My summer is so boring so far. I hate how during the school year I'm so busy I barely have time to watch Degrassi but in the summer I have NOTHING to do. At least I have way more time to update.

Thanks to all who reviewed last chapter. I think there were two people and I wasn't expecting much so thanks guys!

Erin's POV

As soon as the bell rang, signaling first hour was done; I grabbed my backpack and raced out of the room. I didn't wanna have to act all buddy-buddy with Clare anymore then I had to. The rest of my morning classes were boring, and I didn't have anymore with Clare or Eli.

But after fourth hour ended, I was faced with a very common new student problem. Where am I supposed to sit at lunch? I felt myself get a little nervous as I walked into the cafeteria.

Only a few other students were sitting at the tables. I must have been one of the first ones here. I got into the lunch line and purchased some fries and a big cookie (I thought I deserved some junk food.) I then looked around at the tables again. A lot more were filled now, with various groups of girls, guys and couples. I sighed, knowing there was no place for me, and decided I'd go lock myself in a bathroom stall and eat there. But as I was walking out of the cafeteria, I practically walked into Clare and Eli.

I noticed Eli's eyes widen a little and Clare just smiled warmly at me. I forced a smile back and tried to get around them.

"Erin, hi!" Clare greeted. "Where are you going?

I felt my cheeks grow warm when I knew I couldn't come up with a good excuse. "I… I was actually gonna go eat in the bathroom."

Clare's huge blue eyes seemed to instantly fill with sappy sympathy. "Oh gosh, you know, you can always sit with us!"

Clare looked at Eli, who hadn't said anything the entire time.

"Yeah, that'd be cool. You can sit with us." he said, not sounding like he wanted me to sit with them at all.

"Uh, that's okay. I wouldn't want to," I paused, searching for the right word. "Intrude."

Clare chuckled. "Nonsense. We sit with some other people too so it's no problem, really! Come on!"

She smiled again and grabbed my wrist, dragging me through the rows of tables towards the back of the cafeteria. I noticed halfway there she turned around and looked at Eli, who was following us, but I couldn't see her face to know what was going on. I felt really shy when Clare stopped in front of a table full of unfamiliar faces. She sat down and gestured for me to sit down next to her. I dropped down next to her, dropping my backpack on the floor, and set my food down, but my appetite was long gone. Eli sat down on the other side of Clare.

"Everyone, this is Erin King. She's new." Clare said, gesturing to me again. Everyone at the table stared at me, all but one girly looking guy wearing a gray beanie. He stared at me in bewilderment.

A girl with long wavy brown hair slid down the other side of the table, closer to me. She stuck out her hand and I shook it. She smiled.

"I'm Fiona Coyne." she said. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." I replied, quietly. I awkwardly started breaking my big cookie into crumbs.

"Just a word of advice, avoid the school fries." she said, pointing at my fries.

I looked up at her, puzzled. "Why?"

She cleared her throat. "Well, they have some nasty side effects."

I understood what she meant and slid the fries away from me. She laughed.

"By the way, I love your pants. Paint splatter is totally about to come back in style." she said. I looked down at my pants. I was just wearing a basic pair of dark wash jeans that I purposefully I had decorated with various paint. They were pretty old.

"Oh… yeah." I said, not sure of what else I could say. Fiona just smiled.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Clare was busy talking with the girly looking guy, and Eli. The guy had a weird expression on his face and Eli was whispering across the table to him. Clare kept interjecting every once in awhile, and would whisper something as well.

After I had completely destroyed my cookie into microscopic crumbs, I got up and threw it away. I sat back down, and Fiona had slid back down the table. She was next to the guy, and they were holding hands above the table. A few other people were at the table, way on the other end. Eli had his arm around Clare and I was alone on my side of the table.

Clare noticed and slid down the table. "Hey Erin, come down here. We're all talking about teachers and maybe you could a thing or two."

She grabbed my arm, again, and pulled me down towards the middle of the table, where he and Eli were. Eli looked at me again, not saying anything. He was pretty polite and cherry this morning, I was wondering what happened.

I listened in on their conversation for a bit, but I was completely not interested. The girly looking guy was staring at me a lot, and it was making me a little uncomfortable.

"Uh, sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Adam." he stated.

I nodded. "Nice to meet you."

"Um, so you're Julia's sister?" he asked. Guess he knew everything and must have been good friends with Eli. Eli quickly looked away, towards the window on the other side of the table.

"Yeah." I replied simply. Adam nodded.

"Um, I'm really sorry." he said.

I cleared my throat, I hated sympathy. "Thanks."

"Sure." Adam said.

The rest of them went back into some conversation, an Indian girl joined in this time, and she never even looked my way. I sat there silently, counting down the minutes until the bell rang.

And finally, it did. I stood up, hopping off the bench and walking back down the table towards my backpack. As I slung it over my shoulders, I practically knocked Eli over with it.

"Oh!" I said, surprised. "Sorry."

He just nodded. "It's okay. See you later."

He practically ran off. I wrinkled my brow in confusion. Clare passed by me and stopped in front of me.

"What class do you have next?" she asked.

I grabbed my schedule out of my pocket and unfolded it.

"Art." I replied. She nodded.

"I have math but I'm going in that direction. I'll show you where your room is."

I forced a smile. "Thanks."

Clare and I walked out of the cafeteria and down a hallway. She stopped suddenly and turned towards me.

"Hey, is it cool if I talk to you sometime? I know that sounds weird but there's just a lot I should tell you about."

I blinked, wanting to yell 'no' in her face and run away. This didn't sound good at all, and the last thing I wanted to do was have any private one-on-one conversation with her.

"Um, sure." I said instead.

She smiled. "It's nothing serious, I swear. So when are you free?"

Next year, I thought, bitterly. "Um, tomorrow?"

"After school?" Clare asked. No, at 3 A.M., I thought, trying not to roll my eyes.

I nodded.

"Okay great. I'll meet you after school on the front steps and we can go to this café down the street called The Dot, where all the Degrassi kids hang out."

I nodded again. "Okay."

We started walking again and turned down a different hallway. Clare stopped in front of a room and gestured inside.

"Here's your room. Do you know how to get to your 6th hour class?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, thanks."

"No problem. Maybe we'll have another class again. But if not, see you tomorrow in Creative Writing!"

She waved goodbye and walked away. I finally used that eye roll that I wanted so desperately to use that entire conversation. I was starting to really not be able to stand Clare. She was so overly-happy, and she so did not seem like Eli's type. She was almost the complete opposite of how Julia was. I felt my chest ache, I shouldn't be comparing them. Even though I wasn't used to the idea of Eli having another girlfriend and probably wouldn't be for awhile, I knew that's what Julia would have wanted for him: to be happy.

I walked in the classroom and there was a seating chart taped up on the board. I found my seat and sat down. I found myself wanting to bite my fingers off when I saw Adam walk in the room. He glanced at the seating chart and walked towards where I was sitting and sat down next to me. He smiled a bit. I was getting sick of people smiling at me like we were going to be best friends or something.

"Hi Erin." he said. I mumbled a 'hi' back and pretending to be rummaging through my backpack for something.

"Are you good at art?" he asked. I looked up and nodded. Actually, art was probably the only class I was ever good at. Drawing was one of my favorite hobbies and using excelled at whatever else we did in any given art class.

He laughed a bit. "I'm not. Any chance you want to do all my projects for me?"

I giggled a bit, not as annoyed with him as I was with Clare.

"Sorry. Why did you take this class if you don't like art?" I asked. Adam shrugged.
"You have to take an art class to graduate so, here I am!" he said. I laughed.

"Well, good luck. Art can get really frustrating if you don't like it."

"Boy, do I know that." Adam said. "In middle school we had to take an art class every year. I almost failed the 7th grade because of it."

I laughed. "Ouch."

Then Ms. Dawes entered the room. I bit my lip. For Christ's sake, does this woman teach every class in this school? (1)

A/N: Haha, sorry that ended so abruptly. I have to go somewhere and I won't be back tonight most likely, and wanted to get this chapter up today and I felt it was long enough. Sorry it's another filler. I kind of want Erin and Adam to be friends! What do you think? As for the Clare/Erin talk, let's just say that does gonna kickoff the drama in this story (: And that'll be next chapter...!

(1) Hahaha, am I the only one who gets sick of seeing Ms. Dawes on the show sometimes? At my school, all the teachers only teach one subject. Like the English teachers only teach English classes. I don't get how Ms. Dawes teaches art and English!