A/N: Warning for mentions of underage prostitution.
Sometimes, just sometimes, the obscene words that tumbled out of Ryan's mouth made sense. Jody hated to admit it but her frenemy had a point; as a care kid with a roof over her head and food on the table, Ella didn't have to go to extreme lengths to make money. Even if it was her future she was saving up for, her actions were overkill; most kids who stayed in care until they were eighteen went straight to uni and lived in the student accommodation there and from what Jody knew, Ella had applied to uni and there was no reason to think she wouldn't get offers from at least one of her five choices. Like Alex had said, Ella just had to be greedy. That didn't mean the others could pick on her, though.
Lingering outside Ella's room, Jody wondered if she was doing the right thing by dropping in on the older girl. What was she even supposed to say to her? After all, she didn't even like her and would've been perfectly fine ignoring her until the day she left if Candi-Rose and Co. hadn't bugged Tyler's room and caused all of this trouble in the first place. Still, Ella was now on the receiving end of the brutal DG gossip, an experience Jody was all too familiar with, and it was sort of Jody's fault. She had to at least try to resolve things, didn't she?
Raising her hand to knock on the door, she jumped back when said door opened to reveal a tired Ella on the other side.
"Was it you pacing outside my room for the last half hour?" she interrogated, leaning in the doorway.
"I don't think it's been half an hour," Jody replied sheepishly, feeling awkward. "How are you—" she stopped midsentence, spotting a suitcase on Ella's bed. "What are you doing?!" she exclaimed, pushing past Ella and running into the room.
"Get out!" Ella demanded, stomping towards Jody who was staring at the suitcase. It was the same one she'd seen Ella lug around the house when she showed her to her room that first day, and it was packed. There was barely anything left in the wardrobe.
"You're running away?" she scoffed, shrugging the other girl off as she tried to drag her out of the room. "You really think that's gonna work? You're not the first one to try that."
Ella rolled her eyes, letting out a patronising laugh. "No, I'm not stupid like you and your little friends! I informed the carers about my desire to move out and they're arranging a semi-independent flat for me as we speak."
Jody blinked. That was the last thing she'd expected. "This quickly?" she asked sceptically, unable to think of anything else to say.
"My case has been classed as an emergency," Ella answered, crossing her arms. "They're moving me to a children's home called Burnywood until a flat's ready for me."
"Burnywood?!" Jody repeated loudly, refraining from bursting into laughter. "Tyler and one of our friends used to live there. It's like the worst care home in the whole of Talbot Ward!" Maybe even in the whole of the UK.
"Can't be any worse than a care home where I'm called a prostitute by little kids, can it?" Ella countered. Jody frowned as guilt overwhelmed her. She suddenly didn't feel like laughing anymore. She wanted to tell Ella that the DG lot weren't that bad but she couldn't, not when some of them still insisted on taunting her.
Instead, she settled for saying, "You should ignore Ryan, Alex, Jay and Floss. They make fun of me all the time."
Ella gave her a once over. "I'm not surprised." Jody fidgeted in response, feeling self-conscious. "I mean, look at those clothes."
"Hey!" she shouted, clenching her fists. She knew she wasn't fashionable like other girls but she didn't dress like a tramp or something. "I came here to be friendly but I don't know why I bothered! You clearly don't know how to get along with people!" She realised that that last sentence was a little rich coming from her, someone who snapped at people and was stroppy most of the time, but she didn't care. Ella was being a bitch for no reason. She spun around, heading for the door.
"I don't need your pity!" Ella fired back, crossing her arms. "You're only here because you feel bad about spreading rumours about me!"
Jody froze, slowly turning to face Ella again. How did she know that? How much did she know? Jody flared her nostrils as she wondered if one of the boys had clued Ella in.
"Did you really think I was that stupid?" Ella questioned, getting right up in Jody's face like Kingsley used to when he was angry with her. She recoiled, stepping back. "Your little friend who used to live in this room left this"—Ella paused, pulling a photo of Sasha and Dexter out from under her bed and shoving it in Jody's face—"inside one of the bedside drawers! I recognised her that first day in the park and I knew something was going on when she came to the park the next two days as well!"
"Wait," Jody cut in, running Ella's words over in her head. Rumours. Rumours were untrue, weren't they? So, Ella wasn't a prostitute? But then why was that old man paying her? "If you knew you were being watched, why didn't you, err, find a new location?" It didn't make any sense. Was Ella lying?
"Because I wasn't doing anything wrong!"
"What were you doing then? Men don't just pay women for no reason!"
Ella's eyes literally looked like they were on fire. "It's none of your fucking business!" she roared, grabbing Jody's arm and pushing her out of the door. Jody turned around, about to say something, but Ella slammed the door in her face, narrowly missing her nose. She sighed, turning away from the door to see Floss, Taz, and Charlie all staring at her from the corridor straight ahead.
Taz looked particularly astonished. "I didn't know posh people swore."
.:. QK .:.
"Jody, we've been over this," May-Li stated, unpegging a bedsheet from the washing line and dropping it into a basket. "I can't tell you why Ella moved here."
"But it must've been pretty bad if she wants to move to Burnywood," Jody pointed out, twiddling her thumbs. She couldn't admit that she was directly responsible for Ella wanting to move. She just couldn't. "She must think we hate her but we don't. Well, most of us don't."
"Look, Jody, Mike and I both told Ella that Burnywood is very different from Ashdene Ridge but she wouldn't have it," May-Li said with a sigh, moving down the washing line. "She was adamant about moving. If she can't even stay here until a flat's ready for her, this might not be the best place for her."
"But Burnywood?!" Jody exclaimed, shivering. She'd heard the horror stories from Rick and Tyler. To be frank, Ella didn't seem strong enough to withstand the horrors that awaited her there. "Why not"—what was the name of that care home Fiona had worked in again?—"Greybridge?"
May-Li shook her head. "Greybridge is full. Overfull, in fact. They've got more residents than we have."
Jody's eyes widened. She couldn't imagine sharing a house with more than fifteen other people. It sounded like a total nightmare. "But there are loads of other care homes in Pottiswood! Or at least Talbot Ward! What about that other one—err, I think it's called Boland House?"
"She can't go to Boland House," May-Li answered shortly, putting the last of the sheets in the basket.
According to Boland House's care kids' forum rep, it was actually an okay children's home. Unless it was also overfull, why couldn't Ella go there? Literally any other children's home in the region had to be better than Burnywood. "Why not?"
"She just can't—oh no, this one needs the Vanish treatment!"
Looking down at the huge basket, Jody spotted a set-in bloodstain right in the centre of the otherwise totally white sheet May-Li was currently scrutinising. She blushed; she sometimes made a right mess in her sleep during the special time of the month but she knew she hadn't done that this month. "Whose is that?
"Ella's, I think," May-Li replied before walking towards the patio door. Jody didn't follow, staying rooted to her spot. Something didn't make sense here. How could the sheets be Ella's? Didn't women take pregnancy tests after a missed period? The sheets couldn't be old ones either; everyone's sheets were washed on a weekly basis.
Oh no.
Had she fucked up again? Was this yet another thing Ella was innocent of but was mistakenly believed to be guilty of by the entire household because of Jody's and Candi-Rose's respective spying? And if Ella wasn't the one who'd taken the test, who was the real culprit? It couldn't have been Candi-Rose—she (and Ryan) had bugged Tyler's room because she had truly believed Jody was pregnant—so who did that leave?
No. It couldn't be her. She wasn't the type of person who'd let someone else take the fall for her and, most importantly, she and Jody were friends. Friends didn't just stand by and watch their mates get torn apart for something they themselves were responsible for... It couldn't be her... but it couldn't really be anyone else either.
.:. QK .:.
A mere day after Ella had chucked Jody out of her room, the latter was back, more determined than ever to make it up to the former. As it turned out, Burnywood had been hit by a widespread bout of food poisoning and, as a consequence, they couldn't take Ella in just yet. Rather than moving her to another children's' home, those involved in Ella's care had clearly decided that she was going to stay put for the time being.
This time, Jody actually managed to knock on the door before Ella opened it.
"What do you want?" Ella asked, rolling her eyes. "I don't want to listen to or answer your annoying questions."
"I just wanted to talk," Jody responded with a smile that she hoped didn't appear mischievous. "You're leaving as soon as the Burnywood lot get better so you've got nothing to lose."
Ella scoffed. "You're right about that. You all already think I'm a pregnant prostitute so how can it get any worse?"
"Right," Jody agreed, wincing. Ella really knew how to make people feel guilty. She was still trying to forgive herself for her spying stint but the older girl standing in front of her wasn't making it easy. "Can I, err, come in?"
"Yes," Ella relented, letting Jody in.
As Jody sat down on the free bed—Sasha's old bed—Ella knelt next to her own bed, opening her suitcase. A few minutes of silence passed between the two girls as one sat idle twiddling her thumbs while the other darted between her suitcase and wardrobe, transferring clothes from the former to the latter.
"Ella...?" Jody spoke up, biting her lip.
Ella didn't look up but responded nevertheless. "Hmm?"
"I know you didn't take the test." This time, Ella did look up from her suitcase and proceeded to carefully set the clothes she was holding aside. She stood up and sat down on her bed, mirroring Jody.
"What do you mean?" she inquired, her eyebrows knotted together in confusion. "I thought you already knew that. Aren't you the one who took it?"
After nearly a week's worth of teasing from most of the other residents, Jody couldn't even bring herself to feel offended by the common assumption anymore. "No," she let out under her breath, shaking her head. "It wasn't me. It's not like that between Tyler and me."
"I didn't mention Tyler."
Closing her eyes, she berated herself for mentioning Tyler. She couldn't help herself sometimes. "You didn't have to. If you honestly thought I took the test, you would've had to have thought that Tyler was the potential father... You said as much that time in the office."
"I was joking," Ella admitted with a small smile. "Sort of. I mean, I knew you two weren't having sex in the house. It's crawling with kids. I just thought you two did it somewhere else."
"Like I said, me and Tyler really are just friends," Jody informed, hoping she didn't sound sad. Sometimes, she was pretty sure that even Tyler could tell that she liked him more than she should, and the mere thought of him knowing was downright embarrassing. He probably thought she was a pest.
"For now. You two getting together is inevitable."
"Yeah, right." As if that was ever going to happen. Tyler would actually have to like her back, for starters.
"No, really," Ella said seriously. "I had a Tyler in my life, once. Well, his name was Thomas but he was... everything. The guy you and Tyler saw me with around two to three weeks ago? That was him."
"Had?" Jody questioned, having picked up on the other girl's use of past tense.
"It didn't work out," Ella divulged, looking down at her hands. "He was my best friend but I know I wasn't his; making friends came easy to him—he had loads—but it was difficult for me. In hindsight, I think we only started liking each other because of our similar circumstances. We were the only two who'd been at our care home since we were nine—the others who'd arrived with us all got adopted or fostered—and we'd been through so much together that we kind of got pushed together. Only after moving here did I realise that we were only together out of convenience."
"What do you mean he was your best friend?" Jody implored hoarsely, thinking about her own best friend. "What happened?"
"We only lasted two weeks as a couple and then we broke up." Ella shrugged. "And two people can never really be friends again after a break up let alone best friends. It's just not possible."
Blinking rapidly, Jody gulped. Maybe it was a good thing that Tyler didn't return her feelings. They'd probably break up within a fortnight like Ella and her ex and then never talk to each other again. If she had to choose between being Tyler's friend and girlfriend, there was no contest. She could probably get another boyfriend but not another friend—best friend—like him. "Well, why did you go out with him then? Why didn't you just..."
"Ignore it?" Ella supplied and Jody nodded. Ella released a shaky breath. "You think I didn't try? We both fought against our feelings so hard but hanging around each other eventually became so difficult. The feelings were always there, sort of like they were under my skin. One day, we just did it. We gave in."
Jody sighed deeply. Friendship was important. More important than that mushy stuff. "I'd never go out with Tyler, even if we both liked each other."
Ella laughed hollowly. "You already like each other. It's only a matter of time."
Pressing her lips together, Jody stopped herself from protesting, from saying that there was no way that Tyler liked her, and averted her gaze away from Ella. If she was truly honest with herself, she did sometimes get the fleeting sense that her feelings weren't so one-sided. The moments were very brief and few and far between but they were there, under her skin, and probably under his skin, just like Ella had described.
She shook her head again. "It won't happen to us."
"I should hope so," Ella stated, looking up from her hands. "One of you would end up moving out for no reason."
Jody met Ella's gaze, confused. "What do you mean?"
"If you start a relationship, one of you two will have to move out and if you break up, it'll mean that you moved out for nothing."
Her heart sunk into the pit of her stomach. She'd never heard of that rule. It couldn't be true. Rick and Carmen had dated albeit for one day and neither, to her knowledge, had been asked to move out. In fact, neither Mike nor May-Li had mentioned this requirement when they could've easily done so during their numerous lectures about boys not being allowed in girls' rooms and vice versa.
"Is that why you were moved here?" she enquired, wondering if that rule was exclusive to Ella's former care home.
Ella nodded, her eyes sparkling as she sniffed. She appeared to be tired again, so much more tired than she'd seemed to be on her first day. "I wish I could go back," she confessed, her voice cracking on the last word. "It was home for eight years of my life."
Jody nodded slowly in response. She'd have to ask Mike or May-Li about this. This practice of separating kids from their friends just because of dating was wholly unfair. Ella belonged back at her old care home, not Burnywood or some old manky flat.
A/N: Thanks to CharlieSMarts12 for the review.