"Places, please!" Ellie's fingers tightened and she spun the ring faster and faster. "Ellie, Ellie! Get out there!" stage crew put a microphone securely in her hand and pushed her out onto the stage.
Fuck.
"I-it would be rude to say we're saving the best for last, seeing as all of the students here have been doing such a good job." her eyes darted across the many faces, and she was reminded of her grade school days, when she was the youngest girl in a Christmas play and she kept looking, but she never saw her Mother's or Father's face. She had started crying right in the middle of a scene, and they had to take her out of it for a few minutes to calm her down, but she had refused to go on unless she saw someone out there who cared at all. She wasn't an idiot, even when she was younger. She knew no one had even noticed. But she went back out, and she smiled as bright as she could. But there was still no one here today. "But music is w-what seems to tie everything together." she kept searching. There had to be someone. "Whether you be interested in Rock, Hip Hop, Jazz, Blues, or Religious-themed music, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that you can feel the music in one way or another.." she looked back to her little group of players. They were all staring at her. That didn't help much. She turned back to look, just once more. And that's when it happened.
The door opened, and a rush of light flew in from the back of the pitch-black part of the gymnasium. A sillouette of a medium-sized boy who was obviously slouching appeared. The figure got a lot of looks as he walked in. He was obviously very late. No one could tell who it was, except for one Ellie Nash.
She smiled. A bright, shining smile. "Without further ado, the Degrassi Christmas Variety Hour will come to a conclusion with Degrassi's own 'Our Time To Shine' musical group." she nodded and turned around and began to walk away. She could hear the clapping behind her, but she didn't pay much attention to it. She was much too busy thinking about that boy.
Ashley, who had been in the Christmas skits instead of the band attacked her best friend with a hug as soon as she came back out. She hoped that this little speech would've cheered her up. "YOU DID SO GREAT!" Ashley smiled at Ellie, who gave a weak smile back. Someone had cared, though. Someone out in that audience might just have shown up for her.
Soon it was time for them to take their bows. Ellie was to be the last, since she had been the director of the whole thing. She hadn't asked for the job, it was given to her. The teachers had all decided she would be best. However, she hadn't taken it to be a good thing at the time. The musicians went out and all bowed together, and it was finally her turn.
She walked out slowly. It was eerily quiet. She could hear her converses slap against the floor, and no one was speaking, as if they were waiting with bated breath. She got to the middle and took a bow, slowly but surely. As she started to get up she could hear the clapping start up and then booming. They were clapping for -her-, and what she had done. The next thing came as a shock. A bouquet of roses fell at her feet and she looked up to see one Sean Cameron standing in front of her, grinning like mad. She scooped them up and was about to jump down from the stage and attack him with a hug, but then her mind started working. He had left her, what right did he have to be kissed- no, even touched?
She turned on her heel and walked out with a stride to prove she didn't need him.
-----
Once the glitz and glamour of the show was over, she was back to her anti-spirit spirit. She put on her coat wordlessly and sat in the back of Ashley's car. When the group of kids in the vehicle started singing Christmas carols she pulled out her ipod and blared it as loud as possible, refusing to take her headphones out. She kept looking out the window, and wondered why she had agreed to go to Ashley's after-party. Jay was sitting up front and holding Ashley's hand while Ashley steered the car with the other. Ellie rolled her eyes and for once found them to look a little disgusting. They had come together in the most interesting way, Ashley feeling down and out for her breakup with Craig and going to the ravine where she got smashed off her ass. Jay had, of course, been her knight in shining denim and watched over her that night. It must've took a lot of liking for him to do that. Ellie never really understood it. Usually he would've left girls out there to dry. Maybe he had something for her, or maybe he knew Ellie would knee him in the gut if he wasn't the Kerwin girl's little guardian angel. From that morning when they both woke up in a tunnel slide at a local park with busting headaches, the two of them never seemed to break apart. Ellie could see the little sparks flying, and talked a very in-denial Hogart kid to ask out the little musician. It had all come from there, and Ashley always loved to talk about how she was so happy that she had decided to get wasted that night, or one of the best things in her life wouldn't have happened to her.
They stopped in front of Ashley's house along with a ton of cars that had followed. They all ran out like little bugs scattering. Ellie promptly took her time to get out of the car and walk inside before falling on the couch. Soon she could hear Christmas music playing as her peers danced around in Ashley's living room to Jingle Bell Rock and what seemed like thousands of even more cliche holiday songs. Jay left Ashley for a moment and walked towards her. "Hey, Nash." he said, standing nearly over top of her. "Can I talk to you for just a tiny second?"
"Well, I really am busy brooding about shitty holidays but I guess I can take a break for five minutes." she snipped, standing up as Jay lead her upstairs to Ashley's room. He turned on the light and sat on the bed. "So, why didn't you talk to Seanny boy?" he grinned.
"What?" Ellie shook her head. "You brought me up here to ask me why I didn't talk to that bastard?" she laughed. "Nice." she turned to grab the doorknob.
"Bastard, eh?" he laughed. "So under all that girly exterior there's still the real Ellie Nash just waiting to control the Earth."
She turned back around and crossed her arms. "What are you talking about. I'm the real Ellie Nash."
"Not any more, you're not. Ever since Sean left you've been giving into everyone else. Like you lost all your sarcasm, all your brains, all your 'rage against the machine' bullshit. You act like when Sean left, he took the real you along with him, and left you with this retarded little 'vulnerable Ellie Nash'." he said the last part in a mocking tone.
She stepped closer to him. "I haven't changed."
"Oh, but you have, Ellie. Ask anyone. Anyway-" he decided it was time to change the subject before he got slapped in the face. He was walking the line and one little slip and the 'Real Ellie Nash' would kick him in the balls. "Wouldn't you like to know why your big bad Gangster came back?"
"I'm guessing he missed his candy bandits?" she rolled her eyes.
"No, not exactly. But he did miss someone." Jay stood up. "He missed you, Ellie. And everyone can see the damn feeling is mutual. I invited him to the play. He said you wouldn't talk to him. You proved him right. You wouldn't even look at that kid." Jay shrugged. "Maybe you are just a blank robot like Spinner said."
"SPINNER DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING!" Ellie screamed, frozen in her spot.
Jay smirked. "Merry Christmas, Scrooge Nash." he opened the door and walked out.
Ellie fell onto Ashley's bed and twisted the ring around her finger slowly. Everything was falling apart and she could feel it just, tumbling to pieces around her. But she could fix it, right? She was Ellie Nash. She could do anything that way. The room was dark but the loud heartbeat of the party underneath her filled her ears, it sounded much too hollow, however. There was nothing to celebrate. She had no one to celebrate with.
The door opened, slowly and with a loud creak. It dug into her ears and deep into her head and shattered her thoughts and what felt like her skull. It couldn't have been Jay, he would've stomped right in. Ashley was probably off too busy getting high, her new favorite pass time. Jay had changed that much of her. She and Marco had fallen out, (she would never say they hated each other, she loved him too much no matter what,) and Craig was a bastard. She sat up, and guess who stood there?
He looked embarrassed, like he had done something wrong. Well, of course, he had. He had left her and she had loved him and now she didn't know. Deep down maybe there was an answer, but it was questionable. Maybe when he had supposedly wrenched away her personality he had taken with him her ability to figure things out. But then again, she could never make decisions. That was Past, Present, Future. He grinned like a dope, or at least, that's the best way to put it.
"Hi." Sean's voice was raspy and he ran a hand through the tangled mess of hair on his head. He stepped closer towards her and Ellie sat up, looking him over. She hadn't got to examine him just yet. He was taller, but his eyebrows were still the same. She smiled a little unintentionally. She liked that, he was still 'eyebrows' to her. He seemed slimmer, and there were bags under his eyes. Maybe he hadn't eaten.
She sighed and didn't know what to say. How amazing, hmm? Ellie Nash with no words. Of course it was different than usual. She pulled her knees up to her chest and put her chin on top of her knees. "Hi." she finally replied blandly. Oh, wow, Ellie. What a great thing to say.
"I was thinking, maybe, we could talk?" he shrugged and played with his hat in his hands, shuffling his feet a little like he was too nervous to stop moving. Or maybe he thought he should be ready to run before he got smacked. Well, it was one of the two.
"Alright, talk." she nodded a little and twisted that damn ring on her finger some more. Talk about mannerisms, it was becomimg a huge habit. He nodded and bit his lip as if trying to remember what he had planned on saying.
"Well, I think I should talk to you. About what happened. And I understand that you hate me, because I left you. And that was really irresponsible. But, the thing is- I was gonna go crazy if I stayed here. I had to be somewhere else. I couldn't take you with me. I wanted to, I wanted to run away with you, but I had to be a man and face something I'd push out of my life for years. And now I'm facing it and I've never felt better but every day I'm reminded that I broke your heart and in the process of fixing something else, I broke mine, too." It was a rambled mess, quiet and hard to make out, but Ellie heard every word. It sunk into her head and she knew she would never forget. "Ellie, the thing is- I saw you again at that show and everything just came flooding back and I can't stand it any more, I love you, okay! And I understand if you hate me and never want to hear from me again but you need to know-"
She butted in on his gibberish. "You mean it?" her eyes lit up and she sounded so hopeful. She had stopped listening after 'I Love You'. A little voice in her head was screaming 'Damnit, Ellie, don't fall for it! He's not worth it' while another, much louder, yelled, 'Ellie! He loves you!'
"Of course I mean it!" he stepped closer and she pushed herself off the bed. She looked up at him and he laced his fingers with hers. They stood like that for a moment, before she stood on her tiptoes and crushed their lips together. She swore she could see fireworks on her eyelids.
And when he pulled back, he sighed and said, "Damn, this is going to make it so hard when I go back home."
----
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ashley and Jay has gotten a little bit of a backstory and I'll play more on it later. I hate to leave the chapter like this but I thought it'd get your attention, either that or make you want to kill me. Yes, Sean just said he's going back home. Sorry it took so long for this, with writer's block, stomach viruses and babysitting the gremlins that are in my family on Christmas Eve I've been busy. This isn't one of the best things I've written, but we kind of get a feeling as to why Ellie is so down on Christmas this year. Also, there will be more play on Spinner's opinion of Ellie and how she gets it to change very quickly. Next chapter we'll find out how Ellie reacts to what Sean just told her, we'll figure out why Ellie despises Craig so much, and we'll see what's going to happen between Ellie and Marco when they confront each other. Thanks for the reviews, they're really appreciated!