I don't own Victorious or any of its characters! My first fic, a oneshot loosely based off of John Mayer's song Victoria. Enjoy =)
I pulled into the driveway of the condominium I shared with Beck and put my car in park. I sat for a moment, not quite ready to deal with any form of human interaction. The song playing on the radio turned into background fuzz as I started to think about everything that brought me to where I am today. It had been a few years since I graduated high school, and all of us pretty much went on with our own lives.
Andre left for Nashville a few weeks after we walked across that stage, accepting our diplomas. He got signed to a record label, finally getting the recognition he deserved. Yeah, he might be one of the only people I will openly admit to agreeing that they have talent.
Last I heard from Cat, she was doing Broadway out in New York City. Its good for her. She's always been a city girl at heart. I think New York is doing her a lot of good. I'll have to call her soon, just to make sure everything is all right. She dropped the bubbly facade for the most part once we graduated and she moved out of her parents' house, and away from her brother. It was probably the smartest thing she'd ever done. She's truly happy now, and not overcompensating with all those ridiculous things she did in high school.
Robbie was, well, he had gotten rid of Rex, thank God. I honestly don't know what made him do it, but the last time I saw the puppet, he was sitting on a shelf in Robbie's bedroom. Looking creepy as all Hell. I'm not complaining, though. I'd rather have that thing put away than perched on his leg. Robbie made his own blog where he posted videos of him singing and playing the guitar, even though he's going to school to be a kindergarten teacher. The blog is entertaining, I guess, and the thought of adults trusting their children with him is even funnier. I can't believe it, but he is the only one I see more than Beck, considering the two are basically inseparable.
Beck is doing his acting thing. He does a lot of minor roles in movies. He's been working on landing a lead in a small indie movie. I'm praying on whatever higher power there is that he gets it. He works so hard, despite having that air that it all comes natural to him. I can't count how many nights I've stayed up with him, running lines over and over again until I wasn't sure if I was looking at Beck, or the character in the script. Those were the times that he took my breath away. We aren't together anymore. We're just too different from each other for us to have any kind of romantic relationship. Oddly enough, the whole friend thing worked out great for us. And we're even better roommates.
This probably sounds nothing like me, but in all honesty I've changed a lot since graduation. I guess you could say I'm nicer. Then again, it all depends on who you are. It took me a while to realize that treating your friends badly doesn't do anything for you in the end. Shocker, right? Don't get me wrong though, I'm still a gank when I need to be. But I've found myself not needing to be one as much anymore. Aside from the epiphany, I've been doing a lot of writing. I'm halfway through my first novel, and terrified of letting anyone read it. I wrote a few plays, but after going through a few productions I realized that it wasn't my thing. I'm too much of a control freak, and you don't really get much of a say in the production. A novel, though. You control everything. How a character looks, acts, smells. It is all under your control, and no one can change the image you have in your mind. So that's what I'm doing when I'm not bar-tending. Anything to pay the bills.
You probably think I'm forgetting someone, don't you? A certain Victoria Vega, I assume. I wish I could forget her. I've actually been trying my hardest not to think about that girl. I'm failing, if you were concerned. After graduation, we gave up the frenemie charade, and I finally allowed myself to consider her a friend. Once everyone else had gone and I was left with Beck and Robbie, I found a certain solace in Tori. I let her take me out to lunch and I'd listen to whatever crazy shit Trina was doing with her life. She'd beg and beg me to let her read some of my novel and I would feverishly deny her anything close to it.
The novel is a love story about two people who were supposed to hate each other. Everything about one person was the exact opposite about the other. But as fate would have it, they began to fall in love despite everything in the world telling them it wouldn't work.
It took me eight chapters to realize I was writing what I wished would happen with me and Tori. I was proofreading and I started to notice that a few times in a chapter, during the more romantic scenes, I had accidentally written Tori's name instead of the character.
Our lunches turned into dinners, which slowly bled into movies afterwards. There were weekly wine nights at one of our places where in the heat of the moment, a kiss might be shared if I thought I could get away with it as a drunken slip. Then one night a kiss went deeper than I thought it would, and I wound up half naked and straddling her with my lips glued to her neck as she tangled her fingers in my hair before either of us could realize what was going on. And even after we did, we didn't stop. Nights where things went that far were few and far between. As time went on, however, the amount of wine that would be consumed beforehand slowly decreased. It was like we were testing the waters with each other. To see how far one would let the other go. It was usually pretty far.
This went on for a little over a year until one of us wanted more.
You probably thought it was Tori, didn't you? Wrong. It was me. At one of our wine nights, I looked at her with her hair in a messy bun on the top of her head and her glasses perched on her nose. She was always beautiful, but this natural beauty had a habit of taking my breath away.
"Why are you staring at me?" She asked with a small smirk, taking a sip of wine from her glass.
"You're weird looking." I said without thinking. Okay, some things never change.
"Wow, thanks. After all this time, you'd think you'd get tired of insulting me." She said dryly, looking at me with those chocolate eyes.
I shook my head, "You make it too easy. I don't think I could stop if I wanted to."
"Do you want me to kick you out of my house?" Tori asked as she took a handful of popcorn that was out of the bowl and shoved it in her mouth.
"I'd like to see you try." I said with a playful laugh. We fell into a comfortable silence, and the music in the background kept playing, and the clock kept ticking, and she kept sipping her wine, but I felt frozen in place. It had just struck me at that moment that I wanted to date Tori Vega. I wanted her to be mine and I didn't want her to be anyone else's. I wanted to hold her hand in public and I wanted our friends to think our banter was cute because we were together.
"Seriously, is there something on my face?" Tori asked, rubbing at her cheek with the back of her hand.
A small smile found its way to my lips, "Go out with me."
She looked at me, blinking a few times as if she couldn't quite figure out what I was trying to say. "We go out all the time." She finally replied.
"Vega. I mean, Tori, I want you to be my girlfriend." I said, trying my very hardest to be bold. This girl actually had the ability to make me nervous. Part of me was thrilled by it and another part was terrified. At that moment, I didn't see how she could say no. We'd been basically dating for over a year. There really wasn't much of a difference.
She took a while to respond, and that silence fell on the end of the CD, so we were engulfed in an uncomfortable lull of an asked question with no answer. Worry began to stir inside me, and as that worry grew, so did my frustration. It wasn't that hard of a question to answer. Either she wanted me or she didn't. She should just say so.
"Jade, that's... I don't know what to say. I mean, I never thought you would want something like that. I had no idea that's where you thought this was going. It's just so..." She finally began to speak. Oh God. She was seriously going to reject me. I realized at that moment that I didn't mean anything to her, and rage instantly swallowed me whole.
I shook my head, "Dumb. It was dumb. Forget it. I never said anything. I'm gonna go." I said quickly, gathering up my things and practically running out her front door before anything else could be said. I didn't think my ego could handle the rejection.
That night was about a year ago.
So that leaves one final year to fill in the blanks. I ignored Tori for a few months after I stormed out on her without hearing any kind of answer. At that point, I didn't want to hear yes or no. I was so angry at myself for allowing such vulnerability. I threw myself into my novel, adding six more chapter of angst and frustration, and spent my nights at the bar working, where sometimes I would take a girl home with me. But only if she was sober. Well, fairly sober.
At some point during those months, Beck informed me that she started dating some girl we went to high school with. A nameless face I didn't recognize at all. What I did recognize was the pain in my chest when I realized that I really meant nothing to her.
Tori showed up on my doorstep one October afternoon. I opened the door when I heard the knocking and almost closed it again when I saw who was behind it.
"Don't." She said, as if she could read my mind.
I leaned against the frame and looked at her expectantly, "Well? Do you have something to say or are you just trying to get me to heat the outdoors?"
She let out a sigh, clearly anticipating my old antics, "You've been ignoring me."
"Congratulations. You're not an idiot after all."
"Jade. Don't be mean."
I scoffed, "Don't be mean? Says the girl who left me hanging high and dry."
Tori looked at me with wide eyes, "You never even let me finish! You ran out of my house and then ignored me for months! Months, Jade!"
"Humor me, Vega. what would your answer have been?" I asked, not entirely sure if I wanted to hear the answer.
"I would have asked to go slower. I didn't want to jump straight into a serious relationship." She says quietly, and I can almost see the hope twinkling in her eyes. A sick part of me wanted to crush it.
"Slower? Are you serious? We had been pretty much dating the entire year up to that night. I literally had to catch myself from calling you my girlfriend when I was at work. I don't know how much slower we could have gone! We had already fucked. Hundreds of times!"
"I wouldn't say hundreds." She said softly, looking at the ground as a blush grew across her cheeks. I used to love how she would get embarrassed talking about intimate things. I had often used it to my advantage when I wanted to mess with her, but now it just irritated me.
"Not the point." I said through clenched teeth, "What are you even doing here?"
"I want to start over."
"What happened to Becky What's-Her-Face?" I asked snidely.
She shook her head, and I could tell she wasn't surprised that I knew or that I would bring it up, "Lisa and I broke up a while ago."
I shook my head, "I don't care. I don't care about any of this, Vega. How could you even think I'd want to start over after you jumped into a relationship so quickly after whatever we were doing ended? It's pathetic. You need to move on. I have." I said in a low voice, hoping I was convincing and those four years of acting classes paid off. I didn't wait to see her reaction, though. Instead I slammed the door in her face.
"Jade, don't do this." I heard her say through the wood. I stayed stoic until I heard her get into her car and drive away.
So that brings us back to where I am now. Sitting in my car, wishing I would have started over with the girl I thought I hated back in high school. I haven't gone a day without thinking about her, without thinking about how her lips felt on my skin, without missing the sound of her voice.
She's turned me into a melodramatic sap.
As I snickered to myself, someone knocked on my window and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Beck's smiling face was on the other side of the glass and I scowled at him as I pulled the key out of the ignition and got out of the car.
"You've been sitting out here for a while." He said, running a hand through his hair.
"You stalking me, Oliver?" I said as I walked up to the door.
"I live with you, West." He countered, following behind me. I smiled, happy to have his company despite everything we had been through.
"Don't remind me."
"Tori came by." He said, and as soon as it registered in my head, I stopped dead in my tracks.
"What? Why?"
"I don't know. I said you weren't around. She just told me to tell you that you were right. Did something happen between you guys again? She looked like she was going to cry." Beck sounded concerned. He had been kept updated throughout our entire debacle. There to hold my hand and reprimand me for being childish at the same time.
"I don't know what you're talking about. When was she here?" I whipped around and looked at him with wide eyes. I hadn't seen her. I hadn't even heard from her.
"A few hours ago. She said she might not be seeing you soon, and she wanted me to relay the message. It looked like she was leaving for something." Beck said.
"Why would you say that?" I asked narrowing my eyes.
"She had a suitcase in the backseat of her car. She wouldn't even come in. She said she had things to do. Look, Jade. I know you still love her. Even though you never admitted it in the first place. You have to go after her."
"Why?" I asked, instantly being put on the defense.
"Because she made you happier than I've ever seen you. And I dated you for almost three years." Beck answered, and I hated that matter-of-fact tone he was using.
"She's gone, Beck. What difference does it make?"
He approached my quickly and gently took hold of my shoulders, "The Jade West I know does not give up this easily. You need to suck it up and go after what you want."
"How am I supposed to know where she is?"
"She's at her parents' house saying goodbye." I heard a voice say over my shoulder and turned my head to see Robbie standing there.
"How do you know?" I asked.
"She texted me asking if I could come over to help pack up the rest of her things."
"I gotta go." I said before bolting out the front door. The thought of permanently losing her terrified me. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let her leave for good. Beck was right, I was still in love with her, and I lied to her that day. I wasn't over her, and I didn't want her to be over me.
I broke the speed limit the entire drive to her parents' house, where I had spent countless nights in high school, hating her and not understanding why at the time. I pulled into the driveway and squealed to a halt in front of her car and her family. There were still boxes on the ground. I wasn't too late.
Getting out of the car was a task as my nerves took control of my entire body. When I finally managed to free myself from my seatbelt and open the door, four pairs of eyes were set on me. Her parents look bewildered, Trina looked pissed, and Vega had a mixture of anger and what I hoped to be excitement.
I walked up to her in long strides and took her face gently in my hands, pulling it close to mine so our noses were touching, "Don't go. I was an idiot. I lied. I'm not over you." I said in a hushed voice with my eyes closed, tears slowly sliding down my face.
"What are you doing here?" She asked softly. She didn't push me away. I took that as a good sign.
"Beck said you stopped by. I couldn't stand the thought of you leaving. I just, I lo-"
"Jade." Tori silenced me, and my heart dropped. For a moment I thought she didn't want to hear what I had to say because she didn't feel the same. That was, until I felt her cheeks pull up with a grin and I opened my eyes to look at her tear-brimmed ones.
"Yeah?" I breathed.
"Will you be my girlfriend?"
"I..." I started to say, but was cut off by a soft kiss from Vega. Like we never skipped a beat.
"You don't have a say." She said, and I looked at her with a smile.
I heard clapping coming from somewhere behind us and reluctantly looked to see Beck and Robbie leaning against Beck's car, which was parked on the side of the road. I decided that now would be as good a time as ever to see how Tori's family would react to what they had just witnessed. Surprisingly, wide smiles were found on both of their faces. Even Trina had a bit of a grin.
"I wondered when you two would figure your shit out." Trina said, and I was completely taken aback by the fact that she had actually said something I agreed with.