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

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This is long enough so I'll just get to it. Thank you for reading and please considering leaving a review. It helps a lot to have your support.

This takes place a few weeks after the last chapter.

Chapter 6

I wasn't in the greatest mood when I walked out of Dr. Loughner's office but when I discovered Cece's car wasn't in the parking lot and checked my phone to find a text saying she had been called into work and I'd need to take the bus home, I was livid. There was nothing like sitting on a bus for 30 minutes to remind you how much better it was to have a driver's license, and that was before the 20 minute walk home from the Queen Street Station.

By the time I returned home, I was sweaty, cranky, and extra pissed once I saw Bullfrog's car in the driveway. I had texted him but he never remembered to charge his phone and they had gotten rid of our landline to save money the year before.

I stomped up the stairs without saying anything to him. I had my shirt over my head before I reached my room and stripped down to my boxers, deciding a shower was the only solution.

Unfortunately, as the hot water beat down on my skin, I couldn't get my counseling session out of my head. I was too depressed to use my usual method of distracting myself – imagining Clare naked while I jerked off – and with Bullfrog home, I couldn't use the backup method of singing embarrassing songs at the top of my lungs.

When I left the mental hospital, I had signed papers allowing my medical records to be transferred to Dr. Loughner. I had the option to keep going back for outpatient therapy, but between the distance and the fact that group therapy was much less useful to me than one on one sessions, I opted to keep seeing my regular therapist. At our first session I had apologized to him for my outburst at the last meeting we had before my accident, and he had seemed pleased at the progress I had made.

For weeks, we had focused on the usual topics: my medication, my panic attacks, the hoarding. I had kept him apprised of my relationship with Clare and he seemed to think our slow progression to getting back together was a good thing. I had left each of our sessions feeling a sense of accomplishment – that I was on the right track, that I was starting to get better. I was throwing things out and I was taking my meds responsibly with Cece's help. I was starting to trust Clare again and I had managed to not give her any more reasons not to trust me.

But this time, he had finally brought up the topic of Mike. I knew that Dr. Martin's notes would have explained the situation to him and I was glad not to have to tell that story again in full. But Dr. Loughner was pressing me to tell my parents the truth about what happened to me. I had set up a group therapy session with my parents at the end of my stay at the hospital, but I wasn't able to tell them. In fact, the situation had freaked me out so much that I had to be medicated, which was something I had been able to avoid throughout much of my stay.

Dr. Loughner wanted me to tell them. Clare wanted me to tell them.

I just wanted to never think about it again.

I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out.

I got dressed in a pair of sweats and an old gray t-shirt, figuring I probably wouldn't go out for the rest of the day and lay down on my bed. I was trying to get more comfortable in my room. Clare had come over and helped me clean three times since we found Julia's necklace, and I had spent a little of my free time rearranging things so it was as close as I could get it to the way it was before the accident. I had even thrown out a handful things on my own, which I hadn't been possible for me before. I figured it was probably time for me to start sleeping in my room again, rather than the TV room.

I heard a knock at my door and didn't respond, but Bullfrog came in anyway.

"Your mom called. She had to work so we're on our own for dinner tonight."

"Yeah, I'm aware."

"You want pizza or Chinese?"

"Pizza," I said, hoping he'd leave me alone.

He clearly didn't get the hint because he walked farther into my room and sat down on the bed. Cece came in pretty often, sometimes to grab my laundry or change my sheets and sometimes to check up on me or help me clean. I couldn't remember the last time Bullfrog had set foot in here. It may have been junior high. Certainly before Julia started crashing with us.

"There was a message from Dr. Loughner as well," he continued.

The last time Dr. Loughner called he informed my parents I was trying to get more pills since I had taken all of mine. That conversation hadn't gone well. I wasn't sure what issue he was having with me now. I hoped he wasn't trying to set up a group therapy meeting without my permission. I told him I wasn't ready to tell them; he should respect that.

"He was asking if you need a refill on your anxiety meds," Bullfrog said. Dr. Martin had only given me a month's supply of pills with no refills so that I couldn't abuse them like I had last time. "I had to go to the safe and check the bottle since I've never gotten any for you. There's over half a bottle in there."

"Yeah, well, it's easy not to take them when I don't know the combination," I muttered.

Bullfrog laughed. "The combo's not that hard. If I were you, I would have found a way in there already."

I shrugged. I hadn't even thought about breaking in. "Well, I'm trying to do the right thing."

"You know, I'm really proud of you," Bullfrog said. I sat up, wondering where this way coming from. He and I had always been close but it was always joking or arguing about music or joining forces to tease Cece. He'd said those words to me when I graduated from grade eight, when I won third place in a Battle of the Bands at my old school, when I got a B in chemistry even though science was my worst class. But it wasn't a frequent occurrence, and it was never about something so serious.

"I know how hard it is to overcome an addiction," he continued. "And I know for certain that I wasn't strong enough to do that when I was your age. But Dr. Loughner is convinced you've made a lot of progress, and I can see it too, kid."

"Thanks," I said softly, wondering where he was going with this. His accusation that I was an addict was still the only actual conversation we'd had about his own drug use. He gave me one "Don't do drugs" speech when I was around 12: "You can smoke pot every now and then but not too often, because potheads are boring. Don't do anything harder than that or I'll kick your ass."

I had spent most of the day battling that low level of anxiety that didn't produce a panic attack but didn't really go away and I had been feeling that craving for the peace the pills provided more than I had in a while. I wondered if Bullfrog had any ways of coping. My shrinks had all sort of ideas, but they all came from the ivory tower; none of them had battled addictions themselves.

Bullfrog was starting to stand up and I realized just how much I wanted to have this conversation with him, despite how out of character it was for both of us. "You were my age when you started using?"

He looked at me curiously and sat back down. "A little older. I was out of high school."

"What happened?"

"I moved to Toronto the day after graduation and moved into this shitty apartment that I shared with five other guys. I started bartending to pay rent while I played in any band that would take me, until I met Steve and Tony and we started getting serious." He laughed. "You've heard the stories of my old glory days."

I knew Bullfrog's band had one hit single in the mid-80s that had made it big in Canada and crossed over to at least the college rock stations in the States. But I was pretty sure I was missing out on a lot of the details. "I think you glossed over the less than glorious moments."

He shook his head. "You're right about that. Not too proud of the way I acted back then."

"Will you tell me?" I sat cross legged, folding my hands and hiding them in my lap in hopes that he wouldn't notice how much they were shaking.

He looked less than pleased. "Well, things were fine when we were recording the album and when we were mostly playing shows in Toronto. I mean, I was drinking too much, that's for sure, but that's not too unusual for a 19 year old who didn't have all that much direction in their life. That's around when I started doing coke, but it was just an occasional thing, something I did at parties to get high. Even if I wanted to do it more, and I really didn't at that point, I could barely afford food, let alone drugs. Most of the time we got drunk off bottles of Jack Daniels that we stole from the bar we worked at since the owner never really checked up on us."

"Drugs and petty theft? You were such a model citizen," I teased.

"Ugh, it only gets worse."

He looked hesitant again, so I reassured him, "I can handle it."

"Our record contract was kind of shit because the company didn't expect us to do well. So they paid us like no money up front, but there were all these bonuses if we sold a certain amount of records. When the song blew up, the cash was pouring in and they decided to milk us for all the money they could get by sending us on tour."

The song. Bullfrog refused to name it because he said he had played it too many times in his life to ever get it out of his head if he said the name out loud, but I had heard him play it on the radio once or twice when he was covering the two a.m. show, never mentioning that he was the drummer.

"I thought you liked touring?" I asked.

"I liked performing. I liked drumming and I liked the crowd. If I could have made a living as musician without leaving Toronto, I probably never would have changed careers. But touring sucks. You're stuck on a bus with these guys who you started as friends with but by the end you all hate each other. You play shows every night until midnight, then there's an after party, then you get on a bus and drive through the night until the next city. There's no downtime; there's always someone around – wanting your autograph or an interview, wanting something from you. And in spite of that, when you're not onstage, it's boring as hell, so you find ways to occupy your time that aren't all that great."

"I didn't realize you hated it so much." Usually when Bullfrog got nostalgic, it sounded like he missed it, that being a rockstar was more fun than being a regular radio DJ – or a Dad.

"Well, there were benefits," he smirked. "I mean, getting your cock sucked on a regular basis by different women in each city is pretty fucking awesome."

"And now that sounds like Bullfrog," I said, rolling my eyes. In my effort to stop imagining women on my dad's junk, I flashed back to the last time that happened to me and cringed as I remembered Clare's guilt-ridden attempt.

"But in order for that to happen, I had to be the life of the party. So I'd stay up all night getting wasted, attempt to sleep on the bus – which was just about impossible between the booze and the insomnia, and then have to get up and do it again the next night. The adrenaline carries you through the shows for a while, but after a while, the only thing that kept me alive and functioning was the coke. So I'd do it before the shows so I could perform, and keep doing it after for the party."

"How long did that go on for?"

"The tour went on for almost a year, and then I kept using until I ran out of money. And that meant I had to do the worst thing I've ever had to do."

My eyes widened as I thought of all the possibilities. He leaned closer to me. "I moved home with my parents."

I threw my skull pillow at him. "You asshole. I thought you were going to tell me that you sucked dick for coke or something."

"Trust me, that probably would have been better than moving home with my parents." I knew my grandfather was still alive, but the last time I had seen him was at my grandma's funeral when I was six or seven. Bullfrog refused to see him after that point. I didn't know exactly what the problem was but it was a far cry from the close relationship I had with Cece's parents, Bubbe and Pop Pop.

"What was so bad about that?"

He grimaced. "It wouldn't have been good under any circumstances. My dad thought I was worthless. He didn't think music was a career and he thought I was an idiot. Then I came home, broke and addicted, and just proved him right."

"Did Grandma help you at all?"

He laughed. "Well, eventually. She was so in denial at first that she did everything but hand the dealer the money. But she figured out I was stealing from them and she found my stash, and then she shipped me out to rehab."

"So that's when you got clean?"

Bullfrog laughed ruefully. "I had 21 days sober and walked out of the rehab and used the money I was supposed to spend on bus fare back home to buy enough for one line."

Wow. I couldn't believe how bad he had gotten. "Did you go back home?"

"I crashed with my bandmates. We started recording the second album right away, and I was okay when we were in the studio but as soon as we left, I'd get high. It took a few months, but even I had to admit I had a problem at that point and tried rehab again on my own." He gritted his teeth. "My record company pulled me out before I was finished because they didn't want to cancel tour dates. People bought tickets because they liked the first album, but the second tanked and the dates at the end of the tour had a lot fewer people at them."

"So they're the reason you kept using?" I asked incredulously.

"I can't blame them. I wasn't ready yet."

"What made you ready?"

He smiled. "I met your mom."

I gave him a sideways glance. For all that he and Cece loved to reminisce, I actually wasn't sure how they met. "How did you know that she was the one? Was it love at first sight?"

"Practically. The tour was over and the band was breaking up and it was the night before our farewell show. We were back in Toronto and I had about a month before I needed to find a new place to live, since Steve wanted to marry Marissa and was kicking me out. I was looking at this apartment on Queen Street, this absolutely perfect place, trying to figure out how I could afford it since I had snorted most of my money away again, when Cece walked in."

Bullfrog had the biggest smile on his face. "Of course, she immediately fell in love with the apartment too, and was about to make the landlord an offer. I wanted the apartment and I couldn't let that happen, so I persuaded her to come get dinner with me and think things over."

You could hear the difference in his voice when he talked about Cece. I wondered if Clare ever sounded like that when she talked about me.

"We talked for hours, so long that the waiter finally had to kick us out, and then we sat outside in her car for another few. She was so unlike all of the women I'd been with since I started touring. She was just full of heart and opinions and so down to earth, and I just knew I never wanted to let her go."

There was an impish look on his face that worried me a little. "She drove me back to Steve's house and she…"

"Dad!" I interrupted. "I don't want to know."

"She kissed me, Eli. She gave me the most amazing kiss of my entire life, so amazing that 23 years later, I still can remember ever single second of it in perfect detail." He paused for a second, thinking, and then asked me, "Have you ever had one of those kisses?"

I felt like I was lucky enough to have two: the kiss that Julia gave me the first time we had sex and the kiss I gave Clare in the library that was equal amounts surprising, loving, and sexy. But as much as he'd opened up to me, I felt those were too personal to share, so I just nodded, hoping he'd continue his story.

"I invited her to the last show the next night and she was there in the front row, and I felt like I was playing just for her. I had talked about her non-stop all day and the guys even let me come out from behind the kit and sing the only song I ever wrote for the band. It was kind of a shit song, and I had to switch out Jenny for Cece, but I sang it straight to her."

"And then you lived happily ever after?"

He shook his head sadly. "And then I went to the after party and went on the biggest bender in history."

"What did Cece think about that?" I knew my mom had her wild days, but while I could completely imagine Bullfrog getting wasted and crazy, I was really hoping he wasn't going to tell me Cece joined in.

"She stuck around for a little while, but she thought I was looking for a groupie and not a girlfriend and that I was just another addict, and she left. I was so messed up I didn't even notice she was gone, but once I did…" I could hear the tears in his voice. "I called her for days. When she finally picked up, I convinced her to meet me and we talked."

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "I'm not going to tell you your mom's story; you'll have to hear it from her. But she told me her groupie days were behind her. She was in nursing school and she was making something of herself and she was done dating wasted losers like me. And I asked her to give me 21 days and went back to rehab."

"And it worked that time?"

Bullfrog looked proud. "I've been clean for 23 years."

I knew cocaine and anxiety pills were two different kinds of monster, but I couldn't imagine not taking one for twenty three years. Just the thought of being 40 and having a panic attack made me a little shaky.

I realized there was one detail he had left out. "Hey, who got the apartment?"

He laughed. "Your mom did, of course. Though I didn't really have anywhere to live when I got out of rehab, so I basically moved in with her anyway. I was supposed to be crashing on a friend's couch, but he was still using and Cece didn't want me around it."

Bullfrog looked more relaxed now and I felt comfortable asking him a few more questions. "Was it just coke or…?"

"Mainly. I tried pretty much everything once. Except heroin. Probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to me was that we never really made the big time because there was never enough money for heroin. But coke was my drug of choice."

There was a lot more I was curious about. "My therapists keep telling me that I shouldn't drink because they're afraid I'm going to become an alcoholic. But you drink…"

"I know a lot of addicts can't control themselves when it comes to alcohol, but I can. It's never been a problem for me. If it ever became a problem with my life or my marriage, I'd stop and go back to rehab for it. But I can have two beers and not have any desire to have more. I could never do that with coke. Two lines were never enough."

I nodded. I was thinking I might be the same way. I already drank way less than the average teenager; I'd been drunk a handful of times, but I didn't usually binge drink the way Drew and the guys at the ravine did. And aside from smoking pot with Julia once or twice, I'd never really wanted to try any other drugs.

"Did it get easier? Or do you still wish you could use?" I grabbed onto my pillow so I could hide my hand which was shaking once again.

"Does it get easier? Yes, definitely. Does it go away completely? Not even close." He laughed. "I was at a radio event last year and a guy was doing lines in the men's bathroom, and I literally had to go outside and walk around the building before I could go back into the event, let alone the bathroom. Twenty three years and I practically had to call my N.A. sponsor."

"What stopped you?"

"The same thing that stopped me all those years ago: Cece. I couldn't risk disappointing her." He leaned over and ruffled my hair. "And you. I know what it's like to grow up with a shitty father, and I know I'm not perfect but you deserve better. And I can't be better for you if I'm fucked up all the time."

I turned away, not wanting to start crying over this. "It's really hard," I said finally. "I want to do the right thing, but I don't know if I can."

"I know you can," he said simply. "And so does your mom, and so does Video-Game-Kid."

I laughed, wiping at my eyes a little. "His name is Adam."

"I know, but Video-Game-Kid just has a nice ring to it." His tone turned serious. "How are things with you and Clare?"

"Good, I guess." Besides our cleaning sessions, we'd stuck to the Friday night date routine, and they had gone really well. We had gone to the movies twice and one night she had come over here for dinner with me and Cece. We had plans for a trip to Wasaga Beach that Saturday with Alli and Sav that we were both looking forward to. I hadn't really been back to her house since her Dad went on a lot of business trips during the summer so her mom was there more than usual, and she hadn't quite convinced her mom that I was trustworthy yet, but I was hoping that would change soon.

"She's been over a lot. And I may have accidentally seen a goodbye kiss on our front porch that looked like a lot more than a friendship kiss. Are you guys back together?"

"Not exactly," I said. "But we're getting there."

"I don't see what the hold up is. Unless you're finally realizing that having blue balls for the next ten years isn't what you want in a relationship."

I rolled my eyes. "It's not about sex. We just have a lot of trust issues to work through right now."

Bullfrog looked confused. "I can see why Clare might have trouble trusting you. But why would you not trust her?"

I bit my lip. I hadn't told either Cece or Bullfrog the entire story before. "She cheated on me."

"She cheated on you?" Bullfrog repeated in surprise. "You mean, she slept with someone else? That doesn't sound like the Clarabelle I know."

"No, but…" I took a deep breath. "She kissed Fitz."

"Fitz? Fitz, who almost stabbed you?" Bullfrog shook his head. "Before the accident?"

"Yeah."

"Wow…that's…" He fumbled for words. "How did that happen?"

I cringed. I hated thinking about this. "She was upset and he comforted her, and then he kissed her."

Bullfrog cocked his head at me. "That's it?"

"That fits the definition of cheating," I said stubbornly.

"Only in the strictest sense of the word." Bullfrog reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. "Eli, she was upset and he kissed her. He initiated it."

"She kissed him back," I pouted. I knew I was being pathetic, but every time I thought about this, the hurt and anger returned.

"For what? Ten seconds?" Bullfrog punched me in the arm. "There are bigger things in a relationship to worry about. If she didn't sleep with him, you need to get over it."

"Did you ever cheat on Mom?" I asked, accusingly.

"Shouldn't you be asking if she ever cheated on me?"

"Well, I know the answer to that question is no," I spat.

Bullfrog looked hurt. But he responded, "One time. When we tried to reform the band a year later, a groupie threw herself at me after the show. And I kissed her back for a little bit but then she tried to undo my belt buckle, and I realized if I did this, I was throwing away everything I had, and I stopped it." My eyes widened and he sighed. "It was over 20 years ago, Eli. It was a mistake."

"Does Mom know?" I asked, terrified that I'd have to keep this secret from her.

"I went home and told her that very night."

"What did she say?"

"Never again," he said. "And it never happened again."

"She must have really trusted you," I said.

"She did. She does," he said. "And I deserved it a lot less than Clare does."

"I know, I know," I said.

"Look, I know I don't really understand your relationship with Clare. But I think she's really good for you. You were so unhappy for so long after Julia. Even when you were with her, you guys were always fighting. You and Clare...there's something between you two." He smiled. "It sort of reminds me of me and Cece."

"Really?"

He laughed. "Yeah. She's the strong calming type, and you're the passionate, intense one. Julia kind of reminds me of my high school girlfriend as well. Kind of odd but I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

I looked down at my hands. I decided to ignore the Julia comment; I'd been thinking about the past too much today. "I'd really…I'd love it if Clare and I were still together 23 years from now."

"And happy, too," Bullfrog said. "Though I suspect that has a lot to do with how much sex we're having."

"Ugh, gross," I said.

"I have to give you a lot of credit for that, though. Most guys would see that purity ring on her finger and run the other way."

I shrugged. "It's certainly not my favorite thing about her. She's not a total prude, so it's not too bad. Or at least it wasn't before we broke up." I looked up at him and held his gaze. "She's worth it, though. I love her. She means more to me than sex ever could."

He nodded. "As someone who's had a lot of meaningless sex in his life, I know exactly what you mean." He clapped my back. "You've at least seen her naked, right?"

I smirked. "Oh yeah."

"She's got a pretty nice rack," he said and I punched him in the shoulder.

"Stop checking out my girlfriend, you perv."

"Your girlfriend, eh?" he joked, standing up and moving away from me before I could hit him again.

"Soon enough," I said. I knew we wouldn't need much longer – or at least, I wouldn't. "Then at least we can start fooling around again."

"You really think she's going to be able to wait until she's married?" he asked, stepping over a pile of shoeboxes.

I thought back to when Clare and I were together, her looking naked and flushed and happy after the orgasms she had let me give her with my hands on so many occasions. "Probably not." I grinned as he stumbled, his arms flailing. He managed to keep himself from falling over and took a small bow before walking toward the door.

"Hey, Dad," I said, and he stopped in the doorway. I wanted to tell him how he'd been such a great father to me, much better than his own had been to him, and how proud I was that he'd been able to stay clean for so long, and how much this conversation meant to me.

"Thanks," was all I was able to say.

He smiled, hearing my unspoken words. "Let me go order the pizza."