Bah, it's "that filler chapter" that every fanfiction requires. I promise that after this chapter, things will start to heat up… Also I've decided to return back to my old fanfiction "Powerful". If you like superheroes, conspiracies and weird groups, take a look. Review, check out my profile, and read!

I did the math in my head. If Clare existed, then I had lived in Toronto. If I had lived in Toronto, then no one was telling me the truth. If no one was telling me anything, then I'd know that it was part of my battle. It was all interconnected. One lie after another. I wasn't sure if the people around me lied to protect or hurt me. I assumed a mix of both.

It was amazing how easily paranoid I became after that. I felt like I was part of some conspiracy. I trusted Julia though, and no one else. I don't' know why I trusted her. She probably lied to me too, but she'd told me more than any one else. She'd never do me wrong.

"Have I always lived in Ottawa?" I asked her one day.

"Of course. Why?" She asked.

"I just had a feeling I've moved before." I told her plainly.

"Honey, it's just your imagination. You've been in Ottawa since you were born." She said.

"Have I ever been to Toronto?" I asked her.

"No." She said plainly. "You have never been to Toronto, nor know any one there."

That deflated me. I believed Julia. I know she'd tell me if I had lived there or even gone there. That would give me plausible reason to believe that I wasn't imagining completely everything. Perhaps, if I had visited Toronto and had met a girl named Clare, then that whole dream could have arisen out of that. But how'd I dream up someone I've never meant and a place I'd never gone to?

I didn't get any insight about my accident either. Alex didn't talk to me. Neither did sweet Eva or tough Jordan. Whenever they saw me in the hallways, they'd look at me, then look away quickly. They knew something, they just weren't telling me anything. I didn't push it.

There were two conflicts in my life. The first being Clare and Degrassi. The second being my accident. They kept crossing over. Sometimes I thought that the lies and secrets about Toronto and my accident were the same. Sometimes I felt that they were two separate things. I couldn't distinguish the line between them and I was at a dead end. My parents rarely talked to me. They seemed skittish and scared all the time. I couldn't blame them, their son had just been severely injured. Julia only gave me yes or no answers, but I knew she was trying her best. And that was the end of my resources. What was I supposed to do now? Give up on both? Just forget about it and move on? As much as I tried to just let it be, I couldn't. It was eating at me, these two things. Clare and the accident, Clare and the accident. All I thought about. What was my life like before all of this? Where was the truth?

I decided to go on a long walk the day that my cast was taken off to celebrate my recovery. And also to think. I'd done an awful lot of thinking, but none of it helped. I walked into the downtown area, up a sidewalk, past some stores and then I saw her.

Her hair reflected gold in the sunlight, her denim dress hugging her body well. She was walking in front of me. Walking farther and farther away. I pushed past people to get to her, to see if it was possibly true. "Clare!" I shouted. She started to walk faster. "Clare!" I said again. She didn't stop.

"Clare Edwards, I know you know me." She stopped suddenly. Her shoulders rose and she began to look back. Her face was just as I had remembered. She started to walk faster, disappearing into the crowd.

"Clare, you're the only one that can help me!" I ran after her.

She turned around to face me, then looked around. "You can't talk to me or else they'll know." She said tightly. "You have to move on. You have to understand that this is for your own good. You have to understand that you can't see or talk to me again, no matter how much you feel you need to. You cannot." She said quietly. She began to move again. I caught up with her.

"Just tell me if my accident and me knowing you are related. I have to know what's going on, even if you can't tell me much." I said.

"I can't tell you anything because I care about you. Just know that you're trusting the wrong people. The people who are responsible for all of this. I have to go now. They're here somewhere." Clare explained.

"That's good enough for me. I'm not crazy, you're real, and so are my suspicions. One day we're going to be able to talk again. See each other without fear, I promise you." I told her.

"Don't get too attached. One day I'll be gone for good. Don't hold on to something that isn't even there. Just know I believe in you and know that you'll right everything. I have to go." She said.

"I'll miss you." I told her.

"Don't." She left.

That was good enough for me. Clare Edwards was a real person. I had gone to Toronto. I was being lied to. There was a they, and they didn't mean well. But, who was they? That was my next step, to uncover more clues, figure out what the hell was going on in my life. If I had to live like this forever, constantly unaware of whom I could trust and what had happened to cause this, I would die. I just had to find the truth. It was out there somewhere.

"I don't know why you can't tell her. It's not that bad, we all have secrets." Adam said to me one day.

"It's not just a secret, it's another half of my life. It keeps me up at night, it worries me constantly. I don't know if I'm done with it for good or if it'll come back and haunt me now." I said.

"Eli, you're safe here. Nothing can come and hurt you, so just tell her. She'll understand. She'll want to help. She'll get it." Adam tried to convince me.

"No. You don't understand what'll happen if she gets involved. Bad things Adam. I'm risking it with you, but I know if they find out that Clare knows, she'll be in danger. Just trust me on this." I told him.

"You really love her," Adam said.

"Yeah."

I didn't know what that memory meant. Sometimes I'd just get random pieces of conversation, random images. Just thoughts that appeared in my head. This was one of them. I had no clue what I was talking about, but I assumed it was connected to whatever my accident was about. If I remembered correctly, then there wasanother half of my life. A dangerous one. A secret one. One that would end up hurting me in the end. The conversation with Clare and this memory lifted a load off my shoulders. I knew I was close to something big. I knew it was in my reach, deep in my subconscious too. It's hard to distinguish a feeling from knowledge sometimes. This time I knew that I was on to something.