|Jade|

"Really?"

Tori looks genuinely hurt by my tone. She turns over her shoulder. Beyond her is a kaleidoscope of color, the street filled with sound and swallowed by hot, yellow rays of sun. The peaked tips of tents are in the distance, loud trumpets blaring from somewhere, and there's the distinct smell of animal waste from a petting zoo nearby.

"It's the Jolly Days Festival!" Tori's arms swing out with her exclamation, indicating the entire field of people and noise and smell like it's some grand piece of artwork. I raise an incredulous brow at her. Her arms slap to her sides. She's wearing a pink tanktop beneath a white half-jacket that burns my eyes against the brightness of the background. "I used to come to this every year when I was a kid."

"Precisely, because you're supposed to grow up like the rest of us. Jolly Days is for children, Tori."

Her lower lip pumps over her upper. "There's a bunch of fun stuff to do here. They've got Henna tattoos and the petting zoo, a comedian playing at four, we can take a ride in freaking hot air balloon. How are you not excited?"

I let out a rough sigh, flicking my eyes behind her. The last time I attended Jolly Days, I was about six years old. I remember my father not wanting to pet any of the goats or llamas in the petting zoo because he didn't like the way they smelled, but he did accompany me riding on top of a camel. My mom was a lot more of a free spirit back then - we got butterflies painted on our faces and ate so much cotton candy my stomach was sore. Bitter, I narrow my gaze at the happily screaming children walking around us, the bright faces of their parents, and I wonder for just how many of them was it a temporary heaven.

"We can leave if you want." Tori's embarrassed. Her head is down, brown hair trickling to cover her face. "It was a stupid idea, I just thought -"

"No." I step forward. It's almost engraving itself as an instinct in my mind to touch her when it was the complete opposite not a week before. My arm hooks around her elbow and tugs her forward. "You have to remember that I am a cranky old witch trapped in this young body of mine. I've forgotten how to have fun."

Brown eyes meet mine carefully. Her lips part, close, and then reopen with a deep breath meant to gain confidence, I figure. "Is it okay to ask what you and Beck did for fun?"

The question catches me surprised, blinking at her. My arm drops from her shoulders, eyes turning back to the crowd. I move ahead of her, expecting her to follow and not looking back to make sure she does. We approach the ticket booth and buy a bracelet for each of us, keeping silent until the neon green plastic is stuck about our wrists. As we move toward the innards of the festival, I finally answer her. "We went out, sometimes. To eat and stuff. Movies, concerts. Typical stuff. Certainly never took me to Jolly Days." I smile down at her to assure her I don't think less of her choice. It's just not at all what I'm used to. When it comes to Tori, I'm discovering that a lot of what she does is not what I am used to. "Most of the time we were just together, in his trailer or at my house. We, you know, watched movies, did ... other stuff."

"R-rated stuff?"

I glance at her, not sure how to approach this subject with her yet. I haven't really discussed it with anyone other than Beck. I almost feel embarrassed, swallowing and forcing the coming blush away before I look like a pansy. "Yes," I decide eventually. "R-Rated stuff."

To my surprise, talking about it - about him - doesn't hurt as much as it did even this morning. Maybe it's the cheerful music and the sunny grass, the belting of goats to our right. Tori steers us toward them, bending at the knees to move her hand through the gaps in the wire fence. A goat nibbles at her bare palm. Maybe it's her, I think absently, watching her make kissy-noises at the goat. Maybe she's why it doesn't hurt so bad.

"What about you, then?"

Tori doesn't look up. "What?"

I kneel beside her, making a face at the goat as it presses its nose through the square holes in search for anything edible I might have. I shrink away from it. "You know. R-Rated stuff. Is that in your history?"

I watch her face. It grows darker with a blush she tries to cover with the back of her hand, but I'm much better at it than she is. I laugh, nudging her shoulder with mine.

"C'mon," I bother. "Spill it."

"I've done ... stuff." Tori stands, keeping her face out of view. "Steven and I were ... physical. He liked me without my shirt on. In fact, I'm sure he preferred me without my shirt on." Tori shrugs, arms crossing. "Still a, uh, you know. Yeah."

"Virgin."

Tori's eyes blow open. She laughs, colliding into my side while grabbing my elbow, yanking me away. "There were kids right there, Jade."

"So?" I have long since lost my ability to give a single shit about some child's fragile psyche. I was a damaged good and I turned out okay. For the most part. Depending on who you ask. "You're a virgin."

Her fist lands surprisingly hard into my arm. "Shut up."

I laugh. It's cute how embarrassed she is. She's so modest, which is something I really have never been. "Why haven't you given it up? I highly doubt you haven't been given the opportunity."

Her shoulders shrug again, hand slipping from my elbow to dive across her chest in a defensive manner. "I haven't found the right person yet." Her eyes slide from the ground to settle on my own. We stand there for a moment, pointedly staring at each other, and my heart responds to her words without the consent of my conscious mind. I'm imaging her trembling and nervous and eager beneath the body of some random boy. I can see her kissing him with the same gentleness she uses when she hugs me, roaming her hands down his back, hooking her legs around his waist and drawing him closer. She comes off so pure, like she couldn't possibly be in such an erotic situation, but beneath that soft smile of hers is the dark smirk I've glimpsed, and the way her hips grind in some of the songs she performs suggests that she has an idea what she would want. I imagine her naked and my breath catches in my chest.

Tori clears her throat. She steps away first and I follow at her side without saying anything. The moment hangs behind us, thick and heavy, and the farther we walk away from it, the more emphasis there is on not bringing it up again. We don't vocalize it, but it's said nonetheless. I try not to think about it - the way she looked at me, what my imagination was conjuring up on its own - and as we move through the festival, it becomes easier to do so. We get Henna tattoos on our arms, intricate swirls with dots and hearts and circles, solidified with gold glitter. We stop to watch a group of shoeless women clip their tambourines against their hips. There are little tents with custom made jewelry lining the aisles in the field. I'm distracted by the smell of incense, pretzels, hot dogs. I'm distracted by a comedian who makes Tori laugh until she cries, falling against my shoulder in a fit of tears. I'm distracted by the world floating beneath us as Tori and I climb into a hot air balloon and billow into the sky, tethered by a long rope. Las Vegas unfolds beneath us, small and fragile-looking, like I could swipe my thumb across it and crush it to dust. But even all of that, all of those sights and sounds and smells and Tori laughing - it's not enough to make me forget about the way she looked at me when she said she hadn't found the right person.

Who was - who could be - her right person?

The sky starts to swell with darkness. We make our way with sore feet back to her car and drive in relative silence back to her house. I eye my car, parked parallel to Tori's house, with contempt. I have to go home now. I have to leave Tori's house, which has felt more like a home to me than mine ever has. Tori frowns at it as well as we make our way inside and up the stairs to her room. The silence is weird, filled with things we're not sure how to say. I want to thank her again but don't know how to word it, and I want to ask her questions about what she meant back there at the festival, and I want to stay another night and another night and pretend that the rest of the week isn't coming.

But it is, and I don't say anything, and she sits on the edge of her bed as I pack my stuff. She follows me downstairs and to the front door. Her parents, sitting on the couch in front of a movie, smile warmly and tell me what a sweet girl I am. I think I smile in return, but I'm so focused on dreading the ride home, the rest of the night, that I don't say much back. Tori walks beside me to my car where I throw my bags into the backseat before lingering by the driver's side door, fingering my keys.

When I look to her, her eyes are on her shoes. I swallow and take a step forward, taking a long breath in. "Thank you."

I watch her lips curve. "No problem. Anytime."

Our eyes meet, brown into green, and if people could emit colors, a hazel mist would be forming between us. I shift on my feet for a minute before mumbling, "Do we hug now?"

Tori laughs, clear and soft, before giving an enthusiastic nod and bending her arms around my neck. My own wind about her waist, pulling her close until our bodies are flush together. I breathe in her shampoo, the smell of her bedroom, the distinct scent of Tori that I've only now started to notice. After this, everything will go down. Everything will be harder. Everything is going to hurt a thousand times worse.

"I told you I'd protect you tomorrow. I meant it." Her words are muffled into my neck. I blink up at the sky. Almost without thinking of it, I'm squeezing her tighter, closing my eyes against her hair, wanting nothing more than to either remain like that or to go back up to her room and not leave.

But we pull away, and I climb into my car and start it and lift my fingers toward her as I pull away. She stands at the curb until I turn the corner, watching her in my rear view mirror until I can't anymore, and the sudden silence - the solitude of my car and the night and the street, passing through green lights - it all slams onto me before I can stop it, before I can even think of stopping it. The street and sky blurs with my tears until I can't see anything but blobs of color. Somehow I make it to my house without crashing. My mom isn't there which really doesn't surprise me, even though she threw a fit earlier about me not coming home. She'll play that game - the worried mother bird only to fly off as soon as the baby wakes up.

My house has always just been this building that I sleep in and not much of a home. When Beck and I were together - the thought makes my stomach twist. I put a hand over it, breathing in deep and slow. When Beck and I were together (because we're not anymore oh God), he tried to make this house warm and welcoming. He helped me decorate for holidays. Since his trailer is so small and my house is so often unoccupied, we spent a lot of time here. I can't be in a single room, look at any piece of furniture, touch or smell anything without remembering something about him. The time he and I chased each other through the house spraying silly string at each other, when he serenaded me in the downstairs bathroom while I showered, the countless times he cradled me on top of his chest on the couch watching TV and my heart stings with each pulse and all I can think is what went wrong? What happened? What didn't he feel anymore?

I kick off my shoes at the door, sniffling, tears already staining either side of my face. I drop my bags and leave them there, only keeping my cellphone on me. I rummage through the fridge (which Beck pinned me to once and kissed me out of an argument we were having) and come up with a yogurt and some grapes which I carry in my arms down the stairs to my room (which is so full of him I can barely breathe).

The basement is mine. Mom never comes down here since I all but forced her to take the washer and dryer upstairs so I could have the entire lower level of the house to myself. Not surprising, the theme is a mash of dark purples and blacks and thick greens. Various shelves and dresser tops hold the strange things I have collected since I was a kid; lots of fossils, skeletons I've found and cleaned, jars of questionable substances, a glass frame with dead insects meshed inside. The carpet is lush, my bed is huge, and there's a flat-screen TV I never use as well as a desktop that goes mostly neglected.

My eyes linger on the computer, actually, when it occurs to me that I haven't checked my email or The Slap since before I went to Tori's. I bite my lip. I know what I'll see - changed relationship status, people sending me frowney faces, etc. Cat had texted me earlier this morning but I had ignored her; I would bet money she left an overly fluffy message on my Slap profile.

I know if I look, I'll only feel worse, but something sick in me dares me to, just to see if I could handle it. I swallow as I sit on the chair, turning the computer on with a slow hum. The screen beams to life. I open The Slap and hold my breath as I sign in.

Thirty-one notifications. As I suspected, one is a message from Cat - lots of crying faces and hearts and rainbows, as well as 'virtual hugs'. One from Sinjin trying to be my rebound. The rest, though, are all likes and dislikes on the first, bolded thing on my profile.

Jade West is single.

My breath catches. I feel like I'm going to be sick again, furiously clicking out of the browser and shoving away from my computer. I can't eat, so I just curl up on my bed and take slow, even breaths.

I must doze off because when my phone starts vibrating it startles me. I grope blindly for it, answering it before I look to see who's calling. "Hrm?"

"Sorry, did I wake you up?"

A loud thud alarms me of the presence of my heart. "What do you want?"

"Jade -"

"Don't call me." I say it with viciousness, intending to hang up right away, but I can't bring myself to move.

"I just wanted to see if you were okay." There's a brief pause. "Are you?"

"Never better."

"Jade, please. This is hard for me, too."

"Is it?" I sit up, my free hand curling tightly around the blankets of my bed. "Really, Beck? You broke up with me. You left me. Not the other way around. I'm the one who is supposed to have a mental breakdown and feel like shit about it, not you. You did this, so don't give me that bullshit."

We're fighting. I'm mad. But hearing his voice, knowing that it's him, soothes me somehow, like water on a burn. It's not long-lasting but it's temporary relief that I cling to, unable to hang up, unable to tell him to fuck off or leave me alone or to never talk to me again.

Beck's breath rustles the receiver. "I care about you. I will always care about you."

"Fuck you." There's no venom in it. I'm crying. My voice is trembling and weak. "Fuck you."

"I know you're going to be mad at me for a long time. I don't blame you. I just - Jesus, Jade, we were together for two years. We can't just not talk to each other."

"It's been two days."

Another breath. "I miss you."

This is what I wanted. Him to realize just how much he loves me. It starts off with missing me, wanting to call me, to talk to me, and then it snowballs into wanting to be around me, touching me, kissing me, being with me again. I suck in a breath. "So, what do you want, Beck?"

"Tomorrow's going to be rough. For both of us," he emphasizes. "I just want you to know that this doesn't have to be like everyone else's break up. We don't have to avoid each other. You can talk to me. You can sit with me at lunch."

"Oh, thank you for the permission, sir," I snarl, my voice sharp. "It might be a surprise to you, but I don't need to be around you to function." It might be a lie - I'm not entirely sure yet - but I say it anyway. "I have friends. I have Tori."

The last sentence is almost shouted, my voice firm, even though the rest of me is quivering.

There's silence. Finally, he says, "I'm sorry."

I blink. Tears fall over. "I know. Bye." I hang up and drop my phone on the mattress before crawling under my covers, still in my jeans, still hungry, and not caring. A few minutes later my phone vibrates again and I consider ignoring it, figuring it to be Beck, but my curiosity gets the best of me and I snake my hand across the blankets and squint at the screen.

A text message. From Tori.

A fluttering in my chest chases the pain away. I open the text. The two words are more than the water Beck was to my burns. It's medicine. It's a promise for a cure.

I turn my phone off and lay in bed, closing my eyes; one word projected on each eyelid.

I'm here.


A/N: I hope you all had a good week. I hope this makes your Sunday night/Monday/whatever day you read this a little brighter.

Review are always lovely if you could spare a few words~