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

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Sorry this took so long. It didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped though I like parts of it. Thanks again for all of your sweet reviews and messages.


Chapter 7

"It's exit 118," I said for the second time, reading the directions I'd printed off Google maps even though Eli insisted we should just use Cece's GPS.

"I heard you the first time," Eli said.

"Then maybe you should get in the right lane."

"I've got two miles," he grumbled.

"Not anymore," I said.

"I can't just get over. There's someone in that lane."

"Well there wasn't when I first told you to get over."

Eli gunned the engine and passed the car, exiting the highway with a lot less room to spare than I would have liked. "Happy?" he asked sarcastically.

"Not really," I said.

The road trip had started out fun enough. Eli had programmed his Ipod with a lot of songs that we both liked and we sang along happily at first. But my refusal to skip my early afternoon Biology lab – I thought skipping my last Philosophy Class before the midterm was enough of a contribution to us leaving on time – meant that we sat in rush hour traffic for a good portion of the trip. So our five hour drive was pushing a 7 hour drive and we were both tired and a little grumpy. Alli had already called twice wondering where we were and when we gave her a revised ETA she told us to meet them at the restaurant because she was starving and couldn't wait.

But the mood lightened a bit when Eli reached over and patted my hand. "We're almost there. It'll be over soon."

"It hasn't been so bad," I teased.

Eli got quiet for a second and I glanced over at him, but couldn't quite read his expression. "You know I always thought we'd get to go on a road trip someday, but it's not exactly the same without Morty."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I had never been the hugest fan of Morty; the large pile of stuff Eli had hoarded in back gave it a certain smell that wasn't exactly pleasant. And the hearse's association with Eli's mental breakdown and our break up wasn't exactly my fondest memory. But it was impossible to forget the good times too: so many kisses starting with the contraband kissing on our first date, driving around Toronto together seeking urban adventures, arguing with Adam over who got to control the music.

The time Eli laid me down in the recently cleaned back and whispered that he was going to make love to me someday, as I reminded myself of my purity vow so I wouldn't tell him I wished that someday was now.

"I'm not sure Morty would have made it all the way to Ottawa," I said, trying to keep my tone light. "He was always breaking down on you."

"He was sensitive...but he was strong. He would have kept it together for such a big trip," Eli said confidently.

"If you say so."

Eli had a wistful grin on his face. "Morty definitely would have made it a better road trip. Right now, we're just driving. But that would have been an experience." His voice softened. "The bench seat alone would have been a welcome change...and we could have slept in the back together."

Eli's tone was suggestive, and I felt my cheeks burning. Was he saying that he wished he could spend a night with me? Was he talking about now or wishing it could have happened back when we were together?

Suddenly the back of that old hearse didn't sound quite so bad.

"I miss Morty," I said bravely. "More than I ever would have thought."

"Yeah, me too," he said softly after a moment's pause.

I was pretty sure neither of us was talking about his old car anymore, and I wished one of us would be brave enough to say what we were thinking in words, not subtext. But every time I thought we were getting closer to taking things a step beyond friendship, one of us always chickened out.

Tonight it was Eli.

"Isn't that the restaurant?" Eli asked, pointing to the sign ahead. I squinted at the name I'd scribbled down when Alli called me but Eli had swerved into the parking lot before I could respond. I gave him a look and he laughed. "I see Adam's car."

We got out of the car and I stretched, feeling a little sore from sitting down for the better part of seven hours. "You're like an old lady," Eli teased and I slugged his arm before we walked into the restaurant together.

"We're meeting friends," Eli told the hostess as I looked around the dining room for Adam and Alli. I found them sitting in a booth toward the back and grabbed onto Eli to lead him to them.

I was surprised to see the two of them smiling at each other; Adam and Alli hadn't been each others' biggest fans when we were at Degrassi together, but I figured that they had more in common now that they were at the same university even though they probably hadn't seen each other since they were back in Toronto.

And then they leaned in and kissed each other.

Eli placed his hand on my shoulder to steady me as I watched my two best friends exchange what was definitely not a first kiss. Then he all but dragged me to the table and interrupted them with a very amused, "Hey guys."

They broke apart guiltily. "Hey!" Adam said, jumping up to give Eli a hug. "You're finally here." He hugged me next and I looked over his shoulder and gave Alli a shocked look.

She threw her arms around me and whispered in my ear. "Oh my God, Clare, I have so much to tell you."

"Clearly," I muttered.

When we had all sat down, Eli broke the awkwardness. "Okay, elephant in the room. What the hell is going on between you two?" he joked.

Alli and Adam exchanged an amused smile. "We wanted to tell you guys in person," Alli said.

"Not exactly like that," Adam said, and Alli rolled her eyes.

"Adam and I are dating."

The waitress brought Eli and I two glasses of water and I chugged half of mine down, party because I was thirsty from the long drive and partly because I felt so awkward I needed something to do. "How did this happen?" I asked, feeling bad because I knew I sounded less supportive than Eli had.

"It's a long story," Alli said.

"It always is with her," Adam interrupted.

She ignored him and continued. "I was pledging Kappa Zeta and at first everything was great. I met a ton of people and they had parties every weekend even though they aren't really supposed to during pledge season so it seemed really fun. But then they took the hazing up a notch and we pretty much had to spend all of our free time with them." I had heard most of this from her early brief emails, so I knew all the backstory was for Eli's benefit. "But most of the girls who were pledging with me weren't double bio-chem majors with two second year science classes so for them it wasn't a big deal. But I had class during the mandatory study periods and I was getting a lot of negative comments when I attempted to study during social events and I just couldn't do it all."

"I, on the other hand, had no social life whatsoever outside of GLBT club and spent all of my free time in the chemistry lab, trying to keep up with the insane amount of lab work. And low and behold, who do I run into but Alli Bhandari, who despite her complaints, was breezing through the assignments I was struggling with," Adam laughed.

"It turned out we had the same professors for Orgo and Cell Molec even though we were in different sessions. So we started helping each other out since Adam's a bio wizard and I'm much better at chem. And I aced my first chem exam but I got a C in bio and I realized if I didn't quit the sorority I wasn't going to be able to complete both majors in four years."

"Okay enough with the curriculum vitae," Eli said. "How did you go from study buddies to people who make out in public places?"

Alli smiled. "We were up late trying to get our Orgo homework done and we were alone in Adam's room, and I just kind of looked at him and realized I wanted to kiss him." I could see her reach for Adam's hand under the table. "So I did."

"My first thought was 'Fuck, a hot girl is kissing me; I must be dreaming.'" Adam laughed. "But I figured out it wasn't a dream pretty quickly."

"And we talked about it the next morning, and he admitted he'd been crushing on me a little too, so we thought we'd just take it slow and see what happened."

"The next morning?" I said, regretting my harsh words as soon as they'd come out of my mouth. I knew I sounded judgmental, but did they really spend the night together after their first kiss?

"Yes, Clare," Alli's voice sounded tense. "After I went back to my room for the night, I brought him some coffee and we talked about it since we had a study date set up for that night and I didn't want things to be awkward."

"Well, I think this is great," Eli said. I wondered if he was just putting on a show for them or if he really thought them dating was a good idea. He hadn't liked Alli very much when we were dating despite the fact that the two of them had barely been around each other. "How long has this been going on?"

"About a month," Adam said. "We wanted to be sure before we told you."

"Clare," Alli said directly. "What are you thinking?"

All eyes were on me and I felt put on the spot. "I'm just surprised," I said. "But it's great. I just want both of you to be happy, so if you're happy together, all the better."

Alli grinned at me and as much as I wanted to see Adam, I wished she and I were alone right now so we could catch up on everything we'd missed out on for almost half a semester. Hopefully sometime this weekend we would be able to break away from the boys and have a good old fashioned girl talk.

Eli cleared his throat. "I brought you guys a little present. It was supposed to be a 'thank you for having us' kind of thing, but I guess it's more fitting as a 'congrats on your new relationship' present." He pulled out his wallet and for a second I thought he was going to pull out a condom which was weird on about five different levels but instead he pulled out two fake IDs. "They have your real birthdays just a year older than the real ones."

"Thanks Eli!" Alli said, grabbing hers out of his hand. "Wow, these look really good."

"Eli is the master," Adam joked. "Thanks man."

"See Clare...some people are appreciative of my talents." Eli bumped my shoulder. "Clare won't let me make her a fake. She wants to wait until her actual birthday to go out and get shitfaced."

"Well I don't," Adam said, waving at the waitress.

"You have your car," Alli reminded him. "But I can get something." She grabbed the fancy liquor menu.

Adam looked so disappointed that I figured I could be nice. "If you want to get a drink, I'll drive your car home."

"Awesome," he said.

Adam ordered a beer and Alli ordered the girliest drink on the menu. Eli and I put in a food order, trying to catch up to them since they'd practically finished their meal while they waited for us.

We spent the night laughing, reminiscing and sharing university stories. Eli told them about his job booking bands, and Adam and Alli told us about a lab they had to do four times because they kept screwing it up. I wished I had some happy stories to tell them, but I caught them up on the nightmare of having Mikayla as a roommate. Adam and Alli were both pretty buzzed by the end of the night and all four of us were having a great time.

We were the last customers at the restaurant and finally the waitress asked us to leave so she could close up. Adam handed me his car keys. "I'm going with Clare," he said, his voice slurring slightly. "I don't want her to crash my car."

Eli looked skeptical. "Okay. Alli, you want to ride with me so you can get us back to campus?"

She pouted for a second before agreeing. "Fine. Clare, make sure you follow us; I'm not sure if Adam's sober enough to navigate."

"I'm fine," he protested, but I made sure to follow them back onto the road.

"So you and Alli, eh?" I still could barely wrap my head around it, but I had to admit the two of them were sweet together. Adam was always a guy who wanted to make the people around him happy, but Alli seemed like she'd matured a little bit since going to university.

"She's pretty awesome," Adam said. "I kind of wished I'd paid more attention to her at Degrassi."

Something told me that might not have worked out as well for him. Alli was too busy crushing on heartthrobs to notice an amazing guy like Adam back then. Although she had dated Dave, who – in addition to being really cute – was more down to earth and intelligent than most of the other guys she'd been interested in.

"Did you tell Drew?"

Adam laughed. "Yeah. He's really happy for me. He and Alli didn't really date that long anyway, and he's back in Toronto still stringing along Bianca and Katie. It's not weird at all."

Adam was starting out the window but he turned to me so quickly I thought there was something wrong. "Are you and Eli together again?"

"No," I said glumly. "Why? Did he say something?"

Adam smirked. "Four hours and I'm already the go between."

"Come on, Adam."

"No, he didn't say anything specific. It's just...the way you guys act around each other. You're always flirting even when you don't think you are. Reminds me of Grade 10."

I sighed. It felt like flirting to me too. I didn't understand why Eli could be so comfortable around me and want to be with me and not want to take that next step. Then again, there were a lot of things I didn't understand about Eli.

"Can I ask you a question?" Adam grimaced but nodded, so I continued. "Last year, when Eli dropped out of UBC and moved back to Toronto...why didn't you tell me?"

Adam's face tightened. "He asked me not to."

"But why would he ask you that?"

Adam took a minute before responding, clearly trying to keep himself from betraying Eli's confidence. "He was embarrassed. He didn't want you to think he was a failure."

"What? Why would he think I'd think that? Because he didn't like Vancouver? I don't get it."

"Think about where Eli was when you two broke up. And then think about where he was when he graduated from Degrassi."

"Making out with Imogen," I said bitterly.

"I'm serious," Adam said.

I thought out loud to make sure Adam could tell me whether or not I was thinking the right things. "When we broke up, Eli had a mental breakdown, crashed his hearse, found out he was bipolar...stopped taking his meds."

"He was a mess," Adam confirmed.

I was starting to see where he was going with this. "But by graduation, he was doing really well. He had friends and he was accepted to two great universities and he had Imogen..." And he'd seemed so pleased with himself that he had done it all on his own – without me.

"So when things didn't work out at university, he didn't want you to know. He wanted you to think of him as the happy, well-adjusted guy who left Degrassi." Adam patted my shoulder. "I told him he was crazy and that he should just talk to you. I didn't like lying to you but he gave me no choice."

"Do you know what happened to him out there? He won't tell me anything except that it didn't work out."

"Yeah...but that's something he'd need to tell you. I've already said too much." He grinned. "If he finds out, I'll pretend I was really drunk."

Adam showed me the lot where resident students parked and gave me a brief tour as we walked back to his dorm. When we reached Adam's room, Eli and Alli were already standing outside of the door. He had both of our backpacks slung over his shoulder and a sleeping bag in each hand. I took my stuff from him as Adam opened up the door.

His room was tiny, probably even smaller than Eli's, and it was shaped like an L. His bed was hidden and I peeked around the bend to realize that the head of his bed was literally in his closet. "Why is your room set up this way?" I asked, wondering how Adam slept with his shirts hanging over his head.

"If you put the bed where it's supposed to go, there is absolutely no room. You can't even move your chair all the way back from your desk." He put his arm around Alli's waist and cleared his throat awkwardly. "So we figured you two could crash here, and Alli and I could take her room since her roommate is home for the weekend."

For some reason, I hadn't really considered the sleeping arrangements, figuring it was just like a sleepover and we'd all sleep in the same room even if it meant sleeping on the floor. This scenario meant that Eli and I would be alone together…in this tiny room…possibly sharing a very small bed. The thought of it terrified me, but at the same time, I knew spending the night with him would tell me whether or not he saw me as just a friend or something more.

Eli was standing really close me to as he had come to look at Adam's unusual bed setup and I couldn't even look at him. Especially when his response wasn't exactly what I was hoping to hear.

"I hate to break up you lovebirds, but I'm sure Clare and Alli have at least a night's worth of catching up to do. Adam and I can share his room; I'll sleep on the floor. It's no big deal."

I tried to control my tone and facial expressions so I didn't let on just how disappointed I was. "Yeah that probably makes the most sense, if it's alright with you."

I stepped out of the room as Alli and Adam gave each other a goodnight kiss. I didn't bother to say anything to Eli. She joined me after a few minutes and led me up two flights of stairs and down the hall to her room.

"What's wrong, Clare?" Alli asked the second we'd settled down on her bed.

"What do you mean?"

"We've been having such a nice time tonight and the second Eli suggested that you crash with me you've been upset."

"It's not that I don't want to talk to you. It's just...I got my hopes up that if he and I were alone in a room overnight that maybe something would happen between us."

I had sent Alli enough emails about the Eli situation that she knew how confused I was over where I stood with him. "I'm pretty sure that's why he didn't want to share a room with you. He knew that if you guys were in bed together, he wouldn't be able to keep himself from jumping your bones."

"I don't think so."

Alli pushed my shoulder. "Claaa-aare. You are seriously blind when it comes to this boy. He spent the whole night flirting with you. Of course he wants you."

"Then why doesn't he just do something about it?"

She hesitated and I wondered for a moment if Adam had told her things about Eli's feelings on the situation that I didn't know. "I'm not sure. But you know, you could always do something about it."

I sighed. "I'm just afraid after everything we went through that I'm misreading his feelings. And if he only wants to be friends with me, I don't want to screw that up. He's practically my only friend at university."

"I really don't think you could screw it up. I mean, after everything you've been through you've still managed to become friends with him again. It might be awkward at first, but you worked through that the first time too. You should talk to him."

I flopped back on her bed in frustration. "I just want to kiss him."

She laughed. "Yeah, like you're going to be able to stop at kissing."

I cringed and covered my face and she cracked up. "You are totally going to sleep with him."

"No, I'm not," I protested, but she immediately dismissed my words with a wave of her hand.

"You're such a liar. You wish you were downstairs with him right now letting him bang your brains out."

"Alli!" She just kept laughing at me, and I wasn't in a position to deny that part of me did wish I was with him – even though I knew I wouldn't sleep with him right away, if ever. But I knew I could turn the tables on her.

"What about you and Adam?" I asked teasingly.

"What about us?"

"Have you two been...intimate?" I asked, fumbling for a word that was appropriate for their situation.

Alli's cheeks filled with a very uncustomary blush. "Yeah," she said softly but you could tell she was really happy about it.

"And how is that going?"

"Really good," she said. "I mean, it's obviously...different than it was with other guys I've dated, but it's been really nice."

I usually tried to change the subject when Alli brought up her sex life, though after dating Liam, I at least understood a little more of what she went through. But I'd always been a little bit curious as to how Adam dealt with that side of himself, and I'd never had the courage to ask him myself.

"Have you done...everything?"

She shook her head. "Not quite. We were taking things slowly – like glacially slowly in my opinion. And eventually I was just like, 'Look, I know you are nervous about this, but I've got needs.' And I guess that made him more confident, because once he started doing more stuff to me, he started letting me get a little closer to him. So we're still working with some limits – like he won't let me take his clothes off yet but he'll let me touch him underneath them – but I think we're both pretty happy with where we are right now."

I was really impressed as I listened to Alli. We'd been close since Grade 9 but there were many things I'd always found frustrating about her. But it seemed like she'd done a lot of growing up since she started university and the fact that she was able to have a mature relationship with a guy like Adam really made me happy.

"Is it...weird?"

She laughed. "It is weird, but not... It's just because it's not what you're expecting. You date a guy, and you expect to do certain things, and that doesn't really work here. But I really..." She paused for a second, giving me a shy smile. "I really care about him, you know. We haven't said 'I love you' yet, but I know someday we will. So it doesn't matter to me how he looks under his clothes. I'm still really attracted to him as a person." She giggled. "And I definitely don't miss giving blow jobs."

"Alli!"

"You would understand if you'd ever done it," she teased. "Although I have no idea if I'm going to be any good at that when Adam is ready to try it – and he totally deserves it because he is just brilliant at it." She poked me in the side. "When you and Eli get together, you should tell him to ask Adam for tips."

"Ugh, this is all too much information." Now I remembered why I tried to change the subject when Alli brought up sex.

"You know, it's not too late. You could knock on Adam's door downstairs, and just say, 'Eli, take me now.'"

"Yeah I'm definitely not going to do that."

"I have a robe you could borrow. Did you pack any slutty underwear?"

"No!" Alli and her one track mind. "I don't even own any slutty underwear."

"We need to fix that. Maybe Adam will let me borrow his car tomorrow and we can do some shopping."

"That won't be necessary."

Alli gasped. "Or we could bring them with us and model for them, and Eli won't be able to keep his hands off you."

"Or we could just get lunch and have some nice, innocent conversations."

"Fine," Alli said. She stood up to pull down her covers and I opened up my sleeping bag and laid it out on top of her roommate's bed. We both got under the covers and Alli reached up to turn out the light.

"Clare," she said softly, and I turned toward her even though it was too dark to see her. "Talk to Eli. You've been in love with him since you were fifteen years old and you've never been as happy as you were when you were with him."

"Soon," I promised. I only hoped I'd have the courage to fulfill it sometime in the near future.