So I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this story... doesn't that sound reassuring? I've been toying with a rough draft of this idea in my head since last summer when I was waiting for the season premiere and getting all daydreaming in the pool. The thing is, the storyline has always been in more of a one-shot mindset, but since I realize that all I ever seem to write are one-shots, I'm thinking maybe I should go out on a limb and challenge myself with an actual chapter story. Yeah, we'll see how that one plays out.

BTW, this is set in the summer before Ellie's senior year.

Disclaimer: So what if I said it was mine? What the hell would happen? But it isn't, even the title belongs to the band Lovedrug and their song spiders, which by the way is really good.

Here we go folks, read and review if you love me. Or if you don't. You don't really know me, so I guess love is a bit much to ask...

"Searching on the wire for a wire,

for a peace of mind,

like the spiders in the corners that are never there,

to the one,

to the magic sun,

you're not that bright now,

but you will be someday soon,

and you will fall in love with the moonlight."

I don't own a swimsuit.

Haven't. For years. As a matter of fact, I think my last swimsuit had a ruffles on the bottoms, and I haven't been a "ruffles" kind of girl since, well, ever actually.

Abnormal? (not the ruffles part of course, the not-owning-a-swimsuit part) Hmm, I guess you could say that, but I just might take it as a compliment in comparison to some of the other pleasantries I've been called. You'd' be surprised at how unoriginal spoiled little upper-middleclass Canadian teenagers can be. Not that I listen to what other people call me of course! After all, I'm Ellie fucking Nash!

Fooled?

Me neither, I've always thought Alex pulled off the tough broad bravado much better than I.

But when you think about it, it's really not such a shocking confession. Come on, wouldn't you choke on your (grande soy, nonfat, decaff, utterly flavorless) latte if you spotted me browsing through the racks in one of those ridiculously overpriced, trendy boutiques Paige and Hazel frequent? Oh yeah, me, swaying my shapeless hips in time to the thumping club music . Me, making my way back to the dressing rooms so I can scrunch my nose and scrutinize the reflected image of my pale, scarred skin, barely covered by a few scraps of flamboyant material under the brutal glare of fluorescent lighting. God, the mental image alone is enough to make me want to grab the nearest sharp object and start hacking away.

Oops, scratch that. You probably got all quiet and averted your gaze when I mentioned my "issue," sorry for any temporary discomfort my plummeting sense of self-worth may have caused you.

Anyway, back to the conversation at hand. The sickness that is swimsuit season has officially struck our province, sending the girls of Degrassi into a dieting, tanning, and shopping tizzy. All girls sans one. My only summer swimwear purchase thus far has been a new parasol. I burn easily, get over it.

But even if I were to find something I could deem suitable of wearing out for all those fun filled summer afternoons at the beach, playing volleyball and engaging in splash wars with the cheerleaders, there's still the fact that...I don't want to spend my summer afternoons at the beach playing volleyball and engaging in splash wars with the cheerleaders at the beach. I may be slowly but surely assimilating into the Degrassi mainstream, (Marco sure as hell hasn't let my gradual shift in clothing go unnoticed) but I'm still the girl who sat off in the sand by herself while Paige and her gang had themselves a grand old time those years ago at the coast.

Thank God the trip my mental health group was supposed to take out there was cancelled. One mention of the word "bikini" and Princess Anorexia was slumped over in her chair bawling her eyes out. I hid a smile while everyone else rushed over to shower her with sugary words of comfort and assure her that the excursion wasn't necessary.

Everyone except Craig and I. He caught my gaze across the room with a sly smirk of his own, and I rolled my eyes sarcastically. He quirked an eyebrow and I... I remembered that despite our mutual friendships with the now absent Ashley and Marco, the two of us weren't technically friends and rarely spoke to each other. Turning my attention to my rubber bands, I contemplated the boy I sat across from. Strange, how we had both spent so much of our time with the same people but not really with each other. A few games of euchre, a "heartfelt" conversation about guitar strings and his girlfriend, and countless evenings crowded in a circle of chairs pretending not to notice each others presence just about summed up our relationship, if you would even call it that. But whatever, just because my two best friends and my boyfriend completely and utterly abandoned me this summer doesn't mean that I'm that desperate for companionship. Yeah...

And again, here I go drifting away yet again from the subject! Swimsuits I don't do, beach-time Barbie I am not, but just between you and I, I sort of have this secret love affair with water.

Your see, back at our old house, (in my old town, in my old life) we had a pool, a great, big, glorious pool, and as soon as the weather turned warm enough I spent hours on end in that thing. Not in the daytime though. Therein lies the twist. While everyone else was squealing and diving away I was holed up inside, listening to music or reading a book and ignoring the "wicked witch, are you afraid you'll melt?" jeers occasionally thrown my way. But the second nighttime fell, it was just me and the water under the moonlight, which is just how I like it to this day. (or would it be to this night? Oh you get the picture...)

Have you ever been swimming at night? I don't mean drinking beer in a steamy hot tub with a bunch of horny teenagers, but actually swimming. Oh God, it's so...serene. It's just you and this cool expanse of wetness pressing against your skin, with the slightly cooler summer night breeze wafting gently through the trees beyond you. You're surrounded by silence that is marred only by the gentle background hum of crickets and the soft slapping of waves made by you alone. All around you, the underwater pool lights reflect eerie shadows into the dark that shiver continually with the shifting of the water, shadows that you catch out of the corner of your eye and mistake for movement in the blackness you cannot clearly discern. Everything just takes on this tragically romantic quality that makes you want to close your eyes and drift on your back forever. Or at least, it does to me.

But here in Degrassi, I don't have a pool.

But here in Degrassi, I do have a secret.

And I don't mean those secrets that everyone and their mother knows by now, like the whole drunk-ass mom thing, or the cover-up for the gay boyfriend thing, or the emo-chick cutting thing, but a new one. I've got a little secret getaway. It's a place where I have no right to be, a place no one knows I escape to, and a place where I can forget about everything that's weighing on me, even if it is only for a stolen hours or so.

It's a place I can go to swim.

I found it in this rich neighborhood I sometimes cut through on my way home from group. The homes there are all ridiculously over-the-top, but one particular gigantic mansion always drew my attention because of a certain ominous presence and perpetual silence it possessed. I passed by it several times before my journalistic curiosity got the best of me and I did a little investigating. Surrepticiously creeping over the manicured lawns and past an unlocked gate, I discovered the source of my secret summer bliss. Inside the high fence an absolutely lovely pool lay perfectly hidden behind the home's immense shelter, empty and beckoning for me to come disturb its glassy surface. Which I did, gladly. Best of all, the owners are on some long, outlandishly expensive vacation and have no idea of my frequent visits. How do I know? Call it my roving reporter instinct, but I went up to an equally gigantic neighboring home, pretending I had to drop off something the residents next door had ordered from my school fundraiser which had been delayed in delivery. Thanks God for ignorant rich people, because now I have a safe place to swim for almost the whole summer.

It's really going to suck when the owners get back from the Greeks Isles, or Tuscany, or Brazil or wherever the hell they are, because I seriously won't know what to do with myself. When I'm not in the water my options consist of either sitting at home with my struggling-to-remain-sober mother, or sitting in group, or sitting and trying to get in touch with my long-gone best friends. Who, by the way, can hardly ever manage to scrape together enough time to share a few words with their Canada-stranded pal. God forbid they stop having fun long enough to answer their phones.

Calm down Elle, think of the water, think of the moonlight...

I'm itching to get out of my clothes right now, to strip down to my boring black underwear and submerge myself completely in a stranger's pool. To let the water roll over me and wash away everything I don't want to deal with like blissful temporary amnesia. But I can't. Not now at least, as I sit inside the circle and stare longingly out a window by my chair at the sun fading away in the evening sky. Soon, I assure myself, as someone to my left drones on, soon I'll be there.

Ehh, i'm not sure. What do you think?