Love The Things You've Left Behind

Pairing: Emma/Chris

Summary: Nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same. And yet, here I was, dressed in black, hoping for things that would never be again.

A/N: I know that Emma/Chris is an odd pairing to write a fanfic about since: a.) their relationship was never really touched on in the show and b.) there aren't that many fics about them around here. But I'm probably one of the few people who thinks that if their relationship had been developed more, they could've been a good couple, even better than Emma and Sean. So that's part of the rest why I decided to write LLTYLB…that, and because I wanted to write Emma as a Goth or some other product of punk subculture. A little out there for our blond girl, but I feel that it works. (Oh, and if I've messed up on how Goths are supposed to dress/act, I'm sorry. I only really know about punk and emo culture.) And there will be some Emma/Alex friendship, because Alex is a badass. If you don't like Alex, then don't read this, because she will show up a lot.

Long story short, this is how my fic came to be. It's my first Degrassi fic, so I'm very excited about what everyone will think of it. I've been a long-time reader of Degrassi stories, and it feels good to finally be a part of the fic side of the fandom. Look out for more fics from me in the future, 'cause I'll definitely do more stuff for Degrassi. So enjoy the story, and please review! Reviews are love. 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi. If I did, the show would be a whole lot better now. I also don't own this chapter title. It (and the song lyrics I used) belong to the badass indie band Interpol.

Chapter 1: Lighthouse

Here I've been living and losing from sin

I pulled it out now, begin, begin

Here I've been living and losing within

Inwardly urgent and sinking again

I, Emma Nelson, believe in ghosts.

Not the ones you're thinking of. Not peevish, chain-rattling poltergeists or haunted, transparent apparitions or even the white-sheet ghosts from old Scooby Doo cartoons. My ghosts are a different kind, the kind that snipe and bitch at me every night, constantly reminding me of my failures. With Rick. With Toby. With my mom and Snake, causing them to argue right before their wedding. Even with Manny, and all the things I criticized her for—her taste in music, guys, and even her clothes, no matter how slutty/revealing they really were.

I go off like I don't give a shit about me playing a part in Rick's death, about my friendship with Manny being destroyed, and especially about that incident at the ravine with Jay. But the truth is that I can't let go of these issues. If those ghosts from my past aren't enough, the students of Degrassi are always talking about the latest gossip. They know that I almost got shot. They know that I now hate my best friend since kindergarten. But they know me best as "gonorrhea girl", willing to fuck bad boy Jay Hogart in the back of an ancient, seventies-era van just to get some stupid bracelets. And I hate to admit it, but they're right. I did willingly get into the van with Jay. I did have oral sex with him. And I did do it for the bracelets, at first. But I soon continued because I loved the freeing feeling I got at the ravine, where I didn't have to be haunted by the school shooting or any of my other problems. I just wished I'd thought a little before going down to the most—ahem—active spot near Degrassi Street. Then maybe I wouldn't be where I am today, with the student body of Degrassi Community School either snickering about me, hating me, avoiding me, or not caring about me. Honestly, I'd rather be known as the "cause girl" than go through this shit. But you can't erase the past, so I'm stuck with this.

Instead of locking myself in my room and crying every night, however, I decided to take action. If my classmates thought of me as the new school slut, fine. If Manny wasn't speaking to me anymore, whatever, I didn't need them anyway. So I isolated myself from anyone who came in contact with me, sending them a dirty glare or a rude comment if they dared speak to me. Eventually people got the message and started whispering about me when I wasn't in sight. Still, that wasn't enough for me. I had to wash away all traces of the old Emma Nelson, the girl everyone thought they knew. The transformation included finally getting rid of some of the stuff Manny gave me, cutting my hair and dyeing it dark brown with purple streaks, a lot of black clothing, and even a lip, eyebrow, and nose piercing. My mom and Snake nearly bust an artery when they found out what I'd done, but Jack said my hair looked pretty, so I felt good. I was finally breaking away from being the goody-goody cause girl who asks people to sign petitions for genetically modified foods, but I was also showing that I wasn't some sleazy slut who'd suck a guy's dick just a get a prize. It was kind of like what Ashley did when she went Goth two years ago: she was proving to the world that she wasn't just some brown-nosing, perfect preppie.

But I didn't go Goth just to prove something. I did it because I needed a change. I needed to free myself of the image that came with all this emotional baggage. If I didn't have my fair, platinum blond hair, the memories of Jay stroking it as we messed around wouldn't be quite so clear. If my eyes weren't wide and scared, they wouldn't be mirroring how I looked when Rick nearly shot me. Point is that turning to the dark side has helped to erase some of these memories. Almost. Like I said, the ghosts keep haunting me and giving me hell for my deeds. I want to let things go, but they won't let me. So I have all these things tying me down, stuff I can't apologize for or take back. But it's not like anyone apologized to me for laughing at my petitions or intentionally bumping me in the hallways. Those bitches don't deserve shit from me.

I was thinking that last sentence in the courtyard, as I watched the true school sluts—I mean, Degrassi's Spirit Squad, which Manny of course is a member of—practice their latest routine on the school line. The blurs of dark blue and gold gyrating and flipping in the air annoyed me, because they reminded me of the first thing that took Manny away. The first major fight we'd ever had, back in seventh grade.

(note: I don't have the transcript from "Wannabe", when Manny tries out for the cheerleading squad, so all the dialogue in this flashback belongs to me)

My heart sank when Manny flashed the lemon yellow flier in my face. 'Try out for Degrassi's newly formed Spirit Squad TODAY!' it spelled out across the front, in bold, block print. Manny, my best friend in the whole world, was thinking about trying out? How could she? She knows how I feel about cheerleading. I sighed. This is all Paige Michalchuk's fault for forming that stupid squad in the first place. Why did she think Degrassi needed one?

"Come on, Emma. If I'm gonna try out and show those upperclassmen what I'm made of, then I need your support. You're like my best friend. Please?" Manny, ironically now, looked so innocent then, with her dark brown eyes the size of saucers and her small hands clasped together, her pink lips downturned in a pout.

I wasn't giving in, though. "Manny, no way. I can't support a sexist activity that supports girls jumping around in short skirts and cheering for a bunch of sweaty guys."

"Hey! That's not all what cheerleading is about!" Manny snapped, narrowing her eyes at me.

I snorted. "Oh, please, Manny. There's nothing modest or rewarding about cheerleading. I can't let you do this. Nobody will take you seriously."

"I'm a first-year junior high student! Of course nobody takes me seriously!" Her voice was more high-pitched now, a sure sign that she was pissed. I'd been around her long enough to know all the little quirks and nods to her various moods.

"You know what I mean." I didn't want to fight with Manny. Not now, at lunchtime, where people could hear us. And not ever. Why couldn't she listen to me.

"I'm trying out for the squad, Emma. And there's nothing you can do to stop me. You're not my mom." Manny sneered at me and walked away, giving me a little shove as she moved out of the cafeteria.

She didn't know it then, but that was the first time that Manuella Santos really hurt my heart.

Now we were in tenth grade, and it had been a year since we'd stopped speaking to each other on a regular basis. The whole abortion thing last year was the catalyst for all the drama (and yet another example of how Manny never listens to me), but the gonorrhea incident clinched everything. She basically told all of drama club that I had gonorrhea, which not only prevented me from being in Dracula but ruined my reputation with everyone. So later on, I called Manny on her cell phone and left her a message, cursing her out and asking how she could've humiliated me like that, when I never did the same to her while she was pregnant. The next day, Manny walked up to my locker, looked me in the eye, and said, "We're done, Nelson."

After that, she was out of my life for good. And I can't say that I'm sad for that, even though Mom wishes we could've worked out our issues better and remained friends. But she's probably only saying this so she can have an excuse to talk to Mrs. Santos. They've become friends just as their daughters floated out of each other's lives.

I was about to light up a cigarette when Paige, of all people, saw me. I rolled my eyes, not feeling up to doing battle with Degrassi's queen bee today. I just wanted to have a smoke and be done with it. I mean, I don't really smoke, but I do light up every once in a while to relieve stress. And as you could probably guess, I was very stressed right now.

"Paige, what the fuck do you want?" I grumbled.

"Sorry to interrupt you parade of misery, hun, but you can't smoke that on school grounds. Go hang out with your greaser monkey boyfriend if you want to light up," she told me, narrowing her gray eyes. I inwardly laughed. Like I'm going to get frightened by a glare from Paige Michalchuk, the same girl who wrecked Spinner Mason's car and had sex way before my adventure in the ravine.

"Fuck off, Paige. Jay isn't my boyfriend and you can't tell me what to do," I snapped, blowing some smoke into the blond bitch's face. She wrinkled her huge nose, coughed, and jumped about three feet away from me.

"Watch it, Nelson. I have mild asthma!" she said in between coughs.

I rolled my eyes. "Then you should've taken your inhaler before practice, hun. Now kindly fuck off, please." I made my voice sickly sweet to match her earlier tone with me.

Paige let her mouth hang open for two seconds before shaking her head and returning to her squad members. I grinned, casually stroking my lip ring. The mighty Michalchuk, put in her place once again. It felt great to burn Paige, even if it was only a mild one. After Paige was completely out of sight, I ducked into the bushes and took a drag of my cigarette, watching the wispy smoke evaporate into the cloudless, blue sky. What most people don't get about smoking is the beauty of it. Watching the smoke rise in the air, all wispy and ghostlike, is actually ascetically pleasing. But I guess non-smokers like Paige wouldn't understand that.

A few minutes ticked by, and I put out my cigarette when I figured I'd sent up enough smoke to fuck with the ozone layer for about twenty-four hours. I can practically hear old Emma Nelson complaining about the air pollution my cigarette was causing, not to mention the damage it could do to my lungs. What did she know? At least I wasn't lighting up every day like my aunt Susan used to do before she died of lung cancer. I shook old Emma out of my head as I walked to a nearby trash can, tossing my crushed joint before anyone could figure out I'd been smoking it. The last thing I need right now is to get into more shit with my parents because I was suspended for drug use. Not that I actually care about sticking around for school, but nobody needs another reason to talk about me. I'm sick of that bullshit, especially since every single word said about me is true.

The bell rang, signaling the end of another day of school and a reprieve from the hellhole that tenth grade was proving to be. I adjusted my black fingerless gloves and laid low as everyone else emerged from the school building, talking and laughing about whatever dumb shit was going on in their lives. I just popped in my MP3 earphones, turning up the sound on my Black Flag CD. They're hardcore punk, for those of you who aren't musically aware, and one of the most kick-ass bands ever, even though they've been broken up for years now. I sank lower in my hiding place as loud drumbeats and non-conformist lyrics filled my ears, acting as a sedative to everything else around me. You could always count on music to help you through tough shit.

"Yo, Emma." A few tendrils of hair even darker than mine hit me in the cheek, and I found myself face-to-face with Alex Nuñez. We're not exactly friends, but she surprisingly doesn't hate me after what I did with Jay. I haven't asked her why, but she's claimed that "it's all water under the bridge, though I'll always hate that skank Amy." We hang out occasionally during and after school, sometimes even skipping to go take a smoke at the park. Alex is really cool, despite what a lot of people say.

"Nunez. Actually decided to go to class today?" I teased, turning down the volume on my music.

Alex snorted. "I'm not the one smoking on school grounds. Saw your exchange with Michalchuk just now. Classic. That girl's got a pole up her ass a mile wide."

I smirked, my lip ring glinting in the sun as the corners of my mouth curved upward. "Funny."

Alex glanced down at her watch, frowning. "Shit. I gotta get to the cinema for work…with Michalchuk. Shit. Talk to you later." She lightly punched my shoulder and ran up to Towerz, a tall black guy, so she could catch a ride to work. She's had to bum rides from Towerz since she and Jay broke up, I can't drive, and it'll take until the summer for her to save up enough money to get her own car. But Alex manages to survive, 'cause she's Alex. I wish I was half as tough as she was. I mean, she lives with a mom who puts up with an abusive boyfriend. You've gotta be strong in order to deal with that, and I can't even deal with people ripping on me for having oral sex with a guy.

I stuffed my MP3 into my jacket pocket as I walked home from school alone, as usual. Before all this shit went down, I used to have someone to walk with. Not just Manny, but JT Yorke and Toby Isaacs, too, though the latter only walked with me because he had a massive crush on me and wanted to spend time with me. That crush faded after the ravine and disappeared completely when I entered the Goth subculture. Now he's going out with Kendra, Spinner's adopted sister, and I'm stuck with nobody, not even a boyfriend. Sean's in Wasaga and even if he stayed, he'd still be with Ellie. I saw the way he always looked at her, like he was really in love with her. Ellie really seemed to get Sean in a way that I, whose only personal drama was having my birth father out of my life, could never understand. He really loved Ellie and I could tell that leaving her would be the hardest part of leaving Degrassi. I knew he'd miss me, too, but I was a friend and nothing more. He didn't love me. Maybe he never loved me the entire time we were going out.

Fuck. Maybe Sean could've helped me. Maybe he could've saved me from throwing my life away and catapulting myself deeper into depression. Maybe if he wasn't with Ellie he could say that even though Manny turned away, he'd always love me. Maybe, maybe, maybe. All I had was maybe, never yes or no. Never something sure or same or routine. Nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same. And yet here I was, dressed in black, hoping for things that would never be again.

I clutched my stomach, holding my dark locks back as I retched in the bushes near somebody's driveway, my body shaking as tears fell down my face and streaked my black mascara. My aunt Susan, as quirky as she was while she was alive, was right about one thing: you didn't have to be a sinner to go to hell. All of us were already living in it.

What do the waves have to say now?
What do the waves have to say now?

Slow now

And let the waves have their way now
Slow, and let the waves have their day

Hope you guys liked it! I know Emma was very OOC but her OOC-ness is yet another thing that's beneficial to the story. Chris and Emma won't get together for a while, but don't worry, I won't wait long to put him into the story. As for whether Emma and Manny will be friends again, I'm not sure about that, because Emma's going to go through some friend drama with Alex first. But who knows? I may surprise you. But you'll have to review to find out! ;)