Disclaimer: I do not own Degrassi: The Next Generation. That belongs to CTV. It gives me yet another reason to want to be Canadian.
A/N: This idea came to me randomly at around eight o'clock this morning. To me, it comes off as kind of melodramatic considering the character it involves does not contain a shred of angst. This contains major season four spoilers from Islands in the Stream, Time Stands Still, and Neutron Dance. You have been warned. Also, this is rated PG-13 for mentions of violence and some profanity.
And so it begins.
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There's something about being in the same room for two weeks that makes a person go insane. At first, as you're lying there on the cloud white sheets, you do various things to keep yourself from straying towards the brink of insanity. You count the tiles on the ceiling. You get someone all of the magazines, even though they might give you some unwanted insight into the mind of a girl, from the waiting room. You listen to the sounds buzzing outside your room. Eventually, you get to a point where all of those things make you want go incredibly nuts. You don't care anymore about the number of the tiles because you've counted them forty two times…or was it forty five? You could give less of a crap about the secret world of girls because you had every word in the book memorized. All of the noises outside of your room were a constant plaguing reminder of your presence in your room and how you wound up here. Insanity was no longer across the country; it was in your backyard.
Welcome to my world.
In most cases, I would enjoy this constant attention, if it were for some great achievement or something. But no, there's this uncomfortable feeling that I get whenever I decide to watch the television in my room and have them mention the reason why I'm here. The media can't get enough of the story; it's their perfect news story of the year. I'm their new project, their new cover story. Everything about my current situation is pounded into my head with a hammer. I'm something for them to feed off of. Local basketball player who was bound to go into college ball was shot in the back and is paralyzed. It's this constant reminder of how I got screwed over. How I got betrayed. How because of the stupidity of someone I deemed as my best friend, my whole life plan was been turned into dust.
I've gotten enough flowers to last me a lifetime. I've gotten enough cards and sympathy. I've just gotten enough of everything. I'm completely tired. Everyday it's the same whole routine of therapy, sympathetic bullshit, and updates on my condition. I've become numb to the routine. I just go through the motions and it all works out. I endure everything and just dread for the next day when I have to do it once more. The next day of people tip-toeing around me and people I don't even know feeding me sympathy on a spoon. Not feeding, actually, more like choking me with it. I'm just holding out for that day where everyone just forgets about tiptoeing around me and lets me be. I crave for just a shred of normalcy and things to go back to normal. But no, nothing will probably ever be normal. The whole school was shattered to the core over what happened and I'm just going to be the poster boy for the anti-school violence cause. Nothing really to look forward to. I'll just be tiptoed around for the rest of my life. My parents will probably send me off to psychiatrist with the help of their grand paychecks they're filling right now with high dollar amounts of money. On one hand its like, how can I expect everything to go back to normal? How can I expect everything to just be forgotten and swept under the rug? But I can't stop wanting it to go back to normal. I can feel it starting to go back to normal. Craig's been frequently visiting me, telling me of how I was completely right about him and Ash. Marco tells me of his duties as school President and how he's been attempting to guide hurricane Alex away from the mainland. They both told me about the demise of our musical kid, the band. I was replaced with a keyboard and a tambourine. That's real nice, guys, replacing the crippled kid with his ex-girlfriend and Spinner's new honeybee. Guess they didn't need the extra guitar after all. Can't blame Spinner for replacing me with Manny Santos, I mean, his own personal needs are always before his supportive former best friend.
That infamous day replays in my head over and over again. It's become the broken record that's replaced counting the tiles on the ceiling and flipping through issues of Good Housekeeping. It starts with Rick getting doused with the yellow paint and feathers. Embarrassment was dripping off of him along with the anger you could see glinting through his eyes that were behind painted glasses. With one glance at Spinner, Jay, and Alex laughing hysterically with the rest of the school, I could tell that they were some part of it. There was this feeling in the pit of my stomach just howling at me. Then of course, the idiot brags about it to me. How could someone be so completely cruel and heartless? Well, I got my answer. Spinner not only humiliated Rick in front of the entire school but he also pushed him off of the edge. We all knew he had some kind of anger problem and yet he was still our personal punching bag. I mean, even I did it at times. Except I don't exactly put stealing a guy's hat on the same level as making him a human chicken in his moment of glory. I remember stealing one of Marco's hats one day in the beginning of the year out of good fun. It was one of the days during his campaign where if you were to tap him on the shoulder, you silently feared he would go into kung-fu mode on you. Anyway. Then it cuts to…god. I can't think about it. That part just blurs together in one horrible montage. I can't think about it. Even if I can't think about it, I'm still straddling the line of insanity. Eventually, I will have hopped over it and the town of complete insanity would be my new place of residence. It's only a matter of time.
I groaned before I picked up the issue of Sports Illustrated I had read about five times from cover to cover. It would be about a few more readings until I absorbed every detail and could give you a word by word retelling of any article you picked out at random. If only I was like this with book reports for English class. I've never done too stellar in school really. I could never pay attention to what was going on. My mind was always across the river thinking about something else. I guess I have to have a lot of interest invested in something in order for me to do well with it. However, even with my lack of interest, I still manage to squeak by. In situations, I end up coming out with one of the best possible outcomes, depending on how you view the situation.
"I thought this was a hospital room, not a floral store with a bad decorating scheme," I unburied myself out of the old magazine and turned my head and soaked in the image of my visitor.
I laughed weakly, "Nice to see you too, Paige."
I have histories with a lot of people. Eventually, you could link me to almost every student in the school. However, the history that stands out from the most is that I have with Paige. We've known each other the longest and surprisingly, Paige's friendship with Ash takes second to the length of my friendship with Paige. While Ash and Paige had known each other since grade two, I had known Paige since Kindergarten.
How our friendship happened has to be one of the most hilarious memories I have. In Kindergarten, everyone's still at that whole thing where the boys think the girls have cooties and vice versa. So me being the boy thinking that the girls had cooties, I told Paige she couldn't play soccer with us because only boys could play soccer. Besides, girls had cooties. So that was pretty much the ultimate blow to Paige's little five year old ego, so she rounded up all of the girls and challenged us to soccer. Needless to say, somehow the girls managed to whoop our Kindergarten butts and I completely worshipped Paige after that point.
Grade two rolls around and soon, I've been replaced by Ashley and Terri. I mean, I'm a boy with cooties. They're girls with cooties. A self respecting grade two guy wouldn't be caught dead hanging around a bunch of girls unless they wanted to be ridiculed by the entire elementary school population. So then I somehow ended up befriending Spinner. That whole memory is murky. After the whole MP3 stealing incident, I guess I started holding the ultimate grudge where I blocked out everything that had to do with Spinner. I think I'm going to end up doing that again, much to my incredible disdain towards grudges.
Somewhere along the line, Paige and I finally realize that the other does not have cooties. Or maybe that we both did have cooties. Somehow, I end up growing closer to Ash through my friendship with Paige and we become the epitome of a perfect middle school relationship in grade seven. My whole relationship with Ash was a crutch so I could be able to sustain and breathe life into my friendship with Paige. With all of the drama with my parents never being home and me having my first girlfriend, Paige seemed to be the only stability I had. When everything seemed to go to complete crap, there was Paige critiquing Heather Sinclair's eyebrows. She still is one of the most fun people I've ever met.
Then there was a whole period of complete confusion during my relationship with Ash. Stability was a word in a foreign language no one knew. My parents were working overtime for reasons unknown to me at the moment. There was the pressure of going to the next step with Ash whispering in my ear by Spinner and his little friend. Then there was the whole Romeo and Juliet incident I can still never make heads or tails of. It was so random. So spontaneous. Maybe Paige had some jealousy towards my relationship with Ash and decided to well, express it. Maybe she was throwing herself into the play a tad too much. I just don't know. I just don't want to ask her. It's one of those plaguing things you want to ask a friend about. However, you can't bring yourself to. It's none of your business. The answers to your question would shatter your friendship into shards of something you treasured.
Somehow, we both ended up dating the other's best friend. However recently, Spinner and Paige broke up because Spinner was a complete jackass. That's reason enough. I can wrap my mind around it. We both now have this bond over knowing how it feels like to have been royally screwed over by Spinner Mason.
"So, how have you been, Jim," She asked softly. Again with the tiptoeing. I didn't want that. I thought she wasn't going to do that. She doesn't understand how freaking lucky I am. I could have come out of that with a tombstone with my name carved into it. Instead I came out of it crippled and with a completely broken friendship. See? There is a silver lining to everything. I mean, crippled or dead? Hate to go out on a limb here, but I'd rather be crippled than dead.
I sighed, "It's been the usual, Paige. The usual being getting flowers from people I don't even know, staring blankly at the walls, and therapy." Did she not realize I didn't want her to be like everyone else and constantly remind me of why I was here? I wanted an escape, an open window to haul myself out of. I wanted her to open the window for me, not slam it shut. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to escape. No such luck. I sighed again. "I…really don't want to talk about this. At all." Distraction, I needed to divert her attention. "Tell me how you've been. Tell me what's going on in the fantastic world of Paige." I laughed weakly yet sarcastically.
"Well, I can't pass up that opportunity," She grinned. "Hazel hasn't been filling you in, I take it. I'm disappointed in that girl."
"Yeah, well," I stated as I dug my fingers into the white sheets. How could I tell her that her best friend was a neurotic mess every time she came to visit me? Hazel was probably the worst of the tiptoeing people. Not that I really could blame her. I just wanted everyone to stop treating me as though I would break in their hands at a moment's notice like a piece of delicate china. I was strong and fortified. To put it ironically, I'm bullet proof. Everything affects me to a lesser degree than it would the normal person. There's this optimistic voice chanting in the back of my head. Things will get better. You just have to wait a little bit longer. I guess that was enough for me.
Paige sighed, "She's been a bit of a nervous wreck lately, hon. I know it. That kind of has to do with what's been going with me lately…" She trailed off before giving me a lengthy explanation of how Hazel had been going to yoga lately in order to calm her nerves. Paige had decided to go because of the supposedly stunningly attractive instructor. It was like Falcone, except it was an extended remix. Never had Paige gotten a fake ID and pursued Falcone at a freaking bar. Never had Paige taken the time to find out whether or not Falcone had a girlfriend.
"So, you're saying you actually went after this guy," I asked witheringly.
She scoffed, "Jim, I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself, thank you very much."
"Well, good luck, I guess," I told her somewhat bitterly. She wasn't this stupid, now was she? "I mean, if you can get over that whole him having a girlfriend barrier as well as the age barrier, I'm sure you'll both live happily ever after. Did I mention that he's a teacher assistant?" Did I also mention you're being a complete idiot? I shook my head, denying that Paige had gone completely insane and had lost her sense of logic in the process.
"But he's just so perfect," She whined.
I groaned, "Paige, dating an ass like Spin will make everyone who is not Spinner seem incredibly perfect. It's practically a law."
"Way to support your best friend," She rolled her eyes while snorting. I felt myself running across the line into the town of insanity. Running, again, more irony.
"Best friend? You better be kidding me," I started off, quite pissed off. "You do realize that I'm here because he needed to save his own ass, don't you? The guy who screwed us both over is why I'm about to go insane. I'm tired of people tiptoeing allover me. I'm just tired, Paige. I'm tired of this drama. I'm tired of the flowers I'm getting everyday by people I don't even know. I'm tired of this hospital room. I'm tired of this crap they serve for food here. There have been so many times where I've just wanted to go out and get a hamburger and realized I can't because I'm stuck here." I shook my head again before letting my head sink into the pillow, hoping that I can possibly fall asleep and forget about this bullshit for a few hours.
I took another glance at her, seeing concern glaze over her eyes. I had just coated myself in my harsh reality. I knew how everything worked. I knew that I'd always be the poster boy for what happens when you pushed someone over the edge. I knew that there was a pretty hefty chance that my future in basketball would be completely non-existent. I knew that I'd be tiptoed over for the rest of my life.
Paige looked over at me before I felt her hand glide across mine before she clasped it. I could tell that she had probably used some kind of fruity lotion, considering the smooth texture of her hand against mine. I watched her tentatively for a moment before she responded to what I had just rambled on about. I could predict the words spilling out of her mouth. Her probably saying how I have to keep my spirits up or something along those lines. It must be such a crime, for me to show some shred of negativity. Gasp.
However, I must suck at predicting things.
"It's all going to work out, Jim," She reassured me before giving my hand a squeeze that would add some kind of conviction to her statement. I took a moment to let the moment seep through my brain. Even though I pretty much figured she was sugarcoating everything because she still felt the need to tiptoe over me, an optimistic voice chimed in the back of my head.
Everything would work out.
Eventually.