Dallas didn't know when he'd become the kind of lightweight who puked after a six pack of crappy beer - but he didn't really know who he was, anymore, period. So maybe it was appropriate: he finally fucking tried to do one good thing and do the goddamn presentation that Drew was so obsessed with- and he straight-up vomited right after Drew-Caesar stabbed him.

In a trash can. In front of his entire history class. Because that's who Mike Dallas was now: a complete and utter fucking joke.

He tried half-heartedly to find the silver lining: vomiting ruined any chance he had of hooking up with any girl in the room, probably, yeah- but, at least, if nothing else, it saved his grade. Because if they'd made it to the actual presentation after the stabbing and the betrayal and whatever, he would have been completely fucked.

He hadn't even looked at a textbook in, God, he wasn't even sure how long. He'd probably forgotten how to fucking read.

For a moment, he was genuinely alarmed: was that possible? He immediately looked up, eyes searching for the closest string of letters, anything- an inspirational poster hung up over the water fountain. "If you can dream it, you can do it."

So he could still read, even if the words themselves were utter bullshit. Small comforts.

He was bored, aimless, wasting time- Perino had shuffled him off to the nurse, obviously, but it's not like he could actually go. High school nurses probably weren't very well-versed in hangover cures. Or, really, weren't allowed to share them with eighteen-year-old assholes.

He'd gotten used to the boredom, though, since he'd been kicked off the Hounds. His days had been scheduled down to the minute as long as he could remember- and, suddenly: nothing. Empty minutes stretched into hours into days, a constant and humiliating reminder of everything he wasn't doing, everything he'd never be.

The girls and the booze were a natural next step, really. A stupid and predictable reaction, because that's who Dallas was. A good - but not great - hockey player. A shitty father. A bad teammate. A terrible friend.

He was kind of just sitting there, staring at that stupid fucking poster, stewing in his own misery, when suddenly he heard someone skidding into the hallway and Maya goddamn Matlin was sprinting past him. Near tears, taller than the last time he'd seen her, her hair was longer and curlier, maybe, and fuck- she was getting older. She was growing up.

She sort of awkwardly halted when she saw him. They stared at each other for a really long, weird moment. Class was going on, the hallway was empty, they couldn't not acknowledge each other- they'd been friends, sort of, kind of, maybe- friends wasn't the right word. Acquaintances. People who loved Cam. Fuck.

He'd probably been able to come up with some random, witty, smooth greeting - but he wasn't sure if he was still drunk or already hungover, Vanessa hadn't let him seen Rocky in a month and a half, Drew was probably never going to talk to him again, and Cam was dead.

Goddammit. Cam was dead.

That's all he saw when he looked at her, and that's probably all she saw when she looked at him, too. It's not like he'd outright avoided her after everything that had happened- but it's not like he tried too hard to see her, either. She hadn't gone to the funeral, in a crowded, crumbling church out in Kapuskasing. Dallas had insisted the team make the eight-hour trek up north for the hour-long ceremony: it was the right thing to do.

He hadn't managed to do right by Cam in any fucking way, shape, or form when he was alive, but Dallas had been determined to be different for the boy in death. Better. Be strong for his sobbing mother, and his desperately, angrily confused little brothers.

But the Ice Hounds being the only representatives of Cam's Toronto life felt like a sick joke that only the three people who actually knew him could laugh at. Maya had been one of them- and Dallas saw the way her lip curled whenever her eyes landed on the red-and-black Ice Hounds jackets. And who could fucking blame her?

Hockey made Cam miserable. But Dallas needed him, needed him on the ice- Dallas was only going to get noticed by accident, by proxy. The scout would come for Cam and stay for the charming team captain. That had always been the plan.

Dallas had chosen his own hopeless hockey career over the happiness of his teammate, his friend, his brother. And now that boy was dead.

That was it, really. That was it.

"Um-" Dallas stumbled, as he realized tears were still streaming down Maya's cheeks, "-are you, uh, alright?"

Maya narrowed her eyes. "No. Obviously."

Dallas chuckled, darkly, mortified. Of course she wasn't. Of course none of them were.

"Sorry. That was stupid. I'm still a little drunk, to be honest."

Maya took a step closer, intrigued. "Like. Right now?"

"Mike Dallas. Best… person… ever." Maya watched him for a moment. Her hair was definitely longer. "Are you crying about, um-?"

She plopped down next to him and barrelled through his words. "Have you seen my video?"

"What, that one of you kissing that tenner with the afro?"

Maya shook her head, eyes on the ground. "Jesus, no. The music video."

"Nope," Dallas shrugged and shook his head. "But I haven't really been, like, involved in Degrassi shit, lately."

"You're not missing much," she muttered, kicking the leg of the bench.

"Why did a music video make you cry?"

"It's- it's a long story." She leaned her head against the window, closed her eyes. A long, ragged, frantic breath. Maya had always been this little, happy, smiley blonde pixie of a niner who'd leap into Cam's arms and hug him and be so adorable it made Dallas's teeth hurt. Not even a year later- her hair was longer and her smile was gone and she was bitter and broken and just- every movement, every breath, seemed to exhaust her.

Dallas leaned back, too.

"I went to Paris this summer," Maya blurted. "With the school."

Dallas remembered: he'd seen her tagged in pictures with Alli. "And how was it?"

"Fine. I mean- Paris is beautiful. And I needed- to not be in Toronto. Really bad. And I wasn't. Which was... good."

Dallas thought of his own summer: playing with kids who weren't his own, smiling for their sake, Adam, Adam, Adam. Too many things missing. Was that how it was always going to be?

"It would have been nice, to not be here. I went- camping. With kids."

"And how was that?"

"Fine. Until- Adam."

"Oh, right. God. That- sucks." Maya put her head into her hands, shoulders shaking, laughing even though it wasn't funny. "You think I'd be an expert on what to say, how to not be the worst, and yet- all I can come up with is, 'That sucks.'"

Dallas shrugged. "I mean, you're right. It does."

"Yeah," she agreed, weakly.

They sat in silence for a long time. Maya's fingers clutched the bench tightly. Her breathing steadied, almost. She finally turned to look at Dallas directly- her eyes were still rimmed with tears.

"I still hate him, you know."

Dallas nodded. She didn't need to speak the name aloud for Dallas to get where the conversation was going. They only had one thing in common, after all. "That's fair."

She leaned in, a little manic. "Do you?"

Empty laugh as he shook his head. "No. I hate myself too much to have anything leftover."

"It's been really easy…" She paused, and gulped. "...to avoid it. Thinking about him, talking about him. With Tori gone, and Zig off dealing drugs, or whatever… Even Katie's at university. They all wanted me to talk, deal. But they're gone, and I have a whole new life. And it's all... crap."

"Your music video?" Dallas asked.

"My fucking music video," she echoed.

"I want to be a better person, than I was, with him," Dallas said. "But it's so - fucking -"

"I don't want to be better," Maya interrupted, fiercely, for a second reminding Dallas endlessly of Katie, "I don't owe him anything. I just want to be…"

"Happy?"

"Yeah."

"Me, too."

"I miss him."

Dallas nodded. "Me, too."