DISCLAIMER: I don't own Degrassi or anything else.
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So, I was wrong and there will actually be two more chapters after this one. I'm sorry for the delay in posting but this has been difficult to write for some reason. Thanks to Sarenka222 for helping me fix this.
I also don't want to be ungrateful but I was feeling a little unsure of my last chapter and though it had a large number of pageviews it didn't receive nearly as many reviews as previous chapters. I'm used to most of my reviews coming from my friends, but I'd just like to remind you that even self-confident fanfic writers like me can get insecure and appreciate reviews that let them know they are on the right track (or constructively, the wrong track). Thanks to those of you who have reviewed this story and my other ones. It's greatly appreciated.
Chapter 8
Eli took me to a Thai restaurant that his editor had recommended that was a few blocks away from our hotel. Neither of us had been to New York City in years so we weren't that familiar with the restaurants, but this one seemed like a nice fit for us. Casual, quiet, and low key. The perfect place to celebrate a romantic rekindling.
It was hard to know where to start. I felt like I'd missed so much of his life, and I wanted to know everything, and I could tell he was feeling with same way because he kept peppering me with questions about my life.
"I graduated in May of last year and it took me until November to get my job. I had to take a waitressing job to afford my apartment, and I was feeling desperate and when I saw the marketing job, I thought it would be a paycheck and hopefully a stepping stone to something else. My boss is out on the longest maternity leave known to man, but she still micoromanages me even though we've never actually met. I'm basically doing two jobs for the low, low wages of a marketing intern."
"Do you enjoy it?"
"Not even a little bit. It's pretty much a nightmare and there've been a few days where I've actually considered going back to waitressing just to get out of there."
"What would you rather be doing?"
I shrugged. "I wanted to get into editorial, but I'm starting to wonder if I even belong in the industry. I've been trolling job sites but with the economy, there's not much out there in any field."
"Maybe I could talk to my editor. See if she knows of any openings…"
And while that sounded great, that meant work visas and all sorts of complicated effort. "I don't really want to move to New York." Especially if Eli wasn't there.
Eli reached across the table and took my hand. "I'm sure you'll find something."
"Are you working? Or are you just a slave to your laptop?"
He grinned. "The latter. Fortunately, Cece and Bullfrog supported me through my mad writer phase."
"Must be nice," I said softly.
He gave me a look of sympathy and squeezed my hand before going back to his meal.
"Do you talk to you parents at all? Or Darcy?"
I gulped at the sound of her name. It wasn't something that came up very often. "When I got my check with my advance, I called Darcy and offered to pay for a flight to Vancouver so she could come visit me. She didn't want to come. I haven't seen my sister in eight years and she didn't want to visit me."
"Why? What reason did she give you?"
"Oh, the usual. She was too busy saving the world, and if she were going to fly to Canada, she'd go to Toronto and visit Mom and Dad. Which is total bullshit because she calls them less than I do, and she didn't even come home for Grandma's funeral."
"I can't believe she hasn't come home for Christmas or something."
"Yeah, well. If you think I screwed up in dealing with our less than perfect family, you should meet my super-judgmental sister. I was fourteen when she left. She doesn't even know who I am."
"I'm really sorry, Clare. I wish there was a way to bring the two of you together."
I didn't want to talk about my sister anymore. "There's no point. My whole family is just one big mess. My dad calls me every few weeks, and I usually let it go through to voicemail because I can't stand talking to him. I talk to my mom more often, but even that is strained at best."
"I understand why you'd have issues with your father, but what happened with your mom?"
"She's just…" I shook my head. "She's just such a bitch."
Eli looked amused as I continued. "She's mad at me for leaving her and never coming home, and for being 23 and single, and for having all the potential in the world while her life has turned into a wasteland of suck. There's only so many times I can listen to her accuse me of being ungrateful when my life isn't exactly sunshine and roses either."
"Can I just tell you how much I love it that you curse now?" He leaned in conspiratorially. "When you asked me to fuck you before, it was the single best moment in my life."
My cheeks turned pink and his smile only widened. "And I love that as much as you've grown up over the past four years, you haven't lost that innocent blush."
I rolled my eyes. "You were just happy to finally have sex with me. I could have asked you to bump uglies and you would have been just as excited."
"That's probably true," he admitted. "It was pretty incredible."
I really wished we had ordered room service, because it took every bit of decorum I had not to lean over our plates of food and kiss him. "Can we talk about this later?"
He laughed. "Is that a promise?" He gave me his signature smirk. "Alright, new topic. Something that doesn't involve sex. Hmmmm…." He tapped his index finger on his chin as if he were thinking really hard. "How was university?"
It was strange that we'd only been together for my first semester, and even then, I'd already started pulling away. "Great, overall. I loved my classes and my professors were amazing. I got to read so many great books that I wouldn't have picked up on my own."
His eyes narrowed. "Lots of studying, not much social life?"
I didn't like the way he said that. "That's a little judgmental for a guy who didn't even bother to finish university, don't you think?"
"Yeah, well… It wasn't really what I planned, but I just…I couldn't do it."
"You loved it there freshman year."
"Well…things were different then."
Yeah, they were. A few times a week after my classes at Degrassi, I'd take the bus over to campus and we'd spend time in the library or coffee shop, studying for tests and writing papers. He wasn't my English partner anymore, but we'd read each other's essays and poems.
It was nice to remember those days. Eli was thriving in his classes and even though things were bad at home, his dorm room offered me a nice escape. He wasn't exactly a social butterfly, but he befriended Amy, a fellow English major who lived down the hall, who hung out with us on movie nights and dragged us out to parties. My parents were so involved in their problems that they barely paid attention to what I did, so I spent lots of nights at U of T, slipping in just before curfew or pretending to sleep over at Alli's.
"Are you still friends Amy?" I asked, then took one last bite of my chicken pad see-ew.
Eli cringed, and I felt even more confused. "Definitely not Amy," he said. "She's my ex."
"Oh." I had figured Eli had moved on after I left him; it wasn't a surprise to me that he'd had another girlfriend. But it had never occurred to me that he might have dated someone I actually knew.
"It was after we broke up. Nothing happened before that," he rushed to add, and I realized he was worried I thought he had cheated on me with her. The thought had never crossed my mind. "I was a mess, and she was there for me, and we tried to make it into something more than it was."
"How long were you together?"
He furrowed his brow. "Five months, maybe? It was nice at first; I mean, I pretty much owe her my life. But I'd already moved out of the dorm by that time and I'd kind of given up on my classes, and as much as she liked Cece's cooking, she wanted a college experience and not a mess like me. Once I told her I wasn't going back to school, she'd had enough of me. It was for the best, but it sucked to lose her as a friend. I do regret that."
Eli finished talking and looked at me expectantly. But I was still stuck on his words - I pretty much owe her my life. Was he...? Did he...?
"Did you try to kill yourself?" I asked and as soon as the words were out of my mouth I cringed and wanted to hide under the table. I couldn't believe I had asked him that in the middle of this elegant restaurant, during what was supposed to be a nice catch up dinner between the two of us.
He quirked an eyebrow at me. "No, Clare, I didn't try to kill myself."
"I'm sorry; it's just, you said..."
"Look, I was really fucked up. I did a lot of stupid shit that I am not proud of. But I only said that because being with Amy gave me a reason to live, even if it was temporary. And by the time it was over, the only thing that saved me was my writing. It was bad and I was depressed, but it never... Look there's only so much emo music you can listen to and not have suicide come to mind, but I wasn't...it never got that bad."
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
He gave me a pained look. "I'm not going to sugarcoat things, but I'm not trying to make you feel bad. You dumped me and I was hurt. There's nothing we can do about that. But we're here now and the only thing we can do is learn from the past and move on."
"When did you get so smart?" I teased.
"I have a lot of free time, and Dr. Phil dispenses a lot of wisdom," he deadpanned.
"You're so weird."
"You love it."
"Yes, I do."
Eli paid the check, though I tried to fight him for it, and we started walking back to the hotel, hand in hand. "Do you want to stop somewhere for a drink? Or desert?" he asked.
"Let's just go back to the hotel."
He squeezed my hand. "Ready for round two?"
Ugh. My face dropped and Eli noticed my change in demeanor immediately. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. It's nothing," I said, a little too quickly.
"Clare?" He tugged on my hand and brought my closer to the building we'd been walking past so people could pass us. "I'm not trying to pressure you. We can just go to sleep together or you could go back to your room if that would make you more comfortable."
I felt like Eli had spent half of his time on Earth reassuring me about our sex life. "I know, Eli."
"Then what is it?" He crossed his arms over his chest, and I knew he wasn't going to let this go.
I couldn't meet his eyes. "What you said…it's something John used to say to me. It just brought back some bad memories."
He grimaced. "I'm sorry….I didn't…I wasn't thinking." He peered at me curiously, as I sniffed back a tear. "He really did a number on you, didn't he?"
I shrugged but my sadness was written all over my face and Eli wrapped his arms around me. "Clare," he said softly. He shuffled backward and sat down on the stoop of an apartment building and pulled me onto his lap. "Talk to me."
"I'm so stupid," I mumbled, burying my face in his neck.
"No, you're not."
"I was so lonely, and I slept with him so he wouldn't leave me."
Eli's arms tightened around me. "What happened?"
"I don't know. That's the worst part. He started calling less and less and instead of going out to dinner, he'd just show up late at night at my apartment. He claimed he was busy with school, but after a while, he stopped coming by at all and started dodging my calls and I never even got an explanation. A few weeks later I ran into him in the elevator and he had this pretty, peppy blonde girl sucking his face and he never said another word to me."
I whimpered, trying to control my tears. "I slept with him and he didn't even have enough courtesy to break up with me. I gave everything to a guy I didn't even love, and he destroyed me."
I brushed my cheek against Eli's and felt the tension in his jaw. I felt bad about sharing this with him but he had to know how I felt. "And the worst part is that I know I deserved it. Because I spent all those years with you and loved you with all of my heart, and I did the exact same thing to you. I walked away from you. You were so good to me, and I left without a word. I denied you my love and my body because I was too selfish to make things work when my life was hard."
I was expecting him to say something reassuring, but he was silent and I felt like my worst fears were coming true. "Maybe I shouldn't be here. You deserve so much better than me. It's not fair of me to ask you to give me another chance when you were so perfect and I threw you away."
"I know you want to blame yourself for everything that's happened to you, but trust me when I say that how John treated you wasn't your fault, and that I am far from perfect." His voice had an edge to it and I looked at him curiously. "In fact, if you knew just what an asshole I am, you wouldn't want to be here with me."
"I don't think that's true."
Eli's eyes flashed and I stood up, not wanting to be in his arms while he was so angry. "I did the exact same thing that John did to you. I picked up a girl in a bar and I went home with her and slept with her the first night I met her. And then I did it again and again, calling her up just so I could get laid. I didn't even pretend we were dating; it was all about sex. And when I got tired of her, when I realized that a meaningless fuck couldn't fill the emptiness in my heart, I stopped calling."
I took a step back from him in shock. "I told you she was a mistake, but really, I was the mistake," he said. He stood up with a look of disgust on his face. "And it doesn't matter that she wasn't a virgin, or that she was just as much in it for the sex as I was. I treated her like she didn't matter. So if anyone doesn't deserve someone here, it's me."
He looked down at the ground. "Let's get back to the hotel."
I trailed behind him as he stalked off, trying to process what he had just told me. I hated that he had used that girl, and I felt for her, knowing what being with John had done to me. But I felt bad for Eli. Even though his views on sex were always a lot less restrictive than mine, he had only shared that with Julia and with me, whom he loved. Even with Amy, he cared deeply about her.
But as much as it was disappointing to hear this, could I really blame him? He'd made mistakes but so had I, and we'd managed to find our way back to each other. There was no reason for me to let this get between us.
I managed to catch up with him at the traffic light before we reached our hotel, and I wrapped my hand around his arm. He gave me a look of tenderness as we walked back to the hotel.
I paused outside the door to the hotel, steps away from where I had seen Eli for the first time. "Look, Eli. It doesn't matter what we've done or haven't done. It only matters what we do from here." He looked mostly reassured but didn't say anything as he led me back into the hotel, his hand gently wrapped around my lower back.
When we stepped into the elevator, he looked at me expectantly and I realized he was waiting for me to pick a floor – to go back to his room with him or go back to my room alone. The door closed behind us before I pressed a button. I ran my finger over the button for Eli's floor and looked at him seductively. "Should I stop by my room and pick up some pajamas for our sleepover?"
He crossed the elevator floor with one stride and wrapped one arm around my waist. He placed his hand over mine and pushed the button for his floor using my finger. "You don't have to wear anything when you're with me."
He pressed me up against the wall as the elevator began to rise and his fingers found the zipper on my dress. "Can we wait until we're inside your room, Mr. Exhibitionist?"
"If you insist," he said, his mouth taking mine.
