Four weeks later….
Sean stared at the whiteboard with bleary eyes. A good night's sleep was a distant memory; he hadn't had one in weeks. Sleep only brought nightmares of Emma, seeing her terrified face while being attacked by Peter, or almost shot by Rick. On the really bad nights, the dreams were only of the last time he'd talked to her, when she'd told him they couldn't be friends anymore. Sean still had a hard time with that one. The weeks since had been pure hell. He knew it was going to be hard, but he had no idea how hard – the sense of loss he felt was overwhelming at times. He spent many waking hours and even more sleepless nights trying to figure out how, in a few short weeks, Emma had rooted herself once again so deeply in his life that walking around every day pretending she didn't exist was like losing a limb, a part of himself. By some small miracle he was managing to maintain his required average, but barely. He tried to snap himself out of it.
Get a grip, Cameron. If you lose your student aid, you'll never see Emma again anyway.
With a sigh, he attempted to focus on what the teacher was saying.
Two rows, and four seats to the right. Emma thought. That's how far away she was from Sean. Close enough to see, but the distance might have been miles. She took comfort in the fact that she could watch him here, silently and unknowingly. Having to pretend she didn't see him in the halls or outside by his car after school nearly killed her. She did see him, of course. Her body was always acutely aware anytime he was around.
The inner struggle she'd been fighting for weeks was nearly as difficult as overcoming her eating disorder. Sean Cameron, it seemed, was an addiction in his own rite.
But in spite of all these bad feelings, there was another that rivaled them. Pride. Despite her inner turmoil, her anguish at knowing she couldn't talk to the one person she most wanted to – Emma had never fallen back into old patterns. She ate consistently, almost paying no attention to what she was consuming. She ate what she wanted, when she wanted it. She'd managed to gain 8 pounds. She was too absorbed thinking about Sean; wondering how he was doing; to worry about anything else. For the first time in a year, Emma felt like she had won the battle with anorexia.
The bell signaling the end of class rang, and as usual, Emma stayed in her seat until she had watched Sean get up and exit the classroom. And, as usual, Sean did so without a backward glance. With no right to be; after all, she'd brought this on them; Emma felt a stab of hurt.
"Em, ready for lunch?" Manny shook Emma out of her thoughts.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, let's go. The caf has personal pizzas today! I am sooo getting extra cheese." Emma said with a grin.
Manny laughed and linked arms with her "Em, have I told you how great it is to have the OLD Emma Nelson back?"
But she's not entirely back to her old self. Manny thought. It didn't take a best friend to see that Emma was conflicted. On the surface, she was doing fantastic. She'd put the whole "Peter Incident"; as they now referred to it; far behind her and was doing great with her therapy. But there was always a slight trace of pain I her eyes, and her voice. Her laughter seemed to have a three second delay on it. Manny also had a pretty good idea what the cause of the pain was, even though she couldn't get Emma to talk about it. Sean. Manny hadn't seen them speak in weeks; and Sean looked like hell. Nobody at Degrassi dared go near him for fear he'd bite their heads off. He'd always been moody, but now he was downright unapproachable.
But Manny Santos wasn't afraid of a challenge, and she was damned if she was going to let Sean Cameron hurt Emma any more than he'd done in the past.
"Hey, Em, I'll meet you in the caf ok? I just have one quick stop to make. Save me a seat."
Emma looked at her friend quizzically but replied, "Ok."
Manny stalked off in search of the perceived cause of her friend's troubles. She found him at his locker, which he was in the process of slamming shut with way more force than necessary.
"Cameron. We need to talk." When Sean focused his eyes on Manny she nearly took a step back. His face had taken on a noticeably gaunt appearance, and he looked pale and wild eyed.
"What do you want, Manny." He spat out.
"What I want, Sean, is to talk about whatever it is you did to Emma, and tell you that you'd better fix it. Now." Manny put on a tough face, but was trying hard to keep the tremor out of her voice.
He let out a derisive laugh "What I did? Oh, that's right. It must be my fault. It's always my fault. Sean Cameron, troublemaker extraordinaire. Emma's…" He paused mid-sentence, a concerned thought pushing its way out "Wait. She's eating, right?"
Manny sighed "Yes. Yes she's eating. Actually in that one respect, she's doing fantastic. But she's hurting in other ways Sean, and she won't tell me why."
"So you assume it's because of me?"
"Sean, you look like hell. While your new broody, drug addict look might appeal to some girls, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you're not doing so hot either."
Sean glared at her.
At that moment, Emma came up to the arguing twosome. She'd come looking for Manny after waiting for her in the cafeteria for 10 minutes. She was shocked to find her talking to Sean. Her nerves flew off the charts and she put a hand on her stomach to try and quell the nausea she felt immediately.
"Hey! What's going on here?" she inquired.
Manny glared at Sean "He won't tell me what he did to you!"
Sean scoffed and tried to steady the beating of his heart.
Emma looked confused "What he did to me? Manny, Sean didn't do anything to me!"
"Well why are you so sad then?" Manny demanded.
"I… " Emma couldn't bring herself to tell the whole truth. "He didn't do anything to me Manny. I promise. Now can we just leave it at that?"
Sean let out a breath. "Thanks for clearing that up, Emma." he said sarcastically. He felt his resentment of the past four weeks bubbling to the surface. "Oh wait, I'm sorry – I guess that breaks your little 'no contact' rule, doesn't it." With a snarl, he turned and stalked away.
Emma closed her eyes to steel herself against the pain brought on by Sean's parting shot.
She opened them to find Manny staring expectantly at her "Ok Em. Spill. What the hell was that about?"
"Dammit Manny, I said I don't want to talk about it. Just leave me alone!" And with that, she turned and ran in the opposite direction Sean had taken, leaving Manny standing in the hall wondering what the hell had just happened and how she'd gotten in the middle of it.