Chapter #20Some Smoky Revelations by: rugal b.   "What the hell do you mean she quit?" you ask in disbelief. "Who quit?" You think that you might be misinterpreting what Eva just said. But if you think that you are then Eva quickly disabuses you of that notion.
"Chelsea!" she exclaims. "I can hardly believe it myself!"
You take a moment to process this. Chelsea Cooper has quit the cheerleading squad? Just what the hell is Jenny doing? You were supposed to just live as normal and she's immediately gone and thrown not just a wrench into things but the whole damn toolbox! Then there's Will, the real Chelsea; you can only imagine what his reaction is going to be when he finds out. And he most definitely will find out as something of this magnitude is going to spread like wildfire once the lunch periods hit.
"Okay," you say as you take a breath, "what happened? Why the fuck would she quit?"
"So," Eva starts, "we did the tryout before first period. Chelsea, at least this is what Cindy and Yumi thought, wanted everything done as early as possible to mess with Sydney."
"But it didn't work, I take it."
Eva nods at that. "Everyone was talking about how she was this amazing cheerleader back where she came from," she says, "and she definitely lived up to the hype. She was behind a couple of people, like Yumi, but still..."
"So then it came down to Tesla telling Chelsea who to cut, right?" you ask. "That was the speculation about what could happen."
"Yeah, so the lowest ones wound up being Gloria and," she winces a bit, "me. But I was evaluated a little higher than her."
"So then objectively, Gloria would have been cut in favor of Sydney."
"Right, exactly," Eva says as she perks back up. "So there was some arguing, Chelsea talked with Coach Tesla, then she just... blew up! I'd bet that Chelsea wanted to cut me but knew that there was no way she could do it with Gloria at the bottom. If she cuts me then it's basically just keeping things where they are but with Gloria gone..."
"She'd be screwed," you complete her thought.
"Exactly! So I think she realized she was screwed either way and just ragequit."
"She probably thought it was better to just get it over with immediately than have to drag out her execution," you point out.
But Eva merely shrugs and begins playing with her phone. "Either way, that's it. Chelsea's gone," she says in a very satisfied manner.
"Who's taking her spot?"
"Dunno, Cindy probably," she says, "but it's too early to say."
* * * * *
The conversation about Chelsea peters out as it's still way too early to be able to gauge the fallout of what's going to happen. But word already seems to be spreading as in fourth period Melissa Adams, a girl who Jenny regards as likely being little more than an inveterate gossip as she seems to always just sort of be everywhere, asks you if you've heard anything about Chelsea quitting the squad. When you grumpily ask her what she's heard, she insists that Olivia Byrne mentioned it to her last period and that Olivia claimed that Lin had told her.
You can't really deny it and so say that you've heard the same thing and merely leave it at that. But more important than who's asking you about it is the fact that someone else is asking you about it at all. That means that word is already beginning to spread around which means that Will—the real Chelsea—is going to hear about it sooner rather than later and you know he's not going to be happy. You imagine that Yumi and the others will probably join your group for lunch so to prevent anything from happening you send him a text asking him to meet you out by the doors to the portables after fourth instead of going to the cafeteria.
why? is the text he eventually sends back.
because i'm not confronting chen by myself! you reply.
You're thankful, then, when class lets out and you head out to damn near the other side of the school to see Will there, waiting impatiently. "Thanks," you say as you push the doors open and head outside.
"You afraid of Gary Chen?" he asks with a smirk that you want to immediately wipe off of his face.
"And all the other dirtbags that tend to hang out there," you reply, "especially looking like this."
He snort-laughs at that. "Don't act like you're such a prize, Jenny," he says in a mocking tone that makes you want to punch him. You figure you will but it won't be a physical punch.
"You heard about the tryout?" you ask him.
"Not yet, what happened?"
"Sydney's on the squad and Chelsea quit."
"She what!?" he exclaims as he stops in his tracks. "What the fuck did she do!?"
"The way Eva tells it, Gloria was the one at the bottom of the totem pole which meant she'd have to get booted," you explain. "So Chelsea saw the writing on the wall and decided to throw in the towel."
He's silent for a moment as he starts walking again. Finally he speaks. "I'm going to fucking kill her," he says.
"You're not going to do shit," you tell him. "This is partly why I have you coming with me on this. So you don't make an ass of yourself around everyone else."
"You want me to just sit back whiles she's ruining my fucking life!?" he asks in a mix of anger, panic and exasperation.
"What fucking good is going to come from going around and raging about it?" you shoot back. "We don't even know if we'll be able to ever switch back!"
"You're actually siding with Ashton!?"
"I'm not siding with anyone!" you exclaim. "But right now, we have more important things to deal with. And I'll talk to her and get the whole thing but first—"
"Right, right," Will responds dismissively. More quietly he adds, "This is fucking wonderful."
* * * * *
There's a few guys out at the portables. They leer at the both of you—in likely different ways between yourself and Will—when you ask them if Gary Chen is hanging around. But they point you towards another part of the portable area and so the two of you head there. You find him standing there, back against one of them, out of sight and out of mind. He looks like he's been contemplating when he spots the two of you.
"I thought I told you that I was closing up shop?" he says to Will.
"We don't care about your weed, Chen," you quickly jump in. "We've got more important stuff to talk about."
"Yeah?" he responds as his attention towards to you. "Then talk."
"Do you know about what Kim Walsh is doing?"
He holds your gaze for a second. "Who doesn't?" he replies. "She's snooping on everyone, butting into their lives, being Miss Goody Two Shoes. That's what she does, right?"
"That's not all she's doing now," you say as you look over at Will. "Tell him about what happened."
"Me!?" he cries, "But you're the one—"
"Just tell him," you cut him off.
"Fine," he says as he focuses his gaze on Chen. "Kim picked up where you left off. She had, uh, me go out to the Donna where she stuck me and another girl in a room and had us measure out baggies. Then the next day she had me go up to the university to help distribute them to some guy out there."
Chen is now fully paying attention as he contemplates this. "Kim took over my operation," he mutters.
"Yeah, only maybe it's more accurate to say that she never started running it in the first place," you say as you fix your gaze on him. "Because she's not actually Kim Walsh, is she? And you're not actually Gary Chen."
His eyes narrow as he looks at you. "Jenny, I don't know what the fuck you're getting at but—"
"She's not Jenny!" Will blurts out. "She's Will! Jenny's in my body!"
"Yeah? And who are you supposed to be?" he asks in a dismissive tone.
"Chelsea!" he cries out. "I'm... I'm Chelsea!"
"Cooper? So it's not just me, huh?" he says in surprise. He shakes his head and leans against the portable once more. "Alright, yeah, you guys got it. I'm actually Kim. So you all are victims too?"
"Right," you answer. "We got switched on Friday."
"How'd the three of you get swapped?" he asks. He listens silently as Will and you tell him the story of Sydney, the tryouts and Roth approaching both Chelsea and Jenny claiming to have information while Jenny roped you into coming out with her. "That's not too dissimilar from what happened with me," he says with a nod.
"What happened?"
"Justin came up to me and said there was something going on with Gary; that he was bringing some stuff into school that he thought I'd want to know about," Chen explains. "So I followed him out to talk to Gary and then... yeah."
"So Justin is involved," Will points out.
"What about Chen?" you ask the fake Chen. "Is he involved in it too?"
But he shakes his head. "Not as far as I can tell, at least from his memories," he states. "I guess he's taking advantage of it though... and ruining my reputation in the process."
"Just like Ashton is ruining mine," Will adds glumly.
You're about to let it end there as you've largely got what you've needed in confirming that Kim and Chen are also victims (though not much of a victim in Chen's case) of these body swaps. What you're going to do with it, though, you don't know until you hear Will call something out. You look to where he's indicating and there, a ways down, is the guy seemingly behind everyone's current situation.
"What do you think? Should we confront him?" Will asks.
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Chen retorts.
"Oh come on," Will says, "it'll be three on one and we'll have Gary Chen with us!"
That's certainly true and you would like to get to the bottom of this. But would confronting, and possibly jumping, a guy with the seeming ability to switch peoples' bodies actually be a good idea? Who knows what else he has up his sleeve and what he might do if three people came at him aggressively.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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