A/N: This story has been bugging me to write it for awhile now.It's confusing as hell, I'm sure. I'm not even sure what it's trying to say. Oh well, hate it, love it, review it, do something. I'm just glad it's finally out of my head.
Oh, and the songs I wrote this story to are in my info, assuming anybody cares.
Here she is again. The ravine; the natural habitat for the rejects and losers of Degrassi. Hazel shouldn't be here. This isn't her place. It's Friday night, she should be driving to the mall right now or getting ready to go out to some new club with her friends, eating dinner at a fancy restaurant with a cute boy or shopping for prom dresses, anything but this. But she's not doing any of those other things. She hasn't in a long time.
Once Paige and Alex came out with their relationship Hazel's whole life changed. Most of her former friends won't speak to her because of all the rumors flying around about her and Paige. And she's too pissed at the happy couple for ruining her life to hang with them. She and Alex don't get along anyway, so it's for the best.
But, the ravine? Is she really this desperate for company? Is her life this devoid of meaning, she has to come here every weekend and get high with these losers? Why the fuck did she come here again?
The crowd parts like the red sea and Hazel sees her answer. He's pouring himself a beer, flirting with an anonymous brunette in a dress that looks like it was originally a scrunchie. 'Doesn't matter' Hazel thinks as she struts forward, head held high. 'She'll be gone as soon as I make myself known.'
She's right. He sees her and walks away from the brunette, who's currently in mid sentence to meet Hazel by the bonfire. If Hazel Aden being at the ravine is a mystery, then her random attraction to Jay Hogart is the fucking million dollar question. He is soooo not her type. He's sleazy and a stoner and he has no future and she can't remember wanting any guy like this before. Maybe it's the fact that she hates him almost as much as she wants him.
"Present for you." He hands her the beer and she accepts it gladly, and it takes her attention away from her hatred/lust dilemma. There's nothing like seeing the word "Dyke" not written, but carved, into your gym locker to make a girl want to forget her day. Hazel wants to forget.
Jay guides her over to the fire. Kids are sitting all around, some of them Hazel has seen around school, and some she hasn't. Once again, it doesn't matter. They're all stoned out their minds and as she slowly sips her beer, (she wants to gulp it down, but ladylike habits are sometimes the hardest to break) Hazel is grateful to know that soon she will be too. Then she can feel better. Or numb. Whichever.
Jay takes a hit from the joint first and Hazel loves the look on his face. For Jay, this is bliss comparable to sex. He understands how great it is to forget life. She knows that the two of them are not alone in this, but for a minute it's like they are. After all, they were betrayed by the same people. Paige and Alex. Jay and Hazel's lives would be much better if those two hadn't gotten together, if Alex had gone back to Jay, if Paige hadn't decided to stop caring abut her reputation. Why were they so selfish? And Jimmy, and Ellie for getting together, Marco for graduating early, the cheer squad for kicking her out when the rest of her life had fallen apart and she started to miss meetings because she didn't want to face school. She shakes her head like that will make her thoughts go away. She can't think about this right now.
"Fuck them all." Jay gives her a strange look as the joint is passed to her. Hazel blushes but offers no explanation. She didn't mean to say that out loud but fucking herself up is more important than clarifying that right now.
Her lungs are filled with smoke and the burning has a calming effect on her strangely enough. She leans back into her nearly broken foldout chair (the ravine kids are classy) and smiles, letting the smoke seep through her teeth. Jay cracks up.
"You look like the Cheshire cat." He tells her, and reaches over, trying to snatch up the joint. She pulls her arm out his reach and takes another drag before passing the joint back. She wishes she were the Cheshire Cat. She could disappear when she wanted and sing those silly songs all day and be striped pink and purple. Awesome.
Oh well. At least this is better than finding some stupid dress for some stupid dance she doesn't even have a stupid date to.
Fifteen minutes later, Hazel is getting tired of the constant giggling and ramblings of the idiots around her. Even Jay is getting annoying with his random spurts of high pitched giggling. It doesn't fit his usual bad ass demeanor and that annoys her. Hazel stands up and decides to take a walk. She grabs her long since abandoned beer and starts to walk away, never mind the fact that she stumbles every few steps. She hasn't fallen yet.
A little ways into the forest she can hear someone behind her. It's Jay of course, a cigarette in his mouth and a bottle of something in his left hand. Hazel reaches over and takes the cigarette from him. She takes a drag on it. Why does everything bad always feel so good?
"Grabby tonight aren't we, princess?" In one swift movement he's pressed up against her and she's pressed up against a tree. "Feel like grabbing anything else?" His breath is all smoke and ember. Hazel thinks to herself 'He's a dragon.' She knows it's a stupid thought, but all of a sudden she needs to not be touching him. He could burn her to a crisp if she doesn't get away or chomp her in half with his sharp reptile teeth. But she isn't getting away; he's making sure of it. There is no stupid girlish giggling now, he is all business. Her resolve melts with the rest of her when he kisses her. It's fast and his lips against hers are rough and chapped. She opens her eyes and sees the smoke from the cigarette rising up, slowly, softly, like the sight of it is making up for the harshness of the kiss.
Suddenly, Hazel wants to dance. Not wild or crazy to the rap drifting into her ears from the ravine, she wants to slow dance to a nice gentle song. She wants to be wearing a beautiful taffeta dress and have her make up done and she doesn't want to be in some dark forest with a guy she hates as much as she lusts after, she wants to be in the brightly lit, crowded hotel ballroom that will host her prom next month. With a guy she loves and trusts. Her eyes close and for a minute she's there but then Jays hands slink up her shirt and she's back where she started.
Later, on her back, shirt pulled up, jeans pulled down, in the familiar "hook up" van that's been host to this activity many times before, Hazel stops thinking entirely. Her first time is in on the alcohol-smelling, cum-stained carpet of an acid dealer's beat up car and she knows Jay doesn't love her, nowhere near it. The act of sex seems, itself to be as hard and rough as Jay's kiss but it doesn't hurt, or if it does she's too high to care.
Amazingly, they come together and for a minute Hazel feels that same peace she felt earlier, when she saw the smoke rising off the cigarette. Maybe it's her imagination, but as Jay lays collapsed on her, in the darkness of the van, Hazel thinks she can see smoke rising off their entwined bodies. She starts to think, 'Maybe I can ask Jay to prom. It would be interesting at least and he can be fun.'
There is a knock on the door and Jay stands up to pull on his clothes and leaves without a word. She does the same and passes another couple on their way in, both of them giggling like morons. Hazel thinks the girl's name is Amy Something-or-other.
Instead of going to the bonfire where Jay is, she'll get into her car and go home. She won't ask him to prom, hell, she probably won'tgo to prom herself, but she knows she'll be here again tomorrow night with a guy she barely knows and yet now she knows him in the most intimate of ways. They'll drink, get high, and maybe she'll wind up in the van again with Jay, or someone else. Doesn't matter.
As she drives home, Hazel lights another cigarette and keeps her windows rolled up. The burning is kind of a purging in her body and she can see better through the haziness of the smoke anyway.