|Jade|

"Stay here."

I watch her for a moment longer, her arms trembling as she sits on the edge of my bed. I study her in silence, eyes narrowed, trailing up her pajama bottoms and her baby blue tank top. She's not wearing a bra and it's obvious and I wonder if she did that on purpose. She used to come to my house minus clothing all of the time. She thought it was funny when she would waltz into my room without panties, or her skirt, because it's not like she had my missing parents to worry about, and I would choke and pull her to the bed in a hormonal rage.

I hate her for what she used to do to me and even more for what she's doing to me now.

I shut the door and move down the hallway, releasing a tight breath that sounds like scissors snapping when it releases. This is ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous, actually. I just wanted her to come over to talk because for the past three days I haven't been able to sleep at all, or eat, or study, or be with Beck, or sing, or anything. It's just her her her, and her and Tori. Stupid, conceited, selfish Vega, hogging what should be mine -

My feet halt.

No, no, West, get it together.

Cat isn't mine. She was never really, truly mine. Maybe ... maybe once upon a time we were ... she was ... a long time ago, but she isn't now, and she isn't going to be, because I have Beck and I'm not gay or bisexual or any of that. I'm a normal straight girl with a famous future in front of her and a beautiful boyfriend who I can't have sex with anymore because it's like I feel absolutely nothing, not a twinge of pleasure, and - fuck.

The last time Cat was in my room, it was when I told her we had to stop messing around, that it wasn't normal, that I wasn't like that. I close my eyes and press my forehead to the wall and remember, as if the walls are bringing it back to me frame by frame.

Cat's brows furrowed, her fingers still laced behind my neck. It's innocent confusion, like I'm joking, but when I don't say anything else Cat backs away, her hands hovering over my collarbones.

"What?"

"We've gotta stop, Cat." I swallow and toss my chin as if this is nothing, as if it doesn't mean anything. I blink hard.

"S-Stop?"

"Yeah. Stop."

I meet her eyes and instantly wish I hadn't because they're broken and bleeding, tears sliding off of her chin like blood from a wound.

"God damnit." I hurl myself off the wall and barrel down the hallway, ripping my door open. She jumps, red hair spinning as she faces me, her deer-like eyes wide like I'm a semi about to crash into her and maybe I am, maybe I want to see her crushed and smeared on the concrete because at least then she can't torture me with her presence. I shut the door behind me and take a deep breath, throwing an accusing finger at her. "I have a boyfriend."

I don't know why I say it. Probably because it's the only thing I can really hold on to. I have a boyfriend. A boyfriend of nearly two and a half years. A boyfriend who loves me and puts up with me and wants a future with me. Why he feels so possessed I haven't the foggiest, but that isn't the point. The point is that he's my boyfriend and Cat's ... Cat's messing things up and she doesn't even know it, she's not even trying. Somehow, that makes it even more infuriating, knowing that she isn't trying to break up Beck and I, she isn't trying to stir up all of this old turmoil between us.

It's me, but it's so much easier to blame her.

"I have a boyfriend," I repeat, taking a step closer to her. "I love him and he loves me and what we were, Cat, what you and I were is over and done, understand?"

Cat's lips are parted, brown eyes shimmering up at me. I shake my head, tearing my gaze away. I'm shaking, trembling, and I feel like I might explode and my body parts will lounge in broken pieces around my room. I take a breath that doesn't help me and open my eyes again, focused on the floor.

"You've told me this already."

She says it so softly I barely hear it, instinctively jerking my eyes up to see hers. She's watching me and she's shaking, too, and I wonder if she wants to burst like I do. I let out another breath, crossing my arms, my foot jogging against the floor. "Yeah, well, you ... you keep staring at me, and you're all lovey dovey with Tori -"

"Why do you care what I do with Tori?" Her voice is strangely bold, almost strong, and when I meet her eyes I see an uncertain but definitely present spark of bravery flickering in them. I gape for a moment, shifting my weight onto one hip.

"Because you -" Because what? Because she doesn't deserve you? Because I want you? "Fuck."

Cat fidgets. I watch her, taking a step back, moving toward my window as if the still rising sun is going to help me out any. It doesn't. It just makes me think of those sleepy afternoons I spent in the old hammock in the backyard, tangled in Cat's limbs, running my hands through her hair when it was still brunette. I cut my eyes back to her to find her standing up, hands clenched at her sides. Neither of us move for several long moments and it's just her with angry eyebrows and shaking legs and her glaring at me, reflecting my anger back at me.

"I get it, Jade. You don't - you never wanted me. Fine." Her hands cut the air in front of her before falling limp at her sides again. "You have Beck and I have Tori. It's done. It's done."

I hesitate, my eyes narrowing across at her. "You have Tori?" What did that mean?

Cat frowns, her arms crossing, and it's like we're about to duel right here in the middle of my room, where we used to laugh and touch and breathe and be. I swallow hard and I see her struggle to do the same, eyes darting between mine. She can't have Tori and Tori can't have her. My eyes cut past her for a moment, lingering on one of the few framed pictures Beck and I have together. I'm kissing his cheek. He's grinning into the camera. I don't remember when or where it was taken, or why he looks so happy, but it's like Beck is here, watching me, judging, waiting. My hands are burning, my eyes straining as they shift back to Cat, trembling before me, her eyes swelling with tears.

"I have Tori," she repeats, the words cracking, and then she's spinning on her heel and marching toward my door.

I don't know what makes me all but spring after her, but my hand curls around her wrist and yanks her back, shoves her against the wall. I feel the skin beneath my nails split and she cries loudly, her head hitting the wall with a soft thud. Our hips clash, and her chest meets mine, and brown eyes sink into mine as we still, breaths shattering over the space between us.

It's tense. It's silent. My empty house purrs with memories it refuses to forget, or regret, and then something in her breaks - in us, maybe, because I don't really know who kissed who, who leaned forward first, who decided the fire between us was about to die, but suddenly we're both trying to rekindle it as quickly as possible. Her mouth slams against mine, my hands grabbing her hips and yanking her forward like I want to bury myself within her. Maybe I do. My thoughts scatter like a rock thrown into a pond, the ripples getting farther and farther away. Nothing matters but her, sandwiched between me and the wall, her hot breaths washing into my mouth. She tastes so familiar, like candy and home, and she whimpers against me as I grind forward, heat rushing through both of us like wildfires.

"Cat." The word means so much, has always meant so much, too much, pulsing through me like an adrenaline fueled heartbeat. I've missed saying it this way more than I like to admit, and I feel her tremble against me like a flame flickering against the wind. My hands smooth up her tank top, roam against skin I haven't touched in far too long and even though it's been two and a half years, she feels exactly the same, like returning to an old house you used to live in; she feels familiar and too wonderful for her own good. Her chest rises and falls beneath my hands like I'm a puppeteer, fingers raking across her shuddering ribcage. Her lips meet mine again, tongue hot and sweet, and I touch her breasts with tentative hands, trying to appreciate so much all at once. Cat bucks forward and it's like the air is igniting and we're both about to combust just by touching, just by being this close.

I break the kiss, breathe her in as I coast down her jaw. My eyes flutter open, scatter around her neck - I used to leave marks on it all the time, little hickeys, memories of teeth and she used to touch them fondly and tell me it was like I was tattooing my name on her with my mouth. But now the skin is bare, pale and fresh, and like I have a dozen times in the past I bring the skin between my teeth and nibble, each brush of my teeth making her squirm. Feeling her move beneath me is like recalling an old instrument, plucking the strings to make the right sounds, trying to get back in the groove with the musician I used to be.

That's what this. Music. Beats and drums, whimpers and soft words.

I massage one breast, the other crawling under the elastic of her pajama pants to skim along the hot, already wet cotton of her panties. She gasps, my name lost in her throat, and I rub against her, her hips grinding down against me. I pull back once to see her face, flushed red, her eyes screwed shut as her fingers tighten in the back of my head. Her lips are parted, the tip of her tongue running along her lower lip. It's almost like deja vu, only there's no innocent giggling tinging her gasps and whimpers, and the picture of Beck and I behind us is drilling holes into the back of my head.

Beck.

It flashes in front of my eyes and then disappears when I push her panties aside and touch her, wetness soaking my fingers. Cat cries out as I circle her clitoris, my lips on her neck, teeth still toying with her skin. She bucks again, turning her head so damp lips meet my cheek. I stroke her clitoris, panting against her neck. When I close my eyes, the walls play a hundred scenes just like this one back to me - Cat, twisted in my sheets, her hands locked over her head as my thigh grinds between her legs, Cat, biting her lips so my mother doesn't hear her as I kiss her trembling hips in the backyard, Cat, against my wall, giggling as I dive up her skirt like she's a goldmine.

This is different, though, because even as my fingers plunge inside of her and I stroke her tight walls and she cries out God and Jade like they're they only words she knows, somewhere in the back of my mind - and hers - we know that this is temporary, this is different, that things have changed, and we're both probably going to regret it.

I pull my hand out of her pants, detach my teeth from her neck and step back. She sags against the wall, her fingers clutching my shoulders like she'll fall. I swallow as her brown eyes, glazed and disoriented, flutter up to meet mine. Her lips close and she looks around her like she doesn't know where she is, and then her hands are ripping away from me, touching the wall behind her.

"Oh, no," she says, her voice weak and lost.

I take a few slow steps backward until my knees hit the bed. I sink onto the mattress, my eyes shifting almost on instinct to the picture of Beck and I on my bedside table.

"You should go," I say. I look up at her, eyes wide and scared, and I wonder if I look as terrified as she does.

She runs.


A/N: Sorry for the semi-late update! Oop, I rhymed. I'm a poet and I didn't know it. I wish I could rhyme all the time.

...I beg your pardon.

You should review. It would make me all warm and fuzzy inside. Like a bunny, or a kitten, or a hybrid bunny/kitten. Kunny. Bitten.

...Your pardon is begged for. Again.