Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not the characters, who belong to others, or the songs, which I've listened too several times over the last week. I do own the plot, so I'll take credit, and blame, for that part.
:}
Jade stomped through the halls, eyes seeing something beyond just the emptying space before her, and to the other students at Hollywood Arts, it looked like someone was going to die. The pale girl might as well have been breathing fire, body twitching as her muscles tightened in apparent rage. Jade appeared ready to fight, to snap and take out the next person wh so much as said the wrong thing to her.
Making matters worse, Beck was no longer able to contain her, having broken up just two weeks prior. Unlike every other time they broke up, of which Jade had been the motivating factor in the breakup, this split had left new scares in the psyche of the irritable goth. Jade felt betrayed, and couldn't blame herself, something everyone was shocked to find out she'd always done in the past.
"So, Jade, have you decided..." Tori tried to speak to the girl. She'd been chosen by her peers as the least likely to be killed, based solely on her being the one who'd been trying to fix this whole mess. Also, Jade had promised Dickers that she wouldn't hurt Tori for trying, no mater how close it'd come over the last fourteen days.
Tori never finished her question, because Jade walked away. The pale girl knew what the singer was asking, and didn't have it in her to deal. For Jade, things were getting worse, and she could clearly see her own hand in why. Cat no longer approached, afraid of being snapped at, or worse. At least one girl thought that Jade was toppled, and made comments where the blue eyed girl could hear. Robbie had proven he could take a hit when he kept Jade from indenting that girls body into the lockers, and Jade was forced to see Mister Alexander for counseling. That led to her most recent problem.
Students, from the smallest freshmen to the biggest seniors, scrambled to stay out of her path as she plowed her way towards her next assigned class. If left to her own volition, she's just skip class. Only problem was, her father had laid down the law, somehow, and managed to get her to agree to attend. He reminded her that there were other school sshe could attend where skipping wouldn';t be such a financial burden on him and her mother, his usual complaint about the cost of Hollywood Arts. Then again, Jade had finally learned that argument was more a justification for his disliking the school and less him actually having to pay a single dime.
Like most of the high talent students, Jade was on scholarship, so her family never paid a dime for her to attend. It had been the secret reason her father agreed to have her attend, the chance to go to a top ranked school without the attending costs. But because of the scholarship, Jade had to keep her grades up, and when her breakup and it's resulting mess started affecting that, Lane had assigned her a monitor to make sure she at least physically attended class. Derek, one of Hollywood Arts security guards, drew the short straw and checked on her every class. Jade had to go.
'It's not like I'm failing. Hell, even with the breakup, I'm acing this class… So why not let me slide on the whole attending chiz?' She thought, even as her feet continued to push her towards the class. 'I could really use the time to do, er, not sure how I would...' Her mind reacted, rejecting the other thing she had to do but wanted to avoid.
That other problem she had was the assignment that Lane had given her, supposedly to help her get over the breakup. . The assignment, one he'd gotten her music and singing teachers, as well as and even principal Dubois, to sign off on, was to sing a song at the next Friday night performance. Specifically, after a lot of negotiating and one draw from a hat, she was supposed to perform "Impossible" by Shontelle. 'Yea, it does kinda fit how I'm feeling, but it's so, I don't know, soft, defeated. I don't feel right singing that. This song is hurt, and I'm hurt, but I'm angry, and this song is just defeated, like I'm giving up. I...'
Jade stormed into her class, a sudden need to distract herself from her own hurt driving her to her current chosen spot. 'They can make me attend, but they can't make me sit up front and be made fun of.' Jade decided, making a line for one of the back seats.
The shrugger sitting there was on the larger side, a boy who normally let his size and presence intimidate others into leaving him alone. His calm exterior was solid, save for the momentary look of alarm his eyes reflected as the goth approached. Jade didn't say a word, just glaring at him until he started to sweat. But the boy wasn't going to move, not without a fight, even as students on either side started to get up to give her a place to sit.
"Jade, there's an open seat in the second row." The teacher said, but she ignored him to continue to glare at the boy, not accepting any other options. A sideways glance let the people trying to scramble out of the way know that to her, in this mood, their seats just weren't good enough. "Jade!" The teacher voice was a warning, but even that held a momentary echo of fear. No one, not even Derek, wanted to tangle with her when she was in that kind of mood.
Th shrugger, figuring that he'd lasted far longer then most, slid out of his seat. "Never mind, my mom wants me to sit closer. Thinks it'll improve my grades." He announced, not only breaking his previous record for most words said in class, but giving an excuse for his sudden desire to be in the second row.
Jade didn't much care, it was a win, and she didn't have to worry about what to do with his body. 'Woulda looked good, stuffed and mounted in my den. Bet dad would have loved that.' A momentary smile crossed her face, only to drop back into her seemingly permanent scowl. Jade sat down, pulling her things out, not much caring who was around her. 'Be kinda funny if they sat on the floor.' She decided, and glanced to her side to see if they had given her that much space.
To her right, a scared looking girl tried as hard as she could not to look at Jade, glancing over, seeing Jade's eyes, and then glancing a few seconds later. If she didn't look like she was expecting Jade to kill and devour her any second now, it might have felt a bit like flirting. Only it wasn't, and Jade took barely any satisfaction in the similarities. 'Not that she's my type, but it wouldn't hurt my ego, thinking she might be interested. Right now, I could use some flirting. Maybe if I showed her some cleavage? Nahh, too busy being intimidating.' Jade tore her eyes from that girl to look to her left, and found a smiling, friendly face.
"What do you want, Andre?" Jade growled. It bothered her that he wasn't pissing himself being that close to her.
"Just had a suggestion to help you out." He said.
"How can you help me out?" The ice in her voice intensified at the you, threatening the musician with frostbite, or maybe death by hypothermia.
"I can help you rewrite that song you have to sing." He offered. "Maybe it won't hurt so much if you don't have to say those words."
"No choice in the matter, I have to sing those words." Jade admitted, the heat of her rage not melting the layers of frost frost she'd already eminated his way.
"Excuse me, but are you talking in class?" The teacher asked.
"Just offering to help her with that song she has to sing." Dre defended himself, turning to face the teacher with his hands up and a weak smile on his face.
"Oh, carry on then." The teacher seemed revealed to have something school related that didn't involve Jade. "Everyone else, I need you to be doing your writing. Two pages in your journal." he instructed the class. "Jade, you're excused, because we have a strict six journal limit in this class. Instead, why don't you and Mister Harris here do something about that song. If it gets you out of this, um, funk's not the right word…"
"Homicidal rage?" One of the shruggers suggested. And for just a moment it felt like they were about to make Jade's mood the topic of discussion, again.
"Lets leave it at funk, even thought thats the wrong definition." The instructor said. "Jade, you and Andre can work together. Every else, you should be writing."
"I pay for my own chizzing journals." Jade griped, but turned to see how her fiend could help her work through the song to make it sound better for her. "Okay, that song is total surrender. I'm hurt, but I'm hardly huddled up, all sad and weepy. No, I'm pissed, and the song needs to reflect that." Jade waited, tasking the thought. "Yea, somehow we need to change the music so it's less defeated, more angry. So how the holy hell do we do that?" She asked.
"Minor keys and guitars?" The voice came from the second row, the boy Jade had displaced. When he felt her eyes burning through him, he continued. "Heavy metal."
"Not sure how that would sound." Dre said. However, he didn't have any other suggestion. "Lets work on this."
Days later, Jade walked out onto the stage for the Friday Night concert, dressed in a semi formal gown, and the entire school seemed to have turned out. Beck was there, sitting next to Meredith, his new girlfriend. As much as Jade hated her, and she felt she had plenty of reasons for hating Meredith, Jade didn't blame that girl for any of her and Beck's problems. No, Beck had betrayed her for a different reward, giving an interview to support some small roll he'd gotten, and managing to not only make Jade seem irrational, but irrelevant. Then, when she tried to speak to him about it, in her normal, irrational, lout and threatening way, she discovered he didn't always dissuade the Notheridge girls from their romantic interests. Finding the girls panties in his couch sent cracks forming in her self confidence, and the explanation that went with it left Jade feeling broken. Beck had, in that moment of anger, admitted to occasionally giving in tot he moment. Always it started with the girl talking about some problem or another, because the girls knew Beck felt strongest when he was solving problems, and they'd managed to get more then just his sympathy. In fact, more then one girl had drifted from him offering her a shoulder to cry upon to sleeping with him.
To Jade, it felt like he'd been playing her, and she needed a release. Andre, still very much beck's friend, had told her how music was his best way of dealing with feelings, and encouraged her to sing this assigned song. Jade had to admit, there were a lot of songs that fit her feelings, but Impossible was not exactly one of them. However, it was the assigned one, and now she was going to sing about being broken, defeated. Only she wasn't going to whine her way through another moment of her time with Beck.
The instrument arrangement was different., including two guitars, a base guitar, a keyboard, and drums. The assembled had no idea what to expect, so they had no idea what to think when the music started as just keyboards and drums, backing Jade's vocals as she started ripping her way through the song. But as she reached the chorus, the guitars where tearing their way through the cool California air, rending the night open while backing a very different feeling for the song. Jade pushed forward, hitting the lyrics with a savagery born more of anger then sorrow, even though the root cause of her rage was still evident. It was an odd mix of symphonic sounds and metal, giving the pale girl the right release for her pain.
The song over, instead of the raving applause expected, there was a silence as the class adjusted to what they'd just heard. Then, slowly, starting with a couple of beats, and growing into an avalanche, the applause overtook the now quiet Asphalt Cafe.
Jade didn't much care. She stood there, watching the audience, watching Meredith, then strode off the stage and towards the school, and her dressing room. She wasted no time in exfoliating the makeup from her skin, grinding he pad with the cold cream to against her skin. The old makeup came off like blood, and with each new and old wound created to her look, she stripped away another piece of her broken heart. Jade was finally ready to start moving on.
Tori was at the door. "Um, Hi..."
"I'm not ready for you." The goth said, not taking her eyes from her work.
"Just wanted to say, that was some performance." The Latina commented. "Andre said he helped you, but that..."
"I had to sing the lyrics they gave me." Jade informed her rival. "But there was nothing in the rules about how I had to sing them. Dre was right, I just made the song my own. Now go. I'll find you when I'm ready."
"Is there perhaps a way you can say that which doesn't sound like your gonna bury me in the desert?" Tori asked.
Jade stopped, already functionally done removing her face, and spun around to look at her rival. Blue green eyes looked through Tori, searching for something she couldn't explain. "Not ready for either outcome." Jade said.
"Still not hearing you deny that whole killing and disposing of my body thing." Tori said.
Jade sighed. "I need a couple more weeks, so this won't be a rebound." She admitted.
"How is killing me a rebound?" Tori asked. "Wait, thats not what you want… Are you planning on asking Andre… No, cause you wouldn't need my permission..."
Jade sighed, again, and wondered what agent of hell made this girl so blind. "Tori, listen. I'm still all emotions, rage and hurt and lets face it, shame. I almost gave up. But then, as I was wondering through the mixing feelings, I realized, I need something different, where I have a little more control. What I don't need is solace. So, think on this, in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna ask you out, and I'm expecting you to have an answer. Yes means I'm gonna probably be dating you for the rest of high school, and who knows, we might take it all the way to grandchildren." She smiled. "Unlike the song, I'm not broken, just angry, cause I tried being cautious, and got hurt. So instead, I'm taking a risk on the best option I have," She pointed, "you, and hoping."
"And if I'm not gay?" Tori asked.
"You let me down gently? Or flat out tell me I guessed wrong. I can take it. I'm a big girl." Jade said, and broke into a real smile for the first time in days. "Hell, even if you are, but just aren't interested in me, just tell me. I can take it. I'll survive." Jade let a thought flash across her mind, hesitating for just a moment. "Maybe that was the song I should have sung? Wonder what it'd sound like as a heavy metal song? 'I will Survive', done to symphonic metal? Have to choose the right way, cause do it wrong, it'd sound like crap."
Tori shuddered, thinking of Jade taking all the ballads, of empowerment, or pain, or even defeat, and turning them into something different, with the music possibly giving her more power behind the lyrics, giving them a different feel. 'Actually, that wouldn't be that bad. Maybe she could do a whole album of covers… But she'd probably do one of my songs, and that would be, odd...'
"So, freaked out?" Jade asked, bringing Tori back tot he present.
"No, just caught off guard." Tori replied. "I honestly thought you hated me."
"So did I." Jade admitted. "So, think about it, cause one day, sooner then either of us will be ready, I'm gonna ask you out."
"What happens if I say yes?" Tori asked.
"Are you planning on saying yes?" Jade asked.
"Lets just say it's a possibility." Tori said.
"Um, excuse me, am I interrupting anything?" Meredith asked as she stepped into the dressing room.
"We're just about finished here." Jade said, all but dismissing Tori. The Latina didn't take it too personally, realizing Jade wasn't kidding about needing more time.
"I just wanted to say, I love the performance. I had no idea you were into symphonic metal." The agreeable girl said, offering an odd smile.
"Up until the other day, I had no idea that genre existed." Jade admitted. "But I'm coming to love it. Female singers, who can sing more then growl, leading successful metal bands. Whats not to love."
Tori silently left, marveling at how Jade's attitude had changed already. 'She'd getting along with Meredith. Meredith! Look like she's let go of Beck. Now all I have to do is figure out if I want this...' Tori thought, planning out their wedding in excruciating detail. 'Jade'll wear black, cause if there's a black veiled bride, it's her...'
:}
The songs that inspired this are the two versions of Impossible I listened too while initially writing this. One was the original, by Shontelle, while the other was the cover by Exit Eden, for their album "Rapidity in Black." Exit Eden is a symphonic metal band with four female singers. I highly recommend their version of this song. Also, given that I'm not allowed to produce lyrics, I recommend finding them on line, if possible, so you can see how appropriate, or not, this song really was.
So, thoughts? As always, I enjoy reviews.