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DISCLAIMER: We do not own Degrassi or any of it's characters, we're simply borrowing them.

SUMMARY

Elijah yearns for any way out; a trapped door that allows him to dodge the scorching knives whipped at his heart. But when she enters his world, that escape slips through his fingers, and the complicated story of his life begins to unfold. Little does Elijah know that there will be more than just ripped pages detracting from his tattered book.

RIPPING AT THE SEAMS:

My left hand shook as I scrawled a short story down on a piece of paper. Everything that happened today played through my head like a bad movie. My breathing was heavy, my eyes clouded.

"Elijah, can you come down here please?" I heard my mother call. What could they possibly want from me?

"Be right down." I mumbled, though I knew they couldn't hear me.

I dragged my feet along the carpet of my messy room and closed the door behind me as I exited the bedroom. My limbs felt numb as I pulled myself down the stairs and into the kitchen.

My mother, my father, and Seth all sat around the table. Seth didn't look at me as I entered the room. Everything began to click.

"Sit." My father kicked a chair out from underneath the table. I obeyed his orders. My fingers drummed nervously on my thighs.

"The mall called." His piercing, hazel eyes burned holes in my forehead. "You know what they told me?"

"I don't know." I couldn't will myself to speak louder than a whisper.

"They told me that my maniac of a son, broke a customer's nose for no apparent reason!" He slammed his fist down on the table, winning a wince from my mother.

"So I called Seth in here, and asked him what happened, and he said the same thing!" My father's face was as red as a tomato and his chest heaved angrily.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"No sir."

"Why'd you do it, Elijah? Why?"

Because she told me to. "I don't know."

"You don't know? How do you not know why you assaulted another shopper? There had to be a reason, no?" He was now looming over me.

Because Julia's dead and it's not fair that other people get to be happy, That's why! "Not Julia other happy, why be fair is because that get is and it people to dead!" My parents and my brother all looked at me like I was crazy. I couldn't understand why they were all staring at me.

My mother's jaw dropped. "Eli, what did you say?" She leaned in closer to me and brushed my hair away from my face.

"Nothing. It doesn't even matter." If they weren't going to listen to me the first time I spoke, they wouldn't the second.

"I can't even look at you right now!" My father spat. I quickly stood up from the table and walked back up stairs to my bedroom and slammed the door shut. They didn't understand, nobody understood.

I stumbled on to my large, double bed and buried my face in the surplus of pillows that I had at the head of it. For the first time, I wished I was Seth. He was happy, Mom and Dad loved him, he was getting engaged, he was perfect. And I was me. Elijah Goldsworthy; the fuck up.

"The notebook, Eli. Look at the notebook." The all too familiar voice startled me. I pried myself off the bed and cautiously walked over to my black desk. My shaky hands pulled out the cushy computer chair and I sat down.

My nimble fingers lifted the cover of the tattered notebook and flipped to the back, where I had began my short story. I fell backwards off the chair in shock at the sight of the lined paper. What I thought had been a few paragraphs of the book I had trying to write for years was a scribbled mess of random words and phrases all jumbled and overlapping each other.

What was wrong with me? How could I not know that I was writing that? My head swam with thoughts about anything and everything. I subconsciously lifted myself onto my bed and stared at the ceiling.

Hours ticked by like minutes. My thoughts still ran a mile a minute. My hands still shook from the notebook. My stomach did flips in my abdomen.

I didn't want to just sit there any longer. My brain kept telling me to go downstairs, go downstairs. I walked tip-toed out of the dark bedroom and down the carpeted steps. My breathing evened out and now it was barely audible.

"James, you and I both know that there is something else going on!" My mother said to my father in a hushed tone. I leaned against the wall outside of the kitchen, listening for more.

"He's doing it for attention, Cece. There's no way, I refuse to believe that there's something physically wrong with him."

"You heard him before! Do you honestly think that's normal?"

"He thinks he's being funny. He probably found out about Mark and thought it'd be a good way to get back at me for being hard on him. It. Is. Nothing."

"How do you supposed he found out? You kept the kids away from him!"

"I don't know, Cecilia, but I refuse to believe that there's something wrong with Eli. He's been fine for almost sixteen years."

"It's hereditary! And you know that it doesn't manifest itself until late adolescence, and the symptoms are usually set off by a traumatic event! Are you saying this is all a coincidence? Even Seth said he was acting off!" It? What was it?

"He's fine."

"What if he's not? Are you just going to let him end up like your brother?"

"This is my fault?"

"It does run on your side of the family!"

I couldn't listen to their fighting anymore. I slowly trudged into the kitchen. "Hey." I stood awkwardly in the middle of the floor.

My mother's head snapped up and she plastered and instant smile on her face. "Hi honey! Do you need something?" Her false excitement made me sick.

"No, I just thought I'd drop by, say goodnight be for I go to bed." I kept my voice indifferent.

"How long have you been down here?" She asked, a nervous expression replaced her plastic one.

"Long enough." I murmured.

"We'll talk about this tomorrow." My father grumbled as he stood up from the table.

"You know what, Elijah? You have school in the morning, you should probably get to bed." Her fake smile reappeared on her tired face.

"Yeah. Well, goodnight." I quickly turned around and raced back up the stairs. I had heard way too much for one night. My head buzzed with their conversation, obviously about me. All of their words smashed together, making me unable to decipher even a single phrase.

My eyesight blurred as I got to my bedroom door. I blindly pushed it open with the palm of my hand and tumbled inside. The messy, disarray of things proved a few obstacles for me. I navigated my way through the stuff and back to my bed. My fingers flicked the light switch off and yanked my dark gray blanket over my head.

The oscillating fan on my ceiling spun endlessly, hypnotizing me. I filled my cheeks with air and exhaled a few times, taking deep breaths. All was silent in my bedroom, nothing made a sound, not even me. You could have heard a pin drop.

Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound made me jump. I flipped the light switch back on and whipped my head around the room, looking for the source of the sound. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and walked to the window. The tapping grew louder and faster as I got closer.

I hesitantly peered through the thick curtains, nearly screaming at the sight before me. Julia hovered outside my window, her long, black hair blew around her shoulders angelically, her blue eyes sparkled in the moonlight. She waved her hand, beckoning for me to come to her, I could nearly hear her telling me to step out the window, telling me that I'd be fine.

I shook my head and rubbed my disbelieving eyes. More taps followed from the window. When I opened my eyes, there was nothing there. Nothing other than a lonely tree branch scraping against my window in the wind.

Breathe Elijah, breathe. I pressed my clammy hands to my forehead and collapsed on the bed. My head still reeled. She was there! I saw her! It seemed so real, it seemed so believable.

Or maybe I was just making things up. Maybe I was unconsciously allowing my parents' conversation get to me. Maybe I was just seeing things and hearing things. Maybe this was all apart of grieving. Maybe Julia would stop haunting my head after I learned to accept that she's dead.

I repeated my mental analysis over and over again to myself, hoping that if I said it enough, I'd begin to believe it myself.

My thoughts and ideas ran a million miles a minute, things I hadn't thought about in ages got kicked up like dirt at the bottom of a lake. My head was getting too crowded, I could feel it. The pressure was building up, making my temples throb.

God, like I said before, if you're really up there, this would be a nice time to strike me dead.