Chapter Eight: In Memory

Sean and I sat in silence for ten more minutes. I wasn't sure of what I was supposed to say. He had practically poured his heart out to me, saying that all he wanted was for me to be happy, like we had just broken up after dating for years. I was so confused.

"The room looks good," Sean finally said.

"Thanks." I felt him kneel up on the bed to look at the pictures on the wall.

"You and Marco are really close huh?" he asked. I sat up, wiped my eyes off, and knelt next to him.

"Yeah, we are. He's my best friend. Probably the only person who understands me at all," I told him. He got off my bed and walked around the room, looking at all the posters. He stopped at my bookshelf. Oh no. Not now. I just stopped crying.

"Who's that?" he asked, pointing to the photo on top of it. It was Matt. I didn't want to talk about this right now.

"He's…" I looked at the floor. I tried not to cry, I really did. But I couldn't help it. "That's Matt," I said, not really answering the question.

"And Matt would be…?" Sean trailed off. When I didn't answer, he spoke again. "Well, I don't recognize him from Degrassi at all."

"You wouldn't. His name is Matthias. He was…is my brother," I whispered. Sean turned to me and realized that I was crying.

"I'm sorry Ellie. I didn't mean to upset you." He came over to my bed and sat next to me, putting his arm around my waist. "You don't have to talk about him anymore if you don't want to."

"I might as well tell you. The only person who knows is Marco. Well, besides my parents." I couldn't' believe that I was about to tell Sean something this big. Something I had only talked about once since we moved here. I took a deep breath and began.

"Matthias was three years older than me. We used to live in Ottawa, which is on the border of Ontario and Quebec. Matt was my best friend. We didn't really live near anyone, so we only had each other. One night, we were trying to see how late we could stay up. It was almost three in the morning, when we heard a crash downstairs. We thought that it was probably a wild animal that got into the house because it had happened before. I wanted to wake my parents up, but my brother told me that he could handle it." I paused, unsure if I wanted to finish the story. I decided that I probably should. I hadn't even told Marco this much. I never went into detail when I told him about it.

"I grabbed one of Matt's baseball bats for protection. He laughed at me, saying that I was being a 'scaredy cat.' We crept down the stairs together, Matt in the lead. He refused to turn the lights on, because he didn't want to scare the animal. We walked through the kitchen and into the living room, and I screamed. There was a person in the living room, trying to take our TV. At the time, we didn't know if it was a man or woman, but we found out later that it was a man. When I screamed, I startled him, and he turned around, pulling a gun out of his pocket. Matt yelled at me to get down, but I was frozen on the spot. The man pointed his gun right at me, and Matt jumped in front of me." Tears streamed down my face as I paused for the second time.

"I screamed again and the man dropped the gun and jumped out of the window that he had come in. I yelled for my parents over and over until they finally woke up and ran downstairs. At that time, I had Matt's head in my lap and was telling him to stay alive. I told him that I couldn't live without him. His last words were 'I love you Ellie,' before he lost consciousness. My dad called 911 and my mom was hysterical. By the time the ambulance got there, he was gone. And it was all my fault." Sean put his arms around me and hugged me tightly. We stayed like that for five minutes until he spoke.

"It wasn't your fault," he whispered in my ear.

"Yes it was. If I hadn't screamed, the man would have never noticed us. If I had gotten down on the ground, Matthias wouldn't have had to jump in front of me. If I had ignored him and woken up my parents, they would have told us to stay upstairs. There are so many things I could have done to prevent it," I said, pulling away from him and turning my head towards the bookshelf. Sean held my head in his hands and turned my head back towards him, looking into my eyes.

"You had no way of knowing what was going to happen. Never say that again. It wasn't your fault," he repeated. "Did they ever catch the guy?" he asked.

"Yeah. They caught him a few miles away, hiding in some woods. It was so pointless. My brother died because some idiot wanted a TV," I said.

"At least you know that he died honorably. He saved your life Ellie. You were important to him," Sean told me.

"I was in therapy for two years, and I got a little better. My parents decided that they couldn't bear to stay in the house any longer. None of us could even pass by Matt's bedroom without bursting into tears. We couldn't even go in our living room without being haunted by memories of that night. So they decided that we should move, and we ended up here."

"Was it any better when you got here?" he asked.

"I think I was better off. But then my parents just got worse. My dad enlisted in the army to run away from the pain. I think he's a coward," I said harshly.

"Some people just have different ways of dealing with pain. I'm sure you would have loved to just run away from it all, but you stayed by your mom instead," Sean said.

"Well, my mom was so depressed about losing my brother. Then she felt like she was losing my dad when he left for the army. That's how she started drinking. It was her way of dealing with the pain I guess. And I started this," I said, and lifted up my shirt sleeves to reveal all of my scars. Sean gasped.

"You…" he trailed off. "You did this to yourself? Why?" he asked. I was surprised. No one had ever asked me why. The only people who knew about my cutting were Marco and my mother. But neither one of them asked that question.

"Like you said, people have different ways of dealing with pain," I told him.

"But…doesn't that hurt? You got rid of pain by giving yourself pain?" he looked confused.

"When I cut myself, the pain in my heart transferred to the pain in my arms. Somehow I felt better." I pulled my sleeves back down and lay down on my bed.

"Have you done it recently?" he asked. This boy was so full of questions.

"No. I stopped cutting when I met Marco. I felt like my life was really turning around. I loved him so much; I still do. He helped me stop and let me talk about my problems. He was the first person since Matthias that actually listened. Then I found out that I was pregnant. And then Marco told me he was gay. And my mom died. And it's taking all I have in me to not start again."

"Marco's gay?" Sean asked. Oh great. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone.

"Please don't tell anyone. And don't tell him I told you. It just slipped out."

"I won't I promise," he told me. I closed my eyes and felt Sean lay down next to me. He slipped his hand into mine and held it.

"You probably think I'm some kind of freak now. I cut myself, love my gay best friend, am fifteen years old with a baby on the way, and blame myself for my brother's death."

"I don't think you're a freak," Sean said.

"You don't?" I asked him, surprised.

"Not at all." I felt his warm breath on my neck and shivered. I had never been this close to anyone since Marco; both physically and emotionally.

A/N: For those of you who don't live in Canada (well, I don't either) Toronto is in Ontario. It's about 399 km I guess…I looked it up, and don't feel like converting that to miles. Also, if you didn't feel like doing the math, Matthias was fifteen when he died, and Ellie was twelve.

I don't know if I've done this yet:

Disclaimer: I do not own Degrassi or any of its characters. I do own Matthias Nash and Ellie's baby with Marco.