Title: Bend the Bracket
Author: Tempest
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable from Degrassi. I will have all characters returned to sender in a timely fashion. I make no money off these works. No copyright infringement intended.
Spoilers: 5.11-5.12: The Lexicon of Love
Dedication: To ShastyMcNasty and RnbwRvrGrl, thanks for all your encouragement and input.

1.

Paige walked into the classroom, clutching her books to her chest, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. She knew they were all looking at her. By now, everyone had heard about the infamous kiss, and she wasn't ready to handle their stares or their smirks. Before class, she'd passed by a couple of Juniors, and she'd heard one of them whisper to her friends. "Have you heard? Little Miss Perfect is a dyke."

It nearly made her freeze in her tracks, and it had taken every ounce of willpower not to turn around and slap the girl. But she wouldn't give the girl the satisfaction of knowing she'd gotten under her skin. If she just continued to act normal, the rumors would eventually die down, and life would be as it always was.

Normalcy was something that Paige has always craved, something that she needed in her life to make it stable. She didn't like the unknown, not knowing what the next step would lead to. She needed things to be ordered in her life; she needed to know what happened next. She tried to make all her decisions carefully so that they followed this order.

She mapped out her life from beginning to end, and when someone threw a monkey wrench in her plans, she modified the plans until she was back on track again. This was how life was supposed to be for her. There were supposed to be no indefinites in her future. Even the thought of not knowing what happened next left her clamoring mentally.

She worked hard to maintain this sense of stability. She made sure that she always gave the illusion that her life was perfect, and it would always be perfect. She always made the "perfect" grades, had plans to go to the "perfect" college. She'd always surrounded herself with the "perfect" friends, those who shared the same ambitions. She shunned those who didn't share her outlook on life, using them as a medium of everything she didn't want in her life.

Then, she allowed Alex to get a little too close. She'd always despised Alex, considered her less than herself. Maybe, it was because she was a little jealous of Alex—her freedom, her fearlessness, her outspokenness. Alex was everything Paige was not. Alex's life was one big unknown, and she didn't seem to fear that at all.

Then, she'd learned that Alex wasn't so awful. She wasn't the three-headed monster that she always made her out to be. She just followed the beat of her own drum. She was always true to herself. Something that she'd learn from the circumstances that life had thrown at her. And Paige had come to admire that in her.

But she couldn't let herself love Alex for it. She refused to let herself feel any iota of emotion for Alex that proved to be more than friendly. She tried to reason to herself that her attraction to Alex stemmed from the electrified emotions flooding the air that night. The excitement of the movie premiere had left them all a little inebriated on exhilaration and still reeling the next day when she kissed Alex again.

When she'd talked to Kevin about Alex, his words had empowered her, made her feel like nothing in the world was more important than that moment with Alex. However, when she went to Alex's apartment complex, she found herself churning negative thoughts in her mind, and she lost her nerve. This could not be. She was supposed to grow old with her Prince Charming, not Alex Nuñez.

There had been several complications in her life that left her feeling numb, but Alex wasn't one of them. Alex made her happy, but Alex left her uncertain and afraid. Her feelings for Alex disturbed her, made her fear that this would ruin her "perfect" future. She needed normalcy, but at the same time, she knew that she needed Alex, as well.

As much as she wanted, she could not make herself walk up those stairs and say the things she needed to say to Alex, though. Her pride, her fear of the unknown, wouldn't let her. And she'd walked away with her head held in defeat, convinced that she'd ruined the only opportunity that she'd had at happiness with someone she cared for deeply.

Hazel sat down beside Paige almost reluctantly, bringing Paige out of her thoughts, and Paige felt like telling her not to bother at all. She considered Hazel her best friend, but since the Alex incident, Paige found herself questioning their friendship. Hazel had always been there for her through everything good or bad. Hazel didn't seem so certain about her, now, and Paige wondered if Hazel would even acknowledge her at all if she really were gay.

Would Hazel have stood with her if she'd chosen Alex? Would she have understood, stared down the naysayers in the name of friendship? Or was the threat of a marred reputation worth more than years of friendship? They accepted Marco and her brother, but she knew that this was different. Marco's sexual preference wasn't a reflection of Hazel, but the rumor mill would turn furiously about Hazel and Paige.

She could almost see the pleading in Hazel's eyes for Paige to preserve their reputation, to deny Alex if the feelings were there. This was the most important part of their life, the pinnacle of their high school career, and Paige threatened to ruin it all by being with Alex. What kind of respect could they hope to garner if Paige and Alex were together?

Her conversations with Hazel were strained and awkward these days. She missed the days when she could tell Hazel anything, but now, she felt she hid more from her than she shared. She wanted to believe that this awkwardness would pass, and they would be thick as thieves, enjoying their final year in Degrassi.

She was confident that they could overcome this obstacle, and everything would end perfectly.

- - -

Author's Notes: All I can say is the people reading my stories in other fandoms are going to kill me! A new story means even slower updates in everything. Fun times! I'm not the fastest updater in the world, but I'll try not to make you wait too long for the next chapter. The rating for this will probably go up in later chapters for mature themes. I know this chapter wasn't long, but it's more of introduction than anything.