The Compound

by Aisling Rawle

Of course, we all loathed how we looked in some way, but most of us were better at hiding it.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to go home. The endless talk of the wars, and the masks that we wore in the cities and big towns, and the dreary gray skies, and evenings in front of the television.

Or maybe we would all continue to boil, slowly but surely, in the mess that we pretended was an acceptable place to live.

“Do you regret last night?” he asked.

How could this be "last night " when tge beginning of thr chapter says "for a time we lived…as 8"?

shattered some illusion that I had held on to from my time as a viewer: that the show was, in fact, about love—or, at least, about finding someone who you could live with. I had been comforted by the thought that Andrew and Candice were “the real thing.” Somewhere along the way I had let myself forget the most obvious thing—that it was a game.

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I came on the show?” “No,” she said. “I don’t need you to explain it. You’re the kind of girl the show was made for.”

“It’s a television show,” I said. “They’ll remember us.”

“Have you not been watching the show?” “I watched an episode or two. It wouldn’t be my kind of thing.”