A/N: Wow. This is weird. My usual characterization of Beck is something of a laidback jackass, but now I've seemed to turn him into somebody surprisingly weak. Other than that, I'm somewhat proud of this. There's a LOT of OCs, but only one plays a major role, and it's not that nice of a role anyway. And there is no definite pairing in the end, just friendship. Anyway, I really enjoy the characters Victorious has presented us with, and I feel like Beck's gotten the least development so far, so I went ahead and made him into something of a romantic trainwreck. Oh, and despite what it may seme, this is actually an optimistic fic. Enjoy.
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Beck knows he's never met a girl he didn't like.
.
He sits on the sand with his legs in the water, the waves lapping against his snug gray skinny jeans and combat boots.
He's back in Los Angeles for a while. And now, he's visiting the beach of many summers ago, the beach where they were trapped in his RV and he didn't really know most of his friends that well. Like how he barely knows most of them now.
He observes his feet like they've both turned into copies of Mona Lisa. His feet are skinny, but big, and the weird style of boots he has to buy gives his feet a cartoonish, elongated look. He cocks his head and moves his feet, his fingers sinking into the sand. He took up wearing the boots in case of a zombie apocalypse, because he's just that cool. He's Mellow Beck, Lazy Beck, Laidback Beck, Great Actor Beck, Hot Beck, Sexy Beck, and he's just. That. Cool.
.
His first girlfriend's name was Serah, because her parents were that type that liked to make their kids special in the only way that close-minded people know how: spelling her name uniquely. They were two years old when the two met, but Beck doesn't remember anything at all. He only knows through pictures that she was a short and chubby things, with cute blue eyes, a button nose, and blonde ringlets. To him, she looked a little like a female Cupid (or Eros). His parents told him that the two were inseparable: they would teeter around with their fingers hooked, they would nap together, and their parents would buy them matching outfits. Of course, it was clear from the beginning that Serah was Beck's total opposite; not only did the girl have completely different coloring (Beck's hair was even darker when he was younger) and pale porcelain doll skin, she was shy and timid and didn't speak even a hint of a word to most people. This was in contrast to Beck, though, who could dance before he could walk, sing before he could talk, and act before he could lie.
Their courtship lasted one glorious month, until one day Serah got upset and screamed "No kissy! No huggy! No!" at him and stormed away. Well, she stormed away the best a toddler could, and ended up falling. Poor little Beck just stared at the building blocks in front of him.
He was honestly heartbroken.
.
He's soaking wet and a little cold, watching the waves eat his legs. He's stopped analyzing his feet, and the realization that he'll have to leave is sinking in as the sun sinks into the horizon. He sighs, throws his head back, and wants to scream at the world. But Mellow Beck's lips are still stitched shut.
His second girlfriend was a year later, when they were both three. Her name was Ashlynn, and she looked a lot more like Beck than Serah did, with her perfectly tanned skin and straight black hair always pulled back into a perfect, pink-bowed ponytail. Beck has always been unusually tall, but Ashlynn was taller. He can remember her; she was like perfection embodied in a three-year-old, with her quiet little mouth and perfect little lips and eyes that sunk just a little bit too far back in her head.
And, of course, she broke up with Beck when she found someone she liked better (his name was Eric, and they even acted out a play wedding) and Beck was heartbroken again. But now, the older Beck can remember Ashlynn, and he remembers her as being the creepy little girl from down the street.
.
It's completely dark now, but the pollution fights away most of the stars. The scattered ones left look somber, and Beck wants to dissolve into stardust and float up to the clouds to join the lonesome stars. But he stops wanting it too quickly because it sounds like the type of wish someone else, who now has the title of Long Lost in front of Friend, would make.
He pulls his legs out of the water, and finds they're almost too heavy to walk. He makes his way up the sand. He's ridiculously waterlogged, and the chain hanging from his pocket makes a weird sound against wet denim. His ass is sandy, so he brushes it off, and the people left on the beach stare at him as he staggers up. He's not well-known enough to become recognized in most public places yet, so people are just seeing him as Random Sexy Guy on the Beach.
.
His third girlfriend was shortly after Ashlynn, and like the others, was the daughter of his parent's friends. This one had wavy orange hair, pale skin, freckles, and green eyes, and therefore, was totally unlike anything Beck had ever seen before. Her name was Gina, and Beck followed her around, fascinated by the way she would arrange her toys and how many freckles there were on her face.
Gina took pity on him, eventually, and gave him a polite kiss on the cheek, and Beck was just so happy. It took longer for little Beck to woo Gina than it took for her to dump him because he had too many toys and wouldn't let her have all of them.
Beck, actually, took this one in stride.
.
A girl approaches him, asks for his name. There's something oddly familiar in her features, which is enough to intrigue Beck right off the bat. So he gives her his name, and for some reason, she doesn't return hers. But they have a pleasant conversation about the weather, and Beck mentions his waterlogged jeans and turns to leave, assuming that was enough of an explanation.
"No. Please. Stay," the familiar girl says, her hand gripping his arm.
So, he stays. They make their way back to the girl's blanket, Beck sitting in the sand so he wouldn't get her blanket wet. It all feels very nostalgic, for something he can't quite place his finger on.
.
Because of Gina and Ashlynn's combined disappointment, Beck held off from the opposite sex for a little. He developed his amazing acting, singing, and dancing skills by imitating the openings to all of his favorite children's televisions shows. Because of this, and his parent's ooh and awing and shuffling him into acting/singing/dancing lessons with the best children's coaches that existed at that point, he sort of lost his interest in the opposite sex.
Until, about a month into Kindergarten, his old, mean teacher placed him and a girl in Time Out for not napping. They spent the thirty-five minutes of agony whispering back and forth fervently. And by the end of the day, they were a couple.
Now, this girl was truly precious; her name was Katie, and she had straight and silky red hair and blue eyes and was paled and freckled just like Gina was. But Beck liked Katie more. At naptime, they would sleep next to each other, and during coloring time, they would share their crayons. Everyone told them how cute they were, until Katie's mommy caught them playing Doctor and Katie moved away.
Looking back, Beck realized that Katie didn't move away because of the game; that was ridiculous. It was just a silly coincidence.
But that didn't stop little Beck from being crushed (again).
.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I've been rude," the mysterious girl says, almost as soon as they sit down.
"Just a little," Beck nods in agreement, his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around his knees. He doesn't know why he did it, because it's just going to make him more wet.
"My name is Rain," the girl says, smiling and extending a hand. Beck extends a hand as well and shook it. He notices at this point, that the girl-excuse him, Rain-is wearing a white sundress that looks excellent against her dark complexion.
"That's cool, Rain," Beck smiles his signature smile, and by the look on Rain's face, Beck knows exactly what's going to go down.
.
He had a slew of Kindergarten romances: Quin, Nancy, Lindsay, Candice, Petunia, and Lily. None of them were really memorable (but all were special in their own ways) until the end of first grade, where a girl from another class approached him on the playground and slapped him in the face before placing a kiss in the exact same spot she slapped him.
And he was awestruck. He wanted to know more about this girl. He followed her around and watched her do the same to all the other boys; some cried, some slapped back, and one awkward kid tried to kiss her, but she slapped him again and stormed off. Little Beck was fascinated by this powerful seven-year-old, and when she finished her tirade, he approached her.
He asked why she slapped him.
She said he was cute.
He asked if she would like to be his girlfriend.
She said yes.
Her name was Jessica Andrews, and she was perfect in every little way. She wore her curly brown hair up in a ponytail tied with a pink ribbon, wore pink skirts and white Polo shirts, and pink Disney Princess sneakers that lit up. She held Beck's hand everywhere they went, and she called Beck 'cute' and Beck called her 'pretty' and everybody was jealous of them and they broke up when the summer rolled around and Beck really, really missed her throughout the summer, so much that he named the little baby bird his parents got for him Jessica. And when the bird flew away, Beck was sad all over again. So sad he swore off girls for his second grade year, breaking a lot of little hearts unknowingly.
.
"Why don't you take off your jeans? You're shivering."
"Trying to get me out of my pants already, Rain?"
"You weren't speaking with that British accent before, were you?"
"No. I'm an actor. I've perfected all different kinds of accents. This is my Australian."
"That is utterly fascinating."
"Hmm. I guess it is."
.
In third gray, he played the lead role in a play called Seasons, as King Summer. A blonde-haired girl played Queen Winter, a brown-haired boy played Prince Fall, and a red-haired girl played Princess Spring. Beck did an outstanding job, as expected, and his high-pitched vocals were amazing during the song where they teach you about how rain falls. That song was also when Beck caught the cutie playing his wife's eyes in a way he instantly recognized as not fake.
The play was around Valentine's Day, so in a few days, Beck had one Queen Winter's heart. Her name was Stephanie, and she was much shorter than him (but everyone was dwarfed by Beck, for he was tall and was held as the cutest boy in the school) and she had blonde hair and always wore dresses to school. He held her hand on the playground and kissed her behind the trees and people teased them but he didn't care.
But she did, and she dumped him, because she didn't want to be teased anymore. Stephanie remained single for the rest of elementary school, while Beck found another girl right after her (Yvonne, the one with the really long brown hair and slight accent that Beck could never place) and he always felt really, really bad about that. Really.
.
Rain leans over to him, practically falling off the blanket. His eyebrows raise and his face contorts itself into a smirk, but his body stays the same. The hunger in Rain's eyes only confirms his suspicions.
"So you're an actor, huh?" She whispers to him. She's very close to his face, and her breath smells like cool mint gum. Beck does find it slightly arousing.
It's very dark out, and they're practically alone.
"Yes," he answers back in a Spanish accent, unraveling his body and stretching his wet legs in front of him. "Musicals are my favorite."
"Inspiring," Rain says, very close to his face, but then she leans back. "Very ... inspiring."
Beck notices the shadow of a hot pink bikini beneath her almost see-through sundress. "I think it's my calling," he whispers, back in his normal voice. He smiles his quirky smile, somewhat satirical and somewhat truthful.
.
Veronica, Kathryn, and Yvonne were the three girls of Third Grade. He doesn't count Stephanie any more, because she refused to be seen with him, and that's not really a couple. That's a forbidden romances, and those weren't ever up his alley.
But fourth grade only had one girl, and she was pretty special. Her name was Olivia, and she had blonde hair and gray eyes and she was tall like him but not as tall as him. She wore baggy clothing but told the funniest jokes. Oftentimes, they were mistaken for a sixth grade couple.
They began dating in October, and even went trick-or-treating together (they were both pirates) and broke it off in May, when Olivia decided that she really didn't need a boyfriend but Beck was very nice, thank him for his time with her, and Beck just sighed and smiled as she walked away. And he was lonely, his heart was broken, but he just let her keep on walking.
.
"Tell me, Beck," Rain whispers, crossing her legs in front of her, "what do you dream about doing?"
"Acting. Acting all my life," Beck states, drawing his eyes to the stars for this very second, before snapping his eyes back to the beauty that is Rain.
"Hmm. I never would've guessed," Rain laughs. She rubs her thighs, and smirks when she follows Beck's eyes.
"What about you, Rain? Do you dream like the rest of us?"
"I wanted to become a psychic," Rain says, the circles she was rubbing on her thighs slowing, and her eyes becoming foggy, "but that is something you're born with, and alas, I wasn't born with the gift. I study astronomy now, and I think I just float on through space. . . empty . . ."
"I could fill you up," Beck blurts out.
Rain smirks again, as if she set him up.
Beck's starting to think this is all sounding like a badly directed porno, but fuck, here he is. There's nothing else he could be doing with this time. And he really wants to figure out who Rain reminds him of.
.
Then, there was Andy, the girl who cursed and who wore all black and high-top Converse and failed a grade and talked about smoking when she got in Middle School. Andy was in fifth grade, and she was a fellow lover of the stage; she even played the female leading role beside Beck in their school's annual play. Andy, too, was a long relationship, from September to April, and Beck considered her his first kiss because she was his first openmouthed kiss. She encouraged him to follow his dreams, because she told him that dreams are the most important things on the planet. She told Beck that he looked best in darker colors and he followed her advice more than he thought he ever would.
They broke up when Beck found out Andy was letting Seth Johnson (who was an eighth grader!) feel her up and kiss her on the weekends. And Beck was so devastated that the only thing he could think of was to grab the nearest girl and kiss her, to try and make Andy jealous, but it failed. He was slapped by Random Girl (her name was Rhonda and she was very pretty, by the way) and Andy just looked at him in disgust and moved on.
Beck thinks he never really got over her.
.
"Oh, Beck, don't be embarrassed. Freudian slips happen, but ... I do think it would be best if you took off your jeans." Rain uncrosses her legs and rocks back.
Inwardly, Beck wants to rub his temples and run as far as he can. Outwardly, he has decided to just get this thing over with.
"I do, too," Beck says, feeling enlightened, "so why don't I take you back to where I came from?"
There was Melanie, Alexandra, Daphne, and Janet in sixth grade.
There was Elaine and Nadia in seventh grade, and he got to feel Elaine and Nadia up, and Nadia gave something back to him in return.
But then there was someone in eighth grade who completely tilted his world.
.
They talk on the drive back to his RV, which (as he suspected) Rain found totally cool. And everything falls into place.
At first, they just stand in the middle of it and Rain slowly looks around, commenting on everything from the now-empty fish tank with discarded scripts pilling up in it to the old typewriter that nobody ever uses sitting next to his laptop. She starts getting into some rant at the star formation she can see through the open blinds, and Beck walks forward, grabs her face, and kisses her.
His wet jeans fall to the floor shortly afterward and his legs feel cold and sticky but Rain doesn't seem to mind. His mind kind of travels to other places, like that one summer or that one day that was magical.
Afterwards, Beck lays in bed with Rain's naked body falling to sleep and wrapped in his arms, thinking about how glad he was that he wasn't a big star yet, because he really couldn't deal with the paparazzi getting into all of his affairs.
.
Jade.
She reminded him a lot of Andy, actually, with her fast-talking, angry ways. It took him a lot to woo her, but their mutual acceptance into Hollywood Arts really sealed the deal. It made Jade respect him, and finally admit her angry attraction that she felt for him.
And they fell together perfectly, because a masochist and a sadist had to be a match made in Heaven. Jade was Beck's first on a lot of things, and Beck was Jade's first everything. They flew through the years, became Hollywood Arts's It couple, and Jade made it clear that Beck was her territory (he has the bite marks to prove it).
They were glorious, actually. They flew a kite in a really big field after Jade's uncle's funeral, and once the kite dropped so did they, rolling around in the glass and laughing and Beck's fingers kept holding onto the kite strings the whole time. They danced together on ballroom floors, because Jade was surprisingly fond of them, and Beck would twirl her and watch the skirts of her long, black dresses billow out. Jade made fun of him when he got a pretty nice deal doing a line of shampoo commercials, but then she would kiss his lips and tell him his hair smelled like strawberries and she kind of didn't mind that. They would spend long nights in the RV, talking about nothing and everything, laughing, kissing, and Beck was the only person who was really able to coax a smile out of Jade.
But things didn't fly smoothly forever. Especially when a girl named Victoria Vega appeared, and had Beck questioning the things he'd been keeping hidden.
.
In the morning, Rain wakes Beck up by moving out of his arms. He watches her get dressed (she even pulls on the bikini she'd been wearing yesterday) through sleepy eyes.
When she finishes dressing herself, she walks over to Beck and kisses his forehead, then sits next to him on the bed. "I have to tell you something," she whispers, and Beck sits upright.
He crosses his fingers and prays that she didn't have an STD.
.
The first time they broke up, it was only for a handful of days, but he did 'tap that sweet blonde's ass', as
André
put it. The sweet blonde's ass in question was that of Ashley Vaughn, whom he kind of doesn't have any regrets about. She was fantastic.
But, he quickly left her behind when Jade came rolling back around, and Ashley's boyfriend, Lance, made up with her as well.
.
"Well, first of all, I have a boyfriend," Rain begins, staring into her lap where her hands are folded.
Beck slumps back down on the bed, his body making a thudding noise. He's not sure if he's relieved, for the lack of STDs, or mad and guilty. At himself. At Rain for cheating, because he hates cheaters. Guilty for not asking if she was single first. What type of bastard doesn't act that question?
.
The second time they broke up, which was for a month, Beck had a very hot, very passionate relationship with the way older ambulance woman who hit on him. Her name was Laura King, and even though Beck knew she was only fucking him to make herself feel younger, he was only fucking her to make himself feel better.
Of course, the relationship ended with Tori slapping him and telling him to get over this and go back to Jade. Also, Laura King (he used to make fun of her because her name sounded like a gender-bent version of Larry King) had somehow gained a husband between asking Beck if he was in college yet and deciding to have an affair with him. And the husband found out. And beat Beck up.
But Jade was there to kiss away the bruises (while jamming her thumbs against other ones simultaneously) and tell him that, no, it wasn't his fault, it was Laura's, that bitch, that bitch.
It became a mantra.
It wasn't his fault.
.
"And second of all, my name is not Rain."
Beck notices from down there that you can see the black tie with the hot-pink beads on the end of her bathing suit on her neck, above the sundress's straps. Not like he gives a damn. Just that he notices.
"Then what is your name?" Beck asks, in a sigh of defeat.
"Ashlynn," Rain sighs.
Beck is quiet.
It all makes sense now. The weird nostalgia attached to her. Why he noticed that her bathing suit was hot pink, because she used to tie her hair up in bows that color. The familiar tint in her long, straight, jet-black hair and her eyes. The memory of, even as toddlers, long eyelashes and hands as cold as doctor's flying towards him.
He finally rubs his temples and wants to just become part of the mattress somehow.
.
Between the second and third break-up, Jade hooked him on marijuana. It somehow fit perfectly with Mellow Beck, and they would spend ages in his RV getting high and having random, shitty discussions.
This put his acting career in jeopardy, and in fact, he almost flunked. Which ironically led to the third break-up, with Jade screaming at him that she would not date somebody who's flunking. In fact, Jade got over the whole pot thing pretty quickly. Beck dwelled on it.
.
"I made the whole Rain thing up," Ashlynn explains, throwing her head back in laughing. When she looses the mystery in her voice, she seems rather normal. "I couldn't care less about astronomy. In fact, I don't really have any dreams or anything."
Beck's quiet. But Beck doesn't want to be quiet. Beck wants to sit up and slug Ashlynn across the face, actually, for lying to him. But Beck's nicer than that, and Beck knows how to keep emotions under control. So he just stares at the ceiling of his RV.
.
During the third break up, which lasts about two weeks, he fucked a girl who dyed her hair bright blue and is named Valerie Kit a few times. She reminded him a lot of Cat, and it really did come as a shock to Beck when he realized that was why he was attracted to the blue-haired girl in the first place.
But Jade stole him back, and when Jade wanted something, Jade got it.
Oh, and he quit weed for her, too.
.
"And my boyfriend's name is Eric," Ashlynn says, finally, sighing. "I saw you on the beach and remembered who you were. Premarital closure, I guess. Wanted to see if I was missing out on anything by being with one guy my whole life. We're getting married next month. You're welcome to come-"
Beck rotates his head and looks at her, then cuts her off. "Please, just leave."
And so Ashlynn does, and it's heartbreak all over.
.
The fourth break up lasts six months, and during the dramatic break-up scene, Jade told Beck to try therapy. So Beck tried therapy.
The therapist told him a lot of things.
He told him that Beck's shitty relationship with his mother was the reason why he wanted so many girls. Told him that he was looking for someone of the opposite sex to care for him, to love him, but he was confusing parental love with romantic love and that's why all of his relationships were doomed.
The therapist told him that he needs to let himself open up and be cared for like he subconsciously wanted, instead of trying to fix everyone else's lives. The therapist told him that his obsession with acting, or as he put it, "living other people's lives" was not healthy.
Beck quit the therapy then. He could buy a lot of stuff the middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair who was nothing but a stereotypical shrink told him, but he couldn't buy that acting was unhealthy.
Acting was what Beck lived for.
It couldn't be unhealthy.
It wasn't unhealthy, either. Many mentally sound people did it. The shrink wrote this off by saying that, because Beck wasn't mentally sound, it was unhealthy.
So Beck said, fuck you, and walked out.
.
When Ashlynn is long gone, Beck decides to visit the beach again. He pulls on the exact same thing he wore yesterday (and the two days before that) and trudges back down to his truck.
The jeans feel grainy against his skin and he groans while he drives, downing some aspirin with some non-mountain stream water because he has a really, really big headache.
But the moment he rolls out on the truck, he puts on a happy face. The moment his boots hit the sand, he starts acting like Random Sexy Guy on the Beach again.
He's a motherfucking actor, after all.
.
The fifth break up was the last.
The final.
.
He goes back to the beach, because in between films, that's the only place he really knows where to go. The beach. It reminds him of the time he was with the old Hollywood Arts gang here, making out with Jade beneath the water and whatnot. But it also reminds him of how fabulous the girls looked, and how he found his way to boning all the females that were on that RV.
Beck thinks, he's never found a girl he didn't like.
Trina was easy. She loved any guy that loved her, so that's where Beck went when he couldn't get over Jade. Trina fucked Beck's brains out, and for that, he will always thank her; but really, they weren't equals, and he couldn't do it. She was too whiny, too immature, and only a decent actress. She got bored with him, he guessed, which was just fine with him.
Then there was Cat. He and Cat lasted a long, long time, but it was Cat that broke up with him (when did he ever break up with a girl for his own reasons? Never.) and that was a long story that made him want to take a long bath in water that came from mountain streams, while clawing his eyes out. Cat had had something of a mental breakdown because nobody took her seriously, and Beck was a major contributor to that, he guesses. Because, after all, he never took her small parts in movies she got seriously, never really listened to her ideas. He never realized that she wanted to make movies, not be in them. And he guesses it's his fault that she ended up curling herself into a ball in the middle of a scene for a movie, crying and crying and crying, until she began to scream and they had to have doctors lead her away.
Then there was Tori.
And that was the one that he's never truly gotten over.
.
"It was just a drunken mistake, Beck . . . you know I have a boyfriend."
"Come on, Tori. I love you."
"You don't love me!"
"But you love me, right?"
"I had a crush on you in the tenth day. That isn't the equivalent of love, Beck! I just thought you were hot and wanted everything that Jade had. And you were awesome. But I have a boyfriend, now, and he's awesome-er and hotter and I didn't have to steal him from a psycho bitch."
"Who's the other guy, Tori?"
". . . André."
"He didn't tell me."
"Because you don't talk to him! You don't listen to him!"
"I listen to him!"
"You don't listen to anybody!"
.
He's shocked to find Tori at the beach, crying her eyes out. She's sitting like he was sitting yesterday, in the waves and fully clothed, but with her knees drawn to her chest. He walks over to her, because he has telepathy that tells him she needs him right now.
Words from the therapist flood into his mind, about how he needs to stop caring for people. But he did, right? He is the reason why Cat broke down. He's the reason why Andre and Tori never really had a proper relationship. He's the reason for a lot of shitty things that he never even attempted to fix. So that should count for something. And all he knows is that Tori's hair is really long and hitting the water, and that there's mascara running down her face, and that he wants to pull off his jacket and wrap it around her shoulders. Maybe romantically, maybe platonically. He doesn't know-he hasn't seen her in months.
"Tori? It's Beck. I know you haven't seen me for a while. But you know me, I can't resist a girl who needs a little help," he says, as he sits down beside her and wraps his arms around her. He wants to smile but he fights it off because after Ashlynn, after every girl in his life, he's decided that maybe, charming the pants off of someone isn't the right way to try to establish a relationship, for real. Whatever type of relationship that may be.
Tori looks at him. "André and I broke up."
"Tell me no more."
He sits down next to her and throws an arm around her.
They watch the waves roll out for a while in silence, and ten Tori begins to tell him the story against his request. "Well, we weren't even dating for a month when you and me did that thing. So I guess André forgave me. But, I don't know, after a year of us being together he started to get, like, really possessive of me. He started bringing up you, like, all the time. So we broke up."
Beck nods, squeezing her shoulders. "Sorry," he says, not looking at her, but at the ocean. "Andre really loved you."
"Beck, you haven't changed, have you?" Tori sighs. There's some sort of maturity in her voice that Beck never recognized before. "Stop being sorry. Get over yourself. Not everything's your fault."
"I don't think everything's my fault," Beck shoots back, simply. "All the girls broke up with me. I loved them all." It sounds like the truth to him.
Tori, apparently, thinks a little bit differently. "God, Beck, you know I love you. But not like a boyfriend. But I have to say, you have a thing for train wrecks. Just, just stop it. You can't fix everything. I mean, you fucked a lot of things up. Like, Cat's never going to like you again."
"How do you know that?"
"Because she told me!" Tori shouts, but she's not looking at him either. "She specifically said, 'I'm never going to like Beck again!' and burst into tears!"
Now, that comes as a shock to Beck. He's never met someone who didn't like him. Just like he's never met a girl who he didn't like. That is definitely a shock. "Well, I guess I'm sorry. Yeah."
"Also, you didn't love every girl. Some of them were just stupid mutual crushes. You're not that tragic."
Beck chalks up Tori's bitchiness to suffering through a break-up, but it makes a lot of sense, what she's saying. More sense than it did when the therapist coated it with metaphors and stupid psycho jargon.
"You know, I don't want to have sex with you," Beck states, finally looking at Tori.
Tori actually laughs. "Okay?"
"No, I mean, I don't want to have sex with you." Beck wonders why she doesn't understand what he's saying. He's saying it in a plain voice, no accent, no language other than English.
"Beck, I know! I don't want to have sex with you either!"
"Cool. Let's go back to being friends."
"That sounds good."
He squeezes her shoulder again.
Platonically.
.
He scores the lead role in a big movie the next week, surprisingly. Tori and him throw a little party and invite their old gang of fiends, minus Cat and André. Beck and Jade are a teensy bit awkward, but they make pleasant conversation-well, as pleasant as Jade can be. She tells him that she's just been doing a lot of acting stuff, and that she enjoys her life. At one point in their conversation, she even throws head back and cackles, saying, "You know how we used to be in love? Yeah, lets never do that again."
Robbie is there, and tells about how he took Robbie into the comedy business. Describes himself as the next Jeff Dunham, and says that that's what critics actually call him. They mock him, of course, but nobody denies that Robbie and Rex still make a good duo, and that Robbie isn't as bad at life as he used to be.
Trina tags along with Tori, and tells everyone about how she's a model, now. Everyone already knows this, though, because Trina's face is plastered across many billboards. It's scary.
Sinjin somehow makes his way into the party as well. He, like Robbie, doesn't suck that much at life anymore, either. He's now one of the most highly respected inventors of his time, dealing mostly with the evolution of 3D projects. He tells them, excitedly, about plans to make a fully 3D movie. And then gives an hour-long lecture on what a "fully 3D movie" is to nobody in particular, but everyone somewhat listens.
And when people finish filing out, Beck stays with Tori to help her clean up, since the party was at her house.
"I'm proud of you, Beck," Tori says, wiping down the counters.
"I'm pretty proud of myself," he back, smiling his quirky smile.