Glass bottles lined shelves which were a part of the aisles which were a part of the liquor store on Seventh Avenue. The stench of old alcohol and strong air freshener emitting from the employee bathroom was enough to turn away anyone with a sober mind. If that hadn't done the trick, then the decaying floor tiles and paint chip decorated walls. However, those of the inebriated persuasion were drawn to the store like a moth to a fluorescent light hanging on a ceiling. The cheap prices made them flock to the Liquor Company while attempting not to crumble onto the pavement after a horrid stumble. However, even with a stumble, they still managed to extract a bit of satisfaction from their ordeal because they got what they had wanted, got it cheaply, and were on their way in no time at all.

The sounds of soft Oldies music soaked every square foot of the store. It was in a moment like this that Emma almost questioned why she had agreed to go to a rotting liquor store. However, "almost" was a huge word in that sentence. Because at times, Emma almost wondered why she did the things she did. However, deep down, she had reasons scrawled about in her thoughts. She just didn't dig those reasons up and let them fly about. Life was easier when you just went through the motions and didn't actually take the time to question anything. If you were to question anything, then your whole plan of just going through the motions was completely torn into little bite size pieces. Then everything you knew would be altered. Everything would be turned upside down.

So for an easy prevention, you just didn't question anything. You just went along being a complete zombie. Emma was a zombie whose cause of death was addiction to heroin. It was her manual and she knew it word by word. To question the text of the manual would be a complete sin.

"And we have the party essentials," she heard a voice that belonged to the person next to her say which snapped her back into general reality. In general reality, she was a liquor store ornament standing next to another ornament by the name of Spinner. In general reality, she was slowly fucking him over and neither of them realized it. In general reality, she was the subject of gossip at school. In general reality, she was the epitome of everything her former self hated. However, Emma decided that the concept known as general reality needed to be aborted. Her reality where everything made complete sense needed to be installed. Her thoughts and her opinions were the only things that caused her to make sense of the world around her. Therefore, everything was completely and utterly perfect. Nothing needed to be altered because she was living in the epitome of perfection.

"Now it would be a novel idea to get the party essentials into the car before Sully has a coronary," Emma replied simply to Spinner whose arms were hugging the party essentials. They were Sully's children. If Sully didn't get his children within the next five minutes to bring to the party that was taking place in an hour or so, then he would be a pissed off father.

Her legs carried her to the counter beside Spinner where a woman drenched in cigarette smoke asked for identification. A card identifying Spinner as Jack Richards was placed diligently on the cold counter drunk on March air. Emma's eyes were nowhere near the scene unfolding at the counter. Instead, her line of vision was shaking hands with a bag of beef jerky hanging near the various other bags of junk food about fifty feet away from the counter. For a second, she almost was taken down a winding road of being a vegetarian. It was ridiculous, how afraid Emma was to confront any sort of memory from the past. A new leaf had turned over. For the longest time, she had been slowly drifting down the path that led her to her current day situation. It was unclear whether it started with the diagnosis that Snake's cancer had come back or when that last breath escaped his lips. Whatever moment it was, it was defining. Or maybe because the moment that was supposed to be defining couldn't be decided upon, it wasn't as defining as it was thought out to be.

A movie that Emma had seen when she was younger was fitting of her situation to a degree. There was a girl in it, a girl who was a princess. She was the prime example of royalty and was placed on a pedestal that someone would want to throw her off of. Everything about her animated but very loosely based on a real story life just screamed wonderful. She lived with her wonderful royal family in a wonderful palace and deeply missed her wonderful grandmother when she would go to France. However, everything crashed to the ground when a magical man whose desire was to push the wonderful family off of their pedestal was filled. The wonderful girl tried to escape the pandemonium with her wonderful grandma on a train but the girl slipped and fell to the unforgiving ground and hit her wonderful head. Before she knew it, she wasn't wonderful anymore. She didn't remember the eight years of being wonderful. She only knew of the now where she wasn't wonderful. Where she was scum and belittled by everyone.

And Emma didn't even remember the name of the girl and the name of her movie. Maybe the girl wasn't as high on a list of importance if Emma couldn't even remember her name. Maybe it was dose after dose of illicit drugs plunging into her system that was a gigantic eraser to her basin of knowledge. Maybe she just didn't care about anything any more. Everything was so trivial. Everything was so petty in the long run. Everything was just absolutely nothing. Everything was just dead, like she was.

"Dude, Emma," the voice trickled into her ear and allowed for her to soak general reality back in. It took her a moment to realize the fact that she had been transported outside into the brisk March air that was whirring around her. Her shoe encased feet were carrying her towards Sully's car while Spinner walked beside her. Through the glass shards on the car called windows, Emma could see that it was quite obvious that Sully hadn't been really cared about how long she and Spinner were gone in the grimy liquor store for. She glanced at her companion beside her and proceeded to roll her eyes.

"I can't believe he hasn't dumped her ass by now," Emma stated blandly. "This must be a new record for him."

Spinner laughed, "Dude, he hasn't dumped that chick he's been banging from the community college yet either. I think we have another Craig on our hands."

"Won't it be hilarious if they found out about the other," Emma chimed in a mischievous tone. The drama of Sully was something that was a form of sick amusement to Emma and Spinner. They had a backstage pass. They knew the workings of what was going on with him, considering he practically got on a loud speaker and boasted about his personal life. Everything with Sully was a game. It was a game that he would always win and then shove his winnings into everyone's faces. If everything had fallen apart and his two fuck buddies had discovered the existence of the other, Sully didn't care. He plastered on his twisted optimistic outlook and simply stated that he had fun while the whole game had lasted. Then, he would dust himself off and look for the dice in order to start his little game allover again.

"We'd need a big thing of popcorn," Spinner nodded before Emma glanced at him and saw the desire for the butter laced snack fill his eyes. It was obvious Spinner hadn't become a complete zombie just yet. He had glimmers of himself that hadn't been cracked yet. He was still real and pure, unlike Emma. Emma was tainted. The people that were important to her in her old life seemed to have picked up on this. Liberty would give her a belittling glance in the hallway and remind her of her scum position in the world. Toby was too wrapped up in his academic tizzies to attempt to put together the thousand piece puzzle. Manny had strayed over to the dark side with Paige, probably spending her days in Paige's room giggling and feeding her embarrassing tidbits about Emma. The only one who hadn't completely exiled her was JT.

If anyone needed to be awarded the most loyal friend award by the academy, it would have to be JT Yorke. He stuck to his friends like fly paper. Even though he brought out the yearning to strangle him in even the most tolerant person at times, he was loyal and would go to the ends of the earth to salvage a friendship he cherished dearly. Emma knew he was trying to do that with her at the moment. He'd try to reach out and scoop her into his hand so he could hold onto their twelve year friendship. However, Emma unintentionally swatted his hands away. She didn't want to be bothered with him. So now she was in the process of cutting away her last lifeline to the world she used to be a part of. A small part of her wanted to go back to that life. But she couldn't go back. She had left a simple mess behind there when she had just plain left. That mess was something she did not want to acknowledge at all. Besides, if she left this life to go back to the other one, then she'd have a mess to clean up in this life as well. Either way, she was tangled in a lose-lose situation. There was no winning. There was only the need for survival.

"It's about fucking time," a deep voice snapped impatiently. Emma almost asked why in the world he cared. He was probably too busy attempting to get laid in the front seat of his classy BMW to honestly care about alcohol. The cares of Sully consisted of himself, cocaine, and sex. He was a people pleasing jerk off who tried to come off as charismatic and somehow succeeded with those of the naïve and moronic persuasion. Due to the single shred of humanity Emma had left, she couldn't bare to see someone such as Courtney get completely screwed over by him. At the same time, she knew deep inside that it was Courtney's fault that she had somehow managed to get herself into her current situation. Again, another lose-lose situation. Story of Emma's life.

Spinner groaned, "Calm the hell down, we got your beloved alcohol which you already have a shit load of anyway."

Emma and Spinner slid into the backseat of the car after the alcohol was tentatively placed in the trunk of the car. Sully began rambling about what the point of buying a variety alcoholic was, which Emma tended to block out. His prick personality and mentality made her want to scream if she actually cared about anything pertaining to Sully unless it directly pertained to her. He was a minor character in the movie of her life, providing annoyance and comedy at the right moments. He was an unnecessary addition that came along with Spinner once Emma had acquired him. However, acquiring Spinner was practically the same as acquiring an allergy of some sorts.

It only took a short period of time for Spinner to reveal his true colors. He was everything that got underneath Emma's skin and made her cringe. His stupidity made her question the demise of the world. His complete arrogance made her want to scream. There were other countless qualities that Spinner possessed that made her want to stab something, preferably him. However, that was the beauty of Spinner. His horrid qualities while being cringe worthy was at the same time, incredibly endearing. They intoxicated Emma to the point where he no longer pissed her off to such a large extreme. Unbeknownst to him, he had an all access card to Emma. He could use her but she was weighed down by extreme misery that she got a sick satisfaction out of being used. He was the source of her perfection which he dealt to her. He could do whatever he wanted, but guilt would weigh her down. She always felt as though she owed him some sort of debt.

Her head rested against the window as the images of the outside world streamed past the car. A mixture of the hazy March atmosphere and buzzing traffic created one of those scenes that Emma just wanted to freeze so she could analyze every aspect of it. However, she was in a moving car with a suctioned hand on her sweat pant covered thigh. The urge bubbled inside her for her to pluck Spinner's grimy hand off before telling him to get the fuck away her from her. However, her stash was near complete depletion and she was in need of a fix right now. Her arms ached to be poked and prodded with a needle and her mind yearned for a rush of endorphins to paint her a picture of sanity. Sanity was something she desperately required at the moment.

A few moments later, the car pulled up at the sprawling and extravagant upper Suburban neighborhood home that belonged to Sully. At the moment, Emma was in no mood to be in a room with a bunch of idiots from school, the same place she tried to avoid as much as humanly possible. However, Emma did not want go back to her home. The minute she heard her mother utter something about a possible date next week, Emma knew she had to head for the hills. Something inside her ignited and screeched at her to just get out of the house before she ran herself into a heroin deficit. Right on cue, she had received a call from Spinner stating that Sully had gotten the bright idea of throwing a party. However, she didn't want to attend said party but she didn't want to go home and inject happiness to replace her anger and depression. So, she made a compromise with herself. She'd somehow manage to get a fix and then wander on back home...or maybe not. But no, she'd probably end up sticking around and being half of one huge hypocritical mess.

The four made their way into the spacious house as a brunette girl who appeared a tad younger than Sully exited at a lightning speed. Emma glanced at her for a minute, almost examining her, as she tried to somehow place a name with a face. After a few seconds of trying, she slowly realized that the name of the girl and her relationship with Sully wasn't of any importance to her at the moment.

"Marla, where the hell are you going," Sully asked the girl dryly. She rolled her eyes at him before her mouth cracked open to let out a response.

"Considering I'd rather die than be at your lame party which the cops will be thrilled coming to, I'm leaving," Marla stated in a rather bitchy tone in her high pitched voice. "And if I find anyone naked in my bed, mom and I are going to have a little chat."

The brunette girl practically sprinted down the sidewalk to a destination that was more ideal than a party with a bunch of drugged idiots. Emma glanced around confusedly. The moment of confrontation between the two siblings was abrupt and spontaneous, something that would stir up a sense of confusion in any person, even those of the non-drug addict persuasion. She heard Sully muttering something about his younger sister being a "dumb bitch" before hauling ass out of the foyer and into the interior of the extravagant house. Courtney trailed behind him like a lost puppy as Spinner went in a completely opposite direction. Emma leaned against the off-white wall before sliding down it until her body shook hands with the burgundy carpet. She didn't feel like moving. Moving had absolutely no purpose at this moment considering her seller of happiness was off doing god knows what. She clasped her hands together before wringing them rapidly. She needed to travel to another place, but obviously she couldn't do it alone. She was completely hopeless in that realm. She was a hopeless fuck that no one wanted to be redeemed. Redemption was a complete joke considering she didn't deserve it. It was like going to a food bank when you're filthy rich.

The sounds of booming obnoxious laughter trickled through her ears from another corner of the gigantic house. Emma glanced down at her hands as she continued wringing them, but now at a quicker pace. A few strands of greasy blonde hair crawled out of her ponytail and walked across her face as she continued to watch her withered hands closely. Then she clasped them together tightly as if she was protecting her palms from foreign invasion. The tips of her fingers turned a screaming rose color as the rest of her hands turned a dead white. Her head smashed against the wall as her eyes started to try to follow the noise pollution that was hiding. Emma didn't want to bask in her collective depression and silent anger any longer, so she made her way lethargically up the wooden staircase.

As she strolled idly around the upstairs department of the O'Sullivan household, she sensed the vacancy that was currently brewing inside of her. In a sober state of mind, the vacancy roared to be filled. The vacancy wasn't a vacancy at all though. It was a vast depression that had been created as everything started almost a year ago...when everything started to shatter completely...

Emma bit her lip, trying to stomp the thoughts, as if they were on fire. Thinking about the events of last March would be disastrous; she needed to cleanse her mind of them. With that, she slowly entered into Sully's bedroom in search of something that would be of great use to her at the moment and then slammed the door behind her.

The room had a stale quality to it. She assumed that it was due to the door probably being closed tight all of the time; the events unfolding behind it were something that she would have severely disapproved of back in the day. However, they barely fazed her in the least anymore. She had adopted that sinful routine and kept it snugly under her wing since. A part of the sinful routine was to cover your wounds so no one could detect them. And you could cover your wounds by any means necessary. With that in mind, Emma found herself scrounging through a wooden dresser drawer for a sock that contained a baggie that contained several joints full or marijuana. A dull sense of joy floated over her as she found the sock she had been searching for. She stuffed a few of the joints in her sweatshirt pockets before carelessly tossing the sock back into the dresser drawer and slamming it shut. She found a red lighter on the top of the dresser and adopted it has her own. But before the adoption papers went through, she took one of the joints and put the screaming orange flame to it before taking a hit.

The loud bass of the expensive living room stereo pulsated every wall of the O'Sullivan house as Emma plopped herself on Sully's unmade bed and blankly stared out the window. The blustery March winds kicked around naked tree branches like the feet of boys to soccer balls. It was such a serene setting with the exception of the thrashing and less than peaceful sounds of Nirvana in the background. Rape me, screamed Kurt Cobain repetitively. Like everything else, Emma put a barrier between herself and the early nineties grunge music in order to attempt to get herself at peace. However, that seemed impossible as the hollering of party goers aerated throughout. The marijuana toxins sank into her blood as she attempted to extract as much relaxation as she could from a single joint. Her only way of possibly rendering herself sane was to get stoned out of her mind. She was medicating herself and chasing all of her demons away. This was the only way she could function. However, she was barely functioning. Marijuana got beaten horribly by heroin in a duel. But she had some small thread to hold onto. There was some silver lining.

Time melted away quickly yet steadily. The only way Emma could measure it was by craning her neck to see the neon green numbers on the alarm clock placed on the nightstand. However, effort had escaped her as it fled the scene. Nirvana continued to pound in the background like the worst migraine headache a person ever experienced. She just wanted relaxation, was that so incredibly demanding of her? Not that she cared at all. The pot had kidnapped that away from her. Suddenly, her attention was diverted to the creaking of the door behind her. A series of coughs joined the smoke filtering through the room.

"I'm guessing this isn't the bathroom," the voice announced dryly masking embarrassment.

Emma laughed before replying, "Great job. The bathroom is...how the fuck am I supposed to know?" She managed to rotate her head to see who she was talking to through blood shoot and droopy eyes. She laughed bitterly as realization pounded her concerning who had discovered her in an exposed state.

"Okay, am I dreaming or are you really stoned off your ass," JT asked sarcastically before pausing for a moment. "And what I've known as reality has been completely screwed up."

Emma sent a blank stare in his direction. She couldn't even try to recall the last time JT and her even acknowledged the other. Their friendship seemed to be a fire that was slowly dying and that no one could start up again. Not that she honestly cared about that at the moment. She had trashed the friendship immensely and there was no going back, though he attempted to attempt to breathe life into it.

"Um, terrific," Emma replied insipidly. "You look like you've seen a ghost, JT." She laughed bitterly once again. Her marijuana laced mind interpreted this situation to be dripping with absolute hilarity. Logic and morals were part of a galaxy far away that Emma had once heard of but had completely forgotten about.

JT blatantly ignored the ghost comment before speaking up, "You know what? I really don't have to go to the bathroom anymore. I'm going...far away."

He then whirled around before making a break for the seemingly normal party stirring downstairs. For some reason that Emma's mind managed to churn out, she followed him like a dense lost uncoordinated puppy. As she trailed behind him, they passed various couples tentatively groping one another while grunge music continued to play in the background. Craig had probably switched David Bowie with Nirvana while Sully was too busy doing god knows what that didn't include protecting his precious and expensive stereo system. Her game of following JT around like she was magnetically attracted to him was interrupted by Spinner who was stoned, drunk, or strung out to the highest degree. Or it was a possible combination of the three.

"Where have youuuu been, man," Spinner managed to spit out even though it seemed to be the most difficult task known to mankind. He rested his drugged head on Emma's shoulder as she became incredibly disgusted by him but lacked the effort to shove his head off.

"Uh...not here," Emma replied with a raised eyebrow. "Where have you been?" She brought the joint she had carried with her to her lips again. Somehow the hope of drifting away from this mess permeated through her brain with the hit that she had taken.

"Here," Spinner stated as if it were the most obvious answer in the world because it was. Soon, their stimulant abusing philandering friends also known as Craig and Sully strolled over to them, not very deep in conversation. That wasn't a surprise considering Sully was coked out until next Tuesday and methamphetamine had seemed to induce something similar to ADD in Craig. Sully was rambling about how his stupid bitch of a girlfriend had dumped his ass publicly some time ago. Not that Emma gave him sympathy or anything because he didn't deserve it. However, she had grown immune to Sully constantly bitching about god knows what. She had grown immune to Craig spacing out at the drop of a hat. It was all part of the cycle of chaos that she was currently a part of. That she had painted for herself out of starvation for some kind of vice. The words thrown back and forth between the drugged trio of guys went around her and didn't hit her. She was in another place.

"Aw, Jim, look what we have here," a rather bitchy female voice popped into Emma's ears. "It's a meeting of Skanky Losers Anonymous."

"Upchuck, why don't you do us a favor and go take a leaping jump off my roof," Sully suggested in his usual bastardly cocaine intoxicated tone. Emma managed to crane her head and was unpleasantly greeted with Paige Michalchuk and Jimmy Brooks, who looked annoyed with Paige at the moment. As did probably anyone else she dragged along with her like her own personal rag doll.

Jimmy spoke up in a tone thatresembled that ofan annoyed father trying to get small children to stop bickering. "Guys, quit it. C'mon, Paige, let's go."

"Dude, are you guys here...together," Spinner asked as he made a whispy hand gesture symbolizing togetherness. He laughed. "Dude! What about...Hazel?" Obviously not hanging around Jimmy for sometime resulted in Spinner not being able to remember the name of Jimmy's girlfriend. If he still had one that is.

"Ha, make sure Hazel doesn't find out, Brooks," Craig piped in. "Or you'll be in a heap of shit." Jimmy raised an eyebrow in confusion. Obviously he was not accustomed to hanging out with people who were constantly drugged out of their minds.

"Sorry to uh, ruin this little moment but Jim and I need to go unless we want to catch your stupidity," Paige snapped before attempting to drag the basketball player behind her. He rolled his eyes before he accepted his fate as being Paige's toy for the evening. He was probably telling Paige off at this point, saying not to bother with them. How nice it must be, to have someone as caring as Jimmy Brooks as your friend, boyfriend, or fuck buddy. To have someone who didn't use you for money or for sex. To have someone that was probably the only shred of sanity left in the pits of hell known as Degrassi Community School.

Sully made the idiotic decision of shouting, "Aw, now Brooks can go have fun shacking up the rape victim."

Almost as fast as a flash of a camera, Jimmy whirled around and started stalking towards Sully. Now Paige was being a stray alley cat and following briskly after Jimmy. Before anyone knew it, Jimmy started pummeling Sully. He had transformed into one giant fist that would paint bruises and draw blood from various parts on Sully's body. The shred of normalcy had turned into a shred of normalcy in need of anger management classes. Paige shrieked and tried to get them to stop. She shrieked and attempted to persuade but her yells were unheard over the sounds of flesh beating flesh. Spinner and Craig became bystanders to the event as Emma walked away from it. In the distance, they were more likely to be mistaken for beer chugging pot bellied football patrons rather than teenage drug addicts. A mismatched orchestra of fighting, shrieking, and cheering formed as Emma continued to walk away from fiasco. It was then that she found herself against the wall she had started against earlier that night. However, this time, she wasn't alone.

"Swell company you keep, Em," she heard JT say to her. "Real winners you picked." He patted her should before departing towards the kitchen. She glanced at Jimmy walking away from the mess he had probably thought he had created. He was probably worn down my guilt. In actuality, it was Emma who had unintentionally created such a warped mess. She had gotten involved in this whole scheme that Sully and Spinner were already a part of. She wasn't so sure about Craig. But still, her entrance had created a ripple effect. She had made such an effect on everything. That was illustrated to her as Paige and Jimmy walked by her as Jimmy held his nose and muttered something.

She then glanced over at Sully who was barking something at Spinner and Craig. What swell company she did keep.

And what a mess she had made.