Author's Note: I do not own the song (it belongs to Brian Vander Ark and The Verve Pipe). Also, the title of this story is a quote by Brian in regards to what the song is about. Also, I do not own Degrassi. I really hope you like this story as much as I do. It was my favorite song in high school I only recently rediscovered it to find I love it even more. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I am in no way trying to pass judgment about abortion in this. The song is about what happens in this story. It is not a reflection of my personal beliefs or anything along that sort.
I'm a Jerk But I Want to Be A Hero
when i was young i knew everything
and she a punk who rarely ever took advice
now i'm guilt stricken,
sobbing with my head on the floor
stop a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice
She drove me crazy. I knew that from the moment I first met her that she would drive me crazy. I just didn't know at the time how literal that would be. I was so young when I first met her – we were fourteen and it was our first year of high school. We were just freshmen. She was a punk who wouldn't listen to anyone, ever. Including me.
Maybe if I had just talked to her a bit more – maybe if I actually tried to get her to listen to me, things would be different. Maybe if she had actually just listened to me, I would still have her in my life. But she never did listen. It was in her very nature to do the opposite of what she was told. Not that I can really be angry at her for that – I am the exact same way. Sounds like a recipe for a disaster, huh? Two people that would rather die than listen to what the other has to say. We both have – had – a tendency to think we knew more than the other.
I just wish she had listened to me just that once. What would it have taken for her to just listen for once in her fucking life?
But because she didn't listen, I've lost her.
I remember the first time she told me she was pregnant. She had taken a test in the bathroom at Wal-Mart like some sad, made-for TV movie. She didn't even tell me in words – instead, she walked into the bedroom we shared and tossed the plastic wand on my desk where I was busy doing homework. It took me a moment to realize what it was, and when I saw the result, I froze.
"Don't worry. I'll take care of it," she said.
"What do you mean?" I stood from the desk, holding the thing in my hand, "What are you talking about? What is there to take care of? Tomorrow we can make you a doctor appointment and we can…"
"Elij, you don't get it, do you? You really think I am going to have a baby my freshman year of high school?" Her brow furrowed and she looked at me with those piercing eyes of hers. I didn't quite realize what she was saying. I couldn't comprehend the words. It was like my brain was refusing to listen.
"So…we aren't going to keep it?" I finally managed the words. The words stumbled from my mouth – sloppy and clumsy. The room began to feel very small.
"Of course not. Why would I? I'll go down to the clinic tomorrow and get this taken care of."
"You…you can't."
"What do you mean I can't, Eli?" She turned on me, her eyes cold and daring me to continue with my sentence. What could I say to her? She had already made up her mind. I think she made up her mind even before she took that damned test.
"I…I just think it's a mistake. There are other ways. We can carry the baby and put it up for adoption once it's born. How about that?" I was growing desperate. I wouldn't let her kill my baby as if it were nothing. Didn't she feel anything towards the little one inside of her?
"We? What is this we, Eli? You don't have to do anything. You don't have to carry a baby. You don't have to have morning sickness. You don't have to go through the name-calling and the stares and the judgment. You don't have to do any of that. I do. And I don't want to. And that's why I am not going to."
We talked about it a bit more before she finally told me to shut up and stay out of it. I remember falling asleep that night, holding her in my arms in the bed that we shared, wondering the fate of my child. Sure, I was fourteen. I was disillusioned at the time that we could ever possibly care for a child. We couldn't even take care of ourselves. But something inside of me wanted that baby. I wanted to see her smile. I wanted to hold her in my arms. I didn't want her to die because of our own selfishness.
The next morning, she woke up before me and headed to the clinic before school. I didn't see her until lunch. I asked her how she was and she told me she didn't want to talk about it, and that it was over. I never brought up our baby again.
But on nights like these, when there is no wind blowing through the trees and everything is pure silence, I think about that baby. I think about how she never got to take her first breath. Because her mommy didn't listen, and her daddy didn't try hard enough to make her hear.
i can't be held responsible
cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
she fell in love in the first place
I am a mess. I know I am a mess. I've always been a broken mess. My dad says I feel things deeper than most people because I wear my heart sewn on my sleeve. It gets pretty vulnerable hanging out in the open like that. Things just affect me more than they'd affect other people. My mom says it's a blessing. She said it's a beautiful thing to feel like I do. I think it's fucking bullshit.
When I met her, we were so young. Freshmen in high school. Somehow we just clicked. She was wearing the same black pleather and studded jacket that I was. I went up to her and said, "Nice jacket." She looked at me like I had three heads and said, "What the hell do you want?" Somehow we ended up eating lunch together – I went over to where she was sitting alone and I think she too desperately wanted the company to throw me out. We talked about music and she liked all the good bands – Queen, Taking Back Sunday, Taking Back Sunday, Alexisonfire, Avenged Sevenfold, Coheed and Cambria. Like I said, the good stuff. So we ended up talking. And something just clicked.
Maybe it was because we were both so broken and broken things have magnetic tendencies. Who knows. All I do know is something happened while we were eating lunch, and we were inseparable. She drove me crazy. But I loved her. And I think I always will.
One night we were sitting up on the old jungle gym in the park in my neighborhood. It must have been two in the morning. We were just sitting there watching the stars when she kissed me. I warned her not to fall for me. I warned her how I was broken and intense and a clusterfuck of weird. She rested her cheek on her palm and looked me in the eye with this look that not even Shakespeare could have described, and said, "Does it look like I give a damn, Eli?"
She fell for me. I warned her, and she still fell for me. I tried to tell her not to. I tried to tell her how toxic I am…but like I said – she never listened to anyone, especially me.
If she hadn't fallen for me, maybe things would have been different. Scratch that – I know they would have been different, but what can I do now? I tried. I really did. I told her not to fall for me, and she did anyways. I…I can't be responsible.
But I am. And I will always carry that blame.
for the life of me i cannot remember
what made us think that we were wise and
we'd never compromise
for the life of me i cannot believe
we'd ever die for these sins
we were merely freshmen
"We'll forget about this," she told me that night after she had the procedure. We were lying in bed about to fall asleep, but I guess she could sense I wouldn't be getting much sleep, "We'll be fine. One day, we'll forget about this whole mess, Eli. It's done. I fixed it for us."
And I let myself believe that.
I don't know why or how we convinced ourselves that everything would be okay after that. We were only fourteen – we were only kids. Kids don't get over that sort of thing. Kids don't forget that sort of thing. Kids can't just move on from something like that. In a period of 24 hours, she found she was pregnant and had gotten an abortion. She was only a kid.
But somehow we thought – we talked ourselves into believing – that one day it would all be okay. And for weeks, she would put on a fake smile and go through the motions, but her eyes were vacant. That had changed her. She would never come right out and admit that it had, but it did. It changed her. She was never the same after that.
Maybe if we had been adults, we could have handled it differently. Maybe if we were adults we could have faced it more maturely, but we were just kids. We were only fourteen, and we were only freshman. How could we possibly handle that? How could we possibly think that we would ever be able to just get over something like that?
we've tried to wash our hands of all of this
we never talk of our lacking relationships
and how we're guilt stricken sobbing with our
heads on the floor
we fell through the ice when we tried not to
slip, we'd say
And sometimes at night, I would hear her crying to herself. I would lie there and pretend to still be asleep. She would hate it if she knew I knew she was crying herself to sleep. So I would just lie there and listen to her soft sobs and pretend that I was actually just asleep and it was all just a dream that, in the morning, I would wake up from. Everything would be fine in the morning.
It's always darkest before the dawn.
But in the mornings, I'd see her slip away too. She would never cry around me, but I knew she was gone. She shrunk away from me, and her eyes were blank. The color had disappeared from her cheeks, and she walked around as if she was in a daze. Her grades began to drop, and my parents began to get concerned.
"Should I try talking to her parents?" My mom asked me once, "I know she hasn't had much contact with them since she moved in with us, but maybe they'll be able to help."
"Mom, the whole reason she moved in with us is because her dad beat her so badly that she was in the emergency room. We aren't calling her parents."
Mom dropped the subject, but I could see her heart break every time she looked at her – the girl she had come to love as her own daughter, nothing more than a hallow shell of herself. There was no spirit left inside of her.
for the life of me i cannot remember
what made us think that we were wise and
we'd never compromise
for the life of me i cannot believe
we'd ever die for these sins
we were merely freshmen
When I found her in my bedroom about a month later, I didn't feel any surprise. It took me quite a while to shed a tear – something I am rather ashamed to admit. She was lying in my bed with the pill bottle beside her. I stared at her for about a minute, knowing that there was nothing I could do. Even if she wasn't dead yet, she was already gone. I brushed a black curl out of her eyes and ran my thumb across her cheek before I went to get my mom.
I remember walking down the stairs as if this was just an everyday, mundane occurrence – "Hey Mom, have you seen my science textbook? By the way, she killed herself."
My mom was sitting at the kitchen table paying bills when I told her. She looked up from her checkbook and I guess didn't quite register what I had said. I don't even remember what I said or how I said it. Then the pen in her hand clamored to the tile floor and she said, "Oh my God."
We were so young. I don't know why we ever thought we'd be able to just forget and move on as if nothing had happened – as if she had never gotten pregnant at fourteen and aborted our baby. I told her not to. I begged her not to go through with it. We were both so young. But what could I do? Either way we were damned. If she had the abortion, she'd face the pain of going through that at such a young age. If she didn't, she'd have to face the ridicule and the stares and hatefulness of the people at school and in the neighborhood.
Either way she was sentenced to die.
i can't be held responsible
cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
she fell in love in the first place
I told her not to fall for me. I am a bad omen. I am a rotted talisman. I told her not to fall for me and she didn't listen. I told her not to get an abortion and she still didn't listen. I told her. I warned her. I tried.
But maybe I didn't try hard enough. Maybe I didn't try hard enough to get her to listen to me. There was so much more I could have done – that I should have done – but I was only fourteen. I was only a freshman.
for the life of me i cannot remember
what made us think that we were wise and
we'd never compromise
for the life of me i cannot believe
we'd ever die for these sins
we were merely freshmen
I wanted to be her hero, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't. I tried to save her from everything – from myself and from herself. But we were toxic; and she wouldn't listen. She always did the opposite of what I told her to do. Always. Like clockwork. She drove me insane. She literally drove me insane. I was only fourteen when I got my girlfriend pregnant. I was only fourteen when she got an abortion. And I was only fourteen when she decided she just couldn't live with herself for what she had done. I was only fourteen when I found her body in my bed. I was only fourteen.
I was only a freshman.
So when you confronted me…when you wanted to know my feelings for you – what else could I do? I lied to you. I told you that that kiss we shared (though I felt the whole world shift underneath me when we did) was nothing to me. I told you it had just been for the film. How could I tell you that I liked you? How could I curse you like that?
"Either you like me, or you're a sociopath who likes to jerk people around and hurt them – and I know it's not the last one." When I didn't say anything - "Or is it?"
What did you want me to say? How could I possibly put that bounty on you? Being with me would be like signing your own death wish. And you…you were so beautiful and so full of life and joy and humor and happiness. How could I possibly strip you of that?
And with every ounce of ice I could muster inside of me, I said as cold as stone, "I am sorry I led you on."
I was only fourteen when I killed my last girlfriend. I wasn't going to become a serial killer and ruin you either.
I saved your life when I turned you down. And I finally became the hero.