Page 91 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

As the producers pass out whiteboards, Dawn Taylor continues, “For each mistake you make, our lovely assistants will pull a lever and drop a bucket of slime on you. You can make three mistakes, but on the fourth, you and your partner will be dropped into the ocean—and the first couple who hits the water is out of the competition. Welcome to Heresy, bitches!”

“I’m starting to think I didn’t need to read all of Dante’sInfernofor this,” I say.

“SparkNotes is always the way to go, babe,” Selena says.

“Wait, this is based on abook?” Mikayla says. “No one told me that!”

An air horn blasts, and more than a few contestants jump at the sound.

“Let’s get started!” Dawn Taylor says. “First question. Ladies, what’s your greatest fear? Gentlemen, I want each of you writing down what you think your partner will say.”

Oh, god. Daniel and I never talked about this. There’s no way hecould possibly know what my greatest fear is.I’mnot even sure what my greatest fear is. Failure? Losing my mother? Going back to high school, but I’m naked? I have a lot of fears. It’s part of the package deal that comes with being a naturally anxious person.

I just have to game the system and think about what Daniel might guess about me. I’ll pick something generic that most people are afraid of. Snakes? Snakes. Everyone’s afraid of snakes, right? I mean, probably not zookeepers or veterinarians or those people who keep twenty snakes as pets. But it’s as good an answer as any.

Mikayla is apparently afraid of cacti, which makes no sense, but who am I to judge? Trevor pumps his fist in the air when he gets it right.

Ava puts down “yellow jackets,” and Noah nails it.

Selena writes “power outages,” which I think we all knew after the night of the storm, but Chase somehow totally misses the mark and instead puts “racoons.”

“You said their little hands were creepy,” Chase objects.

“Creepy, notscary!”

I’m looking forward to seeing Chase get slimed, but of course he enjoys it, laughing and pretending to take a shower in it, which makes the entire crew crack up.

When it’s my turn, I turn my board around: “Snakes.”

Daniel makes a face as he turns his board around, and I see his answer scrawled onto the whiteboard: “Losing.”

“Ouch. Extra sad, given that this answer brings you one step closer to losing,” Dawn Taylor says. “Sorry, Daniel, it’s slime time!”

An assistant yanks on a rope, and a bucket flips over, dumping slime all over Daniel. He chuckles good-naturedly and shakes it off.

The game continues.

“Ladies, how many kids does your partner want to have?” Dawn Taylor asks.

Selena turns her board around: “0”

Chase reveals his: “5”

Selena shrieks as the bucket of slime is dumped on her head.

Then it’s my turn again.

“Alice, you put, let’s see. Two and a half?” Dawn Taylor asks.

“The statistically average number of children—never mind, it was dumb,” I say, scrubbing my board clean.

But then Daniel flips his board around, and by some miracle, there it is: “two point five.” Daniel sees my shocked expression and winks.

For the next few questions, our strategy of cramming about each other pays off. I recall that Daniel’s parents are lawyers. He remembers that my best friend is Cindy. Not everyone fares as well. Jaxon and Brittany end up on the brink of elimination along with Selena and Chase.

As the challenge progresses, I fall into the rhythm of competition. When I’m waiting my turn, I take the chance to observe the people around me. Most of the crew members, including Lex, just seem burned out or angry, probably because they’re being forced to work through a tragedy. I notice that Seth seems more focused on his couples than ever, intently watching Mikayla and Trevor like he’s trying to telepathically send them the right answers.

Finally, a question about how Jaxon really feels about Brittany’s parents knocks the two of them out. She thinks he adores them, but Jaxon thinks that his mother-in-law “looks and acts like if Cruella de Vil was a vegan.”

---