I.
Wesley hears the news from his mother, who heard it through the phone chain via some other Grade 10 parent. She tells him with tears in her eyes and a shaking voice, and when she's done, she takes her own son into her arms, grateful for his boyish slimness under her hands, safe and whole.
Ten minutes after he gets the call, Wesley is sitting in his room, the door shut and the lights off, lying on his back in bed. He's staring at the ceiling with blank eyes, so completely lost in thought that he nearly jumps out of his skin when his text message alert goes off on his phone.
It's a text from Dave, and even through the emotionless medium of technology Wesley can feel the numb shock through the phone, as if his friend was standing directly in front of him. Did you hear?
Wesley stares at the phone for a full minute, not really processing what he's seeing and unsure of how to respond once he does. Finally, he just switches the phone off and puts it face-down on his bedside table. What else is there to do?
The next time Wesley looks at his clock, it's nearly eleven, which surprises him, because normally he's fast asleep by now. But he can't sleep yet; he's still got to finish his trig homework, brush his teeth, take a shower. Will there even be school tomorrow? he wonders, then thinks, of course there will be. Why wouldn't there be? Nothing would probably happen; certainly, with the phone chain going on, the entire faculty and student body would know about this before the sun rose the next day, and it would be all anyone would talk about at school, so only the most hard-nosed teachers would actually press any type of work on the students. Wesley momentarily ponders just blowing off his trig and closes his eyes, willing his brain to shut off.
About another hour goes by when Wesley realizes that he isn't going to be sleeping anytime soon, so he gets up and goes into his bathroom, turning on the hot water and sitting on the lip of the tub, running the water over his bare legs.
Maybe it's the noise of the running water, so good for masking other noises you'd rather nobody hear. Maybe it's the fact that it's late at night, and his parents are asleep, surely, by now. Maybe it's just NOW hitting him, the absorbance of the shock of the atrocity that has just occurred, something that he doesn't have words to describe or react to. But whatever the reason, he suddenly doubles over, burying his head in his hands, and he sobs.
He hasn't cried this hard since he was a small child; he's choking and gargling on his sobs, loud and inelegant, tears and snot streaming down his nose like a faucet. The steam from the shower curls his hair even more, and it hangs in front of his face limply, making him look a little crazy and out-of-control. He cannot control his trembling as he shakes with sobs, his chest heaving as one word wracks his body: Why? Why? Why?
II.
Dave hears from his father, who relays the information to him with a slack face and emotionless voice. But afterward, he puts his arm on his son's shoulder, and Dave gets a jolt through him when he realizes how old his father looks- not just looks, but is.
Funny-for all the times Dave jokes about his "old man", he never actually thought he'd be an Old Man.
Not that it's haha funny.
Dave's mother doesn't say anything, but he can see that her face is heavier, tired, and she keeps glancing at him, as if to reassure herself that he's still sitting at the table. He can feel her eyes watching him.
He tries to finish his dinner, but he looks at the meatloaf that his mother prepared- one moment so appetizing, it now looks like throw-up, and he promptly gets up without being excused, all but bolting for the garage.
It's getting dark outside, and he needs to finish his homework, but his parents don't try and bring him inside, even when the street lights go on. He just keeps shooting hoops, one after the other, not even keeping track of which ones he's nailing and which ones he's missing. He just keeps pounding the pavement repeatedly, the slap of rubber against concrete lapping his mind over and over again like a backbeat, until it's all he hears.
Finally, after he's been outside for who knows how long, he stops, trembling, his arms burning and legs shaking. Taking deep gulps of cold air that burn all the way down, he leans up against the goal post, trying to catch his breath. A cold wind blows through, causing his teeth to chatter and the tears that he had forming in the corners of his eyes to flick down his face. Hastily, he wipes them away as best he can, swallowing mightily to get some control before he heads back inside.
III.
Chantay hears from her mother, who brings her into the master bedroom and shuts the doors behind her. When her mother turns to face her, there are tears in her eyes, and she reaches up to touch her daughter's face, cupping her hand against Chantay's chin before she tells her.
Chantay's jaw drops, and for once, she's stunned into speechlessness. Without knowing it, she backs up and sits on the comforter at the foot of the bed.
Chantay thinks that she should be crying- she knows that she should be doing something- but this time, Degrassi's number one blogger has no response. And it's not even that she's at a loss for words- she's also at a loss of emotions, a total blank slate. She doesn't cry, doesn't even feel the urge to start crying. She just sits there on her mom's bed, then on the couch, then on her own bed, all the while in a semi-catatonic state, unable to absorb the shock of what's happened.
IV.
Lara Coyne would rather cut her own heart out than relay the news to her daughter, but she knows that Fiona will find out sooner or later, so she'd rather she find out from her.
Predictably, Fiona falls apart, but even Lara is unprepared at the violence at which it happens. Fiona falls to her knees and screams- not just screams, but howls like a banshee, a sound that rips through her body like a current and shakes the walls. Her hands bury themselves in her hair, wild and loose around her shoulders. In her thrashing, her nightgown falls to the side, making Fiona look so tiny and vulnerable in her sorrow and bare feet. Her daughter's grief is inexhaustible, consummate, artless.
Lara bends down and puts her arms around her daughter's violently trembling form, but Fiona shakes her off, beating her away with her fist. Before Lara can say a word, Fiona has rushed away from her and slammed the door to her bathroom, locking it behind her. On the other side of the door, Lara can hear her daughter dry-heaving into the toilet, then hears the deep, inhuman keening sounds coming from the back of her throat as she falls to the tile floor and weeps.
Lara stands there for awhile, hoping that Fiona will open the door and let her comfort her, but when almost an hour goes by, Lara turns and goes into the guest bedroom, lying on the bed.
She may not have been completely on-board with Fiona's…unusual relationship with the Torres boy, but she had nothing except her own ignorance about his situation to blame for that. Declan had met him a few times, and he had assured her that he was a good kid- sweet, sensitive, and treated Fiona like she was a princess. Even called her princess, actually. After Bobby, Lara and Declan were both on edge about the idea of Fiona with anyone, but Lara had to admit that the time her daughter and this boy had been seeing each other, she had rarely seen her happier.
Lara brushed away the tears glittering in the corners of her eyes. They weren't just for Fiona, now sobbing with less volume but no less passion in the bathroom. They weren't just for that boy's family, his mother and the horror she must be feeling at this moment. They were for Adam, a boy that she had never met but who made her daughter smile for the first time in months.
And now she might never get that chance.
V.
After K.C. phones her with the news, Jenna puts the baby in bed with her, something she hasn't done since Jordan was a newborn and normally discourages because she doesn't want Jordan to get used to sleeping with her and not in her crib. But after she feeds the baby, she lies down beside her on the bed, watching her daughter drop off into peaceful sleep.
She's shocked by what has happened to Adam, of course. But more so now, because she is a mother, and now that she has her own child, she can't begin to understand how horrified his mother must be. At one point, Adam was no different from the child lying beside her right now- tiny, helpless, frail as a baby bird. She is beyond sickened that someone could perpetuate such violence against another human being.
That person is someone's child. That is somebody's baby.
In a way, Jenna is glad that Kyle is working tonight and cannot drive her to the ER, where she knows that many of her classmates will be waiting all night until they hear some news. She had made an excuse that she had to stay with the baby, when she knows that K.C.'s mother could have taken Jordan easily.
The truth is, Jenna doesn't want to go. She doesn't think she can handle being in that room with someone as fragile and helpless as her baby is. She doesn't think she could look at Adam Torres's broken, shattered body, see the anguish on his family's faces and the horror in his mother's eyes, without seeing her own baby in that bed and knowing that such evil existed in the world, and it could strike anyone's children without a second thought.
VI.
Zane doesn't get the news via a parent- he hears it from Larissa, president of the LGBT club at school, while at The Dot getting a tea with Riley and Anya.
He feels sick to his stomach, combined with the ferocious need to punch someone in the face- anyone, he's not entirely picky. He knows Adam Torres from LGBT, and likes the kid a whole lot. He's kind and good-hearted and downright hilarious, with a great wit and an also equally hilarious awkwardness to him that has endeared him to Zane. He knows the kid has it tough, but sometimes wonders if people in his situation have it harder than "average" gay and lesbians (for lack of better terms). He doesn't know if that's necessarily true- he hasn't met another trans person before Adam- but the kid obviously has a strength to him that Zane admires. And despite the whole football feud with Riley earlier this year, Drew has also earned a bit of affection from Zane- he's a good brother who clearly loves Adam deeply.
Across the table from him, Anya looks sick herself, and Riley just looks blank. He stares out the window, coffee turning to sludge in his cup, unnoticed. Anya keeps shaking her head involuntarily, as if there's a fly buzzing around her head. They all sit in silence for a long moment.
"We should go," Riley blurts out, breaking the pause between them. Anya looks at him, confused.
"Where?" she asks.
He stares at her like it's obvious. "The hospital," he says.
Anya glances at Zane hesitantly, then back at Riley. "I don't think that's a good idea," she tells him.
"Why not?"
She looks at Zane again, probing him for better answers, but he doesn't have any to give.
"I think this is more of a family thing," she tries to explain to Riley. "It might not be…proper if we show up." She tosses another helpless expression at Zane, then gives up. "It's just that if we went, we'd probably only get in the way. I don't think it'd be appropriate for us to just show up. They might not even want us there, anyway."
Riley shakes his head, unconvinced. "But wouldn't you think they'd want people there?'" he argues. "You know, for support and stuff. Like, to show them that we care about Adam. That we want to be there for them."
"Riley, they don't even know us," Anya replies.
"Let's go," Zane cuts in, causing both of them to stop their tennis match conversation and look at him in surprise. "I'm not really planning on sleeping tonight," he tells them. "Might as well spend it someplace where no one else will, either."
Riley nods, and Anya steps out of the booth, admitting defeat as she follows both boys out of The Dot, waving a hasty goodbye to Peter on the way out.
Zane gets into the car and revs the engine, pausing a moment to collect himself. He doesn't know exactly why he's doing this, and is a little worried about the impropriety of just showing up like this, but then a stronger part of him thinks, their son could be dying. Fuck propriety.
A strong, calloused hand reaches out and touches his cheek, startling him. Riley reaches his other hand over, touching his other cheek, and bends his boyfriend's head closer to his own, until their foreheads are touching. Then his hands run through Zane's hair, and his lips press against his forehead, giving him strength. And despite the horror still causing his stomach to flip, Zane feels a smile play at the corners of his mouth.
His parents barely notice their existence as the three of them stride through the waiting room doors, but Drew looks at them in surprise, as if the shock of seeing someone he knew momentarily snapped him out of his own terror. Zane hugged him, noting carefully the hollow, dead look in his eyes and the way he had stared at all three of them as if he'd never seen them in his life before. And, to his infinite surprise, Riley hugged him, too- awkwardly, literally walking into Drew with open arms, but still a hug, nonetheless.
"I can't believe you guys showed up," Drew says.
Riley shrugs. "Hey, man, we wanted you to know that we're here for you," he answers. "We're a team, right?"
Drew smiles, small and unbearably sad, but genuine even so. "Yeah," he says. "A team."
"Drew," his mother calls, and he throws the guys another grateful look before going over to his parents, who are having a conversation with a nurse. Mr. and Mrs. Torres look like carved statues, blocks of marble carved into sorrowful poses by an artist trying to bring to life the anguish inside himself.
The three of them look at each other, awkward and unsure of what else to do. They had shown up with the intention of helping, but now they wonder if they're just interfering. It's so private here, with just the family, and they feel as if they're collectively intruding on something intimate that should only be seen behind closed bedroom doors.
Then the door bursts open, startling them, and in comes Sav, Sav's little sister, and Clare Edwards. The three of them breathe a sigh of relief. The wagons are being circled.