The Long Road of Redemption: By Luna Mrow

Chapter Seven: Just shut up already

~X~X~X~

If I'm a bad person, you don't like me

Well I guess I'll make my own way

It's a circle, a mean cycle

I can't excite you anymore…

"You're serious? You're really getting married?"

"Yes! Ah, it's so exciting! Geoff just surprised me last month and proposed and he apparently already asked my father for his blessing a few months before that, it just took him awhile to build up the courage!" Bridgette squealed. She held out her left hand and there I saw a single white diamond around a silver band.

"I'm so happy for you!" I squealed.

"Thank you, thank you!"

"How did Geoff propose to you? Was it over dinner? Somewhere romantic?"

"Oh, he was so mean! He waited until I had the day of my surfing competition and right when I was preparing to swim out in the water, he says 'hey babe let me talk to you for a minute' and then he pulls out a seaweed covered—"

"Will you two stop squealing and squeaking already? Jeez you're both so annoying, just shut up already." Bridgette and I looked up and glared at Noah.

"No one is forcing you to come with us you know," I snapped. "So if you want to catch a ride you have to listen to the girl talk."

"Ugh," Noah groaned, crossing his arms and slamming his head against the car seat.

"Why are you coming anyway? Carnivals hardly seem like your place to hang out."

"Bridgette didn't tell you? Total Drama is hosting its reunion show at the carnival today. Chris told us all to be there around 2:00," Noah answered.

My head snapped to the blonde surfer beside me in the passenger's seat. "What? You never told me that!"

Bridgette smiled weakly. "You wouldn't have come if I did."

"Uh, YEAH. Bridgette, I don't want to go to another reunion show! I want to be as far away as possible from everyone."

"Oh please Courtney! We haven't spent time together at all. The reunion is only until 6:00 and then I'm free and we can go on all sorts of rides and attractions. Please? You can just lay low until it's over."

Lay low. Lay low. I gripped the steering wheel harder. What exactly was I laying low from? Oh that's right, Duncan. No! I'm not going to go around the sidelines and try to avoid Duncan! He doesn't scare me, he doesn't intimidate me. "No Bridge, I'm not laying low. In fact, I'll just ride all the rides and hang out until you're ready."

"Okay."

"It's not because I'm trying to avoid Duncan."

"I never said that."

"Good… because I'm not avoiding him. Not. One. Bit."

"Alright, good for you Court."

Seventeen and a half seconds later…

"Will Duncan be at the reunion?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Whatever. I'm not asking because I care."

Twenty-nine seconds later…

"Do you think Duncan will stay at the carnival after the reunion show is over?"

"He might."

"Whatever. I don't care what he does."

Six seconds later…

"Bridge?"

"Yeah?"

"I CAN'T DO THIS!"

"Oh come on Courtney! It's a huge carnival and the chances of you running into him are slim."

"The chances of her meeting him in the parking lot and going to a club with him were slim also," Noah added.

"Shut up Noah!" Bridgette scolded. She put a hand on my shoulder. "Just stop thinking about Duncan. Think about how much fun you'll have at the carnival, think of all the rides you'll go on, the neon lights that will go on when it's dark, the cotton candy I'll buy you. Just don't think about Duncan. Don't let him ruin your good time."

I sighed. "You're right. You're right. He's just a guy. I can't let a stupid guy ruin my time." My foot eased off the gas pedal. "Great. Traffic," I grumbled.

"At least you can take the car pool," Bridgette smiled.

Suddenly Noah gasped. "Oh my god… Courtney! Drive! Drive! DRIVE!"

"I can't Noah, not if I want to dent the person's bumper in front of me."

"No Courtney, you need to drive NOW!"

"Just what is your problem?"

BANG!

"Is someone on the roof of your car?" Bridgette asked.

"DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE!" Noah screamed.

Suddenly the view in my front window was blocked. "Hey, what's the crackers?" (A/N YES! What's the crackers has returned from Parenthood Is Never Simple! XD)

"IZZY?" I gasped.

She jumped off the roof and onto the hood, hopping off my car and walking around to the backseat, opening the backdoor and sliding in next to Noah. "Hey flabby," she greeted, poking Noah in the arm. "How's everyone doing? Man I could go for a soda or something, all that running has me exhausted."

It took my mind a minute to register what just happened. Izzy jumped on my car, got in the backseat with Noah… what? "Have you been… following us since the hotel?" I asked incredulously.

"Yep."

"Running the whole time?"

"Yeah, whoa am I tired. How are you Courtney? Haven't seen you in awhile."

My eyes glared daggers at Noah. "You told Bridgette AND Izzy who I was?"

"No! Just Bridgette!" Noah cried. "I don't know how Izzy knows! She's insane! How else has she been able to follow a car on foot? The girl is nuts! And stop poking me!"

Izzy looked different in the past three years. She cut her hair shorter in a pixie cut style and was wearing army shorts and a matching army tank top. "I was able to recognize you Courtney. Sorry about scaring you just now. I just wanted to hang out with you, Bridgette and Flabby. It's been awhile and you're my friend," she smiled happily.

Despite the fact we never hung out before, or she probably was insane and could get me killed, I couldn't help but smile. Izzy was an insane but sweet girl a little younger than us at eighteen. "Yeah," I smiled, "we are friends."

"No! You can't leave me in the backseat with her!" Noah cried.

"Just shut up already." Bridgette and I high fived.

~X~X~X~

Where's your gavel? Your Jury?

What's my offense this time?

You're not a judge but if you're gonna judge me

Well sentence me to another life

The carnival was overloaded with tons of people looking for a good time. A special stage was set up for the Total Drama Reunion show and Chris's interns were scrambling to set up chairs while Chris yelled at them to do their job right. I'd really hate to work for that guy. "Are you sure you don't want to just sit in the audience?" Bridgette asked me.

"I'm sure," I answered. "Have fun Bridge."

"Thanks. Oh, before I forget I've wanted to ask you… do you want to be my bridesmaid? The wedding is actually at the end of this month if you wanted to stick around."

Wow it's coming up quick! "Yes! I'd love to!" I exclaimed happily.

"Great. See you at six." She gave me a quick hug and walked off towards the stage. I took in a huge breath and turned my head towards the sky.

There was no reason for me to be upset. The world still spun, the sun still shined, life still went on. Why shouldn't I? I walked through the crowds of people, seeing little kids tug on their parent's shirt for money to buy candy, young preteens holding hands and fooling around, older adults playing booth games and so on. This was refreshing to me. In this crowd no one knew me as Courtney the celebrity from Total Drama. I was just a nineteen year old girl in a crowded carnival. That's all. And that's all I needed to be.

For an hour I walked around the carnival while watching people get on rides and play games. It was as if I was in a trance while wandering around, unsure of where I'd end up or what I'd do. Finally I sat down after walking around the whole park, which was surprisingly really huge. The time on my watch said 3:21. I've still got awhile until I meet Bridgette.

Maybe I should watch the reunion show. It'd be stupid if I didn't want to do something just because of one guy. I started to walk towards the stage. Currently on stage Chris was having the campers interviewed. From a distance I could see Duncan's spiked mow hawk. His ice blue eyes turned and looked straight at me. Amazing he could spot me in a crowd of hundreds of people. Those little things about him always intrigued me. He looked at me for a few moments then turned his head completely away from me.

Don't wanna hear your sad songs

I don't wanna feel your pain

When you swear it's all my fault

Cause you know we're not the same

Oh we're not the same

The friends who stuck together

We wrote our names in blood

But I guess you can't accept that the change is good

It's good

It's good

Suddenly I was smacked into the ground face first. "Ugh!" I groaned as I fell.

"Oh I'm sorry! I didn't see you!"

My eyes went up and I saw a guy with dark tan skin, locks of brunette hair, olive eyes, and expensive looking clothes. "Ja-Justin?" I asked in pure disbelief.

He extended a hand and helped me up. "I'm supposed to be on stage getting ready to beat box with Harold. But I thought I had a zit and I rushed to the bathroom to cover it up. No worries though, it was just some salsa from breakfast." He sighed and put his hands on his hips. "Anyway, sorry about that. Who are you, beautiful?"

Thank god he didn't recognize me. "Haley," I replied. "And it's no problem, really."

"Well Haley, how about I make it up to you? Would you like to ride a few rides with me?"

"You have a show to do, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I think I'd take up an afternoon with a pretty girl over a stupid reunion show." He flashed a smile, his pearly white teeth shining.

"I'm not sure, I'm not really…"

"How about I just buy you a cotton candy instead?"

I sighed. "Alright. Yeah. Sounds fun." We started to walk off. My head turned around and I saw Duncan eyeing me once again, this time with a glint of rage in his eyes. I couldn't help it; I threw one of his signature smirks back at his face. He said I should try and get over what happened, didn't he?

You treat me just like another stranger

Well it's nice to meet you sir

I guess I'll go

I best be on my way out

"Where are you from Haley?" Justin asked me as he took a bite into his cotton candy. "You look familiar."

I smiled and rolled my eyes on the inside. "I'm from Canada, born and raised. How do I look familiar?"

"Mhm… you look classmate familiar. I'm not sure. I'm just positive I've seen your face before."

"Well this is planet earth, there are a lot of faces on it."

He laughed. "Yeah, that is certainly true." I looked up towards the sky. Justin and I have probably spent thirty minutes together. To be honest I never expected to have an intelligent with Justin (right behind Lindsay) but over the three years he's certainly gotten… smarter to say the least. He's still in love with himself, but who knows, maybe in ten years he'll finally be over himself. "Would you like to take a walk?" he asked.

"Sure," I answered. We started to walk along the crowded pavement of the carnival. "This is really good cotton candy."

"Yeah I'll probably have to floss after eating this."

"Cotton candy doesn't get stuck in your teeth, does it?"

"Oh no, my model agent just tells me to floss every hour to keep my gums strong and my teeth in top condition."

"Ah… I see." Creep. "So have you modeled for any magazines or papers since Total Drama?"

"Justin?"

"Justin?"

I turned my head towards him. "Are you listening to me or are—" my eyes widened. He was gone! "Justin?" I called. "Where are—"

"HELP ME!" came a shrieked reply. My eyes darted to where the plea came from and I saw three masked strangers all dressed in black running off with a struggling Justin. Holy crap he's being kidnapped! My immediate reaction wasn't to yell to get help—that's what the weak did—no, the fighter in me quickly ran after the three kidnappers and Justin. I pushed my way through the crowd and was catching up to them quickly.

"Let him go!" I screamed. They were headed towards the parking lot, which in order to get to there they had to climb up a level of wooden stairs. When I followed them onto the stairs one of the kidnappers turned around and quickly shoved me before I got a chance to fight back—I lost my balance—everything happened so fast—and fell off the rail of the stairs. The drop was at least a story down. I was dead.

The wind whipped my face and my hair. I braced myself for death. Funny, my last thought wasn't anything I'd expect. My last thought as I plummeted down was my fight with Duncan. It's too bad the last conversation we had was a shouting match. It would have been nice if… if we could have just had a conversation like normal. It's too bad that the whole time I knew Duncan we were never friends. We were teammates, we were lovers, we were exes, we were haters. But we were never friends.

The crash came. The impact hit my body. But I didn't hit the hard ground. I fell into something warm. My eyes unglued themselves and I looked up into piercing blue. My mind was whirring with delirium from the fall and questions buzzed like a million bees. There was a voice that talked so sweetly, so softly, "You're okay, Princess. You're alright, I've got you."

Princess.

Ignorance is your new best friend

Ignorance is your new best friend

I felt myself being jostled in his arms as he carried me off. I could hear the crowds of people yelling and panicking from witnessing my almost death. I would be dead if Duncan hadn't caught me. He took me into a dark room, which I realized was a small tent for carnival employees. We were alone luckily. He set me down on a bench. "Are you okay?" he asked me.

"Give me a minute," I mumbled softly. I laid down flat on the wooden bench, breathing in my nose and out my mouth. My body was trembling from nerves. "Justin was kidnapped," I finally said.

"I know, but are you alright?" he asked me. Duncan's voice was close; he was kneeling down beside me.

"Uh-huh."

"You scared me Courtney," he said in a gruff whisper. "Don't ever put yourself in danger like that again."

I could feel myself tire. The impact from the fall was waning on me, despite the fact Duncan caught me. Consciousness was leaving me, I could feel it. I tried to keep my eyes open but they weren't holding out. Softly I whispered, "Duncan do you—"

"Yes," he whispered gruffly. "I care about you."

That was the last thing I heard him say before I went black.

Author's Note:

Well OH-EM-GEE! A lot happened, didn't it? ;D I personally think Izzy is all that and a bag of chips (fav TDI character) so writing her was fun. The italic lyrics I put in this story was from the song 'Ignorance' by Paramore. A really good song, I recommend it. Did you guys like that I put lyrics in here? I won't do it often, but I wanted to do it as a sort of test. Was it too annoying? You can just skip it. I just thought Ignorance fit.

Anyway, I just wanted to give all my reviewers a big thank you! 11 reviews last chapter. That's a personal record for me. I really appreciate it, which is why this chapter is a good 500 words longer than the others. A lot happened. So review? Please? Thank you for reading.

~Luna