Here goes chapter three. I don't own Victorious.

[No excuse for what you've done.]

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Beck would have never envisioned himself cheating on Jade the way he did. He loved Jade and he loved...almost everything about her. Even though she had the tendency to be ruthless and cruel towards other people, she at least treated him well and Beck had always secretly liked how honest and blunt she was. He loved her edgyness and the way her style was sort of like his, dark and vintage you could say. And he liked those rare moments when he could get her to smile and every now and then show her softer side, even though she always swore that she didn't have one. Beck liked how beautiful she was, but also how she didn't really care what anyone thought of her. Even though her jealousy was hard to deal with sometimes, most times he just found it amusing and somehow he and Jade just worked as a couple. They could talk to each other about anything. They understood each other. They cared for each other. They loved each other. Everyone at school saw them as this inseparable power couple that couldn't be broken up by anything or anyone (girls at Hollywood Arts had given up a long time ago). They were meant to be together, it was a proven fact. Jade was meant to be his. But...

Then there was Cat who was different than Jade in every way. Cat never hurt people's feelings. Cat probably laughed more than she breathed and she never wore dark colors, always pink or white or yellow or green or purple or red or all the above. Cat was sweet and bubbly, a burst full of energy in a quiet room. The only time she ever reminded him of Jade was when he caught her in a dark moment with her eyes cast down or her head buried in her lap, if she was upset about something. Cat never got angry like Jade did. She said things that didn't make sense and laughed at things that wouldn't be found funny by a "normal" person, and she liked to make people happy. Beck knew that he and Jade made sense as a couple, they just sort of...complimented each other. But he and Cat really didn't make sense at all. Nobody would have seen that coming; it was so unexpected for them to develop feelings for each other. If anyone, everyone would have assumed it would be Tori that could make Beck fall out of love with Jade. Maybe that was why it was so easy for him to do it and get away with it.

He'd done a terrible thing with Cat and he'd done it three times. The first time was that infamous night they spent together on the floor of his trailer during the thunderstorm. After that night Beck had pushed it out of his head, he went through the next day in a zombie-like state, holding Jade's hand as if he could pretend it never happened. But when Jade left him alone, he found himself running off to go find Cat. And when he found her she seemed so happy to see him that he grabbed her by the hand and took her someplace where they could be alone. He'd just wanted to talk to her, just to see how she was doing and how she felt about what happened between them. But they ended up going to the park they used to go to as kids and talking about everything but that. They stayed out past dark and afterwards Beck walked her home. In her front yard, under the big tree is where he kissed her the second time. It was just a goodnight kiss but it probably lingered a bit too long, he found himself not wanting to let go.

The third time they were supposed to be rehearsing lines together. Jade didn't seem to mind him spending time with Cat if they were just gonna be working on a script together. But Cat was in a better mood than she had been in lately and seemed genuinely happy. And for Cat, genuine happiness meant being very hyper and therefore unable to focus on anything that required her attention for more than a minute. She didn't really want to read lines, she was more in the mood for music and dancing and playful fighting. Beck just hung around and watched her as she bounced off the walls, but her attitude was contagious so he engaged in her dance-offs and tickle fights.

Beck lost the dance offs but he won the tickle fight; he got her pinned down on the bed and she squealed and laughed until finally she surrendered.

"Okay, okay! You win!"

He couldn't help wanting to kiss her then. Happiness looked so beautiful on her face. Their foreheads touched and then he kissed her nose and she giggled.

"What do I get for winning?" he asked.

"Well, what do you want silly?"

He loosened himself apart from her and sat up. "Well, if I'm being completely honest," he said allowing the mood to turn serious for a moment.

He knew what he wanted but it was the one thing that he wasn't supposed to have. But more than that he wanted Cat to be happy again and to stay that way. "I want to know that no matter what happens between us, that you're gonna be okay."

She looked at him optimistically. "Beck, I told you I'm fine."

As much as he wanted to believe her, Beck knew that Cat Valentine was a master of disguise when it came to hiding things. She was probably the best actress at Hollywood Arts.

"Yeah, I know but-"

Then she said, "I'll be okay as long as I have you."

She really knew how to tug on his heart strings, and somehow that attracted him to her even more. He knew it was always a bold move whenever he kissed her but there were moments when he couldn't help himself.

"I swear you're gonna drive me crazy," he said when they broke apart from the kiss and Cat smiled.

But then his phone rang.

And Jade's picture popped up on the screen.

He felt his chest tighten as he picked it up, and he knew Cat saw who it was too because she separated herself from him immediately. Jade didn't care that Cat was there, she was bored and she wanted to talk to him.

"Beck. You are not busy."

"I told you, Cat's here."

"What's that? Is that the sound of you putting other girls before me?"

Whenever Jade wanted something from him she usually got it. So if she wanted to talk to him that meant that his ear would be glued to his phone for at least ten minutes. He tried to keep it short but it didn't end up being that way. When he finally hung up the phone, Cat was sitting on the floor away from him with her hands in her lap.

"I should probably go now," she said.

"You don't have to," he told her.

But she put on her jacket and gathered her things and left anyway.

He spent the whole night thinking about what he was doing and he realized how wrong it was...how long he had been in denial about his feelings. He had cheated on Jade and there was nothing he could do to rationalize that or make that okay.

As the days passed by, Beck felt the guilt set in and it started to wear him down. He felt guilty for going behind Jade's back the way he did, after all the time he'd spent trying to convince her that he could be trusted. He felt guilty for lying to her. He felt guilty for kissing Cat and promising her things he probably wouldn't be able to give her. He felt guilty for the mess he had conciously created (there was no excuse for it). And mostly he felt guilty for not feeling guilty about it sooner. But sooner or later the truth would have to come out and he felt sick worrying about it because it brought his mind back to the one time he and Jade had broken up and how she had almost lost her mind without him. What was she gonna do when she found out what he had done now?

He didn't know what to do...he texted Tori and told her he needed to talk to someone. It was early in the morning but Tori didn't mind stopping by his house on her way to her pilates class.

"I brought bagels," she said, grinning with a paper bag as he opened the door.

"Great," he said with a noted lack of enthusiasm.

She frowned. "Okay, tell me what's going on. You're all moody and weird."

He sighed, sitting down on his bed, not knowing where to begin. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something small and shiny sitting near his pillow.

"I did something pretty bad. And it involves me and Jade," he said.

"I'm sure you guys will find a way to work it out. What did you do exactly?"

Beck didn't answer right away. He wasn't ready to admit to what he had done just yet. The small, metallic object that was sitting near his pillow he noticed was in the shape of a butterfly. It was a sparkly butterfly hairclip.

"Hey, what's that?" Tori asked.

He picked it up and twisted it around with his fingers. "That's umm," he dropped it back down onto his nightstand, "that's Cat's hairclip."

"Oh," Tori said, with a slightly puzzled expression. But then she seemed to put two and two together. "Ohh..." and then, "Oh my god, Beck you didn't.."

He didn't even have to admit to it because his face probably told her everything she needed to know.

"What did you do?" Tori asked.

"I kissed her," he said.

"You kissed Cat. And you haven't told Jade about this?"

"What do you think? I'm sure I'd be dead by now if I had."

Tori then went on to react the way he imagined she would, by freaking out and getting mad at him for telling her and putting her in the middle of them once again.

"I don't understand how you could even do that."

"I didn't plan on it...it just sort of happened."

"So do you love Cat now, or something?" she asked him.

That was a complicated question. Yes he loved Cat but he'd always loved her, in that friendship kinda way where you've known somebody for such a long time that you grow to care about them like crazy. But now his feelings towards her had sort of grown into something he didn't even know how to describe. It was like kind of romantic "friendship-love" on steroids.

"I can't really answer that," he said. He wasn't ready to admit to that quite yet, at least until he fully understood the answer himself.

"Then what about Jade?"

He shrugged, "I don't know, Tori. It's all really complicated and confusing."

"Well you need to figure it out pretty quick before somebody gets really hurt."

"Trust me, I know." In reality, no matter what he did somebody was gonna get hurt.

Tori wasn't much help to him in the way of giving advice but it was nice for him to at least have someone to talk to, to get it off his chest.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful. I wish I could tell you what to do."

"Don't worry about it, I'm sure I'll figure something out. I appreciate you coming by and...thanks for the bagels."

He gave her a sad smile and Tori patted him on the back.

Before she left him she said, "If there's one piece of advice I can give you, it'd be that you need to tell Jade what happened. You can't go on lying to her forever."

He sighed. "Yeah."

He knew she was right. He dreaded the thought of it but pretty soon he was gonna have to tell Jade what he did. And the longer he put it off the harder it would be to do it. Still, that was something he was not looking forward to.

Sooo I'm thinking next chapter Jade finds out about Beck and Cat :-/

Thoughts? Reviews?