I don't own Degrassi, or any of the characters. It's a new story, so I figured I had best include the disclaimer.

Anyway, popular demand requested that I continue doing episodes in Eli's POV. Which is fine with me; I love writing them. However, to those of you who were interested in me doing Clare's point of view that will still probably happen. It'll just happen after I've finished with Eli.

For now, here is the first half of Better off Alone- Part 1. Enjoy! =) :

The piercing beep of my alarm jolted me awake. I slammed on my alarm clock to shut it up, and hurled myself out of bed.

I had only been going to Degrassi for a week, after transferring from a school on the other side of town, and it already felt monotonous- same old curriculum, some kinds of snotty people, same annoying teachers. Of course, I'll admit, my attitude wasn't exactly helping things, but what did they expect? That I would just wake up one day, happy again at last?

I had finally convinced my parents to let me transfer to a new school because I was fed up with the stares and the whispers. Everywhere I went the phrase 'His girlfriend just died,' seemed to follow. The only upside to everyone walking on eggshells around me, or just avoiding me all together, was that bullies stopped ragging on me. I was left alone to sulk. The only problem was I could sulk, but I could never actually begin to move on while I was left walking down the halls that Julia and I used to bear together. There wasn't a single place in that school that didn't remind me of Julia. My parents wanted me to stick it out till graduation, not really keen on the idea of me switching schools in the middle of my High School career. I can be rather persuasive when I put my mind to it though, so I got that revised to me finishing up my sophomore year at the old school, and then I would start as a junior at Degrassi. Lucky me.

I brushed my teeth, didn't bother to do anything with my hair, and slipped on some of my usual all black attire. I took a good look around my room and shook my head. The truth was if I didn't clean this place up I might never move on; there were just too many reminders all stashed together in the confined space. But I never could clean it. I hated my room.

I slammed the door closed; making sure the padlock was secure, and headed into the kitchen. My mom was up, waiting for my dad to arrive home. He was a disk jockey for one of the local stations, and he had the night, or morning depending on how you looked at it, shift.

"Morning, Sweetie," my mom said smiling at me as I grabbed a granola bar out of the pantry. "You ready for school?"

"I'm awake, am I not?" I replied grouchily. My mom was used to my cynical behavior by now and just nodded. I wolfed down the granola bar, hastily shoved some food into a brown paper bag for lunch, and headed out the door without saying goodbye. I knew my mom was trying to give me what I needed, but she usually ended up suffocating me instead. She meant well, and I loved her, but I didn't like talking to her much these days. The less interaction, the better was a general rule I lived by.

I climbed into Morty, my hearse, and headed for school. My first period class was history, which tended to put me to sleep when I didn't have to listen to it early in the morning. I had a habit of spacing out during that class, trying my best not to think of anything in particular as I dutifully took notes.

Second period was much more intriguing. I had always loved English and literature, and I found writing the only way I could aptly express myself when it came to just about anything. Words were powerful things, and I certainly had no problem using them to express my opinion on any topic.

Also, the only person at this school who had been able to pique my interest so far sat behind me. Her name, I had learned, was Clare. I met her my second day here at Degrassi. The first thing to catch my eye about her was her bright, ice-blue eyes that were extremely expressive. Only thing was, during our first meeting, she had seemed flustered and embarrassed. I soon found out that, thankfully, she had no problems speaking up and expressing her opinions because she often did in class. I liked that.

That morning before the bell rang I sat at my desk coloring my nails black with a marker when Ms. Dawes, the teacher, whooshed into the room with our last assignment in her hands. She started to pass them out as the bell rang. "Some of the greatest works of all times: letters," Ms. Dawes started. I smelled a new assignment coming on. "They reveal the hearts and souls of world leaders, of great artists, and now…of you." I smirked to myself, called it.

"Ms. Dawes," I heard Clare speak up behind me. She sounded stressed, and more than a little disappointed. "There must be some sort of mistake," she continued, "I've never gotten a 'C'. How did this happen?"

I rolled my eyes. So she was one of those students. I looked down at my own paper. The assignment was to pick a controversial topic, and then state your opinion on it. It was a fairly easy paper to write, and I had chosen Capital punishment as my topic. Apparently, it had earned me an 'A-'. Not bad, but also not my best.

"Well," Ms. Dawes began, "your early assignments were divine, but recently your writing has gotten distant. Impersonal." Ms. Dawes sounded chagrined; like she was upset Clare had turned in 'C' work. I wondered what her papers were usually like.

There was a pause as Clare absorbed this news. "I used complex sentence structure and advanced vocabulary," she offered stubbornly. I raised my eyebrow. Was she kidding with this; the grade you got was the grade you earned. There really wasn't any sense in arguing about it, and frankly Clare was starting to sound like a bit of a whiney brat. Then again, maybe I was just irritable, so I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"Yes," Ms. Dawes conceded, "but your assignment didn't tell me anything about who you are; what you want. You can't hide behind vampire fiction forever."

I snorted. She was a vampire fan, eh? I didn't peg her for one of those girls.

"I'm not hiding," Clare said, defending herself.

"Then prove it," Ms. Dawes challenged, and then she gestured to me, and I immediately looked up, confused, "to your writing partner."

I sat there in incredulous shock for a second. "Me?" I questioned, raising my eyebrows. What exactly did this partner thing entail? I was kind of a solo guy; Ms. Dawes had to be kidding. On the other hand, I was curious about Clare's writing…not to mention more than a little curious about Clare herself.

"Yeah, you." Ms. Dawes declared. "You write well, but you're a little wordy." I looked down at my paper; 'a little wordy' wasn't doing to bad for me so far. "You and Clare will be editing each other's work this semester." Ms. Dawes seemed very pleased with this arrangement.

"Great," Clare wasn't even attempting to keep the disinterest out of her voice, "that'll be fun." I smirked, and let out a small laugh. I liked this girl; she had a good sense of humor. Besides, contrary to Clare's apathy this might be fun. Or, at the very least, it could be.

"I think we have a very special pairing on our hands, people!" Ms. Dawes gasped, gaining enthusiasm, "Like Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes."

Before I could stop it, my face slipped into a look of confusion- Ms. Dawes did know that pairing didn't work out so well, right?

Clare was apparently on the same page as me. "Sylvia Plath killed herself," she pointed out unhappily. I smirked.

Ms. Dawes, however, paid no mind to Clare's snide remark. Instead, she moved on with the lesson. I turned around to give Clare my best smirk. She narrowed her eyes at me, and that only made me smirk larger. This was definitely going to be fun.

As soon as the bell rang I hopped out of my seat, swinging my backpack over my shoulder. Clare and I reached the door at the same time, and it became clear that neither of us was going to slow down. We bumped right into each other, and that caused me to notice something: Clare smelled really good. But I pushed that thought aside and slipped out the door past her, shaking my head at her as I did so.

"He's just so…," I heard Clare start to say to her friend, but I missed the rest of the sentence in the chaos of the hall. When I was halfway down the hallway I turned around to find Clare watching me leave. I caught her eye, but she blushed, and directed her attention back to the friend. 'Degrassi just got a whole lot more interesting,' I thought to myself.

XXX

Later that night I was surfing the internet out of sheer boredom on the family computer. As I browsed some social networking site I found Clare, and she happened to be on the instant messenger. 'Worth a shot,' I thought to myself, and I typed her a message.

'Hey partner,' I started, 'truce?' I didn't have to wait long for a response.

'I was unaware we were at war,' Clare sent back.

'Well, you weren't exactly warm to the idea of us working together earlier,' I pointed out to her. Then I decided to get a little playful. 'Your sarcasm wounded me.'

'I'm sorry about that. I guess I was upset about getting such a bad mark that I may have taken it out on you. Forgive me?' Clare sent back.

'I don't have much of a choice if I want this partnership to work, do I? ;)'

Clare sent back, 'Good. I'm working on my letter now- wanna read it tomorrow before class?'

'Love to,' I told her, then signed off. Well that was definitely progressive. At least we established that we didn't hate each other. And I was extremely curious to read this letter of hers. You could tell a lot about a person by their style of writing, and the things they wrote about, and to be honest, I wanted to know a whole lot more about Clare.

XXX

The next morning Clare ran into English class, and walked right up to me. "Hot off the presses," she said as she slapped a piece of paper down on my desk top. Then she sat down on the desk in front of me, feet on the chair, and looked at me expectantly.

"Good morning to you too," I said sarcastically.

"Please just read it," She said anxiously. Fine with me- I picked it up and started to absorb her words. About two paragraphs in, though, I was a little disappointed. She so obviously had forced these words onto the page; there was no natural flow. You could tell this paper had been as painful to write as it was to read. I could tell Clare was expecting me to give her some kind of feedback, so I grabbed the apple that was sitting on my desk, and took a big bite to buy myself some time. "So," Clare prompted eventually, "What do you think?"

I really didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I stalled. "It's, umm…"

Thankfully, Clare jumped in, and saved me from having to criticize her work. "Awkwardly constructed, filled with hyperbole, and generally sloppy," she finished for me. Wow, a little harsh, but also pretty close to what I had been thinking myself.

"The title's centered," I qualified, trying to make her feel better.

Clare let out an exasperated sigh. "Dawes is right," she said, her eyebrows coming together in frustration. "I have writers block."

I had a solution for that, but I was pretty sure Clare wasn't going to go for it. I decided to suggest it anyway. "So, don't hand it in," I challenged her.

"And what?" Clare said, not catching on. "Tell her the dog ate my homework?" She raised her eyebrow at me.

Clearly I was going to have to spell this out for her, "Or you could…take off."

She was taken aback a bit, I could tell. "You mean skip?" She asked incredulously.

"If you wanna get official," I told her, leaning back into my seat. She wasn't going to go for it; I would bet my life on it.

She did surprise me by actually considering it, though. "It would give me time to write a way better assignment," she reasoned with herself. Just then the bell rang.

"Decision time," I declared happily. She looked me in the eye, and an adorable smile slid across her face. It made me notice that Clare was a pretty girl, beautiful even. "Stay or go?" I asked her.

Clare started to pack up her stuff, and head for the door. Well knock me over with a feather; Clare Edwards was going to skip class. I was flabbergasted, and pretty impressed. I pivoted in my seat to watch her go, but she stopped in the doorway. "Well," She raised her eyebrows at me again, "You coming?" There was a daring gleam in her eye as she stood there, leaning on the doorframe. I had to say, she was very intriguing. There was no way I could say no to that kind of dare. Besides, I didn't want to say no to Clare. I shrugged, grabbed my stuff, and we raced out the side door of the school together.

I will definitely have the second part of this episode up soon- probably tomorrow. Thanks for reading! =)