DISCLAIMER: I don't own Degrassi or anything else.

Twitter: themusiksnob / Tumblr: musiksnob

Well, I don't have a baby yet (though I will in the next two days) but I do have a new chapter. This one is kind of set up so it's not that exciting but I promise you the story will pick up in the next chapter. Which you'll probably have to wait for…because, yeah…baby.

Thanks for reading.


Chapter 3

Eli

"This was awesome," Clare said as she stepped up next to my locker, holding out my copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower that I had lent her. "I've been meaning to read it for a while, so thanks."

"No problem," I said, sticking it in my backpack. I double checked that I had the correct textbooks and notebooks for tonight's homework and slammed my locker shut. "I'm glad you liked it."

We started walking toward the entrance of the school together. We didn't have a study date scheduled and Ms. Dawes hadn't even given us our next writing assignment, but over the last few weeks, Clare and I had seemed to start spending more and more time together, whether there was a scholastic reason or not. We'd stop and grab coffee or ice cream together on our way home from school at least twice a week, and on two occasions when I knew for certain Bullfrog was not going to be home, I'd invited her over to watch movies with me. Sometimes she had newspaper meetings or Jesus Club and of course, every Monday I had my therapy session, but lately most of my free time had been spent with Clare.

It was really nice hanging out with Clare. As we'd gotten more comfortable with each other, the conversations had gotten a little more personal than just school assignments and books we'd enjoyed. I could tell she was still holding certain things back with me, as I certainly was with her, but with every new thing I learned about her, I'd grown to respect her more and more. In her last essay for class, she'd written about her parents' divorce and how it tested her religious faith, and even as an atheist, I could appreciate just how difficult things were for her, especially last year.

"Coffee at the Dot?" she asked, and I nodded. A smile spread over her face and I couldn't help but grin back at her.

"You know, this is the second book that you've recommended to me that I've read," she reminded me as we walked toward the Dot. "I think it's your turn to read something that I've recommended."

I smirked. "But I refuse to read anything with vampires in it. And besides, you even said you'd been meaning to read it on your own."

"I read more than vampire fiction," she said defensively.

"Yeah, sometimes you read vampire fanfiction as well."

"Not exclusively," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Uh huh," I teased. "I bet you've read that 50 Shades of Grey book that all the middle aged women are talking about. Or at least the Twilight fic that it's based on."

Clare's cheeks turned scarlet. "No I haven't. And I'm not going to."

"Why not?"

I couldn't believe it was possible for her blush to darken. "Because it's basically porn," she said, whispering the last word.

"Come on, Clare." I poked her lightly in the side. "We all like to read dirty stories every now and then."

"No, I don't!" she protested, a little too strongly in my opinion. Her eyes narrowed at me. "You seem to know an awful lot about this for someone who refuses to read anything with vampires in it."

I held up my hands in surrender. "Hey, I'm not the one who likes dirty vampire porn. I had to listen to Cece going on and on about how great the books are while trying not to vomit into my cereal."

Clare's nose wrinkled adorably. "I can't believe your mother tells you about books like that."

"Trust me. I wish she didn't."

"I think I'm going to make you read Anna and the French Kiss," Clare said, changing the subject.

"Yeah, that's not going to happen."

"It's the best teenage romance ever written. It's got great characters and it's not too girly or mushy. John Green loved it and you liked most of his books."

"Yeah the one where the kid gets the really awkward blow job and the funny one. Not the sappy romantic ones like the last one."

She scoffed. "You have no heart."

Yeah, I had no heart. Because I didn't want to read about teenagers dying of cancer, no matter how well it was written. Experiencing the death of a girlfriend firsthand was bad enough. But I didn't want to explain that to Clare. It was awkward enough to know that she had seen the play last year, so she not only knew about my tragic past but had witness firsthand just how messed up I was over it.

"I'll tell you what. Pick out a book where the top ten words to describe it don't include the words 'romance,' 'vampire' or 'cancer' and I'll read it. I promise."

Her face lit up and she started babbling about some dystopian book called Divergent. The description didn't sound half bad but I found myself distracted by looking at her beautiful smile. She had pushed back her curls with a flowered headband but there was one piece sticking out really awkwardly and all I wanted to do was to lean closer to her and push it back into the right place and…

"Are you listening?" Clare interrupted, and I felt my own face growing hot.

"Yeah, it sounds good. I'll pick it up next time I'm at the library unless you've got a copy I could borrow."

"I'll bring it tomorrow," she said, as we arrived at the Dot. It was really busy like usual, and she pointed to a small open café table. "Grab that before somebody takes it. It's my turn to treat anyway. Usual?"

"Yes, ma'am." Clare shot me a dirty look but went to get our coffees as I held the table for us.

Clare was waiting at the counter for a while; her fancy caramel espresso drinks took a lot longer to make than my black coffee and the new barista was really overwhelmed by the afternoon crowd. I took out my history book and started reading my assignment to give myself something to do.

"If it isn't my long-lost friend, Eli Goldsworthy." A familiar voice pulled me out of my homework.

"Hey, Adam." He took Clare's seat and I immediately started looking around for another stool to pull up with us. I didn't want Clare to come back with our drinks and think I'd forgotten about her. There was an empty seat at the table next to us and I jumped up to grab it.

"Am I interrupting something?" Adam asked in amusement. Toward the end of the last year, Fiona would often join us, but lately on the rare occasion that Adam and I hung out, it was just the two of us. Fiona and I were still on good terms but for some reason, she'd seemed to pick Imogen's side after our falling out, which was strange to me. Even though I was certainly the asshole in that situation, Fiona was my friend first. I missed hanging out with her and knew I needed to make the effort to mend our friendship.

Fortunately, Adam and I weren't having any friendship problems. We got along as well as we always did. But he was spending a lot of time working with Dave on his radio show and he hung out with Drew all the time who wasn't exactly my favourite person in the world. Adam's busy schedule left me with a lot of free time – that lately I'd filling by spending it with Clare.

"Hi Adam," she said warmly as she passed me my coffee and sat down at the table with us.

Adam had a smirk on his face and if Clare hadn't been between us I would have punched him in the arm. "Hi Clare," he said, his voice teasing.

"You guys know each other?" I asked. I hadn't seen them together before that I could recall.

"We've only had almost every class together since I started at Degrassi," Adam explained.

"And we were lab partners last year," Clare said. "Straight A's all four marking periods." She and Adam high-fived.

"I wish you were in my physics class this year. I'm partners with Heather Poulette and she's useless," Adam said.

Clare groaned. "Tell me about it. Mr. Betancamp stuck me with K.C. You pretty much can't get any more awkward than that and he's not exactly a physics genius."

"What's so awkward about K.C.?" I asked. I didn't really know the guy very well but he hung around with Drew so occasionally I'd get stuck in Adam's basement playing video games with them.

Clare looked down at her drink. "He's my ex."

"Hey look on the bright side," Adam said. "He didn't knock you up like Jenna."

"Yeah," she said sarcastically. "Good for me." For a girl who seemed all Christian and wholesome, Clare sure had had a lot of boyfriends. Although that wasn't exactly fair – I'd had one real girlfriend and one girl I had screwed over so we were probably about the same as far as relationships went. I doubted what she had with K.C. was remotely comparable to my relationship with Julia and even after all these weeks of hanging out I still wasn't sure what exactly had gone on with her and Jake. She never mentioned him except for vague references to avoiding being home.

Adam wasn't usually the most perceptive guy on the planet but he could clearly tell Clare was uncomfortable so he changed the subject. But of course, it didn't really make things less complicated. "So how do you two know each other?"

"We're English partners," Clare explained. "Ms. Dawes has us editing each others' work."

"Oh, am I interrupting? I didn't know you were trying to get work done. I'm just meeting Dave here to brainstorm ideas for our radio show but I think he's busy sucking face with Alli."

Clare grimaced at the sound of her name and I realized that was a story I still hadn't gotten out of her. I didn't pay a ton of attention to Clare last year but even I knew that the two girls had been attached at the hip. But Alli was nowhere to be seen this year and Clare flinched whenever she was brought up, never mentioning the girl herself.

"Nah, this meeting is purely recreational," I said, trying to distract Clare. "Ms. Dawes was slightly less of a hardass this week with the assignments."

"I see," Adam said with a slight smirk.

Clare's cell phone beeped and she checked her messages with a groan. "I gotta go. My mother wants me to go grocery shopping with her to pick up food for her very special three month anniversary dinner."

"Sounds like fun," I said, disappointed that she was leaving so soon.

"Yeah. The best." She hopped down from her chair and grabbed her backpack. "It was nice actually talking to you, Adam, and Eli, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye Clare," we chorused as she left.

Adam didn't even have to say what he was thinking; I got the implication from his raised eyebrows. But there was no way I was caving in that easily. "What?" I asked, pretending not to know what he was implying.

"How come you didn't tell me you had a new girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend," I protested. We had barely crossed the threshold into friends a few weeks ago.

"Okay. Then how come you didn't tell me you're head over heels for the lovely Ms. Edwards?"

"Adam. Come on."

"You're so full of shit, man. You should see the way you look at her."

"Because you've seen me look at so many girls before?"

Adam shook his head. "Clare's nice. And she's really pretty. You could do a lot worse."

"She could do a lot better."

"True," Adam confirmed. "I think you should go for it. You clearly like her, and if my instincts are right, she might actually think you don't suck."

I rolled my eyes. "Because you have such great instincts. Fiona Coyne…lesbian. Bianca DeSousa…trans-phobic bad girl."

He shrugged. "Fiona was confused. And Bianca's really come around. She's a friend now."

"Katie Matlin…more interested in your brother."

"Alright, so I'm unlucky in love. That doesn't mean you have to be."

I stared at him. "Right…with my track record?"

Adam's face softened and he became uncharacteristically serious. "Eli…you can't let what happened with Julia prevent you from ever trying again with another girl."

"And Imogen?"

He looked pensive. "That's not exactly the same. It wasn't like you wanted to date her. She did everything she could to get you and you just got swept up."

"And I completely fucked her over."

"Yeah, well… You're in a better place now. I don't think you'd do that to Clare. Not intentionally."

I stared into my coffee cup, feeling like the world was crashing down on me. "I hate that people get hurt because of me."

"It doesn't have to be like that. You're making this into more than it needs to be."

I knew Adam was right, but I was so terrified to screw things up with her. She was one really good thing in my life right now and taking that step was practically a guarantee of fucking that up. I grasped at the last straw I had. "She just got out of a relationship…with her stepbrother. You can't get more complicated than that. She might not be ready either."

"Dude," Adam said in frustration. "Stop with the excuses. Just ask her out on one date. See what happens."

I saw that Dave had walked through the door and nodded towards him. Adam waved him over.

But before Dave arrived, Adam leaned closer to me and said, "You deserve to be happy, Eli. Stop punishing yourself for every mistake you've ever made."

Right. Now if only I could make myself believe that.