Whatever She Needs: Vanilla (4/?) - Degrassi, PG-13

She smelled like vanilla. She nestled against him and she smelled like vanilla and he almost hated himself for noticing—for sitting there, for holding her, for breathing her in and for wishing it would never end. His eyes stayed open as she slept; he couldn’t remember the last time he felt so alive.

After a while, the ride became bumpy and she stirred awake. “I think we’re almost there,” she whispered, straightening up. Snake reluctantly removed his arm from where it had encircled her, saying nothing. The bus slowed to a stop and she stood. He followed her down the aisle and out the door, stepping onto an unexpectedly soft dirt road. It was completely dark except for a few small, dim lampposts. They walked along the road in silence before he finally saw a moderately-sized house in the distance. She quickened her pace as it came into view and he took larger steps to keep up. Just as they reached the front walkway, she stopped abruptly, nearly causing him to trip. “This is it,” she breathed.

“Where… are we?” he asked hesitantly.

“This—” Darcy said, stepping forward, “—is where I was supposed to be on the night I was raped.” Again, she took hold of his hand and led him along the front walkway. As they neared the porch, he caught sight of a wooden sign in the grass: “Welcome to the Divine Harmony Retreat Center.”

She reached into her pocket and removed a few keys, fiddling with the lock on the door and speaking abnormally fast. “I was supposed to go on a retreat here with my family, but I lied to my mom and faked a fever so she’d let me stay home, and then I snuck back to school and got on the bus to Mount Heron.” She continued rapidly, in fragments, “But my family goes on retreats here all the time; we come here every year, so Father Timothy, he owns the place, a few years ago he gave my family a copy of the house key so we can come here whenever we want, so—”

“Darcy—” Snake interrupted. The door swung open, revealing a dark, empty foyer.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I was waiting for you to freak out and go running back to catch the next bus home.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

She looked up at him with a shy smile. “I know this isn’t exactly… normal.”

He returned the smile. “To be honest, I’ve had enough of normal.”

“Okay,” she said softly. They stepped inside and she closed the door. Immediately silence overwhelmed them, but it was no longer the awkward, uncomfortable kind that had so dauntingly characterized their last few encounters. It was pure and peaceful and right, which was most likely the opposite of everything it should have been. She was supposed to be home with her family; he was supposed to be putting Jack to bed and gearing up for another passionless night with Spike.

“Shit,” he said aloud, utterly breaking the mood. “I’m sorry,” he added quickly. “It’s just that… well… I need to call my wife.”

Her expression turned sullen. “Oh.”

“No, I mean, she didn’t know where I went and she’s going to want to know why I’m not back yet,” he explained, feeling flustered and a little ashamed—not because he was about to lie to Spike, but because Darcy suddenly looked so helpless and dejected.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I guess I’ll go upstairs.”

“I’ll just be a few minutes,” he assured her, but she had already turned and headed up the steps. He stood at the base of the staircase for what felt like an eternity, nervously tapping his foot and trying to formulate a logical explanation for why he had disappeared suddenly on a Tuesday night without eating his dinner or saying goodbye. Finally he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed speed dial two. It rang twice before she answered.

“Hi,” he said uneasily.

“Archie! Where are you? You said you were going for a walk. What the hell is going on?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, adding hurriedly, “Joey called me. He’s in Norfolk visiting Wheels and they wanted me to come hang out.” He realized he not only sounded like a teenager lying to his mom about his whereabouts, but he felt like one, too.

“So… you’re in Norfolk?” She sounded unconvinced.

“Yes,” Snake responded, faking conviction.

“And you couldn’t stop home for five seconds to tell me that?”

“Well,” Snake began, thinking frantically, “it was weird. I got off the phone with Joey, and I was standing right near a bus stop, and—well, the bus came.” At least his lies contained a tiny artifact of truth.

“The bus to Norfolk,” Spike said slowly, filling in the blanks.

“Yeah. I mean, it seemed like fate, so I hopped on and I’m here now and I was so caught up in the moment that I forgot to call.”

“Okay,” she said flatly. Her voice showed no hint of emotion; he couldn’t tell if she believed him or not.

“I’ll take the bus back early before work,” he added quickly.

“Okay,” she repeated, waiting a beat before asking, “Do you want me to save your dinner for tomorrow?”

Snake blinked, momentarily rendered speechless. “Um, sure. That’d be great,” he answered finally.

“All right, I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight,” she said.

“Goodnight,” Snake replied halfheartedly, flipping his phone shut. He walked absentmindedly up the stairs, finding himself in a long hallway with endless doorways. Darcy poked her head out of one of them and smiled brightly at his arrival, but this soon shifted to a frown.

“What’s wrong? What did she say?”

Snake leaned against the wall and stared at the ceiling, sighing before finally meeting Darcy’s concerned gaze. “She asked me,” he said slowly, “if I wanted her to save my dinner for tomorrow.” Darcy regarded him thoughtfully, keeping quiet. And I can’t remember the last time she told me she loves me, he realized.

Wordlessly, Darcy reached out and took hold of his hand, as if it were second nature by now. “Let’s go to the meditation room,” she said, leading him to the end of the hall and through another doorway. It was large and spacious, furnished with old oversized couches and a worn-out area rug. The walls were lined with bookshelves of Bibles and inspirational literature, and there were two massive windows that probably provided an excess of sunlight during the day. Darcy expertly walked across the dark room and flicked on a few antiquated desk lamps before plopping down at the edge of a couch. Snake followed suit, choosing the recliner next to it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, a trace of a smile on her face. “I just don’t think you should keep this bottled up inside.”

Snake smirked at the irony. “Mocking me, are we?”

She grinned, then quickly composed herself and added seriously, “I am willing to listen… if you want to talk about it. Really. Even though I’m just a kid who doesn’t know the first thing about marriage.”

“You have parents; you know about marriage,” Snake corrected her. “And I hate to say it, Darcy,” he continued, trying to choose his words carefully, “but I don’t think it’d be accurate to say you’re just a kid after what you went through.”

“I don’t even feel like the same person,” she admitted.

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

They were silent for a moment, and then she announced suddenly, “I broke up with Peter.” Snake said nothing, so she continued, “Last week. I could tell he was getting frustrated with me… I didn’t want him around anymore. I didn’t want to kiss him.” Snake’s eyes widened, even though he knew by now that he shouldn’t be surprised by her openness in sharing personal details. “I don’t think he ever really understood me anyway, not before it happened and definitely not after.” He could swear she looked at him pointedly then, as if trying to convey the unspoken, and he held her gaze, hoping to prove that he could handle whatever she decided to throw his way.

“It sounds like you made the right decision,” he offered. They were silent for a long while.

“Mr. Simpson?” she asked hesitantly. Snake waited. “I think I’m ready to tell you what happened.”

And so, for the next hour, she told him everything. She told him how Peter wanted to have sex and she refused, how she decided to drink, how she abandoned her cup and how she passed out on the couch. She told him how she remembered feeling a hand on her shoulder, being thrown on the bed, and the disgusting odor emanating from her rapist’s body. She told him how terrified she was to see her clothes in a pile on the floor the following morning, how surprised and confused she was to find Peter asleep beside her. She told him how badly she wanted to convince herself that it was him when she knew it wasn’t, and how scared she was now that she had seen his face and knew he was still out there. She told him how she had wanted to die, and how dirty and sinful and guilty she felt, as if she had brought it on herself. “I was supposed to be on retreat,” she kept repeating. “I was supposed to be here.”

She talked and Snake mostly listened, interjecting a few times to assure her that she was not at fault. And soon it was nearly two a.m., so they turned off the lights and headed back down the long hallway and disappeared behind separate doors to collapse into their single beds. Snake had nearly drifted off to sleep when he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

“I can’t be alone tonight,” she whispered.

He was at a loss for words. “It’s a single bed,” he said, realizing immediately how idiotic and insensitive that must have sounded.

“Mr. Simpson, please,” she said softly, urgently. “Remember, you said—you said whatever I need.”

He couldn’t think, and he didn’t want to, because rational thought would have stopped him from moving in closer to the wall and lifting the covers for her to enter. Darcy slipped in beside him and Snake draped his arm around her, breathing in. She smelled like vanilla.