There's a boy and a girl and perhaps they should have met before but they didn't.

.

She's sitting on a bench at the park, still a bit drowsy after her first chemotherapy session and very aware that she looks like a pedophilic creeper, just staring at strangers' children like that.

Normally she wouldn't be able to stand little kids, what with their squeaky voices, sticky fingers and enough naivety to make her gag, but today she wants to observe them for a bit and take in the normalcy of their pudgy bodies darting around the playground like marbles in that game Cat likes so much.

Images of bulging eyes and bald heads of skinny children had followed her home from her hospital. They just need to be purged from her memory, and then she'll go home.

So that's how she ends up at the park to catch sight of a boy from school in the field beside the big sandbox. He's playing with a little blonde girl who shows off her wobbly cartwheels while a yapping puppy runs in circles around them. (She's thinking that there's few things she hates more than an off leash dog when it comes bounding over to her a few seconds later.)

Oh God, now it's sniffing her and its face is a second away from being underneath her boot before the boy scoops it up with one hand, saying sternly, "Sparkles, no."

The blonde girl comes running and hugs the dog to her chest when it's handed to her, shrinking under Jade's glare. "S-Sorry," she sputters, not making eye contact, then sprints away.

"Yeah, sorry," the boy reiterates. He glances after his retreating friend with an amused smile, all like, wasn't that just adorable?

He turns back to her. "Jade, right?"

She rolls her eyes that he even has to ask because she's been in this kid's classes for four years. And, okay, her heart sinks slightly when she realizes that she'll never get to be as memorable as she wants to be.

She stares straight ahead. "No, it's Lucy."

All he does is smirk a bit. "I don't usually—actually, I've never seen you around here before."

"Fascinating."

"And you've never struck me as the type to—I'm just wondering what brings you here."

She finally meets his gaze. "Don't worry, Oliver, I'm not going to kidnap any children if that's what you're scared of."

He chuckles under his breath and for some reason still hasn't left yet.

She also might be fuming on the inside because just when she's thinking about losing her long hair and eyebrows and eyelashes, the boy with the most luscious hair in history wants to make conversation.

"Does Vega know that you're two-timing her with a nine year old?" she asks when he sits down beside her.

"Allie? She's my neighbour. She and Tori get along really well."

And Jade thought that her day wasn't getting any more boring than sitting around for a couple of hours with an IV in her hand.

Most of Hollywood Arts considers Beck and Tori the 'It' couple, she supposes. Although there was never anything about them remotely close to interesting at all. No scandals, no public fights, nada. They would only be holding hands whenever they were together, and they'd smile, and maybe kiss, but Jade really couldn't see a relationship being drier than theirs.

New girl meets school heartthrob and they're compatible from the beginning, the most intriguing story ever, someone go make a movie about it.

Jade knows she could just ignore these irrelevant people, but she's too busy resenting them (well, Vega more so than Oliver, because it's not like she's been his understudy about twenty times). They've gotten more lead roles than any other student despite being mediocre actors and singers. While Tori overdoes it and reeks of forced emotion, Jade finds Beck too reserved and he uses the same puppy-dog face for pretty much any expression other than happy. (But she's convinced that it's because sometimes he shows up to class as high as a kite.)

And thus Jade can only conclude that they must be bribing Sikowitz with special coconut milk or something because what's so bad about her that she'll never be picked first?

"Jade?"

"What."

"Are you okay? You're, like, zoning out."

She watches a kid push another off of the monkey bars and has to suppress a laugh but her pale hands are still gripping her knees so hard that her knuckles look white and pronounced enough to be actual bone. "I'm sick."

"Oh, bummer. A cold?"

"No, cancer."

"Um—I—um, wow," he stutters. He always stutters, actually. It annoys her.

"I'm so …" he starts but can't finish. From the corner of her eye, it looks like he's trying to find something in between 'I'm sorry' and 'I hope you get better' because he's not really sure of the specifics, so she tells him.

"It's terminal, they say." She shrugs. "But I'm getting palliative chemotherapy."

She doesn't tell him how much time because she doesn't trust the doctors and doesn't want to go around spreading their lies.

"Don't look so sad," she snaps, suddenly irritated. She's thinking that he might turn out to be a good actor after all because he must be lying to her; he shouldn't be feeling the way that he looks. She's never seen him this upset. "My absence won't affect your life at all."

Beck is momentarily taken aback. There's a hint of incredulity in his voice. "Yeah, I'd miss you. And I'm sad for you. It's hard to deal with. You know, Jade, if you ever need anyone to … "

"Yeah, no thanks." She is still staring at the ground. "I don't need your sympathy. You say you'd miss me but," she sighs, "if I were to die after graduation, after you'd forgotten about me, you'd never know. So don't pretend to be sad."

Once she'd wanted to be on Broadway, but her failed auditions and her father's words keep tugging the dream just out of her grasp. She was probably born to give up. Then came that annoying, sudden pain that wasn't the good kind and lasted longer then she thought it would and also the diagnosis and so she figured she might as well.

In contrast, there would be no obstacles in between the It couple and stardom, not for those pretty, generic faces, no. Talent these days, where do you find it, who knows, because no one needs it.

Even the universe must want them to go far.

On her left, Beck is still struggling for words, mouth gaping like a door with a faulty hinge. "But I am." His shoulders slump. "It's unfair."

"At least it's me."

"What does that mean?"

She huffs like she's being forced to explain long division to a child. "No matter who you are, I guarantee that there's someone whom you'd miss more than me if they were the one who was sick."

He's actually thinking about this. She looks at him quizzically.

Jade's already thought about it, though. Her mother and her brother would still have each other. He's the favorite. The normal one who she'd never made any first-time-mother mistakes raising. And her father would have his new wife. And she'd be dead, so she doesn't matter.

She doesn't have any best friends or anything like that; she's never been the type. There are those at school whom she tolerates, whom she admires, whom she despises, whom she ignores, and everyone falls into one of those categories.

There's also Cat, but Cat thinks that rocks grow up to be turtles and calls everyone her friend and has the memory span of a goldfish but a hell of a voice, so Jade doesn't bother putting a label on her.

Beck still looks as uncomfortable as ever. Bless him. "But, still, that doesn't take away from … it wouldn't matter … "

"Look, I'm just trying to be optimistic for you all, okay? There isn't anyone who couldn't move on without me."

"There is," he insists because he was brought up polite and sheltered enough to believe that no one should die that miserable.

"There isn't," she says flatly.

Beck wonders if her life has always been this tragic.

Next chapter will be in Beck's POV.