Disclaimer: Victorious, the show, belongs not to me nor any of my relatives.
You've never been in love before.
Maybe you're still not. But she gives you all the symptoms. She makes your hands sweat, she makes your heart ache, she makes your mouth dry and she makes your knees weak. She makes you a million problems that can't be cured. You don't mind though. You tell yourself you don't mind. All you need is love.
Sometimes you wish she'd notice you.
You tell yourself that's silly. Of course she notices you! She talks to you every day. A snide comment here, a sharp remark there. Sometimes there's even a soft, low phrase, shot out the side of her mouth. Could you pass me that? You like those best of all, because they're directed just to you, just for you. They're asking something of you. Just you.
You wish she'd notice you like you noticed her. She's so hard to miss. She's a billboard, lit up with lights, colours bright and shining. She's a star, shooting across the sky. She's fireworks and sunsets and thunder. She's everything beautiful and wonderful and maybe that's why you think it's love. It has to be love. What else could it be?
You're alone most of the time. When you're home. You stay up in your room. Sometimes you make videos. Sometimes you sing. Mostly you sit there and draw. All you're sketching is hearts, lately, pressed so hard to the paper they tear through. You cut your hearts out. You're collecting them, red and pink and even purple. You're not sure why, exactly. Maybe it's a count of how many times your heart has beaten for her, how many times she's sent your pulse racing. If that's what you're doing, you'll never have enough.
Tori doesn't call you so much anymore. You check your phone all the time. Sometimes when you see her update the Slap you get excited. It means she's on her phone. It means she could text you at any moment. You hold your phone extra tight then, as if you could squeeze the message out. She never does text you though. Sometimes you think you must've done something. Maybe when you slept over at her house last you walked in your sleep, or talked in your sleep, or did something that hurt her, too much for her to say. Or maybe she's just tired of you. You're just a toy, and people get bored with them after a while. Everyone else did. Once they figured out how you worked they set you down and walked away.
You wish Jade'd play with you. Pick you up and remark how shiny, how pretty you are. But you're a plush toy and Jade's into scissors. She'd only pick you up to cut you apart. You know that.
You'd let her cut you right in two.
You think about her a lot. Of course you do, you're in love with her. Maybe. You think. You think about the way she walks, how her hips sway with every step, how her jeans shift on her body, crinkle and fold with the movement. You think about the ways she talks, the way her lips move, how they shape each word so perfectly. You wonder sometimes how she doesn't cut herself on them, how she doesn't slice those pink lips open. Her words are razors, and her tongue is the strop they sharpen themselves on. She shaves you bare every day.
Sometimes you think about how she'd look without clothes. You don't think about it much though. Only at night, when you're curled up in bed with an ache between your legs. You're in love with her (maybe), but these thoughts don't come from your heart. They come from a place you try to pretend doesn't exist in the daylight. In the past you thought about boys like that. How they'd touch you, how they'd kiss you. How their hands would run over your body, tickle your skin and trace your bones. You don't think that way about Jade. It's you who's doing those things to her. Your hands have already planned it out. How she'd feel. Your tongue already knows how she'd taste. You're a puppet to your urges then, and it's all you can do to screw your eyes shut and try not to make a sound. You wash your hands three times afterwards. Always three times. It's supposed to be the charm.
You don't think you'd wash your hands if it was her. Not right away. You think you'd wait, just a little bit. Just to feel her on you.
Most nights you just think about cuddling her. You think about how your arm would drape over her waist, how your lips would press against her shoulder, how your legs would tuck up behind hers. Her fingers would entwine with yours, hold you in place over her stomach, and the smell of her hair, of her perfume would be your air. Sometimes if you concentrate hard enough, you can almost smell it.
You smelt it when she slept over last. She was in your room for days afterward. You could smell her in your pillow everytime you went to sleep, you could feel the ghost of her in your sheets, an invisible chalk outline you curled yourself around. But then your mother washed your sheets, and stole Jade away. Now you just smell lavender, and it's lonely.
You thought about cuddling her that night. You haven't told anyone that. Not that you've told anyone any of this. You have no one to tell, really. Tori's the only one who answers your texts, and her answers are growing shorter and shorter. Even if you could tell her, you still wouldn't. Your love is a photo she'd smudge with her fingerprints, and it wouldn't be yours anymore, it'd be a little bit hers too. It'd have her touch all over it. It'd bring it to life, make it huge and real. Your imagination keeps it small and rose-coloured. Something sweet and to be savoured. But if you did have someone to tell, that'd be something you'd hold back, that you thought of holding her.
You thought about slipping your arms around her, about pressing yourself to her so tight you could feel her bones. Every soft inch of skin, every heartbeat and breath she took. Your fingers itched with the need. But you'd laid there, still beside her, and it was enough to feel the warmth radiating from her, enough to know that she was in your bed. Her back had touched your arm. Sometimes if you lay down a pillow, it almost feels the same. But her back was warm and your pillow is cold. It's nothing like her.
You weren't always in love with her. Maybe you're still not. It doesn't feel right to say you love her without that other part. Because what if you don't? It feels wrong to say it absolutely, because she doesn't love you. It doesn't feel right to love someone who doesn't love you back. You know that kind of stuff can't be helped, but if you slip a maybe in, it makes you feel a little better. Like maybe she might maybe love you too maybe. If you use it enough, anything is possible.
When you first met Jade, you didn't love her. You've never loved anyone the first time you've met them. At least, anyone that wasn't four-legged. Love at first sight has never been a problem for you, because first sight isn't nearly enough to really see someone. You have to see them a few times, in different lighting, from different angles, when you're happy, when you're sad, when you're all mixed up and distracted. You have to really see them, and that takes time. Sometimes it takes a very long time.
You've finally seen Jade. Entirely and completely, and it's made your heart hiccup. Maybe love at first sight isn't a lie, because everytime you see her, it's like the first time all over again. Like your heart's loading, and Jade's clicking the refresh button before it can beat. She makes you feel like your body doesn't work, like it's a clockwork mechanism she's taken a spring out of. She reduces you to jerks and shivers. A heart that doesn't beat right, lungs that are too small, a stomach that can't stay still.
You have this grand fantasy sometimes. That she turns to you one day, and her eyes start to widen, and when she speaks it's with wonder, like she's only just seen you beside her. How did she never notice you? And then she-
No. You're watching a movie together, in your room, the two of you on your bed. Jade's hand finds yours, and she doesn't say a word. You can hear her breathing, slowly and steadily, and her scent is in your lungs and in your brain. As the movie plays, she slowly shifts closer to you, until her hip is flush against yours and you're too scared to even look at her. She makes you look, and her lips part and she says-
No. Jade knocks at your door, make-up smeared, tears running down her cheeks. She's devastated. She needs you to fix her, to make her forget what she's upset about. You never ask what it is, and it doesn't matter. She needs you, and you make her laugh and you make her smile and when she hugs you, you feel her heart thunder against you, and as she pulls away she pauses, and her lips are so close to yours, if only she'd-
No. You kiss her in the girl's bathroom, coffee on her lips-
No. She kisses you one night when you're-
No. The two of you-
No.
She doesn't love you. You know that.
The fantasies make your heart soar, but once they're over it comes crashing back to earth, spattered into paste by the hard, hard ground. You know she doesn't love you. It's when you forget it that it hurts. Every scenario you put her in doesn't fit her right. The words aren't hers, the smiles, the kisses. They're just you with her mask on. What you want to hear, what you want to do. You already know you can't be happy with yourself. Sometimes you think no one else could be, either.
You send a message to Tori one night, thumb tapping away on your touchscreen.
Tori, are we friends?
She never replies, and you don't bother to bring it up at school the next day. It's another one of those photographs that get smudged. You don't want anyone else to touch it, to know that you took that photo.
Maybe you don't love Jade. Sometimes you think that you don't. You probably don't.
It's easier for you to say that you do, even if it's not true.
If you don't love her, then what do you have?
An empty heart, an empty bed. An empty inbox. You're a windchime without any wind, and you're using Jade to make you chime. Without her, you're nothing.
You're nothing but an exhaled breath.
If you fill yourself with her, you don't have to think so much about you. About everyone that leaves. About Tori, and the message she never answered. The calls she never makes. If you spend your time drawing hearts, at least you're not writing words, hurt and broken letters to yourself asking something you can't answer. Why?
Maybe that's why you'll never tell her. Not because you know she doesn't love you (she doesn't), but because if you know for sure, that love will dissipate, will leak away and leave you dry. What will you do then? Even you can't stand yourself. She gives you something to do when you're home alone, she gives you something to think about before you sleep. She makes it so you can sleep, just a little bit easier. She floods your heart and fills your brain. She stops you from going insane.
Jade's the only one who stills answers your texts. You try not to message her too often. She might not pick you up and play with you, but at least she hasn't put you on a shelf. At least she dusts you off every so often. It's better if she doesn't know the thoughts in your head. It's better that she thinks you don't have any. You don't want her to go away too.
After all, you're in love with her.
Maybe.
All you need is love.
/
A/N: Basically, this fic is just some feelings I had to drain from me, and my keyboard was the shunt.
Reviews are always appreciated.