So I was planning on making this the last chapter. But I here's the thing, it isn't going to be. I have randomly been typing down a paragraph or so of dialogue whenever a surge of inspiration popped into my head, because I don't have the best of short term memories and good ideas tend to slip through the cracks. Anyways, for awhile now I have had several fragmented chunks floating around my computer just waiting for me to actually use some brainpower to be tie them together. But it's the actual process of doing the tying that has proven more difficult than I anticipated. When I sat down to put the finishing touches on this thing, for the second time, might I add, I figured that I could probably make two chapters out of the bits and pieces (speaking of which, I had one of those milkshakes recently too! Chocolate chip cookie dough, and I wasn't impressed...) that I already had. So look for one more update from me, but not anytime soon. A late summer vacation is better than none at all!

Disclaimer: if this was mine then I definitely wouldn't have had to bother with summer school.

Kinda blah till the end, but I hope you like it!

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Something was on his mind. I could tell.

I mean, we had spent a great deal of time apart, but still, I knew Craig Manning. Well okay, obviously I didn't "know" him know him as in the biblical sense, and I didn't really know how exactly he classified the subject of me and us, and I didn't always know what exactly was going on in the brain that lay beneath his beautiful head of hair, but that's all besides the point. The point is that today, I knew that there was something on his mind. Call it woman's intuition. (But just don't let me hear you, because I think that phrase sounds absurd.)

And just how could I tell that something was off with my...whatever he was? Well, I was being ten kinds of classic Ellie today while the three of us spent our last afternoon together in the city, dropping the kind of pricelessly sarcastic remarks that usually have at least some kind of effect on the guys. Generally, the corners of Craig's eyes crinkle in a bemused manner, as if to say "Nash, you silly girl" and the muscles along Marco's jaw tighten as he bites back his "Oh my God, just get together already you two!" stream of gushing. Sitting together, I'm sure we must seem to outsiders a very mismatched trio.

I adore it though. I love that about them, the perfect mix of juxtaposition between my boys. Craig's mellowness (though it may be medically-induced) and Marco's excitability, (though it may be due to the whole...Italian thing) both so different from my own tense disposition and yet so strangely fascinating. Yeah, okay, who wants to say it?

Nobody?

Alright then, you made me. Opposites attract, alright? But who cares, because we're good for each other, the three of us. I mean, everything just fits so well when we are hanging out, Craig will make an offhand comment, and I will cut him off with some sarcastic retort, and then Marco will flip-out on the both of us...

Way to go Nash. Way to make getting on that plane tomorrow and leaving our group dynamic behind yet again even harder than it is already bound to be.

But you know me, all nostalgic and sentimental and whatnot. Oh I'm such a basket case.

Truly.

But to get back to the issue at hand, today he just wasn't himself. He didn't have any of his normal reactions to the stuff I was throwing out there, and the usually palpable presence that was "Craig Manning," was rather vague. He smiled half-heartedly when I spoke, the snark rolling off the tip of my tongue as though it were an effortless reflex, but kept his eyes focused on a point just beyond me. And what's really pissing me off is that coming up with stuff like that usually is reflexive. I rarely have to give any effort to thinking up something biting to say, but today I was trying so hard just to get that boy to take his eyes off whatever the hell was behind me, that I was finding my own tongue rather dry and my wit waning.

Needless to say, I am quite irritated with myself for trying to impress a boy in the first place. Old-school goth Ellie would be appalled.

Having failed to capture his attention though, I was faced with two choices. To accept defeat and sink back into mopey-ness until we boarded the plane early tomorrow morning, or try my absolute hardest to capture Craig's interest once more before I was out of his life and thousands of miles away. I chose the latter.

But without much luck. Even on our trek back to the hotel when we passed a rather "loose" looking girl with relatively familiar exotic-type features, he didn't quite catch my obscure reference to that girl of his back home. (Marco certainly did though, what with his pathetic excuse for aghast stuttering hardly concealing his guilty laughter.)

Speaking of "his girl" though, he had said that they were through. What the hell does that exactly mean anyways? Of course the investigative reporter in me wanted to know when, where and why about the supposed breakup, but I rationalized that to interrogate him over someone whose name we usually side-stepped around would seem a bit obvious. And if he had been really worked up over it then he would have let me know, wouldn't he? I mean, isn't that what "friends who happen to be girls" are good for, to listen to whatever purportedly girly problems a dude doesn't feel masculine enough to pose to his male friends? And while we are on the subject, just what had he meant by that little remark about brunettes being oblivious? You can't just drop something like that out in the open and then pretend like it never happened! Almost a week had passed since he uttered those ambiguous words, and still I was in the dark as to whom or what he had been referring to.

Boys...

In fact, he seemed so preoccupied that I was afraid he might forget about tonight. We ate a rather extravagant dinner in the hotel's restaurant, (courtesy of Craig's label) and then parted ways to prepare for the long night ahead of us. Get this, he waved at us before he turned around and headed off towards his own room. Who the hell waves at a couple of friends before they go to bed? I mean, waving is for looking back through airplane windows, or leaning out of a car's passenger side, or something else in the same category of finality. Not for walking down the hall to a hotel room.

But I could be overanalyzing this.

Because when the time rolled around, he didn't forget, and he did come to my room, and he did throw me over his shoulder and we did go down to the pool and have a grand old time as usual. Well, everything was going as usual, until I decided I would actually need to get some sleep tonight and stated my intentions of getting back inside. What he told me then pretty much sent "usual" out the window.

"Don't go" he said, reaching out and grabbing hold of my wrist so abruptly that it threw me off balance, causing me to lose my footing and crash into him.

For a moment there, I didn't really comprehend what he had just said, and just stood there dumbly pressed up against him. Because despite the fact that we have spent every night together in this pool for the past week, the feeling of his skin on mine like this still manages to take my breath away. However, what was really sending my heart into a tailspin was the fact that this time he wasn't laughing at me, or making some sort of good-natured sarcastic comment, or doing any of the usual acts in our repertoire of mockery. No, this time he was just staring intensely at me, eyes wide with something I couldn't quite read and one hand still gently encasing my wrist while the other clutched at my shoulder to steady me.

"What?" I sputtered uneasily, "What do you mean, I-I have to go, we can't very well spend all night out here. I do have a plane to catch in the morning you know."

He sighed disappointedly, dropping his hands and stepping backwards to release me, moving his gaze to take in the expanse of darkness to his left. "I didn't mean the pool, Ellie"

What?

"Huh?" I said stupidly, the absence of his touch suddenly making me feel very cold and alone. I moved my hands up to rub my arms distractedly in an attempt to gain back some of the warmth his touch had had ignited in me "Craig, what are you talking about?"

"Don't leave Ellie. Don't go back to Degrassi, stay here in Vancouver with me."

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I said "usual" and "usually" a bunch in this chapter. So, as usual, reviews are lovely!