Disclaimer: I am not owned by Victorious.

/

"Jade, what's- are you- what's going on with you and Tori?"

A voice cracks and stutters its way into my ears, followed by a clanking and scrabbling as Robbie struggles his way onto the seat beside me, knees nudging the table, heel rolling onto the metal seat. The boy's all loose joints and lanky bones, more of a puppet in form than Rex is. At least he's mercifully absent.

I suppose I should feel some sort of surprise that Robbie's here. If I'm cutting class, that means he must be too. It's not his style; he needs as much companionship and attention as he can wrangle, and class is about the only way he can get that, even begrudgingly.

I take a sip of my cooling coffee, hands playing over the cup as it's set back down on the table. "Leave me alone, Robbie."

A finger pushes his glasses further up his nose, tongue darting out to lick nervous lips. "No." He swallows, Adam's Apple bobbing, a floater in his throat. "Tori's my friend, Jade, and if-"

"She doesn't like you. No one likes you, Robbie. Not even Rex, and you control him. You can't even make yourself like you, Shapiro."

He sits there for a moment, hands curled in his lap, face hidden under his curly dark hair. I wonder if there are tears swelling in his eyes, picking at his throat, or if it's anger that burns the edges of his nostrils, that sharpens his tongue. Either way, he'll keep it inside. He'll let it fester and rot before he'll ever drag how he really feels out into the light. I prefer it that way. Not just with him, but with everyone. It's cleaner, it's colder, and it's a hell of a lot less messy. You're not spilt everywhere, emotions and memories and relationships all swirled and mixed together. You're defined. You've got borders separating everything, a time and a place for all that shit. You're an artist's palette that never mixes, that never has a paintbrush dip into you and fuck everything up.

Tori's been painting for years. It's no wonder that Robbie saw how chaotic her art was. He's sensitive, even if it kills him that he is. He's a connoisseur of misery, and Tori's has aged particularly well. It's been weeks since that little park incident. I think it was the last straw for her, the one that snapped her proverbial camel's back, and she's been dragging her dead legs ever since. She looks at me like I'm a black hole that's sucking everything in, all light, all sound, everything she is. I see her start to collapse, see her buckle and shake before she tears her eyes away and glues everything back in place. Until she looks again. And all the differences are buzzing in her head, all the possibilities of what could've been. How we could've been, if only so many things were different, if only things weren't how they are. Possibilities will kill you. They swarm like bees around you, and each one stings so sharply before it dies. But there's always another one to take its place.

"I know something's going on." Robbie speaks from beneath his lowered head, voice soft but determined. "I saw you... and her. Or at least... I think-" His voice drops even lower, thin hands running through his curls. "I think I did. I was in the bushes, the rhododendron near the glass doors there, you know?" He glances over at me for confirmation, only to be met by a glowering glare. "I thought I saw you... and I thought I saw her-" He drags his hands from his hair, locking them together in a way that's supposed to mean something to me.

"What do you think you saw, Robbie?"

"She loves you. And maybe you do t-"

"Shut it, Shapiro." I hiss, cutting off his hesitant words. "What do you want from me? Are you trying to blackmail me? Are you trying to make me feel bad? Why the fuck did you come here Robbie? Why?"

He picks at a flake of paint on the table, narrow shoulders hunched together. "I know nobody likes me." He lets out a long breath. "But Beck, and Andre, and Cat, and you and Tori... you hate me a little less than everyone else. Did you ever notice that when you're all happy, I'm not as stupid as usual? I'm not as awkward, or just... just- you guys are the best thing I have."

"Cry me a river, Shapiro. You still haven't answered my question."

He meets my gaze finally, face solemn. "If you mess things up with Tori, then she leaves. Or you leave. And if you leave, Beck leaves, and nobody's happy anymore. Everyone drifts off on their own separate ways, and I'm left by myself, and it's junior high all over again." Robbie sighs, sitting up straighter, and I wonder for a moment how much it's cost him to come to talk to me. In all the time that I've known him, I would never have thought he'd have this in him. I never thought he'd let his voice escape from where it slumbered in his throat, plagued by nightmares he could never speak.

He takes a deep breath, spine straightening further, like he's drawing strength from the speckled sunlight that bleaches his skin. "I don't like you Jade. I like Tori. And I don't know if you like her too, or you were just playing one of your games with her, but either way, you've got to fix this."

"And why would I want to fix anything with Vega? What if I like her broken?"

"You'll do it because you're hurting too. I see it everytime you look at her. I notice because it's the only time I've seen you show something other than anger or disgust. Whatever it is that happened between you two, you need to sort it out. I don't wanna be alone again, Jade. I don't want to see us all fall apart because you... because you couldn't see what was right in front of you."

"The only thing in front of me is a spineless little worm, who can't handle being on his own." I spit, fingers tightened around my cup of coffee.

Robbie's eyes widen behind his thick glasses, breath indrawn. His thick brows tug together, diving down over the bridge of his nose before slackening, softening. "You're right." He pushes himself up, standing, plaid shirt loose around his slim frame. "But at least I can admit it." He walks away with as much dignity as he can muster, but it's not long before his shoulders cave again, hunching him forward, and he's back to the Robbie he was before he sat down. I doubt I'll ever see that Robbie he was again. It cost him too much. He's the kind of person that replays everything they've ever said in their head, searching again and again until they find the mistakes they've made. The kind of person that regrets everything they say, even if it's the most innocuous thing. He'll torture himself tonight, trip over every word until he's bruised and bleeding.

I try to push away his words, shoulders rolling, but they buzz and hum and tunnel into my flesh. And the one that finds it's way deepest is the thing he never said at all. That I'm just like him, unable to be alone. Whether he meant to imply it or not, it echoed in the air. It's true, I can't be alone. I hate being around people, but I just end up hating myself when I'm not. It's so easy to hate people. They're too loud, or they're too quiet, or they're boring, or they try too hard to be funny. It's easy to throw stones at the surface, because you don't have to watch them sink. All you have to see is the splash. The biggest mistake I ever made was watching myself sink into Tori. I reached the very bottom of her, and it's nothing like the surface at all. You can't hate all of someone. If you find at least one thing to like, you can't hate them completely. If you don't get to know them, you reduce that risk. And I don't hate Tori. I don't hate her at all.

I don't know how I feel about her, but it's kept me out of class, and it's kept me watching her and it's kept me trying and trying and trying to hate her again, like an engine that refuses to sputter to life. It just refuses to catch. Without that rumbling anger, that growling hatred, there's nothing but silence, and it's filled with things I don't want to hear.

I think about it.

About what it would be like, if things were different.

If Tori and I grew up together, and slowly fell in love.

If I met her by chance someday, and fell instantly for her.

If I'd never met her at all.

It's the most useless part of sentience, being able to imagine. You see things that never were, never can or will be, yet somehow those imaginings mean more than reality does. Sometimes you want so badly what you can never have.

The bell chimes, startling me from my reverie, and I stand, slinging my bag over my shoulder. I head to my car. There's no point staying at school today. I can't face them. The people that Robbie values so much, even though they think he's worthless. But people hold onto worthless things all the time, out of sentiment.

I climb into my car, fighting against the urge that tells me to glance into my backseat. To scan the grey leather for some kind of sign of what happened. Like there's a ghost of us haunting the fabric, breathed into its very stitching. But there isn't any. There's nothing to show that we were ever something. Nothing but her and me, and all we do is lie.

I tell myself she's getting better. That she can look at me longer and longer these days, that she holds herself higher. I convince myself that it wasn't much more than a passing crush. Tori's given to passion, but she peters out quickly. I tell myself it was never anything real, that all it was were emotions that got out of hand. But if emotions aren't real, what is? I can reel off a whole list of facts as to why I'm with Beck, but none of them add up to love. Proof doesn't work when it comes to feelings, and that's part of why I hate them. And in my more bitter times, I'm aware of the irony of that, hating emotions so strongly when hatred is just part of the pantheon. Everything with Tori is so messy and sloppy and fucked up. She mixes me up until I don't know what part of me is which, until I don't know whether I'm happy or sad or angry or calm, because I'm everything around her. More than anything, I'm scared to feel that way. I'm scared to lose that control I spent so many years perfecting.

I switch the radio off, letting out a long breath and tapping my fingers on the steering wheel.

Of all the problems with Tori, of all the things I hate and love about her, I've overlooked the biggest one of all. The reason why I can never have what I want. The reason I can never want. The reason why all the could've beens and should've beens will never be anything more than that.

The biggest problem with Tori... is me. How am I supposed to overcome myself?

I'm the only thing standing in my way.

/

A/N: It's been a while, squirrels, but mama went nuts for a little while.

Well, not really, although I did eat a whole bunch of almonds and what I think was a cashew, but might've been a small and terrified grasshopper. Regardless, I lost several weeks to it, and have now started my own religion/science – Time Travel Through Legumes.

I expect to be publishing a book on my theories, once I regain my memory of what exactly happened during those weeks. Who knows what amazing things I might've seen? So far, all I've found is a napkin with a drawing of a cat on it, so I'm going with the assumption that I created the first cats, with the help of the Egyptians.

Until then, here's this. Reviews will be used to fund my time travel research, and, if all goes well, I should be famous by last year.