Surviving Love

I’m fine. Just breathe slowly. I’m not going to die.

I hadn’t needed my inhaler in over a year, but the second I got off the plane in Cagayan, my lungs seemed to seize from stress. The sweltering heat didn’t help any, but as sweat trickled down my back, I reassured myself that there was no physical reason I couldn’t continue my journey of self-discovery. I’d cleared an embarrassingly thorough examination and was now officially a contestant on the hit show Devious Island.

Wiping perspiration from my face, I warily eyed the other twenty contestants as we climbed aboard the ninety-foot open-deck Brigantine rig the show used to transport us to Langit Island. The group of us would live on that small dot of sand and trees in the middle of the ocean for the next thirty days.