Ellie sat in Craig's garage, sat behind the drum set on the little stool, tapped out a tiny beat. Craig wasn't here. Not yet. He was still mad because she didn't tell him about Ashley. Well, she had wanted to protect him. He was mentally ill for real, he had a diagnosis. He had medication. She cut herself but was that mental illness or just being fucked up? She wished someone would bother to protect her.
She kept tapping the drums, losing the beat and then finding it again. She didn't think Craig's anger at her was just a mood swing, a bi-polar episode. She didn't separate his behavior like that, like Ashley did. He didn't want to be protected. He wanted the truth at any cost. He was mad because she didn't respect him enough to tell it to him straight.
The weak afternoon sun came in on a slant, and Ellie saw the dust in it. It was cold in this garage, and she shivered in her thin sweater. She lightly tapped out her sad rhythm. She wasn't good at playing the drums like Craig was good at writing songs. She wished she was good at something.
"Hey," Craig said, bursting in. His presence filled the room, and Ellie looked at him with her love sick eyes. He was vulnerable. She'd protect him again.
"Hi," she said, trying to tell by his body language if he was still mad at her.
"Been here long?" he said, and she liked the gruff school boy sound of his voice.
"Not really,"
She tapped out a soft jazz beat, and he sat on the couch. She watched him, watched the light fade around him. The jeans he wore were worn and white on the top of the thighs, frayed at the bottom where they dragged when he walked. His hair was shorter now then she liked it, too much like George Clooney when he was on ER. Like George Clooney with curls. But it didn't really matter. She was sure he had some criticisms of her.
"You remember when I used to take pictures?" he said, and she nodded, but she didn't remember it, not really. She knew he had, saw him with that camera around his neck, especially the first year he came to Degrassi. And his father beat him, everyone knew. She'd noticed bruises on his arms, noticed the sleepless look of his eyes. Knew that Sean had helped him somehow, that Sean was involved in getting him away from his father. Sean was a hero, a rescuer. He hadn't rescued her soon enough.
"I don't do it anymore. I don't take pictures anymore," he said, glancing at her. She lightly played the drums, feeling it echo her heartbeat.
"So do you want to start doing it again?" she said, thinking of the fading yellow bruises she'd seen on his side when he leaned over one day in class, his shirt lifting just enough. Thinking of Sean letting her stay at his apartment when her mother drank herself into oblivion. Thinking how her mother had never laid a hand on her.
"No. That's the thing. I gave it up. I don't want to do it anymore. I don't have to,"
She nodded, bounced a little on the stool as the tempo got snappier. Hobbies come and go, she supposed.
"It wasn't just a hobby," he said, reading her mind, "it was a part of me. It was almost who I was, somehow. But I gave it up. You could give things up, too. There's virtue in it, in letting go. You could give up playing the drums,"
Ellie narrowed her eyes at him, slowed the tempo down to ominous jungle drums. He'd sat behind her, his hands on her wrists, showing her how to find the secret heart in the drum's skins. She'd felt his skin near hers, the tension in his muscles. She'd smelled the scent of his cologne and aftershave and laundry detergent, those smells almost more like him then he was. What exactly was he telling her to give up?