'6th August 2010
Dear Diary,
I know it's been a long time since I posted and I'm so sorry for that, but I've just had a lot to deal with lately and posting in a diary has honestly been the last thing on my mind. School has been amazing as always but I have to admit that it's getting harder and harder for me to keep myself in check when I'm around Beck. I know he doesn't notice but whenever I'm around him my insides just get all warm and gooey in ways that they haven't for a very long time and I hate it. I hate it because I know deep down that it's never going to happen. Beck is my friend, one of my best friends, and I know for a fact that he is completely 100% in love with Jade. I can't bring myself to even think about coming in between that.
Noah is becoming a better friend to me than I thought he would. We go out together all the time and pick a random building to see if we can get to the roof. If we do we sit there and watch the city below us. We watch as people go about their lives at night, as the people below us move around like ants both on the streets and in cars with small headlights. It reminds me that no matter how stuck I feel in my life, that life is always moving; for everybody. It reminds me that there is another world out there apart from my own and it makes me wonder what these people's lives are really like. I know I probably have no right to wonder that considering I know none of them but I can't help it. When I see people around the city now I find it's all I can think about. Are they happy with their lives? Are they really okay when they say they are? How many of them dream to make it big in this huge city? How many of them have suffered loss and pain? And do any of them have lives like mine? Do they come from broken homes too? I sincerely hope not, but I know the harsh reality is that more often than not most of them do. They just don't talk about it. When you don't talk about things no one knows that they happen, no one knows what you've been through, and it's almost like it didn't happen. Almost like it never happens, but it does. It's almost everywhere I look nowadays and there's a part of me that wants to have been imagining all the fake smiles and false noises of encouragement, but I can't help but think they're real.
Things with my family still haven't improved. I know now that they're not going to come back to me and I'm not really sure what to do about that. I know I should be leaving, telling someone what's going on and trying to get help, but I just can't. I don't know why but I can't. I often wonder if any of the people I see everyday feel like this, feel trapped, but I'm trying to think less about this stuff these days. I find whatever distraction I can, whether it be a class or a friend's problem, and I use it as a way to stop thinking about what my life has become. To be honest with you, I'm not even sure what my life has become and I'm the one who has to live it. And I'm trying, I'm trying the best that I can, but I'm not sure if it'll be enough. I'm not sure if anything is going to be enough anymore. It seems all I can try to do now is survive and I'm not even sure if I can do that.
- Tori Vega'
Today they were gathered in Cat's Nona's small flat and sitting on her orange couch that looked like it had been made in the 70's. Tori's diary lay open between them all and the words were jumping out at Jade harshly against the white pages. She knew that time was going to run out soon, knew that they would have to do something or David and Trina might get away with what they've done to Tori. But they had to know what had happened to her before they could get justice properly. And honestly? Tori Vega's life sounded like a complete nightmare. So Jade felt guilt shoot through her whenever she got mad about the fact that thinking about Beck brought her comfort. Jade didn't want to hear about any of this, didn't want to know that her dead semi-friend had harbored feelings for Jade's boyfriend but had never done anything about it due to Jade - even though it might of been the relationship that saved her life. Jade's eyes met Beck's who was sitting across from her on the foldout side of the couch and for the first time in a long time she couldn't tell what emotion was in those familiar warm brown eyes. He averted his gaze and fixed it on the diary almost as quickly as their eyes had met and Jade tried not to let that get to her. She was trying not to let any of this get to her because she knew it was selfish and every time she found herself growing angry with Tori over her feelings for Beck she wound up feeling guilty instead.
Seeming to sense the tension in the room then Robbie cleared his throat. "How about we continue this tomorrow?" He interjected uneasily and seemed to be looking back and forth between Jade and Beck.
"I think that's a good idea." Beck replied, his voice quiet and his eyes distant. Jade had no idea what he was thinking about now. Whether it be his mother or Tori but it soon became apparent to her that it would be no use trying to dredge him out of his thoughts. So Jade simply nodded towards Robbie, not quite trusting her voice to speak just yet.
Forget about it Jade. She thought to herself. Tori is dead. Her feelings for Beck are the last of your concerns right now. She kept repeating that to herself over and over but she couldn't help the way her stomach began to turn uneasily. The look in Beck's eyes gave Jade no comfort and she tried to put it down to the fact that he was feeling guilty. Imagine finding out that your best friend in the whole wide world was being abused and never told you, imagine finding out that she was in love with you and never said a word, and only after her death do you find out any of this, through a diary no less. She took a small deep breath and tried to get herself under control. This wasn't about her or how insecure she felt about Tori having feelings for Beck, she had to remind herself. This was about the friend she'd had who had felt there was no other escape to her miserable life than to kill herself and Jade wasn't going to let that rest, no matter what. It was time Jade put on her big girl panties and stopped being so stupid about this. Beck himself had said that he never even knew Tori had feelings for him, just put it aside and focus on Tori. So that's what she did.
"Okay." She said into the brief silence, "We'll meet at my house tomorrow to read more of the diary. Is that okay with everyone?"
Everyone, excluding Beck who was still frozen, nodded.
Then they all said their various goodbyes and left Cat's Nona's small flat.
Beck was the first one out the door, not even bothering to wait for Jade who was now walking slowly back to her house with the diary placed securely inside of her bag. She'd taken it upon herself to ensure the diary was safe, securing it inside the safe in her room when they weren't reading it. She used to leave it at Beck's trailer but after she realized how stupid it was to leave it out in the open like that she'd decided it would be best if she just hid it somewhere safe.
Once Jade was inside of her house and the diary was safe she sprawled out on her bed, stared at the ceiling and let her mind tick. She tried to put the whole Tori and Beck thing out of her mind, so that only really left her one thing to concentrate on; her mother. She knew her father didn't want her to contact her, knew he thought that the woman who was supposed to raise her would only wind up disappointing and hurting her, but Jade knew she had to try. If she didn't try she knew it would haunt her for the rest of her life. But that didn't mean her butterflies were any less intense when she picked up the phone and dialed the number to her mother's old rehab center. She knew her mother had left her rehab facility last year and that she wasn't going to be there now, but she hoped that her mother had at least given the admin a contact address or something that Jade could use to get in contact with her.
"Hello?" A woman answered the line and gave the usual 'how may I help you' greeting. Honestly Jade blocked most of it out in her nervousness.
"Um, hello." Jade stammered and then balled the hand that wasn't holding the phone up into a fist on her bed. "I was wondering about a patient of yours who was supposed to check out sometime last year."
"Okay." The woman replied in a wry but somehow still perky voice, "What can I do for you?"
"I was wondering if you might be able to give me her address. Her name is Kimberley West." Jade replied and faltered a little over her mother's name.
"I'm sorry, I can't give that out to people who aren't related to our patient." The woman replied, her voice obviously forced into what she believed was an appropriate tone for delivering bad news.
"I should be listed as her next of kin." Jade replied, "I'm her daughter Jadelyn West."
The only sound Jade was met with was the sound of nails tapping on a keyboard before the woman's now annoying perky voice sounded again in the same forced tone she used earlier. "I'm sorry honey but it says here that Kimberley West had no next of kin. In fact it said that she had no family at all, I'm afraid. You must have the wrong person. Kimberley is a very common name in the United States you know and I'm sure there are a lot of people in the world with the surname West."
Jade's heart felt like it was beating a mile a minute and her ears felt like they were filling up with water. Some distant part of her recognized that the woman on the other end of the phone had taken her silence as some sort of objection and was beginning to prove her point by listing various celebrities with the last name West, Kanye being the first on her list. But Jade was barely even listening. How on earth was that possible? That Jade wasn't even listed as her mother's daughter! The twisting feeling she had in her stomach came back now with such a force that Jade felt like she was going to be sick. Jade pressed the end button on the phone, not even bothering to say goodbye or wait for the receptionist to finish her rant, and made her way to her en-suite bathroom. It was a good thing she did too because she really was sick.
When Jade had cleaned herself up and washed her mouth with lots of mouthwash she began to realize that she had begun crying. Was her father right? Did her mother hate her so much that she didn't even consider Jade her daughter any more? Or was this just some ploy to make sure Jade wouldn't be able to contact her again? Either way it was a long time before Jade could stop crying again and she laid on her bed and waited for the worst of it to be over. It took a while before she was finally able to slow her tears and then stop them completely but she managed it. It was only then that Jade realized exactly how tired she was. Though reading her dead friend's diary, dealing with her death, worrying for your boyfriend and trying to find your estranged mother - who apparently didn't have a daughter anymore - would do that to you. The worst part was she got this feeling that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Somehow she knew that there was more to come and the very thought of having to deal with anymore right now made her exhaustion double. She cast a look over to where her safe was and made sure she'd locked the door before she let her heavy eyelids close and exhaustion take her.
Beck's phone was blowing up. Everyone was calling and texting him repeatedly, trying to find out where the hell he was, but he just couldn't respond. He knew he would have to face it at school tomorrow but for now it was easier to just hide. It was easier for him to sit here in the park where his mother used to take him when he was a kid, because he knew Jade would think to look for him in his trailer, and hide from everyone. How on earth could he be so damn stupid? Why wasn't he just honest with Jade when he asked her about it? Why didn't he just man up, try to put the way she was looking at him out of his mind, and do the decent thing and be truthful? He knew now what an idiot he had been, that he should've just been honest, but he'd been too concerned with making sure Jade didn't feel insecure. And it wasn't like he was never going to tell her, he was. He had just wanted to make sure that she'd felt secure in their relationship first and hopefully wouldn't blow things way out of proportion. He knew it now that it had been a very stupid plan but at the time he'd just wanted to save his girlfriend a little pain, although he'd always known that reading Tori's diary would expose everything. That was why he couldn't bear to go over to Jade's house today. Because yesterday when that little red book had been sprawled out on Cat's couch Beck could see the beginning of the diary entry that would expose him as the liar he was. It was the diary that would put a million questions into Jade's mind and send what little progress he'd made with making her feel secure come tumbling down.
A/N: Thanks for all the great reviews guys, I'm truly grateful for all the support. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. ;)
