A/N: EDITED. This is in ELI'S point of view, his writing style is wordy, so this is going to be pretty damned wordy. Since Clare and Eli are supposed to be literary geniuses, I will portray them as such.

Pretty dark, but understandably so, in this account Julia has been dead for 4 months. There's a bit of Eclare, but no fluff here. If I decide to make this a chapter story there may be more. So, call this an experiment of sorts.

Disclaimer: They tell me I don't own Degrassi… or any of these quotes. Huh…

Click…

And so I flip the pages. Or scroll through the screens or tap the touch pad for another sad read. Sad books are always better, more well written if you ask me. They say you've got to be messed up to be good. It's true. And the great ones? Well, they're fucked up the worst.

I want that, to write my whole life. I couldn't be a lawyer or doctor or a dentist, or hell, even some preachy teacher.
I couldn't live with myself.

So writing for a living seems like the only viable option, minus the ruined life. I've already had enough of a taste of it to figure that I don't like the idea much.

Click…

"Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic."

And so I take a drag… and another and another, and one on the screen too. Books aren't romantic, they don't mean anything. Bindings just contain the stuff that does. Ever notice that? Bindings, containers? They're just another control. I know it, she knows it. We both know it's just some money pit ploy. So is everything, everyone knows that.

So no, I'm no oppressor, but I'm no revolutionary either. I'm not looking to change the whole damn world. I'm a heretic. Born bat-crazy, that's what my parents say.

My clothes, my car, my morals, even my music… I'm not like her at all.

Click…

"That's a deer shooting hat."
"Like hell it is." I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye, like I was taking aim at it. "This is a people shooting hat," I said. "I shoot people in this hat."

And then I inhale. I take a long shaky breath of fucking smoke, of this fucking shit. Why am I doing this again?

I laugh to myself when I read it. I have several sets of people shooting clothes. They're black, but they stick out just like a red hunting hat.

Why do hunters wear red hats anyway? They go through all the effort of camouflage and clunky boots for their red hunting hats to give them away. It kind of ruins the whole point. Maybe it's so there's no friendly fire, I mean, it makes sense. Hunters want to hunt, they don't want to get shot like a doe. They're hunting for deer, not each other.

My people shooting clothes, are basically the same, but they ward off idiots.
And my friendly fire is any meaningless conversation any said idiot could walk up to me and start.

She was the first actual person I talked to after Julia died.

Click…

"Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right—I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game."

And then it hits me. THIS is why.

It's hard to think when it gets in my head. That, and I took such a long, long drag. I let my head lull over onto my palm, in lazy contemplation. Life isn't a game, hell, it wasn't even fun again until she came along.
I barely had anything, even with all that stuff, and I wasn't proud of that anyway.

You people and your awards. All these trophies we fill our cabinets with don't mean shit, and I'm talking to all the 'hot-shots' that thought they did. Say you love what you do, that you love your life. I say bullshit. You only like the tangible crap you come away with, and you're just as miserable as the rest of us.
Tell me, would you die for a medal of honor?

Well, she told me about love.

The way I see it is you love what you've got while you've got it, you don't put it on display. Try living a life where there's nothing to win, try not objectifying everything and everyone you take in. That's living.

But life's not a game, there's no fucking prize at the end.

Click…

""Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: "Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours." That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday."

And so I exhale, but I held it in too long. My lungs are on fire 'cause I haven't actually breathed in awhile. No smoke comes out.

Julia died a while ago; at least that's what it feels like. She only died four months ago.
"It wasn't your fault" they all said when it happened.

'Oh, but it is.'

It wouldn't matter if Julia died 4 years ago, she was still fucking gone and I have to live with that.
That's something I'll take to my grave.

Click…

"I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone…"

And so I laugh. I laugh out-loud looking towards the roof of my death-trap car.

And all of a sudden I'm happy. Sad-happy really. Think 'happy-sad' except in reverse.

Julia said nothing mattered.
She didn't believe in anything. Said she was a nihilist. I'm an atheist, pretty close right? Nope.

Said she was a Christian. I'm an atheist. We're pretty different, huh? Well, we're more similar than you'd think.
It's closer than Julia and I were, but I feel like there's something good in that. I think that's the most depressing part of it too. Clare said she didn't believe everything mattered, but that this, this thing that we have, did matter.

Julia said nothing mattered.

The glowing embers burn down to my fingers and I let the butt roll under the passenger seat.
'Fuck'
I laugh harder.

The smallest damned thing means everything, but the world is too messed up for anyone to see it. It doesn't care who lives and who dies, that Julia died and I lived. The world doesn't care who's alone.

And now it's just me, poor broken-hearted, confused Eli.
This girl, Clare, she's amazing and I think that I could fall in love with her. Still there's this feeling in the pit of my stomach. It makes me laugh at the sky and it makes me stop.
The world is indifferent to death and loneliness.

Well, now I'm alone.

And I laugh even harder, forcing out hysterical laughter in staccato-like pants. The buzz is wearing off and this doesn't seem so fucking funny anymore. I'm running out of breath, or smoke, these days it's hard to tell.

Poor broken-hearted, conflicted Eli.
I could be happy with Clare if I weren't still in love with Julia.

I love Julia more, but I don't want to be alone anymore.

Click…

"I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all."

And so I break down. I fold in on myself.

I don't want to think it's useless, whatever it is that Clare and I have, but we'll break up anyway, if we get together at all. I hope we won't get together, it just messes things up. Clare and me wouldn't work and then she'd die.

I don't want to write my whole life, I want to write what's left of the rest of my life.
It's a sad life, the lives of the greats, but you know that, I told you about it before.

Click…

And so I cry and I cry and I cry.

I cry because I'm so close to being ruined, and I cry because I ruined someone else. I cry because I wasn't strong enough to save Julia and now, no one is strong enough to save me.
I cry because I realize that Clare could die someday, that she would die someday.
I cry because I could love her.

And I cry for so long that I forget why I thought this was so damned funny.

A/N: So? R&R, hit or miss, criticism? What did you think?