Chapter 1

The Dot. The place that seemed to be a right of passage for any Degrassi student. The place where we would be able to convene after a drama filled school day.

I remember how Eli and I would show up almost everyday to visit Claire after work. I remember going to the Dot with Drew and Dallas after a workout for a reward. I remember going on dates with Fiona at the Dot and chatting with Imogen about our next band song. I remember Becky, Becky Baker. And how we would hold hands and steal kisses in the booths. We would talk about the future and what would happen to us after high school. There was no doubt between her and I that we would be in each other's futures before the summer and the accident. Our future. Ha. The future that was stolen from us without any protest. If I had had a say in it, then I would've screamed and fought to keep the dream of Becky and my future alive, because it was a great dream, a damn beautiful one.

As I stand across the street from the dot and watch as the post light above the dot illuminate what I've lost. I let everything in. I remember everything. I remember the fights, laughs, and tears that were let out in that same store. The memories at the Dot bring a certain warmth that I haven't felt since the accident. But I also remember that that was then and this is now. It's exactly 4 years since the accident. I have fully transitioned and am 21 years old now, which means everyone else is also older now. They've left this town. Found new loves. Went after their dreams. Tried to be better selves of themselves. They may have even failed at everything, but the important thing is that they're still moving through life. They have moved on.

How can I blame them though? They think I'm dead. Adam Torres is just a distant memory for them. I was the boy in high school that unfortunately died. The one that everyone mentions over some mindless chatter at a gathering every few years. Hmmm… How can I be so alive from where I live now and go back to my past and be just a faint memory. This is all so sad its kind of funny. The fact that I'm back in Degrassi, let alone Canada is even funnier. But let me start at the accident. I have a feeling you're extremely confused as to how I am alive right now. I mean how can someone survive a crash like that in the middle of the night. They told Audra Torres… yes my mother, that I was dead. I clearly am not.

Let's start at my family situation. Audra married Drew's father when I was about 13. Before the wedding, say about 2 years earlier, no one knew that Audra had adopted me. Audra isn't my real mother, but she treated me like I was her own. The truth was that I was out one day when I was eleven and I got separated from my biological family. We were on a hike near our home. I somehow got separated like I said and ended up falling down and banging my head on one of the rocks. I woke up with a bandage wrapped around my head in a hospital not remembering my life, family, or birth name. All I new was that a lady who was Audra was talking to a doctor and looking at me with concerned eyes. She was the one that found me and brought me to the hospital. It took me a few days to open up to anyone but when I did, I did to Audra. She was kind and had this motherly aura. We decided that I would live with Audra after I was released from the hospital to wait for my family to come find me, because it was difficult to alert the press when I couldn't even remember my name. By 2 months, I felt so unwanted because my family hadn't found me yet. It wasn't even about my family, because I couldn't even remember them. I honestly think I was scared because where would I go after Audra got tired of waiting like I was. I'd cry every night, until Audra came in one night and told me that she wanted to adopt me. I would be her daughter and I would be able to stay with her forever. It was a done deal. She never told anyone that I was adopted, not even Drew or his father. I was hers in everyway.

Now back to the night of the accident. Remember how Fiona and I use to date. I met her mom a bunch of times. Apparently she is a family friend of my family, the McDonalds and Venturis. I think when I wanted Fiona to like me I told her about the adoption but made her swear to not say anything to anyone not even Drew. That was the only time I told anyone because I wanted some kind of validation for her love. I didn't need to do that with Becky. Fiona must have told her mom and it must have slipped out at a dinner with my biological parents one night and they alerted my grandmother to reach out to her contacts in Canada to find me. You see the McDonalds are rather wealthy. When they found out that I was injured in the hospital. They had me flown from the hospital to my grandmother's mansion in Canada. By telling her contacts to do what was necessary, I guess they thought telling Audra and Drew that I had died was the easiest way to cover the story up. I don't even think my grandmother knew what they had done nor do I blame her for the way I left Degrassi. She only did what was best for her family. I was leaving the Torres's, my Degrassi family, for the McDonald's, who I hadn't seen in 6 years.

I woke up 2 weeks after the accident with a fully transitioned body. I guess that's what money can do, and I guess they had heard from the Coynes about how I wanted to transition. Waking up was the most ironic thing, not like when I had arrived to Audra. I remembered my past before Audra, but I couldn't remember my life in Degrassi. 6 years of emptiness. I could remember things I learned in school like straight up facts but people, faces, and memories were a blur.

I remember seeing my biological mother, Nora, my sister, Casey, my stepfather, and my stepsiblings, Derek, Edwin, and Marty. It was like we there was no time lost. We all quickly slipped back into our old banters. I also found out that my stepfather and mother had had 2 kids, Izzy (3 years old) and Jaxon (2 years old) since I was away. My sister Casey had become a lawyer like she wanted and even taught a couple dance classes when she had time. Derek played professional hockey. Edwin was studying to become a filmmaker, while Marty had become very interested in fashion and modeling. I had my old family back, but I also felt this chunk of emptiness from the 6 years that was missing.

My family asked me what name I wanted to be called because I had transitioned and funny. I chose Adam. My name is Adam McDonald.

It took me about 3 and a half months or rehabilitation to get back onto my feet. My mother thought it would be best to finish my last year of high school in an actual school, so I moved back to California with my family and started my senior year there. I made a lot of friends, and even caught up with my childhood friend, Kat. We knew each other since we were 2. Our families are close friends, which made us inseparable. She's an actress now. After high school, I took college classes at Standford and dated a bit. I pursued my interests in music and even was urged by Kat to do some acting. After getting my body in the sculpt that I wanted, I became pretty highly requested for movies. I released an album also and that became quite famous. Everything was looking up for me. I was even able to push the urging feeling of having a chunk of my life erased, or so I thought I had everything under control.

It wasn't until I heard from my record label that it was time to write my second album and I had absolutely nothing. All the newness of returning home to the McDonald's was encompassed in the first album. I wasn't dating anyone. I wracked my brain so hard and would end up with nothing. It was like the only thing that I could think about was the 6 years that was missing. I became a mess. A kid with too much money, independence, and too many troubles, what is he going to do? I started to hang out with the bad crowd in town. I partied harder and even did a few drugs. Every time I would become intoxicated, I would get glimpses of the 6 years. Volleyball. Blond Hair. Gun. Slot Machines. Bathroom Floors. Motherly Eyes. I pushed everyone away my family and Kat. I got so bad one night. That Kat couldn't take it. We're best friends and no matter how mad or how much we can't stand the other, if the other is in danger, we'd be right next to the other in a heart beat. She found me passed out in a hotel room, drugged up with a glass bottle in my hand. I heard her shouting my name that night to wake up, but I couldn't even if I wanted to. I thought I was going to die. The darkness came and everything from the 6 years resurfaced. Drew. Audra. Dallas. Fiona. Imogen. Claire. Eli. Becky.

I woke up in a hospital bed looking across a sleeping Kat in the chair across the room. After she woke up, she walked over to my bed and hit me really hard in the arm. She broke down crying and said if I didn't get my act together she would leave me too. Right then and there, I saw how much of an ass I had been to Kat, my best friend, who only wanted the best for me and loved me. I finally opened up to her about why I had been acting the way I had been. She made me promise to stop doing the things I was doing and that she would help me with what I wanted to do now that I remembered those 6 years. I made her promise to not tell my family what had happened that night. I didn't want them to worry or interfere with any of my future plans to go back to Degrassi.

I got my act together and became the best friend, brother, stepson, grandson, and son anyone could ask for. I wrote songs based on what the 6 years of Degrassi. I started to devise a plan to go back to Degrassi to see everyone until we had the Coynes over for dinner one night. Seeing Fiona, even though I had seen her multiple times over the years was like seeing an old face. I just wanted to run up to her, hug her, and tell her I remember. I think she sort of had a feeling something was up because I kept staring at her. Over the years, we would just avoid each other. I think it was more on her part than mine because she was the one with the memories not me. If she was going to avoid me I just did the same. I sat next to her at dinner and towards the end I whispered in her ear, "Princess Fiona," before getting up and leaving the dining room. She followed me shortly and jumped on me.

"You remember. My prince, " Fiona said before giving me the longest hug. She told me everything about everyone in Degrassi. Yes… Even the fact that Becky and Drew dated. That really struck a chord with me. The fact that they dated so quickly after my death. I know I shouldn't be mad but I couldn't help it. Drew was my brother and Becky was my girlfriend. That should've meant something. Didn't it? My mind was no longer determined to go back to Degrassi. I was too confused and not ready to step into high waters. I never even apologized to Imogen for what I did to her. I walked out on Claire in a time she needed me the most. And Eli, we were best friends. I missed out on so much of his life and the troubles he had to go on alone. Everything reminded me that I wasn't ready to see them. But here I was standing across the Dot. With a ring in my pocket. Shaky hands. Thinking, "What the hell am I doing here."