"But May-Li, this is so unfair!" Jody complained, frustrated. "I always go to the gym on Saturday!"
A mere five minutes ago, she'd come downstairs with her gym bag to ask May-Li for a lift to the gym, only to be denied. Figuring that May-Li was simply too busy to give her a lift, she'd announced that she was going to get the bus instead but had been sorely disappointed when May-Li told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to go the gym until tomorrow. Tomorrow!
"Yes, but you don't usually go to the gym every day of the week," May-Li replied pointedly. "You've been five days in a row. You need a rest day."
"But you heard yourself how impressed Bernadette is with my daily sparring," Jody countered proudly. "How am I meant to make the team if I don't keep it up?"
May-Li stopped what she was doing, tipping her head to the side. "You've decided to go for it then?"
"Well, I won't be able to if you don't let me go, will I?" Jody asked tersely, refraining from rolling her eyes.
May-Li was completely missing the point; she'd wanted to use the weekend to see if she could balance homework and the level of training required to make the team before making her final decision. How was she supposed to do that if she was stuck here? Half the weekend wouldn't be enough to determine that and next weekend was the deadline.
Despite Jody's insistence, May-Li stuck to her guns. "Everyone needs a rest day, Jody Gray, even you. As a fitness instructor, Bernadette won't tell you any different."
Jody groaned, throwing her arms up in the air. "What am I supposed to do then, after I've finished my homework? You won't even let me talk to Tyler so am I meant to just sit around and watch TV for the rest of the day?"
Spending hours in front of the television on a chilly winter's day didn't sound bad in itself but it was something she used to do with Tyler when he was back from work and she was back from boxing; given the current circumstances, she didn't want to be reminded of him any more than necessary. She understood why May-Li had told her to lay off the texting—not that there'd been any texting at all, to begin with—but it didn't mean she had to like it. As stupid and cheesy as it sounded, she felt like a Juliet who'd been forbidden from seeing her Romeo.
"Mike's taking some of the others out to a charity fundraiser for the homeless," May-Li stated, resuming her work. "There's going to be an auction. They've got an extra seat on their table; why don't you join them?"
"I haven't got any money," Jody answered instantly. She wasn't lying, exactly. She was saving up for a pair of new trainers and she only had enough to spare for a return bus ticket. Surely, nothing at the charity auction was going to go for that cheap of a bid? "Are Candi-Rose and Charlie going?"
"Yep. So are Alex, Finn and Jay."
Right, so no one to talk to and no one to play football (and freeze to death) with either. Who did that leave, then? Ryan and Floss? Brilliant, just bloody brilliant! During dinner one evening, she'd made the mistake of ranting to them as well as the others about May-Li not letting her see Tyler; now, whenever they saw her, they teased—taunted, in Ryan's case—her about missing her 'man'. It certainly didn't help that the entire household once again thought something was going on between them now that it was common knowledge that she'd broken up with Brandon. Besides Ryan and Floss, the only others left were Bird, Chloe, Taz and Sid, the latter being the only guest they'd received last week to become a permanent resident; Freya and Lucas had been kicked out on the spot after the former's plan to blackmail Sasha to get herself placed back into care, or rather Secure, had been exposed. A game of pool with Bird it was then, even though he always beat everyone since revealing himself to be a pool shark.
"Well," she started loudly, bitterly smiling at May-Li, "I'll go and find Bird, then."
"You do that," May-Li replied, and Jody just had to restrain herself from growling at her carer's triumphant smile. She marched upstairs, headed for Bird's room where said boy was no doubt listening to music.
.:. QK .:.
Half an hour later, an emotionally drained Jody let herself fall onto the sofa. So what if she was no longer a spoilsport? Her pride still sustained tiny fractures each time she lost whether it was at pool or Monopoly. It was nothing compared to being bested in a sparring match, of course, but it still chipped away at her somewhat fragile self-esteem. Catching Ryan looking at her from the other sofa out of the corner of her eye, she turned to him, sensing he had something he wanted to say.
"What?"
"You tell me," he responded dryly. "Why the long face? Is Tyler not returning your texts?"
"Oh haha," she muttered sarcastically, not rising to the bait. She hadn't been ignored. How could she, when she'd never texted him in the first place? She was still waiting for him to make a move first. "Bird just thrashed me at a game of pool... No big deal."
Bird, who was sitting next to Ryan, looked up from his laptop. He'd gone straight on it after beating her while she'd just stood next to the pool table like an idiot, trying to process her loss. "I wouldn't say thrashed. You played well."
Oh, bless him. He was humouring her, she just knew it. It was probably why Candi-Rose liked him so much; she could only imagine what he did for the younger girl's ego. "Thanks."
Just then, Floss entered the room and started debating what to watch on TV with Ryan, and Jody tuned them out, proceeding to scroll through the notifications on her phone. There were no texts from Tyler but then again, she hadn't expected any; since college application deadlines were drawing closer, he'd started to take his work experience more seriously, going in for a shift whenever he could, which unfortunately meant he was no longer free every other Saturday. Not that he would've wanted to spend any of them with her, anyway; wouldn't that honour go to his family instead? She didn't even feel bitter thinking about it—it was just the way things worked. Sasha, on the other hand, had texted to say that she would indeed be attending the same college fair next month.
Jody typed a reply when, all of a sudden, she heard the front door swing open followed by loud complaints from both Jay and Candi-Rose. Hitting send, she exchanged a bewildered look with Floss before peering over the back of the sofa to see Mike more or less forcing Alex into the office. Odd. They'd barely been gone an hour and while the venue was nearby, they were back much earlier than anticipated. As the door to the office closed, Jay and Candi-Rose came into view, traipsing into the lounge.
"What happened?" Floss inquired gleefully, directing her question at Jay. "Did you have to come back early because you lot didn't have enough money on you? I told you you should've held back on that chocolate spree."
"You're wrong as usual," Jay scoffed smugly. "It was all your BFF's fault, actually. You should've been there to see it. He bid two-thousand pounds for a holiday, right, and then when he won, he asked the woman who was running the fundraiser if she'd take a tenner instead. She obviously said no and then he totally lost the plot and started yelling at her about how fake she was in front of everyone."
Ryan whistled. "He's outdone himself this time."
Jody rolled her eyes at the unhelpful comment as Bird spoke up. "Did you manage to get anything before all that happened? Did they actually have anything going for a tenner?"
"Finn got a ukelele for exactly ten pounds," Candi-Rose replied, and Jay nodded, "but that was it. I told Mike and May-Li that cutting down on our allowances wasn't a good idea!"
"It wasn't their idea," Ryan said flatly, doing quotation marks with his fingers as he said the last word. "They had no choice. Budget cuts."
"Whatever," Candi-Rose shot back. "I wish Tyler was still here. As forum rep, he would've been able to stop it."
"Or he wouldn't have."
"Uhh, hellooooo," Floss interjected, "I told you I'd get our allowances back, didn't I? It's just going to take some time. Being the forum rep isn't as easy as it looks, you know."
"Well, Tyler always told you that," Jody quipped, rising to her feet, "but you never listened to him. Good luck."
Without another word, she made her way out of the lounge with slumped shoulders. Sat at home on a Saturday, it'd been possible to trick herself into thinking Tyler wasn't around because he was doing a shift at the radio station but hearing Floss talk about being the forum rep had burst her bubble. He wasn't one of them anymore, just like the countless others who'd been found before him. No wonder he hadn't texted about visiting yet—he'd left this part of his life behind for good.
.:. QK .:.
Aimlessly wandering around, Jody soon found herself in the garden, setting upon Charlie who seemed to be so engrossed in her chores that she didn't look up as she was approached. By the looks of it, she was currently in the middle of weeding.
"Did Alex really flip out at the auction?" Jody asked bluntly. Charlie jumped before peering up and laughing in embarrassment.
"Hi, Jody," she greeted, wiping at her forehead with the back of a gloved hand. "Word travels fast. I hope the others aren't too upset about their trip being cut short."
"They'll get over it," Jody dismissed, gingerly sitting on the ground next to the older girl. "What actually happened? I mean, I know that Alex can fly off the handle sometimes but why now? Why today? What set him off?"
Charlie resumed digging. "Well, it was a fundraiser for the homeless; it probably raked up some bad memories. That, and he didn't believe that the organiser had genuinely been homeless in the past like she said she had."
"What made him think that she was lying? Was it something she said? Or did he just know? Like a gut instinct or something?"
"I couldn't say," she answered with a shrug. "I don't know what's going through his mind."
Jody didn't believe that for a second. It was no secret that Charlie and Alex were close and despite not attracting rumours to the same extent as herself and Tyler, there were still whispers here and there. When she considered the rumours with the knowledge that Charlie had thought herself pregnant last year, she ended up with two very different pictures: Alex having an unrequited crush on Charlie who was sleeping with someone else or the two of them having been secretly involved for nearly a year. The third possibility, that the two had had a one night stand before agreeing to be just friends, was unthinkable.
"You'd know if you asked."
Charlie's hands stilled. "There's nothing to ask. He's just had a bad day, that's all."
Jody raised an eyebrow but otherwise remained silent; Charlie clearly knew something but was determined to keep it to herself, most likely because she'd been asked to by Alex. She glanced down at her hands. There was no point in beating that dead horse over the head with a stick.
After a lengthy pause, Charlie softly called her name, and she curiously looked back up from her hands. "What?"
"What would you do if you ran into someone you never thought you'd see again?"
"How do you mean?"
"I mean if someone who'd walked out on you when you needed them the most suddenly turned up again years later. How would you feel?"
She narrowed her eyes. If she didn't know any better, she would've thought Charlie was asking because her father had shown up, but that was impossible: the man had died of a drug overdose when Charlie was a toddler. Just who or rather what had brought on this vein of questioning, then?
"Well, angry," she finally replied. "That's how I felt, anyway, when my brother came here after our mum's funeral. I know he was only out of my life for a few months rather than years but I think the feeling is pretty much the same. You feel like you're being mocked by someone who betrayed you. You wonder why he suddenly wants to be in your life again when he was the one who left you in the first place. You feel irritated when you're made to feel like the bad one for not accepting him back into your life."
Charlie shook her head. "But what if that person doesn't recognise you? You know, because it's been more than ten years. What if they've already moved on? Already replaced you?"
The questions were so eerily reminiscent of Jody's experience with Gray that she momentarily froze, wondering if Charlie somehow knew the truth of what had happened in the supermarket last year. Even if she did, why was she suddenly bringing it up now? Gray hadn't been on Jody's mind in a serious capacity since her last birthday, and she rather preferred it that way.
"Charlie... what is this about?" she questioned warily. "Why are you suddenly asking these questions? Have you got a long lost brother I don't know about or something?"
"Oh, no, it's just hypothetical," Charlie responded nonchalantly, conveniently averting her gaze as she removed her gloves and gathered up the gardening tools. She wasn't too good of a liar. "I think I'm done here..." She turned back to Jody with a polite but forced smile on her face. "Are you going to come in? It's nearly lunchtime."
Jody merely nodded, pushing herself up off the ground as she tried not to think of the many hours she had yet to kill after lunch.
.:. QK .:.
Want to come round for lunch?
Jody sighed, typing back an emphatic (in terms of texting) 'no'. Trust her brother to want to hang out with her when she was actually otherwise occupied. Besides, his invitation was so out-of-the-blue; she'd had dinner with him at his place less than a month ago and it was unlike him to want to see her again so soon, especially with Millie around.
Can't. Busy training. Another time?
Within seconds, her phone screen lit up with another message notification, but upon receiving a pointed look from her sparring partner, she decided to mute her mobile and put it away. While finally being able to once again contact Luke directly and banter over text with him like normal siblings felt great, she couldn't let it get in the way of her training; if she was to sign up for the trials, she had to be at the top of her game which meant besting her sparring partner for a start.
"So, are you trying out?" the girl asked in her thick Geordie accent. Unlike Jody, she was born and bred in Pottiswood. "I didn't see you here yesterday."
"You know I'm trying out," Jody replied shortly, focussing on her opponent's stance. "Thanks for telling me about the trials, by the way."
"Thought you already knew," the girl said casually.
It suddenly occurred to Jody that she didn't even know her sparring partner's name. Granted, they'd only started sparring together sometime after she'd broken up with Brandon and she'd very recently been absent for a whole two weeks; they'd only really sparred together for a total of three weeks.
"How would I? I wasn't here during the holidays, remember?" Jody shot back, lunging at the girl.
The girl effortlessly blocked her. "Well, it turned out alright in the end. I bet your boyfriend clued you in on it an' all."
"Ex-boyfriend," she coolly corrected. She wanted to turn around to see if Brandon was nearby at all but didn't dare take her eyes off her wily rival.
"Just as well; real boxers don't have boyfriends."
Jody stopped short, slipping a well-aimed punch. She didn't like the girl's tone at all. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"That real life isn't like what they show in the movies—even the ones about boxing. Real strong women don't need men."
She had to admit, the girl had a point. When she'd first become so immersed in the world of boxing that she'd irritated Tyler with her constant raving about it, she'd indulged in watching countless films about female boxers, most of which were complete and utter trash. The majority of them contained grossly unnecessary romantic sub-plots and one even had the premise of a woman becoming a boxer in order to reunite with her deadbeat father. At a time when she'd just discovered Gray who hadn't even recognised her, watching that last film had stung.
"My best mate is a guy," she stated breathlessly as she pondered her next move. "Are you telling me I don't need him?"
"I'd be surprised if you didn't," the girl shot back. "You always clung on to Dalton like he was the best thing in the world."
Jody's face grew hot in an instant. She'd never clung on to Brandon, and she'd certainly never revered him like other girls did their boyfriends. Heck, she hadn't even had feelings for him! Who did this girl think she was, talking like she knew her and referring to others by their surnames like she was a professional coach or something?
Before she knew it, said girl punched her in the gut. Jody wheezed, involuntarily dropping her defensive stance and receiving a punch to the face that sent her careening to the floor of the ring. She clutched at her head, forcing herself to sit up despite her dizziness.
"Maybe you should think about boys less," the girl's voice rung from somewhere above her, "and about training more."
She grit her teeth. How had she fallen for this, the oldest trick in the book? The one Ryan had used on her all those years ago during PoPo's challenge and the one she'd used right back on him, enabling her to defeat him and finally get him to stop bullying her.
"Gray! What have I said about knockout punches without proper supervision?!"
It took a few seconds for Jody to register the voice as that of one of the gym trainers who worked alongside Bernadette, one of the many who insisted on calling every single member by their last names. But why was she being yelled at?! She hadn't been the one to deliver the so-called knockout punch. She was the victim! As one of the other boxers helped her up, she opened her mouth to defend herself but was beaten to it.
"Sorry; I got a little carried away," her sparring partner apologised. "It won't happen again."
"See that it doesn't," the trainer said firmly before casting her eyes upon Jody. "Other Gray, are you alright? Do I need to make a call home to get someone to pick you up?"
Other Gray? She stared at her sparring partner, the blood draining from her face. Gray...?
Upon realising that the trainer was repeating herself, Jody murmured a response that was unintelligible to her own ears, unable to tear her gaze away from the other girl, a teenager who shared her surname and lived in the same town as her and Gray.
A/N: I know this update is somewhat late for me but I've had guests over nearly every day of the week; on one of the days, I had one set of guests arrive a mere half-hour after another set left. It was a nightmare!
While I finished my TDG marathon quite a while ago, I re-watched The Lone Ranger to get an idea of what Jody was doing in this episode and was quite surprised to realise that neither of the subplots would have happened if not for Tyler. As a result, there's no whoopie cushioning and money-making/karma-earning in this chapter.
Charlie—I don't even know what I've planned for our young couple myself! Hang in there, lol!
The break-up with Brandon was during 'No Escaping', not before it. I suppose it seemed otherwise because I set the chapter over a few days rather than one day like the episode did. I would've loved to see a canon-compliant break-up too; I always wondered how it happened. I hope you'll write such a scene into your rendition of the episode.
As always, thanks for the review!