A/N: Trigger Warning for mentions of abuse since Rick Murray appears in this chapter and his abuse of Terri is referenced. He will have an impact on the kids in the future.
A few days later
Eli woke up, got dressed, and headed downstairs for breakfast.
When he entered the kitchen, he saw Bullfrog passed out at the kitchen table with empty beer bottles next to him, and one of his friends sleeping in a corner with a couple beer bottles next to him as well. There was another friend passed out on the couch in the living room.
At this point there was no point in sighing as he was used to this scene in the morning. He left the kitchen for a moment, went into the living room to get a blanket, re-entered the kitchen and put a blanket over his father.
At least there wasn't any puke this time.
"Students against violence," two blond girls said as one of them passed out orange ribbons to anyone who walked past them. The other one who Katie recognized as the Spirit Squad captain was holding a donation jar. "Students against violence!"
"What is going on?" Katie asked Marisol as they watched the scene together.
"You see that guy over there?" Marisol asked as she gestured to a nerdy looking kid with glasses talking to Mr. Raditch. "His name is Rick Murray. I heard that last year he put his girlfriend into a coma. She transferred to another school to get away from him."
"And he's back here?" Katie questioned, appalled. "Why would the school allow a woman beater to come back when he's a clear danger to the girls at this school?"
"Don't ask me. Obviously, nobody at Degrassi is just going to accept this," Marisol replied.
"I'm definitely not," Katie agreed as she walked up to the blond girl handing out the ribbons. "My friend and I would like one," she requested.
"Thank you, would you like to donate as well?" The older girl asked as she handed her the ribbons. Katie reached into her jean pocket and pulled out a few dollars and plopped them right into the jar.
"Anything to get a freak out of Degrassi," she answered as she walked away with the ribbons. When she got back to Marisol, she handed her best friend a ribbon. "There's no way this isn't going to pressure Raditch into expelling that guy," she said.
"I hope so because just looking at him gives me the heebie jeebies," Marisol replied with a shudder as they started walking.
Katie looked back at Rick, who was trying to keep a low profile to no avail as everyone in the hallway was either whispering about him, glaring at him, or both.
Their eyes met, and she sent him a nasty glare.
At first Mo was confused as to why nearly everyone in his class was wearing orange ribbons but soon he found out why.
"I don't know what Raditch was thinking allowing an abuser to come back to Degrassi but I'm sure he's regretting it now!" Imogen said. She had tied two orange ribbons into her pigtails and was wearing another one on her outfit for the day.
"Honestly that guy gave me bad vibes anyway," Mo replied. The teacher had not showed up to class yet even though the bell rang. "Who beats up on girls anyway?"
"A total loser, that's who," she replied.
When Mr. Simpson finally stepped in the classroom, he was bombarded with millions of questions about this Rick Murray kid. Since no one in class was around last year when this all went down, everybody wanted to hear all of the brutal details.
"Kids, I know that this is probably some very upsetting news to find out during your first week of school but we the faculty ask that you leave this situation up to us," Simpson commanded.
"But how can we feel safe at school with that kind of person attending?" Mo questioned out loud as some of his classmates voiced their agreements. His heart leaped a little at the positive reception. It always felt good when people were agreeing with him instead of laughing at him.
Simpson sighed. "It's something that we're doing our best to figure out. As for right now, let's start our day with some computer exercises, alright?"
As Mo turned around to face his computer, he wondered how this Rick situation was going to affect the school.
Today was the club fair, and Marisol was beyond excited.
She came to the school before Katie did this morning to set up the Pep Squad table in the gymnasium. She had decorated it with a gold tablecloth and blue ribbons. She had a big bowl of candy on the table along with a signup sheet and a boom box playing music. She had a giant poster detailing all of the benefits of the cheer team in front of the table with everything on the poster written in glittery gold glue.
She was dressed in her gym uniform with gold and blue painted on her cheeks, and her black hair was tied up in two puffs on top of her head. Her mother had put blue and gold ballies in her hair to compliment her outfit.
Within the first ten minutes of the club fair starting, five girls have already signed up for tryouts. Her ideal was to have at least sixteen members on the team.
She was about to take a break and ask a teacher to watch the table when Imogen Moreno skipped in front of her. "Hi!" The girl greeted cheerfully.
"Hi," Marisol greeted back flatly.
"I would like to sign up for the Pep Squad," the other girl declared, and Marisol raised an eyebrow. Imogen was one of the last people she wanted on the team. The Pep Squad was for future IT girls, not school weirdos.
But she couldn't prevent her from signing up unfortunately. "Awesome, sign up here," she replied as she handed Imogen a blue pen with glitter ink. Imogen eagerly took it and then whistled a tune to herself as she signed up.
"I can't wait for tryouts. I'm always looking for opportunities to meet new friends," she said. Marisol gave her a thin smile in return.
"Looking forward to seeing you there," she replied. Imogen nodded before walking away. Marisol's face then fell in disgust. She hoped the girl performed poorly at tryouts.
Rick Murray came into the gym, and Marisol watched in amusement as he was actively turned away from every club he tried to sign up for. Absolutely no one wanted that loser in their club.
Katie walked up to her. "Guess who just signed up for soccer tryouts?" She asked excitedly.
"O-M-G, I hope you get in!" Marisol squealed in return.
"And I signed up for journalism and the karate club too. I'm aiming to get my red belt this year," Katie added as just Rick approached them.
"Hi ladies," he greeted before turning his attention to her, "May I have some candy?"
Marisol glared at him as she pulled her bowl away from him. "Absolutely not," she sneered.
"Why not?" He asked again.
"Why don't you leave us alone, or are you going to beat us into a coma too?" Katie questioned him harshly.
Rick left them without another word.
Eli walked up to the drama table to where a few older students were watching over. "Hey kid, you interested in drama? Sign up here," one of them, a really skinny guy with shaggy brown hair said as he slid him the signup sheet with a black pen. Eli wrote down his name on the sheet without a second thought. He had always been interested in theatre, preferably as a director or writer.
"What productions are you guys doing this year?" He asked.
"We're thinking of doing Dracula," the older guy replied as he looked at a nerdy looking black girl with glasses for confirmation. She nodded, and Eli noticed she had a blush on her cheeks.
"Cool," he answered. He read the original book last year just for fun.
"I want to sign up too!" A girl from his class announced as she ran up to the table. He believed her name was Marisol.
She signed her name in pretty, cursive handwriting. "Drama club sounds so amazing. I want to be an actress!" She declared.
"Aren't you already running a cheer team?" He asked her. He remembered Imogen talking about how she was going to join the Pep Squad as a distraction from her parents divorcing. He personally thought cheerleading was stupid but he supposed that Imogen would be a great fit for the team due to her cheery attitude. She was also full of so much energy.
"Yeah, but I don't see why I can't do this either," Marisol answered.
"It requires a lot of time and attention," he explained. School productions were something he took seriously, and the last thing the club needed was silly cheerleaders who were only concerned about looking pretty and not actually performing well.
"And I have plenty of room for both," Marisol argued. "Don't you worry about it, Emo Boy."
"Emo Boy?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, you heard me," she said before giving him a playful tap on the shoulder and walking away.
Eli couldn't help but smile in amusement as he watched her leave.
"I'm going to throw a party tonight at my place. My parents are going away for the weekend and won't be back until Sunday," Marisol said to Katie as their art teacher allowed them a five minute break.
"I thought we were going to do some studying instead," Katie replied with a frown.
"We can do that Saturday," Marisol dismissed with a handwave. "Tonight should all be about fun. We'll have Domino's, games, and I'm going to invite the cutest boys in grades seven and eight."
None of that sounded appealing to Katie, and she didn't know which option was the worst, but she knew Marisol was going to want her to come. "Cool," she said.
"Who should we invite?" Marisol asked.
"I don't know, you're the party thrower," Katie answered, making her friend sigh.
"You're never any help at these kind of things," her best friend grumbled. Katie only shrugged in response.
"Did someone say party?" Imogen asked as she came out of nowhere. "Can I come?"
Her and Marisol looked at each other, not knowing what to answer. She could tell Marisol didn't want Imogen to be at the party because she was weird, but at the same time Imogen was also trying out for Pep Squad and it would look bad if Marisol rejected her.
"Sure, it starts at seven at my place," Marisol said with a fake smile. The other girl excitedly clapped in response.
"Excellent, I'll bring my friends!" She replied before skipping back to her seat.
"You're seriously allowing her to come?" Katie questioned her friend critically.
"Well every party needs some entertainment," Marisol replied with a smirk.
Eli came home and unlocked the front door.
As he went inside, he noticed the place was eerily quiet. "Bullfrog? Cece?" He asked loudly while looking around in confusion. That's when he saw a note with some money on the table.
He picked it up and read. "Your mom and I are going out for the night. We left you money for some pizza," the note read.
"Going out" meant hanging out at a bar until 2 am in the morning, and then getting drunk at home. Or high. Eli rolled his eyes as he plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV.
Sometimes he wondered how his parents functioned when they were so dedicated to alcohol and drugs. The only time his father acted like a normal human being was while he was working as a radio show host and even then there were some moments on air when he could tell his father was under the influence.
A thought popped into Eli's head.
Since his parents were going to be out all night, there was no reason why he couldn't go to the back to school party with the seventh and eighth graders. Imogen invited him and Mo, and he wasn't interested at first but now he was.
It's not like he was going to get caught by his parents or anything.
The party she was throwing seemed to be successful so far.
Marisol smiled at the various activities her classmates were doing around her living room. Kids were dancing to the music, eating pizza and barbecue, talking animatedly, or watching TV. This was definitely going to make her one of the popular girls in school.
No one was playing games however, and she was about to change that. "Alright, everyone!" She yelled, getting everyone's attention. "Let's play a game!"
"Charades!" Imogen, the freak, yelled. She was dressed in another tutu skirt, this time bright orange with black leggings, a black shirt, and a matching orange bow.
"Absolutely not," she harshly rejected, "We're not in second grade."
Imogen pouted at her remark but she didn't care.
"What about spin the bottle?" An eighth grade boy suggested with a grin. Several kids oohed and ahhed at the idea.
"Start off with a kissing game this early?" Marisol questioned before a wide grin split on her face. "Let's do it."
Eli was already regretting going to this party and now that the kids were playing that stupid seven minutes in heaven game, he was really regretting it. He should have stayed his ass home and watched horror movies like he always did whenever his parents went out drinking.
He was sitting between Imogen and Marisol, and watching in boredom as kids were forced to go into the closet for seven minutes. There was so much giggling and whispering among everyone it was driving him insane.
He hoped that him and Imogen would not be forced to go into the closet at some point. Nothing could kill a friendship quicker than being forced to kiss, and he could tell his friend was super uncomfortable by this game. He was too.
The girl on the other side of him, Marisol, looked to be excited playing this game on the other hand. He noticed that she was eying multiple guys in the room in interest.
The way she talked to Imogen made him highly suspicious of her. He had seen the way her and her best friend Katie looked at Imogen in class, and his protective instincts activated. He didn't want to kiss anyone who was mean to his friends.
After two eighth graders came out with tousled hair and clothes, giggling, Marisol spoke up. "Okay, time to find who's next….."
She reached in the center of the circle everyone had formed and spun the bottle. Everyone watched with tension to see who the bottle would land on.
Just his luck that it landed between him and Marisol.