Beck's POV

"Beck?" she questions me and groans as we approach the parking lot. "Why are you taking me to a kiddy amusement park?"

I smile. "Because I know you like roller coasters. And this is a pier, not a 'kiddy amusement park.'"

"I know, but look at them." She gestures to the rides lining the sides of the pier as we step onto the wooden boardwalk. A green sign at the entrance greeted us with a Welcome to Huntington Beach! "These are tiny. Pathetic, even. Where are all the steep drops and loops that make you want to puke your stomach out? I like those rides."

Thinking about the nausea that those kinds of rides would entail, I grimace. "Of course you would."

I'm surprised she even agreed to come along with me in the first place. She wasn't happy at all when I told her that the whole "going to Nozu" thing was fake. "Why…the hell…would you trick me like that, Beck?" she had growled at me. "If you don't wipe that cocky look off your face this instant, I swear I will tear your room to pieces with my scissors."

Taken aback by her anger, I cowered in the corner. "Well, I didn't think you'd come if you knew it was just you and me. I didn't want you to get the wrong idea."

I thought I saw her scowl deepen even further, but I must had been imagining it. Curse my wishful thinking. "You idiot." Then, she backed off. "Probably true, but I'm here now and there's no way I'm going back home."

"What happened this time?"

"My dad told me to get out of the house or else, and you know how he is when gets mad," she had said casually. "Now let's go."

I didn't ask her any more questions after that. I figured it was too risky to get into personal matters when we were barely on friendly speaking terms. And I found it weird that she didn't ask why I wanted it to be just the two of us spending time together instead of hanging with everyone else.

"So…" she starts. "Why did you go through all that effort to get me alone? Is there something you need to tell me?"

Whoops. Spoke too soon. "Um…" I falter, stopping to scrape some bird poop off my shoe. "I just thought that we should take a shot at hanging out together as friends. You know, the way we were before we started dating. I'm tired of insulting each other every minute and acting like we never existed."

She chews on her bottom lip and looks down at her boots. "Yeah, I kind of missed you too," she mutters. Or at least I think she does. Hopefully it's not wishful thinking again.

I raise my eyebrows and nudge her shoulder playfully. "What did you just say? Jade West has feelings?"

"You touch me again and you won't be able to feel a single bone in your body after I'm done with you."

"Okay, okay, I'm just kidding." I put my hands up in defeat. Trying to find a distraction, I scope out things for us to there. Up a couple of blocks are the roller coasters and the Ferris wheel. To the left of us I see a stand selling lemonade, hot dogs, and churros, and to the right I see a couple of smaller rides such as the Scrambler and the Tilt-a-Whirl. "So what do you want to do now? Want to try out the roller coasters?"

"This early in the morning? I'm going to be freezing my ass off the whole ride!" She fiddles with her thin leather jacket and gives me a pointed look.

Oh geez. This is going to be a challenge. Pleasing Jade West is a hard thing to accomplish. "Okay… wanna grab something to eat then? You were complaining the whole car ride that you were starving."

"Really, Beck? Eating before going on rides? You really need to wake up and smell the roses," she scoffs. "As much as I like gross stuff, I don't feel like emptying my stomach at the moment."

Suddenly, I spot something behind the small rides that I know will pique her interest. "There's also that haunted house over there, but I'm sure you don't want to go on that either." I smirk at her.

"I'm in. Let's go," she says quickly and pulls me towards the house before I can say anything else.


"Wow," I chuckle as we exit the haunted house. "That was so lame."

"Possibly the worst haunted house I've ever went to," she agrees with me- something that doesn't happen a lot nowadays. "The actors' makeup and fake blood was so overrated!"

"Yeah, they looked more like clowns than flesh-eating zombies to me. Do you remember the one with an ax through his head? You could totally tell that it was just a plastic ax stuck to a headband!"

"I know, that was ridiculous!" she laughs. "The only thing I liked about that ride was the end because they acted out a scene from The Scissoring."

"Huh, I didn't see that. I was too busy laughing at the guy who was dancing with the skeleton. What scene was it?"

"The one where Tawnie Hart murders her sister and her perky best friend with her golden-tinted scissors."

"Ah, and Cat gave you those scissors directly from the movie." I nod in understanding.

"Yeah, I got to gloat over the fact that I had the actual scissors and they didn't. And the best part was that the best friend looked a lot like Vega." We order a couple of churros and sit down at a nearby table. "Speaking of Vega, what were she and Andre doing when you went over? Making out in a closet?"

"Nah, she was passed out on the couch. They were watching TV and fell asleep before midnight."

"Wussies." She takes a bite of her churro and licks the cinnamon sugar off her fingers. I grin and shake my head in amusement when she isn't looking. Jade has never been one for manners, but just seeing her do that makes me nostalgic and miss the old dating days. "Andre so has a crush on her."

"How can you tell?"

"It's so obvious! How can you not see it? He spends all of his free time with Tori, he writes all these songs about her-"

"Excluding 365 Days," I interrupt bitterly.

"Geez Beck, get over it! And I thought I was the queen of holding grudges." Jade shakes her head and finishes her churro in two bites. When she's done eating, she breaks off half of my untouched churro and stuffs it into her mouth. "Out of all the people in our little group, those two have the most chemistry."

"Really?" I say, surprised. "Have you seen Robbie and Cat? They practically act like they're secretly dating!"

"Tell you what… How about we turn this into a bet? If Tori and Andre get together first, you have to do whatever I want you to do." The corner of her lip turns up coyly, which I have always thought made her look incredibly sexy. "It'll be a surprise."

"Oh yeah? It's on. And if Cat and Robbie get together first, which they will," I hear myself saying. Damn, sometimes I wish there was an off switch on my mouth sometimes. "You'll have to do whatever I want you to do. Deal?" I hold out my hand for her to shake.

She pauses for a minute, probably mulling the whole thing over in her head. "Oh, why the hell not? It's a bet." She meets me in the middle and we shake on it.

Leaning back against the metal chair, she kicks her feet up onto the table while I eat what's left of my churro. With one black, manicured nail, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and smirks silently. "What?" I ask, confused by the look on her face.

"I just find it funny that we're trying to couple up our friends already when for years we were the only couple existing among them," she says casually.

I take in a sharp breath. This is the first time in a while one of us has subtlety mentioned the breakup or our past romantic relationship to each other. "Yeah, funny," I laugh along tensely, not knowing what else to add to that. "We're like the love doctors now. A couple of months ago, it used to be Tori and Andre."

"I know! I can't believe I threatened them with toilet paper," she laughs. "Now Andre can't go to the bathroom without getting scared and almost wetting his pants." *(A/N: Just because I referenced "Tori Fixes Beck and Jade" doesn't mean that they're back together, okay? Got it? Good.)

I sigh, filled with nostalgia. "Good times…"

"Yep. Those were the days."

We sit there in an awkward silence. "So…what do you want to do now? Hit up a roller coaster or two before we head back?"

"Beck, you know that I don't like going on rides right after I eat," Jade groans.

Luckily, I have another way to get her to go on with me. "Oh, so you're saying you're a chicken." I stand up and throw my paper napkin in the trash. I see her fists ball up into fists under the table and her face grow hard. "You're scared of the big, mean roller coasters, Jade?" I know I'm being kind of mean, but Jade is so stubborn sometimes that it's the only way to get her to cave. She hates being called weak.

She stands up and slowly walks toward me, like a lion closing in on its kill. "Don't you dare call me a chicken, pretty boy," she snarls. "I brought my sharpest pair of scissors along with me today and I'm sure that cutting your fluffy hair right off your scalp would make them really happy."

I back up as she approaches me. "Okay, chicken, whatever you say."

"That's it!" she shrieks, and she chases me until we reach The Daredevil, one of the most popular roller coasters on the pier. Once I camouflage myself in the line of people waiting to get on, she stops to catch her breath and looks around.

I don't mean to brag, but you gotta admit- my plan was pretty damn clever. She was too angry with me to even notice where I was planning on going.

She finally recognizes where we are and becomes livid, but to my relief, she surrenders. "I hate you," she mutters and waits with me to get onto the roller coaster.


Narrator's POV

At the same time Jade arrived at Beck's house, Tori up on the couch in a daze. "Why the heck am I on the couch?" she thought.

Then she remembered the movie marathon and Andre's abrupt departure in the middle of the night. Why did Beck come and visit her house so late? And more importantly, why did he only want to speak to Andre?

There were so many questions that needed to be answered- and despite all the obscurity, Tori got a bad feeling that Beck's visit had something to do with Jade.

Speaking of Andre… where was he? Did he leave while she was sleeping?

The sound of a door slamming behind her answered her question. She jumped, startled, and turned around to see Andre with coffee and a bag of bagels in his hands. He smiled slightly when he saw she was awake, but that didn't stop him from trying to hide the bruise on his cheek from her.

"Hey girl. How'd you sleep?" He sat down next to her on the couch and handed her a bagel.

"Pretty well, except I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard people talking." She frowned and cocked an eyebrow suspiciously at him. "Care to explain what happened there, Andre? Hmm?"

He purposefully kept his hurt cheek turned away from her and shrugged. "Oh, um… you know, just bro stuff. Nothing you need to worry about."

"Andre, I know something's up because you're not looking at me. Why did Beck come to my house to talk to you and not me? What was so urgent that he couldn't wait until tomorrow when you were back home to talk to you?"

Andre sighed. "Calm down, it's no big doodle…"

"No big doodle? Best friends don't hide things from each other! First you refuse to tell me about this girl you like and now this?"

The guilt continued to eat him up as he waited for her to finish her rant. "You've been acting weird ever since Jade read 365 Days. What's going on now?"

He stayed silent, thinking about what to do from here, and then decided to turn his head to look at her. "Tori, it's complicated. I don't know what else to tell you-"

"Oh my gosh, what happened to your cheek?!" Tori gasped.

He winced in pain as Tori stroked the sore spot with her thumb. "Aw, 'Dre…" she said sympathetically. "I'll go get you some ice to put on that. It looks pretty swollen." She got up and walked over to the freezer. "Beck did this to you, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he found out about my old crush on Jade and got really mad about it. It's obvious the dude still has feelings for her."

Tori returned with a bag of steamed vegetables in her hand. "Here, put this on it. It should help the swelling go down a little bit."

"Steamed vegetables? Really?" He looked at her incredulously and she shrugged. "You guys really need to get some real ice packs."

She laughed, showing him her dazzling smile. "I'm sure we'll remember to buy some eventually."

He leaned back against the cushions and pressed the bag against his cheek. "Anyway, he said the only way he could feel better about the whole thing was if he hit something. I offered him my shoulder, saying that I deserved it, and I accidentally mentioned the song to him. I guess that gave him more incentive to hit me… a little bit too much incentive, I guess," he chuckled slightly.

"So what happens next? Are you going to let this ruin your friendship?"

"Nah, I think we both just need to cool off a little. You know, think things through."

"Ah, I see."

They both sat there in silence, Tori taking dainty little bites of her buttered bagel and Andre sipping his coffee while icing his cheek. "So…will you ever get around to telling me about this girl you like?" Tori asked, breaking the tranquility.

Andre put his coffee down and glanced at Tori, taking in her appearance. She still had her clothes on from the other night- a loose-fitting teal short sleeved shirt paired with skinny jeans and white sandals. Her hair was tousled and her makeup wiped clean off of her face. He smiled as she accidentally got a little bit of butter on her nose, watching her giggle shyly and delicately clean off the smear with a paper napkin.

Even in her disheveled state he thought she looked stunning. How could one girl be so insanely perfect (in his eyes, at least) yet not realize it? It was astounding to him.

There was no way he could ever let her know, though. To her, he was just the best friend. Nothing more.

He sighed and focused on the cold sinking into his cheek instead of her beauty. "Gosh, muchacha, you're pushy. I'll tell you eventually… just not now."

"When will you tell me, then?" Tori put her bagel down and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

He shook his head and finished the last of his cup of coffee. "In due time, Tori. It'll come in due time."


Narrator's POV (cont.)

After an exhausting day at the pier, Beck and Jade decided to crash at Beck's RV and order pizza since Jade didn't feel like going out to dinner. Plus, she figured her dad was still in a bad mood and she just didn't want to deal with his shit today. Surprisingly enough she'd rather hang with Beck, her ex that toys with her feelings constantly, than go home and sleep.

She ended up being pleasantly surprised by the roller coaster rides at the pier. In fact, the first one she went on was so exciting and stomach-twisting that she dragged Beck onto the remainder of the roller coaster rides across the strip- which happened to be a lot. It took a while for her adrenaline rush to calm down and when it did, she crashed. As soon as they had gotten to Beck's car, she had collapsed in the back seat and had fallen asleep.

As Beck pulled up the driveway to his home, he gently nudged Jade awake. "Hey, we're here."

Jade groaned and sat up slowly, clutching her head in irritation. "Ugh, what happened? I feel like I've been run over by a bus."

"Still nauseous from all those rides you went on?" he laughed.

"Oh shut up. I was only doing that to make you stop bugging me and calling me a chicken."

He took her hand and helped her out of the car. She was a bit wobbly, still in a state of sleepiness, when she got on her feet, so he used his arms to steady her shoulders and waist.

He guided Jade to the door and she instantly flopped down onto his bed. "So, what kind of pizza do you want to order?" he asked her, taking out his phone and dialing a number.

"Meat lovers with extra pepperoni, no mushrooms, and lay off the anchovies," she said automatically.

He chuckled at her response. "Man, you're so picky when it comes to pizza."

"I'm picky when it comes to everything, Oliver. You should know that by now."

"Of course I do. We've known each other long enough, haven't we?"

"Yeah, a little too well sometimes," she muttered under her breath, but Beck pretended like he didn't hear her. He knew very well what she meant by that.

Jade reached over and swiped a movie from one of Beck's shelves and put it into the DVD player as Beck ordered the pizza. Suddenly, she felt him sit down beside her. "Pizza will be here in half an hour. That ok with you?"

She chewed her lip nervously at his closeness; they hadn't been less than a couple feet away from each other since the breakup. She started to question whether she was ready to do this or not. Trying to be friends with her ex? What was she thinking? Especially she still had feelings for him. She wondered what game he was trying to pull on her.

No, Jade, her mind argued with her. Don't think of this as a bad thing; think of it as a challenge. If you can get through this movie without letting your guard down, you can do anything. Don't be weak.

Just do it.

Eventually, her mind won the internal battle. She shrugged indifferently. "Yeah, that's fine. I don't care."

He spotted the DVD case on her lap and picked it up. "My Bloody Valentine? Wow, I thought you'd want to watch The Scissoring 2 again because of the haunted house we went in."

"Well, maybe I want to try something different." She stared at him coldly and he seemed to get the hint.

"Okay, sure. Whatever you want."

He grabbed the remote from under his pillows and turned on the TV. Immediately, they were absorbed in the killing and gore occurring on the screen. Well, half-absorbed, that is. Internally, they were thinking about their past, re-living the events that led up to this very moment. Their first date. Their first kiss. The time Beck first met Jade's dad and the time Jade met his parents. The first time they made love and how special it was. The relentless arguments, their screaming matches. And most importantly… the painful breakup.

How can there be so much history between two people, yet they act like nothing ever existed between them?

That's the issue- now that they were friends again, the attraction was reappearing, drawing them together like opposite ends of a magnet. As the movie played on, Jade's head drooped onto Beck's shoulder and his arm habitually slid around her waist, holding her against his side.

Once the credits started rolling, Beck groped for the remote and turned the TV off, sending the room into darkness. The only light that was on was the light he had left on in his bedroom, shedding a dim glow from the crack in the door.

They sat there wordlessly, trying to figure out if the other had fallen asleep or not. "You still awake, Jade?" Beck whispered.

"Yeah, barely." She sighed and snuggled up closer to him. "That was a good movie."

He smiled, even though he knew Jade couldn't see him do so. "I know. It has been my favorite ever since you gave it to me last Christmas."

Jade lifted her head up slightly to look at him. "You remember?"

"Of course I do." He sat up a little straighter and looked Jade directly in the eyes- or, at least he thought they were her eyes. "There are a lot of things I remember and a lot of things I regret, Jade. What happened between us was one of them."

"What do you mean what happened between us?" her voice wobbled. "You regret ever dating me?"

"No, not at all! I…" He could barely make out her face in the dim light, but he knew that her soft, red lips were just inches from his. His heart swelled and pumped erratically in his chest. There was only one girl in the world that could ever make him feel like this, and she was sitting right next to him.

"You…what?" she whispered. Her mind was wiped clean of any doubt or fear that she had had before. It was just the two of them in their own little world.

Beck couldn't take the tension between them anymore and leaned in without thinking. However, his lips met the air instead as he felt Jade push him away and scramble off the bed.

"I…I have to go." She grabbed her leather jacket, which she had been using as a blanket, off of the covers and flicked on the lights so she could find her purse.

"Jade…" Beck sat there, stunned at the rejection. She was about to leave the RV when he got up and grabbed hold of her hand. "I'm sorry, I was caught up in the moment and-"

"I can't do this."

Beck's face fell. "What do you mean you can't do this?"

"This! Us!" She pointed to him, then back at herself. "I thought I could just be friends with you, but I can't! It's probably easy for you to forget what happened between us. You're the bastard who broke up with me in the first place. Do you have any idea what the breakup did to me?"

"Jade, I-"

"It killed me! I can't trust anyone with my heart now because of you!" she exclaimed, tears running down her face. "My dad gave up on me as soon as my mom left us, I haven't talked to my brother in two years, and you giving up on me- on us, actually- was just the icing on the cake."

She wrenched her hand out of his grasp and attempted to clean the mascara trails off of her face. "I may still have feelings for you and you may still have feelings for me as well…but I can't go through all that pain again. I can't let you hurt me more than you already have."

Her words slapped him in the face as he realized the severity of his past mistake. "I…I never meant to hurt you… I just wanted what was best for both of us."

"Oh really? And you thought breaking my heart was the best thing for me?" Jade snapped at him. "Save your breath, Beck. I don't want to hear your meaningless apologies. It's pathetic."

She stormed out the door but turned around one last time to say, "And don't you dare try and talk to me again unless you really want to be punished." Then she slammed the door shut.

Beck stared at the door, which was still shaking from the impact. And then the full reality of what just happened finally kicked in. His plan didn't work. Instead, he had ruined everything.

In his grief, he picked up the TV remote and threw it against one of the windows of the RV. Because they were bulletproof, it bounced harmlessly off of them and dropped to the floor. He kicked his bed a couple of times, his sadness growing stronger and stronger with each kick, until he couldn't take it anymore and collapsed on his bed.

"God damnit!" he shouted into his pillow. He tried to tame his anger and misery, but knew it was no use as soon as he felt the hot tears dripping out of his eyes.

And this time, he did nothing to stop them.


Sorry guys, tried to get this up sooner, but school got in the way again. Hopefully I'll be able to get the next chapter up in less than a month next time around :P. Review, please!