I'm not sure what my first clue was.

Elevator rides can be pretty awkward, if you let them. Sometimes even just standing there, intensely pondering whether or not the other will speak is enough to just drive a person insane. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know. But in any event, being stuck with someone you don't like in a confined area for any amount of time is tedious, be it hours or seconds.

At first, I honestly thought she was another trendy mall-dwelling teenybopper.

I don't know what makes me hate the silence of elevator rides. I was never that self-conscious, especially now that I've lost all the respect I had for myself as a human being. I think what scares me is strangers striking up conversations. Some people out there--damn their souls--have deemed it semi-appropriate to just, start talking to anyone who appears to be alone. I mean, what is THAT? What fuels these people? Some sort of bizarre desperation for human contact? Is this some big program to promote unity? Even if there weren't skeevy untrustworthy morons in the world, I still don't find it necessary to turn to a person you will most likely never talk to ever again in your entire life after 30 more seconds and ask rigidly, So...where'd you go today? It's just not right. It goes against human nature. I used to be friendly, and I used to not question it, but I think it began to bother me when every person seemed to ask me why I was alone. Going out somewhere alone--what a strange and foreign concept to us creatures of conformity. Give me a break.

But really, it was then that I realized that I was, indeed, here, standing in an elevator with the infamous Paige Michalchuk mere feet away.

See, you need to know something about me. I don't develop strong opinions of people. When I first met Sean, my thoughts were just, "Cool. A guy who will talk to me." And then there was that one week in tenth grade, when everyone's seemed so on edge about Marco being gay. Spin was totally flipping out and kept asking how a guy could actually get turned on by another guy. Jimmy was fully supportive, 100% behind Marco and totally cool with it. And me? So he's gay.... whatever? I have never cared less about anything in my entire life.

I saved my strong opinions for the people who, in my life, best exemplified what I hated and loved in other people.

I think Paige was one of them.

If you're going to spend your life feeling bitter about conformity and popularity, who better than Paige Michalchuk to blame and to detest for all those years? She really had it all, everything you could possibly dislike and more. She was like their ringleader, their headmaster, calling one and all to join her parade of mindless self-absorption. And as it turns out, she was supposedly "worse" before I came to Degrassi. Is that even possible? Apparently, she snubbed Ashley because of some minor thing at the end of eighth grade. Not that I'm on Ash's side or anything--but come on, what is this, first grade? Everything was so black and white in Paige's world...from what I saw, anyway.

So here we stood, mere feet away from one another. Have we ever had a decent conversation in our lives? No. Does that change that things right then felt insanely tense? No.

Then, I started thinking about it. I was kind of funny, in a way, that we'd never really spoken, yet there was a lot of... history between us. It was as if there were all of these interweaving plotlines of our lives, and we seemed to be caught up in a lot of them together without ever realizing it. Our main connection was Ash, which was great in tenth grade, firing up the hate she already would've hate for me due to the simple fact that she had two X chromosomes, attended Degrassi, and was not living under a rock. From then on... oh, I don't know, maybe it's just a guess, but from the glares when I walk by and the eye-rolling whenever I say anything to her (which, believe me, I've tried to avoid but school-related things are kind of necessary), I'd say she hasn't liked me since. And that's, of course, assuming she liked me in the first place. Which I doubt.

I was just going to let it slide. I was going to stand there and pretend like I did not care that she was standing mere feet away. I was going to take the awkwardness like a man and go home and forget the situation ever happened. She cleared her throat. I jammed my hands into my old jeans pockets and looked downward. She moved her head slightly to face me. She didn't give me much of a choice.

"So, how have you been?" she asked haughtily, no more or less than

I'd expect from her. I waited for the rest. There was always more. Conversations aren't complete to Paige unless she's taken at least one big chunk of your self-esteem and ripped it to shreds. "Had sex with any of the grade nines this year? I heard they're the cream of the crop."

I rolled my eyes, but she didn't see it. Hopefully, she was trying to think of a less obvious stab at my ego. Like I haven't heard that one before, from complete strangers, no less. I sneered in her general direction, and didn't bother to grace her lovely comments with a response. Instead, I just wished this elevator ride would be over with.

Suddenly, I got my wish. Only not so much, since the whole elevator just seemed to stop in its path abruptly with a loud screeching brake sound coming from above our heads. None of the numbers I'd been watching were lit out anymore, only the number three flickered on and off sporadically. I tried not to think much of it--this was an old mall, these were old elevators, the mall was well-populated, it was mid-day on a Saturday, someone would be realizing the elevator was screwed up right this second. No worries.

"Let's not panic, there's a button you can push somewhere," she said, putting out her hands, trying to gain some sense of calm, when there was quite obviously no panic. I looked below the elevator level buttons and there was a small but bright red one with a symbol by it, an exclamation point. I leaned back against the back of the elevator and laughed emotionlessly.

"No effing kidding?" She turned around to me, stared with narrowed eyes, while I, ignoring the look, pointed to the necessary button. She didn't turn around quite yet. She had to take another stab at me before we got out of here and

went our separate ways.

"The last time I checked, you weren't an elevator expert. Actually, the last time I checked, you were manwhore Manning." Right, and I've never heard that one before either. She went back, to both giving her attention to the button and to pretending like I don't exist. "Therefore, leave the button pushing to me, okay, hon?" I scoffed, watching her press the button finally.

She only waited about ten seconds before deciding it was necessary to push the button again.

"Isn't this supposed to be instant?" she complained, though I'm not sure to whom, because I certainly didn't care. "It's not doing ANYTHING!" Now she was pressing it every two seconds, which I had an inkling wasn't a great idea.

"Well, I don't think jabbing at it is going to help," I said, tiredly. I was tired already of putting up with her attitude. She took a precious second from her button-pushing to turn around and glare at me.

"It's being unresponsive, hon. One more push and we'll be on our way out of here."

She jabbed at it, one last time, and I just stood there and stared at it as her finger came off it. It was stuck. Paige had broken the emergency button, our quick ticket out of here. I tried to keep some apathy about me, but this time, it was her fault, and there was something I could place the blame on

her, even if all else fails.

"Oh, way to go," I sneered, then began my mockery of her stupidity. "Just one more push..."

Today seemed to be a momentous day in my life. For once in my life, I seemed to make a complete idiot of myself. The situation seemed to be that of something pulled out of one of the sitcoms my mom divulges in along with a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Everything just seemed so incredibly surreal and plastic. If I was one to sport a dunce cap, I'd attempt to convince myself this was the nightmare from hell. It was the nightmare in which I was forced to be stuck in an elevator with Craig Manning because I needed retail therapy. It was the nightmare in which I was too tired to remind Craig of his status as a useless man whore properly. I was on the verge of giving into my nicotine cravings as they howled at me from within. However, I lacked the effort to dig into the depths of my purse which was filled to the brim with various objects. So I decided to slide down the cold metal wall of the elevator and rest on the floor of the dingy prison I was locked within. Normally, the thought of sitting on a foot print and dirt laced floor wouldn't have crossed my mind at all. However, I was completely and utterly tired and the residue wouldn't be seen on my dark antique wash Paris Blues jeans. So this part of the current scenario wasn't all that bad. Once I panned out and saw the bigger picture, I realized how much this completely and utterly sucked. My chances at attempting to have a positive outlook were nipped in the bud as I breathed in Mr. Negativity. The combination of confined dark spaces and Craig were aiding in a possible breakdown. So, a stopping of the negativity was in order.

I scoffed, "Why can't you shut up and make yourself useful?" Of course, that would be too much to ask of him. "So far, I've been the only one attempting to get us out of here." It was probably due to the fact that I actually had places to go that didn't consist of the interior of his incredibly tacky car with a joint held between two of his fingers that were decorated with dirt beneath the nails. The concept known as personal hygiene was wasted on Craig and his sloppy appearance. Would it honestly kill a person to ward wrinkles from their clothing, brush their hair, and conceal their ugliness? However, careless people like those made us beautiful people stand out among the grimy folk.

He laughed dryly as his face turned to glance at mine, "Paige." I thought sentences were supposed to consist of at least three words strung together that had a coherent point. Another concept, this time the one of complete and coherent sentences, was wasted on Craig Manning.

However, he managed to redeem himself.

"Look up, look down look all around," Craig instructed me. Since when did he think he was running this show in such a bleak setting? It was almost cute, how completely deluded he was. Someone who had made the oh so smart decision to cheat on his incredibly decent girlfriend couldn't possibly possess the sense to give me instructions. The last time I checked, I could look up and down without being told to do so. "Does it look like there's any way out of here right now?"

Mr. Negativity lived up to his name once more. Of course, I was aware that the possibility of an immediate escape at the moment was zilch. But when did some optimism kill someone? Craig was a negativity germ, who attempted to spread his disease and make everyone else become incredibly gloomy. The only reason why he did it was because he was miserable with his current situation, which was entirely his fault. If hormones, stupidity, and seduction hadn't corrupted him, then he would have a smile plastered on his face and probably be accompanied by Ash in the elevator. But no, Craig wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box. Instead, he was the hormonal idiot of a crayon and would probably be that tacky macaroni and cheese colored crayon if he were an actual crayon.

"There's always the door," I informed him with an irritated tone. I wanted to get out of the elevator and make it to my car to have a cigarette before I was diagnosed as being clinically insane. I was in no mood to deal with complete and utter idiocy. "You can always go out and end up falling while I wait for help. I mean, you're just so desperate to get out of here, hon." Obviously, I couldn't master the concept of coherent sentences at the moment. I was on the verge of being clinically insane though. It's humanly impossible to be perfect all of the time.

Now, it seemed as though I was crawling underneath his skin and striking a nerve. It was incredibly pathetic that as of right now, this was my source of entertainment: annoying Craig Manning. I could be reading tags and receipts. I could be searching through my purse to see all of the miscellaneous things that it contained. However, those all involved moving, which were something I so didn't want to at the moment. Annoying Craig didn't involve moving any body parts aside from my mouth. I was just so incredibly tired, irritated, and starving for nicotine. Today was not my day.

He rolled his eyes, something that was my trademark. "Well, I'm sorry that I don't have super important things to do like you do, like paint my nails and watch The OC. Some of us don't feel the need to rush around everywhere and kiss everyone's ass."

Oh, wow, he was stellar at this game. I hated that. I hated the fact that someone such as Craig Manning had such an undesirable perception of me that was completely and utterly false. For one thing, I don't paint my nails. I either have Hazel do them or I go to this awesome place on High Street to have them done. Second of all, I rarely watched The OC due to the fact that it conflicted with my phone time with Hazel. Even some show with two highly attractive guys wouldn't compromise my phone time with my best friend. Okay, maybe occasionally it would. Lastly, kissing people's asses was something I avoided unless completely necessary.

I was about to go out on a limb and be slightly honest with him. I was tired of listening to his half baked attempts at annoying me and having them succeed. I just wanted to get far away from the situation at hand. So, maybe if he was aware we possibly shared some feelings, he would feel sympathetic and shut the hell up. It didn't require anything tiring such as getting up and moving around, but it was worth a try.

"Think what you want, hon. Frankly, I just want to get out of here and go home. Today has so not been my day," I replied tiredly. Hopefully he was cracking and ready to give into that voice in his head, screaming for him to close his mouth and let us be bathed in absolute silence until we were rescued.

"Yeah. Great," He muttered bitterly and sarcastically while reclaiming his position as Mr. Negativity.

If there is such thing as a higher power, I'm sorry for some of the things that I have done. If you get me out of here safely, I'll promise to possibly take church more seriously as well as attempt to help out around the house more often. I'll visit my family a lot while I'm in college. Just get me out of here, unless you want me to rot in an elevator. I don't want to die next to Mr. Negativity. I just don't want to die or go insane. I just want to get out of here faster than you can say "Hallelujah".

I leaned my head into the elevator wall. This was derived word by word from one of those worst case scenario handbooks, that I unfortunately never intended to buy. More importantly, this was a hopeless situation.