Chapter 2
One is the Loneliness Number
Tori

Being back at school was a nice distraction from my need to find a new place to live. I needed to find a place where I could be happy, and if that wasn't going to be at home, then I was going to make it school. Jade had, of course, become very aware of my unhappiness. She had tried to find many ways to change my current mood. The only thing she did not try, of course, was ask me what was wrong.

I keep telling myself that I shouldn't tell her, because I don't want to take her from the only family she knows. However, when I look in the mirror, I see a stubborn jack ass looking back. I really don't know if it's me wanting to save her from hurting, or if I really don't want to leave.

I know I'm scared to be on my own. Afraid that I will have some kind of relapse and lose my mind, but I know that Jade would be there to watch over me. So why is this so hard for me? To just tell her that I want to move out? Why do I feel like I have to hide behind Jade's family problems? There is just so much wrong with that on so many levels, but I just can't find the way to be honest with her.

Jade and I walked into the school hand and hand. Our first stop is a short walk to Jade's locker. While Jade rummaged in her locker for her school books for the first few classes, I could feel eyes burning holes in the back of my head. I turn around to find a group of students staring at us and whispering to each other. Blinking, I turned back to Jade and whispered to her, "Babe, there is a group of kids staring at us. What do we do?"

"Don't let them bother you. They're just…" She was cut off by a loud voice.

"Don't you have anything better to do than stand around staring and pointing?" Jade and I turned to the voice to find Sinjin yelling at the kids in the hall. "Didn't you mommies ever tell you that it's not nice to stare? Fuck, it's Jade and Tori! So what? They're married!" He moved himself so he was between the group of kids and us, then at the top of his voice he screamed, "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" As the group scattered like the wind, he turned to us and smiled and gave us a little bow, then he was gone.

"What the fuck was that?" Jade looked at me with wide eyes, and I just shook my head in disbelief.

"Was that Sinjin?" Andre asked, coming up to us as we walked to my locker.

"Yep," I said, opening the door that said 'Make It Shine' on it.

"What got into him?" he asked, leaning against the locker with a yawn.

"Don't know, but it was fun to watch," Jade said, taking my books as I moved around some other things. I really need to clean this thing out. I was taking out a new notebook to put in my bag when a house buyers guide fell out onto the floor. "Tori, what is this?" Jade asked, picking it up and looking at it.

"Oh it's…it's nothing, really…I was just looking, that's all," I stammered as I tried to take from her, but she pulled it back.

"You were looking? Tori, this is a catalog for houses. So what exactly were you looking for?" she asked, looking at me with hard eyes.

"Bushes?" I answered weakly.

"Vega," she growled.

"Okay. I was looking for a new place for us. I was looking for a place where we can start our lives together as a married couple. Not with our parents and sister in the same house." I turned to look at Andre and saw that Robbie and Cat had joined him. "Don't get me wrong. I love all of you, but Jade and I need to be together now as one," I said with a sad smile.

"Its all good, baby girl," Andre said with a smile.

"Yeah, no problem here, sis," Robbie stated and put his hand on my shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze.

"I get it, I really do." Cat laid her head on Robbie's shoulder, smiling at him. "One reason Sam and I got a bigger place."

Jade was looking through the catalog as I was talking to the others and not really paying attention to us. "Well, having all of you saying its cool is one thing, and it looks like Jade likes the idea, but what about Mom and Dad?" I grabbed Jade's arm to guide her while she read and we all started to walk to our first class. Thankfully, for me and Jade, that was study hall.

"You know, I really don't understand why Mom and Dad don't want you two to move out? Is it because you two are married or what?" Robbie asked.

"I think it's because of the problems they had after the accident," Andre said while opening the door so Jade didn't walk into it. She didn't acknowledge this, her nose still buried in the guide. So I smiled thanks to him.

"That's not fair," Cat said, and we all stopped to look at her. Jade looked up from the catalog and Andre let the door close.

"What do you mean, Cat?" Robbie asked.

"It's not fair that Mom and Dad want you and Jade to stay there because you were in that accident. I was in the same accident, and no one ever asked me if I had any problems with the aftermath of it. No one ever took the time to see if I had any problems, like PTSD or something like that. Robbie never asked Lane to help him find a way to talk to me. No, no one did anything, so what makes you and Jade so fucking special that you have Mom and Dad falling all over you?" Cat said, while she backed away from all of us.

"Cat, what are you talking about? We all made sure you were okay. I mean, Andre took you to your physical therapy appointments and…and…" I turned and looked at the others to see if they were going to join in, but no one did. They were all too busy looking at their shoes, or the posters on the wall. Anywhere but at Cat and me.

"That's right Tori, after therapy was over, I was forgotten about. If it wasn't for Sam, then I wouldn't have gotten the help I needed," she said, looking down at the floor.

"But you are getting help," Andre asked, concern in his voice. Cat shoved him in the shoulder, sending him stumbling back into the door.

"That's not the point!" Cat yelled as tears streamed down her face.

"The point," interrupted Jade, "is another family member was sick. And Cat was forgotten. Again. Like she was with her birth family. We have been no better than the family we took her from," Jade said as she put the catalog into her back pocket and took Cat's and my hands. "Come on, we're going home to talk to Mom. This shit stops here." We walk to Lane's office. Jade dropped my hand and knocked at the door. When he answered, she told us to stay there and she went inside.

The drive home was silent, not even the radio was playing. Jade drove, watching the road carefully, and I sat in the front seat, looking out the window. Every now and then we heard Cat sniffle, and I passed her back a Kleenex. I felt so bad, knowing that I let her suffer like that. It was worse because I knew what she had gone through with her birth family. The three of us should have been closer than we were before the accident, but for some reason, I had pushed Cat away. She was the one that was in the car with me, she almost died that night, too. So why was I pushing her away like that? The bigger question is, when did I start pushing? Now I have to question why Mom and Dad never saw her pain? Why didn't they find out if she was okay? Was it just enough for them to say they pulled her into this family, and didn't think she needed the love that went with it? Damn it, do we all think that a necklace is going to make you feel wanted? "Fuck." I slammed my hand on the dash and shook my head.

Jade reached over and placed a hand on my leg and Cat…Cat put a loving hand on my shoulder. She is the one that is hurting and she reaches out to comfort me.

Jade pulled into her spot on the driveway and we got out of the car. She walked both of us up to the door with one hand on the small of our backs. After escorting us up to the door, Jade opened the door, ushering both of us in before following behind. "I'm going to go talk to Mom. You two stay down here," Jade ordered as she started for the stairs.

"Okay, but I think we should all go," I stated. Jade walked back to me, kissing me quickly and smiled.

"No, I'll handle this now. Just let it go." She turned and ran up the stairs before I had a chance to say anything else, not that I would.

"You know, I came here because of Jade," Cat said, walking into the kitchen.

"What?" I asked, sounding dazed by the quick turnaround Jade had just pulled on me.

"Yeah, I was really upset about how my parents were treating me. Do you remember my seventeenth birthday?" she asked me, and I nodded. I had been with her on the phone that night.

"They didn't. They told me they were going to go visit my brother. On my birthday." She disappeared into the fridge, bumping and clumping and came up holding a plastic bottle. "Jade found out and brought me here and told me to wait on the couch for Mom. Jade told me later that she was waiting in the bathroom and when Mom came home she went upstairs after she saw I was in good hands." Cat told me as she came back into the living room with her bottle of water and sat on the couch next to me.

"You weren't only one in good hands that night," I said with a smug grin.

"What?" Cat asked, twirling the water bottle in her hands.

"Jade came up to my room, told me that you had to talk to Mom about something so she was giving you guys some space. Well, if you remember, your birthday was the day I fell off the stage in the Black Box doing one of Sikowitz's crazy drive-by exercises and hurt my back. I was trying to put some Icy Hot on my back but couldn't reach the place that hurt. So after letting me dance around for a few minutes looking like a fool, Jade pushed me down on the bed and rubbed my back. One thing lead to another and we ended up making out on my bed," I told her and for some reason I was blushing.

"You told us that you guys didn't hook up until you were out of the hospital," Cat said accusingly.

"We didn't hook up that night. We just made out and then stopped before it got too hot and heavy. Cat, believe me, neither one of us wanted to hurt Beck. It just happened. It was as much as a surprise to us as it was to you guys," I told her.

"Bullshit, Tori. You two had been doing this crazy weird mating dance for years. We all saw it and it was just a matter of time before you two gave in. Beck was just fooling himself, thinking he could stop it from happening." Yes, it was true that Jade and I had always had this connection, but Jade never cheated on Beck. At least I don't think she did.

"Honestly Cat, I don't know when they broke up. She told me that she was coming from Beck's the night of the accident, but she never told me why she was there. I don't know if that was when they broke up or if it was before. Hell, half the time they were dating they weren't together."

"That's true. They were a cute couple when they didn't talk. They were too much alike and now they are brother and sister. Did you know they were engaged at one time?" Cat asked me.

"Yes, I did know that. Weird. I guess Beck was destined to marry his sister." We both laughed.

"Is it strange that we see each other as siblings but fall in love with each other anyway?" she asked, playing with her finger nails. The soft clicking of her nails made my back itch for some reason. I'll have to ask her to scratch it when we're done talking.

"I guess. But it's not gross in any way, because we all come from different parents," I said as I watched her.

"We started out as nine siblings and now we have two married couples and one engaged couple," Cat said, still playing with her hand, with a faint smile on her lips.

"Yes, and we have…wait, what?" Did she just say an engaged couple? Is she and Sam engaged? "Cat? What?" I sputtered.

"Yeah, Sam asked me last night," she looked up at me with a shy smile. I bounced in my seat and let out a girly squeal. Good thing Jade wasn't here, she would tease me mercilessly if she had heard that.

"She did? That's great! That's…great, right? I mean, we are happy, right?" I asked because she had not reacted to my excitement.

"Yeah, we're happy. I'm just still taking it all in. I mean, Sam had always said she would never get married, but now we are." Wow, I don't know Sam very well, but she definitely does not seem like the marrying type. But then again, neither did Jade, and here we are.

"Well, she has turned over a new leaf there, kiddo. So how does she feel about kids?"

"Damn, Tori. Moving pretty fast, don't you think? She has been great with Robin. True, she isn't a baby, but believe me she has a lot of issues. She also has been great with Robbie. He blames himself because he couldn't protect her from their parents. Sam has been working with him to see it wasn't his fault. He didn't do those terrible things to Robin. So yes, I think she would be a great mother. But I don't think I would be," she confessed in a small voice.

"Cat, why? You are the most loving person I know, and you take great care of the kids you babysit, and Robin. Not to mention, you have the best collection of Disney movies a kid could ask for," I tell her.

"I know you all think I would be perfect with kids because I'm so much like one, and that's wonderful. The problem is, I have no idea how to be a loving parent because I didn't grow up with parents like you and Trina did. Yes, Mom and Dad took me in, but Tori, the damage has already been done. I just wish you could see that. Beck, Robbie, Robin, Sam, Jade, and I come from broken, abusive, unloving homes where one or all of us have been beaten, told we didn't matter, or just downright forgotten. So to bring a child into this world scares the hell out of us. I can understand the fear Beck feels when he thinks about becoming a father. His father never wanted him, so he told him every day that he was a loser and he would never amount to anything and now he is bringing a child into this world with no guidance from his father," she said with as much passion as she could. I wanted to cry and yell and hit something. Not only for the pain that I know they all have gone through, including my wife, but because Cat has just shown me yet again that I am an outsider in my own family.

"I will never know how it feels to grow up in a home like you all did and I will never know how it feels to have parents that don't care, but I do know how it feels to be told that I'm naïve, and to be treated like an outsider in my own family." I wanted to take her and shake her as hard as I could. Is this a learned behavior to treat people like shit, and why haven't I seen it before? "You all keep telling me that you didn't grow up in a home like Trina and me, but look around Cat. The same people you keep throwing in my face are the ones that opened their home and heart to you. So I'm sorry I don't have the right creds to be in your little club, but please let me reassure you, that you did to be in mine," I snarl at her and throw the half full water bottle across the room in the direction of the piano. The bottle struck the piano's sheet music rack and popped up and spun up end over end, breaking the window behind the piano. We both jumped at the sound of the plate glass breaking.

"Victoria Dawn Vega, what were you thinking?" Mom yelled from her place on the stairs next to Jade, not far from where I threw the bottle.

Not taking my eyes off Cat, I answered her. "That I'm tired of being treated like the family idiot." I walked past Jade and Mom on the stairs, not looking back to see how upset everyone was. As I reached the landing at the top of the stairs, I heard Jade's phone ring. She cursed under her breath as she dug into her jeans pocket and fished out her phone. She glanced at the display and turned to where I stood, watching.

"It's my dad," she said.