Whatever Will Be

Rated T for language and some strong sexual content.

Chapter 2: "Under The Rain"

Surprisingly I slept really well. No disturbances. No tossing and turning. And Jade seemed to sleep well too. It's like she wasn't even there. I lean on my forearms and check the time.

Almost nine.

I swing my feet around, stand up, and stretch my arms out wide. Then I turn around to see if Jade's awake and my heart drops into my butt. She's not even there.

My first instinct is to see if she's downstairs eating breakfast so I run downstairs, hoping she hasn't left. I stomp down the stairs and ignore the fact that Trina is the only person in the kitchen making a complete mess trying to make some kind of meal.

"Where's Jade?" I ask nervously.

"Uh, how should I know?" Trina asks without even looking up at me.

I roll my eyes and run upstairs into my parent's room. My dad is at work, but my mom is sitting in bed reading a book. She looks up at me calmly. "Can I help you?"

"Did Jade leave?"

She sits up straighter. "She's not in your room?"

I shake my head.

"Well," my mom sighs, "maybe you should give her some space."

"You're insane," I say. "She needs me, Mom. I know she does. She trusts me enough to actually cry in front of me. I mean, I doubt she wants to be alone."

"I don't know, honey. Jade strikes me as the type to like being alone."

"Oh what do you know," I groan. "I'm going to see if Cat knows where she is."

"Do you need me to drive you?"

"No, I'll just walk."

So I rush to my room and change into casual Sunday clothes and get outside as fast as I can. Of course it's raining. Just my luck.

But I start walking to Cat's house anyway, and suddenly all of last night's events became extremely vivid. And the more I think about them, the more they don't even feel real. I inhale sharply as I see a girl with dark hair and green highlights standing near a cliff.

The only thing under the cliff is a busy highway. There's nothing interesting down there, so I don't know why she would look down like it's some kind of beautiful island- holy shit, that's Jade.

I sprint over to her. "Jade! Jade!" She turns around and looks at me with puffy eyes and a bright red nose. I grab her wrist and pull her away from the edge. "What are you doing here?" I ask, even though I have a fairly good idea.

"I don't know," she says softly. It makes me feel sick to my stomach - how much she's not acting like herself. Beck completely broke her, and now I can't help but feel like it's my responsibility to put her back together.

"Why did you leave?"

"Tori, just go. Alright? Leave me alone. I want to be alone," she says, anger boiling up to the surface.

I shiver (thanks to the cold rain) and cross my arms. "If you think I'm going to leave you alone next to a cliff, you're delusional."

"Why do you care so much?"

The fact that she seems genuinely shocked that I care breaks my heart. "You're my friend. Of course I'm going to care."

"Don't coddle me, all right. Don't treat me like I'm incapable of handling this myself, okay? Just leave me alone."

Okay she is losing her mind. "Jade, you're standing next to a cliff in the pouring rain, so if that's how you handle someone cheating on you- by jumping off of a cliff- you're clearly not capable of handling it by yourself. It's okay to need somebody."

"You don't know what it's like to have somebody cheat on you," she says in a low voice.

"Yeah, I do. Remember Steven?"

"But you don't know what it's like to have somebody you've loved for as long as you can remember be unfaithful to you. You don't get it. Beck was the only person I ever felt comfortable enough around to actually laugh or cry. I only show emotion in front of people who I love and trust and that's not a lot of people."

I feel my stomach do a few cartwheels for a moment. Without thinking I say, "You show emotion in front of me."

She looks at me with some kind of revelation, like she has never realized she ever did.

And a minute later she steps closer to me, cupping my face. She presses her lips firmly against mine and I stand completely frozen. Oh my god, what is happening?

Before I can finish processing what's occurring she steps away from me and in a blink of an eye runs past me. I want to follow her, but I can't even move. Holy hell, did Jade really just kiss me or am I hallucinating?

Or am I having another one of those naughty dreams I really shouldn't ever have?

I snap back into reality and decide to go home and get dry and wait for what just happened to sink in. On my walk home, the rain stops and the sky clears up. As I'm walking up my front porch steps, my mom opens the front door holding her purse.

"Oh! Tori! Did you ever find Jade?"

"Yeah, I found her," I answer quickly.

"Where was she?"

"Um, she was at Cat's house. Are you going out?"

"Yeah, I'm going to the mall. Do you want to dry up and come with me?"

As nice as my mom is being, I really don't want to be around her (or anyone) right now. "No thanks," I say, walking inside. As the door shuts behind me, I stop shortly seeing Trina in the kitchen with an even bigger mess.

"What are you doing?"

"Cooking dinner."

"It's not even lunch yet," I say, clearly getting irritable.

She scoffs. "I have a date tonight with a super hot drum player and he's starting a band, so I figure if he's looking for a lead singer he'll want to pick me if I'm his girlfriend."

"I don't even know how to reply to that." I turn and jog up to my room, ignoring Trina who is still trying to talk to me. I slam my door and slide down as the fact that Jade just kissed me settles into my brain.

Jade kissed me.

Jade put her lips on mine.

I'm not complaining, but I just want to know why... And if she'd ever do it again... And before I can dive even further into my thoughts, my phone rings. I run over and answer it thinking it will be Jade.

It's not.

"Hey, uh, Tori, can I talk to you?"

"Beck? Why are you calling me?" The goddamn nerve of this boy.

"Because I want to talk to you."

"Fine. Speak. But everything you say can and will be held against you."

"I'm sorry, okay, I didn't mean to hurt Jade. I was intoxicated and I didn't even know she was there. It was a mistake. A horrible mistake and I-"

"Um, why are you apologizing to me? I'm not the one you cheated on." And with that I hang up. Man, school is going to be awkward tomorrow...

The moment I step inside Hollywood Arts I look at Jade's locker, but she's not there.

"Yo Tori!" I hear Andre calling my name. I walk over to his locker slowly.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Have you seen that new video of the guy who can-"

"Sorry, Andre, I really can't talk right now," I interrupt him and walk quickly to my locker. I don't mean to be rude, but I just want to get my books and see if I can track down Jade. Ugh, she's probably not even at school.

"Hiiii."

I take a deep breath and close my locker, forcing a smile. "Hey, Cat."

"Is Jade here today?"

"I was just about to ask you the same thing." The fact that Jade was about to jump off a cliff yesterday and the fact that she kissed me, ran off, and hasn't contacted me since is really making me worried. I just want things to be normal again.

"Hey, Tori!" I hear my name being called and I inwardly groan when I hear who it is.

It's Beck.

After our phone conversation yesterday, I was hoping he would be the one not in school so I wouldn't have to deal with him. I tell Cat I'll see her in class and I start walking away from Beck who was heading right towards me. I make it to Sikowitz's classroom door when he catches up to me. Damn.

"Can you stop running away from me?" he asks, sounding a bit desperate.

"I'm not running. I'm just standing here, aren't I?"

He ignores my sassy remark and gets to the point. "Can you please tell Jade I'm sorry? I guess she's not in school today, but I just really want her to know that I didn't mean to-"

"to cheat on her?"

"It was a mistake. I love Jade. You know that."

"You may love her, but as far as I know she doesn't love you. Not anymore anyway."

He scrunches up his face as if someone had just punched him in the gut. I guess, in theory, I just verbally punched him. Fantastic.

Beck hesitates suddenly and asks quietly, "So is Jade okay?"

"Are you kidding me?" I gasp. Honestly what is wrong with this boy. "Of course she's not okay. You broke her heart. And I'm not going to apologize to her for you. Get some balls and do it yourself. And be prepared for her to not forgive you."

"Hello, Mr. Jade's dad... Is Jade here?"

"Who are you?"

"Tori Vega. One of Jade's friends."

I decided to go to Jade's house right after school to make sure he's not making friends with a cliff again. And I'm hoping to the heavens above that she's there.

He looks me up and down with a straight face. "Sorry, Jade isn't home."

My heart sinks. "She's not in her room?"

"No. Have a good day."

"Are you sure?" I ask, keeping the door open with my foot and I smile my bright Tori smile so he doesn't get mad at me.

"Yes," he says quickly.

"Well, do you know where she is or when she'll be back?"

"Nope."

Then he slams the door in my face. Rude. I stand on their front porch (which really needs to be repainted) and I pull out my cell phone to call Jade. When she doesn't answer, I leave a quick voice mail.

"Hey, Jade, um, it's me Tori. So, uh, yesterday you kind of left suddenly and I haven't seen you since and you weren't in school today and to be honest I'm kind of worried, so could you please call me when you get this? We really need to talk about, um... stuff."

That was incredibly awkward.

I start walking home, and purposely take the route by the cliff to the highway. Luckily, Jade isn't there. But to my surprise, when I get home and walk in my living room, Jade is there sitting on the red couch staring at the blank tv.

"Jade," I say rushing over to her, tossing my large school bag aside. I sit beside her and she doesn't react. "Talk to me," I beg.

She doesn't respond.

"Okay if you're not going to talk to me, then why are you even-" I can't even get another word out as she turns to me and presses her lips against mine in the matter of a second.

And the only sane thought I can muster is thank goodness Trina still isn't in the kitchen.

A/N: Sorry for taking so long to update. I've been really busy. I really appreciate each and every review, so thank you so much for the wonderful reviews on the first chapter. I hope you guys like this chapter as well! :)