Ashley’s voice cracked at first, trailed off on certain words, but somehow it always started again. She told Kyle about himself, about his life and family, about the future he wanted and planned to have. Mara didn’t know when Ashley had learned those things. But then she remembered that they used to talk, Ashley and Kyle, that they were the social ones, the ones whose tasks kept them close to camp. Her with the water and him with the traps. Maybe they were even friends.

“You have three siblings,” Ashley told Kyle. “And you’re the oldest. You earned your Eagle Scout rank by building a bridge in the woods. It was two miles from the nearest road, and you hauled the wood there yourself. You used to work at a pizza restaurant. You were good at throwing dough.

“You have a plan when you leave here. You promised your little sister that wherever the show brought you, you’d bring her back someday. You’d show her how you lived and how to catch food and stuff. She’s already making her outfit for the premiere. She’s embroidering it with flowers and leaves. She showed you her sketches the day you left. She’s going to wear it to the airport when you come home.

“You want to be a pilot. You’re going to use the prize money for flying school. A commercial pilot, like your grandpa. You’d like to see the world from above . . .”

Ashley kept going.

The buzzing in Mara’s skin had started to fade. She didn’t want to listen anymore. She walked.

It was the end of June. She knew it was the end of June because she had taken over Kyle’s calendar, scratching a mark on the eave each night, and now there were forty-two marks. Six weeks.

The day they should have left.

It was dangerous to think about. Six weeks here—it felt more like a decade. She let herself imagine what would have happened if nothing had happened. If the game had stayed a game, and the show a show.

Where they could have been. Should have been.

There’d be some dramatic departure, of course. Lenny wouldn’t be able to resist. Have them climb a mountain again, boosting each other over boulders, or maybe they’d do a reverse of the first day, swim out into the lake and climb a knotted rope into helicopters above.

There’d be final interviews. They’d wear their ragged clothing, looking weary but triumphant. The cameras would coax out the soundbites. Full sentences. Present tense. Until Civilization, we never knew what we were capable of. Now we’ve tackled our demons. Tackled nature and won. We’ve learned the importance of other people. We’ll never take anything for granted ever again.

There’d be footage of family members waiting. Not Mara’s probably, or Bullfrog’s, but Ashley’s mom and sister and all of Kyle’s siblings, cheering for the reunion in the lobby of some posh lodge. Waitresses in button-down shirts and a moose mount above the stone fireplace, with a Stetson hanging off one antler. They would get to bathe, scrub off the dirt until they were clean, brush their hair, put on their old or their fancy clothes. Kyle in chinos. Ashley in an eyelet dress. “You’re too thin,” her family would exclaim, but of course that was part of the triumph: the discipline, the fortitude and the restraint.