A/N: This is a two-shot, the story written a little differently than usual, each section switches back and forth between past and present tense. I kind of started this story like I was writing a children's book...which is why I don't write children's books. I know Jade/Trina is a bit of an unconventional pairing, but aren't those the best kind? I hope you guys tell me what you think. I love feedback!
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[ Black Paint ]
[ a beginning and an end ]
when Trina was sixteen, Jade was fifteen. Trina had friends and a new car, and Jade was still bright eyed and blank slates, looking up at Trina like a year and a car made a world of difference. Though, with nothing in common, Jade could only admire from afar.
but if there was one thing Trina liked; it was admirers.
Jade's alone, picking at the black paint that she covered her Theatre History book with. It's only a few days old, but already it's starting to grate on the dark girl's nerves.
That's when Trina comes strutting up to the lunch table, but Jade doesn't look up. And at first, neither one of them speak, because the last person Trina talks to is Jade, and it's very much so mutual, but whatever she needs must be important enough to the older girl.
"Have you seen—"
"I don't care." She cuts her off, eyes focused on the black of her book.
It's not important to Jade.
Trina's not important to Jade, not even enough to go out of her way to insult.
"…Beck." She finishes a bit annoyed and defeated. That gets the younger girls attention though, forcing her eyes to look at the spray tanned Barbie doll standing on the other side of the table.
"What about Beck?"
The warning signs of wide eyes and a raised eyebrow, shows how very careful this Jersey Shore wannabe needs to be when answering her.
But Trina just matches the eyebrow, and shoots her an annoyed look.
"Get over yourself. I need to borrow his notes from Mrs. Grant's class."
"Go away." Jade snaps, direct and to the point, because Jade really doesn't like how Trina's making her blood start to get hot, because she's not even supposed to be important enough to insult.
Her eyes go back to the black on her book.
so Trina liked Jade. And it was very much so mutual.
because Jade wasn't always black paint and sharp objects, and once upon a time Trina was just a pastel, still plotting out her lot in life, thinking about being a star and planning on ways to carve her spot in the sky. And back then, Trina allowed distractions, like the quiet girl with light brown hair and fishnets. Trying so hard to be tough, but anyone who was looking twice would see it was just to cover that Freshman fear.
Jade's convinced that it's Trina's fault. She's the one that came up to her, asking about Beck, after it had been—…well, years. Jade doesn't think that it's fair, to just pretend like she can get away with that. Get away with forcing herself in front of the darker girl on almost a daily basis. Suddenly, without notice or warning, the way the older girl talks and talks, and never stops. Making Jade's blood get hot and her teeth grind.
It leads to things and ideas, and not a single one of them good.
So Jade says something mean and dark, seeing if it's enough to hurt Trina. But even though everyone else in the hallway at school freezes and waits, unsure and scared. She just points an acrylic nail at the darker girl's face.
"You know, I remember when you weren't all weird, and no one was scared of you."
Jade throws her books on the ground and bounds up from her leaning position on the lockers. She hears a few faraway gasps, but all she can see is the unflinching plastic of Trina's face. Jade knows that Trina didn't get away with it. She can't talk to the younger girl like she has.
Like it all meant nothing.
"I remember when you weren't a bitch, and people actually liked you."
Jade realizes that she just repeated Trina, their statements the same except for rearranged letters. Though, Trina didn't see it as something equal, but something worse, her eyes narrowing.
Then suddenly, Tori is pushing herself between the narrow space of the two squared off girls. Pushing and 'whoa-ing' and trying to keep peace, but Jade doesn't care, scoffing at the scene she helped create, turning on her heels and walking away.
trina liked to think that it was Jade's fault, because she rambled on and on to this stoic new friend that seemed to have based her fashion sense on emo's r us. Trina talked and talked, and didn't stop, because there was finally someone actually listening. She would tell the younger girl about how she couldn't decide between actress, or singer, or fashion designer. And that tall skinny girl just smiled shyly, telling Trina that she was smart and pretty, and could do it all. Why have limits?
be like J. Lo.
Jade's standing in the kitchen of the Vega household, waiting for Tori to finish getting ready so that they can meet Beck and Cat. And Jade knows she shouldn't be the one picking her up. Knows the kind of things that happen here. But she's here nonetheless, and the uneasiness inside her grows when Trina bounds down the stairs reading a magazine.
And it takes forever for Trina to notice her. Because she never changes. No, she changed once, but it's like adding black paint to darken a color. You can only go darker, and darker, but there's not enough white paint in the world to make this Trina go back to what she was before.
So she just got darker. And so did Jade.
So she's standing and watching, feeling knots coil up in her stomach, and she always tells herself that it's hate that gets her so twisted up around Trina. Right before the older girl sits on her couch, she looks up from her magazine, and does a double take at Jade.
"What are you doing here?" She asks, but she doesn't sound too surprised, or scared. That sets Jade on edge a little.
"Waiting for Tori." She responds from the kitchen island, but Jade wonders if there's any difference. Just a Vega for a Vega, and Jade thinks Tori is almost worse than Trina, because she thinks she isn't. Tori thinks she's humble and sweet, but she still looks at the spotlight with a glint in her eye, and she still thinks she can get whatever she wants. And God, or the Fates, or the magical mole people seem to agree. Because the Vega girls always get what they want.
But they don't get Jade.
Then she remembers why Trina is worse than Tori, because the younger sister would fight for what she wants, but Trina would kill and pick the carcass clean.
Jade has the bleached bones to prove it, underneath these layers of black.
Trina tosses the magazine on the couch, and walks up to the dark haired girl, standing much closer than Jade is comfortable with.
"What are you doing with my little sister?" Jade has to make an effort not to laugh at what Trina's suggesting. She's not doing what Trina must think, because Jade's not stupid enough for that. Fool her once. She doesn't hang around Tori because they're friends, or even that they like each other. But maybe it's because Tori makes Jade think about a diluted Trina, reminding her of something she'd never admit thinking about.
"Look at you, all worried." Is her sarcastic response, but it makes Trina's eyes go down for a second. When they come back up, they focus on the place where Jade's black and blue locks are curling over her shoulder.
"I'm not worried." She says it like there's more to the sentence, not offended, just as a statement, but words die out and it leaves a stillness between them. One that Jade knows from experience.
But experience tells her not to go there, even as their eyes lock, and Jade's ears pick up the sound of Tori's bedroom door closing.
"Stop it." She says to the older girl, her voice quiet and low, and so very serious.
"Stop what?" Trina's voice matching hers, but laced with a naïve confusion. Jade hears footsteps reach the stairs.
Jade arches her eyebrow.
"Existing."
Then Jade leaves trying to ignore the heat of her blood, practically cooking her from the inside out.
trina really liked Jade. Jade seemed to really like Trina. So when they started kissing in her car at an empty parking lot, it was just because of what Jade said. That Trina was smart and pretty, and could do anything. No limits.
and Jade was kissing her back, so it made Trina believe it.
"This is a bad idea." Trina almost whispers in a rare moment of seriousness, right after Jade's weight pins her against the wall of the Vega's upstairs hallway.
It is, she knows that. It was a bad idea for Jade to let the gears in her head turn when she overheard Trina mention that she had the house to herself tonight. It was a bad idea to come here and not say a word when she answered the door, and let Trina look at Jade like she was some kind of long lost friend. Like she was someone Trina had known years ago, when nothing was black and tainted. And it was just Jade and Trina.
Jade knows this is a very bad idea.
But Jade doesn't want to lasso the moon. She just wants something quick, because now Trina has seeped her way back into her veins, pumping with her blood, and Jade needs to just bleed out a little. Just a little, just something quick, and she'll be fine.
Really.
"Stop me." Jade dares, but Trina never does, meeting Jade's lips half-way. Crushing and crashing, like the way waves hit the shore. Jade feels that surge of power over her, over this, like she actually has power over the waves in the ocean. Like she really just lassoed the moon.
it was just something to do, something to try, to enjoy now, because paparazzi wasn't too far in Trina's future. So she did. She enjoyed the way Jade would always tell her how beautiful she was, mumbling it against the other girls mouth. She enjoyed the way Jade's skin would shake when she ran her French tips across her stomach. How her hair smelled like lilacs, and the way Jade would try to hide a moan when Trina tugged on it a little. She enjoyed Jade, and it was very much so mutual.
Jade backs them up into Tina's bedroom, kissing and breaking, then breathing, and then kissing again. There's fingers in Jade's hair. She moves her lips down Trina's jawline, and over her neck.
"God, you smell the same." She whispers to Jade, in almost disbelief, and the younger girl's hands pull their hips tight together, running her tongue over her pulse point.
"You taste the same."
Trina's hand fists in her hair and tugs a little, making Jade suck hard on her neck.
they would always go to Jade's house, because her parents were never home, and Trina's dad was a cop.
they'd sit on her oversized bed that was covered in dark violet sheets, and Trina would paint Jade's toenails black, while Jade painted hers pink. Trina thought about mixing the colors one time, just putting it together, and painting each other's nails with the same color. But she knew it wouldn't blend into anything new. It would just turn black.
Jade's lips skim over the top of a black and pink bra that looks really expensive, and makes her want to cut it into itty bitty pieces with her favorite pair of scissors.
They both finally make it to Trina's bed, almost tripping on their shirts that were carelessly tossed on the floor. Once the back of Trina's knees hit the mattress, she falls on the bed, taking Jade with her. And Jade starts moving quick to the bra clasp on the other girl, Trina arching her back to help. But before she can pull the straps down and discard the material, Trina crosses her arms, and stops her, making Jade look up at her with confusion.
"Do you still think I'm beautiful?" She asks, with a raw tone that only this situation brings, and it makes the knots in Jade's stomach come back twice as strong, twisting and turning.
Jade isn't supposed to feel anything, not anything at all, once they started this. Just something quick, just a little, just something to tide her over. And she thought her anger would see her through this, she thought those knots in her stomach were because of hate.
Because she hated Trina. She did.
But there was a girl once who thought she could do anything, just because she had a few friends and a new car, and that girl was who Jade used to lie in bed with and trace stars and hearts on her skin, telling her she was beautiful.
That's not who this is, but Jade didn't realize how much they'd look alike.
"Only on the outside."
Trina wasn't worth lying to, but the truth didn't seem to bother her any, because with a small smile, she's kissing Jade and letting the darker girl's hands pull her bra off.
the first time they had sex was the day Jade ran away from home. She texted Trina and told her she was outside, and the older girl was lucky she even woke up to it, because it was almost two in the morning. After she snuck Jade in the house, and into her bedroom, the girl who played tough all the time started crying and cursing, and talking about her dad and how he thought she was worthless. She said other stuff too, but it was hard for Trina to make out between sobs, so she just started kissing Jade, and telling Jade that she was worth something. Jade was worth a lot to her.
and she was kissing her back, so it made Trina believe it.
and when their hands started moving under their cloths, taking them off, and Jade's eyes were on her and telling her that she was beautiful, Trina didn't even care that she wasn't wearing makeup, or that her thighs were fat, or if she ever got to be a star.
jade was worth it.
They're tangled together in bed, and it hits Jade pretty quick, that realization that Trina was right. This was a bad idea. Because it doesn't take much, not much at all for Jade to get lost in this familiar act that she's done hundreds of times in her head, with a girl that looks just like Trina.
It just takes her whispering Jade's name, in the intimate and small space that they're sharing. Sounding like she did their first time, and suddenly, Jade's kissing her soft and slow, and telling her how beautiful she is. Over and over, and they fit together, back into place like they never left, and when Trina's back arches and body tenses, Jade kisses her, and they come down together.
trina always thought it was Jade's fault, because Trina wasn't the one that walked away when it all came crashing down. She liked Jade, and she always thought that she could keep her. They could've been like Oprah and Gayle, and there would be rumors, but she'd have a rich handsome husband, and behind him there would always be Jade.
it was just a suggestion, just an idea, because they'd been together for months now, and it was only a matter of time before people started wondering about the starlet and her quiet friend that always wore black. So when Beck asked Trina out, she was just mentioning it to Jade. But it escalated from there, and Jade didn't understand why she couldn't be enough for Trina, and Trina didn't know why she was acting so hurt. Because it was just boys, and Trina never saw them as anything but a means to an end. Not needed but necessary.
jade just wanted her though, and told her to forget about what people thought.
that was the one thing Trina never could do.
Jade finishes getting dressed, while Trina sits up in bed with blankets wrapped around her chest, her gaze fixing on the afternoon skyline from her window.
Jade wants to say something, not knowing what, but maybe something clever or symbolic. Maybe something she should have said to that sixteen year old girl she used to know, but never had the courage to. Maybe she can say it to Trina now, just so it's said. So she knows that once upon a time she felt that way. But the more she thinks about saying something, the more she knows she can't.
Maybe if it wasn't way too late, if they both haven't changed so much, or if either one of them thinks for a second that it would work out. Maybe if she could have been enough for Trina, she would say something.
But she knows better, so Jade leaves.
jade left, and Trina heard rumors that they saw her quiet friend in the back seat of Beck's car, and two years later, his arm is still around her shoulders.
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