Summary: It's a new year at Degrassi, and everything is back to normal, or is it? Have the students really dealt with the events of the past year? Most have, but some are still dealing with the emotional scars of the past year. And some are only pretending that they have dealt with what happened. When those who were most affected by the traumatic events of the last year are thrown together by a well-intentioned guidance counselor, what will happen? Will scars be healed? Will friendships be mended? Will new relationships be formed? Or will it all just fall apart?
Prologue: Enter the Guidance Counselor
When I was in college, taking classes, I had always known I wanted to be a guidance counselor. I wanted to help people – no, I wanted to help kids. Kids who were lost, who were confused – I remember so well what it was like to be one of those kids. And sadly, there was no one there to help me. When my home situation was at it's worse – when my dad was still around, drunk and abusive – I longed for someone to talk to. For some adult to listen to me. But in my high school, the guidance counselor was the football coach. He was nice enough to help with scheduling and college applications, but he wasn't exactly the kind of adult a 14 year old girl could go to and talk to about her problems at home. It was then that I vowed I would become a guidance counselor – one who would be available and listen to the students, who would not judge them, who would help them with the problems in their lives. But somehow, I never thought it would be like this.
So many students who needed me – such as Paige, who was raped, or Ellie, who cut herself to deal with her pain, or Sandy, whose stepfather was sexually abusing her, or Darryl, who was hooked on drugs, or Stacy, who was pregnant and whose family threw her out – the list of kids who came to me for help goes on and on. And some of the things they told me about, about their lives and about their families, made me want to cry. For them, for the type of world we live in – we live a world where horrible things happen to these kids. But, I like to feel I gave them hope – I want to think I gave them a feeling that the world can be a better place than they have seen.
But what makes me feel the worst is the fact that I can't help them all. There are some students who don't come to me for help. There are some students that -- even after being referred to me by a concerned teacher or friend or parent --I can't reach. I can't reach them no matter how hard I try. And the one's who don't come to me for help… So many kids don't come to me, and bad things happen.
I wish Rick Murray would have come to me. I like to think, that if he would have come, and talked to me, that things wouldn't have escalated to what they had before he decided to do what he did. I could have talked to him, I could have helped him deal with his feelings of rejection and anger and pain. I could have maybe even have made Mr. Radditch listen, and try to help stop the bullying that was going on. But Rick didn't come to me, and I wasn't aware of what was happening to him. And on the day of that final prank, that horrible paint and feathers trick that Gavin Mason admitted he and Jay Hogart had set up, I thought Rick had went home. I was going to talk to him when he came back to school. I didn't realize that he had come back to school that day, with a gun.
I spent a lot of time after the shooting helping students deal with the aftermath. Kids were scared and angry and traumatized by what had happened. Yet, I couldn't help but notice that the ones who should have been most affected never came to see me. True, Sean Cameron had moved back with his parents, and Gavin and Jay had been suspended (not that I ever thought Jay would talk – he was one I had tried unsuccessfully to reach quite a few times before), and Jimmy Brooks spent a lot of time in the hospital and according to his father was receiving therapy from some really expensive psychiatrist to help him deal – but Emma Nelson and Toby Issacs were two students I never heard from. I ended up calling Emma Nelson in to talk at one point because her Archie Simpson asked me to. I remember that conversation with Emma so well.
"So, Emma, your father feels you may need to talk to me about your feelings about the shooting." I said, in my best, talk to me I'm listening tone.
Some expression flashed into her eyes too quickly for me to identify, before she gave me a bright smile. "I'm fine, Ms. Suave. My mom and dad are just worried because I had a little trouble a while ago – but I'm fine now." She said.
"What kind of trouble?" I asked, hoping to draw her out. I sensed her bright smile was an armor she used to hide behind, but I couldn't tell. She seemed to be doing fine now, and by all her teacher's reports, she had recovered after that little slump in grades and class participation she experienced for a while post shooting, and by all accounts, she was back to normal. But I couldn't really trust that. After all, who could be back to normal after experiencing what she had earlier in the year?
She looked at me, but I noted she hesitated slightly before looking me in the eye. Then she flashed another bright smile. "It was nothing. Just a little mistake. Not worth repeating." She said. She looked me straight in the eyes, but I noticed a slight tensing in her hands – a nervous tapping of her crossed leg. Body language speaks louder than words, sometimes, and especially with some people. I wonder if she knew how much her body language gave away about her true feelings.
"Emma, you can tell me anything, you know. I'm not going to judge you." I said, giving her what I hoped was a comforting, you can talk to me about anything smile.
Again, some emotion flashed in her eyes, but was quickly suppressed as she deliberately looked at her watch. "I'll keep that in mind Ms. Suave, but as I said, I'm fine. And I've got to go. I'm going to be late." She said, and again flashed another bright and friendly smile at me, as she got up and walked toward the door.
"Emma, you can talk to me anytime." I said, which she acknowledged with a head nod as she opened the door.
"See you later." She said, smiling at me before she walked away.
"Probably not." I thought to myself as she walked away. I had been in this field long enough to know who would come back and talk and who would avoid me like a plague after I reached out to them. Emma Nelson fell into the latter category. And I knew she was trying to play me with her "everything's ok" act.
I ended up calling in Toby Issacs the following day, because observing Emma had made me wonder about how the other person who had witnessed the death was doing. Interestingly enough, I was again dismissed rather quickly by a student trying to give me an impression that everything's fine.
It was over the summer, while dealing with Ms. Hazilakos' plan for continued healing following the shooting, which included allowing a repentant Gavin Mason and, surprisingly Jason Hogart, back into the school on a sort of probation, that I burst upon an inspiration. Ms. Hazilakos wanted me to counsel Jay and Gavin weekly as a condition of their re-admittance. So why not make it into a group? A peer group session, including the students most directly involved with the trauma. The two people who performed the prank and bullied Rick, the boy he shot in the back, his friend who watched him die, and the girl he tried to shoot – all of them, together, discussing what happened, and their feeling of guilt and remorse and pain, and hopefully gaining closure. It was my brainstorm, my baby, and the more I thought about it, the more I felt it was necessary. So, I set about to make it happen.