Wow. I was back. It's funny how a place looks more like itself, more than it ever did, when you're away and come back.
There was Manny coming to meet me, dressed all sexy, all grown up. I had my sunglasses on, my guitar over my shoulder. I guess I hadn't called her as much as I should have. I didn't call anyone all that much. I was moving on. You know. Music. It was what I wanted to do. Ellie and Marco were going to college to pursue, writing and whatever. We were all moving on.
Still, Manny looked good and it was nice to see her. I closed my eyes and I could see her, see how she looked when I first met her. We were such kids then, God.
We went to Ellie and Marco's, Dylan's too I guess. Marco and Dylan, living in sin. I had to smile at them, so sure of themselves and themselves together. I glanced at Manny while I played some of my new songs, tapping her watch. Her hair had this blue shine it was so black. If she knew what I'd been doing in Vancouver, all the girls I was fooling around with, if she had a clue…
The next morning I woke up, my mouth dry as cotton. Downstairs I poured some coffee, stuck it in the microwave. No one was here, they were all at school. Man, was I glad I didn't have to go to school. I never liked it all that much, learning a bunch of facts I didn't care about, taking tests like some monkey. I wanted to do what I wanted to do, take pictures, write songs, play music. School just cut into the time I had to do those things.
I remembered I was supposed to read lines with Manny. She wanted to audition for some T.V. show. So I headed over to Degrassi, figured I could find her there. This school. Boy. It was some of the worst years of my life at that school. Well, not really. Let's just say I was glad it was over.
Manny, outside by the stairs, smiling at me with her new sad and wise smile. Her veiled disappointment. It was okay, I felt the little tingle in my nose from my last line of cocaine, the little bit of energy left. I grabbed the script form her hands, flipped to the part she was going to read. Sometimes I read lines with this girl from Vancouver, but it always ended with us making out.
Behind her, up by the doors, I thought I saw Ashley. Ashley. There was a girl I wasn't too good at forgetting. Maybe I was kind of obsessed with her. Or in love. Where's the difference between love and obsession? It was Ashley, she turned and looked out through the glass, and she saw me. Our eyes met for one second, and it all passed between us. The broken trust, the betrayal, the lies, the intimacy, all the depth and fathomlessness of our whole relationship. I sucked in my breath, she looked away, and then she was gone.
"Craig?" Manny said, the last line from the script hanging in the air. Meaningless.
"Huh? Oh, yeah," I picked it up again, my part, my line, the thought that Ashley didn't matter anymore. I'd heard she was dating Jimmy. Good. Good for them.
The show that night, and they were all there. Ellie, Marco, Spinner. I guess Spinner had redeemed himself from his part in the whole Jimmy/Rick thing. I felt bad about how I had treated him badly about that, freaking out at him at the lunch during the Kevin Smith movie and all. It's the blame thing. It's nice to have someone to stick all the responsibility to. Now I realize it doesn't quite work that way. Things just happen and we're all responsible.
Manny had drifted away from Emma and Sean, and Emma leaned against Sean all cozily. At a table right up front was Jimmy and Ashley, reaching across the table and holding hands. Ashley's hair was so long, I'd never seen it that long. I kept playing my little drowning song, and Jimmy would look at me from time to time, but not Ashley.
Backstage, packing all my gear, going down the long back hall, who did I see?
"Hey, Craig," Ashley, standing in the hall, her hair all long and curly, her clothes more…I don't know. Sexy. Normal. The last bit of the punky thing was gone.
"Hey," I said, not meaning to sound as bitter as I did. I was over her. I'd forgotten all about her.
"I just wanted to see how you were," she said.
"I'm fine," I said. She looked happy, happier than I'd ever seen her. I hung my head, she looked happier than she ever had with me. It was okay. It was all good.
"Good,"
I was getting mad. I remembered that gay bar, all dressed up in my stupid suit, my mother's ring in my hand. Down on my knees asking her, pleading with her to marry me. It was all I had wanted, she was everything. It wasn't the bipolar, it wasn't. She never understood that. She never understood that it was me.
"Ashley, why'd you ditch me for that guy in England?" I said it quick and angry, and I could have kicked myself. That wasn't playing it cool. That wasn't moving on.
"Craig, that was a long time ago-"
"A year! That's it! And now you're with Jimmy? Shit, Ashley, you meant so fucking much to me, you-oh forget it! What does it matter? I know why you left,"
The dim hallway, graffiti on the walls, dust sticking to the ducts in the ceiling above us. The walls closing in. She didn't look all that happy anymore.
"Do you? Do you really, Craig? You were smothering me. I couldn't, I couldn't think straight with you around. And the bipolar, you'd go off your meds, and you scared me, Craig. Everything was too intense with you. It was too much. I loved you, I did, but it was all stress and worry and fear and I was gonna have a mental breakdown. Again. I'd already had one when you got Manny pregnant. I couldn't-I just couldn't do it anymore,"