The Craig and Manny Diaries
Part One: Take It As It Comes
Her name was Manny Santos.
It was whimsical and exuberant, and in no way a misnomer to the vibrant girl who owned it. She had a way about her that was best concentrated on her smile so full of innocent joy. Everyone she met smiled back, as if their appreciation of her opened some kind of door that had to result in true love. She took notice of her aesthetic strength her first year of real high school after Paige and Spinner had deemed her "adorable". Something about the way everyone saw her was false enough to frustrate her. Somehow, she was confident enough to know that the way Emma, her friends, her parents, and Craig saw her was a crime of a misrepresentation. Beyond any will of her own, they had to be proved wrong to preserve the natural order of things at Degrassi.
The phenomenon of her wardrobe change worked solely on men alone. She would be lying if she said she did not prefer it that way. Being treated like a grown woman with choices felt incredible. She had to practice what those choices were before she put her temerity to the test. Dating Sully did nothing but demonstrate her attainability to the freshman and sophomore classes. She was in the embryonic stage of her transformation before she discovered her conceit could be brought down to size by another of a complementary physique.
His name was Craig Manning.
She followed him from a surprise party for Paige when Ashley all but exiled him into the night. Two hours of heartbreak later, and they were sitting in Joey's garage like two strangers that had not gone out as kids last year. When she went full out to kiss the guy she had been crushing on since forever, she was struck blind when he actually kissed her back. She idolized his hesitation into his attempts to play his cards perfectly with the girl he should have been with all along. It made her weak in the knees she loved him so intensely. Her identity was whatever Craig decided. She was naively okay with that.
Craig's identity, on the other hand, was always a wild child in the confines of a good heart. Trusting him to take care of Manny's was like trusting Spin to run for class president. Unaccounted for flattery made him keep Miss Pinky Princess close by. Part of it was that he had no idea how or why she worshipped him. He sought complete validation from Ash, but rather than working harder to receive it, he found deviant bliss in dividing the work between two girls. Ash was driven by principle, so he never really believed they would ever break up for good. But Manny…
His worst- yet realistic- fear of starting something with her was that he would fail to keep her entertained; the heartbreak and humiliation would be insurmountable if he lost her to one of his comrades who prided themselves on the most unbecoming behaviors. He would have to go along with it and let her go with no chance of fighting for her. He was impulsive to a fault. It was inevitable he would make a scene and blow his life to pieces.
Fear and trauma from his abusive dad had been burning him on the pyre before a raven-haired goddess walked into the flames and saved him from his own inadequacy. Everything down to the vanilla honey scent wafting from her hair was sweet. She was sweet in a way that seared his loins when he merely thought of her name. Manny. Manny Manny Manny, like raindrops her name seeped into his heart until it was too soaked to hold anything else but her. She told him that she loved him. She gave it such an innocent meaning that he could say it back without cataclysms of ultimatum that Ashley attached to the words. She was the angel that saved him. However far she willed him to go with her, he would please her graciously.
So he did the liberty of robbing Manny of her innocence at the cumulative pace set by her. They were kissing one minute, and the next, she was straddling him on the couch. He had to presume her experienced. He was blithely unaware he had an erection until Manny pressed on it through his pants with her bubble gum pink fingernails. Last time they dated she was such a little kid feeding him cotton candy! How was she already lapping him on the track of love? The anxiety to keep up with her dashed any plan he might have had to ask about protection. It would have come off prepubescent. Of course she was on the pill. How dumb he would seem to ask!
Manny's simultaneous train of thought worried that love and emotional connection were separate from physical love, and that she wouldn't like it because it was kind of a weird thing to do. Had anyone ever taken pause to really give it the rundown and ask all the literal questions? Dr. Sally came close, she supposed, but trying to ask questions while JT snorted with laughter frustrated her into silence. It was embarrassing and alarming! Why had she waited so long to learn what went where?
There was a gigantic margin for error once all the risks were calculated, such as her body would find a way to rebel against intercourse when the first time resulted painful. It was a little, like a pressure that made her clench her teeth and dig her nails into his chest to push him off. His exasperated breathing down her neck was an unearthly supplication by which he could combust and die if she put ice on it now. She could not believe how lost he was in her that he was practically shuddering to stay inside her. It turned her on how lost she became herself when moaning became a more communicative language than any of the legitimate ones.
He was gentle with her because she said so. The same went for when he was more rigorous with her. On this one night that would turn into many, he belonged to her by doing exactly what she wanted. However it started was irrelevant. By the time their clothes were off, he damn near begged her to let him do it. He loved her for it. She left him free to his capricious devices with zero reprimand. He hated thinking things through: only pretending to when others demanded it from him. Up until the moment he came inside her and they lay breathless and awkward on each other's nakedness, the affair seemed undoable at any point. It was done. Craig, as usual, was incapable of seeing past his present state of feeling good. Manny had passed that state of mind before it had even begun.
She now knew him in a way even his closest friends never would. How he moaned her name because he was too induced to feel embarrassed by dirty talk. How everything he said and did was a desperate task to experience more of her…He would not even remember who Ashley was after this- let alone still believe they had something. Young Manny Santos had his everything in the present- which was the only reality in which Craig participated. In that present, he was feeling pretty damn satisfied and simultaneously anxious to satiate his addiction going forward.
Taking her by the hand, he led her on to the tracks towards the incoming train that would be their relationship. When they smiled, it was to their innocent joy.
