What Was Left Unsaid: Sixteen Is Suicide
What Was Left Unsaid Chapter Index
Main characters and pairings featured in this chapter: Craig. Craig/Ashley (probably the shippiest they've ever been in this fan fiction). Ashley/Craig/Sean/Ellie friendship. Evie and Jay also make appearances.
Brief summary of this chapter: Craig decides that the logical thing to do after the school shooting is to have a party. This chapter is most likely going to be part of a trilogy of sorts. The next two deal with the consequences of said party. That being said, you know this party is going to be a huge deal.
26. Sixteen is Suicide
“I thought we were going to get together after school yesterday,” Craig greeted Sean, pulling the ear buds out of his ears and clicking off his mp3 player. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit nervous. Things had been feeling different ever since Sean saved his butt and didn’t rat him out to Joey about the Oxy. He couldn’t explain it. His buddy seemed more reserved; Craig worried that he was waiting for him to slip up and use. But he hadn’t. Well not really. Not that Sean knew. Sometimes he wasn’t sure who was to blame. There was that ‘homework’ he was holed up in his room when in fact he had just popped a few generic muscle relaxers and music videos were better company. And Sean was the one who made sure to make sure to state that he would be hanging with Jay and company at a party, indicating Craig wasn’t entirely welcome.
“Uh yeah, I missed some afternoon classes,” Sean explained, still not comfortable at Degrassi after the school shooting, his visit to Wasaga, and his defeated return home. That was what it was he had realized. It was home. Shitty at the moment, but home.
“I am never going to get used to this increase in security. Soon we are going to have guards with those drug sniffing dogs roaming the halls,” Craig sighed.
“Yeah it’s weird around here,“ Sean replied and they both recalled their first conversation when he got back.
“You are like a ghost,” Craig observed of Sean, surprised by his presence at Degrassi.
“Excuse me?”
“You keep disappearing and reappearing. Good to see you around,” Craig replied, dropping bait to see if Sean would address how he wound up in Wasaga Beach after the shooting. His mouth fell open when he had heard the second hand news that his best friend was staying there.
“Uh yeah…you want to hang out? Sean offered, hoping he could give an explanation of some sort.
Craig shrugged. There was a part of him that was hard and didn’t want to budge. “I think I’ve got like ten minutes before I have to take off.”
“Okay, let’s head outside. I’m so over this school for today,” Sean sighed. He’d never been a fan of school before and the shooting sure as hell didn’t make it easier to be there. He was trying to keep up the hero persona but there was times he couldn’t breathe and all he wanted was to get out. He took the detentions for cutting school for awhile, reassuring Mr. Simpson and Mr. Eyl that he was fine.
“My head’s been kind of a mess lately,” Sean stated as they brushed snow off a picnic table and sat down.
“Well that’s kinda understandable,” Craig said with a smile, feeling slightly warmer towards his friend. The last time Sean had threatened to move, Craig gave him the cold shoulder as well. “I mean I was a mess after my Dad’s…suicide. And I wasn’t even in the room.”
“Yeah, but I killed someone Craig. In the place we come to everyday.”
“I know. I know! I’m just saying…dude, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry that happened to you but it’s not your fault.”
Sean stared down at the ground. It was like over the past few weeks he had forgotten how to talk to people. Not that he was much good at that to begin with. So they sat there, quiet. Craig inhaled sharply, enjoying the cold winter air. It froze his throat some and he decided that was the reason why he couldn’t find any words to say to console his friend.
“Is the school helping you out any?” Craig finally asked. Ten minutes had since expired but he didn’t leave.
“Yeah. I didn’t want the help though. I just wanted to pretend everything never happened. But I guess there’s some stuff you can’t will away. So finally I got tired of it and said, you know, maybe I’m not okay with it. They are letting me go half days sometimes…but I have to see Sauvé.”
“So that’s why I don’t see you around sometimes.”
Sean didn’t know why he hesitated on telling Craig this, worrying that he and everyone else would think he was weak. “Sauvé asks about you. I was all aren’t we supposed to be talking about me?”
Craig rolled his eyes at the mention of the therapist. Then he admitted, “I was kind of pissed you didn’t call me after you left for Wasaga.”
“I just wanted it all to go away, everything that reminded me of Degrassi. I spent a weekend and then some at my parent’s. I was going to enroll for school there and everything. I really thought it would fix things. The change of scenery or whatever it was my mother called it…that was what I needed. But it was just geography, man. Everything was still there. Except…for you guys. So I came back.”
Craig shook his head, unable to say how much he admired that. “That’s unbelievable. I think I know what you are saying though. I think you did the right thing. Ellie…”
“I didn’t do it to take care of her. That’s what she thinks. Mixed signals totally when it comes to that. But it’s not about that…entirely. I mean she was damn pissed about the rent. The idea of sticking her with that was out of left field. I know it was things we couldn’t control entirely…I’m trying to control them. Things are shaky. I don’t know how to explain them.”
“Things aren’t the same, are they? I mean I feel like that with everything. Home, school, Ash, you.”
Sean shrugged, aware of the change all around them. It wasn’t just the increase of security or the cynical gleam in the girls’ eyes. It was the lingering reminder that things could be yanked out from under them at any moment.
Craig couldn’t get his foot to stop bouncing. “It’s so depressing around here lately. I mean I know why…and I’m sorry it happened. But it’s been over a month. We should actually just start living again,” Craig couldn’t help but comment. He watched Sean shoot him a look; it was of the what the hell variety and he was pretty familiar with it. So he looked down and remembered his lunch. He hastily took a bite of pizza and then continued.
“I mean, the band is basically broken up because of Jimmy. It’s like time has just stopped and we’re all sitting around remembering every single bad thing that has ever happened. I mean, did you see how Sauvé looked at me in those weird grieving group therapy things right after the suicide…I mean shooting…happened?” Craig continued.
“I wish things would get back to normal too,” Sean chose to reply. Craig had always been a bit of rambler, his thoughts relating in a kind of obscure way. If Craig’s thought pattern were a game of connect the dots, sometimes they would never figure out the intended image. His friend swore he had been sober for the past few months but it was moments like this were he had to wonder.
“Things should be how they were before. You know what we need…a party!”
“I thought…” Ashley started.
“Oh you aren’t still hung up on that are you?” Craig interrupted. “I’ve been clean for how long now? Even during that one weekend when Sean and Jay drank basically nothing but beer. Joey is out of town this weekend. I think we should make this happen!”
Ashley shook her head and smiled softly in disbelief. “There’s no way you can pull that off.”
“I will make it happen,” Craig declared as he pushed away his barely touched lunch, reached for his book bag, and pulled out a notebook. “Do we want a party bowl or a keg? There should be a theme! Alice in Wonderland?”
“No hard drugs,” Ashley said, imagining strobe lights and mushrooms, and meant for it to sound like a question but found that she ended up sounding almost motherly.
“No hard drugs,” Craig was quick to agree. “A mad tea party would be so awesome. Um, maybe a decade party? The 20’s…60’s. Devils and angels. Halloween! I personally think each month should have a Halloween celebration.”
Craig was writing down ideas frantically, searching for one that felt right. “It should be something about how we are still here, how life is meant to be celebrated because it’s so short. Life after death. Dead Rock stars! Can you imagine the costumes?”
“There was a…” Ellie said and then trailed off, shooting a look at Sean. “Jimmy is in the hospital. It’s kind of in poor taste.”
Craig shrugged. “I’m just tired of being sad…or seeing everyone so sad. We didn’t die. We’re still here. And that’s something to be thankful for, really. Cause any day…any day one of us could be gone.”
“No, Craig. Don’t think of it like that,” Ashley encouraged.
“Really guys, I’m not doing this to be morbid. Life is meant to be lived. Think of it as a celebration! Sixteen is suicide!” Craig decided suddenly. He saw his girlfriend go pale and Ellie had finished shredding her napkin. “It’s a metaphor! Think about all the changes that have happened lately. It’s an end, but it’s really the beginning. We survived. We’re here and we should be living life to the fullest.”
“You are out of your mind. But a party might be a good way to get rid of some of the tension around here,” Sean decided, knowing that once Craig got an idea in his head it was pretty much a done deal.
“Saturday night. It’ll be epic. You know Ash, Joey is away Friday too. He and Caitlin are doing some let’s rekindle the romance thing at some bed and breakfast. Angie is at Grandma Jeremiah’s. I’ll make you dinner, red wine, candlelight…”
“Okay, my appetite is gone,” Sean declared after hearing Craig give out a few more intimate details. Sean stood up and crumpled the empty brown bag that had a few remains of his lunch. “Don’t want to know anymore. See ya later.”
“Best to let you lovebirds be,” Ellie agreed, her voice familiarly sarcastic. Ashley was blushing a little, she noticed.
“Friday night it can just be us. We can finally be together for the whole night. We’ll go shopping after school for party supplies and then we’ll lock ourselves in at Joey’s. It’ll be like we’re actually living together. I’ll make you a huge dinner and breakfast too. There’s no reason for you to go home,” Craig continued on.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” Ashley said, amused but a little overwhelmed. Ever since her father’s wedding, Craig had been a little on the intense side. There was roses delivered several days after the ceremony, prompting her mother to question the seriousness of her relationship with Craig. At the wedding reception, Craig couldn’t help but ask what she wanted for her own wedding and speculated on their own day. Kate had overheard and Ashley swore that her mother’s gaze didn’t leave them all night. We’re just dating, Ashley had reassured her mother, it’s not like we’re going to run off together. She could only explain her boyfriends interest in marriage as he wanted stability and marriage would mean that someone would always be there for him.
Ashley followed him through text messages. First he was at the bank. It arrived soon after she was lying to her mother about spending the night at Paige’s. She felt tired while replying to it, “What r u doing there?” She should have known. “Buying supplies” came the next message, this time from a liquor store parking lot. She actually clicked the phone off for a good fifteen minutes after that and debated on what to do. Something wasn’t right. They felt that but lately everything felt that way. She thought about the account Craig and Joey had made there; she heard about the details in some late night conversation. It was awkward, Craig had said, meeting with the accountant and discussing what to do with the lump of money Craig had gotten for his birthday. There was a little debate between them all. Very two against one Craig felt, but at the end of the day it all went into a checking account. It was there and he used it. Sometimes Ashley thought he wanted to spend it just so it would go away. The idea of him spending it on “supplies” for the party spooked her a little. How far away did he want to go? And with that she clicked on her phone and received another text “Home soon. Stopping off to visit Dad.”
She sat on the edge of her bed and stared off, wondering if by now they were too far into the weekend for her to fix anything. There had been moments where she could have. Dinner at Joey’s a few nights before where Craig had listened to Joey discuss his weekend plans over the macaroni and cheese. She saw how he avoided his stepfather’s gaze and kept it focused on his fork. She almost said something then but swallowed her words and decided it wasn’t the time or place.
Craig left plenty of opportunities for them to talk it. There was the party planning. In art class, when Craig alternated between ducking into the darkroom to make a few prints and working on a flyer advertising the party at his place on Saturday night. The teacher had to finally tell him to sit down and focus as he was zipping around so much. So he’d taken his seat next to her and frantically worked at the flyer for his party; she could hear him tearing up photos and scribbling with charcoal pencils. Zine art, he had told the teacher and Ashley could have sworn in the mishmash of pictures was a black and white photograph of his mother’s grave. He waited until the last minute to scrawl the name of the party and it’s details on it with a sharpie.
“What do you think?” Craig had questioned after class, handing over the flyer.
Ashley didn’t reply and continued to walk down the school corridor. She hated the title and theme Craig chose for the party. Then finally she replied “I like the texture of the collage.”
“It’s not about suicide! Like I said before it’s about things ending and something new beginning. It’s about surviving,” Craig rambled and waved his arms around as he bounced down the hallway.
“Settle down,” Sean encouraged after Craig bumped into him, sending their books flying. He bent down to gather them and listened as Craig continued talking.
“There is such energy in the air! Can you feel that? I mean, in a way it’s good when something awful happens because there‘s always this moment. This moment where you are aware that you are alive. It’s like electric. The energy in the air.”
It was then that he saw the empty teacher’s lounge out of the corner of the eye. His gaze zoomed in on the photocopy machine. He grabbed the handmade flyer from Ashley. “Be my look out guys,” Craig requested and ducked inside after surveying the hall for any faculty.
“Was there vodka in his juice at lunch?” Sean asked, half sarcastic and half serious. He wasn’t sure what else could explain his friend’s rambling and excitement.
Ashley remained quiet, watching Craig tap his fingers on the surface of the copy machine as it spit out copies. She motioned for him when she saw Mr. Simpson mulling around the doorway of the Media Immersion lab; she was the look out. Protecting him, even if all this didn’t feel right.
She snapped out of her daze when she heard her phone ring. She felt a little dizzy and unreal as she clicked it on and got to her feet.
“Haven’t left yet. I need to pack,” Ashley explained when Ellie asked about her where abouts. “Craig is leaving me all these text messages. Like he wants me along or something. I don’t know. The last one said he was visiting his dad. He’s got to mean the cemetery. I should go. I think he needs me.”
“Party still on for tomorrow night?” Ellie decided to ask.
Ashley stuffed some clothes in a bag, then went for her make up. “Yeah. I don’t know if this is a good idea. But he‘s always been alright when it‘s all over, right?”
She stood farther back and watched him for awhile. He was at his father’s grave site, standing quite a far distance from it. Craig would take a small step now and then, almost like he was nervous and afraid of this ending like a horror movie. She finally approached him when he was close enough to touch the tombstone.
“Hey Craig,” Ashley greeted quietly.
“You scared me,” Craig said and exhaled. “This isn’t the place you expect to hear a voice.”
“I got your texts. Thought you might need some support?”
“This is the first time I’ve been back. I mean, besides for the funeral. But I wasn’t really all there for that really. Just going through the motions. I’ve been to so many funerals I practically have the process memorized,” Craig said. “Anyway, I picked today because I didn’t want to deal with Joey’s reaction. I didn’t want him to try to be there and act all fatherly with his hand on my shoulder like he did at my dad’s funeral. That would be such an insult to my dad.”
He was still doing that. All the therapy and explanations couldn’t quiet it. He’d heard his father scream at him so many times about the damage Joey had caused to their family. And he liked having Joey there.
“Joey wants to be a fath…be there for you.”
“Please. Don’t say anything. I mean…” Craig struggled to explain as the guilt set in. Everything they…people like Sauvé and Robert…had been trying to do for him was starting to work. He did want Joey for a father. But that‘s not what his dad wanted. And here, even though he was dead and gone, Craig still wanted to make him happy and be on his side. Craig glanced over at his side. Ashley, how did she factor into all of this? “Thank you for being here but don’t read anything into any of this. I don’t need any explanations or reasons. They don’t work.”
“Alright. Got it.” Now was when she climbed into the backseat of the conversation and listened to him talk. It weighed on her mind a little. She tried to say the right thing, do the right thing, all the while never knowing what that was.
“I think it was talking to Sean that got to me. He feels guilty. Makes sense though. Reminded me of how I always feel that. Sometimes I’m not even sure why. Sometimes I feel guilty for everything, like even something I said to my mom when I was eight years old,” Craig said and lead her over to his mother’s grave.
His girlfriend was moving softly beside him and he could have sworn for a moment that he forgot she was there. He was feeling badly for insisting that she remain quiet and not try to lift his burden. Now it was too quiet, the wind blowing through the trees and the occasional chirp from a bird. The bird threw him off some; didn’t it know there was a winter storm moving through and it should take shelter?
“I don’t feel her like I feel my dad around,” Craig said of his mother. “Maybe it’s because I got used to her being gone. I mean, like I had my parents separation and divorce to get used to that.”
“She’s at peace now,” Ashley spoke up. Craig was doing that thing again. She could always feel that moment when he started to drift off some. It always made her uneasy when he did that. What if sometime he couldn’t find his way back?
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”
“I know. I know,” Ashley replied and realized that Craig probably never was allowed to grieve over his parents split up.
“I mean I like it at Joey’s. And I know why she liked it there. But…”
“I’m sure she would have wanted you there.”
Craig started to shake his head, then stopped. It was like she didn’t try at all. His brow creased as he struggled to process it all. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and bitterly stated, “So now you’ve met my mom and dad.”
It was strange arriving home and knowing that Joey wasn’t there and wouldn’t be there till Sunday night. He almost called out just to make sure before entering the house, their arms full of paper bags. Now he knew why Sean and Ellie were so blessed out the first month they moved in together. They were just faking it for the weekend but he fully intended to exploit it.
“That was fun, shopping together like that. I’ve always wondered what it felt like, seeing like college aged couples shopping together,” Ashley said with a smile and pulled cartons of food out of the shopping bags. She watched as Craig smiled and shook his head at that. “What? It’s a girl thing?”
“I’m more excited about the food…and the wine,” Craig said and produced a bottle of red wine.
“Are you really going to cook me dinner?”
“I’m going to make you a feast.”
“What’s on the menu?”
“Um, I know how to cook spaghetti and meatballs,” Craig said, gesturing to a can of spaghetti sauce in the cupboard and then placed a loaf of frozen garlic bread in the freezer. Then he pulled half a dozen boxes of frozen appetizers from another bag, “That’s what these are for. I know you love your appetizers.”
“Mushroom puff pastries? Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Well if that doesn’t work…” Craig started and removed the bottles of liquor from the final paper bag. He unrolled the paper bag each was wrapped in.
Ashley looked over each bottle, “Vodka, tequila, and whiskey? Got all your bases covered? I thought it was a ’bring your own beverage’ party.”
“Oh this is just for us; you, me, Sean, and Ellie. I mean if you want. I have a bottle of Alize in my room for you. Remember the end of year dance last year?”
“We can’t drink all that in one night.”
“Well we can try,” Craig said with a smirk and saw her eyes fill with concern. “I’m kidding. Hey, when you’ve got a good liquor collection going, it’s hard to stop.”
“What am I going to do with you?” Ashley said and pulled him closer to her.
“I’ve been a good boy for months, I swear! I deserve this,” Craig reasoned and went in for a kiss. Then he took her hand and they went for the stairs. “I think dinner is going to have to wait.”
It was like it was there house, Craig thought to himself as they ran up the stairs. He didn’t have to shut his bedroom door or worry that Angie would walk in, curious about their giggles. Ashley’s shirt came off first and somewhere during that a stack of CD’s on his dresser tumbled to the floor. They both didn’t even acknowledge it, still in an embrace. It was the type of kissing where you didn’t want to come up for air and when you did you wound up panting like you just ran a marathon.
The bottom of Craig’s jeans were soaking wet from the melting snow and were sagging from the wet weight. All it took was Ashley to unbuckle his belt and they dropped to the floor. He had never seen her so frantic for sex. She was always so soft, sometimes hesitating to move in to kiss him; he would always be breathing heavily and she was just taking him in.
Now Ashley was so frantic, taking charge and guiding his hands where she wanted them. They ended up on the bed with such force that Craig had to question with a smile, “Ash?”
Ashley’s hands were strong, moving over him like she was studying him and molding him like a sculptor does with clay. He wasn’t used to her grabbing at him like it was the last time they were ever make love. Ashley was always soft, slow, and savory. He was used to the sensitive girl who moaned softly at the slightest touch. Sometimes he had to remind himself to slow down and be gentle, like he feared he would hurt her. The first time they had sex, he couldn’t help but whisper in her ear if she was okay. She just sighed back and encouraged him on. He liked that about her though, everything touched her more and it wasn’t just physical interaction either.
After a few moments her mouth found the way back to his. One fist had his hair (Ashley’s left hand always found it’s way to the back of his head when they embraced) and the other between his legs. He waited for the right moment to flip her underneath him and straddle her.
“You aren’t ever going to want to leave me,” Craig whispered after his tongue moved across her cheek to her earlobe. He held onto her wrists for a moment and watched her softly smile up at him. When he let go she pulled him close to her naked torso with a surprising amount of force.
Now and then Ashley would open her eyes and was assaulted by the brightness of the room. Here they were, Craig’s bedroom during the last few hours of daylight with the bedroom door wide open. She was used to lovemaking in the dark; the back seat of Craig’s car in some deserted parking lot or the wet concrete after a rain shower interrupted their night swimming at the pool Craig loved to break into those summer nights. She’d never seen him like this before. This clear. It wasn’t just the scar on his back she had first noticed earlier; it was white and wormlike and snaked it’s way down under his boxer shorts. It was that he was letting her in, letting her be there at the cemetery.
Ashley was here, she was really here; Craig was still in awe. He had those moments and wondered why someone would want him around. Especially someone like her. But she was here now. And no one knew. It was just them in this moment, the world outside drifting away.
They sat on the floor with Craig‘s CD collection piled around them, dressed only in their underwear and t-shirts. Neutral Milk Hotel played softly in the background and seemed to go with the slow decline in light as the sunset. Ashley realized it was one of those moments. Those moments where everything just seems to have stopped and you are just happy being someplace. The ones where you know you’ve had them before but can’t quite place it.
“What was that song I heard the other day? I think I wrote it down. I wrote down some other songs for a play list too,” Craig said and began to crawl over to his backpack on the floor by his desk. He returned with several notebooks in hand and began to page through them. Song lyrics, the math homework he had only finished half way before crying defeat, and a few notes he and Ashley passed back and forth during history.
“What’s this?” Ashley asked as she looked over a notebook page. At first glance, she thought it might be his math homework. There was a jumble of numbers littered on the page, in all kinds of mathematical forms. There was a big black blob near the left side of the paper, almost looking like a giant spider with it’s fierce pen markings. It was obvious that was when Craig was the most frustrated with the outcome, scribbling out a set of numbers. But there was text too. That almost made less sense even though she recognized some of the names.
“I was trying to figure out why Jimmy was shot,” Craig explained with an embarrassed smile. Everyone expected him to freak out after the shooting. And he did, quietly and on his own. Because how could he explain that moment?
Ashley recognized the date of his father’s death. Craig had even gone as far as to jot down the time his father had called and when he went over to his house. It looked like he was trying to map out that night’s fateful events. She recognized the date of Julia Jeremiah’s birth and death. Angela’s birthday. His own. “What’s the connection?”
“I thought the numbers might mean something, explain something to me and tell me why it all happened,” Craig explained and watched her alternate her gaze between the paper and his face.
There was something about this guy. Most of the time his intensity drew her towards him. He brought her to parties and made her feel like they were the center of attention on the dance floor when a year or so earlier she would have preferred to be on the sidelines, too worried about what other people thought of her. He wasn’t afraid to be silly with her and Angie in the toy section of a department store, all three jumping around on Spongebob Squarepants hopping balls until a clerk told them to stop. And he wasn’t embarrassed by that either. He brought out a side of her and made her feel more alive.
But then there was moments like this. Where it wasn’t that he had so much life in him and was spontaneous. It was something under the surface; dark, foreign, and threatening to take him away from her. So she had to try to pull him back.
“I know it sounds weird, insane even. But I swear it made sense at the time. I think I was just freaking out over seeing Jimmy on the ground like that after he was shot. I mean, when you think about how I decided on that day to take that hallway to chemistry. I never do that. And that’s when I saw Jimmy. And then I started thinking about my dad. I thought there was a relation.”
“What kind of relation would be between the two?”
“I don’t know. But it has to mean something if they happened so close. I know it doesn’t totally make sense but I think it has to do with me.”
“No, it doesn’t. I mean it has nothing to do with you.”
“And then when you think about my mom. Man, I’m kind of like the grim reaper or something. Everything around me…” Craig didn’t finish. “I think something is going to happen. Or it has to happen.”
She kind of felt it too. But she wasn’t sure what it was. She kind of assumed it was because of the school shooting and they were all still on edge and aware of their mortality. “Maybe this party is a bad idea. It’s not too late to call it off.”
“I invited like the whole school,” Craig said with a smile. That was the first thing he’d been looking forward to in awhile.
“So we’ll lock them out,” Ashley encouraged and walked her fingers down Craig’s arm like they were spider’s legs. “Joey’s house can be just ours this weekend.”
Craig shook his head. “I can’t just back out now. As much as I love having you here…and it’s like our house…I wonder what Joey and my mom were like when they first got married. I bet it was like this.”
Ashley smiled at him, anxious to bring him back. She didn’t want to hear any more theories on death. “I bet you were all smiles when Angie was born.”
Craig stood up and went over to his bookshelf and pulled out several photo albums. He set one down in front of Ashley. “Okay no laughing.”
“Is this you?” Ashley asked, looking at the photo of a baby wrapped in a blue baby blanket.
“Yeah!” Craig flipped the pages, slowly looking over everything. “My Grandma…my dad’s mom…brought these over after he died. I didn’t even know he still had them. I thought he tossed them out. This whole time I thought I only had like five pictures of my mom.”
“Parents do weird things after divorces. I’m sorry it wasn’t better for you.”
“Yeah he just wanted every reminder of her gone. But you know, then there was me. Constant reminder,” Craig declared and went for another album, this one something his mother started for him after the divorce. There was all these weird little sections in his life and they all never really met up. “My mom started this one. I’m kind of finishing it.”
Craig showed the most recently family portrait he, Joey, and Angie had taken at Thanksgiving. Joey had wanted him to set up his camera on a tripod and set a timer so they had a family portrait to send out with the Christmas cards. Craig has sighed, saying that Joey was being such a dad, and complied. He drew the line at dressing up though.
“I think Joey sees my mom in me and that’s why he kept me around. I mean, it’s what my dad saw too, but it just pissed him off.”
Ashley’s eyes lingered on a photograph of Craig with his birth parents. Her eyes darted between that and Craig’s with his stepfamily, his new family minus Julia.
“Did your mom know…” it fell out of her mouth and she didn’t dare to finish.
“What?” Craig asked with a boyish smile. It actually took him a few moments to put it together. It was the question they all wanted the answer to. Did his mother know what his father was like? Did she know that by the time he was 14 the beatings would have escalated into repeated sharp kicks to his ribs and colorful welts on his back?
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Um no, it’s not that,” he replied, thickly. He had just never been hit with that thought before. No one had ever directly asked. Sauvé and Joey asked how things were between his mom and his dad. How did his dad treat his mom. What were their fights like? Joey had never questioned if his father hit his mother but sometimes he sensed that he wanted to. Truthfully, Craig didn’t know. When they did fight, he hid in his closet.
“My family is strange, Ash. We pretend things don’t exist. And then it’s sort of like they don’t anymore. I mean…people like Sauvé ask me about how my dad was with my mom. I can’t really remember all of it. Or maybe it’s that I choose not to remember. But then I feel like I should remember something more when people like her ask questions. Isn’t that weird?”
Ashley just shook her head and flipped the page. Standing close to his mother at an amusement park for one shot and sitting next to his father at a holiday dinner, his father’s hand firmly on his son’s shoulder in the other. She kept looking for signs. She wasn’t sure what. But Craig was almost always smiles. She remembered that from the first days of Degrassi when she met him. Maybe it was easy not to see it. Craig was great at hiding things.
“But you know what really gets me is that I know I don’t have all the answers. There’s some stuff I can find out from Joey; like where he first met my mom. But there’s other things. Things I can’t ask my mom or my dad because they aren’t here anymore. I mean…what do I do then?”
“What would you want to know?”
Craig shook his head and went for his blue jeans, then his shirt. “I’m starving. I’m going to start dinner.”
He didn’t have much time. Not for dinner. It was the amount of time between when Ashley got dressed and arrived in the kitchen. He hoped that she would take a few extra minutes to fix her hair. Craig didn’t event think about it. There wasn’t another option. He unscrewed the bottle of vodka, enjoying the pop of the seal and the heavy weight of a brand new bottle. The first gulp burned his throat and almost made him head for a chaser. But he felt it almost right away. Warm and numbing his head. It was almost medicinal. If he had a broken leg they would numb the pain. The memories hurt just as bad. Another gulp.
Craig heard movement upstairs and he quickly put the bottle in the cupboard with the rest and had a few seconds to grab a handful of chips to cover the harsh stench he was sure was on his breath. Ashley wouldn’t understand this. How could she?
He was pre-heating the oven and setting a kettle of water on the stove. She came up behind him and snuggled up against him. The embrace was warm and familiar and he couldn’t help but look down and smile at her resting her cheek on his shoulder.
“I can’t believe you are cooking. I had no idea.”
“Hey, I’m going to make sure that you never ever want to leave,” Craig replied, turned to face her and go in for a kiss.
Ashley tasted it, there behind his tongue. Strong, bitter, and slightly numbing. Alcohol. Pulling away, she pressed her fingers against her lips for a moment.
“I upset you,” she realized out loud.
“What? No. No, of course not. I’m used to stuff like that in my head.”
“Come on, shots!” Craig said, taking Ashley’s hand and leading her through the growing crowd.
“I was trying to keep people out of Joey’s room,” Ashley explained and noticed how Craig didn’t notice the sound of a crash somewhere to their left. She couldn’t locate the source through the crowd of bodies.
“Ah, whatever. Who cares. We have tequila,” Craig said and smiled over at Ashley and then at Evie, who was pouring the liquor into shot glasses.
“You in?” Evie asked, taking note of Craig’s girlfriend.
Ashley fumbled with an earring. There was only a handful of times that she had drank hard liquor, those times always when she was with Craig, Ellie, and Sean. It felt safe then; like she didn’t have to worry about how they viewed her when she couldn’t stop giggling, rambled on about her grade eight year, or worse, when one of them held back her hair when she threw up. She was certain she’d throw up by the end of the night. She still remembered when Sean’s friend Jay had called her a lightweight and it’d made her blush.
“I’m in,” Ashley declared and gave a small smile to the brunette when she nodded in approval. She watched as Craig laughed at something Evie said and she gave him a playful punch in return. Evie was pretty, Ashley noted as she looked over Evie’s short skirt. She had seen her around before, sometimes with Craig and other kids that she only was on a first name basis of. Sometimes they remembered her, sometimes they were too stoned, and other times she was known as Craig’s girlfriend.
Ashley took the shot after the other two and hoped that she didn’t flinch at the taste, strong, a bit metallic, and sticking to her tongue. It was heavy in her mouth and then she felt herself going up. It was that strange feeling, obviously chemical. It was nice and slow, rushing over her. She lowered her head a bit and looked over herself, maybe to make sure she was still there. Suddenly she was more sure of the black dress she’d picked and for a moment, swore that her boots made her taller. She glanced back at the group around the kitchen table. Evie didn’t think that way, she was sure. She had a hand on Craig’s shoulder and her eyes on the boy to her right.
“Let’s do another,” Ashley encouraged, wanting to feel more sure of herself.
Evie smiled at her and poured another round. “That a girl. You just need to chill, do a shot and maybe have a smoke.”
Ashley did the shot at the same time as the others this time, tossing her head back when it was done and enjoying the music that was swelling around her.
“I love this song,” she said and felt Craig wrap his arms around her. She let him embrace her for a moment and then took his hand and started to lead him into the group that was dancing.
“You look so gorgeous tonight,” Craig said into her ear, his lips close to her neck. He moved away enough to see Ashley smile at him in response. He swore he’d always remember that smile. He couldn’t stop staring at her mouth sometimes. “You look so amazing.“
After cleaning up the kitchen after their huge feast this morning, they headed to a thrift store to pick out party clothes. She wanted a black dress with sequins and got Craig to purchase a suit coat. During the first day of planning, Craig wanted a dress code. Black and red seemed to fit. The idea failed to make it beyond discussion but Craig wore a blood red dress shirt and Ashley had the color streaked in her hair and on her lips.
“Where do you know her from?” Ashley had to ask.
“Who?” Craig nearly had to shout back to be heard.
“Evie.”
“Oh we just see each other…around.”
“Do you party with her?”
“What?”
“Do you party with her?” Ashley repeated, louder this time.
“Yeah. She’s wild.”
“Do you like her?”
“What?”
“You like her.”
Craig laughed a little at that, secretly enjoying the jealousy a little. Then he said sincerely, “We’re just friends. She’s flirty with everyone, give her till the end of the night and I bet she will hit on you two or ten times. Anyway, I like you…love you.”
“I love you too,” she repeated loudly next to Craig’s ear and they moved in closer to one another, bodies swaying together with the song.
“Tonight’s going to be our night and everyone’s going to know it,” Craig said, glancing around. He was sure they had to look how he felt they were the center of the universe. “I’ve never felt this amazing before.”
He kept Ashley close, alternating between pressing his lips on her and whatever bottle was in his hand. Her hands were wrapped around his neck and he offered her sips of alcohol, enjoying how every sip seemed to make her wiggle her body against him harder, her dress growing moist with sweat as the crowd thickened.
“It’s like everything has been leading up to this night. This is what it feels like to be alive!” Craig proclaimed.
Sometimes when he drank, he was fine. He liked to chat with other people at the party or wouldn’t be afraid to make a fool of himself on the dance floor. It was a smooth steady slip into intoxication and all the things that haunted him vanished. Then there was the other nights. The nights that made him wake up in the morning, wonder what he did, and was left to evaluate the damage that people clued him into later on. Those nights always felt dangerous and he actually kind of lived in fear of them because the alcohol seemed to attract his ghosts instead of chase them away. And he couldn’t deal with them when drunk. Naturally, the best option seemed to be to drink more.
And that was what he was doing. He couldn’t stop even though his brain had given out that sharp warning and things had started to shift and the atmosphere became dark. The night was declining into paranoia and fear, judging from how he swore Marco left the party early because he thought this was all to spite Jimmy (another shot), Spinner and Evie made a joke at his expense (another shot), and Sean was holding Ashley close as they danced. When he saw that, Craig went up to his room and retrieved a pint of vodka that was tucked away in his sock drawer.
He felt himself coming down, way down. Which was why he sank down onto the stairs and watched the people squirm around like worms as they danced in the living room. So close, nearly on top of each other or maybe it was that his vision was spinning a little. Craig yanked his suit coat off, feeling like he was burning up.
“Hey man, you like vanished,” Sean greeted as he approached. He watched as Craig ran a weak hand over his eyes and blinked a few times.
“What?” Sean questioned as he watched Craig’s lips move but he couldn’t hear him over the music.
“We’re still friends, right?” Craig asked and suddenly lunged forward, taking grip of Sean’s forearms. Sean was surprised by his force as the guy seemed limp like he was made of jello before. Craig’s gaze was unblinking; before Sean didn’t think that Craig’s pupils could dilate anymore but it seemed like they had swallowed the hazel in his eyes now. He stared into them, the two coal black holes that were his eyes.
“Yeah, of course we are,” Sean reassured.
“I know you didn’t want to be here.”
“No, Craig. It wasn’t that. It just seemed…soon.”
Craig laughed bitterly and took another drink. “Get used to it. It always feels that way. You aren’t ever going to forget.”
“How much have you had to drink?”
“I’m still awake so obviously not enough. You’ll thank me for tonight. You’ll see how it’s easier to fall asleep when your wasted.”
Sean steadied Craig as he drunkenly got to his feet and cautiously watched him as he moved out into the crowd. He wondered why people like Craig drank to that point of irrational depression and anger. And they just kept on, thinking each gulp would bring them up instead of bringing them down.
Craig glanced around, not recognizing a single face. He couldn’t remember who he was looking for. Then she popped out of the crowd. The absurdity of it sent him stumbling back a few steps, bumping into other drunk teenagers. Then he moved forward. She was just standing there, looking out of place. It didn’t make sense but he didn’t care anyway.
“Why did you leave me? You didn’t want me around did you?” Craig demanded.
“Why are you talking like your father?” his mother accused back.
“What? I couldn’t find you after you went to get another drink,” Ashley explained.
“You wanted your own family. One that didn’t include me.”
“What are you doing here? Joey takes you in, treats you like a son and this is what you do?”
“Is this about my dad’s wedding?” Ashley finally asked, feeling like they weren’t even talking. There was some block in between them, preventing conversation. Was she that drunk? The memory of her grade 8 experience on ecstasy poked at her brain; there would always be a part of her that was afraid of drugs and alcohol.
“You wanted me gone!” He couldn’t even hear the music anymore and he didn’t feel it when someone dancing bumped into him. He could just see her, his dead mother there like the ghost of the dreams that haunted him. He wanted to tell his mother all these things. Finally he had the chance. He took another gulp from his pint of vodka, hoping it’d make him brave. His eyes watered a little and he chose to believe it was the sting of the liquor even though it tasted like water now.
“I’m like this because of you. I drink because of you. It’s all because of you. Because you left me with him and he…beat me. And then you died and what does any of it matter anymore?” Craig slurred.
“I am so disappointed in you.”
“What are you talking about? Slow down,” Ashley encouraged and reached for the bottle of vodka.
“Forget it…forget you,” Craig yelled and jerked away from her touch. He turned away and began to stumble through the crowd. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” he mumbled to himself and used the railing to pull him up the stairs.
“It just needs to be quiet. Just shut up,” Craig nearly yelled and if anyone acknowledged him rambling to himself, he didn’t know.
He felt like he had climbed a small mountain when he got to the top of the stairs. That had to be why he was gasping for air and coughing. He wasn’t sure how it happened but found himself on the floor, the table and the lamp overturned beside him. He found that his arms were barely strong enough to lift him up. Craig glanced around and saw that this got people’s attention. Was Jay laughing at him? This was what gave him the strength to get to his feet and stumble further down the hallway.
The house wasn’t his anymore; he barely was aware of which door lead to what room. He got lucky with the bathroom and stumbled inside. He fell down onto his knees and managed to get a hand out to break his fall so he didn’t hit the ground face down. Everything was so…heavy. He didn’t even feel much of the nausea; the moment when he vomited just happened and he wasn’t able to get to the toilet. He only had the strength to roll away from his puke.
“Craig. Craig, are you okay?” Ashley demanded as she rushed into the bathroom. She listened to him make strange sounds, like a cross between a gasping for air and gagging.
“Craig,” Sean repeated, crouching down beside him. “Wake up.”
“I just want to sleep,“ Craig mumbled, managing to open his eyes for a moment. Sean’s hands were on him, firm and shaking his shoulders. He struggled to sit up, his body crashing into Sean’s. The movement caused the room to spin more violently. He couldn’t recognize the faces that were gathering around him.
“No. You can’t sleep,“ Sean replied and leaned Craig against the bath tub. His heart was pounding and he felt nearly sober from the experience. Something wasn’t right. Then the sound started again and Sean was glad they had him sitting up and not laying down, where he could choke on his vomit. Craig himself wasn’t sure if he was going to throw up or if he was just trying to breathe. It felt like there was something in his throat.
“This isn’t normal,” Ellie said, observing the moment when Craig passed out again.
“Come on, wake up,“ Sean had encouraged and retrieved a glass from the bathroom counter and filled it water, not hesitating to toss it on Craig’s face. His friend didn‘t awaken. “He’s never been this bad.”
“It’s a party, it happens. Just let him sleep it off,” Jay encouraged from the doorway.
“I don’t think so,” Ellie disagreed. She saw that Ashley already had her cell phone out. She nodded at her, giving her permission to call for help. She was surprised by what she heard.
“Mom? Can you come over to Craig’s? I need you,” she said into the receiver. Then “Yes. Craig has been drinking too…too much, I think. I don’t know what to do.”
Then she ended the call and silently debated for a moment on her mother’s request to call 911; Was this really happening? She had never done something like this before. She wiped her eyes, smearing her mascara. “I’m calling 911, get everyone out.”
Jay moved closer to the group as Ashley spoke on the phone, giving the address and describing his breathing. Jay kneeled down beside Sean, who was leaning over Craig and listening to him breathe. “Dude, you have to leave. He’s on shit. They might nail everyone here.”
Sean sighed at that and began to dig through Craig’s pockets. He looked over the white pills in the small plastic bag. “You said you stopped,” Sean accused of an unconscious Craig. He felt Jay snatch the baggie from his hands and watched as he went for the toilet.
Ellie was quick to grab it out of his hands. “Don’t. They need this so they know what he took.”
“Alright,” Jay said and held up his hands in defeat. “But I don’t think you all should take the fall with him.”
“Look, I’ll stay. Get everyone else out,” Sean declared as Jay exited the bathroom. He could hear the shuffle of feet in the hallway as Jay announced the neighbors called the cops.
“Sean, your student welfare. He’s got pills on him, narcotics. I don’t know what they do with something like that,” Ellie objected.
“You guys go. My mom will be here,” Ashley decided and felt Ellie slip her the bag with the pills.
The sounds of the party were steadily dying down all around them. There was first shouting, then the slamming of doors. The music was the last to go. Ashley kept glancing at the window. The headlights from cars in the street were frequent and she could never be sure who was leaving and when her mother would arrive. They never meant for this to happen.
Sean and Ellie didn’t leave until they heard the frantic knocking at the door. Their movements were almost exactly in synch; Ashley opening the door and her mother entering as they slipped out the back door. They both gave a hesitant glance back, feeling guilty. Ashley was surprised by the relief she felt as she lead her mother upstairs to the bathroom. There was the guilt that lingered underneath it all and the occasional pulsating mental claim of ‘we didn’t know how bad it was.’ But there was also the tension relieved by having her mother there and watching her lean over Craig, listening to his heart beat and watching him breath.
Kate on the other hand felt like she was being delivered a series of punches. First was the alien sound of her daughter drunk on the phone. She felt the betrayal for a moment as she had always assumed her daughter didn’t drink. Then she heard the news about Craig. She had been fearing this for awhile. She saw the recklessness in him clearer than she did with boys similar to him in her youth. Then there was the blow delivered as she glanced around the Jeremiah residence and noticed the bottles and empty plastic glasses on the stairs; Ashley had lied to her about Paige’s to go to a party. She probably lied about the night before too to spend the night with Craig. Craig. There he was slumped against the bathtub. What did this kid do?
“How long has he been breathing like this? That slow shallow breathing?” Kate questioned, kneeling beside Craig.
“Um, for about fifteen minutes,” Ashley replied as she hesitated by the doorway.
“Craig,” Kate said loudly, as if she were waking up one of her kids for school. This teen didn’t acknowledge her voice. “Craig,” she repeated and began lightly tapping his face. “Did he take something?”
“Uh, he’s been drinking. He wouldn’t stop drinking.” She found herself unconsciously hesitant to explain the rest, the small plastic baggie clutched in her fist.
“Okay, a lot of alcohol. Anything else?”
“Um, I think he might have taken some pills.”
“Okay. Okay. Do you know what he took?”
Ashley knelt down beside her mother and unconscious boyfriend and handed over the bag of white pills. “He used to take painkillers, downers, stuff like that. He said he stopped. He said he would stop.”
Kate nodded gravely and glanced over the pills before tucking them into her pocket with the intention to turn them over to the paramedics. She gave another quick shake to Craig’s shoulders and watched as he began to cough.
“He’s waking up. Craig. Come on, stay with us,” Kate encouraged, gently shaking him.
Ashley watched as Craig glanced over them, wearing a look of confusion and mumbling unintelligibly. He weakly attempted to push her mother’s hands off of him and then went limp again. The screaming of an ambulance siren was growing louder now and then the squeal turned into frantic pounding at the door. Craig, eyes closed, didn’t notice.
Author’s note:
Hope you don’t mind Sean sticking around. Craig needs his buddy! Also hope you don’t mind my changing things up quite a bit. I figure that we have the episodes and this is just another version of what could have happened.
Just a few shout outs. The whole sixteen is suicide theme was inspired by the birthday party Francis Bean Cobain threw and raised some concern because of the way her father died. I think hers was called "My Suicidal Sixteen" though. This chapter is heavily influenced by My So-Called Life’s Rayanne Graff. Awhile back when I was blocked I watched Other People’s Mothers and realized that there’s some similarities between characters and relationships. I can see a bit of the Rayanne/Angela dynamic with Craig and Ashley. And Kate and Patty are such Mom’s. The party scene and Craig’s hallucination was inspired by the Skin’s Series 3 episode Effy and when I mentioned to Joa (lalatina15) that I wanted Craig to have a hallucination she suggested “His Mom. Totally freak on her going on about her leaving Albs for Joey and what it was like with him and Albs once she was gone.” You can also thank Joa for Evie. Evie is an original character of Joa’s and she’s going to make a few more cameos. Thanks for reading the past few chapters Joa, especially since you don’t like Craig. But you like my Craig. Which is a pretty big compliment I think. I’m glad that people who aren’t fans of Craig, Ashley, or Crash still get something out of this story. And for those of you that are here for the Craig/Joey relationship, there’s more of that coming up. Joey’s about to find out about what Craig’s been up to!
Main characters and pairings featured in this chapter: Craig. Craig/Ashley (probably the shippiest they've ever been in this fan fiction). Ashley/Craig/Sean/Ellie friendship. Evie and Jay also make appearances.
Brief summary of this chapter: Craig decides that the logical thing to do after the school shooting is to have a party. This chapter is most likely going to be part of a trilogy of sorts. The next two deal with the consequences of said party. That being said, you know this party is going to be a huge deal.
26. Sixteen is Suicide
“I thought we were going to get together after school yesterday,” Craig greeted Sean, pulling the ear buds out of his ears and clicking off his mp3 player. He couldn’t help but feel a little bit nervous. Things had been feeling different ever since Sean saved his butt and didn’t rat him out to Joey about the Oxy. He couldn’t explain it. His buddy seemed more reserved; Craig worried that he was waiting for him to slip up and use. But he hadn’t. Well not really. Not that Sean knew. Sometimes he wasn’t sure who was to blame. There was that ‘homework’ he was holed up in his room when in fact he had just popped a few generic muscle relaxers and music videos were better company. And Sean was the one who made sure to make sure to state that he would be hanging with Jay and company at a party, indicating Craig wasn’t entirely welcome.
“Uh yeah, I missed some afternoon classes,” Sean explained, still not comfortable at Degrassi after the school shooting, his visit to Wasaga, and his defeated return home. That was what it was he had realized. It was home. Shitty at the moment, but home.
“I am never going to get used to this increase in security. Soon we are going to have guards with those drug sniffing dogs roaming the halls,” Craig sighed.
“Yeah it’s weird around here,“ Sean replied and they both recalled their first conversation when he got back.
“You are like a ghost,” Craig observed of Sean, surprised by his presence at Degrassi.
“Excuse me?”
“You keep disappearing and reappearing. Good to see you around,” Craig replied, dropping bait to see if Sean would address how he wound up in Wasaga Beach after the shooting. His mouth fell open when he had heard the second hand news that his best friend was staying there.
“Uh yeah…you want to hang out? Sean offered, hoping he could give an explanation of some sort.
Craig shrugged. There was a part of him that was hard and didn’t want to budge. “I think I’ve got like ten minutes before I have to take off.”
“Okay, let’s head outside. I’m so over this school for today,” Sean sighed. He’d never been a fan of school before and the shooting sure as hell didn’t make it easier to be there. He was trying to keep up the hero persona but there was times he couldn’t breathe and all he wanted was to get out. He took the detentions for cutting school for awhile, reassuring Mr. Simpson and Mr. Eyl that he was fine.
“My head’s been kind of a mess lately,” Sean stated as they brushed snow off a picnic table and sat down.
“Well that’s kinda understandable,” Craig said with a smile, feeling slightly warmer towards his friend. The last time Sean had threatened to move, Craig gave him the cold shoulder as well. “I mean I was a mess after my Dad’s…suicide. And I wasn’t even in the room.”
“Yeah, but I killed someone Craig. In the place we come to everyday.”
“I know. I know! I’m just saying…dude, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry that happened to you but it’s not your fault.”
Sean stared down at the ground. It was like over the past few weeks he had forgotten how to talk to people. Not that he was much good at that to begin with. So they sat there, quiet. Craig inhaled sharply, enjoying the cold winter air. It froze his throat some and he decided that was the reason why he couldn’t find any words to say to console his friend.
“Is the school helping you out any?” Craig finally asked. Ten minutes had since expired but he didn’t leave.
“Yeah. I didn’t want the help though. I just wanted to pretend everything never happened. But I guess there’s some stuff you can’t will away. So finally I got tired of it and said, you know, maybe I’m not okay with it. They are letting me go half days sometimes…but I have to see Sauvé.”
“So that’s why I don’t see you around sometimes.”
Sean didn’t know why he hesitated on telling Craig this, worrying that he and everyone else would think he was weak. “Sauvé asks about you. I was all aren’t we supposed to be talking about me?”
Craig rolled his eyes at the mention of the therapist. Then he admitted, “I was kind of pissed you didn’t call me after you left for Wasaga.”
“I just wanted it all to go away, everything that reminded me of Degrassi. I spent a weekend and then some at my parent’s. I was going to enroll for school there and everything. I really thought it would fix things. The change of scenery or whatever it was my mother called it…that was what I needed. But it was just geography, man. Everything was still there. Except…for you guys. So I came back.”
Craig shook his head, unable to say how much he admired that. “That’s unbelievable. I think I know what you are saying though. I think you did the right thing. Ellie…”
“I didn’t do it to take care of her. That’s what she thinks. Mixed signals totally when it comes to that. But it’s not about that…entirely. I mean she was damn pissed about the rent. The idea of sticking her with that was out of left field. I know it was things we couldn’t control entirely…I’m trying to control them. Things are shaky. I don’t know how to explain them.”
“Things aren’t the same, are they? I mean I feel like that with everything. Home, school, Ash, you.”
Sean shrugged, aware of the change all around them. It wasn’t just the increase of security or the cynical gleam in the girls’ eyes. It was the lingering reminder that things could be yanked out from under them at any moment.
Craig couldn’t get his foot to stop bouncing. “It’s so depressing around here lately. I mean I know why…and I’m sorry it happened. But it’s been over a month. We should actually just start living again,” Craig couldn’t help but comment. He watched Sean shoot him a look; it was of the what the hell variety and he was pretty familiar with it. So he looked down and remembered his lunch. He hastily took a bite of pizza and then continued.
“I mean, the band is basically broken up because of Jimmy. It’s like time has just stopped and we’re all sitting around remembering every single bad thing that has ever happened. I mean, did you see how Sauvé looked at me in those weird grieving group therapy things right after the suicide…I mean shooting…happened?” Craig continued.
“I wish things would get back to normal too,” Sean chose to reply. Craig had always been a bit of rambler, his thoughts relating in a kind of obscure way. If Craig’s thought pattern were a game of connect the dots, sometimes they would never figure out the intended image. His friend swore he had been sober for the past few months but it was moments like this were he had to wonder.
“Things should be how they were before. You know what we need…a party!”
“I thought…” Ashley started.
“Oh you aren’t still hung up on that are you?” Craig interrupted. “I’ve been clean for how long now? Even during that one weekend when Sean and Jay drank basically nothing but beer. Joey is out of town this weekend. I think we should make this happen!”
Ashley shook her head and smiled softly in disbelief. “There’s no way you can pull that off.”
“I will make it happen,” Craig declared as he pushed away his barely touched lunch, reached for his book bag, and pulled out a notebook. “Do we want a party bowl or a keg? There should be a theme! Alice in Wonderland?”
“No hard drugs,” Ashley said, imagining strobe lights and mushrooms, and meant for it to sound like a question but found that she ended up sounding almost motherly.
“No hard drugs,” Craig was quick to agree. “A mad tea party would be so awesome. Um, maybe a decade party? The 20’s…60’s. Devils and angels. Halloween! I personally think each month should have a Halloween celebration.”
Craig was writing down ideas frantically, searching for one that felt right. “It should be something about how we are still here, how life is meant to be celebrated because it’s so short. Life after death. Dead Rock stars! Can you imagine the costumes?”
“There was a…” Ellie said and then trailed off, shooting a look at Sean. “Jimmy is in the hospital. It’s kind of in poor taste.”
Craig shrugged. “I’m just tired of being sad…or seeing everyone so sad. We didn’t die. We’re still here. And that’s something to be thankful for, really. Cause any day…any day one of us could be gone.”
“No, Craig. Don’t think of it like that,” Ashley encouraged.
“Really guys, I’m not doing this to be morbid. Life is meant to be lived. Think of it as a celebration! Sixteen is suicide!” Craig decided suddenly. He saw his girlfriend go pale and Ellie had finished shredding her napkin. “It’s a metaphor! Think about all the changes that have happened lately. It’s an end, but it’s really the beginning. We survived. We’re here and we should be living life to the fullest.”
“You are out of your mind. But a party might be a good way to get rid of some of the tension around here,” Sean decided, knowing that once Craig got an idea in his head it was pretty much a done deal.
“Saturday night. It’ll be epic. You know Ash, Joey is away Friday too. He and Caitlin are doing some let’s rekindle the romance thing at some bed and breakfast. Angie is at Grandma Jeremiah’s. I’ll make you dinner, red wine, candlelight…”
“Okay, my appetite is gone,” Sean declared after hearing Craig give out a few more intimate details. Sean stood up and crumpled the empty brown bag that had a few remains of his lunch. “Don’t want to know anymore. See ya later.”
“Best to let you lovebirds be,” Ellie agreed, her voice familiarly sarcastic. Ashley was blushing a little, she noticed.
“Friday night it can just be us. We can finally be together for the whole night. We’ll go shopping after school for party supplies and then we’ll lock ourselves in at Joey’s. It’ll be like we’re actually living together. I’ll make you a huge dinner and breakfast too. There’s no reason for you to go home,” Craig continued on.
“I didn’t know you could cook,” Ashley said, amused but a little overwhelmed. Ever since her father’s wedding, Craig had been a little on the intense side. There was roses delivered several days after the ceremony, prompting her mother to question the seriousness of her relationship with Craig. At the wedding reception, Craig couldn’t help but ask what she wanted for her own wedding and speculated on their own day. Kate had overheard and Ashley swore that her mother’s gaze didn’t leave them all night. We’re just dating, Ashley had reassured her mother, it’s not like we’re going to run off together. She could only explain her boyfriends interest in marriage as he wanted stability and marriage would mean that someone would always be there for him.
Ashley followed him through text messages. First he was at the bank. It arrived soon after she was lying to her mother about spending the night at Paige’s. She felt tired while replying to it, “What r u doing there?” She should have known. “Buying supplies” came the next message, this time from a liquor store parking lot. She actually clicked the phone off for a good fifteen minutes after that and debated on what to do. Something wasn’t right. They felt that but lately everything felt that way. She thought about the account Craig and Joey had made there; she heard about the details in some late night conversation. It was awkward, Craig had said, meeting with the accountant and discussing what to do with the lump of money Craig had gotten for his birthday. There was a little debate between them all. Very two against one Craig felt, but at the end of the day it all went into a checking account. It was there and he used it. Sometimes Ashley thought he wanted to spend it just so it would go away. The idea of him spending it on “supplies” for the party spooked her a little. How far away did he want to go? And with that she clicked on her phone and received another text “Home soon. Stopping off to visit Dad.”
She sat on the edge of her bed and stared off, wondering if by now they were too far into the weekend for her to fix anything. There had been moments where she could have. Dinner at Joey’s a few nights before where Craig had listened to Joey discuss his weekend plans over the macaroni and cheese. She saw how he avoided his stepfather’s gaze and kept it focused on his fork. She almost said something then but swallowed her words and decided it wasn’t the time or place.
Craig left plenty of opportunities for them to talk it. There was the party planning. In art class, when Craig alternated between ducking into the darkroom to make a few prints and working on a flyer advertising the party at his place on Saturday night. The teacher had to finally tell him to sit down and focus as he was zipping around so much. So he’d taken his seat next to her and frantically worked at the flyer for his party; she could hear him tearing up photos and scribbling with charcoal pencils. Zine art, he had told the teacher and Ashley could have sworn in the mishmash of pictures was a black and white photograph of his mother’s grave. He waited until the last minute to scrawl the name of the party and it’s details on it with a sharpie.
“What do you think?” Craig had questioned after class, handing over the flyer.
Ashley didn’t reply and continued to walk down the school corridor. She hated the title and theme Craig chose for the party. Then finally she replied “I like the texture of the collage.”
“It’s not about suicide! Like I said before it’s about things ending and something new beginning. It’s about surviving,” Craig rambled and waved his arms around as he bounced down the hallway.
“Settle down,” Sean encouraged after Craig bumped into him, sending their books flying. He bent down to gather them and listened as Craig continued talking.
“There is such energy in the air! Can you feel that? I mean, in a way it’s good when something awful happens because there‘s always this moment. This moment where you are aware that you are alive. It’s like electric. The energy in the air.”
It was then that he saw the empty teacher’s lounge out of the corner of the eye. His gaze zoomed in on the photocopy machine. He grabbed the handmade flyer from Ashley. “Be my look out guys,” Craig requested and ducked inside after surveying the hall for any faculty.
“Was there vodka in his juice at lunch?” Sean asked, half sarcastic and half serious. He wasn’t sure what else could explain his friend’s rambling and excitement.
Ashley remained quiet, watching Craig tap his fingers on the surface of the copy machine as it spit out copies. She motioned for him when she saw Mr. Simpson mulling around the doorway of the Media Immersion lab; she was the look out. Protecting him, even if all this didn’t feel right.
She snapped out of her daze when she heard her phone ring. She felt a little dizzy and unreal as she clicked it on and got to her feet.
“Haven’t left yet. I need to pack,” Ashley explained when Ellie asked about her where abouts. “Craig is leaving me all these text messages. Like he wants me along or something. I don’t know. The last one said he was visiting his dad. He’s got to mean the cemetery. I should go. I think he needs me.”
“Party still on for tomorrow night?” Ellie decided to ask.
Ashley stuffed some clothes in a bag, then went for her make up. “Yeah. I don’t know if this is a good idea. But he‘s always been alright when it‘s all over, right?”
She stood farther back and watched him for awhile. He was at his father’s grave site, standing quite a far distance from it. Craig would take a small step now and then, almost like he was nervous and afraid of this ending like a horror movie. She finally approached him when he was close enough to touch the tombstone.
“Hey Craig,” Ashley greeted quietly.
“You scared me,” Craig said and exhaled. “This isn’t the place you expect to hear a voice.”
“I got your texts. Thought you might need some support?”
“This is the first time I’ve been back. I mean, besides for the funeral. But I wasn’t really all there for that really. Just going through the motions. I’ve been to so many funerals I practically have the process memorized,” Craig said. “Anyway, I picked today because I didn’t want to deal with Joey’s reaction. I didn’t want him to try to be there and act all fatherly with his hand on my shoulder like he did at my dad’s funeral. That would be such an insult to my dad.”
He was still doing that. All the therapy and explanations couldn’t quiet it. He’d heard his father scream at him so many times about the damage Joey had caused to their family. And he liked having Joey there.
“Joey wants to be a fath…be there for you.”
“Please. Don’t say anything. I mean…” Craig struggled to explain as the guilt set in. Everything they…people like Sauvé and Robert…had been trying to do for him was starting to work. He did want Joey for a father. But that‘s not what his dad wanted. And here, even though he was dead and gone, Craig still wanted to make him happy and be on his side. Craig glanced over at his side. Ashley, how did she factor into all of this? “Thank you for being here but don’t read anything into any of this. I don’t need any explanations or reasons. They don’t work.”
“Alright. Got it.” Now was when she climbed into the backseat of the conversation and listened to him talk. It weighed on her mind a little. She tried to say the right thing, do the right thing, all the while never knowing what that was.
“I think it was talking to Sean that got to me. He feels guilty. Makes sense though. Reminded me of how I always feel that. Sometimes I’m not even sure why. Sometimes I feel guilty for everything, like even something I said to my mom when I was eight years old,” Craig said and lead her over to his mother’s grave.
His girlfriend was moving softly beside him and he could have sworn for a moment that he forgot she was there. He was feeling badly for insisting that she remain quiet and not try to lift his burden. Now it was too quiet, the wind blowing through the trees and the occasional chirp from a bird. The bird threw him off some; didn’t it know there was a winter storm moving through and it should take shelter?
“I don’t feel her like I feel my dad around,” Craig said of his mother. “Maybe it’s because I got used to her being gone. I mean, like I had my parents separation and divorce to get used to that.”
“She’s at peace now,” Ashley spoke up. Craig was doing that thing again. She could always feel that moment when he started to drift off some. It always made her uneasy when he did that. What if sometime he couldn’t find his way back?
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”
“I know. I know,” Ashley replied and realized that Craig probably never was allowed to grieve over his parents split up.
“I mean I like it at Joey’s. And I know why she liked it there. But…”
“I’m sure she would have wanted you there.”
Craig started to shake his head, then stopped. It was like she didn’t try at all. His brow creased as he struggled to process it all. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and bitterly stated, “So now you’ve met my mom and dad.”
It was strange arriving home and knowing that Joey wasn’t there and wouldn’t be there till Sunday night. He almost called out just to make sure before entering the house, their arms full of paper bags. Now he knew why Sean and Ellie were so blessed out the first month they moved in together. They were just faking it for the weekend but he fully intended to exploit it.
“That was fun, shopping together like that. I’ve always wondered what it felt like, seeing like college aged couples shopping together,” Ashley said with a smile and pulled cartons of food out of the shopping bags. She watched as Craig smiled and shook his head at that. “What? It’s a girl thing?”
“I’m more excited about the food…and the wine,” Craig said and produced a bottle of red wine.
“Are you really going to cook me dinner?”
“I’m going to make you a feast.”
“What’s on the menu?”
“Um, I know how to cook spaghetti and meatballs,” Craig said, gesturing to a can of spaghetti sauce in the cupboard and then placed a loaf of frozen garlic bread in the freezer. Then he pulled half a dozen boxes of frozen appetizers from another bag, “That’s what these are for. I know you love your appetizers.”
“Mushroom puff pastries? Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Well if that doesn’t work…” Craig started and removed the bottles of liquor from the final paper bag. He unrolled the paper bag each was wrapped in.
Ashley looked over each bottle, “Vodka, tequila, and whiskey? Got all your bases covered? I thought it was a ’bring your own beverage’ party.”
“Oh this is just for us; you, me, Sean, and Ellie. I mean if you want. I have a bottle of Alize in my room for you. Remember the end of year dance last year?”
“We can’t drink all that in one night.”
“Well we can try,” Craig said with a smirk and saw her eyes fill with concern. “I’m kidding. Hey, when you’ve got a good liquor collection going, it’s hard to stop.”
“What am I going to do with you?” Ashley said and pulled him closer to her.
“I’ve been a good boy for months, I swear! I deserve this,” Craig reasoned and went in for a kiss. Then he took her hand and they went for the stairs. “I think dinner is going to have to wait.”
It was like it was there house, Craig thought to himself as they ran up the stairs. He didn’t have to shut his bedroom door or worry that Angie would walk in, curious about their giggles. Ashley’s shirt came off first and somewhere during that a stack of CD’s on his dresser tumbled to the floor. They both didn’t even acknowledge it, still in an embrace. It was the type of kissing where you didn’t want to come up for air and when you did you wound up panting like you just ran a marathon.
The bottom of Craig’s jeans were soaking wet from the melting snow and were sagging from the wet weight. All it took was Ashley to unbuckle his belt and they dropped to the floor. He had never seen her so frantic for sex. She was always so soft, sometimes hesitating to move in to kiss him; he would always be breathing heavily and she was just taking him in.
Now Ashley was so frantic, taking charge and guiding his hands where she wanted them. They ended up on the bed with such force that Craig had to question with a smile, “Ash?”
Ashley’s hands were strong, moving over him like she was studying him and molding him like a sculptor does with clay. He wasn’t used to her grabbing at him like it was the last time they were ever make love. Ashley was always soft, slow, and savory. He was used to the sensitive girl who moaned softly at the slightest touch. Sometimes he had to remind himself to slow down and be gentle, like he feared he would hurt her. The first time they had sex, he couldn’t help but whisper in her ear if she was okay. She just sighed back and encouraged him on. He liked that about her though, everything touched her more and it wasn’t just physical interaction either.
After a few moments her mouth found the way back to his. One fist had his hair (Ashley’s left hand always found it’s way to the back of his head when they embraced) and the other between his legs. He waited for the right moment to flip her underneath him and straddle her.
“You aren’t ever going to want to leave me,” Craig whispered after his tongue moved across her cheek to her earlobe. He held onto her wrists for a moment and watched her softly smile up at him. When he let go she pulled him close to her naked torso with a surprising amount of force.
Now and then Ashley would open her eyes and was assaulted by the brightness of the room. Here they were, Craig’s bedroom during the last few hours of daylight with the bedroom door wide open. She was used to lovemaking in the dark; the back seat of Craig’s car in some deserted parking lot or the wet concrete after a rain shower interrupted their night swimming at the pool Craig loved to break into those summer nights. She’d never seen him like this before. This clear. It wasn’t just the scar on his back she had first noticed earlier; it was white and wormlike and snaked it’s way down under his boxer shorts. It was that he was letting her in, letting her be there at the cemetery.
Ashley was here, she was really here; Craig was still in awe. He had those moments and wondered why someone would want him around. Especially someone like her. But she was here now. And no one knew. It was just them in this moment, the world outside drifting away.
They sat on the floor with Craig‘s CD collection piled around them, dressed only in their underwear and t-shirts. Neutral Milk Hotel played softly in the background and seemed to go with the slow decline in light as the sunset. Ashley realized it was one of those moments. Those moments where everything just seems to have stopped and you are just happy being someplace. The ones where you know you’ve had them before but can’t quite place it.
“What was that song I heard the other day? I think I wrote it down. I wrote down some other songs for a play list too,” Craig said and began to crawl over to his backpack on the floor by his desk. He returned with several notebooks in hand and began to page through them. Song lyrics, the math homework he had only finished half way before crying defeat, and a few notes he and Ashley passed back and forth during history.
“What’s this?” Ashley asked as she looked over a notebook page. At first glance, she thought it might be his math homework. There was a jumble of numbers littered on the page, in all kinds of mathematical forms. There was a big black blob near the left side of the paper, almost looking like a giant spider with it’s fierce pen markings. It was obvious that was when Craig was the most frustrated with the outcome, scribbling out a set of numbers. But there was text too. That almost made less sense even though she recognized some of the names.
“I was trying to figure out why Jimmy was shot,” Craig explained with an embarrassed smile. Everyone expected him to freak out after the shooting. And he did, quietly and on his own. Because how could he explain that moment?
Ashley recognized the date of his father’s death. Craig had even gone as far as to jot down the time his father had called and when he went over to his house. It looked like he was trying to map out that night’s fateful events. She recognized the date of Julia Jeremiah’s birth and death. Angela’s birthday. His own. “What’s the connection?”
“I thought the numbers might mean something, explain something to me and tell me why it all happened,” Craig explained and watched her alternate her gaze between the paper and his face.
There was something about this guy. Most of the time his intensity drew her towards him. He brought her to parties and made her feel like they were the center of attention on the dance floor when a year or so earlier she would have preferred to be on the sidelines, too worried about what other people thought of her. He wasn’t afraid to be silly with her and Angie in the toy section of a department store, all three jumping around on Spongebob Squarepants hopping balls until a clerk told them to stop. And he wasn’t embarrassed by that either. He brought out a side of her and made her feel more alive.
But then there was moments like this. Where it wasn’t that he had so much life in him and was spontaneous. It was something under the surface; dark, foreign, and threatening to take him away from her. So she had to try to pull him back.
“I know it sounds weird, insane even. But I swear it made sense at the time. I think I was just freaking out over seeing Jimmy on the ground like that after he was shot. I mean, when you think about how I decided on that day to take that hallway to chemistry. I never do that. And that’s when I saw Jimmy. And then I started thinking about my dad. I thought there was a relation.”
“What kind of relation would be between the two?”
“I don’t know. But it has to mean something if they happened so close. I know it doesn’t totally make sense but I think it has to do with me.”
“No, it doesn’t. I mean it has nothing to do with you.”
“And then when you think about my mom. Man, I’m kind of like the grim reaper or something. Everything around me…” Craig didn’t finish. “I think something is going to happen. Or it has to happen.”
She kind of felt it too. But she wasn’t sure what it was. She kind of assumed it was because of the school shooting and they were all still on edge and aware of their mortality. “Maybe this party is a bad idea. It’s not too late to call it off.”
“I invited like the whole school,” Craig said with a smile. That was the first thing he’d been looking forward to in awhile.
“So we’ll lock them out,” Ashley encouraged and walked her fingers down Craig’s arm like they were spider’s legs. “Joey’s house can be just ours this weekend.”
Craig shook his head. “I can’t just back out now. As much as I love having you here…and it’s like our house…I wonder what Joey and my mom were like when they first got married. I bet it was like this.”
Ashley smiled at him, anxious to bring him back. She didn’t want to hear any more theories on death. “I bet you were all smiles when Angie was born.”
Craig stood up and went over to his bookshelf and pulled out several photo albums. He set one down in front of Ashley. “Okay no laughing.”
“Is this you?” Ashley asked, looking at the photo of a baby wrapped in a blue baby blanket.
“Yeah!” Craig flipped the pages, slowly looking over everything. “My Grandma…my dad’s mom…brought these over after he died. I didn’t even know he still had them. I thought he tossed them out. This whole time I thought I only had like five pictures of my mom.”
“Parents do weird things after divorces. I’m sorry it wasn’t better for you.”
“Yeah he just wanted every reminder of her gone. But you know, then there was me. Constant reminder,” Craig declared and went for another album, this one something his mother started for him after the divorce. There was all these weird little sections in his life and they all never really met up. “My mom started this one. I’m kind of finishing it.”
Craig showed the most recently family portrait he, Joey, and Angie had taken at Thanksgiving. Joey had wanted him to set up his camera on a tripod and set a timer so they had a family portrait to send out with the Christmas cards. Craig has sighed, saying that Joey was being such a dad, and complied. He drew the line at dressing up though.
“I think Joey sees my mom in me and that’s why he kept me around. I mean, it’s what my dad saw too, but it just pissed him off.”
Ashley’s eyes lingered on a photograph of Craig with his birth parents. Her eyes darted between that and Craig’s with his stepfamily, his new family minus Julia.
“Did your mom know…” it fell out of her mouth and she didn’t dare to finish.
“What?” Craig asked with a boyish smile. It actually took him a few moments to put it together. It was the question they all wanted the answer to. Did his mother know what his father was like? Did she know that by the time he was 14 the beatings would have escalated into repeated sharp kicks to his ribs and colorful welts on his back?
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Um no, it’s not that,” he replied, thickly. He had just never been hit with that thought before. No one had ever directly asked. Sauvé and Joey asked how things were between his mom and his dad. How did his dad treat his mom. What were their fights like? Joey had never questioned if his father hit his mother but sometimes he sensed that he wanted to. Truthfully, Craig didn’t know. When they did fight, he hid in his closet.
“My family is strange, Ash. We pretend things don’t exist. And then it’s sort of like they don’t anymore. I mean…people like Sauvé ask me about how my dad was with my mom. I can’t really remember all of it. Or maybe it’s that I choose not to remember. But then I feel like I should remember something more when people like her ask questions. Isn’t that weird?”
Ashley just shook her head and flipped the page. Standing close to his mother at an amusement park for one shot and sitting next to his father at a holiday dinner, his father’s hand firmly on his son’s shoulder in the other. She kept looking for signs. She wasn’t sure what. But Craig was almost always smiles. She remembered that from the first days of Degrassi when she met him. Maybe it was easy not to see it. Craig was great at hiding things.
“But you know what really gets me is that I know I don’t have all the answers. There’s some stuff I can find out from Joey; like where he first met my mom. But there’s other things. Things I can’t ask my mom or my dad because they aren’t here anymore. I mean…what do I do then?”
“What would you want to know?”
Craig shook his head and went for his blue jeans, then his shirt. “I’m starving. I’m going to start dinner.”
He didn’t have much time. Not for dinner. It was the amount of time between when Ashley got dressed and arrived in the kitchen. He hoped that she would take a few extra minutes to fix her hair. Craig didn’t event think about it. There wasn’t another option. He unscrewed the bottle of vodka, enjoying the pop of the seal and the heavy weight of a brand new bottle. The first gulp burned his throat and almost made him head for a chaser. But he felt it almost right away. Warm and numbing his head. It was almost medicinal. If he had a broken leg they would numb the pain. The memories hurt just as bad. Another gulp.
Craig heard movement upstairs and he quickly put the bottle in the cupboard with the rest and had a few seconds to grab a handful of chips to cover the harsh stench he was sure was on his breath. Ashley wouldn’t understand this. How could she?
He was pre-heating the oven and setting a kettle of water on the stove. She came up behind him and snuggled up against him. The embrace was warm and familiar and he couldn’t help but look down and smile at her resting her cheek on his shoulder.
“I can’t believe you are cooking. I had no idea.”
“Hey, I’m going to make sure that you never ever want to leave,” Craig replied, turned to face her and go in for a kiss.
Ashley tasted it, there behind his tongue. Strong, bitter, and slightly numbing. Alcohol. Pulling away, she pressed her fingers against her lips for a moment.
“I upset you,” she realized out loud.
“What? No. No, of course not. I’m used to stuff like that in my head.”
“Come on, shots!” Craig said, taking Ashley’s hand and leading her through the growing crowd.
“I was trying to keep people out of Joey’s room,” Ashley explained and noticed how Craig didn’t notice the sound of a crash somewhere to their left. She couldn’t locate the source through the crowd of bodies.
“Ah, whatever. Who cares. We have tequila,” Craig said and smiled over at Ashley and then at Evie, who was pouring the liquor into shot glasses.
“You in?” Evie asked, taking note of Craig’s girlfriend.
Ashley fumbled with an earring. There was only a handful of times that she had drank hard liquor, those times always when she was with Craig, Ellie, and Sean. It felt safe then; like she didn’t have to worry about how they viewed her when she couldn’t stop giggling, rambled on about her grade eight year, or worse, when one of them held back her hair when she threw up. She was certain she’d throw up by the end of the night. She still remembered when Sean’s friend Jay had called her a lightweight and it’d made her blush.
“I’m in,” Ashley declared and gave a small smile to the brunette when she nodded in approval. She watched as Craig laughed at something Evie said and she gave him a playful punch in return. Evie was pretty, Ashley noted as she looked over Evie’s short skirt. She had seen her around before, sometimes with Craig and other kids that she only was on a first name basis of. Sometimes they remembered her, sometimes they were too stoned, and other times she was known as Craig’s girlfriend.
Ashley took the shot after the other two and hoped that she didn’t flinch at the taste, strong, a bit metallic, and sticking to her tongue. It was heavy in her mouth and then she felt herself going up. It was that strange feeling, obviously chemical. It was nice and slow, rushing over her. She lowered her head a bit and looked over herself, maybe to make sure she was still there. Suddenly she was more sure of the black dress she’d picked and for a moment, swore that her boots made her taller. She glanced back at the group around the kitchen table. Evie didn’t think that way, she was sure. She had a hand on Craig’s shoulder and her eyes on the boy to her right.
“Let’s do another,” Ashley encouraged, wanting to feel more sure of herself.
Evie smiled at her and poured another round. “That a girl. You just need to chill, do a shot and maybe have a smoke.”
Ashley did the shot at the same time as the others this time, tossing her head back when it was done and enjoying the music that was swelling around her.
“I love this song,” she said and felt Craig wrap his arms around her. She let him embrace her for a moment and then took his hand and started to lead him into the group that was dancing.
“You look so gorgeous tonight,” Craig said into her ear, his lips close to her neck. He moved away enough to see Ashley smile at him in response. He swore he’d always remember that smile. He couldn’t stop staring at her mouth sometimes. “You look so amazing.“
After cleaning up the kitchen after their huge feast this morning, they headed to a thrift store to pick out party clothes. She wanted a black dress with sequins and got Craig to purchase a suit coat. During the first day of planning, Craig wanted a dress code. Black and red seemed to fit. The idea failed to make it beyond discussion but Craig wore a blood red dress shirt and Ashley had the color streaked in her hair and on her lips.
“Where do you know her from?” Ashley had to ask.
“Who?” Craig nearly had to shout back to be heard.
“Evie.”
“Oh we just see each other…around.”
“Do you party with her?”
“What?”
“Do you party with her?” Ashley repeated, louder this time.
“Yeah. She’s wild.”
“Do you like her?”
“What?”
“You like her.”
Craig laughed a little at that, secretly enjoying the jealousy a little. Then he said sincerely, “We’re just friends. She’s flirty with everyone, give her till the end of the night and I bet she will hit on you two or ten times. Anyway, I like you…love you.”
“I love you too,” she repeated loudly next to Craig’s ear and they moved in closer to one another, bodies swaying together with the song.
“Tonight’s going to be our night and everyone’s going to know it,” Craig said, glancing around. He was sure they had to look how he felt they were the center of the universe. “I’ve never felt this amazing before.”
He kept Ashley close, alternating between pressing his lips on her and whatever bottle was in his hand. Her hands were wrapped around his neck and he offered her sips of alcohol, enjoying how every sip seemed to make her wiggle her body against him harder, her dress growing moist with sweat as the crowd thickened.
“It’s like everything has been leading up to this night. This is what it feels like to be alive!” Craig proclaimed.
Sometimes when he drank, he was fine. He liked to chat with other people at the party or wouldn’t be afraid to make a fool of himself on the dance floor. It was a smooth steady slip into intoxication and all the things that haunted him vanished. Then there was the other nights. The nights that made him wake up in the morning, wonder what he did, and was left to evaluate the damage that people clued him into later on. Those nights always felt dangerous and he actually kind of lived in fear of them because the alcohol seemed to attract his ghosts instead of chase them away. And he couldn’t deal with them when drunk. Naturally, the best option seemed to be to drink more.
And that was what he was doing. He couldn’t stop even though his brain had given out that sharp warning and things had started to shift and the atmosphere became dark. The night was declining into paranoia and fear, judging from how he swore Marco left the party early because he thought this was all to spite Jimmy (another shot), Spinner and Evie made a joke at his expense (another shot), and Sean was holding Ashley close as they danced. When he saw that, Craig went up to his room and retrieved a pint of vodka that was tucked away in his sock drawer.
He felt himself coming down, way down. Which was why he sank down onto the stairs and watched the people squirm around like worms as they danced in the living room. So close, nearly on top of each other or maybe it was that his vision was spinning a little. Craig yanked his suit coat off, feeling like he was burning up.
“Hey man, you like vanished,” Sean greeted as he approached. He watched as Craig ran a weak hand over his eyes and blinked a few times.
“What?” Sean questioned as he watched Craig’s lips move but he couldn’t hear him over the music.
“We’re still friends, right?” Craig asked and suddenly lunged forward, taking grip of Sean’s forearms. Sean was surprised by his force as the guy seemed limp like he was made of jello before. Craig’s gaze was unblinking; before Sean didn’t think that Craig’s pupils could dilate anymore but it seemed like they had swallowed the hazel in his eyes now. He stared into them, the two coal black holes that were his eyes.
“Yeah, of course we are,” Sean reassured.
“I know you didn’t want to be here.”
“No, Craig. It wasn’t that. It just seemed…soon.”
Craig laughed bitterly and took another drink. “Get used to it. It always feels that way. You aren’t ever going to forget.”
“How much have you had to drink?”
“I’m still awake so obviously not enough. You’ll thank me for tonight. You’ll see how it’s easier to fall asleep when your wasted.”
Sean steadied Craig as he drunkenly got to his feet and cautiously watched him as he moved out into the crowd. He wondered why people like Craig drank to that point of irrational depression and anger. And they just kept on, thinking each gulp would bring them up instead of bringing them down.
Craig glanced around, not recognizing a single face. He couldn’t remember who he was looking for. Then she popped out of the crowd. The absurdity of it sent him stumbling back a few steps, bumping into other drunk teenagers. Then he moved forward. She was just standing there, looking out of place. It didn’t make sense but he didn’t care anyway.
“Why did you leave me? You didn’t want me around did you?” Craig demanded.
“Why are you talking like your father?” his mother accused back.
“What? I couldn’t find you after you went to get another drink,” Ashley explained.
“You wanted your own family. One that didn’t include me.”
“What are you doing here? Joey takes you in, treats you like a son and this is what you do?”
“Is this about my dad’s wedding?” Ashley finally asked, feeling like they weren’t even talking. There was some block in between them, preventing conversation. Was she that drunk? The memory of her grade 8 experience on ecstasy poked at her brain; there would always be a part of her that was afraid of drugs and alcohol.
“You wanted me gone!” He couldn’t even hear the music anymore and he didn’t feel it when someone dancing bumped into him. He could just see her, his dead mother there like the ghost of the dreams that haunted him. He wanted to tell his mother all these things. Finally he had the chance. He took another gulp from his pint of vodka, hoping it’d make him brave. His eyes watered a little and he chose to believe it was the sting of the liquor even though it tasted like water now.
“I’m like this because of you. I drink because of you. It’s all because of you. Because you left me with him and he…beat me. And then you died and what does any of it matter anymore?” Craig slurred.
“I am so disappointed in you.”
“What are you talking about? Slow down,” Ashley encouraged and reached for the bottle of vodka.
“Forget it…forget you,” Craig yelled and jerked away from her touch. He turned away and began to stumble through the crowd. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” he mumbled to himself and used the railing to pull him up the stairs.
“It just needs to be quiet. Just shut up,” Craig nearly yelled and if anyone acknowledged him rambling to himself, he didn’t know.
He felt like he had climbed a small mountain when he got to the top of the stairs. That had to be why he was gasping for air and coughing. He wasn’t sure how it happened but found himself on the floor, the table and the lamp overturned beside him. He found that his arms were barely strong enough to lift him up. Craig glanced around and saw that this got people’s attention. Was Jay laughing at him? This was what gave him the strength to get to his feet and stumble further down the hallway.
The house wasn’t his anymore; he barely was aware of which door lead to what room. He got lucky with the bathroom and stumbled inside. He fell down onto his knees and managed to get a hand out to break his fall so he didn’t hit the ground face down. Everything was so…heavy. He didn’t even feel much of the nausea; the moment when he vomited just happened and he wasn’t able to get to the toilet. He only had the strength to roll away from his puke.
“Craig. Craig, are you okay?” Ashley demanded as she rushed into the bathroom. She listened to him make strange sounds, like a cross between a gasping for air and gagging.
“Craig,” Sean repeated, crouching down beside him. “Wake up.”
“I just want to sleep,“ Craig mumbled, managing to open his eyes for a moment. Sean’s hands were on him, firm and shaking his shoulders. He struggled to sit up, his body crashing into Sean’s. The movement caused the room to spin more violently. He couldn’t recognize the faces that were gathering around him.
“No. You can’t sleep,“ Sean replied and leaned Craig against the bath tub. His heart was pounding and he felt nearly sober from the experience. Something wasn’t right. Then the sound started again and Sean was glad they had him sitting up and not laying down, where he could choke on his vomit. Craig himself wasn’t sure if he was going to throw up or if he was just trying to breathe. It felt like there was something in his throat.
“This isn’t normal,” Ellie said, observing the moment when Craig passed out again.
“Come on, wake up,“ Sean had encouraged and retrieved a glass from the bathroom counter and filled it water, not hesitating to toss it on Craig’s face. His friend didn‘t awaken. “He’s never been this bad.”
“It’s a party, it happens. Just let him sleep it off,” Jay encouraged from the doorway.
“I don’t think so,” Ellie disagreed. She saw that Ashley already had her cell phone out. She nodded at her, giving her permission to call for help. She was surprised by what she heard.
“Mom? Can you come over to Craig’s? I need you,” she said into the receiver. Then “Yes. Craig has been drinking too…too much, I think. I don’t know what to do.”
Then she ended the call and silently debated for a moment on her mother’s request to call 911; Was this really happening? She had never done something like this before. She wiped her eyes, smearing her mascara. “I’m calling 911, get everyone out.”
Jay moved closer to the group as Ashley spoke on the phone, giving the address and describing his breathing. Jay kneeled down beside Sean, who was leaning over Craig and listening to him breathe. “Dude, you have to leave. He’s on shit. They might nail everyone here.”
Sean sighed at that and began to dig through Craig’s pockets. He looked over the white pills in the small plastic bag. “You said you stopped,” Sean accused of an unconscious Craig. He felt Jay snatch the baggie from his hands and watched as he went for the toilet.
Ellie was quick to grab it out of his hands. “Don’t. They need this so they know what he took.”
“Alright,” Jay said and held up his hands in defeat. “But I don’t think you all should take the fall with him.”
“Look, I’ll stay. Get everyone else out,” Sean declared as Jay exited the bathroom. He could hear the shuffle of feet in the hallway as Jay announced the neighbors called the cops.
“Sean, your student welfare. He’s got pills on him, narcotics. I don’t know what they do with something like that,” Ellie objected.
“You guys go. My mom will be here,” Ashley decided and felt Ellie slip her the bag with the pills.
The sounds of the party were steadily dying down all around them. There was first shouting, then the slamming of doors. The music was the last to go. Ashley kept glancing at the window. The headlights from cars in the street were frequent and she could never be sure who was leaving and when her mother would arrive. They never meant for this to happen.
Sean and Ellie didn’t leave until they heard the frantic knocking at the door. Their movements were almost exactly in synch; Ashley opening the door and her mother entering as they slipped out the back door. They both gave a hesitant glance back, feeling guilty. Ashley was surprised by the relief she felt as she lead her mother upstairs to the bathroom. There was the guilt that lingered underneath it all and the occasional pulsating mental claim of ‘we didn’t know how bad it was.’ But there was also the tension relieved by having her mother there and watching her lean over Craig, listening to his heart beat and watching him breath.
Kate on the other hand felt like she was being delivered a series of punches. First was the alien sound of her daughter drunk on the phone. She felt the betrayal for a moment as she had always assumed her daughter didn’t drink. Then she heard the news about Craig. She had been fearing this for awhile. She saw the recklessness in him clearer than she did with boys similar to him in her youth. Then there was the blow delivered as she glanced around the Jeremiah residence and noticed the bottles and empty plastic glasses on the stairs; Ashley had lied to her about Paige’s to go to a party. She probably lied about the night before too to spend the night with Craig. Craig. There he was slumped against the bathtub. What did this kid do?
“How long has he been breathing like this? That slow shallow breathing?” Kate questioned, kneeling beside Craig.
“Um, for about fifteen minutes,” Ashley replied as she hesitated by the doorway.
“Craig,” Kate said loudly, as if she were waking up one of her kids for school. This teen didn’t acknowledge her voice. “Craig,” she repeated and began lightly tapping his face. “Did he take something?”
“Uh, he’s been drinking. He wouldn’t stop drinking.” She found herself unconsciously hesitant to explain the rest, the small plastic baggie clutched in her fist.
“Okay, a lot of alcohol. Anything else?”
“Um, I think he might have taken some pills.”
“Okay. Okay. Do you know what he took?”
Ashley knelt down beside her mother and unconscious boyfriend and handed over the bag of white pills. “He used to take painkillers, downers, stuff like that. He said he stopped. He said he would stop.”
Kate nodded gravely and glanced over the pills before tucking them into her pocket with the intention to turn them over to the paramedics. She gave another quick shake to Craig’s shoulders and watched as he began to cough.
“He’s waking up. Craig. Come on, stay with us,” Kate encouraged, gently shaking him.
Ashley watched as Craig glanced over them, wearing a look of confusion and mumbling unintelligibly. He weakly attempted to push her mother’s hands off of him and then went limp again. The screaming of an ambulance siren was growing louder now and then the squeal turned into frantic pounding at the door. Craig, eyes closed, didn’t notice.
Author’s note:
Hope you don’t mind Sean sticking around. Craig needs his buddy! Also hope you don’t mind my changing things up quite a bit. I figure that we have the episodes and this is just another version of what could have happened.
Just a few shout outs. The whole sixteen is suicide theme was inspired by the birthday party Francis Bean Cobain threw and raised some concern because of the way her father died. I think hers was called "My Suicidal Sixteen" though. This chapter is heavily influenced by My So-Called Life’s Rayanne Graff. Awhile back when I was blocked I watched Other People’s Mothers and realized that there’s some similarities between characters and relationships. I can see a bit of the Rayanne/Angela dynamic with Craig and Ashley. And Kate and Patty are such Mom’s. The party scene and Craig’s hallucination was inspired by the Skin’s Series 3 episode Effy and when I mentioned to Joa (lalatina15) that I wanted Craig to have a hallucination she suggested “His Mom. Totally freak on her going on about her leaving Albs for Joey and what it was like with him and Albs once she was gone.” You can also thank Joa for Evie. Evie is an original character of Joa’s and she’s going to make a few more cameos. Thanks for reading the past few chapters Joa, especially since you don’t like Craig. But you like my Craig. Which is a pretty big compliment I think. I’m glad that people who aren’t fans of Craig, Ashley, or Crash still get something out of this story. And for those of you that are here for the Craig/Joey relationship, there’s more of that coming up. Joey’s about to find out about what Craig’s been up to!