Jody yawned loudly as she rifled through her locker for her elusive maths homework. At the beginning of the break, her friends had badgered her to go to one of the quads with them and look for the homework later but she'd refused, knowing that she'd end up being late to her next lesson if she did. Instead, here she was, starting to doubt that the homework was even in the locker at all; there was a strong possibility it was lying around in some corner of her bedroom.

"Hey."

Upon hearing his voice, she lightened up and drew the locker door to a close to see him standing there. It was hard to believe that it'd only been twenty-four hours since he'd officially left care; merely having breakfast and walking to school without him had made it feel like he'd spent the weekend in Las Vegas again.

"Hey," she replied, deciding to fish around for the homework in her bag instead. "How was your first morning out of care? Was it weird?"

"It was alright, actually," he answered cheerfully. "Walking down to breakfast by myself was a little weird but I can't say I miss having to fight over the cereal. Or the bread. Or a seat at the table."

She exhaled shortly in amusement. "Or lining up for the bog. Or being woken up by screaming and yelling."

"Actually, Mum woke me up earlier than I wanted her to. She said I was going to be late but I wasn't even close." She refrained from smiling. It sounded like Sally had slipped into the typical nagging mother mode already. "What are you looking for anyway?"

"My maths homework," she responded, just about ready to empty her bag on the floor for everyone to see. "Mr Barrett's going to kill me! Imagine what my report's going to look like. My Science teacher already threatened to give me a bad one because I forgot to do my homework that one time."

"Yeah, mine an' all. She says I'm the class clown."

She giggled. "She's not wrong." She dug her hands into the outer pockets of her bag, only to find an old work experience form she'd never handed in to the school office. On the subject of offices, she was suddenly reminded of what'd happened in Mike and May-Li's yesterday and looked up at Tyler. "Guess what happened right after you left."

"Wh—"

"Hey, Tyler!" someone hollered from down the hallway, and Jody turned to see Aliyah's admirer Jamie standing there, waving his arms madly at them. Or rather, at Tyler. "Get over here; you have to see this!"

"What is it?" Tyler yelled back. "I'm kind of busy!"

"It's Bill! He's finally going to do it! Hurry up!"

She pursed her lips, what little enthusiasm she'd felt at the prospect of sharing Freya's evil master plan dying down, and turned back to Tyler who had an apologetic look on his face. Whatever it was that Bill was about to do, it was clearly a big deal. "He sounds well excited," she commented casually, returning to searching her bag. That homework was not going to find itself. "Better go and see what he wants to show you."

"You sure?" he asked, giving her pause.

She stopped her rummaging and peered back up at him. Why was he suddenly asking her that? Between their very separate groups of friends, she was used to breaks where they barely got a word in before being interrupted. In fact, it wasn't out of the ordinary for them not to even see each other outside of shared lessons some days. It'd been like this for as long as she could remember, perhaps since they'd started high school.

"Yeah, of course," she replied, mustering up a smile. "Go on, then. You don't want that lot screaming 'mates before dates' at you."

He returned her smile before muttering a 'see you later', and as soon as he turned his back to her, her own smile faltered. As he reached Jamie at the end of the corridor, the corners of her lips relaxed altogether and she tore her gaze away from them, proceeding to turn her bag upside down and watch its contents spill all over the floor. She could tell him about Freya later, couldn't she? It wasn't as if she wasn't going to see him again.

.:. QK .:.

"Now that I've got you on your own," May-Li began as she started the engine, "you can tell me exactly why you didn't do your maths homework."

Jody sighed from the passenger seat. What did Mr Barrett gain from ratting her out? He'd already kept her in for lunch, destroying her chance to see Tyler or rather glance at him from across the dining hall. "I did it. I just forgot it at home. I tried to tell my teacher that but he didn't believe me and made me skip lunch. That's child abuse!"

"Maybe now you'll think twice before leaving your homework lying around in your room."

She scoffed. "It wasn't even in my room. It was in the Quiet Room."

May-Li chuckled and Jody rolled her eyes, unlocking her phone to check if she had any new messages or interesting notifications. Nothing. Not that she'd expected anything per se but it would've been nice if Tyler had texted her to say hi, especially since they'd been unable to pick their interrupted conversation back up during school hours. She would've texted him herself but since he was the one going through a major change in his life, she'd decided to leave that ball in his court. That, and she didn't want to come off as clingy; according to Candi-Rose's magazines, there was nothing more off-putting to a guy than a girl who didn't respect his space.

She wondered what he was even doing right now. Was he out with a school friend? Or perhaps at home, living the normal family life? Was he thinking of her like she was of him? Or was he simply too busy to spare her a second thought, let alone many? May-Li stopped the car at a traffic light with a jerk, snapping Jody out of her thoughts. Tyler's priority at present was settling in to his new life, the one he'd started only yesterday, not worrying about her.

Shaking her head at her selfish rhetoric, Jody put her phone away and propped her elbow up on the ledge underneath the window, taking to staring outside. For the next ten minutes or so, she watched on in boredom as all manner of people walked by, some of them reminding her of her various housemates. Ashdene Ridge really was a hubbub of misfits from all walks of life, bonded through the unfortunate and sad reality of being care kids.

"Are you alright?" May-Li suddenly asked, her concerned voice breaking the silence. "You're awfully quiet today."

"Am I?" she questioned flatly. "I didn't realise..."

"Look, I know you and Tyler are close but he needs time to re-acquaint himself to family life and you need time to adjust to his absence."

Even though May-Li's tone was not at all stern, Jody keenly felt as if she was being told off. "What are you saying?"

"That being glued to your phone and pushing your other friends away isn't helping anyone."

She couldn't help but scowl. "I'm not glued to my phone. I've only checked it once today. I'm not ignoring anyone either."

"Not today perhaps but after Mike and I dealt with Freya yesterday, you holed yourself up in your bedroom until dinner and went back up as soon as you were done eating. Don't tell me you weren't on your phone then. As for pushing the others away, Charlie was trying to talk to you this morning but you barely responded and I heard that Candi-Rose wanted to walk to school with you but you told her to go away."

Well, Candi-Rose was a right snitch. Why was May-Li giving the third degree, anyway? Was it a crime to want some time to herself? "Is going to bed early a bad thing now?!" she exclaimed, undoing her seatbelt as May-Li pulled up into a side road near the gym. "Why?! You and Mike are always moaning about us hanging around the TV when Shona's on duty!"

"There's no need to shout, Jody," May-Li admonished calmly. "All I'm saying is that maybe you should cut back on texting Tyler or whatever it is you're doing and spend some time with your other friends. Can you honestly say that you weren't on your phone at least some of the time yesterday? What else would you have been doing up there on your own until dinner?"

Gripping the straps of her gym bag, Jody didn't answer. To be honest, May-Li was right; she'd spent the many hours before dinner going through her entire camera roll, ninety per cent of which consisted of photos of her and Tyler, and the years-long text message and Whatsapp threads between them. In fact, she'd spent a considerable amount of time reading and re-reading his last text message to her: u were right.

Nearly an entire day later, she was still none the wiser as to what exactly she'd been right about, but those three words still made her feel all warm and giddy inside. She bit her lip despite herself, a smile threatening to break free; the girls in romantic novels only felt that way about a very different set of three words—three words she wasn't quite ready to say out loud just yet, let alone hear from someone else.

"I didn't mean to upset you, Jody," May-Li stated. "I just want what's best for you and Tyler."

Could she ever doubt that?

"Yeah, I know," she answered humbly, throwing the door open and stepping outside. "I'll call you when I'm done."

.:. QK .:.

Despite May-Li's earnest advice, Jody spent the rest of the week going to the gym after school every single day in a conscious effort to avoid being reminded of Tyler's absence; it was already hard enough making herself content with only seeing him for a few minutes at school each day let alone spending time at home and realising that he wasn't going to walk through the door any minute and join her on the sofa or in the garden. This time, though, May-Li accompanied her as opposed to merely dropping her off and Jody could just feel her carer's eyes boring into her as she sparred, from her place in the corner where she was discussing something with the gym owner, Bernadette. She stopped to take a long swig from her water bottle, nodding as her sparring partner told her she was going to leave for the day.

"Are you in trouble?" Jody nearly jumped at the voice, turning on her heel to see Brandon standing at her side. "May-Li's been staring at you for the last ten minutes."

"She hasn't been happy with me lately but what can you do?" she answered with a shrug, closing the cap on her bottle. "How are you, anyway? We haven't talked in a while."

The Wednesday that had just been and gone had marked one month since their break-up and while he'd said at the time that he still wanted to be friends, he'd kept his distance from her ever since, exchanging a quick 'hi' and 'bye' with her at most. It'd hurt her to know that she was the reason he had been hurting but she'd never once regretted her decision to end things with him. After all, his pain would've been so much worse if she'd latched onto him for another five or ten years only for him to discover her kissing Tyler in her university flat or behind the church at their wedding. She didn't think she had it in her to cheat but there was no telling what sort of person she would've become if she'd had to hide her true feelings for years on end. Thank God things hadn't and would never come to that. Brandon deserved better and she sure hoped he'd move on one day if he hadn't already.

"I'm alright," he replied, nodding slowly. "Sorry about not stopping for a chat earlier but I've been on a tight schedule lately; been busy babysitting my sister and that. Where were you anyway? During the holidays, I mean. I didn't see you once."

She laughed breathlessly, bowing her head. "I was grounded until last Friday. Well, Saturday, really. It's a long story."

"Oh," he let out, briefly looking at something over her shoulder. "So, are you trying out for the team then?"

"Huh?" she uttered dumbly. What team? "What are you on about?"

He raised an eyebrow. "The trials for the regional team: Tyne, Tees and Wear." She blinked rapidly in confusion. "Wait, didn't your sparring partner tell you?"

"No, she didn't," she responded, finally understanding what he was talking about.

When she'd joined the gym last year, she'd heard talk of the trials that'd just been and gone but hadn't taken much notice owing to her status as a newbie. Back then, boxing hadn't been so much an enjoyable hobby as it had a safe and healthy outlet for her anger—a coping mechanism to keep her going as her teenage life crumbled around her.

"That's a little odd," Brandon stated. "I'm sure she told me she was trying out an' all."

"Maybe she doesn't want more competition," she quipped, unable to help herself. It was no secret that most of the girls in this place envied each other's skills and physique. She doubted it was any different for the boys. "I don't know why she bothers; she's not going to get any from me."

"Jody, can I have a word?" a voice she recognised as Bernadette's questioned from behind. She spun around to see the gym owner with May-Li in tow. "I was just telling May-Li how impressed I am with your dedication—not everyone manages to come here every day and spar at their best—and she agrees when I say that you should consider trying out for the team."

Jody glanced at May-Li, out of habit more than anything else, before looking back at Bernadette. "I don't know... I've never really thought about it. Boxing's just something I do in my spare time; I'm not sure I want a career out of it."

She was no Ella; she had no delusions of grandeur of becoming a famous sports personality, though she wasn't sure dance could be defined as a sport. Besides, she was all set to attend a college fair next month and even though she didn't know what subjects she wanted to take yet, she had her heart set on going to uni like her brother before her.

"It doesn't have to have any bearing on your career," Bernadette said matter-of-factly. "I only suggested it because you already train enough to do the trials as it is. You might as well put it to good use."

"For what it's worth, I think you could make the team," Brandon piped up, digging his hands into his pockets. "It's why I asked you if you were trying out in the first place."

Bernadette smiled at him before refocusing her gaze on Jody, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Think about it. The deadline for signing up is next Sunday."

Without another word, Bernadette walked off towards the boxing ring where two of Brandon's friends were sparring, leaving Jody with her ex-boyfriend and May-Li.

"She's right," May-Li told her, an encouraging expression on her face. "As long as you keep on top of your homework, it shouldn't affect your education. There's no need to rush but I think you should go for it."

Jody wrinkled her nose, peering up at Brandon. "Are you trying out for the boys' team?"

"I might be."

She nodded soberly. She was already in hot water with two of her teachers for missing homework deadlines and another for 'daydreaming'. Could she cope with training and studying at the same time? How did that even work?

A/N: Thanks for the reviews.

yourfire—I personally feel that the writers have done all they can with Sasha's character but gear up for more repetitiveness because the actress is filming for Series 8. On the other hand, neither of the actors who play Charlie and Alex seem to be filming for Series 8 so I'm not too bothered about them. She owns a house so there's no reason for her to stay any longer and he will probably go back to his mum.
Your idea of the prom dates never crossed my mind but it's possible. I don't see Jody going with Brandon, though, even as just friends. Seems too soon after their break-up (or whatever it was).

Charlie—Whoops, the best friend comment was not supposed to sting. Jody didn't see it as a friendzone action and it wasn't intended to be. It was a reassurance of sorts that even if a romantic relationship doesn't work out, they'll still be the best of friends. Or at least try to be; these things are almost always easier said than done. I bet you didn't expect him to leave at all, right? ;)