Title: What She Told Herself
Summary: Locked doors, diminished lights, alone with her myriad of eclectic thoughts…
Rating: T
A/N: Circa Season Six-Seven-Eight (Um, I know, let's just cut them out of Season 8 and then throw them into a movie…somebody brought up that point on Degrassi Boards, I noticed, and whoever they are, they're right--it's strange…)
Laughter is piercing and oftentimes just fake. The smaller the body, the squeakier the laughter; sometimes it's deep and booming, other times strident and shrill. Most people giggle when they have to talk about something they find embarrassing, like any type of physical interaction between people (Oh, no!) or relationships between people than went over the line of being platonic (Reason number seventy-eight thousand why she thought giggling was extremely overrated.). Most people bit their fingernails and/or grasped their arms when they found themselves wallowing in anticipation (This brings her back to a time when Marco came across the word 'anticipation' in an article he had been assigned to read for a class, and wondered aloud, "If anticipation is eagerness and waiting, is cipation, like, dullness and, um, not waiting?" Her bright yellow highlighter purposefully collided with the boy's head shortly afterwards.), or they seem to be timid, even though the action(s) kinda-sorta make one look even more timid.
Why did everybody always have to overanalyze everything? As someone pointed out in a discussion-based class she was taking, many people absentmindedly say things that used to carry the burden of tons and tons of meaning, such as giddy teenage girls telling each other they love each other in a friendly way. Ellie crinkles her nose at this, for flinching, she realized quickly, would be a bit out of character for her; she's not used to close quarters, or really even close friends, and she wasn't exactly attracted to anything pink and frilly and stereotypical (which was also stereotypical). She knew of little 'I love you's floating around between loud, laughing groups of girls, but it wasn't like she and Ash were that way (or--she managed to finish this thought without totally grimacing--she and Paige), but the words lost most meaning to her a long time ago.
He had said it, or written it down, or somewhere in between, because he felt guilty. And he had said it for reasons that she was, honestly, completely unconcerned with.
Right. Honestly.
That's what she told everyone. He had screwed up, and she was caught in the midst of it all, and that's it, goodbye, you are officially no longer good enough for her. "Are you kidding me?!" she had exclaimed when she saw his first CD, and the song that he had dedicated to her…and in truth, the title was rather ridiculous, but she listened to it seven consecutive times (not that she counted or anything). Tentatively at first, on a volume that mice couldn't even attempt to hear, but she figured she was entitled to at least a bit of paranoia. Louder, then, so that the soft-quickly-turning-rapid music was audible for normal human beings (or at least human beings). Blasting, then, once others had headed to club meetings and study groups; locked doors, diminished lights, alone with her myriad of eclectic thoughts and desperate ponderings…
But she is certainly not desperate in any sense of the word. That's what she tells everyone.