A/N: Warning for mentions of underage prostitution and sex tapes.
"Tyler, come on!" Jody shouted impatiently, hanging around at the bottom of the stairs. "We'll be late!"
"The first half hour's just trailers, isn't it?" Ryan spoke up from his perch on the table in the lobby. She jerked a questioning eyebrow at him. How did he know where they were off to? "You've been going on about it for days," he added casually, by way of explanation.
"Yeah, well, the showing's already started and we'll miss more than just the trailers if he doesn't get down here now!" she exclaimed, berating herself for suggesting that they buy tickets in advance. If they'd waited to buy tickets at the desk, they could've gone to a later showing if (when) they missed this one.
The chiming of the doorbell jolted her from her negative thoughts. As Floss declared that she'd get the door, Jody wondered who it could possibly be. Other than recent care-leavers, no one really visited Ashdene Ridge unless someone (resident or otherwise) called the police or the firefighters. As far as she knew, no one had caused criminal damage or got stuck up a tree or something. Was it Thomas? She'd been messaging him about paying him back ever since she'd received her weekly allowance but he hadn't messaged her back, not even once. In an effort to get him back with Ella (as friends, a couple or whatever), she'd asked him to collect the money from her at the DG. Had her plan (?) worked?
"Ella Mansfield?" a female voice inquired, and Jody could see that Floss appeared to be astonished at whoever was standing in the porch.
"Who's asking?" Floss asked, seemingly recovering quickly. "She might be a dancer but she's not famous or anything."
"Miss Farthing!" Ella called warmly, sauntering into the lobby through the kitchen door. "Lovely to meet you."
"Likewise," Miss Farthing replied, shaking Ella's hand. "Can we come in?"
"Oh, please do," Ella answered, stepping away from the door and pulling Floss back. Floss shrugged the older girl off and crossed her arms as Jody finally saw what the younger girl had been amazed by: a guy with a professional camera.
"Who are these?" Jay questioned from his newly acquired spot in the lounge doorway.
No one answered, too busy watching Ella lead Miss Farthing and her cameraman to the quiet room. Jody was especially bewildered. Why were these people here? Floss was right; Ella had won a title at an international dance competition but she was hardly famous. If they were here to ask her about that win, they were two years too late; she'd won that title in 2016. She looked around. Where were Mike and May-Li? Did they know this was happening?
"I'm here!" Tyler announced, gaining everyone's attention as he ran down the stairs two at a time and landed right next to Jody. "Let's go!"
"You took your time," she muttered, looking him up and down. He was slightly overdressed which made her feel underdressed.
"Yeah, I thought girls were supposed to take longer getting ready for dates," Jay commented snidely, a shit-eating grin on his face. She would've punched him if he wasn't, like, twelve.
"That's sexist," Floss pointed out, rolling her eyes at him before positively beaming at the DG's favourite 'couple'. "Enjoy yourselves!"
"We will," Tyler simply responded, gently leading Jody away from the others. He could obviously tell that she was on the verge of thumping them. "Why's the door already open?" he asked as they left the house.
"Some woman and a cameraman showed up to talk to Ella," she replied, wrinkling her nose. "I don't know why."
"Wait, a journalist's here?!" he exclaimed, looking back at the front door with eyes that shone brightly in child-like enthusiasm. He almost resembled the ten-year-old version of himself who used to get excited by inconsequential objects like biscuit tins. She sighed, realising what he was thinking and decided to stop him right there.
"We've got a movie to watch," she sternly reminded him. "One that we've already paid for." He blankly stared back at her. She shook her head, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the bus stop near the house. Honestly, guys could be so clueless sometimes. They didn't spend much time together as it was—there was simply little to no time between his podcasts, job at the radio station, forum rep duties and her... boxing.
Her eyes widened as a troubling question took root in her mind. Did he feel obliged to hang out with her? She glanced at him as he fidgeted on the bus stop bench, appearing to be painfully uncomfortable. Would he rather be doing something else?
Did he not like her anymore? Not even as a friend?
Had she become burdensome?
.:. QK .:.
The next morning, Jody was locked away in her room, getting ready to go to the gym. May-Li had been right all those weeks ago; Jody needed a wider circle of friends. Friends she didn't share with Tyler. Admittedly, she did have some of those at school but she never really saw them outside of school. Ever since Tyler's weird behaviour before and during their trip to the cinema, she couldn't shake the feeling that he wanted to spend even less time with her than he already did. Throughout the entire film, he'd been jumpy and distant, and had run away from her so fast when they got home that she'd felt like a contagious disease or something. He'd gone back to normal in the evening, maybe because they were distracted by the gossip about Ella and the journalist, but the horribly familiar feeling of being unwanted persisted, clinging to her like a leech.
"Ella!" Mike roared, his voice so loud that she could hear him through her closed door. He sounded as if he was shouting all the way from the office. "Come down here!"
Feeling curious, she opened her bedroom door and popped her head out into the hallway to see Ella lazily walking past her, probably on her way downstairs. As per usual, she was chewing some gum, looking as unsophisticated as she could possibly look. Jody didn't know how it was possible to look posh and street at the same time but Ella managed to achieve it every single day, or rather, she spoke in a posh accent but dressed like a chav.
"Someone's been found out," Ryan commented smugly, leaning against the doorway of his bedroom as Ella passed him. Knowing him, he'd probably tipped Mike off regarding Ella's antics of the previous day just to create trouble.
Pressing her lips together, Jody walked back to her bed and picked her gym bag up. This really wasn't any of her business. Although she still felt guilty about making Ella a prostitute in the eyes of the others, she no longer felt bad about accompanying Thomas to the Earl of Newcastle's estate. Like everyone else in the house and perhaps the region, she'd seen the article Miss Farthing had written about the poor, abandoned daughter of the not so honourable Lord and Lady Newcastle on her mobile's phone's newsfeed first thing in the morning. Yes, Ella's parents had abandoned her for one of the most disconcerting 'reasons' she'd ever heard of and said girl had every right to be angry at them for it but she'd jeopardised her integrity by selling an embellished story to the papers—she'd lied about receiving no financial support from her father whatsoever when at least three people knew that wasn't true.
By now it was glaringly obvious that Thomas had been in league with Ella from the very beginning, meaning that they'd both made a huge fool out of her. They probably weren't even broken up—compulsive liars like Ella (and Ryan) oft lied about anything and everything just to gain sympathy. She was done feeling pity for Ella Mansfield, or as she was now known by the media, Lady Ella Cavendish.
Jody sighed, sitting down on the edge of her bed. Why did Ella's deceit sting so much? The pair of them were never really close. They weren't even friends, to be honest, but she felt as if she'd been betrayed by someone close to her heart all the same. She buried her face in her hands, urging herself to get a grip. She sounded pathetic to her own mind. She'd always been way too sensitive for her own good.
If this was how she felt after being burnt by someone she barely knew—in fact, she felt like she knew the real Ella less and less with each passing minute—how would she react to being hurt by someone she actually cared about or even loved? She never wanted to go through what she'd gone through after the successive betrayals by her family again. If there was one good thing that came out of Ella's deceit, it was the confirmation that she'd been right to not continue her pursuit of Kingsley Gray and to decide against seeing Luke. They'd only hurt her.
.:. QK .:.
After a few hours of downtime at the gym, Jody returned to Ashdene Ridge with May-Li, trying to get her heart to stop thundering in her chest. She clutched at her head as she lamented about her misdeeds towards Ella. She'd ruined Ella's life! She'd ruined it!
Following a sparring match with Brandon, she'd gone off to the side with him for a chat. They'd become fast friends over the last month or so and today, she'd even made an effort to get to know some of his friends who all seemed like decent guys. While they'd chatted, Brandon had asked her if she knew the prostitute dancer who'd been dumped as a child by her parents. She'd been shocked by the question for two reasons: firstly, Miss Farthing had not disclosed the name of their children's home in her article, and secondly, Ella definitely hadn't told Miss Farthing that she was a prostitute. Brandon had proceeded to show her a comment on the online article which had said something along the lines of 'I KNOW ELLA MANSFIELD, SHE'S A DIRTY LITTLE PROSTITUTE'.
She immediately ran up to Ella's room, determined to apologise. While she hadn't been the one to write the comment—she had a pretty good idea of who had—she was still responsible for the whole thing; Ella would've never been labelled as a prostitute if she hadn't spied on her in the first place.
"Ella!" she called, approaching said girl's room. The door was wide open and as she reached the doorway, she peered in to see that Ella was packing. She felt an eerie sense of deja vu.
"Yes?" Ella responded pointedly, momentarily pausing in her task to look at Jody before resuming.
"You're leaving?" she asked, scanning the room's bare walls. Ella had taken most of her dance posters down. It seemed final this time. "Is it because of the comment on the article?"
"No," Ella simply answered, elegantly taking a dress out of her wardrobe and folding it. "The care workers decided to move me to Burnywood as soon as they saw the article. I was always going to move, whether to Burnywood or a flat, it's just happening a little sooner now."
"I'm sorry about the whole prostitute thing," Jody apologised, wringing her wrists. She still couldn't sleep from time to time because of the guilt. "I should've ne—"
"Don't be," Ella swiftly cut in, her tone clipped. "Sorry can't turn back time." Jody closed her eyes in shame. "Besides, that particular cloud might have a silver lining."
Her eyes snapped open. "What?" How could being labelled as a prostitute ever lead to a positive outcome?
Ella opened the drawers, fixing Jody with a look. "Kim Kardashian and her entire family became famous because of one sex tape. She's no less than a prostitute."
"But you aren't one!" Jody retorted, anger welling up inside her. Emulating Kim Kardashian was not the path to any meaningful sort of success. "It'll destroy your aristocratic image!"
"It won't," Ella assured confidently. "It'll only make them sympathise with me more. Imagine: the girl who should've grown up in the lap of luxury as an earl's daughter but instead had to sell herself on the streets to survive life in care."
"But Mike and May-Li will get into trouble! They'll get suspended for letting someone in their care become a prostitute!"
"Not my problem," the seventeen-year-old commented dismissively, continuing to fold her clothes and put them in her suitcase as if she wasn't talking about something as serious as destroying her carers' careers.
"Wow, you really don't care about anyone but yourself, do you?" Jody asked, her voice dripping with disgust.
It suddenly hit her just then why Ella's deceit had hurt her so much; she'd thought of the older girl as some sort of kindred spirit, someone who understood her and someone she equally understood. However, Ella Mansfield and Jody Gray couldn't be more different. The latter would never dream of betraying Mike and May-Li even if it meant she had to die and she would never sell her family—horrible though they were—out for money, not even the loser who'd abandoned her as a baby.
"When my own parents never cared about me, why should I concern myself with the welfare of other people?" Ella questioned in a bitter tone.
"You didn't have to lie about them," Jody said quietly. "You know they gave you money."
"Just enough to fund my dance classes," Ella stated, her voice becoming heavy. "They would've done the same to shut a scorned lover up. I was never their daughter, just someone who had to be silenced." Jody remained silent. She didn't know what to say. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't tell Ella that that wasn't true—she didn't know Ella's parents or the reasons behind what they did. "They didn't give me any love," Ella continued. Her back was facing Jody but it was obvious that she was either crying or about to. "They left all of that for their three legitimate children! I have two brothers and a sister who got and continue to get all the love and attention I deserve!"
"So you know that money isn't everything then?" Jody implored, crossing her arms. She understood being jealous of a sibling better than anyone—she'd always hated that Kingsley and Luke had actually known their father and that Benji, her half brother, had had their father there for him his entire life so far—but Ella was going a step too far. "That's why they say money can't buy you happiness."
"It's all I'm ever going to have," Ella replied, audibly sniffing, "so I might as well do everything I can to get it. The media loves me now; I'm an overnight sensation. I'm bound to get auditions when the people who matter hear my story."
She sounded delusional. She was only on one online regional news site, not on the national news on TV! "Auditions?"
"For the top dance academies. I might even get to go straight to the big stage if I play my cards right."
"You want to get ahead because of pity?" Where was her self respect? Then again, maybe she didn't have any. After all, she was willing to become the next Kim Kardashian just to become famous.
"Why not?" she inquired, finally turning around to confront Jody with her tear stricken face. She'd zipped up her suitcase, the chest of drawers and wardrobe were all empty, and the walls were all bare. It was as if she'd never been here at all. "When I met my father for the first time after he dumped me in care, he stared straight through me as if I were a stranger. Or worse still—as if I weren't there at all."
Jody blinked, unbidden memories of running into Kingsley Gray at the supermarket coming to the fore of her mind. He'd looked upon her as a stranger too, only in an angry manner because she'd 'pushed' his precious son.
"Yeah, well, mine did the same, only worse," she divulged plaintively. "He yelled in my face for his brat of a son. But I wouldn't sell that story to the paper even if he was the King of this country."
Ella chuckled mirthlessly. "That's the difference between you and I, isn't it? I'd sell the love of my life for drinking money but you wouldn't even sell your worst enemy for food in order to survive."
Unable to listen to the vitriol anymore, Jody pushed herself away from the door she'd been leaning on and reached into her pocket. Pulling the money she owed Thomas out, she threw it on Ella's bed.
"Give that to your boyfriend," she ordered coldly. "He lent it to me."
Ella peered up at her in confusion. "You know Daniel?"
"Who's Daniel?"
"My boyfriend."
Oh, so Ella had moved on. Seeing how much of a cold person she really was, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that she'd never loved Thomas at all. "Thomas lent this to me. I can't reach him."
Letting out a derisive snort, Ella explained, "He probably made a fortune after selling that footage of my father drenched in mango juice. I think it's safe to say that he's left care and gone off to start a new life."
This time, Jody furrowed her eyebrows in perplexity. "What? He didn't share any of that money with you?"
Shaking her head, Ella smiled sadly. "I had no idea he'd even taken that footage until I saw it on the internet. I knew then that he'd done it; he was the only one I'd told the identity of my parents to." Jody's stomach churned violently. Thomas had ruthlessly sold Ella out for money and she'd helped him do it. What had she got herself into with these two? "I'm guessing you helped him?" She didn't answer, literally speechless. "It's alright. He did me a favour; I never would've sold my story if it weren't for him."
"I'm sorry!" Jody blurted out, swallowing deeply as bile rose in her throat. "I'm sorry," she repeated softly, abruptly leaving the room.
.:. QK .:.
Later that day, Jody watched from one of the lounge windows as Ella stowed her meagre belongings away in her social worker's car. Tragically, Ella had been right; no one cared about her, not really, not even Thomas, her so-called best friend. The sad fact didn't excuse her selling her parents out for publicity but... one couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Jody only worried for Ella's new boyfriend; he was dating a girl who had plainly admitted that she would sell the love of her life out for money and, ironically, her ex had done just that, though it could be argued that Ella couldn't really have been the love of Thomas' life at all if he'd sold her out so easily.
"So she's off then?" Tyler asked, standing next to her and gazing out of the window.
"Yeah," she answered, her voice strained. She wouldn't have been able to handle it if Tyler betrayed her the way Thomas had Ella.
"You okay?" he questioned gently, clearly sensing her distress.
She peered up into his big brown eyes which were so full of warmth and affection that she regretted doubting his friendship at all. Yes, they did spend less time together than they had, say a year ago, but it was inevitable; they were getting older and coming into their own, and, yes, he had been acting strange the day before but maybe he was struggling with something personal and needed time to himself to sort it out. It didn't have to mean that their friendship was over. She certainly didn't want it to be.
"Yeah," she replied, offering up a small smile before looking back at Ella who was getting into her social worker's car. "I've just never been more happy to be so different from someone."
She and Ella Mansfield weren't the same. They never were and never would be.
A/N: Experienced a nightmare with this one today. Wrote the first two scenes on the laptop (on the Doc manager) but later resubmitted an old form (of the same doc) on my mobile phone and ended up losing near enough 1200 words of writing. Had to download some sort of coding program on the laptop to recover everything I'd processed via Chrome, and here we are, full chapter intact.
Thanks to CharlieSMarts12 and yourfire for the continued support via reviews. CharlieSMarts12—'seems' turned out to be the correct word, didn't it? Thomas and Ella were both of the same mind but, unfortunately, the former had no problem discarding the latter. Ella sure was mysterious. She probably would've done the same thing to him if she saw a potential benefit to it. yourfire—something romantic or dodgy? Either way, I don't think so. I'm sort of just following the show with them: the animosity between Alex and Ryan, the friendship between Charlie and Alex, and Alex's crush on Charlie.