Disclaimer: Victorious and all of its associated copyrights are not my property and I stake no claim to them.
A/N: I've been working on this one for a while, and I've never written a story quite like this one. One has come close, but it doesn't have the same depth in my opinion. This one-shot is written in the form of an auto-biography, I suppose, and it's Jade-centric; flashbacks are the majority of this. This story is pretty angsty, including mentions of self-harm. If you're alright with that, read on, if not, please don't let this be a trigger.
I've never been one for dairies or journals about my life or anything of the sort, but I felt this little excerpt of my life should be shared.
Everybody knows about my relationship with Beck, and if you don't live under a rock, you'd also know that it didn't last. But it didn't end the way that you think it did.
Flashback
"Look, I don't wanna be your boyfriend if we're just going to fight all the time!" Beck shouted to me, exasperated, "I'm tired of fighting."
"Okay, I'm going to walk out that door, and I'm going to count to 10; if I get to ten and you're not out there, I'm going home, and we're over," I said as I walked out.
1
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3
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5
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9
…
10
End of Flashback
That's all, right? Nope. That's what happened originally, yes, but that's not all, not even close. That night after Beck left Tori's house, he came over to mine to talk to me, and that's when he rubbed salt in the wound. It's bad enough when your boyfriend breaks up with you in front of all of your 'friends', but the real reason why he did… It was a much harder pill to swallow.
Flashback
As I sat on my bed, honestly too numb at that moment to cry, I suddenly heard a knock on the front door. I sighed, not wanting to interact with anybody now, or ever. I ignored it, until it persisted for a good ten minutes. I finally jumped out of bed and threw open the front door in frustration, my breath catching in my throat at the sight of him.
"Can we talk?" He asked with a pleading look.
I did my best to keep my guard up as I reluctantly let him in. I sat in a chair in the living room, and he settled on the couch, looking very uncomfortable and apprehensive.
"Talk," I said, trying to keep my emotions in check.
He nervously bit his lip and looked at the floor, unable to meet my sorrowful gaze. "Our fighting isn't the only reason I broke up with you," he started.
I immediately jumped to the worst conclusions my mind could conjure, settling on the theory that there was someone else, "And what's your other reason?" I asked bitterly.
He finally looked up, meeting my eyes with a sad look in his own, "I don't love you anymore."
My theory was shot to hell, this one hitting me like a train. I felt like he had suddenly shoved me off of a cliff, and I was just falling into nothingness. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think straight, I just couldn't live knowing that the one person I had trusted so much and always confided in, abruptly decided I'm unlovable.
"You should go," I said emotionlessly.
He nodded knowing it wasn't his place anymore to be my semblance of comfort, and quickly left my house, leaving me alone. I stood up and walked to my room, softly closing my door, and changed my clothes before settling in bed, all without an ounce of emotion. As I lay in bed, it suddenly hit me; I'm alone. Beck's gone. It's now me against the world. That night I fell asleep with silent tears soaking my pillow.
End of Flashback
So there you have it, behind the scenes action of what actually happened with Beck and I. He stopped loving me, and he blatantly told me to my face. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he did it that way, but that doesn't make it any less painful. It felt like he ripped the ground out from under me, and I had nothing to stand on, nothing left.
The months following that incident were hard for me, actually causing me to hit the lowest of low; self-harm. It made everything okay, those brief moments of physical pain completely overshadowing the copious amounts of emotional pain. Of course, once I realized that, I did it all the time, just to make the pain go away, even for just a short while. I stepped up my position as top dog at HA, not taking even the slightest bit of shit from anyone. I had a temper so short people knew it was an awfully bad idea to fuck around with me.
Things continued on like that until about a quarter of the way through my senior year, when I was working on a project at Tori's house with her, I fucked up royally.
Flashback
I was suffering through yet another night at Vega's place, working on this damn project for Sikowitz's class. I'd had enough of her the first night, 3 nights in a row and I was about to go insane.
"Jade, can you hand me the remote?" She asked me when we stopped for a break.
I sighed and reached for it without thinking, my sleeve slipping up my arm and exposing my handy work. And of course, she had to notice.
"Jade…"
I groaned in annoyance, grabbing the remote and tossing it to her. "Don't you dare tell anyone about this." I quickly grabbed my jacket and left without another word, completely ignoring her calls to me.
As far as I knew, she kept quiet about it; occasionally bothering me about it, but not telling anybody else. A month or so later, I finally caved and confided in Tori about what had been going on in my life. We sat on the couch in her living room as I finally spilled what I had been bottling up for so long. When I got to the end of the story, she just looked at me sadly, before turning her gaze down to my arms.
She took my hands in hers as she pushed my sleeves up, surveying the damage. She ran her fingers over the elaborate webs of cuts on my forearms, as if seeing if it was all actually real. I bit my lip to keep from vocalizing the slight pain it caused.
"Beck is such an idiot…" She muttered.
I looked up at her, "Why?"
"He stopped loving you. That one fact makes him the definition of stupid. You're amazing, it's his loss,"
End of Flashback
Tori abruptly turned from my frenemy into my friend at that moment. I never ever wanted to confide in her about my problems, for fear these feelings would worsen.
See, even back when I was with Beck, she made me feel like I shouldn't when I'm already in a relationship. Those little acts of selfless kindness she always provided to me, putting my needs before hers even though I was the devil's spawn to her. Before I knew it she was my infatuation, my guilty pleasure. I snuck peaks whenever Beck wasn't looking, or let the hugs I was forced into linger a little longer than necessary.
Everything I ever did from the moment I realized that onward, was just for her reaction. Because every time I could've sworn her sadness was something deeper than just my rejection of friendship. When she said that to me, it's as if I was poked during my sleep, just barely there but enough to snap me out of the complete darkness of which I was in.
A week later I had to work on a song project with Andre, which I wasn't entirely looking forward to. But truth seems to slap you in the face whenever it wants no matter what the hell you want.
Flashback
We were taking a break, my voice was tired and I just needed a breather. As I rested in my chair, my eyes closed in some vain attempt to block out the world, the world decided it had other plans.
"So Jade…What's going on between you and Tor?" Andre asked me hesitantly.
I sighed deeply and thought about my answer for a long time, I honestly didn't know what to say. "I don't know."
I opened my eyes to see him looking at me with an uncharacteristically angry expression. "Something up?"
He seemed to grit his teeth as if to control an unwanted retort, "You're really hurting her, you know."
"How?" I asked with a confused face.
Andre bit his lip in another attempt to control himself, but he just blew up.
Standing up so fast and violently that his chair flew backwards, he started almost growling at me, seething in anger. "Tori's my best friend Jade. I know her. She's in pain. So much pain she can't even be herself anymore!"
I was shocked, to say the least. Not entirely by his confession, but by his level of anger. "What are you talking about?"
He threw his hands up in exasperated anger, "Are you blind, Jade?! She loves you, you idiot! Why do you keep hurting her like this?"
"Sh…She loves me?" I asked, my brain completely offline from his blow up.
He calmed down and changed his voice to a pleading tone, "Open your eyes, Jade! She told me about that night you talked to her; and don't worry, she didn't give me any details. But whatever it was, it broke her heart."
Suddenly slapped back into reality, I bid Andre my thanks and quickly turned to leave.
Grabbing my arm and turning me around, he gave me the most sincere big brother look, "Don't hurt her anymore."
"Never again."
End of Flashback
So that's when life decided to inject me with a lethal dose of reality. I was snapped awake now, the fog encasing my mind suddenly cleared, exposing the harsh world that I'd hidden from for so long. But the thing was, that harsh world, wasn't so harsh anymore. My infatuation, my guilty pleasure, the girl I had so irrevocably fallen in love with somehow loves me back.
That incapacitating pain that had ripped me from my once blissful world, was suddenly nothing but a memory. Beck was just a memory. Him, and all the agony he caused, it wasn't affecting me anymore. He was just another brick in the wall. The wall I had been building for many, many years.
But suddenly comes along a wrecking ball in the form of a 17 year old high school girl who was the target of my torture. That wall I had worked so hard to build was nothing but a pile of rubble when she was done with it.
The months, the weeks, the days, the hours, minutes, seconds after Beck ripped the ground out from under me, how I wished for a time machine, just to go back and fix whatever it was I did wrong. But oh no, that's not how this works; hearts don't break even. Here I am, about to be pushed over the edge while he's doing just fine.
Does he care? Sure, maybe he does. Maybe he loves me, but he'll never love me like I love him. There will never, ever, be an 'us' again. And that simple fact right there, when I finally realized it, was the one thing I needed to get over him. That fact was my ladder to get out of this hole I'd dug myself into.
But here's the beautiful thing, I was out, and I had something to keep me out.
Flashback
I'm sure I broke many, many, laws driving to Tori's house late that night after I left Andre. Not even bothering to check the time, I went straight up to the door and rang the doorbell before knocking. A moment or so later, a disheveled looking Tori answered the door, looking very confused.
"Jade? What are you doing here?" As I finally took a good look at her, I realized Andre was right. She looked like she had been crying recently and didn't have the same sparkle in her eye she usually did.
"I wanted to talk."
It's always amazed me how easily she just says 'fuck you' to her own problems to cater to my needs. She stepped aside to let me in and I collapsed onto the couch.
"Are you feeling any better?" She asked as she sat down next to me.
"Actually, yes. That's kind of what I wanted to talk about," I said, folding my legs up under me.
She had a look I couldn't quite decipher, "Oh?"
I sighed and started, "I've kind of found the remedy to all of my problems, in the form of a person. Beck, what he did, the pain he caused, it just doesn't matter anymore."
A look of sadness briefly crossed her face before she smiled, "I'm glad you found someone. You deserve it."
"You do too, you know."
She let out a pained laugh, "If only."
"You do. Andre told me about how you've been doing pretty rough lately, you deserve some happiness."
Tori looked down at the floor and sighed, "My only happiness also happens to be the source of the most pain."
"Why's that?"
"You know the saying 'When life hands you lemons, make lemonade'? My philosophy is 'When life hands you a beautiful girl, you sit off to the side and you let her be happy with someone you know is better than you'. As a kid I always saw those cliché, 'loving someone who loves someone else is the most painful thing in the world'. But now, I know how true it is," she finished as a tear ran down her cheek.
I wiped the tear away with my thumb, "Tell me who they are so I can beat 'em senseless for not loving someone as amazing as you."
She smiled a little bit before sobering up again, "Beating up yourself is kind of silly." When she realized what she had actually said, she simply resigned herself to a sigh.
"Hey, Vega?" She looked up at me, "You're wrong," I said before leaning in to kiss her. It took her a fraction of a second to actually realize what was going on before she started to kiss me back.
"I love you, Tori," I whispered as I pulled away.
She grinned, "More than coffee?"
"More than coffee," I replied, to which she smiled and tackled me back onto the couch, reengaging the kiss after muttering, "I love you too."
End of Flashback
So what's the moral of this story, you may be asking. It's simple really, but I'm going to be a bit long-winded because I want to do it justice.
Beck was my everything, and when he left, my world fell to pieces. I didn't know how to live on my own. Therefore, I sunk to the deepest depths to deal with my problems in the only way I knew; pain. But Tori…Tori was my salvation. Call me mad for allowing her to be my everything, but there's always been a certain madness to love, hasn't there?
This is for all of you who have those moments where you feel like all hope is lost, when you feel as if you suddenly can't breathe because the one person you depended on so much is gone. As corny as it sounds, theres a person for everybody, and you'll find that person if you give life a chance. Nobody is destined to go through life alone; get out there, experience all that the world has to offer, and you won't be alone. When someone leaves, you need to keep in mind, it's not the end. If you truly need someone, they won't make you find out what life is like without them, they won't leave. They'll stand by you until the end of time.
A/N: Good god, that was cathartic. This story is very personal to me, and I felt like it should be shared. Of course I Jori-fied it for giggles, but you get the gist of it.
I am living, breathing, proof that there is a way out of even the deepest of holes, and I want all of those who know what I'm talking about, to know that the pain won't last forever. Life is too short to spend forever and a half depressing over someone or something that isn't worth your time. So for the love of Jori, go out and experience all of the wonderful things this world has to offer!
Last disclaimer message, Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall series doesn't belong to me, nor does The Beatles' Yesterday, or The Script's Breakeven. All of which were used in some way in this story.
Hopefully you enjoyed the story and understood my motives and the meaning behind this, and I'll be back tomorrow with the next chapter of Fast Lane!