Chapter 2: Girl Talk
Sadie woke up the next morning feeling like she was missing something important. Not something important like her favorite color of nail polish. More like she was missing an arm or a leg. She rolled out of bed, shaking off the feeling, and got on with her morning routine.
She ran into a problem with her clothes. All the clothes in her wardrobe had been made by Katie. Usually, putting them on in the morning gave her a sense of pride. Now, it filled her with discomfort. She tore all her clothes out of the closet and scattered them over her bed, looking for something to wear that wasn't Katie contaminated. In the end, she settled for an itchy black dress her Granny had given her. The only reason it had gone in her suitcase in the first place was because she had mistaken it for the black turtleneck Katie had made during her knitting phase.
Before leaving the room, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Without thinking about it, she had put her hair up in pigtails like they always did. She found herself ripping the pink pompom elastics out of her hair. Even after her hair was down, it didn't look different enough from Katie's. Barrettes went in to hold back her bangs and she brushed her hair down until she knew for sure she didn't look anything like Katie.
When she entered the dining room, the heads swiveled towards the door like they usually did. This time, however, they froze in place. Several jaws dropped. Sadie tugged at the collar of the itchy dress and tried to walk confidently – or as confidently as you could walk with your knees wobbling like her Granny's custard- to the nearest table with people.
"Why does everyone, like, look so surprised?" she said, pasting on the happiest smile she could muster.
Leshawna was the first to recover. "Girl, you look so different."
"You know, I just needed a change."
"Did something happen?" Bridgette asked. "Where's Katie?"
Sadie upped the wattage of her smile to creepy clown levels. "I don't know."
That proclamation sent the table into a shell-shocked silence. Sadie left briefly to snag some breakfast from the buffet and returned to find Leshawna and Bridgette whispering. They abruptly fell silent and smiled toothily at her when she sat down again.
The door to the room opened and the three girls immediately turned to check who had arrived. They turned back to their meals, disappointed, when they saw it was only Ezekiel.
"Are you sure nothing happened?" Bridgette said.
"I'm just not BFFFLs with Katie anymore," Sadie said, stabbing her waffle with unnecessary force. "Actually, we're not even Fs anymore."
The door opened again and the three checked the doorway. It was Noah. They returned to the conversation.
"That is not nothing," Leshawna said.
"Whatever, I totally don't care," Sadie said, sawing angrily at her waffle. "She is, like, so dead to me. I don't even want to talk about her anymore." She glanced down at her waffle and realized she should probably start eating it, as she had stopped cutting the waffle and started sawing the plate instead.
The huge door cracked open and the people they had been watching for entered. Katie froze in place moments later and gaped at Sadie's new sense of fashion. Sadie stared back, her head held high. Katie wasn't going to get to her. No way.
An expression almost like regret passed over Katie's face, before being replaced by a mean smirk. She grabbed onto Trent's arm, giggled at high volume, and led him to the farthest possible table from Sadie. Sadie flipped her hair behind her shoulder, flaunting her new hairstyle, and smirked back. Trent glanced between Katie and Sadie, looking more and more apprehensive by the second.
"Want to go swimming?" Sadie asked, practically yelling the question. She hoped her ex-BFFFL got the message, which was essentially: Haha! I already have new friends. See? You and me are soooo over. I'm not even, like, sad about it.
Katie responded by leaning even closer to Trent, which didn't seem like it should be humanly possible.
Leshawna shrugged. "Sure."
Bridgette stared at Katie and Trent before slowly nodding. "Okay."
"Meet you at the pool in ten minutes!" Sadie said, already almost out the door. She practically sprinted the entire first floor in her search for an elevator.
She entered the elevator to the sound of a flute solo. The elevators at the Playa des Losers hotel were programmed to play only one song: Flight of the Bumblebee. So, if you were unlucky and got a room near the top of the hotel like Sadie had, you were forced to listen to several playthroughs of the semi-irritating flute solo.
The song gave her a kind of manic energy that ebbed away only after sprinting away from the music, jumping into her room, and realizing she did not own a bathing suit that didn't match one of Katie's.
She stared at her closet, picking at the neck of her itchy dress. Katie couldn't stay mad for too long, right? Well, yeah, their fight had totally hurt Sadie's feelings, but they were BFFFLs. That had to mean something, right? She curled up under the warm, inviting covers of her bed, wishing the whole situation would just go away. But that wasn't going to happen. Trent wasn't going to disappear, so even if Katie apologized nothing was going to be fixed.
Sadie puzzled over the problem until the warmth made her brain foggy. She kicked off her covers and clutched the pillow to her chest. It was uncomfortably warm, even without covers. The Playa des Losers hotel was located on a remote island that had odd weather patterns. One day, it would be blisteringly hot and the next, there would be a blizzard. Even though the hotel heating and air conditioning didn't really seem cut out to handle the weather fluctuations, the weather never really bothered anybody particularly. If there was snow, the pool activities for the day would simply be taken to the heated indoor pool instead.
Sadie hugged her pillow extra-tight, wishing things would just fix themselves, and fell asleep slowly. Hopefully, things would be better when she woke up.
Sadie felt super-bad about ditching the pool when she woke up. She rolled out of bed and walked down the hallway, checking every door to see if it was Bridgette's. She only had a vague idea where Bridgette's room was and knocking on every door was a good enough solution. Besides, the only two people staying on this floor were her and Bridgette.
When she finally found Bridgette's door, the surfer girl opened the door with a towel wrapped around her wet hair.
"Hey, I'm sooooo sorry about ditching the pool," Sadie said quickly. "I totally fell asleep in my room and, like, just woke up."
"That's fine," Bridgette replied. She scrutinized the girl in front of her. Was it just her, or did Sadie seem a bit too energetic? The girl was always full of energy, but this seemed like a little much.
"Cool! If you're okay with it, I'm going to go and find Leshawna," Sadie said, flashing Bridgette a blinding smile. "Do you know what floor she's on?"
"Thirteenth."
"Okay! Byeeee." Sadie ran down the hallway, waving to the surfer girl. Bridgette watched her disappear around the corner
Sadie spent a few seconds in the elevator, her foot tapping at a crazy pace that almost perfectly matched the tempo of Flight of the Bumblebee. Once she stepped onto the plush carpeting of the thirteenth floor, she did realized that she hadn't asked what room Leshawna was in. Instead of taking the elevator back up to Bridgette, whose room number she didn't remember anyway, she applied the same logic she had used upstairs and knocked on every door she came to.
The fourth door she tried opened, and a toque covered head appeared d in the doorway. "Yo, eh," Ezekiel said. "What's breaking?"
She giggled. "Sorry, wrong door," she said. "And also, you don't say breaking. You could say what's up, or what's poppin', or what's crackin', but nobody really says the last two. Bye!" She took a few more steps down the hallway and rapped on the next door.
Trent opened the door and Sadie stood gaping at him. "Hey, Katie, Sadie's here," he called behind him.
"No, I'm not," she said, shaking her head violently.
Katie appeared in the doorway beside Trent and frowned at Sadie. "Do you, like, want to apologize?"
"No," Sadie said, her voice taking on the bratty tone of voice she always got when she was mad. "Shouldn't you apologize?"
Katie's eyes narrowed into slits. "You're the one knocking on my door."
It was a good point, but Sadie would definitely not be acknowledging that. Until she apologized, everything in the world was Katie's fault. Knocking on the wrong door? Katie's fault. Their favorite lip gloss line being discontinued? Katie's fault. Global warming? Also Katie's fault. "Whatever," she said dismissively. "Bye."
"Bye!" Katie yelled after her, as if the word were an insult.
"Double bye!" Sadie shot back, stomping down the hallway.
Sadie took the stairs back up to her room, not in the mood for Flight of the Bumblebee. After charging up what seemed like an endless number of flights, she walked slowly to her room and collapsed onto her bed. Today was definitely making the list of Top 10 Worst Days Ever.
She didn't leave her room very much for the next few days. The amazing discovery that the hotel offered room service helped a lot. (Strangely, she still never managed to catch a glimpse of any staff. A knock on the door announced the arrival of food but when she opened the door nobody was ever there.)
She wasn't sad. This was strategy. As long as she waited her out, Katie would eventually come to apologize.
On the fourth day, she was sick of being cooped up inside. Even going out on her balcony wasn't getting her spirits up. Then again, the weather had turned chilly, so the balcony felt more like a windy death-trap than a beachfront vacation spot. She wandered towards her door, contemplating giving up her isolation and finding somebody- anybody- to talk to. She had already pored over every magazine she owned, reread one of the Twilight books, and given herself manicures in eight different colors. Even worse, all those activities were things that were way more fun when she did them with Katie.
The carpet under her feet crinkled. When she glanced down, she found a slip of paper that had been slipped under the door. She picked it up and unfolded it carefully.
Stop moping and cheer up, it read.
Sadie smiled at the note and went to change into a bathing suit. She made sure to pick the one that had been their least favorite - it was completely black and didn't even have a pattern. She slipped on flip-flops and padded down the hallway to the elevator. Flight of the Bumblebee started up again when the doors slid open, to her dismay, so she plugged her ears against the noise.
The elevator stopped on the tenth floor and the doors slid open to reveal Cody, wearing blue swimtrunks. "Hey, Sadie," he said, slipping into the Codemeister persona he'd created for himself. He did a finger bang in her direction. "You are looking good."
She unplugged her ears when she noticed his mouth was moving. "What?"
"I said that you looked extra-cute this morning," he said, unabashed.
She giggled. "Thanks!"
The elevator door began to close, and Cody slipped into the elevator. Sadie jammed her fingers back into her ears, blocking out the sound of the irritating piano solo. He continued to try out pick-up lines on her, though she couldn't really hear him with her fingers in her ears. But Cody was nothing if not persistent, so he followed her out of the elevator and towards the indoor pool. "That bathing suit is totally hot," he said, flashing her a gap-toothed smile.
"Oh my gosh, thank you," Sadie gushed. "Katie picked - " She cut herself off and her face fell. She and Katie weren't BFFFLs anymore, so she shouldn't talk about her all the time.
Cody mentally kicked himself and scanned their conversation for something he had done wrong. He came up with nothing. All he had done was compliment her, right?
They reached the indoor pool in silence and separated. Sadie headed towards the hot tub, her flip-flops slapping noisily against the concrete. Leshawna and Bridgette sat in the hot tub, chatting away. To Sadie's relief, there was no sign of Katie.
"I think we've worked through all-" Bridgette paused when she caught sight of Sadie. "Hey, Sadie!"
Leshawna turned her head and looked up at Sadie. "Hey girl! Where've you been?"
Sadie shrugged the question off and slipped into the warm water. She let out a sigh of contentment before dunking her head under the water. When she resurfaced, Leshawna and Bridgette had gone back to their original topic.
"Honey, it's great that you've patched everything up with Geoff," Leshawna said.
"Yeah, it feels good to see the old Geoff again," Bridgette said happily. "But what about you? Are you interested in anybody on the show?"
Leshawna chuckled and slouched a little deeper into the hot water. "You could say that," she said coyly.
"Who?" Sadie said.
"Sorry, my lips are sealed," Leshawna replied breezily. "He's off-limits right now."
"He's dating somebody?" Bridgette said.
"Yup."
Both Sadie and Bridgette mentally went through all the guys that were dating somebody on the show. There was Trent, Duncan, Owen, DJ, and Geoff. Trent was dating Katie of course, Geoff was with Bridgette, and Owen was still dating Izzy. DJ was supposedly dating somebody back home. Duncan's relationship with Courtney, however, still remained unclear. Sadie had never seen Courtney acknowledge that she was dating the delinquent. In fact, most of the time, suggestions that she was dating him were usually met by heartfelt denial on her part. In Sadie's opinion, after what happened during TDA, it was amazing that Duncan still put up with her.
"What about you? You got your eye on some man?" Leshawna asked Sadie.
Sadie sighed, the very mention of her dating reminding her of the fight with Katie. "Not particularly," she said, trying to be cheery. "I guess Justin is cute, but we…. I got over him, like, a really long time ago. Besides, he hasn't been eliminated yet."
"I saw Cody walk in with you," Bridgette said, her lips curving into a mischievous smirk. "He's over Gwen, right?"
"He hits on anything that moves," Sadie said. "It's totally adorable and hilarious."
"I think…" Bridgette trailed off as Ezekiel walked past the hot tub. He paused, as if contemplating whether or not to join them, and then hurried on his way again.
"What's up with him?" Sadie asked, pointing a finger at the prairie boy.
Leshawna glanced at him and shook her head. "He's been like that since he got here," she explained. "The boy hasn't talked to anybody."
Sadie hopped out of the hot tub, struck by a surge of determination. "I'll talk to him," she said, already heading towards Ezekiel. If there was one thing she was good at, it was cheering people up! People always told her she was super sweet and nice. "Hi!" she chirped, sitting beside him on the edge of the pool.
He slammed the book he was reading closed and stared at her with an expression that could only be described as complete and utter astonishment. It was most likely because nobody on the show ever really talked to him willingly. Now that one had - and a girl at that - you could have knocked him over with a feather.
"How's your nose?" she continued, ignoring his amazement.
"It's fine, eh," he said quietly. He touched it absentmindedly, rubbing a small bump on the side.
"You sure?" she asked, leaning in closer to check for herself.
Nodding frantically, he scrambled to his feet. "Yup." He hugged his book to his chest and headed for the exit, glancing surreptitiously behind him as he went. Sadie watched him go, her brow furrowed in confusion.
"What's with him?"
Sadie turned to see Cody pulling himself out of the pool next to her. "I dunno," she said. "But he was acting super weird."
Cody pushed his wet bangs out of his face and shrugged. "He's always acting super weird."
"That's true," Sadie said. She slid forward to let her legs dangle in the pool. The cool water felt good against her skin. She wiggled her feet in the water, a contented smile growing on her face. It was totally silly to shut herself up in her room for so long, she realized. She could still have avoided Katie without making herself miserable and lonely.
"So, um, who do you think is going to be eliminated next?" Cody said. He bobbed beside her legs in the water, smiling at her tentatively.
"Ugh, it's so hard to predict," Sadie said. "Like, I always think it's Heather and it's never her!"
"Sadie."
Sadie turned and found Trent standing on the pool deck behind her. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets. "Uh, can I talk to you?"
Sadie pulled herself out of the water. "Yeah?"
"Um, privately," he said, glancing at Cody.
She nodded reluctantly and he led her out of the pool area. As they passed the towel rack, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself. "What's up?"
He ran a hand back through his dark hair, pushing his bangs out of his face. "You've got to make up with Katie," he said. "She wouldn't admit it, but she's pretty torn up about your fight."
Sadie crossed her arms across her chest and stared at the ground. "Unless she apologizes, I don't care."
"I'm serious, Sadie, she's upset."
"Well, like, I'm upset too," she snapped. "You can tell her that there's no way I'm apologizing until she does." She clutched her towel tighter around her body and glared at Trent before stomping away.