Robbie POV (a week later)
Ever since starting Hollywood Arts, I've always been a bit jealous of Beck. He's got it all, the good looks, great acting skills, he could get any girl he wanted and any acting job in the industry. Which is exactly what's happened here, he's got a part in a movie and I'm stuck going to crappy auditions for commercials that I never even get. Which is why this weekend I called the agency and told them I don't want a part in it anymore. It was a tough choice but I've decided acting isn't my thing and I'm going to go back pursuing theatre tech.
Today only Cat, Jade and I are going to school (Tori and Andre have been called to the agency and Beck's away filming). This isn't really that rare for us in all honesty, we've only been at school 2 weeks and there's only been 4 days where all 6 of us have stayed there the whole day. Being away from their partners is really taking a hit on Cat and Jade but they've been having to put up with it.
The three of us are currently sat in Homeroom, at the front may I add, listening to one of our classmates drone on about what they did this weekend. I heard some slight commotion behind us and turned around to see paper airplanes were being manufactured with great precision at one end of the classroom (I'll let you guess who by) and flown to the other end, hitting several annoyed classmates on the way and earning a good amount of foul-mouthed words in return. Our regular homeroom teacher was off today, so instead we've been stuck with a supply teacher who really couldn't care less about what was happening in their classroom, she's just sat at the desk scrolling though her phone. "Uh yes sounds great." She told the girl stood talking about her weekend, unintentionally cutting her off mid-speech. "Anyone else?" She looked up from her phone as Callum released another paper-plane which flew across the room into another kid's head. We all turned to the teacher and expected her to yell at him or something, but she merely rolled her eyes and went back to scrolling on her phone. The 4 guys at the back of the room laughed and highfived each other as the bell rung, signalling the end of Homeroom.
After getting up and walking out of the classroom, Jade, Cat and I said our farewells and started heading off to our different classes. "You Bobby!" I heard Owen call from behind me, presuming they were talking to one of their jock friends, so I continued walking forward. "Afro!" I heard him call again, this time I turned my head back.
"He turned." Freddie, who was beside him, laughed.
"Afro wait up." Owen called out, jogging up to me. "We were calling you, Bobby."
"It's Robbie." I corrected them, confused why they were talking to me.
"Well, now it's 'Afro'." Freddie spoke up, annoyingly ruffling my hair.
"What'd you want?" I said lowly, trying to walk away from them.
"You know those girls you hang out with." Owen started.
"Cat, Tori and Jade?" I replied. "What about them?"
"We don't care about Jade." Owen continued. "Beck seems cool, we ain't trying to tread on his territory."
"Just Cat and Tori." Freddie said. "So they're, like, together?"
"Yeah... and?" I asked
"How together?"
"Dating." I replied bluntly, not sure what they were getting at.
"And they're both full lez?" Freddie said, using the disparaging term so nonchalant.
"No." I lowered my voice slightly. "Tori's bi and Cat's pan."
"Pan? What she attracted to kitchen stuff." Owen joked.
"It- oh never mind." I sighed, shaking my head at their stupidity. "So what do you two want anyway?"
"That was it, thanks." Freddie said, pushing me to the side and continuing to walk past me, talking to each other quietly.
"Weird." I mumbled to myself.
After a few lessons, lunch finally came around. Lunch has very quickly become my favourite hour of the day, my lessons either being super easy (as in HA we'd been learning some of the topics years ago) or near impossible (because of the year I'd missed out). As soon as the bell rang, I headed out of class and down the hall to the cafeteria. The cafeteria was really the school gym. A hatch connecting it to the kitchen was opened and the smell of chips and baked beans came wafting in. I lined up across the back-wall with brown formica trays in my back leaning on the wall as I shuffled along until I was given my food. The lunches weren't much to look at but the desserts were great! Long doughnuts filled with cream, yum! Then I sat around one of the octagonal tables and started to dig in.
"ROBBIE SHAPIRO!" I heard my name echo around the hall, I snapped my head around to the source of the noise, expecting to see Jade on one of her usual rants with Cat running behind her to try and calm down. The shock I felt, when I saw the two girls rushing towards me with their roles switched, was indescribable. Cat was the first to reach my table, the rest of the hall deathly silent looking over to us.
"She runs fast." Jade panted, finally catching her up. "Even while pregnant."
"What did I do?" I squeaked, recoiling from the angry Italian girl infront of me.
"Sei un idiota!" Cat yelled at me, I was even more confused now, unable to understand the language.
"You know I can't speak Italian." I replied, my voice trembling slightly.
"She called you an idiot." Jade translated, unable to hide her smirk over the unfolding drama.
"Lui รจ proprio un bischero! (He is an idiot)" Cat said to Jade, I could tell she was angry because she'd forgotten to switch back to English.
"Still don't know what I did!" I cut in.
"You-!" She started to yell but cut herself off as she released the amount of onlookers around us. "I'll tell you outside." She grabbed my wrist and practically dragged me out of the lunch hall, barely giving me enough time to grab my doughnut off of my tray.
As the doors shut behind us, I faintly heard the hall break back into chatter and laughter, laughter I'm presuming was aimed at us. "What did I do?" I repeated for the umpteenth time.
"You." Cat started again, prodding me in the chest. "Told Owen and Callum that I was pan!"
"I didn't know you were hiding it." I defended.
"You know that whole group is basically obsessed with me!" She yelled. "And now they know this, it's boosted all their egos and they suddenly think I like them all back!"
"What?" I replied. "What have they been doing to you?"
"How do you not know?" Cat yelled. "They've not been leaving me alone during lessons."
"I wouldn't really know would I? We only share drama class, and none of them are in there." I replied quickly. "But what have they been doing to you?"
"Argh! I hate you!" Cat yelled back suddenly, storming away.
I took a step forward to go after her but Jade held me back. "Let her go, she needs to calm down." She said seriously.
"No, I want to know what's been going on." I replied, trying to push her away.
"You really don't know?" Jade said.
"I don't." I replied honestly.
Jade sighed and pulled me to the side of the hall. "Basically, these guys think she's easy."
"Easy?" I replied, confused.
"They can't seem to wrap their tiny brains around the fact that Cat was raped. They just think she's easy to get with or something," I could see her fists clench as she talked, "so they're set on trying to get with her."
"That's... despicable." I chocked out, feeling my own anger levels rise. "Does Cat know about this?"
"I'm not sure if she knows exactly why they're doing it." Jade sighed. "I just heard them talking a few days ago about it, I nearly attacked them all on the spot."
"I seriously can't believe them." I ran my hand though my hair. "They asked me about Tori too earlier, do you think they're trying to make a move on her as well?"
"Maybe they're just trying to break them up or something." Jade replied. "Though honestly, that wouldn't be too hard at the moment seeings as they're barely talking anyway."
"I hope Tori's scheduled gets cut down before the baby's born, Cat needs way more support than she's getting at the moment."
"That's not our problem right now." Jade reminded.
"Oh right yeah." I said back, running down the hallway to the direction that Cat left in to apologise.
No POV
Music class; Tori, Cat and Andre's final class of the day and their favourite. But because of Tori and Andre's lack of attendance on the day, this meant that Cat was alone in the lesson. Well, alone with the school's leading douche-bag Owen. You see the teacher liked to pair her students off alphabetically, great right Valentine would be with Vega. Nope, because Owen's surname happened to be Vallins, which meant he would always be paired off with Cat. Luckily, until now all their work had been theory so Cat had yet to actually have to work with the boy... but I did say 'until now'. This particular lesson, the students were sent off into the music rooms to start composing a short song to show the teacher their musical skills, this song could be any genre or style.
The music rooms really weren't much compared to the high tech studios of Hollywood arts, which were filled with every instruments for every style and genre. At Miami High, there were only a row of cupboard sized rooms with minimal equipment in each. In Cat and Owen's room, there happened to be a speaker, guitar, piano, two plastic chairs, and a broken mic. Cat very quickly learnt that the only reason Owen had taken music was to play songs on the speakers and dance along to them in the middle of the room. "It's going to be pretty hard to write anything with you swinging your arms about like that and blasting songs." Cat muttered, as Owen's exaggerated movement nearly hit her in the face again.
"Then go outside and write outside then." Owen replied, practically yelling over the speaker's noise.
Cat yelled out in a burst of anger and pulled the speaker's pug out of the wall, cutting off the noise. "You can dance as much as you want when we've finished this, alright?"
"You're a feisty one." Owen winked, relaxing onto one of the chairs. "I'm sure I heard somewhere that you can sing."
"I guess I can." Cat mumbled.
"Speak up beautiful." He said.
"Shut it." Cat growled, blushing unintentionally.
"You must have written some songs in that old Performing Arts school you were in." He said.
"You know quite a bit about me, don't you?"
"I do my research." He replied nonchalant. "Go on, sing something you've written."
"Um... okay then." Cat replied, pulling the second plastic chair up to the piano and playing a few notes. "It's not finished yet." She said as she played.
"That's okay."
Cat opened my mouth to sing, and the images of a few nights ago came flashing back to her. She swallowed loudly and repeated the intro bars before singing again.
"I'd like to say we gave it a try
I'd like to blame it all on life
Maybe we just weren't right,
But that's a lie, that's a lie
And we can deny it as much as we want
But in time our feelings will show
'Cause sooner or later
We'll wonder why we gave up
The truth is everyone knows
Almost, almost is never enough
So close to being in love
If I would have known that you wanted me
The way I wanted you
Then maybe we wouldn't be two worlds apart
But right here in each others arms
Here we almost, we almost knew what love was
But almost is never enough
If I could change the world overnight
There'd be no such thing as goodbye
You'll be standing right where you were
And we'd get the chance we deserve oh
Try to deny it as much as you want
But in time our feelings will show
'Cause sooner or later
We'll wonder why we gave up
Truth is everyone knows
Almost, almost is never enough
We were so close to being in love
If I would have known that you wanted me, the way I wanted you, babe
Then maybe we wouldn't be two worlds apart
But right here in each others arms
And we almost, we almost knew what love was
But almost is never enough."
"That was like... really good." Owen smiled at me. "A little sad though."
"Yeah, I guess it is." I looked away from him.
"It's sounds really genuine, you and Tori in a rough patch?" He said, a sweeter more caring side of him coming out.
"Kinda." Cat replied honestly. "But you probably don't want to hear about it."
"Try me."
Cat sighed before replying. "Basically, you know she's away a lot."
"She does singing or something right?" He asked.
"Yeah, she's been signed to a company." Cat explained. "Well, it's kinda taken a hit on our relationship, we've been up and down for a few weeks now and I'm not sure if I can take it much more."
"You don't deserve that." He said kindly, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. In this moment, Cat didn't care that this was probably some sort of trick, in fact the thought hadn't even crossed her mind. All she knew is that this boy was being nice to her. "I think that should be our song, that's if you'd teach it to me."
"I'd like that." Cat replied, smiling weakly back at him.