could have made that one of the tests—there was some real heroism and teamwork, and everyone here in the Discard House won. You couldn’t have voted any of us off.
I do regret losing the garden I had in the back, though; I’d worked so hard on that. I don’t think there was a more unusual one in several states, and I remember thinking that, hey, at least this hillside isn’t likely to go tumbling away in the next big rainstorm: those trees will do a fine job of holding everything together.
Guess I forgot about earthquakes. I never will again, I’ll tell you that much.
What do I think about being a Discard? Well, part of me wishes . . . actually, I’m not sure what it wishes. Maybe that I was like some of the others who broke their contracts and left the show. What? You can shake your head all you want, but I really don’t care. Those people were my friends too—at least some of them, and those who weren’t are still people I care about—and now several of them have put themselves in harm’s way. I’m worried about them. What they’re doing isn’t television. It’s not staged. It’s not controlled. It’s not safe. And it could get some of them hurt or even . . .
No, I’m not even going to say that word. Mom always used to tell me that “saying it might make it happen.”
Why’d I stay if I feel this way? I don’t know. Part of it is that I was always brought up to fulfill commitments I made, and I signed that contract of my own free will. I said I’d stay to the end—I made that promise.
But that’s just an excuse, really. Most of it is because . . . because specifically nobody asked me to come with them.
Yeah, I know; that sounds stupid. No one was issuing invitations, after all—the idea just kinda spread through the house. Still, no one came to me and said, “Jerusha, you wanna come with?”
Maybe that’s my fault: I’m not gregarious and extroverted like most of them. I called them “friends,” yeah, and I meant it, but I don’t know that they’d use the same word toward me. I mean, God, look at DB—if the spotlight’s not on him, he’s gonna walk over and wheel it around it so he’s in the light, all six arms waving. Me, I like solitude. I like that I can walk into a store somewhere and no one knows that I’m an ace or anyone special at all. I’m comfortable being all alone for days and weeks at a time in the forest or camping. I like being alone and I’m okay with silence—that’s why I was out back in that garden so much. It’s also why I never had one of those “showmances” you people love to film and talk about—I figure that one day I’ll meet someone, and I’ll just know.
I’m not a natural joiner, so I wasn’t part of anyone’s group and none of them ever asked my opinion or said they’d like it if I went with them.
No, no—this isn’t all “pity poor Jerusha.” You reap what you sow; that’s part of the consequences of being the way I am, and I’m okay with that. Really. I don’t blame them at all; it’s all on me. Just me.
But if they’d asked me to go with them to Egypt? If I’d known what they were planning, would I have gone? Sure, I’d have thought about it. Contract or no contract, I would have. I’d have thought about it seriously.
Mom and Dad, they’re all about stewardship—that’s the way most of the people who get into the Park Service are. They care about the land. They want to protect it; they want it to stay pristine. I feel the same way: I’m responsible for making this a better world to live in. I’ve always kinda thought that with my gift, my role would be to literally become a capital-G Gardener, that I’d bring green life back to places. A new Johnny Appleseed, maybe. But maybe I was thinking too small. Too solitary. Maybe I’m supposed to do more.
So I don’t know . . .
The show? Oh, yeah. That. Stuntman and . . . umm, Rosa.
I guess maybe now that we’re down to those two, I’d prefer that Rosa win. I don’t know her all that well—I guess I don’t really know any of them all that well, and again that’s