Author's Note: This is pretty much a direct response to Close To Me. Certain things not yet addressed, only because it ended up being more of Rubber Room Friends origin story than anything else. I'm also trying to avoid explaining the circumstances of Zig's homelessness in detail until the show gives us more clues, so thank you so much for bearing with me, here.

AND NOW:

Zig's hair was still wet from the shower, shirt basically buttoned, as he grabbed for the Matlin's house phone. He surprised himself, that he knew the number by heart - although it was more due to necessity than pure friendship, as he hadn't had a steady place to store his contacts since his phone plan had run out in August.

He picked at a spare thread on the couch as he waited for her to pick up. If she let it go to voicemail because she didn't recognize the number, Zig swore to God-

"Yello?"

"Grace!"

"Zig? What's this number?"

"Maya's."

"Ah. Should have guessed. How's life at the love shack, anyway?"

"Fine. Good. Uh-"

She chuckled. "What do you want, weirdo?"

"Will you go to the, um. Dance. Semiformal. Whatever. With. You know. Me?"

On the other end of the line, Grace howled.

"Oh, come on. Not like that!"

"Am I dreaming? Am I drunk? I've waited for this moment for so long, and it's completely met every single expectation I've had-"

"Maya's going to be there," Zig shot back. And, with vigor: "And Miles!"

"You knew that this morning, and still told her no. What's different?"

Zig finally managed to rip the thread out of the couch cushion. He entwined it between his fingers, silent, for a long moment. Looked around at this living room, too fancy to be real, expensive, clean, normal- decidedly not his.

"I can't screw this up, okay?"

He wasn't sure whether he meant living with the Matlins or falling more in love with Maya than he already had or proving his dad wrong or saving up enough for a new phone or all of the above or something else, entirely. But: Grace got it, anyway. She usually did.

"Alright, fine," she shot back. Accompanied by a loud, theatrical sigh, just to keep either of them from getting too sentimental. "Meet you there in forty minutes, Romeo."

"Forty minutes? Seriously?" Zig checked the clock on the mantle. "The thing starts in twenty."

"And you asked me to go with you precisely ten seconds ago. I need to decide which of my black tee-shirts is the fanciest. Call Tiny, too! I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about the two of us."

"But I thought you'd been waiting your whole life-"

"Whatever. Forty minutes, Zigmund. And I can't promise I won't have pregamed this bullshit."

Click. Zig grinned. He'd forgotten what this felt like. Hope?


Being poor sucked, but what he wouldn't realize until later was that it was a relief to know where he stood.

He'd gotten good, anyway, at getting around it: sitting with his friends in clothes he'd stolen from the Lost and Found, drinking a coffee he'd paid for in quarters, smiling and nodding along while they talked about TV shows he'd never seen. He was so good at faking it, sometimes, he'd forget about who he really was: come back to the convenience store with the broken lightbulbs, his exhausted mother half-asleep at the counter. The taste of the overpriced coffee, which cost as much as he made in an hour- or, rather, would make, if there was any money to pay him- would linger in his mouth as he kissed her forehead, locked the door behind him.

He'd stumble past his father, asleep in front of a screen full of static, antenna drooping. Sometimes there'd be a an empty beer on the table next to him. Sometimes, more than that.

He'd fall asleep in a mattress on the floor of a mostly-empty room. Some nights passed without incident, some a burst of stress dreams about Maya and Cam and Tori and greenhouses and green bandanas and Maya, always Maya.

Those were the problems Zig figured he'd always have: not enough pants to impress his friends and Maya Matlin. (Cam, too, but he never thought about Cam.

Except when he did.)

But then she left, and so did everyone else, and his dad was gone for four days in a row without calling and they all assumed he was dead.

He wasn't, though- he came back with a weird amount of money, too much to be just because of the last minute trucking gig he claimed Uncle Anto had gotten him. It was easier to just swallow that, though, and move on. Shut up, smile, and pretend things were as normal as they had ever been.

As hard as it had been to go to a school full of rich kids and not own a smartphone: he had no idea. What poor truly meant, and how bad it could get.


Zig brought a backpack with him to the ravine. He hadn't had a lot of time, so he didn't even really have any idea what he'd shoved in there: a few tee-shirts. Old Degrassi lanyard. Pants, underwear, a stack of comic books. Toothbrush, but no toothpaste. Deodorant. School binder. Sweatshirt. A pair of flip flops.

Fuck.

He was sitting on a log, pretty far off from the general sketchy goings on that the ravine was known for. He didn't really know how he ended up here- maybe he thought it would be like a campground? Maybe he thought Damon would be here?

He hadn't been thinking, really. He'd pretty much been on autopilot ever since he slammed the door and ran off. Kicked it once, for good measure, and here he was. No campground, no Damon, just some bonfire of losers beyond those trees and Zig and his fucking shower shoes.

The sun was still pretty high in the sky, but: it would set, eventually. Soon. Too soon. And then what the fuck was he going to do? Why hadn't he thought to grab a blanket? A pillow? Because doubling back to grab a sleeping back would have severely undercut the drama of his exit. Goddammit. His dad had probably already locked the doors, anyway.

"You are nothing. You hear me? All you've ever done is make my life harder."

Zig was half-crying, sort of, without realizing. He wiped the stray tears away with the sweatshirt, but it was too late:

"You realize finals are over, right?" He looked up, and there she was: blue hair, tons of makeup. Piercings everywhere. Holding a beer, eyebrow raised.

"Uh- what?"

"Your shirt, dude." He looked down and realized: he was wearing his Degrassi polo. Bright yellow, grade nine, complete dweeb. Awesome.

He hurriedly pulled the sweatshirt over his head, checking to make sure it covered the collar. "You saw nothing."

She laughed, dark and deep. But not unfriendly.

"We haven't had to wear that shit in, like, months, anyway. Pretty sure I set all of mine on fire."

"I should have done that." He stood up, slung the backpack over his shoulder. "You, um, go to Degrassi? I've never-"

"Oof. Awkward. I'm in your grade. It's Grace, by the way, since you obviously don't know."

"Wait, really?"

"Yep. Can't blame you for not noticing, when you had the two biggest princesses of the year all up on your dick."

Zig had no idea what to say to that. He pushed his bangs from his eyes. Grace took a sip from her beer.

"Sucks that girl's boyfriend died, though."

Zig tensed up. He always did. Forced himself to nod. "Um, yeah."

They stared at each other. There was some laughter, off in the distance. Grace jerked her head towards it. "Want to join? Unless you're like, meeting the blonde one to kiss with tongue and cry after, or something-"

"No. No!" Zig took a few steps towards her, frantic all of a sudden. "The blonde one - Maya - is nowhere. She's not coming. I'm just- here."

Grace grinned, and beckoned him over. They drew closer to the, uh, festivities, or whatever you were supposed to call them, and Zig almost gagged as they descended into the cloud of smoke. Hanging with princesses meant very little experience with alcohol or drugs or anything - but what did he have to lose? The pillow he'd forgot to grab?

Grace grabbed him a beer, showed him around, tipped him off when his highlighter yellow collar was sticking out of his sweatshirt. It was a party full of burnouts and weirdos and failures and losers, yeah, but maybe it was time that Zig finally admit it: these were his people.

It was reality he'd desperately avoided, as he took Tori on dates he couldn't afford, chased after a girl dating a practically-professional hockey player, ate corn dogs and did kareoke and shrugged, smiled, stopped listening.

Zig faked it until he made it, played nice, aimed way out of his league, and what had that gotten him?

Here and now: drinking a can of beer with more gusto than he'd ever managed about anything, ever. And another, and another. It was becoming clearer and clearer: he was finally where he belonged.

Bottom of the food chain, eyes watering because of pot smoke, flirting with girls who failed classes that he barely cared about.

He almost forgot about Maya, that night. About everything. For that, at least: he was grateful.


Zig stood in between Grace and Tiny, at the front steps of the school. A big banner advertising the semiformal flapped above their heads. Tiny snorted.

"You better fucking marry her, Zig. Or at least, like, fuck her."

"Shut up, you douchebag. I don't-" Zig fell short. "It's not that obvious. I'm not. That obvious."

"Oooohkay!" Grace said. "I'm just at this dance because I love group activities so much. Almost as much as I love my peers. Total fucking joiner."

"That's not a word," Zig grumbled.

"Um, totally is, Rubber Room."

"I'm there for my attitude, not my ability to know words, Simpson said it himself."

"I'm here," Tiny interrupted, "at this dumb dance, because that mayor's son seems like a total prick. It would be a relief to punch him. I'd be doing the world a favor."

They all laughed, a little. It was quiet, mostly, save for the banner, flapping.

Zig wasn't lucky in a lot of ways- which made it easier to recognize the parts of his life that weren't total crap.

"Thank you, guys," he said. "For coming."

Grace grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Seconds later, she was halfway towards the door. "I better be the groomsmaid of fucking honor at this shebang, Zig!" she called back. Suddenly, a flash of silver: "And I'm spiking the punch!"

Zig laughed, loudly, freely, and followed her up the stairs.

It was going to be a good night. He could feel it.