After a mere half hour at the cemetery, Mike, Charlie, and Jody returned to Ashdene Ridge, the latter feeling more conflicted about her youngest brother than ever. Seeing her mother's grave again had made her realise that perhaps she hadn't completely left her family behind the way she'd intended to when she dropped their surname. Unfortunately, Luke was part of that family and couldn't quite be ignored the same way a dead mother and incarcerated brother could be. She dejectedly followed the other two into the house, nearly walking into Charlie when said girl stopped in front of her. She stepped around Charlie to see May-Li hanging around the office door.
"How did you find it?" May-Li asked, looking right at her as Mike ducked into the office. "Are you alright?"
"It was okay, I guess," she replied, shrugging. "And, yeah, I'm alright..." she added distractedly, noticing that the house was still relatively quiet. "Is Tyler up?"
"Not yet, I'm afraid," May-Li responded, checking her watch and smiling. "The two of you aren't up until eleven some Saturdays!"
"Ten," Jody hastily corrected, her eyes widening in affront. She didn't sleep in for that long, did she?
May-Li nodded unconvincingly as if to say 'yeah, right', before looking to the other girl. "Charlie?" Jody took that as her cue to leave, jogging up the stairs as she heard Charlie rave on about updating her grandma on her bird watching... or something.
She'd barely reached her room when she heard someone hissing her name and immediately looked down the hallway to see Charlie walking towards her.
"Err, yeah?" she prompted, gripping the door handle to her bedroom's door.
"I haven't finished explaining myself yet," Charlie stated, twiddling her thumbs.
Oh. She'd totally forgotten about their conversation in the car. The whole car ride back home, she'd been contemplating what to do about Luke.
"It doesn't really matter," she said, realising that she didn't need to hear any further explanation. There was no reason not to believe what Charlie had already told her and now that she knew why the older girl hadn't initially fessed up about the test, she could get over the teasing she'd endured back then and they could be friends again.
"Yes, but I want to tell you," Charlie frantically protested, jumping on the balls of her feet. "I haven't told anyone the full truth, and since I've told you some of it, I might as well tell you everything."
Jody regarded her in surprise. Charlie hadn't told anyone, not even the prospective father? If she wanted to disclose the full truth, who was she to stop her? "Err, okay, if that's what you want..." she trailed off, pushing open her door and inviting Charlie in.
After closing the door (just in case Ryan or some other creep decided he really had to hear their conversation), Jody turned around to see Charlie awkwardly hovering around, her eyes darting between the bed and the desk chair.
"Just sit down anywhere, Tyler always does," she blurted out without even thinking, slowly turning away from Charlie when she realised how weird that sounded. She'd had a terrible case of the foot-in-mouth disease ever since she was a child but it seemed to be getting progressively worse day by day. Still, at least it was Charlie she'd said this to, and not Floss, Candi-Rose or Ryan.
Sensing Charlie's eyes on her, she sat down on her bed, taking her phone out of her pocket and placing it on the bedside. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charlie sit down on the desk chair.
"So, where were we?" the older girl asked, seemingly over the awkward comment. Jody blinked, having already forgotten where they'd left their conversation off. "Oh, I remember now. I was telling you about the recycling."
"Yesss," she responded, nodding as if she'd known all along. "So, the packaging May-Li found in the bathroom definitely wasn't yours?"
"I don't know," Charlie admitted, wincing.
Jody sat up, raising an eyebrow. "What do you mean? Didn't you check?"
Charlie frowned. "It was collection day. By the time I had the chance-"
"The recycling had already been emptied," Jody finished, finally understanding the full extent of the dilemma. It would've been impossible to discern whether the packaging was Charlie's own or someone else's. "Well, what made you decide to fess up then?"
"Mike and May-Li telling us they had reservations about us going to the theme park; I didn't want to ruin it for everyone," Charlie divulged wryly. Thanks to Tyler and Co., no one had got to go on that trip anyway. "But even then, I wasn't quite sure. I mean, I knew I wasn't pregnant but if I confessed in someone else's place, someone who actually was pregnant, that would've been wrong of me."
"Wait, did you think it was me?" Jody asked, recalling Ella, Candi-Rose and Charlie all trying to persuade her to 'admit it' to May-Li the day after the test was found in front of everyone.
"No, not at first," Charlie answered, vehemently shaking her head. "Right at the beginning, in the office, I thought it was Ella; she was the oldest and seemed to be trying pretty hard to pin it on the rest of us. She even tried to drag Chloe into it."
It hadn't been Ella, though. Ella hadn't exactly been trustworthy but if she'd taken the test, she probably would've said so when she talked about her relationship with Thomas. And then, of course, there were the period stained sheets which had pretty much ruled her out. "Yeah, I remember."
"But then, that same day, I accidentally overheard a conversation which made me think otherwise."
Jody straightened her back. A conversation that incriminated her? Who would've been having such a conversation and why? "Whose conversation?"
"I don't want to name names." She rolled her eyes. Why not? She was already revealing everything else. Did it make sense to withhold something as inconsequential - or crucial, depending on how one looked at it - as names? "But I can tell you that it wasn't about you."
"Then why did you join Ella and Candi-Rose in hounding me to fess up?"
"While you were out with Tyler, the others said a lot of things that made me suspect you as well. At that point, I suspected all three of you." All three? So the incriminating conversation had implicated Candi-Rose? "And I didn't mean to hound you the next day, I really didn't. I just wanted to remind you that if it was you, you could've texted May-Li." Sighing in defeat, Jody nodded gently. It was true. Charlie hadn't accused her like Candi-Rose and Ella had. She'd only made what was probably supposed to be a harmless suggestion. "After I saw how much upset the whole situation was causing, I told May-Li that I took the test."
"Wait, so you do think the packaging was yours?" Jody questioned, confused. Had someone else taken a test or not?
"No, I clearly remember throwing mine in the recycling," Charlie confidently answered. "But I figured there was no reason to mention it to May-Li. I thought that if whoever took the other test got a negative, no harm was done, and that if it was positive, the truth would come out anyway. And that's what happened; a few days later, everyone found out that Ella was a prostitute and that she took the test."
But it hadn't been Ella. Jody shifted uncomfortably, wondering if she ought to tell Charlie that Ella had never been a prostitute in the first place. But what purpose would it serve? Ella was long gone, busy suing her wealthy parents for eight years worth of psychological damages, and was open to using the prostitute story for sympathy anyway. Why open an old can of worms for no good reason?
Just as she was about to thank Charlie for her honesty, a knock on her door interrupted her. The door opened shortly after to reveal Tyler with a cocky grin on his face.
"For once, I-" he started joyfully, abruptly cutting himself off midsentence when he spotted Charlie. His grin instantly dissipated.
The three of them paused for a second, the air in the room quickly becoming thick with tension. Knocking was a formality between Jody and Tyler; the few times they bothered to do so, they didn't actually wait for the other to respond before throwing the door open. For the most part, they were okay with it, and so far, they'd miraculously managed not to walk in on each other changing, but Jody quickly realised how inappropriate it looked in front of a third party, especially the girl who knew about their fooling around in the bathroom.
"Good morning," Charlie greeted cheerily, breaking the awkward silence and rising to her feet. "I was just going to go and find Alex..."
Alex. It suddenly occurred to Jody that Charlie hadn't mentioned her potential 'baby daddy' once and that she hadn't even thought to ask about him. She was becoming sloppy.
"Err, morning," Tyler muttered in response as Charlie literally ran out of the room. He looked back to Jody, smiling somewhat shyly. "Breakfast?"
"I've already had it," she stated, looking at the time on the phone. 10:07. Ha! May-Li had been wrong. She peered up at him, donning a (mock) disapproving expression. "What time do you call this?"
"The time you're usually knocking on my door," he replied pointedly, tipping his head to the side. They both laughed quietly. "When did you wake up?"
"Eight. I'll explain later. Go and get something to eat; I'll be down in a minute."
.:. QK .:.
That evening, Jody sat on one of the sofas in the lounge, squashed in between Jay and Floss who kept reaching over her and stealing from each other's plastic bowls of popcorn. They were all currently watching a film they'd seen at least a hundred times before - unfortunately, someone had proposed the stupid idea of letting Floss choose - and she was utterly bored out of her mind, having already finished her own bowl of popcorn within the first ten minutes. As a stupid romance scene of two people making googly eyes at each other appeared on-screen, Jody allowed her own eyes to drift to the other sofa currently occupied by Tyler to find that he was also looking at her. She resisted the urge to just gaze at him - there were eleven other people in the room, and some of them were Jyler shippers - and rolled her eyes at him instead, gesturing towards the TV. He made a puke-face in response which nearly made her giggle, and she had to discreetly glance at Floss to see if she'd witnessed the exchange. Luckily, said girl seemed to be more interested in the film and Jay's popcorn.
"Stop moving!" Taz hissed at Floss from her other side, lodged in between her and Joseph.
"What is this?" Alex whispered in disgust from the floor in front of Jody. The romance scene was at its worst and while it wasn't dirty, per se, it was embarrassing to watch in front of so many people, especially the young'uns.
"Shh!" Candi-Rose hushed from the other sofa, sat in between Tyler and Ryan. Chloe was situated in her usual spot next to the side of the sofa Ryan was on. Seeing Candi-Rose, Ryan and Chloe sitting in a row eerily reminded Jody of the image of the three of them staring at her at breakfast the morning May-Li had found out about the pregnancy test.
Jody stared at the trio, recalling her conversation with Charlie. It was obvious that the conversation Charlie had overheard had led her to believe, at least for a day, that Candi-Rose had taken the test. But why? Had their pink-loving housemate herself been one of the participants in the conversation? Or had she been mentioned by name by two other people? From what Jody knew of Candi-Rose's friendships, the residents closest to her were Chloe and Bird (though, at one time, Jody herself, as well Sasha, had been in that position). It didn't make sense for Charlie to have unintentionally heard such an incriminating conversation between Chloe and Candi-Rose; they would've had such a conversation in their room, a place no-one could accidentally stumble upon. That left Bird but she had the gut feeling that he had nothing to do with any of it.
The situation was a confusing one and only seemed to become more so the more she thought about it. Candi-Rose had bugged Tyler's room because she'd believed that Jody took the test. If she herself had taken the test, why would she have gone through the trouble of bugging the room at all? Friendship with Jody aside, it just didn't make sense to spy on someone to hear something she knew she wouldn't hear. Jody's gaze flitted past Candi-Rose and settled on Ryan. Spying was his forte and he'd admitted himself that he'd helped Candi-Rose out. Had it been him all along, perhaps blackmailing Candi-Rose to go along with it in order to humiliate Jody? Had he been out to get delayed revenge against her for punching him on the nose after her mother's funeral? He'd done it once before; getting Mike suspended months after supposedly being wronged by said man. She clenched her fists, wondering if she ought to confront her frenemy.
She sighed inwardly. What was the point of a confrontation with someone like him? He would never apologise for any wrongdoing and would never admit it in front of Mike or May-Li either, meaning he wouldn't get punished for it. And what if it had nothing to do with him at all? Knowing him, he'd take it upon himself to instead punish her for falsely accusing him. Opening her mouth without proof had already caused enough trouble these last few months, and she liked to think that she was someone who actually learnt from her mistakes. She didn't want to be like him, an idiot who, like her brother, was stuck in a circle of hate, holding petty grudges, and being nasty over and over again.
She swallowed deeply as an uncomfortable realisation suddenly hit her: she was behaving just like Ryan and her brother by holding a grudge against her other brother, the one who was actually making an effort to reconcile with her. How could she become a better person if she wouldn't even give her own brother a chance to explain himself?
.:. QK .:.
Later that night, long after the film had finished, Jody found herself unable to sleep. She kept looking at her phone every five seconds, counting down the minutes until midnight, when Luke would officially become twenty-one years old. While she knew that hearing him out at least once was the right thing to do, she was still torn between sending him a text and... doing nothing. She wasn't quite ready for him to have her number; if she was going to let him back into her life, she wanted it to be on her own terms, not his, or Simon's or anyone else's. Checking the time once more to see that it was 23:45, she climbed out of bed and clumsily put on her nightgown, dead set on bending Tyler's ear. Pulling her bedroom door open, she poked her head out to see if anyone was around. Sometimes, the fact that she was the only girl with a room on this side of the house sucked.
Creeping out of her room and past the bathroom, she scanned the vicinity to see that the Wallis brothers' door was closed and so were Finn's and Alex's. Joseph still slept with the door open, which was a slight inconvenience, but she was so tired and conflicted that she couldn't really bring herself to care that he might see her. Besides, even if he didn't see her, he'd definitely hear her talking to Tyler. Without wasting time, she carefully turned the door handle and let herself into the room.
"Ty?" she whispered, walking over to where she knew his lamp was and blindly fumbling around for the switch in the darkness. She felt a hand brush hers just before the lamp turned on, startling her with its intensity.
"Can't sleep?" he asked needlessly, sitting up. She watched him rub his eyes with a pang of guilt. Sometimes she really wondered whether she was a nuisance to him with her a million and one problems. "Did you end up sending him a text, then?"
"It's not midnight yet," she replied, pointing out the time on his digital bedside clock. 23:48.
He looked at the clock, his eyes widening in apparent surprise. "It took me ages to get to sleep; I thought it was something like two." She sighed. She'd really interrupted his sleep. He peered up at her, seemingly confused. "Why are you standing up?... Sit down." He tiredly patted the spot next to him. Not wanting to give him further grief, she sat down in that very same spot, folding one leg underneath her and letting the other hang off the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?"
She looked over at him in astonishment, not having realised that she appeared to be anything but tired. Did she look sad? "I want to send him a text," she answered sluggishly, "but what if we start talking again and he hurts me? Like Kingsley and Mum have so many times... I don't think I could take it."
"Look, I barely know Luke," he began, turning to her, "but I know you. You're tough. Even if he does let you down again, you'll bounce back from it."
Her heart warmed at his words but the negative part of her mind couldn't help but wonder if he was just saying things to cheer her up. "You think?"
"I know," he answered firmly, "it's why I like you so much."
Her heart skipped a beat. She waited for him to add on the typical 'as a mate' or 'as a friend, you know' but he didn't. "Is it the only reason?" she teased before he could open his mouth again, deciding she didn't want him to turn it into a friendzone statement.
"Of course not," he responded, and because it was so dark, even with the lamp on, she couldn't tell if he was smiling or not. His voice belayed nothing of seriousness or jest. She wondered if he was half asleep or something; it wasn't like him to be so open with her about that. He cleared his throat. "Besides, if you don't want him to get ahold of your number, just block him after sending the text."
"No!" she protested, her hands flying to her mouth. If Joseph was awake, he'd definitely heard that. "I thought about it but I couldn't do it," she confessed softly, a lump forming in her throat. It didn't matter that she hadn't spoken to him in ages. There was a huge difference between not giving him her number and outright blocking him. "He's my brother." It was an inadequate explanation - Tyler knew that Luke was her brother - but it was all she had.
It seemed to be enough for Tyler to understand. "Alright," he said, reaching under his pillow and pulling out his phone. She frowned, unimpressed. She'd heard that the radiation could wreak havoc on a person's brain if they slept with any sort of switched on device right under their pillow. He held his phone out to her, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Here, text him from mine and then I'll block his number."
Without another word uttered between the two of them, she took his phone and her own into her hands, copying Luke's number from the latter into the message recipient field on the former. The time on Tyler's phone indicated that it was 23:54. She pressed on the 'compose message' field, and the words almost typed themselves.
Happy birthday x -Ur little sister
A/N: As ever, thanks to CharlieSMarts12 and yourfire for the reviews. yourfire - that does seem like something Ryan would do, doesn't it? I've left it up to reader interpretation here since Jody's decided not to confront Ryan.