School. Another day. And that faded into another, and another. Things had fallen into a routine for Eleanor Nash. Wake up. Get dressed. School. Co-op. Home. Clean up after drunk mom. Dinner. Homework. Computer. Bed. It wasn't a routine Ellie was fond of- except for Co-op- but it was how she lived. If things got too hard for her to deal with, she simply pulled out her razor. Or scissors. Or a compass. Or whatever she could find.

The consequences? She was defensive, she was snippy, she was spacey, she was secretive. The first time she tried skipping her meeting with Sauvé, the school counselor came to get her from class. That took a lot of explaining and reassuring that everything was fine, yes, everything was fine, YES, she was sure, before he let it go. Ellie knew it was only a matter of time before her entire world shattered. It was a very precarious balance.

But she was making due.

A week or so later, she and Marco were sitting in English, passing notes as the teacher babbled on about prepositions or something else the teenagers didn't care about. It was the last day before winter break began, and no one cared about school.

El, wanna hang at your place after school? -M

Ellie sighed. He was always trying to get her to invite him over. Partially because he wanted to see where she lived, and, she suspected, partially because his parents bugged the two to date again every time they were over.

Not today.

Make it your place? - E

We're ALWAYS at my house, El. Come on. –M

Marco, no. Not today, okay? –E

Fine. –M

Ellie bit her lip. Sauvé had asked Ellie to stop in for a quick thirty minute section after school today, to talk about managing things over winter break.

Hey… just remembered I need to talk to Sauve about something… for the co-op. meet you there? –E

Before Marco was able to reply, however, the teacher walked to the pair and stood in the middle of them.

"Del Rossi, Nash, care to share your conversation with the entire class?"

"Not… particularly?" Marco squeaked. Ellie rolled her eyes. If there was anything that boy hated, it was getting in trouble.

"Then I suggest you pay attention."

Ellie looked both ways at the nearly deserted halls before entering the counseler's office.

"Hello Ellie, how are you?"

"As good as I can be, I suppose. Winter break sucks."

"Care to tell why?"

"Well, my mom thinks of Christmas, New Years, as more excuses to…" she realized that she hadn't told Sauve anything. Ever.

"Well my mom's an alcoholic and she only drinks when my dad's gone, he's a soilder, he's on a peacekeeping mission in Kabul right now and we found out he's going to be there over the holidays, and so mom is going insane about it, or she was, now she's like super jaded about it and like so she drinks a LOT over the holidays and I always have to clean up after her and then like if I try to go out with my friends when she's drunk and come back when she's a little less drunk, she hits me and … that's all I can say today." Ellie grabbed her black bag and ran out of the room, leaving a shocked Sauve in her wake.

She ran into the next closest room, the Media Immersions lab, completely deserted for the holidays. Tears streamed down her face, leaving black eyeliner and mascara streaked down her red cheeks. Without a second thought, she pulled up the sleeve of her grey shirt, pulled down her arm warmers, took out her scissors, and pressed.

And then things were okay.

Meanwhile, Marco stood on the steps of Degrassi, shivering and looking for his best friend. Maybe she'd just gone right to his house. He decided to walk through Degrassi so he wouldn't leave her there, and then just go home, and text her on his way. He walked down a few hallways before he heard what sounded like a girl crying. Ellie. Reguardless or not, Marco was too much of a nice guy to leave a crying girl alone. He walked until he came upon the Media Immersions room, where he saw the unmistakable red head hunched over something. He rapped on the glass of the window.

"El?"

Crap.

She'd done it again. First, in the bathroom with Paige. She could've just gone in a stall, but she'd stayed in the main part of the restroom. And now, with Marco. She could've locked herself anywhere else, with less windows. She could've been quieter.

The door started to open. She pulled her sleeve down, threw the scissors across the floor and shoved the arm warmer in her backpack before trying in vain to fix her makeup. Marco came in and walked over to her.

"El… what's the matter?" He set his backpack down and climbed up on the desk, putting an arm around Ellie.

"N-n-nothing…" Damn. There was a small line of red showing through her light gray shirt, where she'd made the most recent cut. She flipped her arm over in a way that she thought was nonchalant. And to anyone else, it might've been. But Marco knew her much too well. He could read the guilty look on her face.

"El, what are you hiding?" He took her hand and turned her arm over. He stared at the red line for a minute.

"El, you're bleeding." He started to push her sleeve up, still not suspecting that her wound was self-inflicted.

"No, no, I just hit my arm, I'm fine…" He most definitely didn't believe her. He slowly pushed her sleeve up, revealing cut after cut after cut. His eyes widened as he looked into the eyes of his best friend. The girl who had gotten him through one of the hardest times of his life. His rock. And she was breaking.

Broken.

"Ellie… oh my God." Tears started rolling down his cheeks. He couldn't help it. It didn't freak him out- it scared him because he loved her so much. And he truly did love her, platonically. He slowly ran his fingers over each of her cuts. She winced as he touched the most recent one. He wasn't even looking at the bad arm- it was her right arm he was examining. If he looked at the left… she just hoped he didn't.

As if he'd read her mind, he pushed that sleeve up as well, and an inaudible gasp left his lips. There was hardly a part of skin that wasn't either cut or scarred. He put a hand on her face, both of them crying.

"Ellie… why?" Ellie sniffed and tried to answer comprehensibly.

"I… home… my mom… too much…" He just hugged her as tightly as he could, stroking her hair.

"Shh. It's okay, love. Come on. My parents actually aren't going to be home for a while. I'm taking you home. To my home." He corrected, thinking to himself that her actual home was probably the last place she wanted to be.

45 minutes later, Marco had Ellie wrapped up in a blanket sitting on his bed, both of them sipping hot chocolate. She'd told him, between sips and sobs, the entire story. All that she could. Minus her confused feelings for him. She still didn't know about that. But she told him about her mom, her drinking, her abuse, her father, how she was failing some of her classes, how stressed the sessions with Mrs. Sauve made her… everything. Now, they were just sitting on his bed, her head on his shoulder.

His parents had texted him saying they'd be away for two weeks. He was used to it. His father got called away on business often since he got his new job, and his mother couldn't bear to leave him. Apparantly they could both bear to leave Marco, however. He actually didn't mind this time, because he could take care of Ellie without them breathing down his neck. They were gone most weekends. And in two weeks, school would almost be starting again. He'd barely miss them. He looked at Ellie on his shoulder. She was sleeping. He smiled at her and kissed her on her forehead. She looked peaceful in her sleep.

All of the sudden, Marco remembered something he'd seen on the Simpsons. Keeping one arm around his emotionally unstable friend, he pulled his laptop out from under his bed and typed "emancipation" into Google. After an hour or so of research, he was fairly sure he'd figured it out. She needed to prove she could live on her own, and make rent, and prove that her home life was not stable. The latter she'd be able to do, no problem. The rent thing could be a problem. But he'd present that problem to her later. Before she'd fallen asleep, she'd told him that she'd stay with him these two weeks. But she stubbornly refused to go back to her house.

It was too much.

Marco sighed. She'd want to change tomorrow morning. He looked at his phone. It was 9:00 and dark outside. His parents would kill him if they found out, but frankly, Ellie mattered more right now. He gently laid Ellie down on his bed, ran out, grabbed his keys, and drove to Ellie's house. He knew exactly where it was, because he'd picked her up several times- she'd just never let him come in. He bit his lip, not knowing if her mom was home or how she'd react to him in her house. He was placing all his money on her being too drunk to call the cops or anything. He was doing this for Ellie.

For Ellie. For Ellie.

And with that mantra running itself through his head, he went to the front door. In a scrawl that was barely legible and obviously written hurridly and drunkenly, a note was posted on the door.

Eleanor.

I'm spending the winter holidays with Judy and her family, they invited me and I can't be alone in this house. You understand. Have a good Christmas. No parties, no boys. Ashley can come over if she wants.

-Mom

Marco smiled. Good. He tried the front door- it was unlocked. He was disgusted immediately, and didn't blame Ellie for not inviting him over. It also explained the abundance of body sprays she wore- he wouldn't want to smell like this place either. He went up the crooked staircase and started peeking in each room.

He knew he'd found the right one when he walked in and not only did it smell like incense instead of cigarette smoke, but it was painted a deep red, with black sheets on the bed. He opened the closet and grabbed a black suitcase from the depths of it. Then he started throwing drawers open. He grabbed an armful of band shirts, some of them short sleeved- Marco didn't pay attention to it. He just grabbed armfuls of things from everywhere. An armful of jeans. An armful of things from her underwear drawer- he tried not to dwell on that too much. He threw some CDs from the CD stand, some of the hair and makeup stuff from her vanity table. He found a small wooden box and opened it, to see if there was anything she needed. He sighed. It was filled to the brim with scissors, razor blades, needles, pins, tissues with bloodspots on them, and a small bottle of antiseptic. Next to it was a roll of white bandages.

Ellie, what have you done to yourself? He shut the box and shoved it back under the bed, continuing to mindlessly throw things in the box. He smiled to himself when he saw the sole picture other than the one of her father occupying the corner of her mirror- one taken last year of the two of them. She looked… happy. He wished he could get that girl back. He spotted a laptop case in the corner, and sure enough ,Ellie's band-sticker-covered laptop was in it. He grabbed that as well, zipped up the suitcase, and was on his way back to the Del Rossi home in the stealth of the night.

By the time he got back to the house, it was 11:30. It was all he could do to drag her stuff into his room, throw pajamas on, and go out on the couch. He laid there for a moment before re-entering his room and looking at Ellie, makeup streaks still on her face. He laughed silently and got a wet tissue from the bathroom and wiped her face, knowing that she slept like a rock. After throwing it away and slipping the combat boot type things off of her feet, he climbed onto the bed with her, kissing her softly on the forehead.

"You'll be alright, El." And with that, he fell asleep.