Work Text:
With a long sigh, Courtney pulled her below shoulder length brunnette hair up into a ponytail, wrapping the hairband round before it couldn't go anymore.
Todays task was to clean out the loft. She'd been putting it off for—well, years. There was so much crap up there that she just didn't want to deal with. When she'd moved three years ago there were boxes that didn't even get a peep before she left. She just packed them, shoved them in the new loft, and got on with it.
It had been bugging her. Of course, the boxes were all organised. But it was about time she sorted through them. What a fun way to spend her Saturday.
She'd had a busy week. She'd won the case she had been working on, but it had been work. Not that she'd minded, of course. Being a lawyer had always been her goal, and she'd gotten there. She was damn good at it.
Her reputation from the godawful show that was Total Drama had set her back a few notches, but she got there eventually. She was different now. She wasn't that stuck up, prissy, type A that she had been back then.
Okay, maybe sometimes she was still some of those things. But it wasn't the main feature anymore.
Looking around her, Courtney spotted a—neat—pile of unlabelled boxes.
There's her starting point.
She took a few steps forward and plopped herself down on the floor, crossing her jean clad legs. Reaching for the box on top, she pulled it down and set it in her lap.
It was duuusty.
"Holy crap," she muttered, and wiped the dust off with her hand, then proceeded to grimace and shake her hand free of said dust.
Peeling it open, she was met with a bunch of random junk. A random pillow. A picture frame displaying her as a kid, playing in the playground wearing overalls and her hair in pigtails. Why the hell did she have this? It seems like something her mother should have, not her.
Rummaging around some more, she didn't find anything interesting but a spider, which wasn't particularly small either.
"Oookay, let's just—move you over here," she shut the box, and shoved it in the corner.
She wasn't afraid of spiders. Never had been. She just couldn't be bothered to take it down two flights of stairs right now to set it free.
Moving onto the next box, she was greeted with childhood stuffed toys. That should be labelled…
"Where's my pen?"
She hadn't realised how much she spoke to herself until she asked herself a question. Would be embarrassing if anyone else was around to hear.
Stretching across the floor, she grabbed the pen, ripping the lid off with her teeth, and wrote on the box in thick black letters; "Childhood toys"
Shoving the cap back on, she set the box to the side. If she could just label these boxes, no matter how vague or silly it was, she'd feel so much better. Unorganised was not something Courtney made a habit of being. She certainly wasn't going to start now.
Going for the next box, she blew the dust off the top. It seemed heavy, and sounded like it had a lot of small things in it.
Pulling the cardboard back, a pang of nostalgia and sadness and anger waved over her as she saw what was inside.
Things from her time on Total Drama.
So many memories, not all of them necessarily good.
There was an empty picture frame that she and Bridgette had made in arts and crafts; it was purple with little gems on it. She set it aside, and shoved her hand in her pocket, pulled out her phone, and snapped a photo of the frame. Definitely needed to send that to Bridgette.
Her breath caught in her throat when her eyes met with something—and someone—she hadn't seen or thought about in years.
A loose picture of her and Duncan. He was holding Brittany, and she was taking the picture. Those freaking heart tattoos—that was still slightly visible even now on her arm—were proudly out in the open. They were smiling, they were happy.
Right next to it was that damned skull. The same one he'd carved for her back on the island. When they'd broken up the first time, she couldn't bring herself to get rid of it. Then when the whole Gwen fiasco went down, she'd wanted to throw it into the depths of hell. It was a meaningless trinket, that meant nothing to no one anymore.
But she hadn't gotten rid of it. Because she couldn't damn well bring herself to.
Duncan was her first proper boyfriend, the first person she ever loved. And he broke her heart, and deserved to rot in hell.
But at the end of the day, he was still the first guy she had been madly in love with. She wasn't sure she'd loved anyone as much since. She didn't let herself. If she got too attached, they'd hurt her. She didn't trust love anymore.
In fact, she hadn't been on a date in so long that her friend Maise from the office had started listing candidates for a set up for her.
She'd declined politely, of course.
Courtney would not be fooled by love again. She recognised the emotion for what it really was; An irrational self-destructive impulse disguised as joy.
Her heart had been broken too many times to believe in it anymore.
If she was honest, she'd half expected it from Duncan. Young love never seemed to work. For some people it did. Bridgette and Geoff for example, they were still going strong. Good for them. In fact, their fifth wedding anniversary was coming up soon.
But Courtney? Absolutely not. She had never been able to make love work.
Still being bitter about Duncan was stupid. It had been years. She was over it. But it didn't stop her heart from aching for the poor girl that had to go through her first ever heartbreak on international TV, with people that couldn't have cared less about her.
The only one that had been there for her had been Heather. Yeah, she'd tried to get her booted. But when she'd been in tears because of it all, Heather had genuinely comforted her, and she'd appreciated it so much.
Reaching her hand out, her fingers wrapped around the wood. He hadn't done a bad job, actually. Courtney ran a delicate finger over it, before shaking her head and shoving it back in the box.
Pushing the pieces of slightly bent cardboard closed roughly, she slid it carefully to the other side of the room, as to not break anything in it, despite how she felt about it all.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Taking a deep, collective breath, she wafted her hand over her face, chasing the tears that threatened to make an appearance away.
No way she was going to cry over that douchbag. Not now. Not again. Not ever.
Ok, probably in the middle of the night when all her problems caught up to her and it sprang into her mind. Then she'd cry about it. But it'd be mixed with so many other things that it wouldn't even count. Right?
She sent the picture of the photo frame to Bridgette, and swiftly moved on. Sorting through box, after box. Labelling them, organising them. She'd label that one later, find a corner to tuck it away into, and wished she had the guts to throw half of its contents out.
She would one day. Really, she would. Just not any time in the foreseeable future.