Author's Note: This is a re-write of a re-write of a story I've loved but never had the chance to come up with a clear plot/ending for. Now, probably four years since starting the story originally, I have a better idea of where this could go. The original is still going to be left up, mainly for myself as an easy way to access it, but there are lots of changes! Hopefully a lot of improvement in my writing, too.

Hope you guys enjoy. I own nothing.

xxx

HOW TO MURDER (AND GET AWAY WITH IT)

Once it's done, don't leave the body and run. Don't hide the body. Frame somebody else instead. Leave evidence leading to them. Make it so seemingly obvious that they don't even bother to question it otherwise. Sure, somebody will land some major prison time, but would you rather it be you?

Didn't think so.

xxx

"Oh my God, you married Trent from Total Drama Island? Really?"

You would be surprised how often I heard questions like these. Especially considering Total Drama ended nine years ago. Well, the season I competed on, anyways.

"Weren't you like sixteen when you competed? You stayed together that long?"

Well, yes. I loved him. I still love him.

"Isn't that weird for you though? Like, how do you know something better isn't out there?"

I don't want to find anybody better. I want him.

"Is it because he got all famous?"

Ooh, the question I definitely heard the most. Yeah, he's had a successful stint as a music producer, but he's far from "famous". It's not like we had paparazzi following us or anything. We just happened to be fairly comfortable, that's all.

"Well, I think you're so lucky. Trent is so attractive. If you dump him, I want him next. Are you guys going to break up anytime soon?"

Today's questioning happened to come from some pimple-faced, braces-ridden teenager at Toy Central. She couldn't be older than fifteen or sixteen. So question was: how did she even recognize me in the first place?

It was annoying. All I wanted to do was get some early Christmas shopping done for my four-year-old, Ruthie.

She scanned a large pink teddy bear I'd picked out. Ruthie's favorite color.

"You know, Total Drama is making a comeback. It's retro now. I've watched all three seasons on Netflix. The first season was my favorite though. It was before Chris McLean got all old and gross looking. Yeah, all of my friends watch it, you know."

I nodded. What do you even say to things like this?

She stuffed the teddy bear in a giant bag and stapled it shut. "You know, if I had the chance, I would totally get with Chris McLean anyways. He hosts The It Voice now and he's looking pretty yummy, if you know what I mean."

I didn't even bother to hold my gagging back at that point.

"What are you, like fifteen? That's so gross!"

She rolled her eyes, defiantly putting a hand on her hip. "Uh, excuse me! I turn seventeen next week, actually."

I swiped my card and grabbed my bags. "Same difference. Honey, keep all of that in your pants and find somebody your own age."

I flipped my ponytail back from my shoulder and left. I used to feel guilty being snarky towards "innocent" questioners, but by now, it was just plain annoying. My marriage was nobody's business.

xxx

I came home to Ruthie dancing along with some children's show on T.V. and Trent harping away into his work phone. Definitely nothing too out of the ordinary.

Ruthie caught sight of me and immediately got excited.

"Mommy! You're home, yay!"

She hobbled over towards me and jumped onto me. I picked her up and gave her a kiss on her cheek. "How's your day been, sweetheart?"

Ruthie dramatically tapped her chin in fake-serious thought. "It's been an okay day."

I glanced towards Trent. His face was starting to get red in frustration.

"Allison, I asked for those files two weeks ago! I told you there was going to be major trouble if we didn't have them by today at the latest! What's going on here? Tell me the truth!"

His voice raised into a yell. "If you had a family emergency, you should have told me when it happened. I've got three execs waiting and both of our asses are about to be on the line! Yes, that's right, you are going to take full responsibility. Look, I'm going to let you go. My wife is home and I expect you to get working on at least getting some progress done on those files."

Ruthie leaned in towards my ear. "Daddy's been scary for a little while now."

He ended the call, tossing his phone onto the nearby couch. His face softened and he pulled Ruthie and me into a hug.

"Hey honey. I'm glad you're home. How did shopping for Grandma go?" He winked.

I wasn't exactly reciprocating the happiness. I had lectured him a million times to not yell on the phone in front of Ruthie, but it seemed to be going in one ear and out the other. Typical.

I did my best to fake a smile. "I believe it's your nap time, Ruthie!"

Okay, so technically she had thirty more minutes, but I needed a moment to step away and cool off. I let her throw her usual "I don't want to take a nap" fit and spent a good amount of time getting her to finally fall asleep.

By the time I made it back downstairs, Trent was already re-wrapped up, shuffling through giant stacks of paperwork spread disastrously throughout our coffee table.

"Form 2B…form 2B…I could've sworn I left it underneath this stack…" he muttered as he knocked one of the stacks off of the table. He quickly reached for another stack and began flipping again, oblivious to the mess.

"Trent," I huffed, putting my arms on my hips.

No response. He picked up yet another stack of papers and flipped and flipped over and over again.

I kneeled down, picking up some of the dropped papers, stacking them neatly on the tiny amount of coffee table space left.

"Trent?"

More shuffling, more sighing, more flying papers. I caught one midair, resisting temptation to crumple it and tear it to pieces.

"Trent!" I screamed.

He screeched, dropping his papers and falling back onto the couch. "Gwen! Oh god, you scared me!"

I slapped my forehead. "Trent, I've been standing here for a while now. How can you be that inattentive? What if it was Ruthie and she was in some sort of danger?"

Trent set his stack of papers down. "I'm sorry, babe. I just really need to find this form. Production is kicking my ass!" He picked up another stack, flipping more and more urgently.

If there was anything I hated, it was being blown off or disrespected. Trent knew that, but didn't seem to really care. I sunk into the couch, folding my arms and staring at him, hoping he would eventually see I was upset and step up to it.

After a good thirty seconds of shuffling, he found the form he was looking for. He cheered silently and stuck it inside a folder, then looked back towards me.

"Why are you just sitting there with your arms folded like that?" he asked obliviously.

At that point, I lost it.

"Trent! What is your deal? You're literally getting so consumed in your work that you're not paying attention to anything else! I told you very specifically to keep your business conversations away from Ruthie, and when I come home you're completely ignoring her because you're too wrapped up in yelling at your poor intern! And I asked you repeatedly not to yell in front of Ruthie!"

Being the calm and understanding person he normally is, I expected him to take a step back and apologize. But for once, he actually argued back.

"Well excuse me for having business to take care of! This is a really important project and I don't have time to take it lightly, not if we want to keep putting food on the table! My intern didn't do what she was supposed to do and I'm supposed to stay calm about it? How is she going to learn?"

"You could've stepped into another room, then! I told you, we don't want Ruthie to think that yelling at people is normal or okay! We agreed on this!"

"But then I would've had to leave Ruthie out of my sight, and you don't want that either! So either way I'm in trouble! That's not fair!"

"Then why couldn't you have just waited to call your intern? Ruthie's nap time was coming up! Since when do you put business before family?"

"Because 'business' has to pay our bills, Gwen! Maybe if you actually worked you would understand!"

"You didn't want me to work because you wanted me to stay home and take care of Ruthie until elementary school!"

"Yeah, except you were too busy going out and spending ridiculous amounts of money on Christmas presents instead of, you know, staying at home and being a parent!"

"I'm always at home taking care of Ruthie! God forbid I go out and do something by myself for two hours! I wasn't even doing something for myself; that's just it, I was buying Christmas presents! Lord knows you couldn't do it, considering you've had your head halfway up your ass lately!"

Trent opened his mouth, but at that point he was just angrily groaning. His face was practically purple. Mine probably was too.

Okay, so the argument was totally ridiculous, but we had both managed to hit a "sensitive spot". He was knee-deep into something huge for work, and I was knee-deep into playing Momma Bear for Ruthie.

My conversation with the Toy Central salesgirl popped back into my head. She was so surprised that two people who met when they were sixteen could still be together and have a successful marriage. Were people right all along?

The guilty feeling in my gut immediately told me "no". As we both sat there in silence, I looked into his eyes and softened. Of course I still loved him, even when I got really, really mad.

Before I had a chance to say something, he stood up, grabbing his folder and his briefcase from the floor.

"I'm going out for a while to take care of this. Don't bother calling. I'll be home when I'll be home."

And with that, he stormed out the front door.

I remained frozen on the couch for probably several minutes, letting the sudden silence consume me. My thoughts started whirling around my head a mile a minute: was I being too harsh? Was I not listening to what he had to say? Was he not listening to what I had to say? Was it really that difficult to see eye-to-eye on little things? Was this going to be our future?

I felt panicked. Suddenly I was terrified everybody was going to be right, that marrying my teenage sweetheart was a bad idea, and that things were only going to go downhill from here.

Of course, if I hadn't been so angry and anxious, or hadn't had that conversation with the Toy Central salesgirl, I would've known that it was just a fight, that those things happen and that it would blow over. But all I could do was sit on the couch and fight back tears.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, calling the one person that I knew could smack some sense into me at a time like this: Duncan.

Ring. Ring. Ring. If there was anything that surprised everybody more than Trent and I getting married, it was the fact that Duncan and I stayed friends after all of these years. Granted, it was a very "low-maintenance" friendship, especially considering the fact that we lived nearly three hours away from each other, but it still worked. At the end of the day, we had each others' backs in tough situations, and could trust each other, and that was what really mattered.

"Hello?"

I felt almost an instant flood of relief hearing his voice.

"Duncan! Hey! Are you busy right now? I need to talk to someone."

"Nah, as of recently, I've basically got all the time in the world. What's wrong Princess? You and Trent at each others' heads again?" Duncan cackled. I could hear the low grumble of a T.V. in the background, along with the obnoxious sound of a potato chip bag being wrinkled.

I looked up at the clock we had hanging on the wall: 3:22 PM. On a Tuesday. I had been so upset that it hadn't even occurred to me it was still "work" hours.

"So, you're not…busy at work or anything?" I asked, the vague sound of fake T.V. laughter answering the question as I said it.

"Nope. I got canned almost a month ago. Too many people, too little profit, blah blah. Been doing a lot of couch surfing lately, actually. I don't know how you do it Gwen. Daytime T.V. sucks," Duncan replied monotonously. "I thought I told you. I tried calling you after it happened but I never heard back. I don't think we've talked since that last big fight you had with Trent, actually."

My wave of panic immediately transformed into a wave of guilt.

"Oh my god, Duncan, I am so, so sorry! Things have been totally crazy over here lately, with Ruthie's birthday and Trent's new production projects and…oh my god, I'm horrible!"

Duncan cackled loudly into the phone and muted the T.V. in the background. "Hey, I understand. It's no big deal. There was a time when I was the busy one and you were the one left hanging. I just figured it was kind of karma. Now let's hear about your girly problems."

"I mean that Duncan. I'm really, really sorry. I owe you one."

"Just start talking, Gwen."

I sighed. "Trent and I got into kind of a big fight just now. I went Christmas shopping for Ruthie and left him to kind of watch her for just a couple of hours. But I got upset because when I came home, I caught him yelling at his intern on the phone even though I've told him over and over again never to yell in front of Ruthie and then he got mad and told me I didn't understand because I don't work but then I told him that he was the one who told me not to work and then he stormed out of the house and now I'm sitting here freaking out because I'm scared he regrets marrying me or that our marriage is just going to plain fail or I don't really even know," I rambled on and on, realizing how ridiculous the whole situation was as I recounted the whole thing aloud.

Duncan stayed silent for several seconds, violently rustling the potato chip bag and loudly crunching into the phone. I could tell he was trying really hard not to laugh.

"Some stupid teenage girl at Toy Central recognized me from Total Drama and was making all of these invasive comments about Trent and me, and then I came home and got into that fight and…I don't know. I guess it just made me feel really insecure."

"Yes, because anybody who still watches Total Drama definitely has the intelligence to assess the quality of your marriage," Duncan retorted between bites of potato chips. "Come on, Gwen. You're better than that."

I paused. He was right; why was I so freaked out?

"I know what's going on here. You're starting to think deep down that this is all some sort of sign that trouble is ahead and that he doesn't love you anymore and your marriage is totally doomed. And being the friend I am, I'm going to just cut to the chase and call the bull on that. So you had one fight. Do you really think it was so bad that your entire marriage is going to fail?"

Damn. He was good.

"Couples fight, Gwen. But I know you're still nauseatingly in love with Trent. And you made up and moved on last time, didn't you?"

I snorted. "It's almost as if you've rehearsed this or something."

Crunch. "Basically have. It's the only reason you even call ninety percent of the time."

I groaned. Now I felt really guilty. "I'm so sorry, Duncan. I'm going to make it up to you. How about I take a trip up there in a couple of weekends and we hang out? Just like we used to. Then I promise I will sit back and let you do all the talking. And I'll even pay for everything!"

"You mean Trent will pay for everything."

"Duncan!"

He laughed, his typical loud, obnoxious chuckle. "No, but that actually sounds great. We're overdo. How about the weekend of the 20th?"

I didn't even bother checking my calendar. "Done."

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. "Okay. Tell you what. Go and win your Prince Charming back, and I'll talk to you tomorrow and we'll get some details planned out. But you are fully expected to assimilate as one of the Bros during said weekend. You know, since I'm such a great friend and all."

I felt a flood of relief, in more ways than one. "Thank you Duncan. There's a reason we've stayed friends all these years. I'm glad I can count on you. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"I'm always here for you. Talk to you tomorrow."

Click.

Trent came home about an hour later, and we both apologized, feeling more level-headed. Then the day went on like normal: dinner time, a board game, arguing with Ruthie about taking a bath, then arguing even harder about going to bed.

However, instead of our normal T.V. time, Trent headed straight upstairs after Ruthie went to bed.

I watched two reruns of Full House, expecting him to come down eventually after some "him time". But after an hour, he was still upstairs, the door wide open.

Did I miss a memo? Did he fall asleep? I switched the T.V. off and wandered upstairs, only to find him sitting in bed, knee-deep (body deep?) in just about every photo album, frame, and loose picture we owned.

I watched him for a good minute. I noticed him lingering on each and every picture he picked up, sometimes laughing, sometimes frowning, and sometimes just smiling.

After about five pictures, he noticed me in the doorway and jumped a little.

"Gwen! Oh gosh, you scared me!" Trent exclaimed, relaxing back into a smile. "Care to join me?"

I shut the door behind me and slid next to him in bed. "What exactly are you doing?"

"Just…reminiscing. It always helps me clear my mind after a rough day." He flipped the picture in his hand towards me. "This one is my favorite."

It was the two of us at the Total Drama finale, when we were sixteen. He had me over his shoulder, and I was pounding his back with my fists and laughing.

I yanked the photo from his hand and examined it, though I'd seen it a million times. "God, why? I still was going through that Goth phase and you wore that hand t-shirt, like, every other day. We were so awkward!"

Trent smiled. "You were beautiful. Still are."

I dropped the photo and turned to him. I felt butterflies looking into his warm, green eyes. Sometimes, it all just seemed too good to be true, even after all of these years.

I leaned closer to Trent, eventually leaning against him and holding his hand. He kissed the top of my head and rubbed my arm.

"You don't regret any of this, do you?" I blurted. I craved that final piece of closure.

"Regret any of what?" He asked softly, pulling me closer.

"Us. You know, staying with the same girl since sixteen. Getting married. Having a family together," I muttered.

"Never in a million years. You're the only one I ever want to be with." He smoothed a piece of hair away from my face. "I love you, Gwen."

"I love you too, Trent." And I meant it.

We tossed the pictures off the bed and just laid there cuddling until the both of us fell asleep. As my eyes closed, I felt all of my worries melting away, knowing tomorrow was a new day.

Because despite the stress, the arguments, the challenges of parenthood, and life's typical happenings, getting to spend my life with Trent by my side felt like a dream come true.

And with that, I fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

But, as anybody knows, dreams always come to an end.

xxx

I was always notorious for being a really deep sleeper. When I was a toddler, my mom would always brag to her friends about how I would sleep right through severe thunderstorms or outside disturbances, whereas their children were constantly waking them up in the middle of the night, terrified. Of course, as I got older, it set the stage for plenty of less-than-wonderful sleepovers with impatient friends (I always slept in), and even less-than-wonderful pranks from my older brothers.

But to say I slept through everything that happened that night wasn't necessarily true: I was briefly startled awake by a scream and a loud slamming noise, though I wasn't quite able to discern its proximity, and just assumed it was something happening down the street.

"Trent, baby, did you hear that? That wasn't a good sound," I muttered, eyes still shut, drifting in and out of sleep.

Silence. I figured he was still asleep.

I quickly fell back asleep after that, oblivious.

It wasn't until I felt myself sloshing in a pool of blood about an hour or so later than I was completely awoken. But by then, everything was too late.

And, just like that, my dream quickly turned into a nightmare.