In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy.
The room was silent except for the ticking of the clock and the breathing of seven separate bodies.
This is called setting up the scene. Who's who, alive, dead, happy, sad; the room, the color of the walls, the chairs they were sitting in.
No one was dead, but with the exception of Dr. Alger, they all wished that they were.
Adam, who leaped out into traffic.
Drew, who pressed the gun to his chest instead of his head; the bullet missed his heart and buried itself in his shoulder blade.
Fiona, who filled her stomach with what she hoped was a deadly mixture of sleeping pills and champagne.
Bianca, who leaped from the top of a building that apparently wasn't quite high enough.
And then him.
Elijah Goldsworthy, at your service.
And now this girl, this Clare.
She was standing in the doorway, her short, cinnamon-colored curls framing her face. She was small, delicate, even fragile, and her expression only emphasized that even more. Her shirt was long-sleeved, but they didn't completely cover her wrists, which had a thin line of bruising circling them. It was like she had had rope tied around her wrists, or maybe she had been handcuffed.
And, hell, she was kind of beautiful.
Eli wondered if Dr. Alger would ask Clare, "Would you like to share the circumstances leading to you being here?"
Circumstances. What a safe, clean word for the sharp blade slicing into his forearm, the blood pouring down as he carved the last letter deeply into his skin. The pain, radiating through his entire body, as he felt his life slowly ebbing away.
What had happened to Clare? What had landed her in this support group, with these other suicides?
He didn't know why he cared. There was just something about how vulnerable this Clare looked… well, it reminded him of Julia.
Julia.
No. No, he couldn't think about Julia right now. Damn it, he couldn't. He'd break apart. He'd shatter, and no one would ever be able to find the pieces again.
Or maybe Dr. Alger would ask Clare how she was feeling. Eli fucking hated that question. Nothing in his life was private anymore. His door was unlocked at all times, his parents constantly checked every damned corner for anything suspicious, and now he had some damned therapist trying to pick apart his mind, trying to get inside his head and read his thoughts.
His emotions, his feelings, as fucked up as they were, were all he had left, and now he was forced to share even those. He had nothing in this world to call his own anymore.
"This is Clare Edwards," Dr. Alger repeated. "Clare, take a seat, please."
To Eli's surprise, Clare sat down right beside him. Usually, his stereotypically "Goth" or "Emo" wardrobe and I don't give a shit attitude seemed to create an aura of stay-the-hell-away, but maybe this new suicide didn't see it.
Or maybe she just didn't care.
Most of the others smiled slightly and mumbled their hellos. Eli remained silent.
"Eli?" Dr. Alger prodded. "Aren't you going to say hi to Clare?"
Eli kept his eyes pointed straight at the wall in front of him. What the hell did she want him to say? "Hi, I hope you like having to admit every damned thought that crosses your mind to everyone. I hope that you like being forced to trust complete strangers who recently tried to kill themselves, because that's all we fucking do around here."
"Eli," Dr. Alger repeated, sounding disappointed.
Oh, God forbid that he disappoint that bitch of a therapist. Or maybe she was a psychiatrist. Really, what was the difference?
But he had learned the hard way that things were easier if he just cooperated, so he turned towards Clare, locking eyes with her. Her irises were a unique shade of light blue, a silver tint around the pupil. He suddenly wanted to say, You have pretty eyes.
But he couldn't let himself. That could be mistaken as kindness. Affection.
Weakness.
Instead, he smirked. "Welcome to hell."
000
"So? How was your first day?"
Helen was acting like it was Clare's first day of school, ever, like she was her little five-year-old kindergartener ready to brave the perils of the elementary hallways, not like she had just come back from a suicide support group.
Clare simply shrugged. She knew that her mother was just trying to help, but in reality, she was smothering her. Clare needed space; she needed time to work things out in her own mind.
There were days- a lot of days- when she wished that she'd never woken up in that hospital. That no one had found her. That she had just died.
When you handcuffed your wrists together and leaped off a thirty-foot cliff into the ocean, you don't expect to be saved. Just her dumb fucking luck that someone had pulled her out and called an ambulance.
She wasn't sure how she had survived. One moment, her lungs were filling with water, her eyes wide open in the salty abyss, the world fading into nothing, and the next she was laying on a hospital bed with uncomfortably thin pillows and the irritating BEEPBEEPBEEP of the heart rate monitor constantly in her ears.
"I called Darcy," Helen added. "She says that she'll be here sometime on Thursday."
That caught Clare's attention. Her sister? Coming home? She turned sharply so she was staring her mother in the face, searching for any hint of deception, but there was none. Darcy was coming home at last. After almost three years of nothing but letters and the occasional email- there wasn't much Internet access in Kenya- she would finally see her sister.
And to think it only took attempted suicide.
Now that Helen had Clare's interest, she smiled patiently and repeated, "How was your first day?"
That dark-haired boy with the black clothes and green eyes, the one she'd sat beside. The one everyone called Eli. The one who hardly ever spoke and simply stared at the wall most of the time, his eyes narrowed in what appeared to be anger.
Welcome to hell.
How was she supposed to respond to her mother's question?
Clare shrugged and remained silent.
000
A/N: I feel like I have to write this to clear some things up. I write what I think the character's opinions would be. I don't necessarily agree with everything they think. It's fanfiction. If I have a strong opinion I need to share and it doesn't go along with a character's POV, I'll write it in these author's notes, which will probably be pretty lengthy. Go ahead and skip them if you want, I don't mind. You have been warned.
So this is going to be the story I'll be working on, now that Blind Faith is finished. I think I made things pretty clear. If not, tell me what you're confused about. I would private message you back, but apparently technology hates me and my computer freezes every time I try, so I'll just answer it in the next chapter.
What did you think? Should I continue it?
I need Eclare. I require it to live. No matter how much Clare thinks she's over Eli, she can't fight the power that is the Degrassi fangirls. There is no hope, Clare. Just suck it up, deal with it, get back together with Eli, and everyone will be just peachy.
Anyways, review please!
I do not own Degrassi or the quote I used at the beginning. (I have no idea who said it, I just thought it was cool, and it kind of fits the story. You'll see what I mean soon enough.)