Imagine - Degrassi, R

Notes: Tag to 713, “Bust a Move (Part 1).” Contains spoilers. Written for aphrodite_mine.


Choice or no choice, the aftermath was the same. She felt lifeless. Dirty. Wrong.

Peter was clumsy as he thrust in and out of her. It wasn’t loving, because he didn’t love her and she definitely didn’t love him. It wasn’t beautiful, because it was awkward and forced. And as calculated and premeditated as it was, it wasn’t what she had imagined. Probably because she hadn’t imagined it with him.

She tried to focus, to act the way she knew she was supposed to act. Small moans escaped her in veiled cries for help and she hoped he’d mistake them for the sounds of pleasure. She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him as he awkwardly worked his way inside of her, snaking her fingers up to his scalp and wishing he didn’t have a full head of hair, or that his mouth didn’t feel so sloppy and inexperienced, or that his skin wasn’t so soft and smooth against hers. The bed was hard and small and uncomfortable and she tried to imagine that it was something else—maybe his desk or the cold tile of the zen garden floor—but it didn’t work.

“Darcy,” he gasped when he finally came, and to her ears his voice seemed funny and high-pitched and off, a fantasy gone completely wrong. She wanted to cry because of how stupid it was, how stupid she was for thinking she could trick her mind and transcend reality. Transcend what was even realistic.

“You okay?” she heard him ask when it was over.

“I’m fine,” she said, automatically. Automatic smile, automatic kiss, automatic laughter and automatic gaze. All of it had to be planned out and rehearsed in her mind over and over because if it wasn’t, she might do something crazy and end up hurting the only person who meant anything worth a damn to her, the one who would have made everything better, the one with whom she wished she were right now, but he had failed her, just like she failed him.

Now horns and whistles were blowing and everyone surrounded them and she had no idea what was going on and she felt ashamed and confused and lost and almost wondered if she had been raped again. She imagined going to him, telling him again, going back and doing it all over and not screwing up this time.

But finally she was fed up with imagining and wishing and hoping and wondering, so she left again when no one was looking and walked outside and sat on the front steps and pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number before she could stop herself. Her heart was racing.

“Hello?” His voice sounded deeper than she imagined, and quieter, and a little sad.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly. “It’s me.” The other end fell silent, and she immediately wondered if he even knew who “me” was. Then she realized he might have hung up. “Hello?” she said, desperately.

“Why are you calling?” He definitely wasn’t happy, but he didn’t sound angry, either. Confused, mostly. Darcy held her breath. “It’s almost midnight,” he added, as if that changed anything.

“I just wanted to see how you were,” she said.

“I’m fine. But I have to go.”

“I really need to talk to you,” she whispered, because he had been whispering. And now she heard him sigh.

“You know we can’t do that.”

Darcy blinked back tears. “I know.” There was a long silence, and she waited for him to say something or hang up on her, but he didn’t do either. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine him on the other end, and this time she could see everything, and his eyes were closed too and he was breathless, waiting. She spoke again. “It’s just that you’re—”

“I know,” he said, startling her. She wasn’t even fully sure of what she was about to say. “I have to go,” he repeated. “Bye.”

He set the phone down and his heart was racing and he wished it would stop, because racing hearts meant something and this couldn’t. It was just a coincidence. You’re thinking of someone you haven’t seen in a while and then you run into them minutes later. It happened to people all the time.

Snake turned over on his side and draped his arm around his sleeping wife, bare skin on bare skin. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought that their nightly routine had worn her out. But she was just tired. His heart raced faster as remembered rising and falling above her, how he had looked down at her expressionless face and then beyond it—imagining someone else completely—as if he might see a dark fleck of skin below her right eyebrow, that tiny spark of hope hovering above bright and youthful eyes.