Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Degrassi… and probably never will.
Nor do I own Bottom Of The Ocean by Miley Cyrus, in which this story was inspired by :)
"Mom!" Clare burst out of her bedroom and ran down the hallway to her parents' bedroom. When she entered the large room, she found her mother huddled over her laptop with the cell phone clutched to her ear.
Helen looked up irritatingly and asked, "Clare, what is it, can't you see I'm on the phone?"
Clare sighed solemnly, "Mommy, Chuck died."
She stared at her with a puppy-dog pout, but she actually was really feeling quite sad about the situation. Clare had two fish, Chuck and Palahniuk, and she loved them with as much love that you can share with fish. She had gotten them nearly two months ago, as a "I'm sorry for putting things into your head" gift from Alli after Clare had given her a piece of her mind the day after Eli and Clare had broken up. They were beautiful and always sparkled in the water when the sunlight would escape through the curtains.
"Oh Clare, I'm sorry," Helen said with her hand clasped over the phone, "Is Palahniuk alive?"
"Yes," Clare answered, in reference to her other fish that was most likely going depressed over the death of her companion.
"Go call your father and see if he'll get you another," Helen offered.
"Fine," Clare replied and walked out the door and left her mom to talk in peace.
She skipped down the hallway and entered her room. She picked up her cell and dialed her dad's number.
"Clare, this is a surprise. What's going on?" Her father's voice spoke through the phone and she sighed.
"Chuck died. Mom said to ask you to buy me another one," Clare explained, realizing how selfish her mom was to just drop it on her dad.
"Go figure, your mother leaves it up to me even though it's her time with you." Clare sighed at his annoyed tone and interrupted his next words.
"No, it's fine. I'll just go to the store and get one myself. Bye Daddy," she said and hung up quickly, not wanting to start tears. She was still taking the divorce hard and hated that things only seemed to get worse, not better.
So Clare stepped out of the room and grabbed her purse, heading off to the pet store to retrieve a new fish. She found one that looked just like Chuck and brought the new fish to her room. When she got into her green and spa-like bedroom, she placed the new fish beside a very lonely Palahniuk and took a hold of the small fish net. She reached into the water and scooped out the inflated, slimy, and very much so dead Chuck. She ran to the bathroom with her hand cupping underneath, catching the dripping water and stopped over the toilet.
"Ew ew ew!" Clare screeched as she studied it. Its eyes were dry and rolled back and the color was flushed out of it- no pun intended. She shook it out of the net and it plopped into the water with an echo.
"Chuck, you were my friend. You were a stupid fish, but you were my friend none the less," Clare laughed as she talked to herself while performing her own little memorial service. "You were there in the background when the divorce was getting worse, you were there when I got grounded, and well, you were most definitely there when I cried over Eli. I miss him, Chuck…"
Was she really talking to her fish about her unfortunate love life? It didn't help that she knowingly named both fish after Chuck Palahniuk, both hers and Eli's favorite author. She supposed it would be a way for her to always be reminded of him, since after the incident the night of spring dance they weren't speaking. She felt terrible, and so did he. But she thought she could never be forgiven… and so did he.
She reached to the handle and pressed down on it quickly, just getting it over with as fast as possible. She watched it swirl around with the fish tumbling around clumsily.
"What happened?" Clare heard a familiar voice ask from the doorway. She looked up and saw Alli with her dark, straight hair splayed across her shoulders and her bright eyes watching her curiously.
"Chuck died," Clare said cautiously, not sure how Alli would react, seeing as how she bought him for her.
"Is that the blue one?"
"No, Palahniuk is the blue one, Alli."
"Oh," she shrugged, obviously not very affected by the current death in the family. And Alli would never admit it but she was secretly angry about the names Clare had chosen for them. She didn't get it at first but when she forced Clare to explain to her, she simply rolled her eyes.
Then she suddenly got very enthusiastic "Clare! You flushed it without me?"
"Jeez, sorry!" Clare defended, "I didn't think it was that big of a deal."
"Well I bought him for you! I could have at least been invited to the funeral." Alli joked causing Clare to roll her eyes playfully and walk back into her bedroom with Alli behind her.
"What are they doing?" Alli asked skeptically as she walked towards the fish bowl.
"Aw look they're playing!" Clare cooed as she examined the two fish chasing each other around. But then, the new fish suddenly took a chunk out of Palahniuk's tail and Clare's eyes widened, "That is so not playing!"
"What do I do? Help me Alli!" Clare yelled in panic, "He's getting eaten alive!"
"I don't know!" Alli screamed in a high pitch. Clare flailed her arms around feeling helpless and ran to the bathroom to grab the net. When she came back she swept the bad fish right out of the bowl and held it up in the air for the world to see, "You are an evil little fishy."
"Clare, look at Pala… whatever his name is!" Alli pointed to the droopy blue fish whose flesh and blood was clouding up the water. It was almost as if you could see his little heart beat slowing down and ending at an abrupt stop with Clare staring in disbelief.
"This is just fantastic!" Clare exasperated with sarcasm, throwing her hands up in the air.
"Well at least you won't have any more lonely fish?" Alli added, trying to help the situation.
Clare laughed and pulled her best friend to her side, "You've always been the positive one, Alli."
"Flushing time!" Alli clapped and brought the fish bowl to the toilet. Clare looked with disgust at the evil fish who demonstrated cannibalism better than Animal Planet ever could. She left it to drown in its misery (but never actually drowning) and joined Alli in a quick sharing of words for good old Palahniuk who would now be joining his friend in the deep depths of the sea.
"Have fun at the bottom of the ocean!" Alli waved to it as the fish swirled into the pipes of doom.
"That was the most death I've ever seen in one day," Clare admitted sadly, "Whatever, just leave that thing over there alone. I need to get out for some fresh air."
"Are you going to be sick, Clare?" Alli asked with worry.
"Not at all. I just need to think about some stuff, okay?" Clare said as she started making her way downstairs.
"Okay," Alli replied and followed her outside, parting as they said goodbye and went separate ways.
Outside, the sun was cowering behind puffy white clouds as if it were playing hide-and-go-seek. It wasn't too hot and it wasn't too cold, it was just normal. And slightly foreshadowing. Clare walked down the side walk, dragging her feet, and her arms swayed at her side as she thought.
There were a lot of things running through her mind at that moment. Well, there were a lot of things running through her lifetoo. It saddened her that she couldn't trust half the people she knew anymore. Clare felt like the only people there for her were her two best friends, Adam and Alli. But did she really need anything else? Did she truly need to have the entire world on her side?
No.
But the one thing that was missing was her world, her first love. Eli.
She decided to stop at the abandoned church and sit down for a little bit. It was a little ironic though, because the huge tree that she was leaning against and the open space ahead of her was the same place where she and Eli shared something special.
Well, just a lot of good memories.
Clare smiled at the memories as she clutched at the grass and yanked it out of its roots. She looked out at the pearl blue sky and imaged everything just floating away into a peaceful state of nothingness. She started humming with her eyes closed, her mind mixing up words and phrases that were so familiar to her, yet now they were completely new. It was like her words and thoughts just got poured into the toilet, flushed around, and ended up at the bottom of the ocean.
Where does the love go
I don't know
When it's all said and done
How could I be losing you forever
After all the time we spent together
I had to know why
I had to lose you
Now you just become
Like everything I'll
Never find again
At the bottom of the ocean
She made a mental note to remember that until she was able to write it down, even though she probably couldn't. But it meant something special to her, in ways that other people can interpret however they want. She smiled at the fact that a poem could be inspired by a dead fish, and twisted into her own life about a boy who she lost, and who also taught her to write what she felt. But she never would have dreamed that that boy was coming straight towards her, them both unaware.
When she caught sight of him strolling along, her heart stopped and she muttered an "Oh my gosh." There was no escaping this one, they've avoided each other for way too long, and it was time they set things straight.
"Oh um. Hi?" Eli stuttered when he stopped in front of her, the first time for a while.
"Yeah hi," Clare said, a little uncomfortable, but still standing her ground. After all, she is the ex-girlfriend.
"I was just… going for a walk. I always seem to fund my way here though," he began.
"Oh yeah?" she asked, attempting to sound interested.
"Mhm," he confessed and blinked once, standing awkwardly.
"Oh," Clare was a little surprised, "Do you wanna sit down?"
"Sure," Eli replied and cautiously sat next to her.
"So," Clare began, "How's it going?"
"It's going… Adam and I leave for a camping trip with Bullfrog in a few days," Eli answered while looking at his boot-clad feet.
"Are you excited?" She asked.
"Very."
Eli looked at her like he was peering through glass. He could see right through her, right through all her mistakes and imperfections. He knew who the real Clare was, but he felt like he lost who that was. Maybe it was because they had lost each other. It didn't come as a surprised when he asked Clare what was wrong, after he stared at her with his believing eyes.
"Nothing is wrong Eli," she said stubbornly.
"Alright fine. You don't have to tell me anything. But what I would like to know is why we've been so distant lately." Eli pleaded for a meaningful answer from her because the one sentence conversation was not cutting it.
"You know why. Don't act like you don't. Face it, Eli, we fell apart. We totally fell apart," she said with a hint of misery in her voice.
Eli just nodded, but she continued with a smile, "Is it too late to fix that?"
His eyes brightened and he too smiled a lopsided smile, "It'll never be too late, Clare. Remember when we were friends, like serious best friends? That was awesome and I miss it. I miss you."
"I missed you too," Clare said, "Maybe things just didn't work out like we hoped. Well they didn't, obviously, but I don't want to lose you forever, okay? I still want you in my life, just not that… attached?"
"You're right," Eli agreed, thinking back to how Clare had described him as "suffocating" as their relationship went downhill. He noticed her kind change of word as she said attached, rather than suffocating, and he very much appreciated it. He sighed while watching Clare shift herself to lie on her back. The clean-cut grass tickled at her toes and her eyes squinted up at the sky.
"What are you doing?" he asked sarcastically.
"Looking at the clouds. We always used to do this on the hood of Morty, remember?" Her voice cracking as she said 'Morty'… the last time she spoke of his old car was the night of… well the night she wanted to forget forever.
"Of course," he smirked, not seeming phased by the mention of his now destroyed hearse. "I'm remembering a lot of things right now."
He sprawled out next to her, shoulder to shoulder, and after a few silent minutes he asked, "What'd you do today?"
"My fish died," she replied bluntly.
"I'm sorry to hear that," he replied.
"Yeah it's okay. I'm over it," Clare said, still looking at the sky. She was thinking deeply about what was happening between the two of them and where it was going. It was going nowhere really, but they were repairing the damage, and that was as good as they'll ever get. She turned her head to the side and looked at him. She looked at his hair, she looked at his eyes, and all the way down to his worn skinny jeans and grinned peacefully.
"Eli?"
"Yeah, Clare."
"Can you promise me something?"
"Anything."
"Be happy."
I listen to Miley Cyrus while editing picture of Eclare and this is what happens!
Review?