I don't own Degrassi. I wish. Hope you like this chapter.

"Damn, Cameron," I said as we entered school. "When I told you to take care of the girl I didn't mean for you guys to move in together. Plus, the ferret freaks me out."

Sean looked around in an imitation of a bad spy movie. He leaned in close to me. "It really freaks me out, too," he whispered. "But you were right about Ellie. She needs me. I mean, she could have died in that fire." Sean got that far away look in his eye and I bit my tongue so that I didn't remind him that from all accounts, Ellie herself had spread the fire. Inadvertantly, yes, but it wasn't a frickin' explosion. It was a kitchen fire. I just reminded myself that Ellie was good for Sean. She was good for him because . . . she . . . well, she . . . okay, so I didn't know why they were together, but they seemed happy. Sort of. As happy as Ellie seemed to get, anyway. Ellie accepted him. And she wasn't Emma.

"And she always has time for me," Sean continued.

'Cause she has no life,' I added silently. 'And she frickin' lives with you . . .'

I noticed Emma out of the corner of my eye, coming up the steps. Damn, but that girl looked good this year.

Sean seemed to sense my attention was not wholly on the all important topic of Ellie's perfection. I rolled my eyes. I mean, if I hadn't taken a morning off to drive over to the Nelson-Simpson residence and be purposefully crude, we both know he would have tried to trade Ellie in by now, but he was suddenly acting like they were destined soul mates.

Moron.

"Hey, Cameron, I'll catch up with you later." Sean started to hesitate, so I added, "I'm planning on kidnapping our esteemed student council Vice President after morning announcements and having my way with her," with a leer.

Sean shot me a smug smile and turned to go. "Later, man," he called over his back shoulder.

When I had moved closer to the office, out of the rush of the front doors, Emma was disappearing down a corridor, Toby and Rick trailing behind her. Interesting.

I could only catch bits of their conversation, but it was enough to hear Rick's wager of dice for something, although I couldn't hear what was the objective. Who has their "eye on" dice anyway?

I risked edging closer, openly curious now. Rick and Toby in a dare contest? It had serious pay-back material potential. If only I knew what they were daring each other to do.

"Narrow it down to Emma and we're on," I heard Toby say. The boys shook on it.

Narrow what down to Emma? I tried to tell myself that it was probably some geeky code thing, but what if Rick and Toby were after Emma Nelson in a less innocent fashion. Well, not if I had anything to say about it. I started to follow them when someone grabbed my arm.

"Raditch is on the war path after the ribbon stuff," Alex warned, spinning me around. "What are you doing just hanging out by the office? Don't start anything; I don't want to risk this position. Besides, how obvious can you get? Do you enjoy detention?"

I shook my head. "I'm up to nothing. Nothing at all. I just wanted to see my girl. Forget it, obviously a waste of time." You pretend to try and do something nice to lose your best friend who's annoying you and it all blows up on you. Who'd a thunk? "I got to get to class," I told her turning.

I started to walk down the hall to my first period classroom, when Alex grabbed me again and, spinning me, gave me a long hard kiss. HELLO! Wow. I'll have to loiter around the office more often.

"Something to think about during first period," she whispered to me. "Now scram! I have official DCS business to attend to.

She turned and shut the office door sharply. Well, that was a quick change. Maybe things were looking up again for Alex and me. Maybe we could work things out. Maybe . . .

I turned around to find Emma staring at me, frozen in place. I quickly looked through the window into the office and Alex winked at me.

"How long exactly have you been standing there?" I asked more rudely than I intended.

"Look, I wasn't planning on witnessing the first scene of your X-rated movie, okay," Emma started. So, that kiss had looked as hot as it felt. Nice. I mean, dammit, my girlfriend's playing games with me. "Excuse me, but I have to get by," she said trying to get around me, eyes on the ground.

"Wait." I commanded, concentrating on changing my tone.

"What?" Emma looked up at me, curious.

Looking into her eyes, I almost forgot what I was going to say. They were guarded, shields up high.

"I wanted to warn you about Toby and . . ." I started, but she interrupted me.

"YOU wanted to warn ME about TOBY? A person who has gone out of his way to make me miserable for the last year wants to warn me about one of my best friends?" Emma looked at me incredulous. "You're a real piece of work," she said, reaching for the door. "But I don't have time for this. Announcements are about to begin," she mumbled, stumbling through the door.

Damn it, that girl was too stubborn for her own good. Watching her talk to Alex through the window, I realized maybe stubborn was my type.

Moments ago, all I could think about was how lucky I had been to have such a hot girlfriend. Now I just felt sick. Alex hadn't kissed me like that because she wanted me. She had kissed me because she had seen Emma over my shoulder. My own girlfriend was using me in her stupid rivalry. Granted, I felt a little guilty about my recent thoughts toward Ms. Nelson, but Alex still came first for me. Emma was just . . . well, I don't know what she was, but she wasn't my girlfriend. Apparently, though, Alex thought she knew my feelings toward Nature Chick, making me a pawn in some twisted game. What was worse, Alex would probably make Emma's life even more hellish now that she knew. . . what exactly? She knew that there was something between Emma and me and truth be told, Alex probably understood better than I did. She definitely understood better than Emma herself what was going on in my head.

I had to fix this, and quick, I realized as I entered my first period class. Neither Emma nor Alex deserved this situation. The only questions were left to me. What did I want and how could I get it.

"So nice of you to join us," Mr. Armstrong commented. "Have a seat. We'll talk after class."

The day passed in a blur. I was mad at Rick and Toby for whatever they were planning, mad at Alex for setting me up, mad at Emma for being Emma, mad at myself for caring. I went to lunch looking for Sean. Maybe the two of us could take off and blow off some steam.

I scanned the cafeteria, quickly spotting Sean, but he wasn't alone. He was sitting with Ellie. Be careful what you wish for, right? I headed over, anyway, just in time to see Ellie reach over and feed Sean what looked like fruit.

I thought I would throw up on the spot. Not even sugar sweet head cheerleader/star soccer player couple Spinner/Paige honeybugs did that. Ewwwwwwww. Say it again with me. Ewwwwwwwww.

I had no other options in terms of companionship, however, so I approached the two.

"Hey, Cameron, break your arms?" I asked, knocking into him from behind.

"Cut it out, clumsy," Sean retorted. Then he turned back to his girlfriend in the sugary sweet voice they had created after moving in together, "Are you okay, El? You didn't spill or anything?"

Okay, now I was officially going to be sick. It was fruit juice, not frickin' hydrochloric acid. She'd be fine! "Listen, man, let's blow off the afternoon and go shoot some pool," I suggested to Sean.

Ellie shot me a dirty look. "Sean, don't you have M.I. this afternoon?" she asked pointedly.

"Yeah, that's right. Sorry, man, I can't skip on Simpson after everything that went down," Sean told me, but his eyes didn't leave Ellie's face. He didn't turn to face me until she smiled at me. Like a trained monkey or something. "No can do."

"You are so whipped," I muttered, shaking my head. "Get back to me when you grow some balls."

I grabbed my bag and stormed out. Alex caught my eye, but I looked away. If there was one thing I had learned to do at home it was to walk away when angry at those you care about or face terrible consequences. Of course, if I walked away in every situation my behavior problems would be miraculously solved. Though, somehow I doubted Raditch would accept "I left because I didn't want to bash someone's head in" as an excuse for cutting today.

Like I freakin' care.