I go up another one. I feel Nathan right behind me, then holding me tight again. "Any vertigo yet!"
"Not yet."
"Go up another one."
"Come on!" Tori yells. "Just do it!"
"I swear if she yells at me again I'm gonna punch her in the face. If I get out of this alive," I add.
"Ooh, a girl fight. "What a turn-on."
"My foot is close to your nuts, Nathan, and you're suspended on a rope. It's probably not the best time to piss me off."
"You kick me in the nuts, I'm pulling your pants down," he says, following me up another section of rope.
"Avi will kill you if you do that."
"I'll already be dead from the fall so it won't matter. One more, Amy."
I close my eyes as we get higher. I have to admit, when Nathans arms are around my knees, I feel safe.
Up and up we go. I close my eyes when I get to the top and tentatively ring the bell.
"Grab the handle and ride to the bottom," Nathan says.
"I can't."
"Yes, you can. You've come all this way--you can't stop now."
"We're losing because of you!" Tori yells at me. ""What a spaz," I hear her say.
That's it. My anger overrides my fear. I grab the handle and shut my eyes tight while my body glides back to earth.
When my feet safely reach the ground, I open my eyes. Tori is laughing at me. Jessica looks ready to murder her, probably because she's my best friend and we always look out for each other. I storm up to the laughing hyena.
"You are seriously the most annoying person," I tell her. "I wonder how anyone can be friends with you."
She pushes me. At another time or place I might have lost my balance and fallen on my butt. But adrenaline rushes through my body, giving me strength beyond my normal capabilities. I push her back, and she goes flying. She lands on her butt.
I stand above her and let it all out. "Stop harassing me, you double-jointed, breast-challenged, designer-knockoff-wearing bully."
Tori's mouth is open wide. "You hit me!"
"No, I didn't. I pushed you."
"It's against the Sababa rules to assault another person. I'm telling!"
Oh, no. "You pushed me first, Tori." Geez, and they call me a drama queen.
Tori storms up to Avi. "Your girlfriend assaulted me."
"You've got two facts wrong. She's not my girlfriend. And you assaulted her first. Get back to the group and finish the course."
"She pushed me."
"This is not a discussion. Get back to the group and finish the course."
"Can't we just give up?" Nathan asks, watching as the other group nears the finish line. "We've obviously lost."
Looking into Avis eyes, I see strength and determination. He would never give up. He won't let us give up, either. "Let's keep going until we finish," I say to my team.
We walk half-heartedly to the next obstacle.
When it's my turn to go through the swinging tire, I put my hands and feet in first. It's a big mistake, because now I'm stuck. The front half of me is through the tire, but my butt is sticking out the other end. "Push me, Nathan."
"You're giving me permission to touch your ass?"
"Not touch it. Just push it."
"Avis watching. Should I caress it first to make him jealous?"
"Oh, yeah. What a great idea. Caressing my butt while it's stuck in a tire is definitely going to make him jealous. Not."
Nathan puts his hand on my butt. "Don't fart." He pushes me hard until I pop out of the tire. We're all sweaty and hot and it's worse because we know we lost.
The cargo net is easy enough to maneuver, although my foot slips a few times and I get rope burn on the back of my legs.
At the half wall, Miranda and I are hopeless. The guys hold Miranda on their shoulders and heave her over, then do the same for me. I swear, the wall is impossible. You have to have major arm strength to pull your body over it. Arm strength that I just don't possess.
After we step through a bunch of tires, we reach the last obstacle: crawling under the net. I look over at Avi watching us and wonder what's going through his head. There's hardly any room under the net. I kneel on the ground and duck my head. The ground is muddy, so I'm definitely getting dirty. I can't even crawl; I have to wiggle on my belly in order to go under this thing.
I use my fingernails to dig into the ground and my toes to help me slither forward like a snake. Seriously, how can Avi do the entire course in just over a half a minute?
"Push off my hands," Nathan says from behind me. He pushes me forward. I feel the time ticking away as I slide through... all the while my boobs are squished into the ground. My big C/D-cup boobs can probably fit into a training bra now.
I climb out and we all jog to the finish line. I feel victorious, although I must look like a complete mess. And we are in fact the big losers.
Avi has us sit on the ground while the other teams take their turns competing on the course. Tori grudgingly mumbles something about her uncle who's a lawyer and about what it did and did not say regarding assault in that infamous Sababa brochure.
Our group doesn't get to compete in the final heat because we came in last. "When I look up, Avi is standing over me.
"Amy, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Whatever you want to say to me, you can say in front of Nathan," I tell Avi. "We have no secrets between us."