Life for Rent
A Total Drama Island Story
Author's Note: My first C/D story, without the other characters. Not so sure how that's going to go, really…so…just read, and find out. I know this seems really repetitive, but they meet up in high school.
Courtney's POV:
Ah, school, I thought to myself as she opened the car door. The one place where I can totally focus.
That probably makes me sound like a total, school-loving dork, but that's just the way I roll. Ew. Where did that line come from?
Anyway, I walk into the principal's office to give him my daily lecture on how to run the school better, when who walks in but a very, very familiar face.
The principal stands up. "You must be Duncan."
I cringe in my chair and try to hide my face behind one hand. Sadly, my undercover work doesn't go so well.
"Princess?!"
I slowly take my hand down from my face but don't turn around. The principal looks surprised. "You've met?"
"Yes," I say pointedly. "On a reality show a year ago."
The principal looks happy. "That's perfect, then! Courtney, you can show Duncan around."
I stand up so fast that the chair knocks over. "No!" The principal stares at me. "I mean…shouldn't Duncan have another student that he doesn't know, so that he can make some new…uh…friends?" I totally feel like hitting myself in the head. 'Make some new friends'? That made me sound like a preschool teacher.
"No," the principal replies firmly, shoving me closer to Duncan. "Introduce him. You know people."
Duncan's POV:
So I started this new school. Big whoop. Every time I go to a new school, 'to start over and make a new beginning' for myself, it just ends up the same. No one wants to get within a ten foot radius of me. It's probably the piercings.
I walk into this depressing office to see the principal, and someone's already there, sitting in a chair. She looks familiar. Like…like Courtney?!
"Princess?!" I shoot out. Then I realize I'm in front of some adult, and that probably made me sound really…weird.
She doesn't turn around.
Before I can even blink, the principal's shoved us closer together so she can show me around.
Being the suck-up that she is, I was assuming that she'd agree immediately, but she refuses and asks if someone else can show me around.
As luck would have it, no, I'm stuck with Courtney.
Courtney's POV:
Oh, great. I promised my parents I'd stay away from him. That 'thing' we'd had (Mom's words, not mine) on the island was inexcusable. A proper girl from a proper family couldn't be seen running around with some delinquent.
And now he's standing right beside me. And we don't graduate until two years from now. So that means all Duncan, all the time, for two. Whole. Stupid. Years.
Someone kill me.
Now I'm stuck and I can't get out of it, so I just walk out the door with Duncan following. Thankfully, his first class in just down the hall.
"This is your first class. Have fun," I say in a fast rush, turning around and rushing down the hall.
During class, I can't concentrate. I had desperately tried to distance myself from this whole thing, but…what?
He's waiting outside my class when I come out from the hallway. I don't look at him. Because, no matter how I try to tell myself I'm over him…I know, really, I'm not. He hasn't changed a bit.
"So," he says, between fourth period and lunch, "Glad I'm here, princess?"
"Far, far from it," I snap back. "Are you stalking me?"
"No, my parents are trying to get me to turn over a new leaf." He etches sarcastic quotations in the air with his fingers.
"A fruitless hope, in my opinion," I mutter to myself, walking into the lunchroom. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, stares. I avert my eyes and sit him down at a table with others of his kind.
"You sit here, and you're not to come over to where I'm sitting, understand? Do not looks at me, do not mention me, and most of all, do not talk to me," I command him. He salutes me.
He is so annoying.
A bunch of the other preps stare when I come over to sit down. One girl asks me, "So how do you know him?"
Even if she doesn't refer to him by name, I know who she's talking about. "Total Drama Island."
"So why do you seem so ticked off by this whole thing?"
This is one conversation I was hoping to avoid. "Because…we sort of had a 'thing' on the island, and my mom didn't like it."
Everyone raised their eyebrows. "You had a 'thing'?! With him?"
"Will you please just drop it?" I look away from them, which means I'm looking at Duncan's table. He's chumming it up with the other guys, who already seem to accept him for the jerk that he is.
Duncan's POV:
Man, this school is great! I didn't even know they had people like me in existence, that weren't in juvy.
Oh, yeah, that, and Courtney's here, too.
She apparently has been getting harassed by her other prep friends, well at least that's what it looks.
Probably cause they spotted her with me.
Since she won't look at me, I watch her when we walk to the classes. Does that make me sound like stalker?
Ah, who cares? It's not like I have my rep to ruin.
Courtney's POV:
I am so, so thankful when school is over. Everyone, the preps, the teachers, all the students have been giving me this look all day. I know what it means.
It means, why are you hanging with someone like him?
I drop him like a stone at the entrance, trying to distance myself from him as quickly as possible.
Not fast enough, apparently.
When I get in the car, my mom's face is all red. She's breathing hard.
"Courtney, who was that you were dropping off at the entrance?"
I cringe. "Just a new student."
"He seems pretty familiar." She sounds positive.
"No mom, he just looks like him." By 'him', she knows who I mean.
Her face clears. "Oh, good. That's a relief." She puts a comforting hand on my knee. "Honey, I just want the best for you. Getting mixed up with someone like him will just lead you in the wrong direction.
"I know," I reply quietly. "What's best. Right."