ONESHOT! CLARE'S ALL GROWN UP. SHE'S SUCCESSFUL, HAS A BOYFRIEND, AND LOVING HER LIFE. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN OLD FRIEND COMES BACK, THOUGH? CAN SHE HANDLE IT? REVIEW AND CHECK OUT MY OTHER STORIES!

Here Today

I woke up to get ready for work, shaking my cinnamon colored curls out of my face. I took my morning shower, got dressed, fixed my hair and makeup, and had a quick breakfast before hopping into my car and heading to work. I turned on the radio and "Love Like Woe" by The Ready Set came on. This used to be one of my favorite songs when I was in high school. Memories of Degrassi came flooding back. Some good, some not so good. But that was the past and this is the present. I hummed to the song, surprised I still remembered the lyrics.

I'm an editor at "Words of Gold Publishing Company." I love every minute of it. After all, my English teacher back at Degrassi always thought I would have a career in writing. The memories came back again. My friends, my classes, my English partner. I tried to get that last one out of my head. Stop it, Clare, I thought.

I pulled into my usual parking spot and walked into my office.

"Any calls this morning, Janet," I asked my receptionist.

"Just your 2 o'clock confirming their appointment for today."

"Thank you," I said, taking a sip of my coffee and sitting at my desk. The morning consisted of nothing more than the usual: looking through people's stories, most of them pretty good. This was always one of the hardest parts of my job. I always had to decide which stories were good enough to send to my boss, and which ones would have to be rejected. I always hated sending those rejection letters to young authors who just wanted to be discovered.

My lunch break finally came and I decided I would go somewhere new for a change. I pulled up to "The DOT," the usual hang out spot for the neighborhood kids. I remember when I was one of them. How I would come here with all of my old friends, the laughs we shared, the dates I had with...

Clare, you're doing it again. Stop it, I thought again. I stepped into the restaurant and ordered a salad and Diet Coke. The familiar smell of greasy junk food wafted from the back kitchen. The loud roar of teenagers talking surrounded the entire place. I ate my food, paid, and made my way back to work. My afternoon appointments would be coming in soon. My first was my 2 o'clock.

This person, who surprisingly had never given me a name, had sent me many of his stories before I finally left him a voicemail requesting he come into the office for a meeting. I was very excited to meet him. There was something different in the way he wrote his stories. There was a vibe of mystery and darkness in his words. Just like...

CLARE! I thought. I knew had to get him out of my mind, but I didn't know if I would ever be able to. It's hard to forget about your first true love. Especially if you can't even remember why you broke up in the first place. I sighed. The intercom buzzed and Janet informed me that my 2 o'clock had arrived. I asked her to send him in and I stood up, ready to greet him.

The door opened, and a tall figure with dark brown hair and emerald green eyes walked in. He looked just like...no...it couldn't be. I gasped.

"Hey there, Blue Eyes," Eli Goldsworthy said.

~...~

I still stood there, too shocked to do anything but stare. He didn't say anything. He just took a step foward.

"Don't," I said. I didn't want him to move. I just needed a mintue to take the whole thing in. 8 years. I haven't seen him in 8 years, and now he was standing right there in front of me. This time I couldn't push the memories away. They were rushing into my brain too fast.

"W-What are you doing here," I asked. He still made me stutter like he used to.

"I-"

"No, I'll tell you what you're doing here. You're leaving, that's what you're doing," I said, cutting him off.

"But I-"

"Now!" I said. I didn't wanna yell or Janet might get the wrong idea.

"But Blue Eyes-"

"Don't call me that. I haven't been called that in years and I don't wanna be called that now!"

He didn't say anything else. He finally stormed out, leaving me standing in the middle of my office, mouth hanging wide open.

~...~

I left early that afternoon. I told Janet I wasn't feeling well. I drove home and slammed the front door shut. I slid down to the floor and buried my head in my knees. I cried until there were no more tears left in me. When I was done I changed into some sweats and watched TV on the couch.

My mind couldn't stay away from what happened. I thought back to all the goods time Eli and I used to have, before things went wrong. I remembered him chasing me around my house, grabbing me from behind and hugging me hard. I remembered his kisses, how comfortable his lips were when they touched mine. I remembered how I was in the audience for him at his graduation from Degrassi, watching and smiling as he received his diploma in his cap and gown. That day was probably one of the last good ones we ever had together.

I suddenly remembered why Eli and I had broken up.

I saw less of Eli when he went to college, maybe seeing him every other weekend or so. At first I would always get so excited to seem him. I would run to his car when he would pull up in front of my house and hug and kiss him like I hadn't seen him in years. Sometimes he would take me on dates. Other times we would go to each other's houses and just talk and hang out. He had become my best friend throughout our entire relationship.

As the weeks went by, I would notice that Eli would occasionally sneak off to the bathroom and not come out for at least 20 minutes. At first I didn't think it was a big deal. Then one day, he went in again and I heard him sniffling in there. Then he came out wiping his nose. Part of me wished he just had a cold. Part of me thought something else; and the second thought was confirmed when he walked out and a wrapper fell out of his coat pocket.

It turned out Eli had started doing drugs at college. His roommates had convinced him to try it, and he soon became addicted. He showed all the signs of being an addict. He would deny anything was wrong or that he had a problem. He assured me he could stop whenever he wanted. He told me he only did it because he was so stressed with school. We got into a huge argument about how he had to stop before the addiction got any worse.

He continually told me he didn't have to stop. He even tried to get me to try it. He knew my parents had been finallizing their divorce at the time. He knew I was stressed out too, especially dealing with my senior year of high school. He thought I could use it to "help" me. I'd rejected both it and him, though. I told him to leave.

"But I love you, Clare," he had said.

"You obviously don't if you're willing to risk your life like this," I had said.

I gave him an ultimatum: either the drugs go or I go. He never answered me. He just walked out the door without another word. That was the last I saw of Elijah Goldsworthy. I had finished my senior year and had been offered a scholarship to Smithdale University. After I finished college, I moved back to Toronto and was offered the job at "Words of Gold Publishing Company."

I kept in touch with Alli and Adam, but neither of them ever heard anything about Eli. For all I knew, he'd either dropped off the face of the earth, or was still stuck in his dorm room with his drugs. I tried to completely erase him from my mind, but it never worked. There was, and still is, a part of me that missed Eli. The real Eli. The one who didn't resort to drugs when things got bad.

~...~

It was around 7 and I had invited my boyfriend, Kyle over for dinner. We had just finished eating and we were watching a movie in the living room. The doorbell rang and I got up to see who it was. It was Eli, standing on my porch in the pouring rain, drenched with water. I invited him in so he wouldn't get any more wet, but then I remembered that Kyle was still there. It was too late to tell him to stay outside, because he was already in.

He looked over to the living room and saw Kyle sitting on the couch, looking our way.

"Kyle this is Eli," I said. "He's an old friend."

Kyle shook Eli's hand, but Eli looked less than enthusiastic about the meeting. Kyle decided to leave and he kissed me goodbye. I guess he didn't want to stick around for the awkward silence that would've come sooner or later.

"He seems nice," Eli said sarcastically. I just rolled my eyes.

"How'd you get my address," I asked.

"Your receptionist."

"Remind me to fire her later," I said. I can't believe Janet would just give it out like that. "What do you want," I asked annoyingly.

"I think you might have an idea," he said. I just stared. "Clare, you don't know how sorry I am about what happened all those years ago. But I need you to know that things have changed. I'm starting over and I want you to start with me."

"Eli, how can I be so sure that you're telling me the truth?"

"I've realized what I was doing wasn't solving anything. It actually just made everything worse. It made me lose you. About 2 months after you broke up with me, one of my roommates was really high on the stuff. He went out for a drive really late at night. He collided with another car and died instantly. At his funeral, I stared down at his coffin and realized that could've easily been me. I thought back to what you said and realized you were right all along. After that, I got help. I went to counseling and got rid of it all. I've been clean for 3 years now."

I kept staring at him, tears welling in my eyes. I just had one question for him.

"Why didn't you call? All that time you were done with the drugs and you never called. Why not?" He stared at me before answering.

"I came back when I started counseling. By then, you were already away at college and I didn't have your number. I lost all contact with Adam and Alli, so I couldn't ask them either. I even went to your mom's house, but she told me to leave and that you didn't need me coming back into your life."

I definately have to have a talk with her, I thought.

"Clare, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there for when you graduated Degrassi, or when you went off to college the way you were there for me. I'm sorry I left you like that. I'm sorry I even started the drugs in the first place. But none of that stuff matters now. What matters is that I'm here today, right now, ready to bring you back into my life...If you'll say yes."

The tears were flooding from my eyes and down my cheeks by now. Here he was, my one true love, finally coming back. We could go back to the way things were. But part of me wasn't too sure.

"Eli, I just don't know..."

He lunged for me and pulled me into his arms. His lips crashed against mine. My hands cupped around his face. I missed kissing him so much. He pulled away, but the tears were still falling. He just held me while I cried into his shoulder.

"I love you, Clare. I never stopped. You were on my mind every day. When things got too hard, or when I thought I was just gonna give up and continue doing the drugs, I saw your face. I saw your perfect skin and crystal blue eyes. I saw your pink lips telling me to keep going and that I could beat my addiction. That's what kept me clean all these years. It was you. It's always been you, Clare."

I looked into his eyes and kissed him again.

"I love you too, Eli. And you never missed any of those things. At graduation, or when I left for college, you were always there. All I thought about was you. And I prayed every day that you would get better and find me one day."

He smile and pulled me close. He pulled out something from his back pocket. It was a small ring box. A confused look spread across my face. He opened the box and held it in front of me.

"This ring is a promise, Clare. A promise to stand by you, every day, no matter what. A promise to never do anything stupid again. A promise to never leave you. A promise to be a strong and faithful husband."

Husband? He nodded his head.

"Clare Edwards, will you marry me," he asked. More tears. I nodded my head.

"Yes, Eli, of course."

He kissed me again, this time longer and more powerful. How I'd missed those lips over the past few years.

Things were finally back to normal.

"We might have a problem," Eli said when he pulled away. I stared at him confusingly. What could possibly be wrong? "What are we gonna about that boyfriend of your's?" He smirked the smirk I hadn't seen in what seemed like the longest time. I giggled and ignored the question while pulling him in for another kiss. He didn't seem to mind my answer.

The End

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