the sweetest sadness
notes: I miss old Degrassi so much that I'm writing Jay/Emma fic now! Jay and Emma bond in their weird Jay and Emma-y way. Set in season 6 sometime, back when Emma thought she was preggers and Sean was around for he and Jay to be BFF.
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"Sean said he wants to marry me."
It's funny really, because Jay can picture it so clearly in his head: the white picket fence; the two kids she'd raise while still having a successful career saving the world or some shit; the Christmas cards with a bright happy picture of them on the front, sitting in front of the fireplace, a baby on her lap, another in her belly.
It all fits and they both know it.
"Isn't he joining the army or whatever?" Jay asks, because he's bitter and spiteful and has a knack for ruining moments and getting some kind of sick enjoyment out of watching people's faces fall.
She goes quiet, then sits down next to him on the bench. He moves away a little bit as the smell of her hair overpowers him – the vanilla honey crap Sean loves so much.
"Yeah."
"Jackass," he mutters, just for her.
She smiles a little, and he's pleased with himself.
"You know, I thought I was pregnant," she tells him. "He was going to leave anyway."
The laugh that follows is acidic, and Jay can kind of see that cold girl he knew a couple years ago.
"Yeah, he told me."
"It's kind of sick," she says after a moment. "Even though I was scared, I hoped I was. Pregnant, I mean."
He raises his eyebrows, then shakes his head. "I always knew you were far more fucked up than you let on."
He expects her to take offense, but she doesn't, and there it is again, that look he remembers all too well.
"You of all people should know, Jay," she says, and it sounds almost seductive somehow.
It takes everything in him to muster the will power to say, "Don't."
"What?" she asks innocently, but the devilish gleam in her eyes didn't lie.
"You're just feeling abandoned and alone," he tells her, like he's Dr. Phil or whoever the fuck. "Craving a trip down memory lane. Sorry, not interested."
"That didn't bother you before," she says, trying to pass it off as an observation rather than pleading desperation.
"Yeah, well things are different now." And they are, except that this is Emma Nelson, this girl who throws everything in his life off-kilter and makes him forget that his life has changed from two years ago; that Sean's his best friend again, that he's not in school, that he doesn't have Alex or Amy or girls to take down to the ravine.
"Yeah," she says monotonously, then laughs bitterly, "they are."
"Upset about that, Greenpeace?" he asks.
"Don't call me that," she says sharply, giving him a death look and he raises his hands apologetically.
"Sorry. Jesus," he mutters under his breath. She pretends not to hear.
"I imagined this, you know," she tells him. "I imagined being with Sean again, after he left for Wasaga. I knew he'd come back. I just didn't imagine he'd leave again."
"Well, everyone's gotta be good at something," he says.
"Right," she says and turns her head away from him.
"Hey," he tells her, as he reaches out to touch her arm. She meets his eyes. "I don't make promises I can't keep - well, unless I can benefit from it somehow - but just know I'm here for you."
And that's a laugh coming from him, he's sure of it. He hasn't got any track record to prove the slightest drop of sincerity and he knows that Emma's too smart to believe him. There have been too many disappointments. He has been too much of a disappointment.
She takes his hand with his, lacing their fingers as they sit together silently in the cold. He feels oddly comforted, though any passerby would see them and think what a horrible mismatch the two of them were - a boy from the trailer park who used up all his chances and a girl with a future too bright to waste it on slumming it in the dark parts of town with guys like him who will just lead her astray. She doesn't seem to care, though, and they stay like that for a while until it gets too cold and her cell phone starts to buzz.
She ignores it but says, "I should probably get back." When she starts to move, he grabs her wrist and holds it down.
"Are you going to be okay?" he asks and she gives him this smile like he's a little boy who doesn't know a damn thing about the world.
"I can take care of myself."
"Of course you can, Greenpeace," he says with a sarcastic smile. "You've proven that so well in the past."
"You are disgusting," she says, acting above feeling hurt and turning on her heel to leave. "No wonder Alex ditched you to be a lesbian."
"Oh, right in the heart," he says, emphatically clutching his chest. The joke's an invitation of sorts, to get her to come sit back down. But she doesn't look back and he doesn't call after her.
-end-