Chapter 6

AN: Hello! So nice to see you all again! Well not really see but you get the point. Anyways I know this story has kind of gone off the rails a bit and I'm making it up as I go along (don't be like me, make an outline) so it might seem a bit loopy sometimes. As always I do not have a beta so any mistakes are my own and I don't own Degrassi in any way, shape or form (if I did we would have Next Class season 5 already). Thanks for reading and don't be afraid to drop a review, I absolutely adore hearing from you guys! Also, please let me know if this makes sense! Thanks :)

Jay was never one to back away from a fight, but even he knew this was one battle Manny had to fight for herself. Evidently faring quite well by the way Spinner was holding his jaw in agony.

"Yes, I know I made a mistake, Spin. What I did was terrible and I don't expect you to forgive me" Manny exhales, rubbing her reddening knuckles. "But that doesn't give you the right to act like you're entirely innocent in all of this. We both know how your face lights up whenever you get a text from Jane." Spinner removes his hand from his jaw and with a sharp inhale of breath fashions the hand into an accusatory point.

"That's not-"

"We both know it is." Manny cuts him off. "We both knew that this marriage wouldn't work. I agreed to marry you because you're such a great guy and I knew that you would be a great husband too, but I was in love with Jay even though I know he's bad for me." That statement seems to pull Jay out of the trancelike state of watching, his eyebrow quirking up with confusion.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jay demands. "What do you mean was in love with?"

"I meant that I'm no longer in love with you!" retorts Manny, her hair whipping around as she quickly turns to face Jay. "Maybe I never was! But I can't love you when you would do something like that to my best friend! That was a real dick move, Jay. What could have even made you try to drive a wedge between Sean and Emma?!" Images start flashing through Jay's mind, his eyes glazing over as he lets himself remember what he did, all the things he wish he could forget.

-O-O-O-

Jay was speeding down the freeway in his iconic orange car, racing through the pelting rain, his headlights shining off the stale puddles on the night-darkened road. Struggling to keep his eyes on the road between his looming exhaustion and the glove box calling his attention to his right. He never meant to keep the letters, but once he started he couldn't stop. It seemed like a good idea at the time, Sean sending all his monthly letters in one envelope to Jay to save money that is. Jay started holding back Sean's letters to Emma and Emma's letters to Sean, as the months went on his piles grew thicker and thicker.

"You're such an idiot" he murmurs to himself, but it's too late now. Far too many months have passed for him to explain why Sean never got any letters from Emma or why Emma never got any from Sean. He hoped it would get easier when Emma started to give up on sending letters she never got a reply from, but she never did. Every time Emma knocked at his door he watched her face sink when he told her there was no new letter or whenever he read one of Sean's letters he could hear the disappointment in the boy's words. It breaks his heart to tear them apart, to betray their trust, but he knows it's for their own good.

Casualties happen everyday and he thought that keeping a few letters from Emma would help her cope if they ever received the one they dreaded. If Sean were to die Emma would be crushed and Jay's done more than enough to hurt Emma throughout their lives. Breaking off all contact was the only solution, he figured that Emma would eventually forget about Sean and vice versa. Without Emma on his mind Sean would be focused on what was important: staying alive and coming home. Once he came back everything would have worked itself out, Sean would show up one morning on Emma's doorstep and she would embrace him with open arms. But Sean was mad, he holed himself up in his parents' old house in Wasaga and refused to talk to anyone. Sean needed closure and Jay, unwilling to confess his mistakes, wrote that letter. The letter that was sitting on the passenger seat when Jay eventually pulled into Sean's driveway, the letter that, of all the wrong things he had ever done, haunted him most.

Clutching the letter in his left hand he knocked on Sean's door with his right. He was greeted by a man he barely recognized, a man who was a shell of his former self. There was no light behind his eyes, covered in dark circles from several sleepless nights.

"What" Sean said. When Sean opened his mouth Jay could smell the stench of alcohol on his breath, so strong it stinged his eyes. He could have sworn he saw Sean peer behind him at his bright orange car like he was looking for something in it, or someone, and watched him deflate when he found nothing.

"Can I come in?"