Page 51 of The Compound

Seventeen

Tom didn’t leave his bed for most of the day. I knew that he was wiped from dehydration, but I thought he might also be moping over Becca’s departure.

I left him there, and checked all the taps and lights and air conditioning, paranoid that something else could be turned off.

I would have liked to spend the day in bed as well, but I was frightened of Tom, and frightened, too, of the next thing that might be taken from us, or the return of the producers.

Though of course the producers had been nearby the whole time, their presence now felt ominous.

Watching Tom sleep, I wondered at what point they had stepped in; how much pain could be inflicted before it was deemed too much?

We passed the majority of the day without seeing much of each other.

I added to my little nest in the linen room, where I’d begun to cache food and bottles of water, some clothes and other essentials.

I checked the big screen compulsively, but it remained turned off, as it had been during my first days here.

It might have been because Andrew was absent, or it might have been because Tom and I were being given a brief reprieve.

Although I was glad of it, it unnerved me to see it blank.

I wandered into the dressing room, where I could still smell the other girls’ perfumes.

My little screen was glowing softly. I walked toward it, as though in a trance.

I had been neglecting my Personal Tasks for weeks, but now that I thought to do them again, I felt a terrible, compulsive need to do as many as I possibly could.

In the final three, the rewards were usually incredible, and after our experience with the water, I felt that I had to take everything that was offered.

I was determined to win, but I knew that Tom was equally driven; if he did best me, I wanted to depart with a sickening amount of rewards, riches that would make leaving bearable.

But they seemed to know that I was desperate for a reward: the task read Give Tom a compliment.

Upon seeing it, I threw a shoe at the wall in a fit of anger.

I thought, for the first time in a while, about the people watching, how stupid they must have thought that I was.

I imagined them laughing at me, trapped in the house with Tom, like a rabbit living with a lion.

How silly they would think me, simpering up at him and telling him that he was brilliant.

But the reward was diamond earrings.

I found Tom in the gym. He was lifting dumbbells, the ones that Ryan had earned a long time ago. I thought, again, of how things might look as a viewer: when I had regained my strength, I returned to doing Personal Tasks; when Tom had regained his strength, he went to work out.

“You okay?” he asked when he saw me. I nodded, and when I didn’t say anything he went back to lifting.

“How heavy are those?”

“Thirty k each.”

“Can I try?”

“Sure.”

I took hold of one, and though I braced myself I could barely lift it. Tom watched me, pitying, but a bit pleased, too. I put it down again.

“Wow,” I said. “It’s heavy.”

“It’s not too bad.”

“You must be very strong. You’re really strong, Tom.”

“I must be, Lily, I must be.”

I turned to leave. He called my name and I paused. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the house.”

“Why don’t you stay in the house, for the rest of the day? Better you don’t go wandering off, again.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Stay in the house, Lily. I’m warning you.”

I went to my postbox, my hands trembling with excitement.

The box containing the earrings was small and velvet, the brand’s name stitched in silver thread.

I opened it and found two perfect square-shaped diamonds nestled in a silver backing.

I took them out and held them up to the light, delighting in their sparkle.

They were beautiful, finer than anything else I owned—though I had envisioned dangling earrings, the diamonds huge and oval shaped.

But it was a good sign of what was to come, once Tom and Andrew were gone.

—

That night, feeling too confined by the linen room, I settled into the living room, bringing my blankets and slippers as well as my nightclothes.

If I could have, I would have spent all my time on the L-shaped couch.

Besides the garden, it was the spot that reminded me most of Sam, and I fancied that I could even smell him there, a little.

I was lying there, thinking of Sam, of lying in the crook of his arm, his hand stroking my hair, when Tom knocked on the door and walked in without waiting for my answer.

“Get out,” I said.

“I thought you might want to sleep in the bedroom tonight.”

“I definitely do not want to.”

“Be that as it may, you’ll need to sleep in the bedroom.”

“Why?”

“Because Becca tried to strangle me last night, and you stood there and did nothing. I can’t trust you.”

“You think I’d strangle you in your sleep?”

“No. But then, I didn’t think Becca would either.”

“I’m not sleeping in the bedroom.”

“Fine,” he said, and left. He came back a minute later, with blankets and a pillow. He settled on the rug.

“Absolutely not,” I said. I tried to keep my voice irritated rather than frightened.

“I don’t want to sleep on the floor either. But I need to keep you in sight until I decide what to do with you.”

I lay still, as though to avoid being seen. My heartbeat picked up. “What do you mean, ‘what to do with’ me?”

He didn’t say anything. I got up and went to the bedroom, taking my things with me. He followed: I heard his step like a lumbering dog behind me. I went to my bed, and lay very still. I kept my sheets tucked low, so that I could see him clearly. My heart was beating loudly.

“I have a knife,” Tom said. “If you get out of bed suddenly, I will use it.”

I stared at the ceiling and thought of home. It seemed a hazy thing to me now. Was it better than this, or worse? I wondered if Sam was watching. I wondered what he thought of me now.

“I think,” Tom said, after a long stretch of silence, “we could live together, for a while. We could keep to ourselves. We wouldn’t have to see each other.”

I wasn’t sure if Tom actually meant this, or if he wanted to lull me into a false sense of security.

I thought uneasily of Becca, how he liked to have her around, even when she openly despised him.

I wondered if Tom felt better about himself if there was a girl always on the periphery, asking him for help and telling him he was capable and strong.

“Tom,” I said. “I fucking loathe you. You’re a psychopath.

I don’t want to live with you. As soon as Andrew’s back, we’re going to banish you. ”

Tom didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Do you think Andrew would choose you over me?”

“Didn’t you and Andrew have a fight in the desert? Over who would be the one in charge?”

“You don’t understand the laws of men. It’s easier to sort it out in the desert, where a man can be a man, rather than in here.”

“I heard you were like a pair of animals. You don’t actually think you could live with Andrew?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t. I’d make sure he was banished, soon.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “The laws of men, right?”

“When you went into the pool naked all those weeks ago, did you do it for me?”

I turned to him. In the dark, I could only see his enormous outline. He was looking up at the ceiling, I thought, but I couldn’t make out the expression on his face. I felt a brief, terrible sense of pity for him, along with revulsion.

“No,” I said. “It was for a personal challenge. I didn’t realize you were there.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t like you, Lily.

But I had wondered. I thought that maybe…

the skinny-dipping, the parading around in your tiny shorts and bikinis…

And when you broke my record player, I was angry, but I wondered if you did it to get my attention, like a girl in the schoolyard.

You are very girlish, you know. I think that’s why so many of the boys looked out for you.

Well, I’m glad that you don’t like me, that you weren’t attracted to me, because I never liked you like that.

The truth is, I don’t really like girls generally—not to be around, at least. I like them in my bed: I liked Vanessa in my bed.

Becca was a good girl, I thought, but I was wrong about her. You never are good girls, are you?”

I rolled away so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

How was Tom still here? A couple of seasons ago, there had been a girl on the show who was a pathological liar, and we, the viewers, all hated her; there was enough public response that the producers listened.

Sure enough, there were challenges designed to out her secrets, to expose her, and she was quickly banished.

Another year, there was a boy who was so obnoxious and so boring that we said over and over that we wanted him gone, and then, the following week, he was banished, too.

Mostly the residents had control, but sometimes if the public disliked someone enough, the producers would figure out a way to nudge them out.

Thinking of Candice, how she left almost immediately after the challenge that revealed that Andrew was cheating, I wondered if the public didn’t like her—if the challenge had been orchestrated to banish her.

But why was Tom still here? There was likely a group of viewers who disliked him—but there must have been another group of people who wanted him to stay; people who agreed with him, who saw something in him that they liked.

Why was I still here, then? Pretty and guileless: no one to even do makeup for anymore.

I woke up the next morning, the sun at a low angle through the skylight, Tom still snoring, and I knew what to do: a plan already perfectly formed in my head, dropping from nowhere, like a reward.

—