Have you ever looked in a mirror?

Well, of course you have. Duh. Everyone has looked in a mirror at some time or another.

The point is that your reflection, the face you see looking back at you, well, that isn't really your face. You see yourself backwards, flipped and opposite the way everyone else sees you.

Or maybe you see yourself just fine, and it's the rest of the world who has is wrong.

There's some kind of lesson in there somewhere. The way you see yourself, that's not the way everyone else sees you, and not just in the physical sense. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you'll never look at yourself the same way others look at you. You might get close. You might try to flip your reflection in your mind. But you'll never really grasp what others see, what they think, what they feel. It'll always be a mystery, your reflection. Always.

"Do you feel like you weren't given a choice?"

Eli rolled his eyes, wondering how much Dr. Alger was paid to act as a human parrot. Bianca looked pissed, her hands gripping the arms of her wheelchair, and he couldn't help but think of how hot she would be if she wasn't crippled.

She was pretty, of course. She was beautiful. But you couldn't call a girl in a wheelchair hot, no matter how stereotypical that seemed. You could think to yourself, Wow, I bet she was really hot before. Before she tried to kill herself and ended up stuck to the chair for the foreseeable future. It was a horrible label, a horrible stereotype, but that was the way the world was. Horrible.

Eli glanced down at his hand, his fingers loosely intertwined with Clare's, and then up to the girl's face. She was staring straight at Bianca, seeming to be deep in thought.

Well, maybe only parts of the world were horrible.

"I made a fucking choice," Bianca snarled. "This wasn't it."

They were allowed to use any words they wanted, of course, here in group therapy. They were allowed to say whatever the hell they wanted. Nothing was off-limits. But it felt like a trick, like Dr. Alger would report directly to their parents or guardians or whoever, even though she was legally bound not to. Bianca didn't seem to have that problem, though.

"You wish that you could go backwards, do it all over again?" Dr. Alger asked.

Most of the time, Dr. Alger got what they were saying. She wasn't as clueless as all the other assholes they had to put up with.

But she had her moments, of course.

Bianca laughed. "Yeah. Like backwards was some amazing place to be."

"What does that mean?" Dr. Alger asked innocently.

Bianca settled back into her wheelchair, closing her eyes and broadcasting the words she didn't need to say. I'm done talking.

Oh, damn it. That meant that Dr. Alger would move on to someone else who hadn't shared their story. Probably either Eli or Clare, maybe Drew but not likely. She always seemed to pinpoint on Eli; it was like, in her mind, his dark clothing and sarcastic attitude were cries for help. She didn't seem to realize that he was like that before Julia died.

Julia. Even now, months after that night, her name sent a small twinge of pain through his chest. It shouldn't, not anymore. After all, he had Clare now.

He shouldn't be there, in that suicide support group. Neither should Clare. Not anymore.

They were better now.

Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely true.

Eli knew that maybe he was depending on Clare a little too much, but hey, she was certainly leaning on him even more. Not that that was a bad thing; he wanted to help her, wanted to be there for her.

He was just… well, he was scared. Scared of himself. Scared of her, of that fragile fifteen-year-old girl. He was scared of being hurt again.

He shouldn't be. He should have gotten over that long ago. It had been months.

Right?

000

"No. No, I can't do this."

"Clare, come on." Darcy nudged her shoulder pointedly, giving her the I'm your older sister and you'll do what I say because it's for your own good look that Clare had always hated when she was a little kid.

Well, some things never change.

"You can do this," Darcy continued. "You have to do this. Remember what you told me, Clare? You told me that you couldn't let him get away with what he did, that you couldn't let him win. Isn't that what you said? Clare, look, I know it's hard. I… I remember telling them… what happened to me. But it'll be okay, I promise."

"You said… that she might take it hard. That she might… make some mistakes."

Darcy nodded slowly. "She might, but… just remember that she loves you. You're her daughter, and it might take a… a little while for her to… accept what happened, but she will, I promise. She'll be there for you and she'll want you to press charges against him for what he did to you." Anger crept into Darcy's voice as she talked about him. They usually steered away from saying his name, like it was some sort of taboo.

"I can't," Clare repeated, but she knew she'd lost the fight. Darcy would make sure that she told Helen, whether Clare liked it or not.

"Clare."

"Just… how do I do this? How… how do I say something like this?" Clare was already starting to falling apart, her hands shaking and her voice trembling. "How did you?"

"I just… I sat her and Dad down and told them the truth. I told them that I snuck out to the party and… and everything that happened… afterwards," Darcy explained. "It's hard, Clare. I know it's hard to talk about. But you already told Eli, and you told me. What's one more time?"

It's not going to be just one more time. If… if I actually go to… to trial or something, I'll have to tell them what happened again and again and again and…

"I can't."

"Clare…" Darcy sighed. "Like I said. You have to. No more secrets, okay, Clare Bear?"

No more secrets. Beneath her sleeves, the new scars burned.

"Okay." Her voice was small and quiet, but Clare was surprised that there was a voice at all.

"Do you want me to go get her?" Darcy offered.

"Y-yes, please," Clare whispered.

She closed her eyes, counted to ten. And again. And again.

One, two, three…

She could hear Darcy's footsteps, leaving the room. A door opened, closed, and Darcy's voice rose and fell as she spoke quietly.

Four, five, six…

She bit her lip, trying to breathe deeply and evenly. It wasn't a big deal. It wasn't a big deal.

Hell, who was she kidding?

She was about to tell her mother that her ex-boyfriend… that he hurt her, in more ways than one, and that drove her to try to kill herself. If that wasn't a big fucking deal, she didn't know what was.

Seven, eight, nine, ten…

Darcy was speaking again, her voice raised a little, but Clare didn't want to know what she was saying.

One, two, three…

She remembered Eli's eyes when he told her that what happened to her wasn't her fault, that she was amazing and incredible and beautiful. He thought that she was beautiful. It didn't matter what anyone else thought but Eli.

Her fingers brushed over her scars through the fabric of her shirt, which didn't help the shaking.

Four, five, six…

"Clare? Darcy said you wanted to talk to me?"

Helen was standing in front of her, tapping her foot impatiently. Darcy had stayed in the other room; Clare wasn't sure if she was grateful or worried that she was alone with her mother, given the situation.

"Yeah," Clare mumbled, and then repeated louder, "Yeah, I do."

"What about?"

Clare wanted to chicken out, to tell her mother that it was nothing, but she knew that if she didn't get it out now, she'd never gather the courage to tell her. She tried to think of the words to say, any words that would explain what had happened.

Helen sighed heavily. "Clare, can this wait? I'm very busy."

No. No, this can't wait.

For the first few weeks after Clare had attempted suicide, her mother had been hovering over her almost obsessively, always checking up on her and making sure that everything was okay. Then, for reasons Clare couldn't comprehend, she'd kind of… switched off. Clare hadn't noticed at first, but now Helen was acting like nothing had ever happened. Clare could have understood if that was just her mother's way of dealing with it, but she'd realized that Helen preferred to not deal with it, that she wanted everything back to normal as soon as possible. She stopped asking about Clare's therapy or how school was going. It was like she didn't even care.

Well… of course she cared. Clare was her daughter, after all.

"No. No, Mom, this is important," Clare snapped.

"Don't use that tone with me, young lady."

"Sorry," she whispered, biting back the surge of anger. Where did that come from? For the past… hell, for the past year now, ever since she'd met Mark, her emotions had just been completely out of control. "But… Mom, I swear that this is important. Really, really important. I need to talk to you about this right now."

Helen offered Clare a smile that almost passed off as real. "Okay, honey. What do you want to talk about?"

"You… you know how I dated… Mark a little while ago, right?"

Helen nodded, her smile changing into one of complete honesty. "Mark Fitzgerald? He's a nice boy, isn't he? Why did you two break up again?"

"Because he… Mom, he hurt me. He… he used to hit me and…" A choked sob burst past her lips, shaking her entire body. "Mom I… I didn't want to, I swear I d-didn't want to…"

"You… Clare, oh God, Clare, you had sex with him?"

"No!" Clare nearly shouted. "No, I didn't… I didn't want to," she repeated, biting her lip to hold back another sob. "Please… please believe me. I didn't…"

"Oh, God, I can't. I can't go through this again." Helen shook her head, refusing to even look at her daughter. "I can't deal with this, not again…"

"This isn't about you."

Darcy was standing in the doorway, her eyes narrowed.

"Stay out of this," Helen snapped. "This isn't about you, either."

"No, you're right. This is about Clare. This is about the fact that her boyfriend abused- physically and sexually, no matter how much you want to deny it- her and you're acting like it's the end of the world for you. You can't deal with this? How the hell do you think she feels? Look, Mom, I don't give a damn whether you don't want to deal with this or not. You're going to have to."

Helen looked back and forth between Darcy and Clare, and then she sighed heavily. "Fine. Fine. What else?"

What else?

Clare couldn't speak. Her mouth was hanging open slightly, her eyes wide.

"Clare's pressing charges," Darcy announced.

"Fine," Helen repeated. Her eyes were dark, stormy, and she looked… pissed off, like Clare and Darcy were just wasting her time. "Do whatever the hell you want."

000

Clare was quieter than she usually was, and that was saying a lot. She was picking at her food; Eli guessed that she'd eaten about three bites the entire time they'd been there.

"Is everything okay?" he ventured, hoping that she wouldn't freeze him out again.

"I told my mom," she mumbled, so quietly Eli barely heard her.

"What?"

"I told my mom what happened. With… with Mark. I told her that I… didn't want to do… that with him, and I don't think she believed me," Clare admitted, staring straight down at her hands. "Darcy told her that I'm p-pressing charges, and… she told me to do whatever the hell I wanted. It was like she didn't… like she didn't care."

"Clare, I'm sure that's not true."

"Yeah, me too." She didn't sound so sure.

"Just give her time," Eli advised. "She'll come around."

"That's what Darcy said. More or less." She clasped her hands together, intertwined her fingers, and then pulled them apart and hid them underneath the table. She glanced up, meeting his eyes for the first time since they'd sat down. "Eli… where exactly are we?"

"Um… at the Dot?" Eli offered.

"No, I mean… us. Are we… are we together or something?"

"Well… do you want to be?"

Clare nodded slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. But I'm not sure if I'm… ready for a relationship right now."

"We could take it slow."

"Are you asking me out, Goldsworthy?"

"Guess I am, Edwards."

She nodded again. "Okay. Taking it slow sounds… good."

Yeah. Yeah, it did sound good.

He hoped to the God he didn't believe in that he could handle it.

000

A/N: If you didn't read Six Feet From the Edge, this might be a little confusing.

Anyways, I figured that I already took it slow in the prequel… why not get straight to the good stuff?

I have no idea how often this story will be updated. It probably will be less than Six Feet From the Edge was, because I've had less time to write lately, but it'll be good, I promise.

Hope you like it!

I do not own Degrassi.