Although the new Degrassi GreenSpace garden has become the more popular hangout, it's something of a tradition for Eli and Fiona to meet in the zen garden in the mornings, for breakfast and Xanax. Fiona brings croissants, Eli brings cappuccino, and they both bring their own pills in their own pockets in their own nearly-identical pill bottles, everything alike except for their names. And usually they make their morning rendezvous uninterrupted, to talk and laugh a bit about live and consume enough caffeine to counterbalance the soporific of the anti-anxiety pills they both take.
This morning, though, Fiona is early and finds a stranger kneeling before the sign saying "JT Yorke memorial garden." She takes a step back, clears her throat, and the man in the suit turns, and blushes, and adjusts his dark-rimmed glasses.
"I'm sorry," he says, as awkwardly as he looks. "Didn't expect anyone to be here this early."
"We always have breakfast," Fiona babbles, as Eli appears with a cup of coffee in each hand.
"Who's this?" Eli asks, and the suited stranger shrugs, holds out his hand first to Eli and then to Fiona.
"Mr. Isaacs," he says by way of introduction. "I'm new, that is I'm old, that is…I'm an alum. And the new guidance counselor, specializing in conflict management, which is something that this school could use, apparently. It's all gone downhill since I graduated." He points to the memorial marker. "Did you know him?"
Fiona and Eli both shake their heads in the negative.
"He was my best friend and he died. Stabbed. My other best friend also died, shot, and the moral of this story is?" He lowers his voice dramatically. "Being friends with me is a very dangerous proposition."
Fiona laughs. "Is your first name Toby? I think my friend Holly J liked you."
He snorts. "She did."
"I liked her, if that's any consolation."
Toby laughs there, and it's enough to make Fiona laugh too and Eli's still holding back, like he always does with strangers. Force of habit.
"You're having a breakfast party, then?"
"Coffee, croissants, and Xanax!" Fiona says, cheerfully. "Want in?"
Toby looks at them both, then slowly – carefully – takes a pillbottle out of his inside pocket. He shakes one of the blue pills inside into the palm of his hand, replaces the bottle, then looks out at the two Degrassi Seniors. "I don't think I'm supposed to be fraternizing with the students, but screw it," he mutters, then smiles nervously. "That's one of about fifty pills I take, being bipolar has its disadvantages, but I'm meant to be a good example that we can be functional. And this is something else I probably shouldn't be talking about."
"We don't mind," says Eli, with a guarded smile.
"Cheers," says Fiona, holding up her coffee-cup, and Toby gropes for his own coffee mug and they all sip at once.
