A/N: This is a post-RTT possibly-two-shot dealing with Toby, Mia, and Liberty, and their first day back at Degrassi after JT's death. I'd wanted to write something to this effect for a while; I think it came out pretty good. Read and review, please?
Oh, and also: Degrassi is, as always, not mine. Title is a Motion City Soundtrack Song; part one title and lyrics come from "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack.
Part One: The Worst Part
Out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you will ever know…
Toby Isaacs wasn't completely sure what to expect that Monday. After his weekend, he wouldn't have been surprised if Degrassi had sprouted wings and flown away. Much to his relief – or disdain, depending on which way you looked at it – he arrived that morning to find everything as usual. Degrassi seemed to be the only aspect of his life that insisted on remaining firmly in place.
He stopped, paused for a moment to gaze up at the school. He was in the midst of his sixth year as a student here, but rarely did he ever actually take the time to simply look at it.
It was an impressive building; modern architecture. The massive "DEGRASSI" banner flapped in the wind, edges frayed and discolored from overexposure. The steps were littered with students, as per usual. Everyone was present and accounted for – the cheerleaders, the chess clubbers, the bad-asses, the Grade 9's. Spinner, Ash, and Jimmy – leftovers from last year's populars. Alex, alone, nose buried in her biology book. Darcy and her cute, preppy Christians.
Yeah, all the cliché cliques were there. It was beginning to dawn on Toby that his entire life was nothing more than a cliché. He had kissed only one girl who meant it; attended more chess matches than keggers. His best friend had recently been reduced to nothing more than a box six feet under and a statistic.
A girl whose brother had died in some inner-city turf war came into his health class to talk last year. She'd told her heart-breaking story; the students in Toby's class didn't bother to smother their snores. Toby wondered if that was where his life was headed: a victim who made their life reliving the past.
He took a step forward; then another, and another: one two three four five. Ever since he'd claimed brotherhood; ever since he'd wrapped his arms around Liberty and watched Sean kick that storage locker repeatedly – he'd taken to counting steps. It had been one hundred and fifty-three from the waiting room out to his dad's car; another fifty to get him up to his room once they got home. Twenty out to his car this morning. Forty-five got him to the front steps of his school. Degrassi was still his school, as hard as it was for him to believe. As different as he now was from the giggling cheerleaders and the Christians, solemn in their morning prayers. This was his place – always had been.
He just wished it felt like it.
As Toby slowly made his way up the steps, he wondered how many more steps he had left. A hundred thousand? A million? This thought invariably led to how many steps JT had left in his life: none.
Those two letters sent Toby's brain into overdrive. He'd spent the morning avoiding the elephant in his mind; side-stepping around thoughts of his former best friend. He wasn't ready to process it; he couldn't face what had happened at Emma's house just before 11PM on Friday night. JT wad dead, he knew; but Toby was prepared to deny that fact for as long as he could.
He pushed the front door open and made his way through the crowds of students. Their laughter stung. He ignored it best he could and, out of instinct, headed for his locker. Danny was waiting for him, backpack slung over his slouched shoulders.
"Hey, dude," he greeted Toby somberly, his usual grin about three light years away. "I just wanted to see how you – uh – were holding up. You know." He shrugged sheepishly. Toby entered his combination quickly and flung open his locker.
"Nothing's really sunk in yet," he said as he dumped a few books into his bag. "So okay, I guess. How's Liberty?"
Danny shook his head. "Not good, man. She hasn't said a word since she got home Friday. Left her room once to pee and grab an apple."
"What else can we expect?" Toby sighed and turned to Danny. "JT is…" He was unable to find the courage to finish his thought. The conversation trailed off awkwardly.
"Oh, shit," Danny muttered a few moments later, eyes focused over Toby's shoulder.
"What?" Danny planted his hands on Toby's shoulders and spun him around: Mia was at her locker towards the end of the hall, cheerfully transferring books from her backpack. Nothing out of the ordinary.
"Oh, shit. Does she know?" Toby whispered harshly.
"I don't know, dude! I didn't tell her!" Danny shrugged.
"Damn!" Toby turned back to Danny; shot another look at Mia. "I guess… I'll have to do it."
"Are you sure?" Danny asked softly.
"Better me than the DCS rumor mill." Toby muttered, staring at the floor. Danny hit him lightly on the back.
"Good luck, alright? I'll see you later." Toby nodded and slung his bag over his shoulder. This was going to suck.
He procrastinated the confession for as long as he could, drifting towards Mia as slowly as he could manage. He could only put it off for so long, though, and reached JT's (ex?) girlfriend just as she was shutting her locker. She saw him and smiled brightly. He forced a smile that probably just succeeded in making him appear sick. Mia didn't notice.
"Hey. Toby!" she asked before hugging him warmly. Toby actually began to feel a little nauseous. "How was your weekend?"
"It was – well, it was – um –" Anything Toby said would either give it away too quickly or be a blatant lie. He muttered incomprehensibly for a moment before briskly switching the topic. "How about you?"
"Wasn't that bad, actually. My aunt Rose was great with Bella and lived near this really sick park. And I think she's truly, finally, seriously over her flu – thank God." Toby nodded and ignored the bile rising in his throat. "Oh, by the way," Mia added, oblivious to Toby's sudden urge to vomit. "Have you talked to JT at all? I've been calling him nonstop since I got home yesterday, and he hasn't been picking up."
Oh, this is just cruel, Toby thought incredulously as he stared blankly at Mia's inquisitive, innocent face. She had absolutely no idea what was coming – no clue that her boyfriend had been stabbed in the heart (literally – Toby felt it was necessary to add that every time he thought it) over the weekend. She was concerned with all the same trivial things – phone calls and flu's and parks – things that seemed laughably mundane from the other side. JT is dead! Toby felt like bellowing. That's why he's not fucking picking up!
Speaking of – where was JT's phone, anyway? Toby was pretty sure it had been in his car the night-that-shall-not-be-named – but where was it now? A dump? The police station? Mrs. Cooney's garage? Tragedy always brought out Toby's minor obsessive tendencies.
"Oh – um –" Toby stuttered. How the fuck was he supposed to do this? "Listen, Mia." He took a deep breath, stalling even in the final moments. "There was a party, over the weekend – for Liberty. She turned eighteen, and Manny threw her one at Emma's. It started out pretty small, you know, but eventually everyone heard; basically, the entire school was at her house Friday night." Mia nodded quizzically, still not sure of Toby's point; Toby bought more time and adjusted his glasses. "Some Lakehurst kids came, even – and two of them were pretty drunk and acting like asses, so they got kicked out. They were hanging outside, and JT went out to his car to get something, and there was, um, a fight, and, um –" Just say it, Toby scolded himself. Avoiding it isn't going to change anything. He took one final breath, one final moment of denial – but he couldn't evade the truth any longer. "One of the kids – had a knife. And he – he –"
Mia didn't allow Toby to finish his thought. Eyes wide with panic, she grabbed his arm. "Oh my God, is JT okay? Is he at the hospital? Will he be all right?" She asked in one breath. Toby slowly shook his head.
"He, um… He died, Mia. JT died."
Mia stared blankly at Toby for a moment. "That's not funny."
It took Toby a second to come up with a reply to that one. "Who's joking?"
Just like that, Mia wilted. Her grip on Toby loosened and she collapsed into him. Her head was buried in his jacket; Toby could hear muffled pleas of "No – no – no…" The pleas soon turned to tears; Mia's body shook with sobs as she continued to press herself into the best friend of her dead boyfriend.
As Mia wept, Toby simply stood there. Stood there and supported her frail body; stood there, stoic and expressionless. Stood there, as the first period bell rang and students shuffled past, whispering to themselves about the spectacle taking place in front of them. Stood there, as Mia wept. Stood there and realized that JT was dead.
He had ignored it; denied it – pretended that JT was on vacation or pissed with him or home sick – for as long as he could. Ignored the facts as they looked him blankly in the face. Up until that moment – as a Grade 11 walking past him whispered the word "knife" to her friend and Mia's tears soaked into a wet spot on his shoulder – up until that moment, a sliver of a piece of a minor fraction of him still believed that all of this wasn't real. Some big hoax; an elaborate prank. The kind of thing JT was known for.
But as he stood in the hallway of Degrassi Community School, hugging a girl who had loved JT just as much as he had: that's when it hit him. Fully, completely, square in the freaking face: JT Yorke was dead.
This was a permanent development. It wasn't going away. JT had departed from the tangible world. He was gone. Dead. Gone and dead.
JT Yorke was dead.
And Toby Isaacs was left to repair all that remained.
…I carried the world just as far as I could, but the damage had taken its toll.
You used to call my name every hour of every day…
Scratched pink tile. Cheap foggy mirrors. Messy, inappropriate scribbles all over the stalls. Fluorescent lights that would wash even the best complexion out.
Mia curled her knees up to her chin and pressed her forehead against the cool metal partition, wondering how her life had come to this. Here she was, perched on a toilet seat that was more likely than not covered in herpes, crying her eyes out. Here JT… wasn't. Fuck.
She lifted her head up and stared into one of the light bulbs on the ceiling. Maybe if she stared long enough, she wouldn't have to watch her world crumble in front of her. Maybe she'd go crazy and forget everything.
Another tear dripped down her cheek; it paused on her chin for a moment before dropping and soaking straight into her jeans. Mia rubbed the wet spot with her thumb, but it wasn't going anywhere. Another tear fell – another wet spot. Why had her life come to this?
She had spent her weekend playing hide and go seek and princesses with her two-year-old. Her biggest problem had been what flavor ice cream to buy Bella at the local old-fashioned soda shop. Repeat viewings of The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas had succeeded in completely and totally de-stressing her. It had been a really, really good weekend. The first Mia had had in a while.
And while she was off having this really, really good weekend, her boyfriend was dying. JT Yorke was getting stabbed by Drake Lempke, who'd been in her math class the year before. JT had died – and she hadn't even been there. How could she have been gone for only a weekend? How could this have happened while she was singing Disney songs and playing pretend?
It occurred to her out of nowhere that last Friday, when JT had hugged her and wished her a good trip, was the last glimpse she was ever going to get of him. Her stomach cramped up; she seriously contemplated sliding to the floor, in case her stomach decided to follow suit with the rest of her organs and rupture.
Mia tried in vain to picture JT's last moments – but it wasn't possible. She didn't know what he was wearing that night; what Drake had said before he stabbed him. She hadn't been at the party – Christ, she didn't even know where Emma lived. JT had died. Her boyfriend was dead. And she didn't even know how or why or when.
She hadn't thought to ask Toby those kinds of things, before, when he'd told her. The only reaction she'd been capable of at the time was – well, the same one as now. Sobbing. What else could she do? JT was dead.
Mia struggled to set the scene within her own mind. She imagined JT talking and laughing, surrounded by friends... (JT had always been like that: a magnet for attention, for laughter. Sometimes she wondered what he saw in her, the meek teenage mother.) Anyway, in her head, JT was retelling some lame joke he loved – that one involving a cow and a dildo. Mia smiled; despite everything, she could recite it verbatim. Toby was off in some corner, surely, sulking because of the various girls who had rejected him over the course of the night. Manny would be grinding with Darcy in the middle, being the attention whores they were; Emma and her dropout boyfriend making out somewhere in the back. Liberty, of course, would be stomping around, scowling and scolding those who were drinking and warning everyone not to make too much noise. Yeah, that would be Liberty.
Mia closed her eyes and could almost picture JT remembering his cell, locked away in the Oldsmobile – he probably wanted to call her, to check up. Make sure she'd made it to her aunt's okay – yeah, Mia was sure that was it. He finished his story, leaving everyone in hysterics, and dashed outside. Fished his keys out of his right pocket, humming Blink-182 as he opened up the car…
…And then what? Mia's mind went blank. What happened next? When did Drake come into the picture? What did he say? How did JT respond? What had it felt like – a knife piercing through his flesh? Where had he been stabbed? How much blood was there? What had JT's last thoughts been – had they been of her? Of Bella? Who found him? Was he dead already, or did it take longer? How did everyone else find out? How did they react? How quickly had the party ended after that?
The questions raced through Mia's mind; one after another after another after another. The image of the life draining from JT's eyes flashed in front of her; she gasped and let her legs drop to the floor. She watched in horror as JT sunk to the ground, a final word lingering on his lips: Mia.
Mia smeared away a stray stream of tears, a final question lingering in her mind. Throughout all of the chaos – the inevitable police inquiries and hospital trips and whatever else death actually involved – had anyone even considered her? Remembered Mia Jones, JT's girlfriend – cared enough to call her, you know – inform her that her boyfriend had died?
A snort escaped. Probably not. No one but JT had ever cared about Mia. Toby, Liberty, Emma – to them, she didn't exist. Never mind that she'd been dating JT for nearly three months. Never mind that he was practically the father of her daughter. Never mind that she was pretty sure they'd been in love. She remained an outsider, an imposter – even after JT was gone.
Mia, the girlfriend, had been the last to know. JT had been dead for two full days before anyone even remembered to tell her. She'd been an afterthought, if anything: nothing more than a footnote on the life of James Tiberius Yorke.
The unfairness of it all spurred another round of tears; Mia turned her eyes upward as she debated what she would say to JT, given another five minutes of life.
I love you? You've changed me? Thanks for the memories?
She snorted again, this time at her own lameness. She wasn't going to get any more time, after all; JT's stay on planet Earth was over. Permanently. Oh my God.
She hadn't said goodbye. She hadn't known.
How could she have known?
How could she have stopped it?
The bathroom door opened, halting Mia's mourning momentarily. Mia held her breath as a pair of Pumas entered the bathroom and paused in front of a mirror; the creaky faucet could be heard in the background. Slowly, deliberately, she stood up and unhooked her stall's latch. It was time she got to math, anyway.
The door swung open; Liberty Van Zandt stared at Mia as if she were a mutant. Mia wiped away the last remains of her crying jag and stepped forward. Liberty continued to stare at her coldly through the mirror; Mia stared right back. The only sound to be heard was water gushing into the sink.
She was there, Mia realized in horror. She was there in his last hour; his last moments. She was there. Getting pregnant at fourteen had taught Mia that the world was an unfair place; but the fact that Liberty Van Zandt had gotten more of a goodbye with JT than she ever would seemed like the cruelest joke of all.
Her jaw was set; glare fierce; knees weak. Liberty ripped her eyes away and turned off the faucet. Mia shut her eyes; shook her head – she was seconds from stalking out into the hallway. Liberty had been there that night, after all, and Mia hadn't – she would never, ever forgive her for that.
But one thing tugged at Mia's reasoning; it kept her in the girl's bathroom, locked in an awkward silence with the girl she hated most. A week earlier, Mia would have rolled her eyes and marched away, content with the fact that JT loved her most. But… did that even matter anymore?
"What was he wearing?" she inquired sheepishly.
"Uh, what?"
"What was he – uh, JT – wearing? That night?" Liberty raised her eyebrows for a moment; Mia could feel the tears welling in her eyes. Liberty didn't say anything for a few seconds, choosing instead to stare at Mia through the mirror. "Please –" Mia begged quietly. "I just… I have to know. What was he wearing?"
Mia's words softened Liberty considerably – she sighed slowly and turned to face her directly. "Just – just a tee shirt," she replied wearily. "A white long-sleeved tee shirt with the buttons undone at the neck and… and his old beat-up jeans."
"What he had on that day, at school?" Liberty nodded sharply, although her expression had lost considerable severity. Mia's nightmare gained a little clarity. "Thank you," she whispered gratefully. Without another word, Mia shoved her hands into her pockets and walked out into the hallway.
JT Yorke is dead.
A fresh batch of tears trickled down her cheeks before Mia could hurriedly wipe them away. She took a deep breath and turned towards math class.
Now what?
Oh, god –
JT was dead.
…How I live to hear that sound; but every sound gets washed away.
And the years have been unkind; we no longer have control…
Liberty Van Zandt was moments away from a full fledged panic attack.
It was crumbling – the world as she saw it was crumbling. Threads spun loose, fraying the edges; faults formed, crackling as they stretched from corner to corner. The infrastructure she'd spend years erecting was caving in; her world was caving in. Bits and pieces of her life broke free and tumbled away; leaving holes beyond repair. The destruction echoed within her; splitting and snapping until she could no longer concentrate. The hollow hum of her world crumbling surged through her ears and her heart, her brain and her lungs – until she had to fight for air.
She attempted to calm herself; regulate her breathing back into normality – but she continued to gasp helplessly as her walls toppled and buckled. Liberty had never had a problem with asthma, but she would have given anything for an inhaler, right at this very moment. She closed her eyes and imagined sucking in on the small piece of plastic, just like Toby used to do, so many gym classes ago. She imagined the nameless miracle drug seeping into her bloodstream, clearing her throat. Temporarily fixing all her problems. She breathed in deeply, feeling slightly better.
She could do this. She would do this. All it took was a little lip gloss, a pen to fill out some dittos, money for lunch – she could do this. She could be okay. She could fake it, at least. She had to fake it. She couldn't let everyone else see that she was crumbling. Liberty Van Zandt didn't crumble.
She couldn't even begin to start to comprehend that this was what the rest of her life was going to be like. It had been just over 48 hours, and already she was falling apart. She had, what? Fifty, sixty years left? The thought of sixty years without his smile sent another chunk of her plummeting; she pushed it out of her mind and concentrated on her surroundings. They were so familiar, and yet felt so freakishly foreign.
The desk she'd inhabited every morning for just over four months now impounded her mercilessly. A few of her old essays were tacked to the board next to the door: The Calamity of Colonization, The Great Leap Forward: Nothing But a Great Failure, How the Cold War Froze the Russian Economy. Usually, looking at them made her smile to herself, thinking back proudly to the excellent work she had churned out in the past. Today, the essays only served as a harsh reminder of before.
That was how the rest of her life was going to be: split up. Before and after. No matter how much she yearned for it; how many tears she choked back in an attempt to remain strong – before would always remain simply that. Before now. Before this. Before Liberty sat in her history desk, slumped over for the first time in her life. Before the world as she saw it crumbled.
"Ms. Van Zandt?" Another bit gave up and plunged. "Hello? Anyone home?" Liberty looked up. Mr. Perino was standing in front of her, tapping a pen against his clipboard in annoyance. Liberty searched for a word, any word – but her throat was dry and her world was crumbling. Her history teacher, notorious for being a complete ass, rolled his eyes. "Come on, I don't have all day."
"W-what?" The single syllable took Liberty a marathon's worth of effort to produce.
"The homework, Van Zandt, which I assigned Friday and assumed you've done. Questions five through ten on page 503, if I remember correctly."
Liberty looked to her bag, fully aware that there was no such assignment within it. Such an assignment in Liberty's handwriting didn't exist – what with everything that had happened that weekend; it had completely slipped her mind. Liberty searched for a sentence, a phrase – anything that could sufficiently express her horror, her grief. How his blood had gurgled on to her fingers, her clothes; how it had turned cold in a chillingly short amount of time. How she spent two hours squinting under the fluorescent hospital lights that blinded her and jaded her all at once. How Toby's arm felt pressed against her spine; Emma's head on her shoulder; Manny sobbing in the background. How it felt to be the only one standing erect as her friends, her world, crumbled.
She searched for the words, but nothing came. She looked up to Mr. Perino, who raised his eyebrows skeptically. "Van Zandt didn't do the homework? Alert the presses, everyone!" He grinned and he scribbled her name on his pad. His glee was obvious; this was easily his favorite part about his job. Liberty had never understood what drove a man who reveled in failure to become a teacher in the first place. "Well, Liberty, I don't know what I'm going to do with you. This is the first step, you know – next thing we know, you'll be dropping out and dealing drugs." He chuckled, clearly not finished yet. Liberty remained focused on her desk; repeated the love notes and death threats scratched into the varnish until she could recite them. "It's a slippery slope, Van Zandt. A slippery slope, indeed."
B.G. + E.R. TRU LUV 4EVER. MARK IS AN ASS. I HEART I.P. PERINO FUCKS ARMSTRONG UP THE ASS AND LIKES IT.
"Here's hoping this doesn't become a trend, Van Zandt. Although, it would greatly benefit the other students if you failed, seeing as the curve would suffer significantly. I suppose –" Liberty gulped. His words clung to her, like a particularly ugly sweater. She couldn't shake them off. She couldn't shake any of this off, no matter how hard she tried.
"Stop." It took a second for Liberty to comprehend that it was not Mr. Perino who had spoken, but – she turned around to find the source of the voice. Toby was in his usual seat, three rows behind her; glasses askew and eyes defiant. Mr. Perino stared at his normally meek student incredulously, seemingly finding Toby's uncharacteristically bold words to be a figment of his imagination. "Just shut up, okay? She didn't do the homework. Get over it. Being an ass isn't going to do anything about it."
Liberty gulped again as Toby continued to stare Perino down. The teacher took a step forward; smirked. "My room. After school. We'll discuss this then."
Toby's expression made it clear he did not care. Perino said no more of the incident, instead moving on to harass the next student. Liberty looked at Toby for a few more moments, as the outside world proceeded to drain away again. He offered her a small, weak smile. She attempted one in return.
Her world was crumbling, and Toby was the only one who saw it.
She turned back to the front of the room. She was hit with an odd notion, then, as she stared at the chicken scratches that littered the white board in front of her.
Maybe she wasn't the only one.
…we are no more.
A/N: So did you guys like it? I have another chapter in mind, perhaps, if anyone is interested. Reviews are always appreciated! Thanks for taking the time to read!