"Andre!" she shouts. He turns to the beautiful voice he's loved for months now. He almost felt bad about lying to Tori like he had, but one look at her and he knew that he had a perfectly logical reason. If Tori knew, if she knew that he wanted his best friend's girl as bad as he did, she would flip out. He knew he wasn't supposed to want her, but it wasn't like he could help himself. "That song, it was great!" she exclaimed with a grin, snaking her arm around her real boyfriend.
"Yeah, all your music seems even better than before lately," Tori adds. "It seems more real."
"I guess you could say I'm more inspired lately!" he replies, turning away.
"By what? Anything you want to tell us, Andre?" Jade asks, and that honey-sweet voice makes him turn back. He knows how abrasive and mean Jade is, but how is that supposed to stop him? She can be the most caring person ever if you just take the time to get to know her.
Andre shakes his head. "Just a girl I fell for," he says quietly, avoiding her blue eyes that always seemed to pierce through him.
"Who is she?" Cat asks. Poor, oblivious Cat. In a normal world, he could see himself ending up with a sweet girl like Cat. Two kids, a dog, a house out in the suburbs with a minivan and Cat becoming one of those bake-sale soccer moms. He doesn't want all that. No, this is a sick and twisted world, and he knows he'd rather have the girl who has never wanted children, the apartment in the city with the rough life as they both struggle to reach their dreams. He wants the girl with the streaks in her hair, the beautiful rainbow streaks that seem to represent all the many different sides of her wonderfully colorful persona.
"She's just somebody I recently reconnected with," Andre lies, avoiding the gazes of all his prying friends. "An old friend from elementary school."
"Hey! Do I know her, then?" Jade asks. He swears under his breath. He'd been hoping Jade had forgotten that they'd gone to school together. But she was Jade West. She never forgot anything.
"No, I don't think so," Andre replies. He sees the look in Beck's eyes, and it's almost like everything clicks for Beck in that moment. And the look, it kills Andre. "Listen, guys. I have to go. Bye."
He slips out of the room, looking back to wave one last time at his friends. Beck's arm is wrapped a little tighter around Jade, as if Andre didn't already know that Jade would always be Beck's.
Two days later, Andre takes off. He stays in LA, of course, but no one in the gang hears from him. He becomes a shadow, until they see him on the billboards, advertising his latest album. They call, but he knows enough not to pick up the phone. He knows just how much more he'd fuck up their lives if he tried to go back. In a couple of years, he gets the wedding invitation from Beck. It's beautiful, printed on a cream stationary that he knows Jade would've fought with her whole being. At least his Jade would have.
Just wanted to let you know. That's what the note Beck attached said. It's almost like a challenge to Andre, beckoning him to go to that wedding, try and steal Jade away from her prince charming. For a little bit, he considers it. But he knows he'll always come in second compared to Beck.
He does, in fact, go to the wedding. He hides in the back pew, with his face invisible to the front where he knows Beck is standing. He watches as Jade glides down the aisle, as pretty as he always knew she would be at her wedding. He watches as the happy couple says their vows, after he fights and succeeds in keeping himself silent as the minister asks the question about people objecting. He wants to say something, but he sees how happy Jade is. Isn't that all he ever wanted for her?
Twenty years later, he stands in front of a nice pretty blue house in the suburbs. There's a minivan out front, and a white picket fence and a mailbox confirming that it's the Oliver residence. He climbs out of his Mercedes two-seater- he never did get over Jade enough to get married and settle down- and walks up the pathway slowly. He rings the doorbell, and for a moment he almost wants to run away and hide.
"Oh my god!" he hears a girl exclaim. "You're Andre Harris!" He looks down, and sees a teenager, maybe 13, with Beck's hair and Jade's beautiful eyes. She's the perfect mix of the perfect couple.
"What's your name?" Andre asks, almost afraid to hear the answer. She's a perfect example of how fucked up this world is, of how he'll never get his happy ending or his Cinderella, because she's already found her Prince Charming in the pretty blue house with the picket fence.
"I'm Emma Oliver!" she says with a grin. "Wait, do you know my parents or something? Should I call my mom down?"
Andre nods his head uncertainly. "Could I come in?" he asks.
"Mom says I'm not supposed to let strangers come in, but I suppose you're Andre Harris, and you probably know Mom and Dad, so I guess so," Emma reasons, gesturing him in. A couple of little boys who look about 7 are running around in the family room, along with a couple girls who seem to be maybe 5 and 10. "The boys are Zach and Alex, the little girl is Anna, and the other girl is Sophie. I'm the only normal one."
Andre smiles at Emma, glancing around. "Jade never seemed to want a big family when she was in high school," he mused.
Emma shrugged. "People change, I guess," she told him. "Did you? Want a big family, I mean?"
"Yeah, I did," Andre replied. "I'm not sure why I'm telling a 13 year-old girl this, though. I wanted a big family with a house in the suburbs and a bunch of little kids with her eyes running around underfoot."
"You sound like you never got her," Emma said cautiously. "What happened to her? Did she die or something like that?"
Andre shook his head sadly. "No, not at all. Something much worse. She was always in love with someone else," he told Emma sadly, looking into her blue eyes, just like Jade's. "She never knew, to be honest. I imagine she's somewhere out there, still with her perfect guy and the perfect family. I hope so. I'm sure she's happy, and Emma, when you're old enough to understand love, you'll realize that's all that matters."
"It still hurts sometimes though, doesn't it?" Emma asked.
"It's like she breaks my heart again, into a million different shards, every single day," he said quietly.
"Andre?" he heard a soft voice say from behind him, and he froze. He would know that voice anywhere. He turned around, looking into her beautiful eyes. Her hair was shorter now, the mommy cut he'd hoped she'd never get, and her face had a few more wrinkles, but it was still her. "Andre Harris. Kids, is it alright if I leave Emma in charge and go for a quick walk? Andre's one of my oldest friends."
The kids, especially Emma, nodded eagerly as Jade set down the basket of laundry she'd been holding. Jade West, doing laundry. That was something Andre had never thought he'd see.
They walked outside together, starting off through the domestic neighborhood.
"So what happened, Andre?" she asked, trying to break through the awkwardness lingering between them. "You took off, you never spoke to any of us again! I mean, Andre, you never even came to our wedding!"
"I came," Andre whispered.
"But we didn't see you," Jade told him, confused. Andre pointed to the necklace Jade hadn't taken off since she found it in the pile of presents at their wedding.
"You never did figure out who that gift was from, did you?" he asked.
"Why didn't you stay?" Jade replied, glaring at him. "It was our wedding, and we missed you, Andre! You're one of our best friends. How could you just blow it off like that? And what about Cat? She cried for weeks when you left! She's out there, still single because she never got over you."
"In a perfect world, I would've gone and married her," Andre told Jade. She looked at him, furrowing her brow.
"What's so imperfect about this one?" she asked. "I'm happy, I know that. Aren't you? With your music and all that? By the way, would you mind making it a bit less depressing? Emma listens to it religiously, and you seem so sad lately."
"You can't be happy if you have nobody to share it with, Jade," Andre said quietly. "That's all I ever wanted, but this fucked up world decided that she'd go off and marry him instead. And don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and everything she deserves and all, but sometimes it feels like the universe is rubbing just how perfect he is in my face and I just want to go back and tell her how I feel but it's too late."
"It's never too late," Jade insisted. "Maybe their marriage will fall apart. Maybe you were meant to be together, and she just doesn't know it yet!"
"But then she wouldn't be happy," Andre countered. "She's happy, the way she is right now. No matter how much I love her, I could never take that away from her. She needs him. He's like her kryptonite. The good kind. It's like I'd be the bad kryptonite."
"Andre, you're not bad!" Jade replied indignantly. "You know, you're Emma's hero."
He shrugged. "Emma's, what, 14?" he asked. Jade nodded. "How's she supposed to know just how big a toll this life takes on us?"
"You're still standing, though," Jade pointed out.
"It'd kill her if I fell," Andre said quietly.
"Who is she? It's like you're saying she's your whole life, but she doesn't even know? How do you figure that's what's best for her? What if she'd want to know?" Jade shot questions at him. "I'd want to know if one of my friends still loved me after all these years!"
Andre shook his head. "I'd never do that to her. She's happy, living in a nice house in the suburbs with her dream guy and I'm not gonna go fuck up her life."
"Then what the hell are you doing here?" A voice behind them asked harshly.
They turned around to find Beck staring at the two of them. Jade smiled, kissing him. Beck snaked his arm around his wife tightly, as if Andre was actually going to try to do anything.
"Beck, Andre's our friend," Jade said with a grin. "He's back. It's been twenty years, and he's talking to somebody again! Isn't that great? Gosh, we should organize some sort of retreat with the gang; A vacation somewhere, like a lodge up north skiing or something. Leave the kids at home with your parents, maybe?"
"Look, it's fine, Jade," Andre said. "I just came to say hi, see how you guys were doing and all. Maybe I'll go see Cat or Tori and her husband."
"Cat would love that, honestly," Jade gushed, Beck glaring at Andre the entire time. "Would you like to stay for dinner, by the way?"
Andre shook his head. "I should be getting home to my dog, Amethyst. She's probably hungry by now."
"A dog?" Beck asked with a forced smile. "Cool! Amethyst?"
"Yeah, she's a black lab."
"Fun," Jade said with a more real smile than her husband's. She hugged him, smelling just like she always had, of vanilla and coffee. Andre smiled at the happy couple, backing away as their kids came out, welcoming their dad home. The family waved as Andre turned away just in time to hide his tears.
One year later, Andre married Caterina Valentine in a big church in the middle of LA. The entire Oliver family came, Jade especially looking happy that Andre seemed happy finally. It wasn't like she didn't know who the girl was. Everyone knew. Even Cat knew, walking down the aisle that day only to see her groom staring at the maid of honor in front of Cat.
Nine months later, Cat and Andre had a little baby girl, Alexis. Jade and Tori came in while Cat was in labor while Beck and Tori's husband and Robbie waited outside. Fifteen hours, and out came a tiny girl with caramel skin and a tuft of light brown hair on top of her head. As time went on, her eyes darkened to a dark brown, like Cat's. He knew it was awful of him, but he couldn't help but be disappointed that Lexi's eyes hadn't stayed ice blue like Jade's.
So he ended up with sweet Cat. Two kids, a dog, a house out in the suburbs with a minivan. Cat became one of those bake-sale soccer moms. They stayed good friends with Beck and Jade throughout the years. Their son, Nathan, married Beck and Jade's youngest daughter, Annie. Andre was happy for them, at least Nathan got his happy ending.
Yeah, for Andre, it was a pretty fucked up world. But for the rest of them, especially Jade, it was a happy one. Jade was content with Beck and her family. Andre was just an insignificant character in the amazing plot of Jade's life. He didn't get his happy ending. He faded into the background. But she was happy. And that was all that was important.