Author Note: I decided to take a bit of a distraction to my current fanfiction Backtrack and revisit this old one I had forgotten about until I started digging through my word files.
Just some things before reading that I'd like to explain, this is set sometime before Sean moves back to Wasaga Beach to live with his parents and of course before the shooting so he still holds resentment toward his parents and he's currently living with Ellie, it's about as close to canon as it could possibly get. Some of it has some head canons like the Girltrash mag which was a magazine that exists in the Degrassi universe that is mentioned frequently and Sean and Ellie's family history which is also again based on what we all know.
I hope you enjoy it and of course review if you do. I appreciate it and it sort of motivates me.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I'm not affiliated with Epitome, work of fiction blah blah blah.
. . .
Sean Cameron like most guys his age found himself in the bathroom more often than not in search of reading material. He had the house to himself for the day, his girlfriend was out with friends and he could pretty much do whatever he wanted on that day.
Since his long-time girlfriend Ellie moved in he found it more or less refreshing to see that she subscribed to some magazines but most of the reading material is not anything that is remotely of interest to him. A smiling blonde beauty graced the cover of this month's Girltrash magazine and in his boredom he picked it up reluctantly. He didn't expect that kind of magazine of Ellie to own because of it's preppish style of writing but sometimes he struggles to expect the unexpected.
A few pages in there was a contest for the readers' boyfriends titled Girlfriend of the Month where the guys are to write about their girlfriend and why she means so much to him. Stupid and sappy he muttered under is breath to himself. He assumed that then the girls could fawn over the article and say,"Man that girl has a nice boyfriend." He rolled his baby blues in the thinker statue position as he read over the details of the contest.
When he thought back to the cover model thoughts of someone else however clouded his vision. Emma Nelson, his ex-girlfriend. The model kind of looked like her blunt-cut bangs, perfect smile and large brown eyes. You know if you squint hard enough. He knew it that's why he really picked it up.
When he had enough he scoffed shaking his head at the idea tossing the magazine to the floor missing the small wicker basket where he had found it filled with loofahs, spare hand-towels and other random toiletries. As he finished up in the bathroom, he quickly dismissed the notion that he was going to pen such a thing. "That's rich," he sarcastically thought to himself. Bewildered and amused that someone would write them a novel like that. Truthfully, Sean never saw himself as much of a writer, a poet or anything linking to the realm of the arts. He often took home grades in the C to F bracket and even when he tried he'd only be met with disappointment. The only thing Sean believed himself to be good at is cars and by cars getting his hands dirty although Tracker would beg to differ. He sees how good Sean is because he taught him. It's that pride that Sean kind of envies his brother about having.
Only one person could have really believed in what Sean's strengths were and that girl isn't his girlfriend at least not his girlfriend anymore.
Alone and bored, he attempted to watch television with but the two channels that managed to come through the signal but eventually that got boring, then he considered his meager library of DVD's but quickly realized that he and Ellie had already burned through them and he wasn't in the mood to really watch any of them and in a desperate pursuit to entertain himself he found himself in the bathroom, defeated and finally he decided to pick up the magazine he had carelessly tossed on the bathroom floor earlier. In some weird way it haunted him, reminded him, like it called his name.
Finally he grew curious once again and read over everything. He read the thing cover to cover, snickered over some stuff, agreed with some of the advice section shockingly enough. This is what girls think about? he wondered to himself as he raised an eyebrow when it started talking about decoding men's flirtation signals. Finally once again, he read the blurb for the contest. Every time he did the wheels started turning.
From the kitchen Sean moved himself to the wooden table seated on the chairs with the broken legs carefully shifting his weight so he doesn't break the chairs. He pulled out some pages from his notebook. The torn edges from the spiral bounding managed to be strewn around like confetti on the table result of his quick and sporadic action. He scrawled on the first piece of paper what came to mind.
My entry might not even count but if there were anyone who deserves this it's her. My ex girlfriend was the first person who spoke to me at school and the first person who ever believed in me and I threw her away because my new friends didn't like her.
No, he surmised, too flowy, too obvious. He threw his pen on the table.
Somewhat frustrated and questioning himself for the umpteenth time, he crumbled up the paper in a ball and when that wasn't enough he angrily tore it up. Furrowing his brow he attempted to write about his current girlfriend but all he managed to write was nothing. Writing never came easy to Sean, his spelling horrendous and sometimes he forgets to spell check because he usually winds up typing up his essays last minute with what little time he has to prepare at school due to a lack of computer. Last of all, he hates writing because that forces him to come face to face with his emotions which he tries so hard to hide.
He closed his eyes exasperated and frustrated, wondering what possessed him to do such a thing. He hadn't thought about it in months is a gross understatement but to her he was just a tool who broke her heart and stole from her sick dying step-father. The disappointment in his eyes when he finally confessed the ugly truth echoed in his mind. It was never really the same anymore. Simpson stopped looking him in the eye. Emma helplessly tries to avoid him.
Sure, he thought sadly, Ellie is a great girl. Why is it when I'm alone, he wondered, that my mind always wanders to the other side of my heart?
We have a lot in common, Ellie and him that's how he justifies. The upside is his friend's don't hate her with the exception of Amy but that's bygones. He really never cared about her opinion. It was a blind-date set up and an obvious rebound. Emma got pissed off so it worked for them. He kind of resented Emma at the beginning for not paying attention to him but that just stems from his issues. The only reason he was able to exclusively meet Ellie was because he was thrown in detention for things that Emma said about stealing. It was more of a rush, something he knew was wrong but the rush is what kept it up.
On that sunny Saturday morning he walked into the cafeteria and saw the girl he had admired from afar.
The auburn haired girl with a notebook is how he'd always remember her. Snarky, sardonic, looking perpetually bored. That's what drew him initially to her, that and she just looked so sad and he would have done anything to make the girl smile. When she did in fact smile, he was hooked. He knew it was real. Amy was all play. Ellie stood out to him but he couldn't describe what it was outward appearance aside. He really didn't know.
He had seen her in the halls before they never hung out in the same crowds with her being a year older dressed in her diy fashions rolling her eyes and being the cynic when it came to the norms of school, like him. While Ellie could understand Sean because essentially they were two sides of the same coin it frustrates them more than they could say. Most would think it's a blessing but it only reinforces the things that Sean hates about himself and those qualities project onto Ellie. Sometimes they just don't talk and while Sean would think it's nice to not have someone constantly asking questions or just generally nosing their way into your private thoughts they just leave them be and they're respectful of that. Now Sean sees it as if she doesn't really care.
He just never realized how far apart they are, maybe because he tried to avoid it for the past couple of months. Sean just sort of wordlessly agrees to her wanting to go out and Sean doesn't really like to go out. He isn't what you call a social butterfly and he never really was.
He recalled that Emma could never understand why Sean behaved sometimes the way he did, the way he could never could believe in himself. He often chalked that up to his horrible childhood. With Ellie her struggles with her mothers jumping to and from the wagon throughout the formative years of her life forced her to grow up quickly. Forced her to be very much inside of herself. One of her first memories is her mother alcohol poisoned and her bravely calling the ambulance. She was six. Ellie confided in Sean during late nights, in fact all they did was talk, talk about their pasts but never about the present.
His parents were the same, made for each other he swears. He was stupid enough to wish that they were better people while sober but all they did was resent their children for robbing them of their youth. Everything depended on how they were going to get drunk, so food often wasn't a necessity. Sean's two older brothers kind of moved out when they were old enough and Sean was left to his own devices. He found ways to survive. Sean's first brush with alcohol made him wonder what his parents saw in it? Some drink to forget he had thought and it was the last time he drank not to mention the killer hangover and the lecture from Tracker that followed. In Tracker's absence due to work and not his personal choice he tried his hardest to keep Sean out of trouble. Sean could never leave, Degrassi as far as he was concerned was home. He couldn't imagine.
He resents his parents because they didn't raise him, sure they kept him but they most certainly didn't provide for him. Times like those made Sean wish had never been born. He knew he was a mistake. He could feel it in their neglect.
He grew up in cast offs and hand-me downs from his two older brothers, he would scour the dumpsters behind the local restaurant for food when he was old enough to realize sometimes perfectly good food would go wasted because their parents had spent the last of it on booze. He was underweight in grade school, on a visit Tracker confronted them and forced them to let Sean move in with him which took little to no convincing. The straw that broke it was, "Do you want your boy to wind up in prison?"
The sad truth was growing up, Sean was almost exclusively alone and even now he still hates to be alone. His brothers weren't really in the picture for most of his life the oldest, Carson is kind of distant from everyone and lives in the States, he owns a used car lot for all he knows is he's successful but they aren't in contact. Carson is the oldest Cameron brother and the first to move out, when Sean was just a few years old. He had few memories of him but he mostly came with empty promises and was all talk. He kind of distanced himself from their family and sort of paved his own way.
Tracker is where Sean gets his protective nature and likely his temper to match he spent the most time around him, as the middle brother he kind of rebelled more but since their absentee parents never really meddled in the lives of their boys. Tracker moved out at seventeen with Sean being just nine. Sometimes he wondered if Tracker had never seen Sean in the conditions he was living in and the pressures he was under where he would be? Would he be still alive?
As for Ellie her mother and her had always had a turbulent relationship from what he was able to pry out of her. She kind of kept talk of her mother somewhat minimal. Her father was really the only parent she had growing up and he was always in and out of the house, her mother was quite jealous of Ellie sucking up his attention and she coped by drinking until it got out of control. Almost always Ellie's dad refused to believe that it was that bad but she quickly realized her mother's addiction was more important to her. It didn't matter when she had almost managed to burn their house down and nearly killed her daughter and probably herself and just thought that it wouldn't of mattered. Now he knows she's safe from her mother, but is she really safe? More importantly, is her heart safe?
What next? It was too soon to tell, the romance between them really doesn't exist it sort of fizzled out when his protective gene kicked in after convincing her to move in. It's this co-dependent coping mechanism, fear of loneliness, fear of just plain a fight to break out, staying because he's afraid he'd find her dead because she'd start cutting again. Fear that he'd one day walk in to find her dead because he had somehow failed her, so he stays. That's the guilty complex speaking though.
At least now he could imagine his Emma without feeling guilty because she wasn't physically at home but sometimes when they sleep beside one another he silently wishes he could turn around and see Emma in her place. He'd never confess that to anyone. It was the truth. He is sort of thankful he isn't a sleep talker or he'd be in some trouble.
He takes notice that Ellie often hides herself from him, she spends most of her time saying she's fine but he wonders how he could protect her if all she does is make false excuses to get him of her back. She thinks he doesn't notice but he does. It hurts their relationship ripping at the seams. The empty words, the hollowed I love yous mean less than nothing to him. Why bother if you don't mean it? he would question to himself when she'd say it in passing or during rather long pauses in their speech.
Sean reopened his eyes and focused on the stack of torn pages from the notebook and picked up the pen.
Her chocolate eyes, her perfect smile, her encouragement, her ability to make the most darkest days become light again. I can't get her off my mind. She's no longer mine but that doesn't mean that I can't still imagine, right?
Sean sighed hopelessly, he could feel himself imagining her reading this in the magazine and smiling to herself, or wishing silently that some boy would say it about her. Unbeknownst to her that someone out there cares. Although in different circles, he still sees her writing in her notebook god knows what. During breaks such as lunch he sees her hunched sitting against her locker reading. He always wants to break the silence but he feels like the damage has been done. What could he say to someone he had once been so close to? They hadn't exactly much basis for conversation. He glanced at the couch that displayed so many memories of the summer prior to this year, Emma and him spent nearly everyday together. Emma was so annoyed with her parents baby proofing the house, Christine's false alarms and thought it'd be best if she were out of the house while the expectant parents got the house together. She helped but with Christine's obsession with reading Parents magazine she started worrying about the pointless. Emma found it somewhat endearing she was excited about the new addition to her family. Tracker was almost exclusively out of town. Together they watched a lot of movies and pigged out on a lot of pizza.
At that time he still had cable because Tracker was still footing the bill because he lived there but he wasn't around much so he got to spend a lot of time with her. It was indescribable but he always feels so wrong when Ellie sits where she once sat looking so morose. He realizes the melancholy is what resides in his home and the smile is merely a mask.
Sean continued writing.
She's thoughtful, intelligent, caring but she has her faults too. She can be incredibly stubborn. It could explain how we're not exactly speaking anymore. She believes in me and is always was able to forgive my mistakes.
So could he. Perhaps they had more in common than he had always believed.
It wasn't always rainbows and butterflies, what we had been could be described as an exciting roller-coaster of emotions. More than a crush, more than us I suppose. When we we're up we were soaring when we were down and arguing it was the lowest of low but there was never an in between. She's intense but I can be moody. She's a windy day and I could be a beach in summer. I'm bad at timing, she's never late. We're ying and yang. I'll never admit it to her, but I do love her and I'm sure I always will.
Sean realized that he would never be happy with his writing. He managed to find a spare envelope in the drawer next to the table. Neatly he folded the submission carefully not to crinkle it. He hadn't done anything outrageous like this. He didn't sign his name. He couldn't possibly. He addressed it to the magazine that he copied verbatim from the magazine. He threw on his shoes and walked to the corner where he found a postal box and held it to his lips. Read the address again and again shaking his head. He instantaneously felt better that he had effectively written his feelings even if it being completely anonymous. Before he could change his mind, he pulled the lever opening the box and placed it inside and made the trek back home.
About a month later, Ellie picked up the new issue from the mail slot at their front door one morning. Sean was sitting on the couch and looked behind to see her coming toward him, she plopped down onto the couch, "Sweet!" She exclaimed picking up the magazine from the floor. "The new Girltrash is here." When she got to the couch she propped her legs atop his as he draped his arm around her body as she read.
Sean raised an eyebrow at her announcement, recollecting that fateful day when he wrote that submission in boredom. Ellie turned to him kissing his cheek, "Wow, the submission for Girlfriend of the Month got announced, and wow, the guy decided to stay anonymous."
Sean thought to himself as she read it, but suddenly his stomach formed all sorts of knots. Guilt sunk in but he didn't show it. He turned to her sympathetically and matter of factually murmured, "Some guys struggle with that stuff. I know I do."
She nodded in an understanding way not exactly paying attention to Sean who was next to her in part because she was too preoccupied with the love-filled article. The auburn haired girl devoured it and when it was over she looked up at him and grinned, "That was really cute. I love reading those things." She returned to the magazine flipping through the pages, and Sean just looked straight ahead. Sometimes you're better off with someone, anyone; acceptance of loving the one you're with. Ellie would never know that the person beside her was responsible for the article that made her swoon, and the true meanings behind the writings of her most trusted ally Sean Cameron.