My note…a short little one-shot, first person Ashley and her thoughts on something she once said. There is a very minor reference to a spoiler, but nothing that you wouldn't get from the previews.
HALLOWED HALLS
Ashley Kerwin stood in the middle of the near empty entrance of Degrassi Community School and smiled ironically……
I've always thought that Degrassi was cursed, not in the haunted sense….like ghosts and spirits and what not. Cursed, like in….How could so many totally random, terrible things happen to so many students of just one school?
Today is my graduation day, a year later that it should have been...but at least I'm here. This is the day that opens the door to my future and yet all I can think of is the past.
The past of this school.
I think of all of the students who have passed through these doors with me, but never got the chance to make it this far...for one reason or another. Terri, JT, Jay, Kendra, Sean….even Rick.
Some were hurt, physically or emotionally by things that happened here and could not bring themselves to return, some were punished for things that they may or may not have done, and were never allowed to come back, and others died before they got the chance to walk across the gym floor and accept their diplomas.
I walk up the main staircase, constructed of metal and wood, more modern then previous structures due to the remodel about a decade back.
I count the steps...I never noticed before, sixteen up to the first landing and eighteen up to the second floor. I wonder how many times I've made this journey...either up or down. Hundreds, I presume...who knows.
I can remember sitting on the bottom step, debating whether or not I should break up with Jimmy back in grade nine. Rushing down to avoid the stares and snickers, head down, books cluched to my chest...thick black mascara running down my cheeks in grade ten. Fighting with Craig on the landing when he first started wigging out on me in grade eleven. Trying to avoid a conflict with the Lakehurst students, with whom we had to share our school with for almost three months, this year...while crews rebuilt the section of their school that was damaged in a fire.
The second floor is completetly deserted. My heels echo through the cool hall. All of the doors are closed, but each classroom holds many memories...Ms. Kwan's, Mr. Armstrong's, Mr. Perrino's...
Room 204, Madame Paget's French class. We were held in lockdown in this very room, the day of the shooting.
I look at the rainbow of colored lockers...I've had my share, teal blue, bright orange, goth black...lined with pictures, posters, papers...They held our material things like coats, bags, books...but also our secrets, hopes and fears.
I believe my own step-brother was stuffed inside a few of these lockers throughout the years. In grade nine, Paige sat in front of this very locker and cried when she told me that she was raped by Dean.
J.T.'s locker. It took Toby and his friends more than a week to finally clear it out...even longer to sift through the belongings.
I move through another hall. Jimmy's locker from grade eleven. I walk over to the very spot where my boyfriend took his last steps. This section of the school always feels cold to me.
There are washrooms on either end of each hallway...girls on the right, boys on the left. The walls covered with grafitti, most of which isn't true.
I wonder how many boys have secretly cried in the stalls when their girlfriends broke up with them, or how many girls have gotten their period for the first time in there... how many reflections the mirrors have given to their owners, and what that person saw when they looked into it.
They've even seen some pretty intense misery...hidden drug abuse, bulemia...even the suicide of one of Degrassi's own students...back when Joey, Caitlin Ryan and Emma Nelson's mom were students. It's been rumored that Mr. Simpson was the one to find the body. No one's ever bothered to ask him if that rumor is true.
So, I guess Degrassi has been long known for it's share of tragedies. But those stories faded with time, just as the recent ones evetually will, and those will be replaced with new ones...but in us and in these walls, they will always be etched into our memory.
As I decend down the back staircase, I end up in the far corner of the school. This hallway houses all of the elective classrooms...home ec, art, music. I've spent most of my time in the latter...or outside the art room, waiting for Jimmy.
Past this hall is Mr. Simpson's Media Imerssion classroom...the saving grace of my time here. More good memories here than bad. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that every single minute here was horrible. There were a lot of good times here...it just wasn't some happy-go-lucky, made-for-tv musical.
Glancing over my shoulder down the hallway where the music room is, makes me smile a bit...well yeah, maybe some of it was.
I head back to the foyer and stand in front of Jimmy's mural in the entryway...an amazing work of art with such a painful representation of what occured here...two years, seven months and twenty-eight days ago. The school's biggest tragedy of our time.
Most of us have moved on from that...some better than others. Jimmy's done remarkably well. Spinner...not quite as good. Me? It's hard sometimes, to think about all that was lost that day...Jimmy's ability to walk, Rick, our innocence. But like I said...we move forward.
I often wondered where Jimmy found the courage to come back after the shooting, why Spinner worked so hard to get back in here, why Sean decided to come back after a year and a half, even what drove me to return...
It's simple really ...this place is home.
It may not be perfect, or pretty, or a never-ending load of fun...but it's our school, the good and the bad. It's the only thing we've ever known...we are Degrassi.
I spot Jimmy down the hall, wrestling with his gown...he's got the cap on, crooked mind you, but at least it's on his head. I can't help but smile...I just love him so much. I always have. The tall, lanky kid I've crushed on forever, turned into the most beautiful, amazing man.
The echo of my heels is almost imperceptible in the now crowding hallway. I sneak behind Jimmy and center the cap on his head. He pivots to face me, lips grinning, eyes sparkling. He wraps his arm around my waist and squeezes. "It's time", he tells me. I nod and afix my own cap to my head, placing a bobby pin on either side to keep it from shifting.
I follow the line into the gym, but pause to take one more look over my shoulder, my eyes scanning the familiar hall, taking in it's appearance for the last time and smile to myself...
Maybe this curse, was actually a blessing...in disguise.
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Just a short little ditty...not my best, I know... but I really love writing first person Ashley and this idea wouldn't leave me alone. I hope I did the character some justice here.
Okay, so now with all these crazy rumors and speculations(and still no confirmed epi. descriptions or promo pics)...I've started, yet another new story(and am in the process of forming another). These two are a little different for me, not total emphasis on JimAsh(they're more of the side story), but two really great possible storylines that I wanted to explore upon before the season starts. So, look for those soon.
Degrassi is not mine.