DISCLAIMER: I do not own the fictional characters Zig Novak and Maya Matlin, they belong to the Canadian TV Show Degrassi which I am sad to say does not belong to me either. The only thing I own is Microsoft Word, a pair of fidgety hands, and an overly active mind that thinks of fanfiction ideas in class rather than work- now that my friends is a first world fangirl problem.

All author's notes will be stated at the end of the chapter. Enjoy the first chapter of 'Inhale'!

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Though the drag in my hand is pretty dead by now; with the ashes dripping from it like spilled soda and the heat at the tip long gone with the gray smoky spectacles that fell to the floor like snowflakes, I still felt pretty warm. Could it possibly be the smoke I'm still keeping trapped in the contents of my mouth that's giving me this dry, hot feeling? In all logic and realistic aspects, most likely. Exhaling slowly, my blue eyes lingered from the boy in front of me to the shady puff of fog escaping my lips like dust and disappearing into thin air.

Suddenly, my gaze falls onto the person beside me yet again; there he is, standing there like a statue. His hair tousled and messy, blood dripping from his lip and a bruise very apparent on his arm, Zig Novak is simply stricken, bruised and beaten like an old holiday decoration. My lips part to speak words not even thought out yet alone analyzed, but I am immediately cut off by my classmate speaking before me: "You didn't see or hear any of that did you?" He asked, worry in his voice. I had not seen Zig in this kind of a desperate state ever since the beginning of freshmen year when he was attempting to escape some girl and her flirting games. "Because if you did, you better not tell anybody or I'll-"

"You'll what?" I suddenly snark at him, "You'll threaten to make me watch you skate? Because if that's the price for spreading a rumor, then consider my lips sealed. God knows that's a punishment." I finish. Yes, I know that he just got his ass kicked by some older douche, but threatening somebody isn't exactly the way to go. And if my dry humor as taught me anything, it's that it must be tossed at those when the situation caused one to deserve it.

Zig's expression faltered from a sense of annoyance to a softened one; a small grin appearing on his lips, his eyes study me up and down. "What exactly has you smiling, Novak?" I ask, trying my best not to crack a smirk myself.

"Just a girl with a cigarette in her hand and…" he trails off, counting the discarded ones on the cement floor beneath us, "About three to four more finished and tossed below." My mouth betrayed me as I cracked an embarrassed smile, "I'd explain about how and why it's not what you think, but that would take forever and to be quite honest, that bloody lip of yours along with those bruises don't look like they're going to heal themselves." I say seriously, observing the bad marks on his body.

Eyebrows furrowing in confusion for a moment, Zig starts to light up in realization that again, I'm staring at his wounds. "Oh," He starts, looking down at his feet timidly, "I don't think that it's a big deal, I mean I'm used to it, and-"

"Oh be quiet." I scoff, flicking the cigar to the ground and grabbing him by the wrist. Dragging him inside my god-mother's small apartment without even thinking twice about what she would think, I clutch onto the sleeve of his hoodie. "Abilene," I start off, staring at the woman drinking vodka from a glass as she stands up and immediately stumbles back out of spinny head rush, "Maya! My godchild!" She exclaims dramatically, swishing around as alcohol spills from her transparent cup, "You f-finished the cigars?" She exclaimed, and I nod softly. "Good god girl, it's only been twenty minutes. Jesus, you finish it damn quick, which sucks because I- I want one now." She sighed, stumbling across the room and setting her glass down on the cluttered coffee table. "And who is this?" Her voice tumbles, watching Zig as his confused expression only worsens. "He's cute, looks like you're taking the virginity comment and putting it to some use, eh?" She winks me, completely unaware that her attempted whisper wasn't silent in any way at all.

"Abilene," I hiss, "Don't you have a night shift to attend to?"

The woman in front of me looks dumbfounded and completely perplexed, but immediately comes to the realization that whatever she has to do has to be done soon. "Ah! Thank you so much, Maya. You're a d-dear; I should be at the bar by now. They always hook me up with the best drinks before work." She mumbles as she strides by us, but pauses to take a glance at Zig's face, "Kid, you got your ass kicked." Her sentence is finished by a hysterical fit of laughter attacking her as she staggers into her bedroom to get dressed for "work".

Zig's eyebrows raise in surprise, which I don't blame him one bit for. "Yeah, I get it she's a bit of a handful. But just ignore her and we can deal with her drunken judgment later, yes? Come on, I'm sure there's some icepacks in the freezer." I pace into her kitchen, opening up the top part of the fridge and immediately searching it for an ice pack of some sort. Finally finding a frostbitten block covered in condensation and icicles, I pull it out and silently hiss at the chill nipping at my flesh. But I deal with it and immediately grab a dish towel, wrapping it around the icepack and holding it up for my fellow sophomore to see. "Come on, at least in my room you won't have to hear MTV." I chuckle as I lead him into the room I am still adapting to myself.

"My bed is right there." I spoke shyly, pointing at my faded blue mattress.

"Kinky." Zig replied, his eyebrows rising suggestively.

"Watch it Novak," I accuse, pointing a playful finger at him, "Or I will have you out of here without an ice pack." The boy before me began to chuckle, breaking out the first official smile that I haven't seen in forever; the little beam that made his adorable dimples stand out along with those sweet green eyes that twinkled in amusement- oh god, snap the hell out of it, Maya. "So are you going to lie down?" I ask, my fingers now peaking at my mattress again.

He nods graciously, walking towards my bed and falling forward onto his knees; switching his lower half around and scooting up so his back was pressed against my wall, Zig gestured for me to walk towards him. I scrambled forward and sat down next to him, "So uh…" I trail off, handing Zig the ice pack, "Care to explain what I overheard?"

"No." Zig snapped, holding the cold cloth to his lip sloppily, causing more blood to accumulate in the area. I couldn't handle it; the way he bluntly cut off the subject. And the way that he couldn't handle mere treatment, which just so proved that he constantly had to poorly heal himself. "Here, you're doing it all wrong." I muttered, outstretching my hand and snatching the pack from him, holding the cold solid to his lip delicately.

Patting at the spot softly, I felt his busted lip tensed under the soft touch. "So does Tori know?" I ask, deciding to break the silence. Zig furrowed his brow in confusion, and I start to elaborate on what I mean, "That your dad, or whoever that man was, treats you like a punching bag on a basis which judging by the many 'skateboarding injuries' you sported last year is often."

He shook his head and directly said, "No she doesn't and I'd like to keep it that way. So remember, if you tell her or anybody for that matter, I won't be the only one having to deal with Tori's pressure." His voice is lightly muffled due to the fabric guarding half of the area of his lips. I quirked an eyebrow, "Excuse me?".

"Yeah," Zig started, "I am dating Tori Santamaria, after all… One slip of what you saw to anybody and your reputation will be entirely ruined."

As the washcloth continues to dab up the blood, my mouth gapes in surprise, "Threatening me while I give you hospitality? That's cold shit, Novak."

Zig begins to lightly shrug, "Just defending myself." I open my mouth to speak, but simply close it. He had a point; if anybody knew about my living arrangements, of who I lived with and why I have to live with them, I'd probably have to live with eternal social embarrassment. "There," I mumble, pulling away the ice pack and setting it on the sheets below me. "All clean."

A small grin tugged at my lips, and Zig returned it momentarily before letting it fall for stretching the wound probably made the pain worse. His hand found its way to his lips, and he touched it slightly before pulling away and looking at the tips of his fingers. "No blood." He murmured before looking up at me, "Thanks." The graciousness in his voice was a varied difference from the snapping made earlier, "No problem."

I look around the room that now belongs to me, the pale walls around us seemed to widen, giving us more room to breathe and enough room to not make myself feel more trapped than I already was. "So you're returning to Degrassi this year, I presume?" I asked Zig, turning to face him again. His focus seems to be diverted as well, staring into space blankly, but he instantly snapped out of it and looked at me like a deer in the headlights for a moment. "What?" He questions bluntly before putting two and two together and begins to stutter out an answer, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm going back. Might even graduate at Degrassi if we end up staying here forever. What about you, are you coming back for sophomore year?" He retorts, as to carry on the conversation.

I nod in response, "Yep. It's the closest high school here, so it would only make sense that I'd attend." A small sigh leaves my lips; of course, I'm not all that excited to return this year without a sister, without a bright view on the world, and without parents that are alive. "Good." Zig's voice cut me out of my growing thoughts, "I mean, I'll need a nurse for when I get into more accidents at school." A small blush hit my cheeks, causing me to look down at my sheets in hope he wouldn't notice. "What about Tori?" I ask, "I mean, she's bound to probably be a little less antsy than me at doing this."

"Nah." Zig shrugged mindlessly, "I mean she never really pays attention to my injuries. She thinks that it's from skateboarding, and things in my life that doesn't have anything to do with her seems to be insignificant." He leaned his head back and looked up at my ceiling. "Oh?" I question, raising an eyebrow, "She seems so caring around you."

"Well, being the great actress that she is, it's very difficult to understand how completely average and mean she could be." His words spill out like overflowed water, and I begin to wonder if he has told anybody this before- or if anybody was willing to listen. "Sounds like Tori can be pretty upsetting." I say, trying to sound surprised.

"Yeah, not that you'd understand though; I mean, from what she's told me, she's been the sweetest angel in the world to you." He mumbles, closing his eyes in frustration.

I open my mouth to speak, to explain that Tori's view on what she called "nice" was far from what you'd consider it in a normal perspective. "I guess I don't… but if she makes you so upset, why are you two together?"

"I don't know, honestly." Zig sighs, "I mean, sometimes I even ask myself that question, but I can never really find a reason to leave her no matter how sad I feel when I'm around her. And yeah, it's like she has me under her grip- one way or another, she'll end up breaking me. Not that she's any different from my dad, I can't escape either of them."

Once he finishes speaking, it becomes impossible for me to question or say any more. Did he seriously just admit this much to me in a span of five minutes? "Have you spoken to anybody about this?"

"Nope." He answers simply, "And if you speak to somebody about this, I'll deny it. And that would be followed by our friendship being eternally over."

"Oh, so we're friends now?" I tease, crossing my arms over my chest. He grins in response, his head still tossed back against my wall, "What else would you call us?" I curl my lips into a grin to challenge his own, "Nurse and patient."

Slight chuckling begins to emit from his lips and the contagiousness of the noise causes me to join him in laughter. As if in an instant, I turn around to eye my watch. "It's already eight at night." I murmur, "Would your dad take you back in?"

Zig looks at me stupidly, as if his glance is focused on only me, but his attention on anything other than my voice. "Oh," he drawls after a few more seconds of sheer quiet, "Y-yeah, I think I could sneak my way back in. He's probably already passed out by now." Zig admits, standing up quickly, leaving me feeling slightly alone on my mattress.

"Okay." I mumble, getting up and wiping my palms which were wet from the condensation of the ice block on my jeans. "I'll walk you out." My feet rush and cause me to quickly speed out of my room, in an odd determination to beat Zig to the door. I look behind me, glancing to see if Zig is even out of my room yet, and decide that I have a few seconds to wander into the kitchen to put the ice pack back. After doing so and closing the freezer, I walk towards the door that was only a few feet away, twisting the knob and opening it up. Since the screen door guarding it is now loosely guarding the wooden one, all it took was a simply kick with my right foot for it to swing open. I inch away from the door and look to my right, only to see that Zig was merely waiting for me to open the door for him quietly. "Thanks for taking care of me… Nurse Matlin." He said coolly, "Tell your parents I said thanks for them raising such a talented little one." His eyes looked down at me, and for a moment I feel like a pedestrian staring up at a giant skyscraper. Only feeling more miniscule and insignificant as well as inferior as his glance towers over me entirely. And though I feel entirely overpowered by the mesmerizing hazel, my heart begins to crack at the seams at the mention of my parents.

He doesn't know, he probably won't be aware until the moment I decide to tell him- or if the word ever gets out and students end up letting it slip, which I hope wouldn't be the latter. Hence, why I do not blame him; but on a level of humanity, it hurts like fuck. "Yeah," I nod, feeling tears swarm at the bay of my contacts, "I'll see you at school on Monday." My voice is on the verge of cracking, but I stay like stone until he flashes me that adorable smile of his and heads out the door. My head peeks around the doorframe, and I watch him walk a few steps into his apartment through the metal texture of the rusting screen door. For a moment, I simply gander at his slammed shut door, listening in the silence of beeping horns and barking dogs for any source of screaming or trigger of another punching session, but as I hear none I assure myself all is well for tonight. I pull the outer door inward and I intend on closing the second, but instead I'm interrupted by the clearing of a throat.

I spin on one heel, turning to see who it is, completely forgetting that Abilene was even in here. There she is, glitter lotion apparent on her legs and arms, wearing a black short skirt and a long sleeved top that was much too low cut for any taste of mine. "I'll be back in the morning." She says happily, her dark pink lips curling into a smile. I instantly move out of her way and she struts towards the door, her heels clicking on the floor. "There's stuff in the fridge, I think. If not, I promise to come back with Burger King or something anyways." I open my mouth to speak up, to tell her that she doesn't have to bother- though I highly doubt she'll be sober enough to even remember that I live at her house or to stop by a fast food joint, but I close it as she quickly walks out the door, slamming it behind her.

And there I was, completely alone in the quiet, rundown apartment room. Strange enough, it was nice to be alone. Without the company of Abilene, who I already felt the need to distance myself from. And Zig, who really was just being nice to me for the sake of me not telling anybody about what I heard; I was much better off alone from now on. I sighed deeply, suddenly moving from the spot and walking in the direction of my room, deciding that if I wanted to get a move on in rehabilitating my sleep schedule, getting out of these clothes that smelled like smoke and taking a shower was the best call. I opened one of my new drawers, looking down at my seemingly warm clothes with a droopy expression. My hands wandered into the wooden compartment, pulling out a t-shirt speckled in polka dots, though I sometimes let it qualify as a dress giving that it trailed down so far until the point where the bottom hem rested above my knees. That and a pair of underwear was all I gathered before closing the drawer quietly and heading out of my room.

I approach the bathroom, feeling my pace get slower with each step, and at last I open the door slowly then flip the light switch. The sight in front of me was simple; a marble white toilet and bathtub to match. Along with this was a floor decorated in aqua blue tile; I breathe out lightly, kicking off my shoes and socks, and placing my clothes on the toilet seat. The moment my bare feet meet the tile, I hiss at the sensation. It's freezing… completely icy. I suddenly feel my legs shake in reaction to the cold, and I peek over the rim of the tub to look down at the floor of the shower. It's cleaner than I thought… not as much grime as I expected; there no grime at all in fact. But I could see the residue of washed off makeup along with strands of hair. But hey, even Katie's shower had remains of red cherry blonde hair too; so I saw nothing to get mad about.

Reaching across the almost pearly surface, I twist the hot water knob, a squeaky noise emitting from it as I did so. And automatically, hot water begins to pour from the showerhead. I step away momentarily, pulling my shirt over my head as well as undoing the button of my pants and pulling them down. Following this was my underwear and bra, tossed onto the floor carelessly. My hand finds its way to the back of my head and quickly pulls out the rubber band, causing my blonde hair to fall, the kinky curls and wavy strands straddling over the crook of my neck and shoulder joints, trailing down the area right below my heart's range. I bite on my bottom lip, stepping into the shower and running my hands through my hair as to comb it out before getting it wet.

The moment the hot water hits my skin, I react in an instant, gasping at the scorching new temperature in contrast to the freezing state I was once in. Only a few moments passed until my body felt completely numb; wet hair mopped over my skin and I tentatively glanced at the clothing resting on the top of the toilet. Running shampoo through my hair, scrubbing at my scalp harshly, I try ferociously hard to look away from that polka dotted fabric. I remembered as clear as day the night of that carnival mom and dad took me and Katie to when I was no older than nine. It was so strange, looking back on memories that can never continue anymore. But regardless, the pictures of that night, with dad and mom holding hands on the ferris wheel while Katie and I play games at a booth nearby- which she won, of course. Afterwards, to cure up my pouty self, they bought me cotton candy and that horrid rainbow dotted shirt.

"But dad," the little whiny childish voice in my head rings, "It's hideous Can't Katie just wear it for the rest of the night instead?" A small smile hits my mouth like the shower water running down my face, causing me to shut my eyes as to not let it sting me. "Now Maya, you know what they say: losers of the game get the foolish name." No, my father wasn't calling me a literal loser, but using me in a metaphor- as in "Katie beats you at everything, so you need to wear that with pride too." At least that's how I comprehended it. All my life, I've been compared to Katie- by my classmates, our teachers in elementary, and even my parents. Everybody. The only difference between them and my parents was that I loved them in spite of it.

Before I know it, Zig's voice is ringing in my head, "Tell your parents I said thanks." Oh, how I wish that I could, Novak. I wish that I could- I wish that I could say anything to them; at least say that I love them. But it's much too late for any of that, if it wasn't already made obvious.

You know those automatic doors at superstores? You know how they function? The mere sense of human body heat triggers the doors to slide open. Well, if you can wrap your mind around that concept, you can understand how quick it was for the thought of the sound of my father's laugh when he teased me caused tears to instantly start bursting at the surface of my eyes, burning my sight and staining my cheeks, causing them to get more hot than they already had been made by the steaming water. For a moment, I restrain myself, but then realize… I'm completely alone. Nobody is here. Nobody is home.

Home… what exactly can I consider home now anyways? I don't have a home; I am welcome nowhere. And at those thoughts I choke out a sob, my chest instantly filling with relief from the pressure of holding it in; I take a few slippery steps back until my behind hits the cold tile wall. Like those automatic doors, I begin to slide; sliding south until my butt hits the bottom. Still sobbing frantically and crying harder than I ever have in months. It's uncontrollable right now, everything I do as of tonight. It felt amazing to be in such pain; to simply let it all go. I was lost in the tiny sea of cheap makeup remains, fallen hair, and smoking water, and it has never felt so good to drown.

Minutes, hours, years, decades, it all could have passed in my moments of breaking. And I probably wouldn't have noticed until I rested the back of my head against the wall and breathed in cold air shakily, my throat clenching out of reflex, and sniffling away any other tears at bay. The water that was once so burning had grown ice cold, and once I wiped my eyes and stood up, feeling so wobbly that I could have collapsed on the floor, I finished off my shower quickly and got dressed into the clothes that were so unhealthy to wear in this sensitive state.

I can still smell the cotton candy and the strawberry scented teddy bear mom gave to me and Katie to share that night, and it makes my heart hurt a million times more than it had before. For the first time since my arrival, I'm grateful my room is so close. That mattress in the corner I thought I'd grow accustomed to hate had never looked so comforting…. Without even bothering to straighten up the remainder of the stuff I brought here, I collapse onto my bed in the curve and fall into an instant sleep.

Even after brushing my teeth a few minutes prior to this moment, the taste of smoke in my mouth was still very apparent. And I'm sure that a similar situation in which the taste of blood is attacking the taste buds of a fifteen year old boy in the next room is happening right now, as I am hopeful that he's sleeping. Sleeping is better than getting hit; and napping on this springy mattress in a dark blue lighted room, with the internal feeling of hitting rock bottom, instead of crying alone in a shower over parents who I'll never see again. I'll wake up to the last days of summer tomorrow, and in the same polka dotted shirt-dress, more alone than ever.

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Okay, that was… difficult to finish. And I'm so so sorry I didn't update for an eternity. But now that school is officially over, and I have eternal time, I hope updates will be more frequent. Thank you so much for your cooperation and patience!

I'll work on the next chapter and hopefully get it done quicksilver fast.

NOTE: Reviews, reviews, reviews! Like any author here, I feast on those suckers. Those things really boost my writer's confidence, and make my writing better as well as faster.

Once again, thank you!