First Published: 10/22/14

Edited: 2/10/19

PRESENT DAY

"Gwen," said Courtney while sighing. "I don't know how you wanted me to react to this. Really, how could I not be angry? I know what people were saying about me. They thought that I was overreacting, but when you feel like you can't trust anyone and you fall in love with a guy who breaks your heart with your new friend and you see them both everyday, it's hard to be happy. Try going through everything that I went through and then see how you react. And don't even try to tell me that it's easy because if you think it is, then you're obviously lying.

"So, Gwen, tell me. Was it worth it?"

"...At that time, it was," Gwen mumbled hoping nobody would hear her.

"Excuse me," Noah said in shock. "Did you just say it was worth it?"

Well, shit.

"Look," said Gwen when she finally got the courage to look at Noah. "I know it sounds bad since I might've had a hand at making Courtney look like a crazy person. But to me, in that moment, it was worth it because I really like Duncan. I know it sounds bitchy, but I can't force myself to not like someone. Or to patiently sit on the side and hope that one day they'd break up. I had to go for it!"

Heather rolled her eyes again. What happened to the Gwen that used to fight with me on the island? She turned into a total drama queen! "Why do you always have to make yourself the victim?"

"I-I-I don't know what you're talking about," stammered Gwen.

"Yes, you do. It's never your fault, is it, Gwen," said Noah. "Your reasons are always valid."

"They're probably more valid than your reasons!"

Noah glared at her. "You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know the whole story."

"Oh, please. What reason could you possibly have to trust Heather over Courtney?"

"Don't try to make this about him," Heather spoke up. "Like, really, you couldn't have waited until they broke up before trying to go after Duncan? You had to do it right then and there? Courtney just wanted a friend, and she knew you wanted one too. And you thanked her by taking the only person that she felt like she could trust. And it probably wasn't even worth it either since he broke up with you."

"Now wait a minute-"

"Gwen, honestly you chose a guy over a friend. And now, you're back to being alone!"

"I have other friends!"

Heather laughed. "Like who? Your other ex-boyfriend? Yeah, I'm sure you guys talk with each other all the time." Trent avoided eye contact with Gwen.

"Let's see who's next on the list," said Courtney. "Oh, yes, Trent. Listen, Trent, before I start, I just wanted to let you know that you're not a bad guy. You were never meant to be on the list. You really weren't. I didn't want you to think that you were like everyone else here, but I thought you deserved to know the truth about everything that happened. I'm really sorry I made you a part of this."

TRENT'S STORY

Besides Courtney's interactions with Duncan, there were a lot of people that she interacted with during the first season that the camera crew never caught. One of these people was Trent.

The first time Courtney had a meaningful conversation with Trent was right after she failed to do her challenge. All I had to do was jump! Instead of following her team back to the cabins, she climbed back up the ladder and tried to find the courage to jump into the pool of green jelly. Come on, Courtney, you can do this! It's only green jelly... She began to feel her legs shake and started to feel sick in her stomach. Nope, I'm going to hurl. I'm going back down.

Once she reached the bottom again, she sat down by the pool and mentally kicked herself. What's wrong with me? Green jelly... It's such a stupid thing to be scared of. I'm hopeless. I cost my team this win. I'm definitely going home. She put her face into her hands and tried hard to not cry. Don't do that. Don't cry. Don't be pathetic. She slapped herself hard. The tears started streaming down anyway.

During that time, Trent walked by with his guitar. The challenge was done, his team won, and now, he was going to relax by writing a new song inspired by a certain girl away from his teammates. Or so he thought. When he found the CIT crying by herself, he couldn't help but feel like she needed someone. Sitting down next to her, he attempted to comfort her by putting his hand on her shoulder, but Courtney smacked it away.

"Hey," said Trent. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"What's there to talk about? It's just stupid green jelly. And I couldn't get the courage to jump into it! It's fucking green jelly! It's completely harmless and stupid! And my team lost because of me... And I'm probably going home and I can't go home and... and..."

"Shh..." Trent put his arms around Courtney hoping that she wouldn't try to slap it away. "You know, I think you could've gone into the green jelly."

Courtney shrugged his arm off of her shoulder. "Don't be stupid. You saw me. I couldn't do it."

"True, but I think I'm noticing a pattern."

"What do you mean?"

"You're not really scared of sharks, are you?"

"Of course not! I'll have you know that I once beat up a shark."

"Then why didn't you jump off of the cliff in the first challenge?"

"As I explained to Chris, I have a medical condition!"

"Uh huh," he responded in a disbelieving tone.

Busted. "Where are you going with this," Courtney said with her eyes narrowing. There was no reason for her to trust Trent. After all, this was a competition, and he was on the other team.

Trent put his hand on his chin. "It seems to me, Ms. Courtney, that you have a fear of heights."

Courtney started to laugh. Me? Scared of heights? "You can't be serious."

"Think about it. You're not afraid of sharks yet you can't jump off of a cliff into an ocean with sharks. You couldn't jump into the green jelly, but I'm pretty sure you could just stick your hand in it."

"So, what you're saying is that I could've won that challenge if I didn't have to jump in?"

"Why don't we find out now?"

He gently took her hand, hovered it above the green jelly, and slowly let go of her hand. He then waited as Courtney debated whether or not she should put her hand in. Should I do it? If I don't, then only Trent would know that I couldn't do it again. But what if he's right. She felt her hand shake as she forced herself to lower her hand into the green jelly. After what felt like forever, she submerged her hand into it and... It didn't feel as bad as she thought it would.

Trent smirked. "...And?"

"Not something that I would eat, but definitely not that bad. I still wouldn't want to be covered in this though." Trent chuckled at that. "Too bad you couldn't help me discover this sooner," Courtney joked while lightly punching Trent in the arm.

Trent laughed. "Hey, I may have helped you now, but we're still on opposing sides."

She took her hand out of the jelly and gagged as the jelly stuck to her fingers. Yup. I'm gonna burn this hand. "Yeah, well, I better head back before Bridgette starts asking me questions."

"Yeah, I probably should too." Trent started to walk away while whistling a tune.

"Oh, and Trent, one more thing." Trent turned back around to look at Courtney. "I just wanted to say thanks. For everything."

Trent smiled. "Anytime, Courtney."

The next time they talked was during Total Drama Action. As if it wasn't bad enough that Trent got voted, did Geoff really have to humiliate him even more? So Trent decided to spend a few moments by himself mindlessly strumming his guitar in his room while thinking about what had happened. It's not everyday your girlfriend breaks up with you on national TV. It's also not everyday when you find out your ex-girlfriend thought you were obsessed with her.

His guitar string broke. He sighed. "It's really all Duncan's fault. Putting all those thoughts into Gwen's head..."

Then somebody knocked on the door breaking off his rant. It better not be Geoff. "Trent? Can I come in?"

He let out a deep breath. It's just Courtney. "Yeah, come on in."

Courtney carefully opened the door before walking in. Trent was a mess. His eyes were bloodshot. His hair was sticking out after running his hand through his hair multiple times. He had a broken guitar string and yet still tried to strum it. She sat down on the bed next to him and put her hand on his shoulder while caressing it. "You want to talk about it?"

Trent let out a lifeless laugh before sighing. "You know, maybe losing challenges on purpose was a bit too much, but seriously, I can't believe she thought I was obsessed with her."

"And then there's the fact that you think Gwen and Duncan have a thing."

"But so do you," he said while giving her a pointed look.

Courtney went silent.

Trent sighed again. "It's just that, you know. When you're competing against your girlfriend and then she all of a sudden becomes close to some guy on her team who obviously has more things in common with her or at least... More things than I ever will... You start to question things, you know? Like, what if she realizes that we have nothing in common and breaks up with me because she wants someone who's like Duncan? Or what if Duncan convinces her that I'm not good enough? (I'll give him that. He's a loser by choice.) Or even worse, that Chris will try to get them together."

Courtney rolled her eyes. He's so melodramatic. "Trent, be honest with me. Do you honestly think that's why Gwen broke up with you? Because you she realized you guys had nothing in common?"

"...No. She broke up with me because Duncan's a fucking idiot."

Courtney paused. She really didn't want to believe that this could be true, but she saw the show. She saw the clips of Duncan and Gwen, and what's worse, she saw the things that Trent saw. Something was going on, and it scared Courtney to even ask about it. But I have to know if it's true. "Do you think that Duncan and Gwen have a thing?"

Trent thought about it for a bit but decided to tell Courtney everything he knew. She could decide what was true for herself. "Well, on one hand, Gwen did say that Duncan had a photo of you under his pillow. But, I'm not really in a place where I would trust what either Duncan or Gwen says."

Courtney smiled. "I understand." She put her hand on his shoulder again. "Thanks for being honest with me, Trent. I'll see you around."

Even though Courtney and Trent didn't fully trust Gwen and Duncan, they still held onto the small hope that they were wrong. That Gwen and Duncan were really just friends and that they were just being paranoid. It became harder to believe that after Gwen got eliminated and Geoff showed that clip of her and Duncan, but Courtney still had the tiniest little bit of hope left for Duncan. She loved him. She trusted him.

The last time they talked to each other was when Courtney got eliminated from Total Drama World Tour. Courtney was in tears. The hurt and humiliation she felt from Gwen and Duncan was still flesh. While she walked around the studio looking for Trent, she heard the other contestants talking about her.

"I mean, why is she even still crying over this?"

"Seriously, she should be over this by now."

"Right? It was so obvious that Duncan was gonna go for Gwen."

"Honestly, she can't control them like that. If they want to date, then she should just let them be."

Those comments just added salt into her wound making her cry harder than ever. Did I really deserve this?

Finally, she found Trent's room and pounded on his door. "Trent, let me in," she screamed.

No answer.

She growled in frustration, opened the door herself, and found Trent laying on his bed while staring at the ceiling.

She walked over to his bed and kneeled down next to him. "Trent," she cried. "We were right. We were always right. We knew and yet it still hurts. Why does it still hurt?"

Trent sighed. "It's because we had faith. We had faith in them. And it failed us."

Courtney opened her mouth to continue but heard Trent say, "Please leave."

Courtney was confused. Here they were in the exact same situation, but instead of Trent wanting to figure it out with her, he wanted her to leave? "But why? I really need someone to help me through this. You understand what I'm going through. This fucking sucks, Trent. I hate feeling like this. You hate feeling like this. So, why can't we just help each other get through this?"

He shook his head. "Really, I don't want to think about it. I just want to pretend that it never happened. That I never went through it."

"So you're just going to push your feelings to the side and pretend that nothing happened?"

"Yes. And I suggest that you do the same."

She shook her head. "It's not that easy for me to do. I need somebody to talk to."

He sighed. "Then, you're going to have to find somebody else. I'm done."

She didn't move. He couldn't be serious, could he? But when half an hour passed and no words were exchanged, Courtney knew that he meant what he said. He was done. The only problem was that she wasn't.

END OF TRENT'S STORY