I don't own Degrassi, this is just an idea I've been toying around with. I know there are probably several stories very similar to this being written, but this idea was persistent—it wanted outside my head. Anyway, I do not necessarily believe in an afterlife and I don't know what it's like to be dead…obviously. So this is purely supernatural and the product of my imagination. It's cool to disagree with what I've written.
One thing before you get started: if you ever feel like committing suicide, there are always people around to listen to you and help you. I, for one, love to listen—so you know where to find me if you need to talk.
Lastly, I'm just going to leave this here: 1-800-273-8255
Cam Saunders was stuck.
He had never given much thought to an afterlife, but now that he was dead he was certain he wouldn't have imagined it to be like this—this inability to move or feel.Although he was filled with a certain, soothing calm he had never been able to master when he had been so depressed there was no sense of peace.
Cam realized he had expected closure after he was gone. Instead there was a weird…apathy? No that wasn't right. Emptiness. Cam felt weirdly empty, devoid.
The floating thing was pretty cool, though. That he could definitely get used to. Yeah, just hanging out in midair was kind of peculiar, but it was also fun. In the time since he had killed himself, Cam had wondered on several occasions if people in space felt the similar nothingness that came with being able to settle yourself among the air particles.
Another thing Cam noticed was that time passed in strange fragments. Sometimes he was aware of the life around him, sometimes the emptiness was amplified by more emptiness. He had no idea how long it had been since he killed himself, though. Time didn't work like that for him anymore. All he knew was he had been hanging around the greenhouse long enough that any physical evidence of what he had done was long gone. In fact, Cam had watched the medics and the police survey the scene, take away his body. He had been hanging around in the air then, too.
They were the last people he had seen, save for Jake Martin. And Martin even hesitated in the entrance to the garden every time…Cam wondered if Jake could sense him there. Maybe, Jake Martin was just unnerved by what Cam had done. Cam had no way of knowing.
Still, even though he couldn't measure it, time passed. Time lagged. Time disappeared…until Cam heard the music.
It sounded so melancholy and sweet that it was the first thing to inspire any kind of—well, anything—in Cam since he, you know, killed himself.
So he left the greenhouse, following the hauntingly familiar sound.
He found her—that was Maya, right?—in the music room. It was hard to recognize her at first. She was dressed so differently: from the impossibly low cut shirt to the immodestly short skirt to the crazy, strappy heels on her feet. And then there was the hair….gone was the endearingly disheveled halo of corn-silk Cam had always associated with Maya. Instead the hair was processed to be Barbie-doll straight and styled. It was strange. Jarring, even in death.
What struck Cam as the weirdest of all, though, were the streams of black-tinged water running down Maya's cheeks. This was all wrong. Her life was supposed to be better now that he was gone, less complicated. Why was she crying?
Cam moved closer, watching intently as Maya filled the air with the heartbreaking sound of her cello. She always looked most graceful as her fingers flitted quickly, the bow bending its will to her own. She made playing look impossibly effortless, and Cam had always admired that. But now he felt a strange discord. Why?
Suddenly, a bell rang and Maya jumped to her feet looking scared out of her own skin. She hastily and agitatedly swiped at the tear tracks on her face, pulling a wadded tissue out of the pocket of her skirt. At a breakneck pace—made most fascinating by the fact that she didn't even totter in her heels—Maya put away the cello and touched up her makeup before nearly sprinting out of the room.
Suddenly, Cam was unsettled: so much so that he missed the emptiness of his emptiness. So he stayed in the music room, wondering if there was something he needed to find there.
More time passed. Cam didn't pay much attention to the other people that came and went through the room—he had no reason to care about them. And even though Cam had no way of knowing for sure, it seemed like a disproportionate amount of time passed before Maya came back. She used to play her cello every day, why would she leave it so long, unattended?
And, even when she did come back, she was not alone. She didn't even look much like she wanted to be there. Zig was dragging her by the arm, shutting the door behind them. If Cam was able to still feel jealousy—or able to feel threatened—he was sure the sight of Zig and Maya together would trigger that. In fact, the echo of those feelings seemed to resonate through his unsettled existence. But that was all it was—an echo.
He concentrated of Maya before listening to what was being said: her hair was still ridiculously straight. Her outfit—though slightly less revealing—was not classic Maya, either.
"All I'm saying," Zig looked pained, his eyes trying to hold Maya's as long as possible, "is that you're not acting like yourself. I know I'm not, like, the smartest guy or anything, but you really need to deal with how you feel about Cam. You're starting to scare me, Maya."
"Don't you dare mention him to me," Maya's voice was low but full of venom.
Zig gulped. "Look…you seem to be hanging around a different guy every week, you're dressing differently, you won't talk to me or Tori and nobody—not even Katie, 'cause I asked—has seen you play in forever. Why won't you talk about it?"
"There's nothing to talk about, this is pointless. Can I go back to class now?"
"I just don't…," Zig's words got thick in his throat and he swallowed. "I don't want you to end up doing the same thing as Cam."
Maya recoiled like she'd been slapped. Cam himself felt his spirit grow so heavy that he was pulled down to the ground, no longer floating in the air. He settled around the ground between Zig and Maya, watching Maya's face with a grimace. Had he really done this to her, disrupted her life so completely? Was he a destruction, even in death?
"You think I'm going to kill myself," she said the words slowly, not a question: more like she was trying to piece together their meaning.
"The, uh, pamphlets and stuff they made us all read, you know, after…they said that being withdrawn and changing physical appearance can be signs." Zig looked really uncomfortable, like he was forcing the words out of his mouth. Like they might destroy him on the way out, but he had a duty to say them anyway.
The chiseled mask seemed to melt away a little. "I'm not…I didn't mean to worry you," Maya assured Zig. "I wouldn't even consider suicide. I couldn't. I can't."
Zig's shoulders relaxed, and Cam kind of realized that maybe he wasn't a horrible person after all. He just really cared about Maya…and that was something that Cam understood completely.
"That's…uh, that's good," Zig gave Maya a goofy smile. It disappeared almost instantly, though. "I still think you should talk to someone, though. This isn't healthy, and you're not listening to Katie or Tori."
"What, do you guys meet up and talk about me now?" Maya asked, crossing her arms over her chest defensively.
"We just love you, Maya. We want to help."
"Don't you see, though? You guys can't help. I don't want to talk about it because that makes what he did real. I don't want to deal with this…I shouldn't have to deal with this!"
"But it is real, and it did happen," Zig took a couple steps toward Maya. "And ignoring it is not going to make it go away. You just…you have to deal. If not for you, then for Katie and your parents. Come on, Maya, you're smarter than this!"
Maya started to cry and Zig looked so shocked it was almost funny. Almost. Cam got the distinct impression that what he had seen all that time ago was the exception…Maya had been hiding since he killed himself.
"I wake up every morning and just expect it to be a bad dream, you know? I just want him back," Maya wailed softly, and Zig closed the remaining distance between them, hugging Maya tightly.
"Yeah, I know. I just want to apologize for everything I said," Zig nodded, settling his cheek against the top of Maya's head.
Suddenly, the peace that he had been waiting for—searching for—filled up Cam. Hearing Zig's would-be apology and knowing that Maya has people that truly care about her and will make sure she's okay filled Cam with the greatest feeling of all: closure.
And with one last glance at Maya—an attempt to memorize her beautiful face even though it's burdened by so much sorrow—Cam waves goodbye. It's finally time to move on.
So he does—leaving his existence once and for all.
And though she's never talked about it to anyone—or even herself really—that was the moment Maya felt an inexplicable warmth in the center of her heart. She knew, somehow she knew, that Cam was finally happy.