One Perfect Couple

“And as she struggles against him, she knows two things, knows them to be piercingly, desperately true—one: it is him or her, and if she lets go, she will be the one drowning under the waves. And two: to kill someone this way, you have to want them to die with every ounce of your being. The question is: Does she? Does she want him to die?”

The anonymity of this section builds suspense because Ware deliberately chooses not to reveal who is struggling or why. The adverbs “piercingly” and “desperately” emphasize the life-or-death stakes and the ferocity of the emotion involved. The final question, left unanswered, sets up the survival story and introduces a key theme from the outset.

“It wasn’t just that Nico’s answer was sort of delusional—did he really think that he was on an Adam Driver career path? I might as well compare myself to Rosalind Franklin. It was also that not one word of his answer had featured me, or indeed any kind of homelife at all.”

Lyla’s language here borders on the contemptuous as she equates Nico’s ambitions with a delusion. She is careful to emphasize she does not share his goals, and her mention of Rosalind Franklin as the real discoverer of DNA serves as a reminder of her feminist worldview. Her realization that “not one word” of Nico’s dreams involves her foreshadows the conflict between them.

“Nico put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed hard. ‘Excited?’ Not really, was the honest answer. Exhausted, was the word I’d have chosen, closely followed by hungry, and nervous. But I knew that wasn’t what Nico wanted me to say, so I smiled weakly. ‘Yeah. Let the adventure begin.’”

Nico’s gesture emphasizes his exuberance and energy, which stands in contrast to Lyla’s fatigue and lack of enthusiasm. Her inner monologue of adjectives emphasizes her depletion and dread of the ordeal to come, but because she chooses not to share her genuine feelings with Nico, it is clear that their relationship is on very shaky ground. Her choice to deny her feelings and perform the role that Nico expects is an indication that the inauthentic parameters of the reality show are already taking effect.