Epiphany *The wilds*

Day Sixteen

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"I want to see her." Shelby demands, glaring at agent young.
"You're talking about Toni, I assume?" He questions her, with a raised brow, but Shelby shakes her head quickly,
"No. Lydia."
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"Here they are, the brave young women whose tale of struggle and survival has gripped the nation. The unsinkable nine, as we come to know them. Ladies, you must have dreamed of coming home for so long. Now that you're here, what do you wanna do the most?" The interviewer, Brooke, asks us while smiling widely.
"Honestly, smoke about a hundred cigs, you know? Like, really rip through a carton or two." Dot says first, nodding her head.
"Okay. How about the rest of you?"
"I don't know; maybe hit up the OG for a never ending pasta bowl and just, I don't know, get back to our real lives." Toni replies, smiling widely.
"I'd like to read the odyssey again, rather than, like, live it." Nora comments, making all us laugh.
"I wanna go to 7-11 and get a slurpee.. I'm literally dying for it." I decide to chime in, causing Toni and dot to nod their heads quickly.
"And Leah, what about you?" Brooke questions her.
"Oh, um, I just wanna reconnect with certain people... people who may have been worried and or felt like we had unfinished business." She turns straight to the camera,
"And if that person is watching right now, I just wanna say that I did not not miss you every day." She finishes, still staring into the camera.
"My turn, Brooke, and I've got a nice, straight answer for you. I'm going to fuck the rowdiest guy with the biggest dick as soon as I fucking can." Fatin says smiling wide.
This makes us stop our imaginary interview and look over at fatin with wide eyes.
"I don't think you can say that on live TV." Leah comments, stifling a laugh.
"Okay, make it more media friendly." Fatin clears her throat and hold the hair brush to her mouth,
"I am going to fornicate with the healthiest penis I can find ASAP." She declares, making us all laugh.
"Leah, you wanna change your emo shit show of  an answer?" I ask her, giggling some more.
She rolls her eyes,
"Was it maybe not that great?"
"Leah! You are going to be trending. Romeos from all over the world are going to be blowing up your DMs!" Fatin yells out, standing up to sit next to Leah.
"Um, do you think Romeo's will be in my DMs too?" Martha questions Fatin, with a blush on her face.
"Martha, angel, your DMs will be overflowing." She replies, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
"All right, then." She says back, smiling wide, grabbing the bottle of vodka,
"We're going home, bitches!" She cheers, causing us to laugh and cheer along with her... well, most of us.
Dot gets up and grabs my hand, dancing around.
"Come on, Lydia!" She yells, twirling me around, laughing.
About an hour later, dot decides to go through our food stash.
"So, you're saying we can eat everything?" Martha questions dot, excitedly.
"Hell yeah! Major closeout sale! Everything must go!" She yells out, throwing everybody a snack.
"Chaser, my darling?" She jokes, throwing Toni some water.
"The ration queen let's loose!" Fatin cheers, opening her bag of peanuts from the plane.
"We were robbed of our island vacay. Here's our chance to take one day of it back, maybe live a little." Dot declares, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.
"What the hell, Martha? You have candy?" Toni says, watching Marty take the gummies out of jennettes bag and popping one in her mouth.
"Hey, where'd you get those?" Dot whines, clearly wanting one.
"Side pocket of jennetes bag." She says casually, popping another into her mouth.
I widen my eyes and snatch the bag away from her, trying to find a label.
"Am I in trouble? I thought everything must go..." Marty trails off, looking at the ground.
"Yeah, no, Martha...These aren't candy... they're edibles." I say laughing at the poor girl.
"Well, I know they're edible; I just ate them." She replies back, clearly oblivious.
"No, no, like, they're weed gummies." I giggle handing the bag over to fatin.
"Oh, man! These are potent... i had a foot once, and I couldn't feel my feet for, like, 24 hours." Fatin laughs, causing Martha's smile to drop.
"So.. what would happen if someone accidentally ate three?" She questions, scared to know the answer.
We all gasp, laughing so hard at the poor girl.
"Oh, Martha, you're gonna be tripping Motherfucking balls, dude." I say to her, causing her to widen her eyes.
"And she won't be alone." Rachel smirks, grabbing the bag and popping one into her mouth.
"I'm in too! Solidarity baby!" Toni cheers, grabbing the bag from Rachel.
"I'll have one." Leah says, taking the bag, then giving it to me.
"Fuck it." I say, putting one in my mouth, handing the bag over to dot now.
"Alright, I'm going to go take a piss, before it happens involuntarily." Dot jokes while standing up to walk away.
"Uh, Hello? That's your cue, dude." Dot jokes again, this time looking at me.
I stand up and we begin our walk,but we see Shelby by herself in the distance and dot decides to walk over to her.
"So Martha just ate enough weed to tranquilize a buffalo.. in case you wondering what you're missing." She says to Shelby while laughing, but Shelby just looks at the ground before sarcastically replying,
"Pretty crazy."
Dot sighs and we sit down next to her.
"I'm not big on fishing through peoples business just as, like, a personal policy, but unfortunately, I can't say the same about everyone else on this beach. If you sit here like you are, they're gonna come at you with questions, so..." dot trails off, fiddling with her fingers.
"Maybe you should think about joining the fiesta." I finish for her, putting my hand on Shelby's shoulder.
"And plus, you know, you're not a bad hang." Dot continues, taking a sip of the vodka.
"Yeah, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kinda miss your optimism." I comment, causing Shelby to smile for the first time in a few days.
Dot coughs from the vodka and sets it down next to Shelby's leg before grabbing my hand and walking away, towards the woods.
"I can't believe Martha ate three fucking edibles." I giggle, stepping over a few sticks.
"I know, she's gonna be fucked for sure." She agrees with me, nodding her head.
She abruptly stops walking , pushing me against a near by tree before kisses me passionately.
I hesitate at first, not expecting it, but soon kiss back while running my fingers through her hair. She pulls back after a few minutes to breathe, resting her head against mine.
She opens her mouth to say something, but this time I cut her off by kissing her, grabbing her hand and intertwining it with mine,
"Dot" I moan against her lips, feeling her hands run up and down body.
I kiss her one last time, making it last, before resting my head on her shoulder.
"You didn't actually have to pee, did you?"
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When we finally got back to camp, it had already kicked in. Dot knowing more than I do, made me stay close so she could make sure nothing bad happened.
"Marcus? Marcus?" Martha yells from next to me.
"He's gone, Martha. He's moved away." I say to her, running my hands through the sand.
"Well, where did he move to?" She questions sadly
"Right there." I say, pointing to her heart, causing her to giggle.
"Yeah, that's where he is."
"Yeah!" I giggle, my head falling on her chest.
"I'm so fucking blissed out. Not even from the gummies, just from the thought that in 48 hours, I can have an orgasm." Fatin laughs, her being the only one sitting up.
"Wait. So you haven't, like, self induced?" Leah questions her.
Fatin shakes her head no,
"No. I can't do with my hands, actually. I have this weird cello-vibrato ptsd. It's a whole thing" She replies casually, causing dot to sit up.
"So your electric toothbrush hasn't seen any action? I mean, we all just assumed." Dot laughs out, causing everyone to nod.
"I might be a horny bitch, but I'm not gonna scrub my teeth and my Labia with the same brush." She replies, throwing her hands up in defense.
"Wait... who has gotten off here?" Fatin questions the group, not expecting to see the raised hands of Toni, Leah, Nora and dot.
I look over to dot and smirk at her raised hand, making her blush and away.
"Can I ask... where do you all even go do it?" Rachel questions questions sitting up.
"Yeah! Where do you go? Where are the pleasure nests?" Fatin laughs, smirking at the girls.
"What I like to do is just take Martha's suitcase.. ." Dot starts, causing Martha to shoot up and glare at her.
"... open it up and just get inside it." Dot shakes her head back and forth, causing everyone to cheer and laugh.
"What's everybody talking about?" Shelby asks from behind us, holding the bottle of vodka.
"Orgasms!" I say to her, giggling.
She laughs and hiccups before replying,
"Yeah, I—I do it, too, with the— with, uh, the bath jets at our home jacuzzi. I might be a—a virgin, but I'm not just some prude."
She laughs again,
"Love me an orgasm."
"Wow, I mean, just when I thought this place couldn't surprise me anymore, turns out Shelby likes to fuck her whirlpool." Fatin jokes, causing the group to laugh.
"Yes, I do." Shelby responds flatly, before continuing,
"So let's cheers to our orgasms."
"Jesus, she's trashed." Toni whispers over to dot and I.
"Yeah.. that's a little bit my bad." Dot laughs, looking over to the drunk blonde girl.
Toni gives dot a sour face and turns to look at Shelby again.
"You know, I'm gonna deny this till the day I day I die, but... I'm gonna miss the shit out of you guys." Fatin says, smiling at everyone.
"And if you're ever in L.A, you got a place to crash." She continues, hugging me.
"Wait. You're not moving back to the bay?" I ask her, confused on why she wouldn't go home.
She shakes her head,
"Yeah— no. No, I got this whole life mapped out. I'm gonna go to L.A and cash in this heinous watch, get an apartment at 1600 vine, where all the influencers live." She explains, patting my hair.
I smile at her plan before responding back,
"I feel you, man. I don't think I'm going to go back either. I need a fresh start."
"If you're looking for a roommate... I might be interested." Dot says from beside me, trying to her hide her smile.
I kiss her cheek, nodding with a big smile, causing fatin to shriek.
"I still can't believe you tried to tell me you Weren't a lesbian. Those cargo pants scream 'gay.'" fatin laughs, pointing at dots pants, causing her to laugh.
"It's not our uniform, you know. We all got our own swag." Toni says causally, flipping over from her back to her stomach.
"I know. I'm just saying! My gaydar is like perfect, and when I saw miss Dorothy over here, And or the cargo pants, I just knew." Fatin fires back, laughing.
"Well, I happen to love those cargo pants." I declare, kissing dots lips this time, causing the girls too cheer at my sudden boldness, but that soon ends when Shelby stands up.
"Hey, hey, hey, okay. Hey, campers. I.. uh, what— what do you say that I do what I do best and suggest some fucking games?"
"Woo!" Martha screams, making us all all cheer with her.
"To the water!" Shelby yells.
We all begin to tear our clothes off, and run to the ocean.
Dot leans down and lets me jump on her back, while she runs around the water.
We all run around and enjoy one of our last few nights together.. or so what we thought.
Rachel, dot, Leah and I decide to play chicken.
"You better not let me down, bitch." I laugh to Leah, jumping up and down, getting pumped up.
"Yeah, no, I probably will." She replies, grabbing my arms and jumping up and down with me.
"Shelby! Look, if you're not fighting, at least place your bets! Vegas has me and Rach at 20 to 1! Odds on favorite." She explains, throwing her hands up in the air.
Shelby laughs and looks around at the hyped up girls.
"Let's—let's show em how we do it!" Rachel yells out, giggling with dot.
Dot helps Rachel on her shoulders before realizing they're still on land.
"Oh, fuck. I'm fucked!" Dot giggles, setting Rachel down before walking towards the ocean.
I notice that she has something on her shoulder and run up to her.
"Dot, you're bleeding!" I gasp, grabbing her arm and inspecting her shoulder.
"Uh oh, where?" She asks, looking everywhere except her shoulder.
"Right there." I set my hand on her shoulder.
She finally looks down and grabs her now blood stained shirt.
"It's me. Uh..." Rachel whispers, looking down.
"I'm sorry. I'm... I'm just gonna..." she trails off, running away.
"Uh oh." Nora says, watching her sister walk off.
"Shark week for Rachel." Fatin jokes, causing Nora to glare at her.
Fatin smiles awkwardly at her, noticing the glare.
"Come on, let's clean you up, yeah?" I say to her, taking her hand and skipping back to the water.
About 45 minutes later, most of decide to play a few games of uno, Dot kicking all our asses of course.
But, Suddenly, Martha runs out the woods towards us, screaming.
"Guys! You guys! Guess who I just saw? Holy shit! I just saw Marcus, and he's alive!" She stops in front of us, panting.
Dot is the first to laugh, causing the rest of us to burst out in laughter.
Martha shakes her head and turns her back to run towards the woods again.
Knowing she's high as hell, we all get up and follow the poor girl.
"So, you're just saying that he, like, fucking Pinocchio'd?" Dot asks Marty, making no attempt to hide her laughter.
"Yes!! Uh huh, that's exactly what I'm saying! He- he turned into a real boy." She exclaims, throwing her arms around the air dramatically.
Toni turns and corner and suddenly laughs,
"I don't know, I mean, he kinda looks the to me." She laughs again, holding up the mannequin to show Martha.
Martha just rolls her eyes and Huffs,
"No, but he was different."
"Marcus, baby! I missed you." Fatin squeals, snatching the mannequin and kissing his abs.
"I don't understand. He was in a tree! He was up there!" Martha points to the sky, making us all laugh again.
"Okay, but wait, if he got swept out, how the hell did he end up... here?" Leah questions, furrowing her eyebrows.
"Leah.. we're mellow. We're leaving." I say to her, trying to shut down another conspiracy.
"We're taking him back with us, right? You know, no man left behind." Dot laughs, grabbing Marcus and holding him up.
"Yeah, you're coming with us!" Fatin cheers.
Martha frowns, watching most of the group walk away.
"But that's not him."
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It was finally dark, and by now, the high was long gone, well, except for Martha's, who is still coming down.
"He's cold." Martha frowns, rubbing Marcus.
"Well.. million dollar question is... who gets to keep him?" Dot laughs, putting a hat on Marcus.
"Leah gets my vote." I giggle, making her glare at me.
"We could just pass him around... like the Stanley cup. Like how they do all over the USA. You know, like, USA! USA! Oh, Shelby, you—you love America so much. USA! USA!" She rambles on, falling back into the sand.
"Hey, dot?" I ask her, watching her add some sticks to the fire.
"Yeah?" She hums, turning her head to look at me.
"Did you mean what you said? About.... Wanting to be my roommate?" I question her, nervous for answer.
She smiles and nods,
"Yeah, I meant it."
I smile at her, but before I could respond,
Shelby let's out a loud gasp.
Looking over to her, I notice she has a brush absolutely tangled in her long, blonde hair.
"Can you get it out?" She sobs to fatin, pulling on her hair, making it worse.
"Just let me help you. I can take it-" fatin starts, but Shelby cuts her off.
"No, no, no, no. It's ruined. It's ruined. It's ruined. It's all ruined." She sobs even harder, reaching into Fatins bag and grabbing a pair of scissors.
"No!" All of us scream at her, but it's too late.
"I don't fucking want it! I don't want it." She screams, cutting her hair off.
She continues to sob, never once stopping her jagged cuts.
We all just watch in shock, not once expecting this from Shelby.
Once she's finished, she throws the scissors down and runs away from the group.
Sighing, I decide to go after her.
"Hey." I say, sitting next to her in the sand.
"I thought I went insane yesterday, and you were like, hold my beer." I joke, obviously not getting a reaction back.
"Sorry, I didn't just come to crack shitty jokes. Uh... I, um... I wanted to apologize... not just for Leah, but for everything. Uh... I know you were raised a different way, and if it makes you uncomfortable, me and dot, I get it... but, you should try and go easy on yourself. I know we can't blame it all on where we are, but this place, this situation... it makes you go crazy..." I trail off, looking at the waves crashing,
"For 16 days, actual death has been hanging over our heads... and the only thing keeping me sane is dot." I finish, turning my head to find her already looking at me.
"My best friend...killed herself last year." She says flatly, causing me to widen my eyes.
"I kissed her, but when her parents found out, I told them it was the other way around. Got everyone to believe that she was wrong, sick, I got her believing it too..... The guilt. The shame I felt. Sometimes I even wanted to.. follow her." She continues, wiping a tear that fell from her eye.
"What was her name?" I ask her quietly, rubbing her back softly.
"Becca." She smiles at me.
"So, you're..." I trail off, causing her to nod.
"My church... they don't accept people like... that. If my family found out, they'd wish I stayed on this island." She whispers back to me, putting her head down.
Frowning, I put my hand on her shoulder,
"Shelby..." I trail off, pulling the now crying girl into a hug.
"We're family now, and I promise, none of us would ever do that to you."
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"Not only has dot opened up to you, but Shelby too. Why do you think that is?" Agent faber questions me, a dark look In his eye.
I shrug my shoulders before answering,
"I'm not sure, honestly.. In this fucked up world, sometimes you just need someone to listen."
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Notes /// hey y'all, I wrote most of this last night, and woke up to hear that my childhood dog had passed. So this is probably not great/ it's not edited yet.