Regardless of having 2 fans blowing, and the AC on full blast, Cody still found himself unable to cool himself off in his small cramped apartment. Complaining to the manager really did no good, it was something that they really had no money to fix, and now when he asked her about it she just flat out told him she really didn't care and that if he wanted something better, he should just move out.
Cody still didn't want to move out.
He could put up with the blazing summer heat and the horrible sleepless nights if it meant being near Gwen. Plus, as said before, he really could not imagine not waking up in the morning here, in this place.
Currently, Cody sat on his dirty torn up old brown couch in the small living room of his apartment.
Trash piled up in the corners and floor of his apartment, old food and wrappers scattered all over the floor. Two fat rats scurried across the dirty floor, both with a few pieces of rotten food in their mouths. The two rats scurried into another large pile of garbage in the room, probably where their nest was.
It's not like Cody WANTED to live in this garbage. It's just that he couldn't imagine not. He had grown used to living in the pig sty, and didn't really want to change anything. Why change the way you live if you're perfectly comfortable with it? But then the age old question comes up; Is he really comfortable like this?
He had thought about this question countless times before, for hours on end, and it always lead up to Gwen and Total Drama, which didn't satisfy the question. So he just chose to push the question to the back of his mind now, no use in pondering it for hours on end over and over again if he wasn't going to reach a good answer.
Currently, it was Saturday.
Cody had just finished working for a few hours, like his boss told him. Usually, he was off work Saturday, unless of course he was working overtime, which he asked to do nearly every Friday to the point where his boss just refused outright to allow it. Saying that he worked way too much. And yeah, Cody would give him that; he really did work too much. But he loved working, takes his mind off things.
Today was different though, and it kinda bothered him. His boss told him the day before he had to work today, so he went ahead and did as he was told. It wasn't anything too difficult, just a revisions of code here and there, and then he was finished and free to go home.
So, as he does on every Saturday, and Sunday, and every other day and time he wasn't working, Cody was sitting up on his old couch watching old episodes of Total Drama Island and World Tour.
He would sit here, the entire day watching these episodes over and over again, choosing to lose himself inside his 'glory' days.
Right now, he was on the episode 'I see London', where Gwen and Duncan shared their first kiss.
He was very tempted to just go and skip the episode, and a few after it to where Gwen and Duncan were gone, but he chose to instead continue watching no matter how much it hurt. The current scene was where Gwen and Courtney had Heather tied up on the stretching torture device. Cody had been captured already, along with Sierra by 'Jack the Ripper' in a scene previous to this, so he wasn't really in the episode all that much.
Suddenly, he paused the episode and just stared ahead at the screen. Or to be specific, Gwen.
God he missed her...
Sometimes when he saw Gwen on the show, he was brought back to the time where Gwen and Cody actually started to become really good friends...
It was a few weeks after the end of Total Drama World Tour, and Cody was still pretty saddened by the fact that he had lost not only the prize money, but Gwen. Both of which he lost to men who were stronger, more attractive, and to Cody, both massive assholes. This was of course the story of his life, so it wasn't really nothing he wasn't used to. And it didn't surprise him one bit.
But he actually had hope this time, had hope that he could actually go and finally win the show, win something for once in his life that wasn't a video game.
How foolish he was.
He was a complete fool for thinking that for once in his life, he would be able to finally overcome something and win. But as usual, life set him up on a high pedestal, and gave him a swift kick in the ass to push him off and back down to the lonely dark ground.
He had done what was to be expected; holed himself up in his room at the hotel in a depressed state, only leaving the room to go grab food and drinks. He had to do his best to not break down infront of his fellow contestants pitying looks that they gave him as he walked past them. He did the best he could to ignore everything, disconnect himself from things.
But he was actually starting to get better now. "Things may have gone bad, but it will get better. Eventually." he told himself as he always did before when times got really tough.
Cody always was like this, optimistic even in the face of terrible sadness.
Nothing ever did get better of course, but Cody found it comforting to lie to himself about the future.
Well, 'lying' was a strong word. He didn't really know what the future held. But very recently, that very fact was starting to make him a little on edge for some reason, maybe he was afraid of things going even more wrong, maybe he was afraid of actually getting somewhere and then falling back down into the dark abyss, or maybe he was just a person of massive habit.
But the problem with him being a person of habit was that was complete crap. He had never been a person of habit. Infact, he hated habits...
At the moment, he was outside of his room, much to everyone's surprise, sitting next to what few friends he had at the place in the pool rom. Noah, Ezekiel to some extent, Harold, and unfortunately, Sierra.
Sierra had been trying to break into his room countless times during the time he was holed up in it, trying to get in in order to 'comfort' him. But he didn't want to be comforted, and especially not by her. He could get through this on his own. He always had been alone and had to rely on himself to get through tough things, and by God he would do it again and again.
Even though Cody thought he had reached an understanding with Sierra at the end of World Tour, it didn't take very long for her to return to her usual, brutish stalking ways. Although she atleast had the courtesy to not do it all the damn time. Or maybe she was just glad to see him out of his room and didn't want to scare him off again. Who knew?
He sipped his soda slowly, trying to make it last him in the hot Hawaiian Sun, but that was proving to be a fruitless effort.
"Cody, you've been sipping on that thing for the past hour. And it's a small." Noah quipped "The refills are free you know..."
A small smile spread on Cody's face, which made everyone more glad to see him returning to his old self.
He didn't respond, he normally didn't respond to Noah's sarcastic quips about the things around him, but he continued to sip the drink. Around him, almost all of the former contestants were swimming around in the pool, enjoying the nice warm sun.
Sierra sat at the opposite side of table, facing him and eye raping him, a crooked smile on her face. "Codykins, the way you sip that drink is so cute!"
Cody was creeped out, and about to respond when Chris came out into the pool area looking for him.
"Cody?" He said into the microphone, catching his attention and everyone else's.
"Yeah?" Cody called back, sitting up, almost afraid of what Chris was doing looking for him.
Chris looked strange. A look of... Sympathy on his face? At the time, Cody figured maybe it was the sun playing a trick on his eyes. How wrong he was.
"I just got a phone call from your mother." His voice sounded a bit shaky, like he was nervous to continue, but Cody didn't really pick up on it.
"My mother?" he cocked his head.
His mother really didn't care about Cody that much. She actually verbally abused him on more than one occasion. To her, he just seemed like a big massive failure, someone leaching off her and his father's money. His father however, was much more nicer and approachable to Cody than she was. His father actually legitimately felt bad that Cody didn't have his parents in his life that much and even spent time with him when he had the chance.
But his parents were very very busy workers. They were gone for weeks together on business trips, leaving Cody alone in the house. They did make pretty damn good money though, money enough to fuel his gaming and candy addiction.
But that was where the trouble came.
"Yeah Cody, she said that..." He choked, and paused, trying to think of how best to say what he was trying to say.
"Cody. Your father had a heart attack. He's in the hospital right now on life support, he won't make it through the next 30 minutes. I'm sorry."
The entire pool area went silent at the revelation. Or maybe it was Cody's world stopping from the massive bombshell dropped onto his world, he really couldn't remember which it was. Maybe it was just both.
His drink slipped from his hand and fell to the floor, and he stood there infront of everyone, frozen.
It felt like hours had passed before suddenly, he turned and bolted away from the pool area, back inside to his room where he could escape into his own world where things were fine. But things weren't fine. And now, Cody could finally see it. Cody could see.
Nothing was ever going to be fine.
Cody didn't know how many days had passed since Chris had announced his father was dead. The days passed slowly, and to his surprise, a few people who weren't Sierra actually knocked on his door to try to get him to come out. The people in specific who chose to do it surprised him the most.
Courtney, Alejandro, Bridgette, Hell, even Heather wanted him to come on out.
But he wouldn't.
He couldn't.
He was trapped in his own world of depression, no light in sight.
The one person who had actually truly cared, truly loved him was finally gone for good. Slipped away and he didn't even get to see him pass on, didn't get to say goodbye. But given the fact his life always ended up being a massive roller coaster, he still wasn't all surprised.
It wasn't until what Cody thought to be say, day 3 or 2, that someone in particular knocked on his door.
He hadn't eaten at all, not a single crumb of food or a drink of water. He only got up to use the bathroom, and then he jumped right back in his bed. He really didn't feel hungry or thirsty. He just felt... Numb.
Suddenly, a knock was heard on his door. But Cody ignored it. Probably just Sierra again. He just wished she and everyone would just realize he wanted to be left alone. He didn't want to be bothered.
Another knock was heard.
"Go away, please." He called out.
"Cody, open up please."
His heart fluttered and he momentarily forgot the crisis he was in at the of her voice. "G- Gwen?" He called out again.
"Yeah. Just open up and let me in, I won't be long."
In a trance like state, Cody crawled out of his bed and unlatched the lock to the door he installed to keep Sierra out, and then pulled it open to reveal exactly who he expected; Gwen.
She stood there awkwardly, and an even more awkward silence set in.
They stood there for a minutes, Gwen looking him over and Cody just staring head on at her, not sure if this was a dream or not.
"C- Come in."
He flipped on the light to his room, blinding him momentarily and Gwen walked in, stepping over a few things he had thrown around and was too sad to pick up. This was all very confusing to him. Why would Gwen suddenly care? After she used him to vote out Courtney? Kissed Duncan? Hit him? Ignored him?
"Alright Cody, first off. You need to eat and drink." She sat down infront of his bed on a chair that she pulled from the table nearby while Cody sat on his bed.
Cody opened his mouth to speak, but was shushed.
"And secondly, you need to leave this room and get some fresh air. Staying in here won't help a thing."
This time, she paused allowing Cody to talk.
"Okay but... Don't take this the wrong way, but why do you care?" He said bluntly, to which Gwen responded to with a roll of her eyes.
"Because. You might get on my nerves alot, but I still consider you a good friend. And to top it off. I know exactly how you feel, Cody. I've been through it before with my father. He died in a car accident back when I was 13. That was kind of around the time I became goth. We were both really close... I spent weeks locked up in my room, worrying my mother and brother sick."
Cody froze, staring at her unsure of what to say.
"I- I'm sorry, Gwen."
"Don't be. I'm kind of over it now. I still do miss him, but this isn't about me, Cody. It's about you. I know what you are thinking, that the entire world is against you, that everything has gone to Hell and you are stuck, trapped here, alone and scared. I felt all of those things when I was dealing with my father being gone. But you don't have to go through this alone like I did, Cody. Let me help you. Let all of us help you. We don't want you to be in here anymore."
Once again, Cody paused, taking all of this in.
She actually cared and thought of him as a friend? And the others did as well none the less?
"I didn't really think of things like that to be honest. I honestly think I'm kind of alone here except for Sierra, Harold, Noah and Ezekiel. And even then..."
"Well, you aren't. We've all been worried about you. Please, just come on out. I'm here for you if you need to talk to me, and so is everyone else."
Cody looked to the floor of the room before sighing. "Alright Gwen. I'll do it if it makes you happy." And then he was further surprised when she pulled him to a hug, and suddenly he started to cry. He cried there for what felt like hours, and Gwen held him there in her embrace, comforting him for as long as he needed comfort.
At last, he didn't have to go through this all alone anymore.