Title: Push Comes To Shove
Disclaimer: Don't own Degrassi.
A/N: Takes place after Owner of a Lonely Heart. Ellie's POV.
Warning: Spoiler warning if you haven't seen Owner of a Lonely Heart yet.
For a second I thought he'd done it.
The way he looked at me. I thought he'd actually gone through with it. I never would have imagined Marco even considering prostitution as an income source. I don't think he did, either. Thank God he hadn't actually done it.
But he had thought about it. And honestly, I sort of blamed myself for that.
Not directly, exactly. It wasn't even the fact that I'd refused to loan him any more money that caused my guilty conscience. He had ended up broke without my help. But he never would have considered prostitution if it weren't for Devon. For one thing, he wouldn't have been so desperate for the cash required to hang out with him, and for another, the guy was the one who actually introduced my best friend to that whole world. Which is why I also blame Devon for this whole thing. But it actually goes back further than him. Marco never would have glanced twice at Devon if he was still with Dylan.
And that was where my guilt came from. If I was honest― if I was completely, totally honest― I blamed myself for their break-up.
Marco was the kind of person that needed a push now and then. If no one ever forced him to move, he'd never get anywhere. He'd needed me to make him come out to his friends, Dylan to make him decide to come clean to his mother, and Tim to push him into telling his dad. Afterward, things always took a turn for the better, and Marco eventually came to realize that we had done the right thing in giving him that extra nudge.
Only this time, I don't thing I was. Right, that is. Oh, I'd had the best of intentions. My best friend was miserable, everyone could see it. The long-distance relationship with Dylan was a strain on him. So I'd come to the obvious solution: end the relationship. Why hang on to something that causes you pain? I know I'm probably not the best spokesperson for that subject― I had a habit of clinging on to hopeless tatters of relationships as well― but I could see the problem so clearly when it was my best friend that couldn't let go. I'd just assumed that it was time to fulfill my role as the person who nudged Marco forward. I talked him into breaking it off with Dylan.
But this time, I think I pushed him over the edge.
He was more miserable now than when they were still together. And now he was trying to get back out and date, trying to find someone who could actually make him happy. The thing was, he'd already had that person. And lost him completely.
And it was my fault.
I was to blame for my best friend in the world being in a place where he felt lonely and miserable. A place where he craved someone to love who would love him, who he would apparently do almost anything to find and keep. He had said that he wanted to feel happy, confident, sexy. At one time, he had felt all those things. You could see it in the way he smiled, the way his eyes sparkled, the way he carried himself, even. And anyone with a clue could attribute that time with the presence of Dylan in his life.
But now Dylan was gone― not just from the country, but from Marco's life. And now I saw what I had somehow missed before:
It should never have happened.
They loved each other. In spite of the millions of reasons I can think of that they shouldn't, Marco and Dylan loved each other more than anything in the world. If any two people were ever destined to be together, it was them. They were never meant to separate entirely, to be completely removed from each other's lives. Separating them was like defying the laws of nature. It was just wrong.
And it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for me.
It was bad enough that Marco was miserable, but knowing that I was the one behind it was even worse. I tried to shove the blame off on practically everyone else― usually Dylan himself, sometimes Marco for not knowing when to let go, and now Devon. But that didn't change the fact that none of it would have even happened in the first place if I hadn't pushed Marco too far. I couldn't get around that fact, no matter how hard I tried. Apparently, even my smart, dependable, extraordinary friend had a breaking point. And I'd helped to drive him to it.
So this― this entire thing― was my fault. And this guilt was deserved. And Marco's friendship wasn't. I couldn't help but feel that I had ruined his life.
After our little conversation, he went to go start on some of the homework he had been neglecting lately. He looked more shaken up than I had ever seen him, including the time he'd been bashed in the park on his way to Dylan's hockey game. Shaken up, desolate… broken. And not for the first time, I wondered just what I had done.