Disclaimer: I don't own victorious

06/29/2011

It's the start of a new week and lets just say that the happy, affectionate Jade we were all graced with last week has long gone. She was just incredibly snappy and short with everybody today, managing to make Cat cry and insult Andre's new song. I remember last year when Jade had days like this I would look at Beck and think to myself, how can he just sit there and do nothing when his girlfriend is acting like such a bitch? Now Jade's my girlfriend, I find myself doing the exact same thing. Her whole family have gone and left her around such a difficult time. Who am I to tell her she has to be nice?

Her misery and bitchiness continued into lunchtime where she just sat there drawing in a notebook and barely interacting with anyone. I offered to buy her lunch, she said no. I even offered to leave and just go some place else with her, she said no. Beck was more than aware that something was very wrong and even offered to buy her coffee to which she roared at him to buy his own girlfriend coffee.

I looked apologetically at Beck but didn't say anything. Jade seemed on the verge of tears all day but she held it together, letting her emotions out in other ways. Mainly anger. Isolating herself. Being as horrible to everyone as she possibly could. The worst part was, I knew there was nothing I could do. This was completely out of my control.

I was extremely worried about Jade based on how unstable she was behaving and also how ill she looked. She had huge circles under her eyes and I wouldn't have put it past her to not have eaten a thing all weekend and apparently neither had Beck and despite not really being close at the moment, the two of us ended up quietly discussing Jade's behaviour at the end of our English class.

"So he took the twins and just left Jade by herself?" Beck confirmed with me.

"Uh huh." I nodded.

"My Mom is going to be so mad when she hears about this." Beck seethed.

"Why?"

"She hates James. He's never given a shit about Jade and he cheated on her Mom several times." Beck informed me. Another blow. I was completely and utterly disgusted that her Dad seemed so careless and unloving about his family. It's bad enough that he cheated on her in the first place but leaving the country on his deceased wife's birthday, taking his sons, leaving his daughter on her own and telling her to get over it. I could see why Beck's Mom hated him.

"But whatever's happening at home aside, she's not eating again, thats obvious." I frowned.

"She always went through good and bad patches and usually something that's upset her triggers it. You can try get her to talk but she's a stubborn cow." Beck shrugged.

"Hey!" I frowned.

"What? She is!" Beck insisted.

"Yeah well maybe she's stubborn because she's protecting herself from being hurt. Because it seems like she gets hurt a lot." I defended her.

"I don't know. I think she's just difficult to be honest." Beck replied. I shook my head but we didn't continue talking after this as the late bell rang and we both hurried to our separate music classes. My biggest worry is, if this is how Jade is coping now, how is she going to cope tomorrow.'

06/30/2011

As I predicted, today was a difficult day. Jade surprised me by hugging me and kissing me in the morning before class. She was chatty and smiley and somehow this was worse than the angry Jade she had been yesterday. She was obviously artificially happy. I knew it was her Moms birthday so I asked her how she was feeling about it and she said she was happy, because birthdays are a reason to be happy. I was confused but kept it to myself because if this was the way she was going to deal with it then I was going to go along with it. Every time I saw her she smiled at me. It was scary.

At lunch time she didn't eat again. She was drawing in her notebook and when I looked over it alarmed me she was drawing food. Rows and rows of tiny cupcakes, pizza slices, ice cream cones. To anyone else they would seem like innocent doodles but somehow I knew they were significant. Once again I didn't mention it.

We arrived early to Sikowitz class and sat together near the back of the room. Jade was quiet but still seemed "happy". She avoided all my questions about what she'd done last night, what she was doing tonight, what she wanted to do the rest of the week and turned the questions around to me. She probably thought she was getting away with everything nicely until Beck came over.

"Jade, my Mom wanted to know if you need a lift to the cemetery later?" Beck asked. Jades false smile immediately dropped and it was as though Beck had burst some sort of artificial bubble she'd been cushioning herself in.

"Umm.. No I'll be fine by myself." Jade replied quietly.

"Are you sure?" Beck asked suspiciously.

"Yeah."

"Are you still going to drop over tonight?" Beck pushed her a little further, noticing she had gone extremely quiet.

"No I think… I'd rather just be alone." Jade folded her arms and crossed her legs towards the window, the opposite way to which Beck and I were facing her.

"Alright." Beck frowned at me and then went back to his seat. Jade was completely silent and I could tell Beck had pushed her too far. She hadn't needed any of the reminders about what today meant.

"Jade?" I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She immediately stood up and walked out of the classroom. I thought about following her but quickly decided against it. She evidently wanted to be alone.

I didn't see her car in the parking lot at the end of school so I assumed she'd gone home. I texted her asking if she was alright and if she wanted to talk. But she didn't reply. It reminded me of last week when I had been upset. Jade trusted her instinct and came over to see me. I wasn't sure this was even close to the same thing but I decided the same principles applied and after dinner I got in my car and drove over to Jades. I rang the doorbell and Jade answered through the speaker.

"What do you want?" Jade snapped venomously.

"Baby can I come in?" I asked softly. Jade immediately hung up and I wondered if she was just going to ignore me. I stood on the doorstep unhopeful but about two minutes later she opened the door.

"Hey." I smiled.

"Hey." Jade repeated. Her voice had a distinct crack in it and her eyes were swollen and ringed red. It didn't take a genius to work out she'd been crying. Hard. Instead of saying anything else I just stepped inside and took her into my arms. She resisted at first, trying to push me away but stopped fighting after thirty seconds or so and just cried weakly against my neck. I held her and let her cry without saying anything, she obviously needed this.

"Sorry." Jade pulled back, sniffing and wiping her eyes.

"Hey! Never, ever say sorry for being upset. You don't have to be embarrassed to cry with me. Ever. And especially not about this." I assured her.

"It's so dumb. She died almost seven years ago. I shouldn't be this upset."

"You're allowed to be upset." I said firmly. "Your Dad was wrong."

"Maybe." Jade sniffed, looking down at her feet. She quickly wiped a new stream of tears away form her eyes and put her hand out gesturing me further inside, "Come on."

We sat down on the sofa where Jade seemed to have been before. She'd pulled her quilt off her bed and brought it down here and she'd been looking through a collection of old photographs. Jade picked up one of the albums and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders as she leant on me showing me the pictures. She actually seemed genuinely happy for a while as she talked about her Mom and the funny stories about how they used to do crazy things like ride scooters down to the park in the dark and bake cookies in the middle of the night. Her Mom apparently loved the night and had insisted she was nocturnal.

"You look a lot like her." I told Jade.

"Do you really think?" Jade asked. "My Mom had brown eyes. Unfortunately I inherited the cold blue abyss from my Father."

"I love your eyes." I kissed her cheek. "And even still, you look really similar. You have the same hair and nose and face shape."

Jade laughed and closed the photo album. I wrapped my arms properly around her as she lay on me drained. I wasn't sure whether she was so tired because of lack of sleep, lack of food, or just emotional exhaustion.

"How old were you when your Mom died?" I asked softly.

"Eleven. Sam and Charlie were 16 months." Jade said quietly. "It was cancer just so you know."

"I'm so sorry Jade."

"It's ok. It really was a long time ago." Jade assured me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked cautiously. Jade kept quiet, keeping her cheek to my shoulder and breathing slowly. For a while I thought she'd fallen asleep until out of the blue, she spoke.

"My Mom was sick for most of my life. She lost her hair when I was eight and slowly she lost everything, her job, her friends, her relationship, her dignity. She was on deaths door so many times, especially when she was pregnant with the twins. She hung on though. Sam and Charlie were born thirteen weeks premature - they barely made it."

I listened intently to Jade's story knowing it was progress that she even spoke at all. I knew there wasn't anything I could say to make it a happier story so I just listened.

"Eventually after a long, long time in hospital Sam and Charlie gained enough weight and we could take them home. My Mom- not so much. She got so skinny in that last year until eventually she could hardly get out of bed. She couldn't even drink water without being sick and you could see the pain on her face whenever you hugged her."

Jade stopped talking at this point and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Obviously finding reliving the memory hard. I took hold of her hand and squeezed firmly. She smiled and snuggled back against me. I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her until she was ready to keep talking.

"All my life, my Mom said she wanted to hear me sing and perform on stage. She was determined she'd see me in a main part before she had to go. She told everybody. And then.. I got my first lead role in an amateur production of Wicked at my drama school. On opening night my Mom insisted on coming to watch me. I remember she was so sick that day, but Beck's Mom, Jenn helped her to do it. We all knew this was probably her last chance and I was so terrified I'd mess up or something. I've never been more frightened of anything than screwing up on that night."

"I'm sure you were great."

"Yeah well it could have been better. It wasn't perfect." Jade shook her head.

"I'm sure it was" I reassured her.

"Anyway, my Mom saw the show and when we got home. She spent a long time with Beck's Mom in her bedroom. Beck was sat with me in my room and I remember we didn't even talk or play or anything. We both knew. We just knew. Eventually Jenn told me to come in and I hugged my Mom. She told me she was proud and that she loved me. Those were the last words she said to me before she died that night in her sleep."

Even I was crying at this point. The whole description seemed so vivid, so real. I could imagine her so young having to go through this and it hurt. Jade was somehow holding it together.

"I sometimes wonder if she hadn't come see my show, would I have had her for a couple more days? Maybe the show was what killed her." Jade confessed sadly.

"It sounds like she really wanted to come Jade." I said firmly. If there was anything I'd taken away from this story, it was that.

"We went to live at Beck's for a while because my Dad was hopeless with the twins and he was never really present in my life anyway. Jenn took care of me, Sam and Charlie for almost two years until our Father finally got his act together, bought our house and moved us back in with him." Jade shrugged.

"I'm so sorry Jade." I hugged and kissed her. Jade leant her head against mine and just seemed lost. She didn't cry. She just lay there.

"Maybe you should go over to Beck's." I found myself saying. I felt guilty and disgusted with myself that I'd acted so selfish about her talking to him and getting letter's from his Mom. Now I knew the full story.

"No I just want to stay here." Jade said quietly. We sat in total silence. Just the sound of our breathing and my sniffs. I tried to pull myself together but it was hard after hearing what had happened. If I'd been alone and not trying to be strong for Jade, I would have been sobbing.

"Have you eaten anything today?" I asked eventually. Jade nodded but the rumbling I could feel in her stomach easily led me not to believe her. I desperately wanted her to eat, but I knew it really wasn't the right time to push her about food.

"Do you want to be alone?" I asked seriously. I knew I'd kind of invited myself here without asking and since she was isolating herself from Becks family I thought that maybe she wouldn't want me either. Apparently I was wrong.

"Please don't go." Jade replied panicked.

"I won't if you don't want me to." I reassured her by hugging her tighter.

"I always say I want to be alone but I never want to be alone." Jades voice trembled and she started to cry.

"Oh baby." I stroked her hair as she cried completely broken tears. It was so childlike it terrified me.

"It makes me do bad things." Jade revealed.

"Well you're not on your own now." I said firmly. I didn't know what she was talking about but it I didn't like the sound of it. 'Bad things' never equated to anything good or healthy, especially someone who had an eating disorder.

Jade fell asleep, her grip on me tight. I texted my Mom about an hour go to tell her I'm sleeping over at Jades. I'm sure she'll be mad at me because I'm not technically allowed to stay out on a school night but this is an emergency. There is no way I'm leaving Jade alone tonight.