Cody's Only (fin)
Before he was Cody, he was Clodagh.
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one shot! not required reading. takes place while Cody and Chloe (The Silver State) were in high school.
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Tags : Flashback, Bullying, Evil Irish Catholic Mom (implied?), High School Setting
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Before he was Cody, he was Clodagh. ‘Clo’ by friends, ‘Clod’ by enemies; ‘girl’ by all.
Clodagh turns the wrinkled red slip over and over in her hands. Chlodah to the Nurse . Her teacher calls her name every day and still spells it like a disease or something.
The hallway is empty. Temperatures are in the hundreds and the school can’t afford a functional HVAC system, so everyone hides in the classrooms with the windows open. With any luck, Clodagh will be able to find the one person who can’t seem to hide from anything.
She walks past the deserted cafeteria; no. Past the main office; no. Out onto the front lawn, and she’s met with dead grass and little else. She heads back inside, chewing the inside of her cheek to tatters. The buzz of overworked box fans nestles behind her ears, under all the hair, under all the lipstick. Mam called her a whore today as she was leaving the house, made her scrub it off at the kitchen sink. Clodagh, reapplying it on her walk to school, had only smirked. She can’t wait to try calling someone else that when she gets the chance.
Clodagh still hasn’t found her , but she does run into Sarah M. by the water fountain.
“Hey, Clo.”
“Hi.” She passes by briskly, uninterested in chatter about grades or clothes. But then she retraces her steps. “Sarah?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you wanna help me with something?”
The alley. They should’ve checked there first. She is sat up cross legged in the shade of the fence, a notebook on her lap and an apple in her hand.
It was all a little too easy to get Sarah on board. All Clodagh had to do was pitch an equation. Sarah has a crush on Tim; Tim is a boy; Chloe is a girl. Therefore: y’know, Sarah, this morning I saw Chloe talking to Tim. She was all over him, kept pulling her collar down lower. A well placed ‘she was flirting with your man’ spawns jealousy like a chicken in a fox den. Clodagh can’t imagine feeling that strongly about anyone, ever. Obsession with something you can’t have is such an astronomical waste of time.
Her and Sarah cast tall shadows across Chloe’s pretty fucking face.
“Nice shirt.”
“Yeah,” Sarah agrees. “Really makes your tits look good.”
Chloe sighs. “What do you guys want?”
To break your glasses and see what you do about it. To press you up against the metal of my hot car. To tie your hands behind your back and trip you.
“What, can’t take a compliment?” Sarah asks. She doesn’t get a response. “Answer me, bitch.”
Chloe stands up, abandoning her lunch as she straightens her skirt. “Thanks, Sara, for your fastidious attention to detail. Spoken like a true expert in staring at girls’ boobs.”
“Damn,” Clodagh mutters. She stands so close to Chloe she can feel her exhale. “You’re askin’ for it.”
Finally Chloe’s expression is starting to crumble. She’s been looking less scared and more tired as of late, and Clodagh wants desperately to be the one to change that. This close, she gets a good look at Chloe’s eyeliner. It’s perfect. Way better than anything Clodagh can pull off. She brings a thumb up to that clean, black mark and smudges it. Chloe doesn’t move, doesn’t react. Is she holding her breath?
“There you go, Chloe,” Sarah says. She’s starting to corner her, too. “Now you don’t look like such a slut.”
Chloe blinks. “You wanna get the other side?”
“I’d take your glasses off if I were you,” Clodagh warns.
“What, so you can step on them and hit me?”
“Or we can take ‘em off for you,” Sarah says defiantly.
It is only when Chloe leans down to tuck her glasses into her lunch box that Clodagh realizes just how much space is between the three of them. Or, just how little. She’s shoulder to shoulder with Sarah and nearly chest to chest with Chloe.
Absentmindedly, Chloe tugs at the wide neckline of her tank top, pulling it down and back into place. Clodagh actually feels Chloe’s fingers brush against her own t-shirt. She grins; that’s a mistake she’s going to make sure Chloe regrets.
To her delight, Sarah catches on quickly. “Are you coming on to us , too?”
Chloe rubs at her eyes. She must really not be able to see without her glasses. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you know exactly what we’re talking about. And I think you know what we’re here for.”
Chloe has begun trembling. Just a little bit, just in the corners of her mouth and the falter in her stance. Of course she has no fucking idea what they’re talking about, because Clodagh made it up. But that part’s not important.