|Cat|

It hurts. It all hurts. I can feel it from the crown to the very ends of my toes, pumping under the my skin like water through pipes, except the pipes are made of paper and I'm soaking through, from the inside out, and the water is dripping and I'm emptying and everything is hollow.

I halt at a stop sign, my eyes boring into the red octagon. My body and mind and heart are all torn in two, severed at the seams - one side begging me to go back, to fall into Tori's bronze arms because she's never hurt me, she's never had the chance. Her eyes are soft and her words are kind and she has this, this innocence, this streak of purity that Jade just doesn't have, and I barely gave her the time to prove to me that she was worth it. But the other side is screaming and scarred from wounds that were just beginning to heal, that Tori put band-aids over and now I've ripped them off and let them bleed all over again, except this time it's different. This time, I know they won't close. Stitches and gauze aren't going to help me anymore, not after all of this, not after how far Down I've gone.

I look over my shoulder, blinking through my tears to clear my vision. My car idles quietly as I peer down the street. I can still see her house. I wonder how much convincing it would take, how long I would have to fold at her feet to get her to take me back, if just so I wouldn't have to face Jade again. And I wonder how scared I really am, how long I've let that fear control me and how much longer I'm willing to let it do so.

Tori said she would only bring me Down, but what if she was wrong?

What if she's right?

I turn back to the road and drive on, my tires purring against the blacktop. I'm shaking and sobbing, my lungs like torn fabric and the strings are strewn on my ribs like decorations for a party that crashed. I'm crying for Tori, mourning for this beautiful thing that soaked up so much sun it popped like a swollen balloon. I'm crying for everything she could have been but my memories won't let her be. Because Tori's wise and Tori's smart and she knows me better than I'd like to admit, and Jade, too. She knows both of us with eyes that haven't seen the carnage the two of us has caused the other. She's only seen the two of us without, and maybe that's what we need to see, too. What Jade's life would be like without me and my life without her.

My heart hurls itself again my ribcage at the mere thought of not seeing Jade every day, of not being around her, of not being a part of her life even if it was just in the most minuscule way. She has brought me Up and Up and that isn't something I can let go of. Tori reminded me of that. And ... And I think I love Tori, I really think I do, and maybe one day I could have fallen the same way I did with Jade, except it never would have been Up. You only truly fall in love once and Jade happened to beat her to it.

I clench the steering wheel and press the pedal nearly to the floor, whipping through the streets. It doesn't matter how hard I would have tried to be with Tori, how desperately I would have wanted it to work, or how often I told myself that Tori would probably never hurt me the way Jade did. I had already gone too high up to come down. My heart had already made its home in Jade's hands, and even though she tore it up and littered it with scars, I know she was hurting while she did it. I know there's no way I could possibly give it up now that the damage is done. And that's the thing - people hurt each other, even the people they love. But that's the beauty of falling up and in love; learning to forgive each other, learning to keep on loving even when there are wounds to heal.

Maybe Tori is wrong. Maybe I'm making the wrong choice, and maybe Jade will twist me up and throw me down again like she did last time, but she broke up with Beck, right? That means something. That means more than anything because she would have never, ever done that a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure what it means, exactly, but it's something I can't ignore because maybe the Jade after Beck can even slightly resemble the Jade she was before him, when it was just us and then and we and JadeandCat.

My chest expands as her name fills the space between my spine in my sternum, swirling around like a hard wind. I drive faster, trying so very hard to obey all of the traffic laws that I can remember, but it suddenly seems so very urgent to find her, to get to her right now, and so I may or may not have rolled through a few stop signs, but I'm watching for children, and small animals! I can't let myself get too carried away here. I wipe at my eyes, taking deep breaths to steady my erratic lungs. I have to be calm.

The sky rolls on above me and I glance up to see the herd of clouds passing over and once again I tell Tori thank you, because if she hadn't let me go, I wouldn't have left. And there's a difference, you know, between loving someone and being in love with someone. It's a small difference, and sometimes the two get confused, but I think I know what it is now. It's the difference between Tori and Jade - wanting to fall and already fallen.

Maybe Jade breaking up with Beck is completely unrelated, but Tori said - And I think you need to go find her - and she's right. I do. I do because I owe that to what we used to be, to the people we were when it was just us and her bed and mine and the walls that watched us blossom into something neither of us understood, until now. Or maybe it's just me that understands it. And I can't put it into words because there just aren't any. I'm just Up. She just brought me there.

I throw my car into park outside of her house, the white building seeming to grow as I switch off the engine and fall out of the car. It's quiet. The garage door is closed and there aren't any lights on, but I can't think of anywhere else Jade would be. If she wasn't at home usually, she was with Beck, and obviously that wouldn't make much sense, now. I trudge up to the door, setting my jaw tightly as I roll my knuckles against it. I'm trying to come up with the words, my eyes flicking to the ground as I chew my knuckle. I've never been good with words. My brain can't put them in the right order fast enough for me to ever get my point across. My heart leaps unsteadily in my chest like it wants to run out of me. I really don't blame it. I place a hand over my sternum and take a deep breathe. "Calm down," I tell it, giving it a soft pat.

The door opens. I jerk my gaze up, my brain startling with confusion. Jade looks so much like her mother it's almost frightening. They have the same long, dark hair, the same piercing set of green eyes. She has soft lines around her eyes and mouth, a sharp jawline, and I wonder if this is what Jade is going to look like when she's forty. I wonder if I'll get a chance to know her when she's forty. My mouth falls open as her lips twitch up into a soft smile.

"Catarina. It's been awhile." The woman throws her thumb over her shoulder. "Jade hasn't gotten back from school yet, but she should be here soon. Did you want to come in and -"

"No." I lift my hands, shaking my head. "I'll, uh, I'll go find her. Thanks." I smile at her and spin on my heel, marching back toward my car. I struggle to get my phone out of the pocket of my dress, scrolling to find Jade. If this is the only way to find her, then so be it. I fall into my car again, backing out with one hand on the wheel. It rings a couple of times, the sound hollow and far away. "Please pick up," I mumble, and as if on command, I hear a click. I pause in Jade's driveway, waiting, my breath holding. There's a soft, shaky exhale on the other end.

"Cat?"

A hard breath rushes out of me. "Where are you?" I clutch the phone like I'm about to lose her. "Where are you at?"

There's a small silence filled with a thousand words she isn't saying, and then a breathless chuckle filters through the phone. "I was at your house."

I can feel myself moving Up so fast my foot comes off the brake. The car jerks as I slam on it, throwing it into park again. My entire torso is swelling, trying to make room for something growing and sprouting roots. "I'm at yours."

"I know."

I frown, my brow flickering as I twist in the car seat and something thuds so loudly I can't believe for a second it was my heart. It was too bold, too hard, and as I watch Jade slip out of the driver's seat of her sleek, black car, I know what it was.

It was my soul. JadeJadeJade.

I claw at the car handle and tear myself across the lawn, leaping over the grass. And I look up and she's smiling, her lips soft and there's teeth and it's old Jade peeking out from behind the new one, it's flashbacks and mornings spent laughing into the hollow of her ear, it's her hands learning the roads and routes of my body and it's her saying, forever.

We collide. It's like our hearts are trying to tear through the flesh and bone and warp around each other and she smells like a place I haven't been to in a long time, an old house I used to live in, a swingset I used to spend my afternoons on. My arms wind around her shoulders and her breath rustles over my ear, my hair, and I feel like floating up and taking her with me, folding us into the sky where clouds are the only disturbances. My lips are on her neck, her pulse hurtling against her mouth, and I can hear it again. I can feel it again. CatCatCat.

"Your mom said you were at Tori's," she whispers, her arms tightening around my waist. I take in a deep breath, feeling her fill the space of my lungs, flooding into my blood stream.

"I love her," I mumble, and she stiffens like stone. I hold her tighter, shaking my head into her shoulder. And I do love Tori, I know I do, and given the time I know I could have been happy, but there's a difference between what my heart says and what my soul does - falling down and falling up. "But I can't, and I need you, and she told me to find you and, Jade -" I pull back, her name stamped on my lips. I meet her eyes, the sharp green of her mother's, my fingers curling into her shoulder-blades. "I love you, okay? And - and I'm done not being with you like I used to be and I'm done with, with seeing you with Beck and you're just going to have deal with me for - for forever, like you promised, because -"

"Cat."

My teeth click shut. I meet her gaze, study her soft smile, her fingers traveling to my cheeks to crane my neck up. "I don't break my promises." She leans forward, the air buzzing, and then her eyes flick over my shoulder. She freezes, her hands rocks, and I watch her throat struggle to swallow. I tense, turning slightly to see what scared her.

He's standing in the doorway. He's glaring and tall, eyes narrowed, and this is what kept us apart before. This, him - he took away precious time.

"Jade ..." I turn back to her, her eyes still frozen on her father. They close, a deep breath filling the space between us, and then she dives forward and kisses me. It's soft and warm and so many words are in it, words I don't know the meaning of, but they flood my brain and drown out everything else. There's just her and us and this and not her father behind us or Tori beyond us or Beck between us. It's just us and it's a snapshot of our forever.

A/N: So. Fluffy. Omigod~

So, you busy? Obviously not, if you're reading this ... which means you have plenty of time to leave a review, hey? They do make me quite happy.