Chapter Three || Don't Take It Personal
Once they were in Tori's bedroom, Jade shut the door behind them. Andre was confused as to what was going on with her. Jade never was interested in talking to anyone one-on-one like this, nor did she have an issue with calling people out in front of an audience. If she had something to say, she would say it with no hesitation. This was out of character for her. Whatever she wanted to tell him must've been something really private.
Jade turned to look at Andre, crossing her arms. "So," she started, making direct eye contact with him. She didn't want him to know how nervous she felt about what she was going to ask next.
"So?..." Andre asked, waiting for Jade to finish her sentence.
Jade pursed her lips and shifted her weight to one side, trying to determine the right way to bring it up. Ultimately, she decided to be direct. "You wrote a song for me, didn't you?"
Furrowing his eyebrows, Andre gave her a puzzled look. "Um, yeah, I kind of had to. We're writing a play, remember?"
Jade shook her head. "No, not that one," she replied, frustrated. "The one you performed over a year ago. '365 Days', remember?"
Andre immediately felt his stomach drop. She... found out? He had almost forgotten about that song. Unless Tori told her, there was no way Jade could know for sure that he wrote that song for her. "W-what are you talkin' about? I didn't write that song about anybody," he managed to get out. He could feel sweat beginning to form on his forehead.
"I'm not stupid, Andre. I wouldn't have said that if I wasn't one hundred percent sure."
"How do you know I wrote it?"
Pulling the two sheets of paper from her pocket, she unfolded them and handed both sheets to Andre. As he looked at them, she explained. "My name is in the song at least ten times. And it's your handwriting, isn't it?"
Intensively blinking while looking back and forth between the two sheets of lyrics, Andre knew he couldn't deny anything. There was nothing he could say to save the situation except to explain that these feelings long passed. He put the papers to the side on Tori's nightstand. "Jade, look," Andre said taking a step back and nervously rubbing his hands together. "I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote this. I was confused about our late-night recording session at school, and I thought..."
Jade raised an eyebrow. "Thought what?"
"I thought I had feelings for you," he answered, looking at her with wide eyes. He was afraid she would chew him out, or even worse: show Beck the song he wrote.
Jade stood there for a couple of seconds, shocked. Sure, she had her suspicions, but hearing him say it out loud was... weird. Andre had feelings for Jade almost two years ago. What was she supposed to do with this information? "Why?" she asked him, genuinely confused. "H-how?"
"I don't know-"
"What made you write that song for me?"
"I don't-"
"And what did you think was going to happen? I'm with Beck, I-"
"Jade," Andre said, cutting her off. "It was a long time ago. I don't have any of those feelings anymore. I don't even know how you got a hold of that song. Tori was supposed to throw it out after we performed it."
"Oh, so Tori knew?" Jade shook her head, looking down at her black heels. This was getting to be too much. "It doesn't matter. As long as you don't have those feelings or... whatever it was, I guess we're good."
Andre nodded in response. "I promise, they're long gone. I realized it was just my emotions getting the best of me. I mean, it's not like you're even my type and-"
Jade scoffed. "Oh, I'm not your type? What does that mean?"
He realized he backed himself into a corner with that comment. Nervously laughing, he tried to salvage the situation. "Nah, what I meant was... I mean what I was trying to say... I didn't mean..." He continued stumbling over his words, unsure of what to say. "We're just different. It wouldn't have worked anyway."
Jade didn't have any interest in Andre, but his comment struck a nerve with her insecurities. "Oh yeah? What's so bad about me?"
"Jade, come on. This isn't a good idea."
"No, tell me. I really want to know," she said, faking enthusiasm.
Andre sighed, taking another step back in case things got messy. "You... you scare people," he answered sheepishly. "Everyone's afraid to be upfront with you."
She shrugged. "Good. Why would I want everyone to talk to me? People are annoying."
"And that right there," Andre pointed out. "You're negative all the time. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen you genuinely happy."
"Oh, like you're Mr. Perfect." Jade rolled her eyes at his words. She had to admit, they stung a little. She couldn't let anyone get away with that. "Let's see... You can't keep a girlfriend for more than a week, you let your friends walk all over you, and you can't function under stress."
And there she was. The Jade that Tori warned Andre about when he initially developed feelings for her. "What do you mean I can't function under stress?"
"I mean that you start stuttering and you get this wide-eyed look when you're feeling nervous. Not to mention those head pains you get," she said, putting a hand on her hip. "You're not exactly my type either, Andre."
"Well, I guess it's a good thing I don't have feelings for you anymore."
"Yeah, it is."
Andre shook his head with a sigh. "I'm gonna go. Let Beck know I finished the song, alright?"
As Andre left the room, Jade noticed he looked a little hurt. Maybe she had been too harsh? When someone hurt Jade's feelings, even unintentionally, she took it very personally. Hearing someone say that she wasn't "their type" struck a deep nerve in her. A nerve that stemmed from never receiving approval from her father. No matter how hard she tried, it wasn't good enough.
But that was fine. Perfectly fine. Jade didn't need other people to like her. As long as she had Beck, that's all that mattered to her. Of course, they weren't getting along at the moment. Jade was angry with him for letting other girls flirt with him.
She understood that he couldn't control those idiot girls at Hollywood Arts from swooning over him, but she was angry that he didn't protest when they were actively flirting with him. Jade was convinced he liked the extra attention. How hard was it to say "I'm not interested" or "I'm in a relationship with Jade West. Back off"? She knew she had insecurity issues, but she was standing her ground on this one.
Frustrated with her thoughts, she brushed them to the side and walked over to Tori's nightstand. She picked up the papers, putting the lyrics to "365 Days" in her pocket once again. She went downstairs to reluctantly practice the new song for the play with Beck.
"You're being ridiculous," Beck said in anger. He sat down on the couch in his RV and looked up at Jade. "What do you want me to do? I can't control every girl at Hollywood Arts!"
The couple didn't practice their song for long before they started to argue. Jade couldn't keep her emotions bottled up any longer. Tonight was finally the explosion she had been anticipating. "I'm not talking about other girls, I'm talking about YOU!" she exclaimed, pointing a finger at him. "Why don't you say anything to them?"
"Maybe I don't feel like saying it every five minutes?"
"Oh, please." Jade rolled her eyes. "Don't get ahead of yourself."
"Jade, sometimes, you're just too much. Even for me," Beck sighed, looking up at his girlfriend with disdain.
Jade could feel her heart drop to her stomach, but she couldn't show it. She had to get out of there. "Fine, I'll go," she snapped, snatching her bag from the floor of his RV and storming out.
It was a cold night in Los Angeles, but she didn't have a jacket on her. Her car hadn't been working for the past month, and there was no way she was asking Beck for a ride back home right now. Nevertheless, she stormed back home, hot tears spilling from her eyes. At night, when she was alone and walking through the dark, was the only time she felt safe to really cry. No one could see her at her lowest points.
When she made it to the park nearest to her house, she sat down on one of the benches and put her face in her hands. What was she doing? Really, though. Why did she have to be this way? Everyone told her all the time: she scares people. She shuts them out. She's mean. A million other negative traits. Jade could only take so much in a day. It was the start of their senior year now, and they would be graduating before they knew it. Was anything ever going to change?
She started to wipe her eyes with her sleeves. If she went home and her father saw that she had been crying, he would just go on his rant about how crying is pathetic and how she needed to toughen up. "The world is unforgiving," he would say in his monotone voice. "The sooner you learn that, the better". He wasn't at his mother's house very often, but she didn't want to take that chance.
Once her face was free from tears, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out the song once again. She scanned through the lyrics, trying to distract herself with anything at this point.
Every second, every tick tick of the clock
I want you all to myself
Every single second until my heart stops
I swear, there ain't nobody else
Something about reading the lyrics comforted her. To know someone wrote this about her, even if that someone was Andre, warmed her heart when she thought that wasn't possible anymore...
Wait, what? What was she thinking?! This was Andre she was thinking about. Beck's best friend.
She put the paper back in her pocket and stood up, dusting off her jeans. Walking back home, she made it clear in her mind that she couldn't keep looking at that song anymore. Not while she and Beck were in a rut. That combination was making her feel confused about her own emotions. But she had to ask herself: it wasn't possible that she could ever feel that way towards Andre, was it?
