury towel each with our names embroidered along the edge.

He looked surprised to see me, and I realized—too late—that I must have looked strange, waiting for him outside the bathroom.

“This is a nice surprise,” he said. “Were you planning to accost me in the shower?”

“No,” I said, though my cheeks heated. He laughed at the look on my face. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just was wondering where you were.”

“You’re not worried about tonight, are you?”

I looked up at him. There was no point in lying. “Of course I am.”

“You have nothing to worry about, as long as I’m here,” he said, and kissed me on the forehead.

He smelled of the body wash that we all used, a giant container of it left behind by other residents, mild and grapefruit-scented.

He had smelled differently last night, when I was curled around him.

I wanted that: I wanted to be close to him.

“Kiss me,” I said. He put his hand on my back and pulled me close, and as his lips touched mine, I felt an immense sweep of relief: not because it was a particularly special kiss, or because I wanted him, but because I knew that he wanted me.

As long as Ryan wanted me, I was safe. I only had to keep a firm hold of him until the final five, when couples no longer mattered, and no one was banished if they slept alone.

But it could be a long time until then, weeks or months, and I needed to be sure that I had someone who would stick byme.

Ryan changed into his swim trunks, and took my hand and walked around the compound with me.

Everyone was busy, even if it looked as though they were idle.

In previous seasons of the show some people had stayed with the same person from the first night, and others changed, looking for the right person, whether as a strategic choice or out of genuine interest. Strategic pairings rarely lasted long.

Sharing a bed was not simple, even if you only slept.

I liked Ryan: I liked sleeping next to him.

But still, there had been a couple of times I had woken up in confusion to find a mouth breathing next to my ear.

When I thought of having to share with Seb or Evan I felt vaguely disgusted.

There was nothing wrong with them; I just didn’t want them.

There was something sad about seeing some of the girls trying to keep their place in the compound.

Tom, peeling an orange and sitting in the grass, didn’t even look at Susie as she told him about her favorite brands of perfume.

When he had finished his fruit, he got to his feet and left.

The sight of her sitting alone might have been terrible, except that Evan came to her side almost immediately.

He took her to the trampoline, lifting her up in a gentlemanly fashion.

He bounced with great enthusiasm and some skill, performing tumbles in the air, artistic backflips and ambitious triple bounces.

Susie bounced lethargically beside him, arms limp by her side.

The sight of them reminded me of how desperately I had wanted a trampoline as a child.

We lived in a densely populated area where I could see trampolines dotted across neighboring gardens.

Seized by an envy which nearly overcame me, I spent weeks pooling all of my money, every coin I had, given to me by a kindly relative or left over from my last birthday.

I gathered all of it, and presented it to my mother triumphantly.

She opened a toy catalogue that had been my personal bible, particularly around birthdays and Christmas.

She showed me the price of a trampoline, and then told me how much I had.

“Do you see?” she had said. “Do you see how you’re not even close?

” The fact that the trampoline seemed so out of reach only increased my desire for it.

I hated to go outside and see my neighbors happily bouncing through the air. I abhorred their spinning and tumbling.

Then, a few months later, for my birthday, there it was, outside, on our ordinary, plain little patch of grass.

I screamed. I remember it so clearly: I stood in the doorway and shrieked with excitement.

I bounced for hours that night and for every night that week, until the top of my head ached and dew started to coat the nylon.

I ran around its circumference, my feet so quick, so light, and catapulted through the air: backflips, tumbles, belly flops—all of these fantastical contortions that had been previously unavailabletome.

But after about three weeks I lost interest. I didn’t particularly want to go on the trampoline anymore.

Since I knew exactly how much it had cost—the number rattled around constantly in my head—I felt an immense sense of guilt that I had tired of it so quickly.

I made a point to go out a couple of times a week, but it felt, more than anything, like work.

More time passed, and my mother asked me nearly daily, with a sort of savagery, if I had been out on the trampoline that day.

I’d tell her that I was going out, definitely. “You’d better,” she’d reply.

The dreariness of it, then. The tumbles and the flips felt like a tax I had to pay.

I regarded my bouncing neighbors with disinterest. Within a year, I no longer played on it at all, and within a few years the springs became rusted, and my mother threw it out when a skip appeared on the street.

I was glad to see it go: there was something about it that made me weary—how fiercely I had wanted it, and how quickly I tired of it.

I wanted to recount this memory to Ryan, but it wasn’t allowed, and besides I don’t think it would have meant anything to him.

When we passed by the ping-pong tables I saw Candice talking to Carlos, but by the time we had circled back around the compound she was sitting with Andrew, under his arm. He was stroking her hair, her eyes closed.

Ryan made a point of saying hi to the others.

I knew that he was showing everyone—myself included—that we would be sharing a bed together that night.

In previous years, fights had occasionally broken out in the middle of the night as a boy tried to usurp the place of someone else.

I didn’t generally like possessiveness, but you had to be definitive about your choice on the show.

People changed their minds quickly, and if you got too relaxed someone might swoop in and steal your bedmate.

I knew that Ryan was being primitive, in a way, but I can’t say that it didn’t pleaseme.

—

Later, in bed, I could hear the sounds of movement long into the night.

Someone would be banished at sunrise, and not a minute before.

I didn’t know if the sounds were caused by people finding comfort in each other, swapping of beds, or if there were girls begging quietly to not be left alone.

Whatever it was, the following morning Eloise was gone, and the numbers were even again.