The Least Favorite Angel

One-Shot

Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious. Sadly.

Growing up, I had this friend with the prettiest eyes that ever existed. They were round and innocent and, when she smiled, they sparkled like stars. Strangers said that they couldn't help but fall in love with her. Only angels had eyes like Tori.

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't jealous. No one had told me that I had "angel eyes," or that my laugh had the power to make the deaf hear, or that I was more graceful than Anna Pavlova, or that I could brighten entire lives just by entering a room. No one said much to me at all, really.

When we were five, I came to visit her. It was a Sunday, and we made plans to go picnicking beneath the willow tree in her front yard. Her job was to prepare the picnic basket, and mine was to wait in the living room because, let's be honest; I could never make cheese sandwiches that captured both the elegance and simplicity that hers did.

I waited on the leather couch, and admired a green vase that was situated on a shelf above the cobblestone fireplace. I vaguely remembered overhearing Tori's mother describe it to a friend as "the most beautiful piece of pottery ever to grace the human eye." People had been kicked out of the house for just looking at it funny.

It looked like any other pot to me, but, hey, what do I know? I'm sure that Tori understood the artistic implications of a green vase on a hearth.

I got up from the couch, so that I could take in its so called beauty from up close. It was pretty, I guess, if you're into green. It caught the light and threw green shadows across the room. I touched it, and the thrill of my fingertips against something of value, the thrill of breaking a sacred rule, and mostly the thrill of being bad stirred up in my stomach. On an impulse, I pushed the thing off of its shelf. It tumbled through the air, dancing down like a ballerina giving her final performance. I almost wanted to catch it, and save it, and never look at it again. Instead, I watched it smash against the ground, shards spreading in every direction. It was prettier in a million fragments than in it had been as a whole. I wanted to sit down beside it, to brush the tips of my fingers against the edges of the shards, and maybe try to piece them together. I didn't have an opportunity.

Almost immediately after the crash, a pair of heels came clicking down the hall. My fear of being punished felt like fire in my stomach and, not knowing what else to do, I crouched behind the couch.

I heard a scream. It was like Tori's mom had found a dead body left mutilated on the floor. "Victoria Vega! Get your butt in here! Now!" She yelled.

"Yes ma'am, I'm coming," Tori said, and I imitated her under my breath. She flounced out of the kitchen, and to her mother. When she saw the mess on the floor, her face turned the color of milk left in the sun too long.

"Why, Tori? I want a thorough explanation as to why my vase, the vase that is my absolute pride and joy, is now nothing more than a collection of worthless debris?" Tori's mom put her face in her hands and collapsed on the couch.

"I don't know mommy. I was in the kitchen, and I heard a crash, and I heard you yell, and that's all," she said. "I think it was Jade."

Her mom still spoke into her hands, "I don't see anyone here."

"She is here, Mommy, she is," Tori said, her soprano whine grating against my nerves. "She's behind the couch Mommy! I promise that she's behind the couch!"

Tori's mother sat up straighter. Her eyes locked on to Tori's, and Tori quaked. "Mommy doesn't like it when you lie. God doesn't, either. I don't see anyone here."

"That's because you aren't looking," I thought.

Desperation rose in Tori's voice. "I'm not lying, Mommy! I don't tell lies! I don't! I don't! Jade did it! she's behind the couch I promise, Mommy! I really promise!"

I was behind the couch, enjoying the scene unfold in front of me. The "good-one" being berated, and the "bad-one" escaping unharmed, if I had known what irony was, I would have relished it. Tori was sent to her room.

That was the first time that anyone had ever accused Tori of lying, falsely or otherwise.

In the years that followed that incident, we played games where she was the pop star, and I was the adoring fan, games where she was Batman, and I was Robin, games where she Cinderella, and I was the ugly step-sister, and games where she was the cops and the robbers and I was the helpless spectator. It was better this way, she was likely to deviate from our predetermined story-line, which she had created, and was therefore void of flaw.

In fourth grade, Tori got in trouble for lying, again.

Everything about our teacher had been rail thin, from her lips to her fingers to her nose, and she always had chalk dust in her hair. Her eyes made me think of I'm not sure what made her want to teach fourth grade, she did not like children, and told us so, on a regular basis. On more than one occasion she said that she hated to see little boys be "eager to feed their childhood to the beast of manhood," and that she hated to see little girls be "innocent and oblivious to the trials to come."

During what I think was a temporary episode of insanity, Tori told our teacher that she knew an invisible girl, with "dark, dark hair, and pale, pale skin." When our teacher asked what exactly she talked to the purple hair girl about, Tori said, "She told me that when God sees a special glow in a kid, he picks his least favorite angel to go watch over that kid, and when that kid gets to where she is all perfect, she turns into a star, so that she can be an angel, 'cause stars are really angels, you know," she thought for a second, and then added, "The ones that God loves the best are the ones that shine the brightest." She smiled as she said it, like she did when she knew the answer to a multiplication problem that had stumped the rest of the class.

I cringed, and waited for our teacher to say something. It was hard to make out her face from the back corner of the room, but I could see that her hands were on her hips, and that she was tapping her foot. "It isn't like you to lie, Tori," she said, finally. "You know liars go to-"

"Hell," I thought.

"The corner," she said. "Pack up your things."

Tori didn't argue. She collected her things in a sparkly pink crayon box and moved to the stool in the back of the room, which happened to be beside my desk. Cobwebs were gathered between the stools legs, and she used a pencil to swirl them up. It made the whole corner seem more tidy.

"Hey, Jade?" she asked me.

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't Mrs. Kirk believe me?" she asked, hurt etched into the corners of her angel eyes.

I shrugged, "It wasn't a believable story," I told her. "Look at the bright side, you're with me now, and we can-"

The kid in front of us, I think his name was Jake, turned around, "Tori, can I ask you something?" he said.

I wanted to slap him, as hard as I possibly could. I wanted to knock that baby-toothed grin off of his face, and I wanted to laugh at him, and I wanted him to hear me, and I wanted it to make him sad. Instead, I said, "I was talking, and it's rude to-"

"Go for it!" Tori said, leaning on her elbows and putting her hand under her chin.

"What happens to the angel that God doesn't like?"

Tori shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they disappear, or something."
"Maybe they go to hell," Jake suggested, turning back around.

A frown tugged at the corners of Tori's mouth, and her eyebrows stitched together. She didn't talk for the rest of the day. I cheated off of Jake's spelling test.

As we grew older, we grew farther apart, and by eleventh grade Tori had started acting like I wasn't there, like the rest of the world. She blew by me, always caught in her whirlwind of thoughts and activities and parties and friends, and I watched her from the sidelines, and prayed that one day, she would make an opportunity to look at me, and see, me, and feel me. She never did.

One time, when she was in a payl, I came to watch her. She was not the leading lady, but she was the prettiest, and the most natural, and the most in tune. Everything about her screamed, "Superlative!" Watching her made my stomach turn over, like I had eaten a bad concession stand taco. That's what I told myself it was. A taco and not a girl with angel eyes, and angel hair, and angel grace sprinting up and down the field. Accepting the truth would be admitting to myself that the end was near, and that I would have to finish my job soon. She was perfect, or as close to it as any mortal could ever be.

It hit me hard. I didn't want her to go, or at least I didn't want to take her. I didn't think I had the power in me to complete the task at hand. Apparently I did, though.

I sat in the passenger seat of her Prius, a gift from her Dad for missing her sixteenth birthday. It was night, and the stars were out by the millions, like a salt shaker had been emptied on a black table. We drove down the highway, windows down, the wind whipping her hair which was so blonde from the sun that it could have been white. I tried to talk to her. "I'm sorry for that time, in fifth grade, when I hid your spelling book," I said.

She looked forward, and said nothing, humming the lyrics to a pop song that had been played far too often for far too long.

"And, I'm sorry for tripping you down the stairs in the rec center."

She still said nothing, and she rolled up the windows. Her hair fell around her face like a halo.

"And I'm sorry for breaking the vase when we were five."

Still, nothing.

"But mostly, I'm sorry for what I'm about to do. I don't want to, honest. But, I have to. It's my job. I have to. God told me to."

Tori just watched the road.

"And, I don't know what happens after this. I don't." I waited for her response, and when I didn't get one, I spoke louder. "Tori, listen to me, for once, just listen, and hear, and understand, or try because this is important! I need to apologize! I'm trying to apologize! Just look at me, if you can't hear! Just look!"

Tori turned the radio up a little and smiled, completely oblivious to the admission of my crimes against her. Frustration in me swelled, and I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could, for as long as I could. Tears streaked down my face, and stained my cheeks with mascara, mascara that I had started wearing only recently because the box promised that it would give me angel eyes. I screamed until my throat was achy and raw, and then I screamed more.

When I stopped, I could have sworn that I heard Tori say my name under her breath.

"I'm sorry," I whispered one last time. I grabbed the steering wheel and spun it, sending the car into a head on collision with a family of four.

I grabbed Tori by the hand, and pulled her up. We flew upward, and upward, and upward. We flew past the moon, and my dark hair floated freely around me, tangling in the asteroid belt, and my pale skin reflected the starlight. We flew as far upward as my wings could carry us, and when we reached the only open spot in the night sky my wings wilted, and Tori's sprouted from her back, they opened wide, unfolding like the petals of morning glory to the sun . They luminesced as they spread out, their light becoming brighter and brighter until it swallowed everything that my eyes, eyes which had once belonged to an angel, could see.

She was an angel, and she was a star, and I was doomed, am doomed, to spend the rest of eternity hidden in her glow. Hell would've been kinder.

A/N: I didn't write this as a fanfic originally, but I thought the characters fit for the most part. I really liked putting Jade in the role of "dejected guardian angel." I apologize for any OOC-ness.

Anyways, I'm not sure how clear the ending was, but reviews are VERY helpful in helping me fix stuff like that. I really appreciate them.

Thank you SO much for reading.