Jade's P.O.V

"What the hell are you doing here, Vega?" I mutter, snuggling deeper into her body despite the tone of my voice.

"You texted me," She answers, and pulls out her pearphone to show me a very badly written text. I texted her to "help me," apparently.

"Mm...yeah...sorry about that. I guess I kind of drunk texted you or something," I squeeze my eyes shut again and she touches my cheek softly.

"What happened?" She asks. What the hell am I supposed to tell her? That I'm torn between choosing God or loving her? That one of my closest friends basically told me that if I'm a lesbian, I'm supposedly "called" to celibate? (Which means to abstain from marriage and sexual relations.) That she told me that I couldn't be in love with a girl because it's not possible? Considering the fact that I technically dated Beck for awhile before realizing I had absolutely no attraction to boys, I can't exactly tell her I'm gay.

"I don't want to talk about it," I mutter bitterly as I pull away from her strong embrace. She pulls out a first aid kit and begins to treat the cuts on my knees and my bloodied hand.

"Come on, Jade. You freaking drank a crapload of vodka. Don't people who're drunk normally spill their secrets?" She whines. I sit up quickly, and she flinches at the sudden movement. I grab her wrist and lean in close enough so that our foreheads are just barely touching.

"So...I'm guessing you've never been drunk. Or near anyone who's drunk," I whisper. She gives me a weird look.

"No. Actually I have been," She disengages her wrist from my grip, and scoots away a little bit.

"Oh yeah?" I laugh. "Who?" I drop back onto the bed.

"My ex boyfriend from my last school. He used to get drunk a lot. Sometimes when he was drunk, he'd become really angry at me for nothing...and..." Her face tightens, and I can see the raw fear in her eyes.

My voice softens.

"He hurt you?" I ask, sitting up. She nods, and looks down at her lap, playing with her fingers. "...did you tell anyone?"

"No, you're the first person I've told. And besides, with that much alcohol in you, you're probably not going to remember this conversation anyways," She looks at me, and I realize the weird look I'd noticed earlier was actually fear. She was afraid of me. Afraid that I'd hurt her because I was drunk.

"Are you afraid of me?" I ask, slightly fearful of her answer. She looks at me silently for a long while.

"Only because you're drunk," she whispers. God, I'm such an idiot. No wonder she was so jumpy. No wonder she was afraid when I grabbed her arm.

"I'm sorry," I murmur. I wrap my arms around her, and she stiffens slightly at the contact before relaxing into it and wrapping her arms around my neck. Suddenly she becomes the Tori she normally is again, and springs up.

"Okay, let's get you tucked in, Jadie!" She says in a sing-song voice.

"What the hell?" I nap. But she's already undressing me and pulling an oversized t-shirt over my head for me. "Why're you so damn bipolar, Vega?"

"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!" She says cheerfully and loudly. She forces me under the covers and slips under with me. She wraps her arms comfortingly around my body, and I become drowsy immediately.

"Goodnight, Jadie," she says.

"Goodnight, Tori."

The next day at school, everything seemed like normal. Except for one thing. Let me explain...

This morning I woke up to find Tori gone. She left a note, though.

Dear Jade,

I had to leave because I didn't want to get caught by your dad in your room with you, and I also had to go home so that my parents wouldn't find me gone in the morning. They'd probably flip out. After all, my dad's a cop. I hope you have a great last day of school!

Love, Tori

Even though I had a huge amount of butterflies bouncing around inside my stomach after reading that last bit, (Love, Tori), I felt like something was off about it. My suspicions were confirmed when I got to school and Tori was nowhere to be found. I sat down with the gang at our usual lunch table, and began moodily dissecting my salad.

"Where the hell is Tori?" I demand.

"Don't you remember? She left for her vacation this morning. But then again, you probably wouldn't know because you hate her," Beck answers. Actually, I did know that she was going on vacation for the summer. But I didn't know that she was leaving on the last freaking day of school. I figured she'd at least leave after the school day was over. I get up and toss my salad into a garbage can.

"Where are you going?" Cat asks in her high pitched voice.

"I don't fucking know. I don't feel like being outside," I snap.

"Hahahah. The vampire's got too much sun?" Rex snickers obnoxiously. I grab him by his hair and fling him as far as I can.

"REX!" Robbie yells, and runs over to retrieve the dummy.

"That's not nice, Jade," Beck chastises me.

"Yeah," I growl. "As if I care." I storm away angrily as the bell rings.

That night, I go to youth group like I always do on Fridays. I really didn't feel like going that night. I had a horrible enough day at school already. I stood stiffly, leaning against the wall as the other kids around me worshipped. What a load of bullshit. I stalk out of the worship room to go sit on the couches outside. Eventually Lilianne comes out to check on me. Just like she always does.

"Hey." I flick my eyes over to her. "Do you want to talk?" I stay silent.

"Why are you mad at me," she sighs.

"You still aren't listening to me. But then again, you have no idea how I feel and you'll never understand me. So it's okay," I say, with a mocking edge to my voice.

"I already told you I'll be really bad at understanding how you feel. But you know, when I was talking on the phone with Brandon, (her boyfriend) I began to understand how difficult it must be for gay people to know they can't be in a relationship with the person they like." I begin laughing harshly at her.

"Good. I cried myself to sleep most of this week because you fucking planted that idea into my head. And I know you'll never be able to understand. That's why I told you it was okay."

"You cried because you realized some people wouldn't be able to understand?"

"Fuck no. Just the fucking fact that you told me that I can't be in a relationship with someone even if I fucking truly care about them. And because you told me that I can't get married to a girl if I want to. And because you told me that you can't find "true romantic love" in a relationship between two girls."

"So it's not because I'm not listening or because I can't understand. You just don't like what I'm saying."

"You know what? It's not because of that. It's because you don't like what I think. Because you aren't trying to understand how I fucking feel. It's because you're too goddamn stubborn to even consider the fact that there can be true love between the same gender. You won't listen to me. You won't try to understand. Are you so immature that you can't conceive the fact that people can love each other no matter what gender, race, sexuality they are? You're telling me that I have to celibate because I like girls. You're telling me that if I date a girl, it's the same as me doing drugs or cutting. How on earth does that make any FUCKING sense to you? Okay, maybe all of those stupid things are "sinful." But the difference is, is that when I start dating a girl, and when I marry a girl, I won't be doing it out of depression or lustful desires for drugs. I'll be doing it out of love. Which, by the way, can exist between two girls. You can say that it's sinful, and that it's tainting what marriage is supposed to fucking be, but you can't tell me that I can't choose to marry someone I love, and you can't tell me I can't choose who I want to love. Got it?" I get up and stomp my way to my car. I get in and speed back to my house.

When I get inside, I smash the liquor cabinet open. The glass shatters all over the marble floor, and I grab as many bottles as I can carry, not even checking the labels to see what I'd chosen. When I reach my room, I put the bottles on my desk and I lock my door. I open one bottle and I drink as much of it as I can before coming up for air. The liquid sears in my throat and in my chest as I feel it travel down. I yank open a drawer in my desk to pull out a small silver box. I flick open the latch and pull out the icy cold metal blade. I take it with me into the bathroom, along with the bottle of alcohol. I hold my arm over the sink, and cut the ghostly pale flesh.

The pain make my eyes fill with tears, but I ignore it, taking another large gulp of what I now know is some sort of girly strawberry flavored vodka shit. Minutes pass...or they could be hours. Who knows.

Every once in awhile I make another cut, and watch as the blood seeps from it. It's really pretty, you know. The crimson red against white skin.

Eventually I fall asleep, drifting in and out of fitful dreams. Tori appears in most of them. And each dream, or should I say, nightmare, reminds me in a bitter and mocking tone that she will never love me the same.

A.N. So there you go. Second chapter. Ridiculously long, and I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes I might have made. And just so you know...I don't think there's going to be a happy ending to this story. So that's just a little warning to any of you who think it'll have a happy ending like every single other romance story in the world. But maybe it will. I don't know. Tell me what you guys think.