Authors Notes: Welcome back dear faithful readers, we apologize for this chapter taking as long as it did to get out to you, but once again COVID-19 and the weather have decided to make themselves a pain in the ass and are at fault for this latest delay. On the plus side, this has given us the time to implement a few ideas that were not originally scripted which we believe you will enjoy as well as add to the overall story.
As promised, this is the first of the 'Side-B' chapters of this dual arc which will introduce, or rather reintroduce, some fan favorites and more importantly begin to explain some of those long-standing mysteries we've been promising you for the last twenty-five or so chapters. It's been a long road and a long time, but we hope that you'll find the reward well worth the wait!
Also, to our reviewer "vicmic555," thank you so much for your service and your support of this fic! Fans like you are the reason we are doing this and there will be at least one chapter when you come back. Do our country proud, good sir!
Without further ado please enjoy the thirtieth chapter of "Unbreakable Red Silken Thread": Chance: Unforeseen Consequences Part I
Thursday, November 6th, 2014 (8:20 AM)
Although the sight of a cherry red Mercedes Crossfire blazing down the Canadian highway was nothing unusual, to see this particular one at this time of day anywhere but the dormitory parking lot was. Its occupants may not have been model students or sticklers for attendance, but there was an almost unspoken oath when it came to their daily routines that one could have set a clock to.
Heather was driving while Cody rode in the passenger seat, as per her rules when it came to her car. The pair hadn't been planning on taking a journey or going off on a trip today, but then Heather had gotten that text message.
More important was just who sent it in the first place.
Lindsay Mills.
It had been awhile since Heather had the chance to see her friend in person, so to find out she was going to be staying at one of her father's upper class hotels in the neighboring province caused more than a few strong memories and emotions to start bubbling to the surface. The only thing keeping her impulses at bay was Lindsay's rather frank plea for help.
THAT had been more than enough to snap the Asian out of Scarlett's bewitching temptations, as Lindsay never, at any point had ever asked for anything from anyone for as far back as she could remember. Not that she was ever wanting, what with her father owning several hotel chains, resorts, spas, magazines, and clothing lines. Lindsay just seemed perfectly happy with whatever her parents gave her and was happy to share with her friends whenever able. Not that either of the Mercedes occupants were strangers to wealth or in need of such charity. Cody's family was of the upper middle class' highest strata, enough to be commonly confused with the lower end of true upper class, while Heather's was smack dab in the middle of the highest economic circles.
Of course, these positions of wealth were nothing compared to the Mills family fortune. Cody's parents had pierced the barrier between middle and upper, Heather's were at the upper's center…but the Mills family were without question the one percent of the one percent, right at the tip of the Canadian financial pyramid, rivaled only by the Milton family depending on the season.
Such was the reason Heather insisted on driving her car. Even ignoring her borderline hatred of Cody's DeLorean, it simply looked more expensive. Cody, of course, couldn't deny that, or that such a detail deeply mattered to Heather, which was why he didn't even try to argue the matter. Deep in her mind, the former Queen Bee knew Lindsay wouldn't have cared if they showed up in a beaten-up pick-up truck as ancient and hideous as the fossil fuels that powered its coughing engine. She knew that despite Lindsay's obscene wealth the dumb blonde would never judge someone by their position or possessions.
However, just because Lindsay didn't care didn't mean the same was true of Heather. A lifetime ensnared within her parent's world was not easy to scrub out, and if she was going to see Lindsay Mills that old part of her demanded she put forth only the very best for appearance's sake.
Designer platform sandals? Check. Designer jeans? Check. Designer black silk blouse? Check. Makeup? Check. Pushup bra? Check. Hip hugging thong and bikini panty combo? Check. Hair up? Check.
Even Cody had been forced into his very best casual clothes, which true to his complaints did indeed make him look like a taller buffer Noah.
Besides all that, however, driving helped calm her down, and she knew she was going to need all the help she could get in that regard. She was used to stress, and she was accustomed to dealing with problems, but lately everything was just, worse than usual. Instead of a few major problems or a lot of little problems she was dealing with what seemed to be an endless army of giants. The last twenty-four hours though took the cake, leaving her with a handful of what could only be called 'titans' facing her down, any one of which on their own would have been enough to make her nervous, but combined was a bit…much, even for her.
She hadn't seen Lindsay in months and was naturally nervous about meeting her again. Even after all the time that had passed, she still had trouble coming to terms with how easily the blonde bombshell had forgiven her for what happened back on TDI. More worrying was the fact that Lindsay had never asked anyone for help, yet now not only had she asked Heather, she had asked to discuss it in person. Heather loved Lindsay, really, truly and deeply she loved the bubbly blonde, but it was common knowledge that the girl lacked even the most basic form of common sense. So, for her to be aware of how serious a situation was spoke volumes. The young Asian wished those had been the only reasons her stomach was bound in knots, but of course they weren't.
The key reason, what had her so rattled was what had happened with Scarlett yesterday. A girl who seemed to have as much grasp when it came to sex or seduction as a potted houseplant had gotten her so horny that she nearly lost control. A vow held strong for years by sheer force of will despite constant temptation was nearly broken by accident. That was all it took, she thought, how weak she was deep down. After so much work and so much effort, that was how little an opening her old self needed to start regaining control.
Such fearful realizations would have dominated her mind were it not for a rather convenient distraction. Though it was a distraction she had been expecting, right now had not been part of her timetable.
Not too long after starting their drive and with absolutely no prompting from her, Cody made good on his vow during their latest bout of skinship. He told Heather everything he'd felt and thought about Gwen since she had come back into their lives. Holding back nothing, Cody confessed everything, turning over every metaphorical stone so that no ugly blights could hide or linger.
He gave voice to how confused and worried he was for his former crush. He bemoaned how much he hated Heather keeping him in the dark. He explained what he had discovered and been told during his recent chat with Noah and Izzy. He revealed how he now understood that Gwen had never been the great friend he thought she was. And he didn't hold back from how he still felt some powerful emotion for the Goth that he didn't believe was love but was far closer to it than he wanted to admit, that the attraction he felt for Gwen now wasn't the same as it had been during Total Drama, yet wasn't the same as what he felt for her.
Every hidden thing from the past few weeks was laid bare before Heather, open for her inspection and judgment.
Such musings sometimes hurt to give voice to, to make impossible for Cody to deny or ignore but he knew he had to. Long ago, he learned a painful but important lesson and took it to heart. Communication, true and honest communication was essential to their relationship's survival. That applied to any couple, but Heather's unique history and personal failings made it especially vital that there be as few secrets between them as possible.
"…and I still have no idea what I am supposed to do." Cody said, finally finishing with a deep sigh.
Heather was silent for a good long while; reviewing the bombshells Cody finished dropping, or rather carpet-bombing, her with for the last half hour. Her thoughts were many, but boiled down to one of three primary sources: love, anger, and surprise.
The former Queen Bee felt a mighty torrent of love and gratefulness to her boyfriend for being so open and honest with her about what she knew was a series of very painful revelations. Yet again, she couldn't help but admit that Cody was too good for her.
She knew how painful honesty was, that was the reason her track record before Cody had been spottier than a dalmatian's fur. These days, most of those spots had been forcibly removed, with only two splotches of black deceit still marring an otherwise pristine white coat. The first she planned to take with her to the grave, but the second was only a matter of time before it came up. It was obvious to anyone who knew him that Cody looked forward to one day being a father. Not now or anytime soon, but one day eventually, and hopefully by then she could find a way to make that hope of his become a reality.
Heather was half-tempted to share what had happened with Scarlett before biting her tongue. She didn't want to ruin the surprise she had been working so hard on after all. Plus, she wasn't exactly eager to vindicate the undercurrent of distrust towards her that she couldn't in good conscious blame him for carrying around like a weighed shroud.
Instead, the former Queen Bee focused on more relevant matters, what Cody had just admitted, and where some of the sources of clarity on these points had come from. And thinking about that made her angry. Wedged between an impassioned sermon's worth of vulgarities and pulsating profanities were coherent contemplations about how she would need to have a dignified and civilized little chat with Noah and Izzy about how their meddling nearly ruined everything she had been working so hard on!
Since the heat of her hatred had burned so brightly, it quickly ran out of fuel, and in its wake was a return of pure rationality and the ability to survey what needed to be done.
The thing that made Heather the most uneasy about Noah and Izzy's advice though was how it turned out to be exactly what she would have told them to say if she had involved them from the start. That of course suggested they probably had a good idea of what she was planning concerning Gwen. They hadn't just said to go along with it. They had reinforced her specific instructions to the letter. That was a distinction that to someone as thorough as Heather conveyed a massive difference when it came to those two.
Given the fact that both the Bookworm and Psycho were some of Cody's closest friends and some of the smartest people they knew made this a possibility she always dreaded. They were a potential problem she was basically powerless to silence yet too cautious to enlist. For as much as she would have loved to believe in a flawless plan, she knew such a thing didn't exist. For that reason, she had considered something like this not only may, but also would eventually happen.
Seeing that there was no one around them, Heather pulled over to the side of the road and brought them to a stop before turning to face her boyfriend. "Cody, do you still want to help Gwen?" she asked directly, her face a blank canvas on which any expression could have been painted.
Cody was quiet, having been startled by her sudden question. Honestly, he'd expected Heather to offer some kind of explanation for her behavior ever since the Goth showed up. Realizing that he would need to answer this question first before getting what he wanted, the Tech Geek began to mull it over as Heather resumed driving, giving him time to think.
It was a simple question, really. Yes or no. Everything he could say was just a longer and wordier version of those two choices. Yet despite it having the simple, binary variety of a monochrome painting's color scheme, it felt as though he'd been asked the meaning of Life itself. That question would have been less daunting at this moment, and probably easier to solve. On the one hand, he had spent so much time idolizing Gwen that he almost reflexively said yes. His instincts screamed at him to say yes, what he thought was objective morality and nobility demanded he say yes. But as the truths he had recently learned showed, his instincts could be rendered askew and his morality wasn't objective. His old answer couldn't be trusted…and yet that epiphany offered no deeper clarity. Not being fanatically sure of a yes didn't mean that a no was truly what his answer should be.
If he couldn't in good faith say yes but was unconvinced to say no, what could he say?
Heather waited until the dashboard's green digital clock minute marker had turned from thirty to forty minutes after eight AM before she began to get worried. That confirmed a deep fear of hers that had been gnawing at her insides since Gwen moved in with them.
Out the corner of her eye, as she continued driving, Heather found surprise creeping up her spine. This had been the undercurrent as Cody confessed to her that had taken her for the biggest loop. She had been legitimately blindsided by the fact that his opinion of Gwen seemed to drop so far after he had his eyes opened to the truth.
"As much as I hate giving them any credit for sticking their noses where they don't belong," Heather said, weighing in with her two cents, "Noah and Izzy were right. About everything. Gwen wasn't attracted to you back then, and never would have been, she's never even been your friend." Cody sadly agreed, looking away for any number of reasons. "They're also right about me being up to something, and its success or failure hinges on you not knowing what, because if you did you wouldn't be able to stop yourself from acting differently."
The Tech Geek who had realized all of that assumed that was the end of it.
It wasn't.
"But," Heather added, with the sharp emphasis grabbing Cody's attention like a vice grip, "In Gwen's defense, back then…you didn't exactly give her a reason to treat you any differently. She was an ideal you put up on a pedestal to take off when you wanted to jerk off. Remember how bad Sierra was with you? You weren't that bad, admittedly, but you were more similar than not when you chased after Gwen's purple panties."
Never in a million years would Cody have imagined his girlfriend playing devil's advocate for her former archenemy. Or that she would do so in such a rare tone of voice. It wasn't as controlled as normal, though it had been when speaking of Noah and Izzy. The fact it was about something he would rather forget didn't help his soured mood. "Why are you so defensive about Gwen now?" he asked, very confused. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to get me to take her side."
Heather cut him a look before returning her attention to driving. "I'm not, Cody," she offered before clarifying, "I'm merely trying to be fair and help you grasp the truth about how Gwen thought of you back then. Not what you thought or wished, but what actually was."
There was that odd emphasis again. "'Back then?'" Cody repeated, as if tasting the words. She specifically said, 'back then.' He wondered. "What do you mean by that?"
A small smile grew on Heather's lips as she remained silent. Despite not saying a word, Cody got the message. He was supposed to figure it out for himself, and as before, if he did Heather would in turn reveal more. Part trust, part test, she was making sure before giving him more to work with.
He mused on the only clue she'd directly given him to work with for whatever it was she was up to. Heather had stressed 'back then,' but whatever she was doing now couldn't have anything to do with then. The past was the past. So, it must have been related to the only other relevant time, meaning the present. It had to be something involving Gwen and himself now. He focused on the few conditions that his girlfriend wanted him to follow, that Duncan was to be avoided at all costs…but Gwen wasn't mentioned at all, avoiding her wasn't even implied. Heather's "rules" were too few and succinct for ambiguities, which meant the answer was in the rules.
If avoiding Gwen wasn't explicitly stated, then it wasn't desired either, which meant Heather wanted them to interact. The second condition supported this idea as he'd been told specifically to answer any question Gwen asked him, no matter what it might be. Honesty was demanded, and he had never been forbidden from speaking to her.
Interaction was the goal. But what motive could require honest interaction between them?
Knowing he didn't have any more blood to squeeze from that stone, Cody shifted mental gears towards his only actual interaction with the Goth since World Tour. No words had been said between them, so it couldn't have been anything spoken. The moment was brief, so it had to be something that had been apparent from the very beginning. Somewhere in that fleeting instance was the motive Heather had for wanting him to talk to Gwen.
He and Heather had stormed into the guest bedroom; ready to battle whomever had broken in. He'd noticed Gwen's new bigger boobs, full of frisky ferrets, but then his attention had turned to her face. She saw him in what he had on at the time, nothing but his boxers, but her black eyes hadn't turned to his, hadn't flared up in anger. Why wasn't she mad? Because…she was focusing on something else…on him…
Cody felt himself getting a little erect as he realized that Gwen hadn't seen him since he bulked up, she hadn't been expecting that…and she hadn't wanted to look away. He had been with Heather long enough to know when a woman was checking him out, but—
Record scratch
Gwen had been checking him out!
As pleasing as that realization was, that didn't really offer an answer, since he knew Heather wasn't looking to ship him off with her former archenemy. That meant her reaction wasn't the answer. It was something the reaction implied in relation to the past that he was sure was. But what did her checking him out offer?
More than anything, Cody though absentmindedly, he was amazed by how Gwen had been looking at him now that he realized what had happened, of course that never would have happened on Total Drama Isl—
A light bulb flashed on!
That's when it hit him like a ton of bricks. That was the point! During Total Drama Island Gwen never would have checked him out like that. She'd dismissed him before they had even shared a word. But the Gwen in their guest bedroom had. She had checked him out, even though she was the same person not everything about them was the same. And that meant…
"Y-you are…trying…" Cody said shakily, forming the words as what he believed to be the answer slowly revealed itself like a sun creeping upward at the start of a new day. "To give…me a second chance to make a good impression…on Gwen?" He gulped. "You want me to try to become friends with her…for real this time?"
Heather nodded, her face painted into a Mona Lisa smile showing her deep approval and respect for Cody's problem-solving talents. She had trained him well, she thought to herself.
Cody felt some pride in his chest at figuring out what Heather's goal with him and Gwen was. However, he realized, that didn't answer the bigger unspoken question at work: why? Why did Heather want that for him and Gwen? He was tempted to ask, but then thought better of it. He would put his trust in Heather. It was certainty more trust than he felt at her scheme actually working given how stubborn he knew the Goth was. "It's a few years too late for that to matter," Cody commented regretfully. He wanted to believe in second chances, but even if Gwen found him objectively attractive enough to ogle a bit first thing in the morning, he doubted she would have any more reason to befriend him now than before.
To that, Heather offered neither nod nor comment. He was close enough that she knew it was safe to give him more to work with. "Do you still want to help Gwen?" she asked again after a moment passed. "Since you aren't looking at her through rose-tinted glasses anymore, it's your choice. If you don't, she'll be free to go the second we get back, either way I'll fully support whatever decision you make."
Knowing that Heather often had difficulty giving control over to anyone, even him, he recognized the importance of her offering him this choice. Other than choosing to take her back after she cheated on him, it felt like the biggest decision of his life. As he thought it over, a different thought occurred to him once more. Why was she offering him this choice? She didn't need to. She wouldn't have been expected to do any of this. So why was she?
Was she looking for a way out of a situation she didn't like, or was this a kind of test? And just as important, did that difference even matter if the choice was truly his alone?
"Do you want to help Gwen?" Cody asked, deflecting her question for another, "Or are you doing all of this just for me?"
The answer came from Heather after a moment or two considering it, or to be more precise, how to answer him. "It doesn't matter because it's up to you, Cody." Her face and voice remained completely unchanged.
"Of course it matters," Cody pointed out. "I don't want you doing something just for me." This earned him a quick look from Heather of a lone raised brow. That prompted a groan as he realized his oversight. "Let me amend that," he corrected, "I don't want you to do something like this if it's just for me." He waited. "Do you want to help Gwen?" he asked, unyielding.
His girlfriend sighed. "I'll admit," Heather began, "at first I just wanted to dump Gwen in some back alley or behind a rubbish-filled dumpster somewhere, preferably with hungry rats. I knew she'd bring us nothing but trouble and I didn't want her ruining the first true happiness I had ever been able to find for myself." She swallowed. "But, after that first night, when I was able to think clearly and force down the emotional firestorm she carried with her like an STD…I became…invested. Yes, I do honestly to want to help her."
Teal eyes blinked. Cody had been living with Heather long enough to know when she was telling the truth. She wasn't trying to trick him, but that just made what he heard far more vexing. Going for broke, he chose to ask the obvious. "Why? You and her, uh…you didn't get along—at all, on Total Drama Island, or Action, or World Tour…and you hadn't reconnected before either."
The Tech Geek had expected an eye roll and any number of clever ways to say "Duh" from this young woman to whom sarcasm might as well have been her primary language. Heather laughing therefore was something he didn't quite believe at first, even more so because it came from one of her rare genuine smiles.
But his eyes didn't lie.
She shook her head, with that smile still there before fading back under her mask, its momentary brightness causing car's interior to nearly shine. "You might not believe me when I say this," Heather explained, "but even though she irritated me every other moment I was around her, I loved having Gwen on Total Drama." The former Queen Bee ignored the questioning, borderline disbelieving, look on Cody's face.
"She was the first person I'd ever met in life to give me a real challenge, the first person to actually push me; a real opponent to test myself against after all the years of being trained by my parents as a child soldier using gossip and etiquette instead of a sub-machine gun."
Cody sat there, mildly surprised. Heather rarely ever spoke about her life before high school, and he assumed it was because of some unpleasantness better left forgotten. Though, he would concede, he might have been projecting. "Before Total Drama," Heather continued, "between my parents' name, wealth, social standing, my good looks, intelligence, and skills at playing everyone around me like fiddles—I could have anything I ever wanted and crushed any pathetic challenger without effort. Dakota Milton hadn't come into the picture until between seasons, and even she wouldn't have been worthy of my attention if the show hadn't hurt my popularity as much as it did. Life was as pleasant as it was banal, a soul-crushing abyss mindlessly embracing mediocrity." She sighed, a slightly heavy quality to the release of air.
"When I arrived on that dock to Camp Wawanakwa, four people got there before me." The former Queen Bee elaborated, briefly chuckling. "Watching the reruns of that first episode, I was amused by how the pairs of two reflected in my sunglasses couldn't have been more different. In my right eye was Beth and DJ, who were both cowering like so many others before them. Nothing special or noteworthy. But the left eye…that was different," she paused. "There was Lindsay, who stared at me vacantly, not exactly interested but still devoid of fear, something I hadn't seen before, and then there was this pale girl who looked like a reject from the Nightmare Before Christmas with her arms crossed and an annoyed frown. I got a new feeling seeing her blue-green painted frown and I was soon proven right. She was something I had needed so badly for my entire life but didn't realize until I saw it. As much as I hated challenges, I also hated spineless subservience. I wanted to command people, but only after I forced them to my heel. Gwen was the first person to give me that chance. She didn't give a damn about any of the things that triggered submission in others. My family's name, their wealth, their social standing…none of that mattered to her."
Cody didn't know what to say at hearing his girlfriend talk about the Goth so profoundly, so he said the first thing he thought of. "It sounds like you had a crush on her," he teased.
The pause following his banal jest was deep and wide enough to give Cody a sense of palpable vertigo, as if staring at the street from the roof of a skyscraper. He even briefly staggered in the passenger seat. "Gwen was quite literally," Heather eventually said flatly, "the first…hell, she was the first and only person to earn my respect before you."
That gave Cody pause. He remembered quite well what Heather was like back then. Even now it was hard to earn such high praise from her. Sure, his girlfriend was nicer and could be friendly when she wanted to be…but her standards were still absurdly high. Most people, whatever their virtues, weren't good enough for her to hold in esteem.
Something about that explanation didn't make sense to Cody the more he thought it over, however. "But what about the others?" he asked. Heather raised an eyebrow even as she kept her eyes on the road. "Uh, the other people who gave you trouble on Total Drama? I mean, sure, I know Gwen was your 'archenemy' and all, but she wasn't the only one who gave you a hard time. Why don't you have similar feelings for—" off the top of his head he listed off the first names that came to mind "—Leshawna, Duncan, or Ale?"
"Leshawna earned some respect," Heather clarified, "but she ultimately fell short and lost it. She was too easily cowed into submission by the desires of her team. She might have complained often enough and even retaliated from time to time, but at the end of the day she always played ball. Not to mention she seemed to forget about the truce we made during Action when World Tour started up," Heather paused, bitterly reflecting on how the Soul Sistah had treated her during TDWT. She still hadn't forgiven the bootylicious black babe for knocking out her tooth while under Alejandro's manipulations.
"As for Ale and Duncan," Heather continued, "I'll concede that they almost matched me at my own game, but that's also the problem…they were still playing the same game. Their tactics of deception, intimidation, and manipulation might have been different than mine, but they weren't any better in the end." Her tone was of that an artist who was disappointed by another's techniques, not the subject matter or philosophy behind the hypothetical artwork but merely the techniques used. It was a difference of thought on approach rather than actual mindset.
The Tech Geek, for far from the first time, was silently amazed at Heather's unique perspective about things like this. She spoke almost as if there was some kind of nobility to playing dirty, a glamour and virtue in moral callousness even all these years later. That time had given Cody something of a grasp of it, though he still didn't agree with it.
He was also not so secretly pleased that her zeal had seemingly faded over their years together. She may have been speaking in glowing terms, but she wasn't bragging or wistful anymore.
"Gwen wasn't like that," Heather continued, her voice somehow different, more livelily, he thought, "not at any point during the whole show." She paused. "That Wired Goth Girl wasn't like Leshawna, she never followed the herd mentality just to win a challenge. And the one time she did work with me, against Duncan and Owen, it wasn't because she submitted. She was my equal and she acted like it from start to finish." The former Queen Bee paused again. "She wasn't like Ale or Duncan…or me. Aside from the end of her time on World Tour, she always played the game straight. There was no lying or trickery, no smoothness or plotting. What I achieved with underhanded tricks, deception and backstabbing she matched with honesty, determination, and not giving a fuck what other people thought." A heavy chuckle escaped her lips. "God knows I found that out better than anyone else."
Cody marveled at how those might have been the nicest words his girlfriend had ever said about anyone other than himself. First there was that earlier spiel about Total Drama's Goth and now this? And yet, more shockingly, the words were coming so naturally, no sense of hesitancy or effort in how she phrased what she was saying. Outside of Lindsay or himself, Heather rarely praised anybody to this degree…ever, yet all this had seemingly been there, lying dormant, even back then?
"Despite making so many tactical errors," resumed Heather, "and never really trying to play the game to win, she always did well. She did her own thing and almost won, repeatedly, I had never encountered anyone like that before. Her label might have been 'the Goth' but she was far from the moody emo wannabe wallowing in unearned sorrow in her parent's basement that such a label normally denotes. She was unique, noteworthy, and just as good as any of us 'bad guys.' Maybe even better despite competing with such a massive handicap." She then glanced over at her boyfriend. "The same applies to you, for what its worth." Her face changed into a small, bemused smirk. "Despite being too good for this sinful earth, you made it to World Tour's final three, and had either of you been willing to play a little dirtier the finale could have easily been you competing against her, Cody."
There was something in Heather's tone when she spoke about the finale, a combination of pride and almost…disbelief, as though she was both happy and unable to fully accept. It only took a brief moment of thinking before his eyes widened with understanding, and for good reason. "That's why you reacted the way you did during the last challenge?" he stated more than asked. "When I said to you were the good guy."
The long, long moment that constituted Heather's silence told Cody he got it in one.
A few mile markers vanished into the rearview mirror before Heather spoke. "Honestly, I can't say, because I don't really know. Maybe?" she admitted, her voice soft. "It was the first time someone ever… genuinely said something nice about me. Aside from getting back at Ale, you had nothing to gain from me winning—and yet you said that…and I knew you actually meant it." A wobbly laugh escaped her lips that ever so slightly trembled. "It was the first time anyone ever cheered me on…for anything," she swallowed deeply. Her head shook as she dismissed the thought, though when she spoke up again, to change the topic, there was a small demure smile.
Cody saw this and was glad.
"Since you know what you do thanks to Noah and Izzy," asked Heather, demure smile still intact, "how do you feel about Gwen?"
Now it had been Cody's turn to sigh. Rather than answer her, he looked out the window, marveling at the gas stations and Canadian wilderness that zoomed by as he blinked. The answers he longed to find in his mind blurred by faster than the objects outside.
"Why are you so focused on Gwen right now instead of, say…Lindsay?" Heather asked, prodding him along rather than letting him avoid the topic completely.
Cody easily saw the proverbial detour and grabbed onto it with both hands. He knew he would probably need to answer that question before arriving at the blonde bombshell's penthouse suite, but he was grateful for the break anyway. He chuckled as this answer came to him much faster. "I never fixated on Lindsay the way I did Gwen. She never even came up in my mind, at least outside of the obvious way she would to any teenage guy because she was then, and still is now, way out of my league."
"So was Gwen," Heather counterpointed, trying to nudge him along.
The Tech Geek shook his head. "You're not wrong," Cody admitted, "but you aren't getting it either. On Total Drama, every girl there was out of my league. You, Gwen, Bridgette, Izzy, Courtney, even Beth shot me down…but Lindsay was just…different." Seeing the look Heather shot him he groaned.
"Okay, okay, just, hear me out. All of you were beautiful and desirable in your own way, but I honestly struggled to believe Lindsay was really even there, that she actually existed. All of you were out of my league, you were out of almost all the guys league, but Lindsay? She's out of EVERYONE'S league. It's…just…different." Shaking his head, he started counting off on his fingers, "Natural blonde, narrow shoulders, huge breasts, skinny waist, wide hips, full ass, beautiful eyes, sparkling smile, rich, and literally incapable of thinking ill of others. She was like the succulent, forbidden fruit hanging in the garden of gilded perfection that God himself prohibited you from ever as much as glimpsing at, locked behind a wall so high that it was impossible for me to even SEE her, let alone reach for her. As much as I knew I wouldn't have had a shot with any of you back then…that was doubly true for Lindsay. That's why despite finding her so attractive, I never even tried to make a pass at her, or spend time with her, or, even just talk to her." Rolling his eyes, he concluded with one last parting kick to himself. "I thought that I would have been struck by lightning or something just for looking at her."
Cody couldn't have predicted Heather's reaction to that reveal, but his girlfriend bursting into laughter and a fit of giggles would have been near the bottom of his list. The laughter caught him off guard, as usually when a guy said a girl other than the one they were dating was hot and/or they had desire to smash, said poor sod would be lucky if his punishment ended at him sleeping on the couch.
Then again, he wasn't too surprised.
He knew his situation with Heather was unique in a lot of ways from most guys and their girlfriends. One that popped up most often was admitting and expressing attraction to other girls, what it is he thought was attractive about them or what made them sexy. Cody had all but directly said he found a whole gaggle of girls to be sexy enough for him to occasionally dwell on them even years later, a gaggle of girls that Heather mostly hated. For most guys, merely the implication of doing so got them in serious trouble.
For Cody, his position was both worse and better off. On the one hand, Heather was by nature a jealous and covetous person. She didn't like to share anything at the best of times, and she hated any challenge to what was hers. Added to that, most girls weren't as smart or devious as his girlfriend, and therefore not as dangerous or prone to enacting self-prescribed vengeance. At the same time, he didn't want to cause the deep rooted and scarring insecurities he knew always existed behind her convincing façade to flare up for any unnecessary reason. This meant saying the wrong thing about a girl could put Heather on the warpath, or worse, make her depressed.
On the other hand…Heather often asked for his opinion on other girls for their potential in threesomes, and these days if he expressed attraction to a girl he knew Heather thought was sexy that usually resulted in them spending the afternoon and evening coming up with all manner of ideas, some of which eventually included said girl. Similar to an impassioned conversation with the one other person alive who loved the same obscure TV show they did that no one else had even heard of. More than one night of amazing sex had been triggered by both of them thinking of the same girl and unabashedly expressing all the things they wished they could do to said other girl.
It was like walking through a minefield, very dangerous, though with a map it was possible to navigate safely. Through trial and a lot of error, Cody had managed to more or less figure out what was safe to talk about and what to avoid.
Lindsay herself was not an uncommon topic of such late night 'discussions' though always and only at Heather's behest. If she brought up a girl with large breasts, he would go full in without worry, but if he were starting one of their little games he would stick to girls in B to C cup range. It was a small example of him being mindful of her feelings.
Thoughts of the blonde brought Cody back to the present, and how Heather still hadn't stopped laughing the entire time since his minor detour down 'Erection Lane' began. "Hey!" he fired off annoyed. "Just because you got to have 'sexy lesbian fun time' with her doesn't mean you need to rub it in my face." Turning his gaze back to the window he then muttered, "Especially since you got to rub yours in those huge breasts."
"Oh, I know," Heather said, her voice dripping with seductive honey without a hint of jealousy. She pulled to a stop at a red light, then turned to her boyfriend and flashed a very knowing and wicked grin before turning her attention back to the road, letting Cody dwell on the purpose of 'that' look until the light turned green. As the car slowly started to accelerate, she spoke with as casual a voice as possible, "It's funny you should say that, Cody, because Lindsay actually offered to do exactly that after mentioning she wanted to join us at her daddy's condo in Cancun."
Cody's head turned so fast that his neck almost snapped like a dry twig, his face going through an entire theater's worth of masks, from skeptical, to disbelieving, to comprehending, to convinced, and finally…angry within seconds. The Tech Geek was quick to voice his deduction. "Don't joke about that," he groused in a blunt, bitter tone she hadn't heard since the last time she mentioned burning one of her old schoolgirl outfit. As quickly as it arose the anger vanished, leaving in its wake a pitiful pout.
Heather only laughed harder, and Cody winced as if salt had been poured into a gaping wound. As she laughed, Heather shook her head before ensuring her merriment didn't result in a traffic accident, or as Cameron would call it, 'traffic collision'. Eventually the giggles worked their way out of her system, and Heather returned to some degree of her normal demeanor, though a small and slightly sly smile wouldn't leave.
"I'm being completely serious Cody," the former Queen Bee explained in her 'business mode voice,' which got his attention. That was the one tone she never used for teasing. "Lindsay asked me if we were interested, but I turned down her offer."
As though he were struggling with aphasia, the words made no sense. He had heard them, and his brain had processed them, but they didn't make any sense. His girlfriend's voice echoed on a perpetual loop in his mind until he couldn't deny what he had heard despite it sounding like a definition of insanity more accurate than the one in a dictionary.
By the time the truth of those words forced their way through his preconceived thoughts, his jaw was hanging like a bat roosting on a cave ceiling, descending until the limits of his biology forbade any further decline. That blast to his brain had destroyed more than his preconceptions.
His mind had stopped working, needing a full system reboot.
ERROR: Cody dot EXE has stopped working
FILE: Reality/EXE/has been corrupted
SYSTEM: CODY/DRIVE datadumpWTF detected
Do you wish to restore from a previous backup? Y/N?
By the time the Tech Geek returned to his pre-brain crash self, after a lengthy period of pure unnatural stillness, life and emotion roared from his suddenly twitchy form. "Heather, WHAT THE HELL!?" he shouted all at once, unable and unwilling to lower his voice. "You have wet dreams about her at least once a week! We've spent who knows how many nights talking about all the things we'd love to do to her! Why would you turn down an offer like that!?"
The smile hadn't left Heather's lips all throughout her boyfriend's meltdown, but she did sigh once he calmed down enough to listen to her. "I turned down her offer," the former Queen Bee explained, "because I knew you wouldn't like it." Before Cody could say anything in rebuttal, she added, "Look, there were two major problems with her offer that made it a no deal."
Astonishment arose on Cody's face, but then it turned into an indulging grin. "Let me guess," he asked with a snarky tone, "it wouldn't have lasted long enough, and you would have had to share?"
"You're actually half-right, at least about the sharing part," Heather admitted matter-of-factly, catching Cody off-guard, "just not when it comes to who I'd have to share with," she waited for a rebuttal but that had brought him up short. He just sat there, blinking dumbly in clear confusion, remaining utterly silent. The raven-haired young woman gave him a few moments to speak up despite that, confident he would figure out the hint. He had proven his abilities earlier with even less to solve the problem. She waited a good long while before eventually she turned to Cody and did a double take.
"You really haven't figured it out yet? Even after all this time?" she asked, amazed.
Feeling like the embarrassed kid who hadn't been paying attention getting called on by the teacher, Cody lamely asked, "What are you talking about?"
Heather rolled her eyes as they stared towards the oncoming road. "Tyler," she said, as if that explained everything, as if she had been answering what one plus two equaled. Several minutes sacrificed on the altar of time forever gone by passed with no reaction. It took considerable will to keep her hands on the steering wheel, as the urge to slap herself on the forehead for Cody's blindness was tempting. Luckily Heather resisted temptation.
After a sharp intake of air through her nose followed by a groan and shake of her head, Heather tried to guide her boyfriend to the light slowly, as one would a young child. "Haven't you ever noticed how Tyler was always hugging the other guys on Total Drama, but never his girlfriend?" she asked.
Cody blinked absentmindedly.
"Or how nice and friendly he was to you despite you being a geek and him being a jock?"
His expression remained unaffected.
"Or how despite him being a walking-talking magnet for Murphy's Law whose worst enemy is gravity he never once knocked you out during a challenge, for three seasons?"
The Tech Geek might as well have been a wall-hung painting for how little he changed.
Heather vowed she would give her usually intelligent boyfriend one more chance. "Haven't you ever suspected anything, anything at all, from how Tyler keeps sending me and you pictures of just him as well as him and Lindsay together at photo-shoots or at the beach?"
Seeing that Cody still wasn't getting it, with a curse, she decided to just drop the bomb. "Cody…Tyler has had a crush on you since the first day of Total Drama Island!"
The Tech Geek reeled back, his eyes popping out instantaneously as if he were an animated coyote who just now realized that the spark traveling along the comically long fuse to the big pile of dynamite was about to cause an earth-shattering, coyote-exploding kaboom. He blinked dumbly and Heather thought all that was missing was the ash coating his shuffling body and a tiny burnt umbrella.
Despite her annoyance, unable to laugh due her building irritation with him not seeing that, Heather was patient and allowed Cody to recover from that kaboom. Eventually, still looking quite dumbfounded, her boyfriend asked a question. "Why would he have a crush on me when he hooked up with Lindsay practically from day one?" he asked, his voice still somewhat reeling from this newest discovery.
Several particularly nasty rebuttals to Cody's inability to grasp something so simple and yet so personal to her were bit back by a groan that almost constituted a roar. "How the FUCK can you have me, a bisexual girlfriend who brings around other girls for threesomes, and still ask that?"
An encore of the bug-eyed look befitting the legacy of Chuck Jones and Tex Avery dominated Cody's face in harmony with another light bulb clicking on in his mind. But to his credit, this time the look faded away, as if erased, and he reclaimed control of himself. "Wait, are you saying that Lindsay and Tyler are like—" Cody attempted to ask before choosing to point to Heather, and then to himself, "just with other guys instead of other girls?"
"Kinda but not exactly" Heather clarified. "Sometimes it's guys, sometimes its girls…sometimes it's both. It depends on whose turn it is and what they feel like doing." Cody gawked at the idea of four people having sex together at the same time. While it was just one more person numerically, that alone created a completely different set of unspoken rules, dynamics and possibilities, especially when there were at least two people of either sex involved. "The other major difference is that Lindsay and Tyler are nowhere nearly as active as we are. For them it's usually just special occasions, birthdays, holidays, and the like."
After Heather was finished, Cody just nodded dumbly as he found this new piece of what he had learned that was worthy of being gawked at. Heather said Tyler and Lindsay took turns deciding who got in on the action between them, that meant Lindsay sometimes chose. It was difficult to wrap his mind around how the sweet and innocent Lindsay could actually be anything but, well, innocent. Though the idea of her being both innocent and…well, naughty at the same time only made her even hotter, something he had previously thought impossible.
Picking up on Cody's thoughts, Heather simply added, "Trust me on this one, you have no idea just how far Lindsay will go for Tyler. You know she has no mental filter and will share anything, anything at all. So I know what I'm talking about when I say that when it comes to that lucky bastard, there is literally no limit to what she will do to make him happy."
Recalling everything Heather had done for him over the years, Cody got the point and nodded in understanding. The Tech Geek might have been one of the few people alive who could really grasp what exactly 'no limits' truly meant and by proxy just how insanely fortunate Tyler really was. Over the years Heather had indulged his every fetish, kink and desire, with her drawing the line only once or twice that he could recall.
He couldn't believe that he, as well as Tyler, had found the best girlfriends possible on that shared televised torment known to the world as Total Drama.
Many questions sprouted up about what exactly some of the 'no limit' things were that Lindsay had done for Tyler. After all, maybe it would give him or Heather some new ideas? As tempting as that line of thought was, he realized there was something more important to ask right now. Those other questions could wait for another time, ideally when they were both naked.
"You said there was a second problem?" asked Cody.
Heather nodded while grinning; a little impressed he had enough focus left to remember that. Regardless, she asked, "What do you mean?" She wanted to avoid that particular topic for as long as she could, as it would be a shame to sully such a wonderfully perverted conversation as this.
"You said there were 'two' problems with Lindsay's offer, and that's why you shot it down."
"That I did," Heather said as she sighed, taking a few moments to prepare herself for this. It was especially important given how touchy and sensitive this topic was, so she wanted to make sure the words she picked were right. "Remember the way you reacted when you found out I'd cheated on you?"
The flinch that rippled across Cody's face was answer enough. Regardless, he did answer her, "Yeah, I do. It's kinda hard to forget the fight we had…or what came afterwards…"
Heather nodded. "When I started bringing other girls around…" she bit her lip, "I thought about bringing up other guys too," she paused briefly. "Not to share with you, obviously, since I know you're not into that…but for me…to enjoy while you, you know, were with another girl at the same time…"
Cody raised an eyebrow. "You mean like swingers?" he asked, disbelieving his ears.
Tellingly, she didn't answer. One didn't need to be an expert in 'Heather' to figure that one out. The former Queen Bee instead merely continued as if he hadn't said anything. "The first time I thought about bringing in another guy…I couldn't stop thinking about you breaking up with me," her voice was soft, her eyes lowered towards the steering wheel.
"Why?"
The former Queen Bee paused, now very focused on the road ahead. "When I thought of asking if you'd mind me fucking another guy…I got worried…" She gulped loudly and turned to face Cody. "I was worried that you would break up with me again, for the same reason you did the first time." Gray eyes moistened as she quickly turned back to face the road. "I realized that just asking would put you through the same kind of pain all over again, that you'd worry you weren't good enough for me." Heather stared at the road as if it were the only thing left in the world, working very hard not to let the pain of that reopened wound lead to more literal ones on the road.
Cody was quiet for a long minute, staring down at his feet on the passenger side floor.
Just her admitting to having thought of asking made the Tech Geek feel like he had back on Total Drama, back when he felt pathetic and useless. A part of him wanted to say that wasn't completely true, but it would have been an obvious lie. He didn't know if he would have been able to endure the mere suggestion of his girlfriend having sex with another guy. Hell, it was only after Heather herself figured out she was bisexual and some rather long discussions between them that he'd been able to bury the majority of his insecurities. It was funny how most guys (including himself before getting together with Heather) would have thought a bisexual girlfriend with a healthy attraction to other women that she regularly indulged in was the definition of perfect and awesome. And he would be lying if he said it was a cross to bear that offered him nothing of value…but not always.
In reality, it actually stung quite a bit at times. Even to this day there was a part of him that chaffed at being unable to completely satisfy Heather the way other guys could their girlfriends. He was however sensible enough and reasonable enough to understand and (in time) accept it wasn't due to any shortcoming on his part just as it wasn't any fault of Heather's. Biologically and psychologically there was a part of her that no man would ever be able to please. So, they worked together, and they adapted, even if the outcome did on occasion make him feel a bit unsure of himself.
Another girl with him involved? No problem most of the time as long as Heather gave him as much attention. Another girl with Heather while he watched? He could swing that for Heather's enjoyment as long as he got some attention eventually. But another guy…under any context? That made him feel…uncomfortable, and duplicitous.
Another current of discomfort arose from within him. Heather had thought about it, nearly having even asked him at some point. For Heather, that meant she wanted it, and knowing his girlfriend's sex drive…more than likely she needed it.
He felt like a real heel, a hypocrite as the full scope dawned on him. He got to benefit from his girlfriend's bisexuality while he in turn denied her the other half simply because he wasn't into it. How was that fair?
"Do you still feel that way?" he asked softly. "Do you still want…other gu— AHHH!?"
Cody nearly fell out of his seat even though he was buckled in as Heather slamming the breaks had started a chain reaction that created a screeching halt and skid marks burning into the asphalt. A chorus of honking horns and hate-filled shouts filled the air as other vehicles drove around the unexpected and unnatural roadblock. The sorrow had been swept from his face by the terror of the abrupt development. Thousands of questions all fought to be spoken as he turned to face Heather. She said nothing, her face was a mask; one even he with all his experience couldn't read.
Remaining silent, she calmly guided her red Mercedes into the Mills Hotel parking lot, Cody's comment having distracted her and nearly causing her to miss it, their conversation having taken up the entirety of their drive, which wasn't a short one.
The second she pulled her car into an open parking spot around back, but before Cody could even get a word in, Heather grabbed him by the back of his head and pulled him to her with every ounce of force she could muster. It took Cody a few moments to process that her tongue had already invaded his mouth, that in the blink of an eye she had somehow moved out of the driver's seat and into his lap, holding his right hand to her breast.
Heather was by nature an aggressive and overwhelming kisser, but rarely had she been this aggressive. Usually, Cody could keep pace with her fairly easily, and even take the dominant role unless she was at her horniest. But right now, he found himself helpless before her erotic skills. The way she stroked her tongue along the side of his, running it along and around the tip then down the other side, just as she did his cock when giving him a blowjob made him shudder. Every time he tried to pin her tongue it retreated back into her mouth, taunting him, teasing him to follow, only to find itself ambushed then trapped with tiny nibbles and pinching from her lips.
That combined with the surprise of it all, being chest deep in a snogging session, in a public parking lot no less, left Cody with no alternative but to sit there basking in the rich gratification Heather was giving him. His clothes started to get sweaty and his boxers were wrapping around his boner, but he didn't care. The sensations were as wonderful as his previous thoughts had been awful. Here he had been expecting Heather to ask if he'd mind her sleeping with other guys, and feeling guilty enough that he couldn't quite say she wouldn't be in the right to ask such a thing, yet, here she was, lavishing him with pure unadulterated affection.
Eventually, to his partial regret, Heather ended her assault, their lips parted, and her hand released his, though he kept it in place, surprised at just how strong her heart was hammering against her chest. The former Queen Bee gazed deep into his eyes, letting him bask in the raw unguarded emotion of the moment. This was a rarity to say the least. Despite how little she cared about the thoughts and opinions of others, Heather was usually quite guarded when out in public. Yet here she was, guiding his hands to her waist before wrapping her own around his neck in a tight embrace.
Heather did nothing for several long minutes as she determinedly held him close, just as he had once held her on a day that felt like a lifetime ago. Once she was convinced that she had exorcised his doubts, she sat back and returned her gaze to his, basking in his aroused confusion for a few precious seconds before doing what she knew she needed to do, what had motivated her actions. "Now Cody," Heather's face became deadly serious, effectively chilling the Tech Geek's still slightly sweaty body. "I never, and I do mean never, want you to doubt yourself, or our relationship, ever again." Her voice wasn't loud, but it was powerful, a voice that didn't need volume to make itself clear.
When she spoke again after a brief pause, Heather's voice returned to its normal cadence. "I won't lie to you," she said, "Yes, there have been times since we got back together where I'd see a hot guy and that part of me thought he would be fun to play around with in bed. I have the desire. I feel it just like I do when I see an attractive girl, but I have never acted on it, not once. The moment one of those ideas pops up I force it back down because I refuse to allow myself to be controlled by them."
The former Queen Bee saw her boyfriend was opening his mouth, and she had a decent guess as to what he was going to say. It was time to bring out the big guns. "Do you know why I can do that so easily, but still struggle so much when it comes to other women, Cody?" she asked. He had no response, as she assumed. She playfully rolled her eyes. "The only reason I'm able to do that is because of you. I don't need another man, I don't even want another man." She paused and then added something with pure finality.
"I only want you."
Cody swallowed, impressed and immensely grateful by such a vow of commitment. However, a thought entered his head that risked undoing it all. "Are you sure?" he asked, his voice not as weak or unsure as he felt, though still betraying his concern. He really hated what he was about to say, but he knew he had to say it. He had to be fair. "You know…if you still want other guys—"
"Cody Emmett Jameson Anderson, stop," Heather cut him off with a tone of authority, though her voice retained the same softness reserved only for him when it was a clear line in the sand. Her boyfriend was so pleasantly predictable, and she had already planned out her response to this exact conversation years ago should it ever come up.
Taking his hands in hers, she held them tightly and looked him directly in the eye before doing something she had only ever done once in all the time they'd known each other.
She 'removed' her mask.
There were plenty of occasions where she would 'lower it' so to speak. And there were times where it would slip, crack, or fracture, but her control was strong enough to keep either the majority of it in place or as much as she desired hidden.
But for the moment, it was simply gone without a trace to be found, and just like that last time Cody felt the air sucked out of his lungs.
Cautious grey orbs flittered away from his gaze before returning, though he could see how desperately she wanted to avert them, the fear and anxiety shining through bright as day. The sharp steel edge of her brow creased with worry and uncertainty. Her ever present smirk nowhere to be seen, not even a hinting ghost of its existence remained, in its place two thin lips did their best to hide behind the other.
Sitting before him was Heather Wilson. The real Heather Wilson. The one whose laughter rang as soft bells and whose smile could lighten up an entire room. Not the strong, confident Queen Bee of Total Drama who stirred up his lust and captivated his eyes, but rather the broken, lonely girl who'd spent her entire life hiding behind a strong persona and mask that had stolen his heart.
"Cody, you know my… history. You know how many guys I slept with before we got together. You know how I treated them, how I used them, and how I hurt them… but you still—" She paused, annoyed that despite having thought out and planned this beforehand, she was still having so much trouble getting the words out.
Squeezing her hands, Heather decided to change gears, sliding her mask back into place, knowing she needed strength now more than ever. "As much fun as the thought might be, I don't want or need any other guy in my life. Period." She looked down at their hands, feeling so pathetic but sucking it up…for him. "I know I'm fucked up in the head, but as fucked up as I am, as much as my parents did a number of me, as much as I only made it worse with my own crappy choices…that is one thing I know for a fact. It's the one, and only, flaw I've been able to overcome, and it's entirely because of you." She looked away for a moment, needing to break eye contact with him to fit the last of her mask back into place before turning back to him, her lips tugging into a playful and familiar impish grin once more. "Though I would say the fact that you got me addicted to your dick evens out the 'fucked in the head' scale."
The couple shared a long and hearty laugh over the little private joke, Cody laughing the louder of the duo.
When the laughter ceased, Heather swallowed, knowing she wasn't quite done yet. "I know you refuse to acknowledge it, and God bless you for that, but I've got problems. I know I've got serious problems Cody. I'll never be normal, and there are things that I know I will not, and cannot ever be for you…or give you…"
Cody was about to interrupt her.
"I know you're fine with that," the former Queen Bee said in advance to silence him, "And I am happy to know that. It's actually a huge weight off my shoulders, Cody. I just…I just want you understand that I know I have problems, and flaws, and bad habits…" A huffed chuckle escaped her. "Though I guess those are just different ways of saying the same thing," she sighed. "I fight against them every moment of every day. I can hold a lot of it in…beat most of them back because of you. But I can't win against all of it, not every single day."
There was another pause. It was time for her to get to the main point now, she knew. "And that's the reason why I want to help Gwen," she added.
That caught Cody off guard. For the briefest of moments, he had completely forgotten about Gwen. "What…what do you mean by that?" he asked, still recovering from getting to see unmasked 'Heather' again.
Biting her lip, Heather said, "I think Gwen is the same."
Seeing his confused expression, Heather took a deep breath.
"Remember back when we first started talking to each other online after that whole topless TDI picture incident that Dakota Milton caused?" She then smirked. "The one you admitted to using as jerk-off material like five or six times before I messaged you?"
Cody had a good memory, so he easily grasped what she was referring to. He nodded, somewhat embarrassed of the way that would eventually lead to his relationship with her.
"Well," Heather resumed, "remember when I said that there were far, far worse things in Gwen's diary that I could have read for the entire television watching world instead of her crush on Trent, but even back then I had some morals?" She left it at that…letting Cody fill in the blanks for himself.
He quickly did. Heather just admitted to not being able to overcome all her own issues, even with her intelligence, resolve, abilities, and help from him. Back when Heather was at her worst, there was stuff she learned about her archenemy that was so bad even she refused to use it against her. Those issues were still there in Gwen, and she had no one to turn to but Duncan for support.
Heather knew about Gwen's darkest secrets when she forced her to move in with them.
After another minute or two to make sure her boyfriend understood what she was implying, Heather spoke. "Cody…I need an answer to this. Right here, right now, how do you feel? Honestly, what do you feel for Gwen? Don't think about it. Don't say what you think I want to hear or what you think you should say. Just say exactly what your gut is telling you."
Sighing, Cody obliged with no delay. "When I first saw Gwen, Heather…" There was a pause; a pause that his girlfriend knew didn't signify him trying to rehearse his answer, but rather was him simply trying to formulate it, to fit many abstract feelings into words as he could. "I felt—I dunno—drawn to her. Like—like a magnet, like a dog to a fresh steak, I guess. It—it wasn't just physically, I mean, she's beautiful…but it wasn't just that. I wanted…so many things from her. Half the time I didn't know what…and, what I wanted never—it never seemed to stay the same…but it always felt like it did. I—well, I guess you could say I wanted to—uh, I wanted to help her. Like I thought, like I knew she was…was…well, like she was hurt…or something—I dunno, really…"
Heather nodded, knowing that was as good an answer she could have expected about this, at least until she allowed him a little breathing room to recover from uncovering that. 'He's closer to the truth than he realizes,' she thought. "Go on," Heather said gently.
"I wanted to help her back then…and I still want to help her now," Cody admitted, half-amazed with the words coming out of his own mouth as he spoke up. "Even if she—uh, even if she isn't my friend…even if she never was my friend…" He paused, another heavy sigh escaping his lips. "I'm still… drawn to her…I care about her."
The Tech Geek winced, dreading how his girlfriend might react to him all but flat out admitting that even all these years later, even after she had given him everything she had given him, there was a part of him that still longed for his teenage crush. He had confessed this to an extent earlier during their drive, but he had unintentionally omitted the full extent of his conflicted thoughts. It wasn't in the words themselves but rather in the inflictions behind them, the true bearing of his soul, his failings and impulses, his want and need for this other woman. Though Heather had asked, he waited for the backlash, the shouting…the pain.
"What exactly do you want to do to her, or with her?" asked Heather, her voice calm, calm to a degree that surprised Cody enough to briefly steal the voice from his throat. In the void that created, she elaborated. "Do you just want to be her friend? Do you want to take her out on dates? Do you want to ravage her in bed? Tell me, like you would have after winning one of our bets. Tell me exactly what it is you want?"
Cody knew he needed to respond with as little forethought as his previous answers. "I want…I want to help her. I want to protect her…as lame as it sounds, I just, I just want to see her happy for a change."
The Tech Geek didn't know what part of his answer made him cringe internally harder, the fact he hadn't exactly turned down any of the things his girlfriend supplied or that his answer sounded so basic and schmaltzy it wouldn't have been butch enough to printed on a Hallmark card.
That debate was ended when he noticed Heather smiling at him, his Heather, from behind her mask with a genuine smile. "I'm glad we're on the same page…because that's exactly what I'm trying to do."
No prose or photograph of a surprised face could faithfully match how Cody looked right then. Heather sat there, marveling at it as if it were a film projected for her eyes only. Eventually, Cody forced himself to commutate a merely fraction of his utter vexation. "H—how?" he asked.
"Remember what Noah said," Heather answered. "I can't tell you because you'll act differently."
"I'm already going to act differently just knowing what I know now," he pointed out.
Heather's lovely face adopted a bemused look that should have come across as condescending but was too choked with sincere affection. "Cody, I haven't told you anything that you didn't already know." As Cody's face again made a valiant attempt to recreate a less terrified version of Edvard Munch's The Scream, Heather kissed him on the cheek with none of the hungry lust from earlier. "We'll have plenty of time to talk later, but right now I'm eager to see some old friends again," she said playfully as she climbed off his lap, opened the door, and began to walk towards the hotel entrance.
Cody sat there for a few seconds, feeling like he had learned everything there was to know, and yet learned nothing at all. The debate about which was the greater truth ended as he also left the car.
As was often the case, Heather was right.
It was time to see some old friends again.
And that was the latest chapter of URST! As always, we hope you liked it!
So, we've got a few things to discuss in this chapter so let's get right into it. At the top of the list is obviously the reveal of Tyler being bisexual and into Cody. This was done after realizing that so far this story's only gay or bisexual characters were women. Obviously, guys can be those things too so it was about time that was shown. Tyler being bisexual was not in our original story idea but after thinking about it…well, it just kind of fit, I guess. It made sense to us that he could be this. What are your thoughts on this reveal? Can you buy Tyler as being bisexual?
Also, connected to that, we wanted to show the ups and downs of Cody's relationship of being with a bisexual person like Heather. Obviously, it sounds awesome to be with a hot girl who's into other girls too, but there's always a price. Or maybe not so much a "price" as hidden "unforeseen consequences"? Lol
Moving on from that, let's talk about Cody and Heather's talk as they drove. Partially this was in response to a cliché of dramatic writing that I HATE! I am referring to the fact that couples, people who are supposed to be in healthy and loving relationship but are having problems…don't just fucking talk about them! Seriously, Hollywood, is bull-shit contrived secrecy the only way to make drama!? Okay, okay, rant over. But in all seriousness, this is a storytelling conceit I hate because it's so played out and it always goes the same way. I don't think Cody would let something like this fester, thus him revealing all of this crap to Heather. I don't know if this makes up for the long amount of time this story had taken to consume but I would shutter in disgust if I did something so formulaically dull. Such clichés applied with no thought or variations are to be avoided like COVID-19! Lol
Now then, moving onto that talk. What are your thoughts on Heather's views of Gwen, Total Drama, and Cody's mindset about all of this? And do you have any ideas what Heather is working towards?
Anyway, the next chapter will continue with Gwen and Sammy. And the chapter after that will be the next section of this story arc…where we will FINALLY see Lindsay and Tyler in the flesh! This has been a long time coming and the final results are pleasant…or at least, that is what is hoped for! Lol
Until next time, please read, review, favor, follow, and spread the word!