Survivor Ghost Island has arrived! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off of the island.

“Sad.”

When a game like Survivor strips you to your emotional core, even in its initial few days, it’s understandable to have feelings of melancholy. You could, for example, be Domenick Abbate, equally wistful and peeved after finding out that Chris Noble was targeting him due to the construction supervisor being vocal about his regret to vote Chris as leader in the season’s opening challenge. You could be Jacob Derwin, whose vast knowledge of the game amounted to a hill of rice (poured through his sock to sift for a clue) when he quickly found himself on the outs of his tribe. Or you could be Stephanie Gonzalez, who was so surprised to find out that she was the first boot from the season, all she could muster out was the word above before she left the stick-y situation that is Tribal Council.

Gonzalez entered the game ready to prove something to herself and her most prominent skeptics. Though she may come across as a “girly girl,” she was the most used to island life out of her entire cast, being born in Puerto Rico. She began to make bonds with the rest of the Malolo tribe while simultaneously, Jacob’s social standing began to ebb like the wave that took his shoes away. But to quote Gonzalez herself, “They have seen nothing yet,” and the first Immunity Challenge thrust her into the spotlight, even though she intended for the opposite to happen. She was not chosen for the puzzle portion but prided herself on her organizational headspace. She took it upon herself to help advise her tribemates on the sidelines, even to the point of shutting down Donathan Hurley for giving some additional crosstalk. Unfortunately for Malolo, their trailing from the physical portion combined with confusion around the puzzle allowed the rival Naviti tribe to claim their first win. In addition to reward and immunity, they also had the task of sending one person out to the titular Ghost Island, and when they set the fro free of Tribal Council, that took one easy target out of contention. Gonzalez decided to throw Donathan’s name out there, citing him as the physically weakest member of their group. But as Stephanie Johnson would describe at Tribal Council, there are different kinds of strength. Gonzalez, for example, seemed to be weakest from a trust perspective, as many felt that she was more unreliable and liable to flip. She walked into Tribal Council confident that Donathan would be dancing his way out the door. But when she caught a spare comment from Michael Yerger hinting that there may be other plans she’s not involved in, she set off a chain reaction of whispering, desperate to get in the know. Unfortunately, the murmurs may have murdered her chances of staying, as she was sent out unanimously.

Now out of the game, Gonzalez talks with me about why she chose to get up and talk with the others at Tribal Council, her feelings towards Brendan as a leader, and what advice she has for future players regarding their first few days in the game.

You obviously seemed upset with the results of that Tribal Council. What was going through your head as you were bringing your torch to Jeff?

So there was a couple of things going through my head. The biggest was “That was a dumb move on their part.” I think I said, “You’ll be back at Tribal soon.” I felt I was pretty strong in the tribe, and I felt like I was an instrumental part of succeeding in the rest of the challenges that we had as a tribe. But that was my biggest “sad” moment. You picked to keep a weak person versus keeping me. It just seemed like a very obvious mistake from my perspective. Of course, we always think, “Oh yeah, you should keep me, of course!” But I really felt that looking at it from somebody else’s perspective, the obvious choice was to let Donathan go so we could perform better in the challenges and not have to be back at Tribal Council like that. [Regarding] the “sad” comment, there’s actually a longer thing that I said. I said, “One lion, seven sheep. That’s sad.” One person is kind of orchestrated the moves and everyone is following whatever that one person says. If they speak up or anything, they’re going to be voted out, so they just held quiet.

I’m going to take a shot in the dark and say that Brendan in the lion you’re referring to?

What? No way! It’s Donathan. I’m just kidding. (Laughs.)

He’s more like a lion cub. Like a young Simba!

Yeah! He’s a sweet Donathan. (Laughs.)

Well let’s talk about your feelings about Brendan then. Did he continue that leadership role after he was given it in the first challenge, and did that affect your opinion on him?

It absolutely did. Brendan led us to “victory.” We all associated him with [winning]. It wasn’t until that first Immunity Challenge that we’re like, “Okay, never mind!” When I looked at Brendan, we all gravitated to him because he just comes off very positive. He’s a teacher, and you can see that in him. He really makes connections with people, and he’ll talk to you about whatever. He can have you blabbing on for hours. He’s got a killer social game, but he does come off as a leader. He was the older gentleman in our tribe, and we were all like his little students. I was angrier that no one was there to play. No fault to [Brendan], but he just wanted to keep peace at the camp for now. He didn’t want to start playing quite yet. So that was where the idea was brought up [of keeping Donathan]. Donathan had a very emotional moment saying, “I really don’t want to go. I never get this experience.” He broke down in tears, and that was with me and Brendan, which they didn’t show. At that point, Brendan had a soft spot. He has kids, so he can relate. Who wouldn’t have a soft spot for Donathan coming out with that story? “I really want to be here. I will never get to do this again for the rest of my life.” So Brendan promised Donathan, “No, don’t worry man. You’re staying. It will be fine; it’s no big deal. Stay strong.” Some encouraging words were exchanged. And he fell for it! Brendan fell for it hardcore, and we ended up voting me out last-minute. The vote was changed because it kept flopping from Jenna to Donathan, Donathan to Jenna. As soon as I took a brisk walk, I came back, and I already knew the vote was on me.

So did that inspire you to start the whisper train at Tribal Council? Was the idea to go for broke, since you knew the vote was you at that point?

Absolutely. I already knew I was going home. There was going to be eight votes coming my way. So when I got up to talk to Brendan and Michael, I spoke to Brendan and asked him who he was voting for. I knew they didn’t have a whole lot of time to come up with a lie to tell me because the vote was switched on me very last-minute. Before we went to Tribal, I asked, “Brendan, who are you voting for? Are we still good?” And he was like, “Yeah yeah yeah. We’re still good. It’s Donathan.” Then I asked Michael, “Michael, who are you voting for?” He’s like, “We’re still good for Jenna.” So I’m like, “(Sighs.) Oh my God. That was a horrible failed way to blindside somebody because I know exactly what you’re doing.”

At Tribal, I got up and confirmed it. Brendan said, “We’re still good for Donathan” and Michael said, “We’re still good for Jenna.” So I told Michael, “The vote’s on me, I already know. Who do you think is running this right now? Do you really want to play with someone who’s orchestrating and manipulating everyone?” And Michael said, “Oh my God, do we take him on now?” Michael looked at me with a horrified look on his face, because I called him out on it. I made the mistake of saying no; I said, “We can’t vote him off now. We need strong. That’s why we need to vote Donathan.” But Michael also knew Brendan was kind of taking Donathan under his wing, so he knew [Brendan] didn’t want to take Donathan out. So I went up to Libby, and I was like, “I’m going to do whatever it takes.” I already knew Libby was like, “You tell me what to do.” So, assuming Libby was taking direction from Brendan, I told Libby, “Brendan said to vote Donathan. We are no longer voting for me.” Well, Libby knew that I whispered to Brendan and Brendan whispered to me, so she doesn’t know what we’re saying. So she said, “Okay, okay. We’re not voting for you anymore.” By the time I was done with my whispering, I had realized that it doesn’t matter how many times I get up to whisper to anybody. As soon as I sit down, they’ve already whispered to each other. So I’m like, “Well, what do I do? I cannot do anything if I spent 45 minutes whispering back and forth to all of these people and they’re going to whisper to each other once I sit down.”

Why do you think you were targeted? In your Day After video, you talked about coming across as more independent, and we saw people like Stephanie talk about how you’re more likely to flip and be combustible. Do you think your personality contributed to that assessment?

I didn’t really seek help from anybody to do anything. I wasn’t like, “Oh, okay! Can you help me do this?” I was independent and trying to make everything flow at camp, whether it was coconuts or getting water. I tried to be a little bit of a provider. I think they saw there’s a lot more to me than meets the eye. It’s not just some girl in a little yellow dress. They thought, “This girl’s a lot stronger than we thought, she’ll go a lot farther than we thought. And she’s strategic.” Because I started trying to talk strategy, I realized very quickly. When Brendan was giving the pep talks, he would say, “This group is kumbaya. We’re the best tribe, and we really get along.” And Jacob’s comment of “We’re the best tribe; we get along so well. It’s like we’ve known each other for years.” They go into this with this mentality that we’re awesome camp buddies. And it’s more like, “Dude, we’re on Survivor! Okay, yeah, kumbaya and yadda yadda, whatever. Now can we play the game? Someone’s going home.” (Laughs.)

You also talked in your Day After video about how you sat up the night before the challenge and came to the realization that you needed to, for lack of a better term, “ghost yourself” and make yourself stick out less. What prompted that epiphany, and was that why you weren’t chosen for the puzzle portion of the challenge?

I did realize that I was very vocal in trying to help. It’s so natural for me to watch somebody do something ridiculous like opening a bottle and [for me to say], “Hey, I know an easier way of doing that. Try this!” It’s going to sound stupid, but I worked in surgery with horses, so I’m very technical when it comes to looking at something and figuring out a better way of doing it. In surgery, that’s all you do; you look at things, you take them apart, you put them back together. You figure out a better way of doing something. But with everything in life, whether it’s opening a bottle or fixing a car, I’m very calculated and strategic. I want to do something the easiest, fastest way of doing it. I learned that, while I was there, I was doing a lot of that, which I do naturally. If I see someone struggling, I jump in to help them any way I can. So I realized, “Oh [expletive], I need to calm down, so they don’t think, ‘This girl is dominant.'” People don’t like being told what to do or how to do something. People especially don’t like what they don’t understand. I knew I was a question mark, just because I can have a very strong appearance. The dark hair, the way I walk, and my persona can be perceived wrong. (Laughs.)

Did you get close to anyone in particular in your time in the game?

Brendan and I had a couple of conversations that were kind of cool. I knew Michael tried to make a connection with me at one point. I was thinking to myself, “I don’t want him to expose that me, him, and Brendan wanted to work together.” Because Stephanie had approached me about working together with her, and I didn’t give her my full commitment. We’re on Day 3; you really don’t know what kind of people these who that you’re going to align with. What if this guy’s a [expletive]show? What if this girl’s a psycho? I don’t want to be aligned or associated with that person until I get to know their personalities a little better and make a connection a little stronger. I knew Brendan, Michael, and I had a thing going on, and Stephanie tried to have a thing with Jenna and me because she wanted an all-girl alliance. Well, all-girl alliance is a phenomenal idea, but I didn’t feel secure about it because I didn’t know all the girls’ strengths and how it would work out. Are we good at puzzles; can we win immunity? But at the end of the day, it was “Vote out anybody but me. Let’s all agree to vote out this person so we can keep our camp happy and not make anybody very pissy.”

Going back to your Day After video, you said in retrospect, you probably should have laid low from the get-go and focused more on personal one-on-one conversations. For future players, how vital is it for them to do that in the beginning?

I think it is crucial. As we all saw, I was first person freaking voted out because I didn’t do it. So if they can learn from my mistakes, I will pay for my consequences for being too loud as a person in the beginning. If they can just slap on a smile and play stupid, then start to build their resume once they make merge. Play stupid, make tons of happy eye contact, and be bubbly. Let someone be a leader, and then lay low.

The way you were talking at the beginning of that last answer kind of sounds like your own curse that needs to be reversed!

(Laughs.) Yeah, you have to embody Ghost Island!