Tori's POV

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I let out a soft groan of annoyance as I stuck my hand into my pocket, fishing around for my phone, pulling out the buzzing object that contained my mother's name on it. I let out a sigh before leaning my head back against the seat in my car. My mother had gone into work almost 2 hours ago, while I had managed to fall out of bed about an 1 ago, as I was awoken by the wonderful sound of my phone ringing on my nightstand at full volume which made me fall and hit my head on said nightstand. Since then my mother had somehow managed to call me 5 times in the span of the hour I'd been awake trying to get ready for my first day at a new school. My mom, Holly Vega, was a pretty well known artist that made her success in sculptures in her youth. Not to say she wasn't young now, but now in her late 30's she'd turned towards a new career suddenly which resulted in both moving and a new school for us. I say us because my mom decided she wanted to teach art and ended up receiving dozens of offers from art schools from around the country, but decided on a school in Hollywood called Hollywood Arts, what an original name huh? She chose it over all her other options because she managed to convince them to let me go to the school for free as long as she taught there which is a pretty sweet deal considering how prestigious and well known the school was. Only problem was that the school was intended for artistic and talented people of which I was neither. I couldn't be more average if not even slightly below average which was one of the many reasons I was heavily against going to the school when my mom told me about the deal she'd made with the school's board. That was 2 months ago and lemme tell you, I gave my mom hell about it the first month because I knew I was going to stick out like a sore thumb in this school. I didn't have a creative bone anywhere in my body nor did I have any hidden talents. At my old school if you were creative or talented you stuck out, but here instead of being average and blending in like I prefer to I was going to stick out because I wouldn't be able to slink along the shadows because I would be the shiny new toy who lacked talent. And I made sure my mom knew that, but she said I'd be fine and I'd find somewhere that I'd fit in. After a month of her constantly telling me this and repeatedly telling me I wasn't going to change her mind I gave up and accepted the fact that I'd be going to a school for the talented without a talent. Which brings us back to now, me sitting in my beat up old 1999 GMC Sierra in the parking lot of my new school at 6 am where a few students were already heading instead despite the early hour. I ran a hand through my thick brown hair, letting out a small grunt of pain as my fingers got caught in my curls before gently detangling my fingers from the frizzy, brown mane of curls. I let out of soft sigh of relief as my phone stopped buzzing, wanting a break from my mother's constant worrying over my first day. It seemed that my mother was more worried about my first day of school than I was. I leaned forward to rest my forehead against my steering wheel and closed my eyes for a moment, attempting to convince myself that this day won't go horribly wrong despite my typical pessimistic thoughts nagging me from the back of my mind. After a few seconds I sat up, giving my cheeks a little bit of a light smack to wake myself up before I grabbed my phone, immediately silencing it to ignore my mother for the time being, and my book bag, shoving one into my jean's pocket and slinging the other over my shoulder before finally opening my truck's door. I slipped down from the seat of my truck, being 5'6" was pretty average but my truck was raised pretty high up, before turning around to lock the door, pocketing my keys before beginning my slow advance towards the large school before me. I mostly kept my gaze down, looking at my slightly ripped jeans and my rather basic purple sketchers. Lightly gnawing on the inside of my mouth I fiddled with the strings on my dark purple hoodie, needing a bit of a distraction before my anxiety convinced me to turn around and just go sit back in my truck. Surprisingly I managed to make it all the way to the door of the school before my social anxiety started to kick into full gear, taking over the normal voice in my head.

You're going to stick out like a sore thumb Tori.

They'll know you're different and pick on you.

Nobody is going to like you.

Nobody will want to be your friend.

I silently cursed myself for the thoughts, shaking my head a bit as I managed to block the irrational thoughts from my head and pushed past the doors. Much to my relief there was a total of 2 students in the hallways this early and both appeared to be much more focused on projects than what I was doing as I shuffled past the threshold of the doors, allowing them to close behind me. I looked around curiously and immediately noticed one thing in particular- the multitude of different decorated lockers. I tilted my head a bit as I looked around at all the different ways the lockers had been decorated, from garbage stuck to them to a whole keyboard on one of the lockers which I thought was pretty cool. I decided I'd come back and look at more of them later after I got my schedule because I didn't want to have to deal with a bunch of students also needing things from the front office in a bit. I was going to ask one of the kids I'd saw when I walked in, but my anxiety won that battle, preventing me from asking and instead left me wandering around for about 10 minutes until I stumbled upon it by accident. I nervously pushed open the door and found a woman in her late 40's sitting at a desk, scribbling stuff down hastily. She barely spared me a glance as I timidly entered into the office, closing the door behind me, and stood in front of her desk without saying anything. Eventually she must have gotten tired of waiting for me to ask her for something because she sighed before looking up at me with an eyebrow raised.

"Is there something I can do for you?"

"Oh uhm... y-yes! I'm new here a-and need my schedule... It's Tori Vega?" I squeaked out nervously to the older woman who nodded before shifting to open one of her drawers, her fingers quickly flipping through all the files until she pulled out a single piece of paper and handed it to me.

"Anything else Miss Vega?" She asked dryly, clearly annoyed that I'd interrupted whatever she'd been doing beforehand in order to assist me.

With a gulp I shook my head no and she instantly went back to doing what she was doing before, leaving me momentarily confused before I managed to comprehend that I didn't need to be there anymore, so I made my way back to the place I'd entered the school after only about 5 minutes of wandering around this time. Looking down at the sheet of paper it told me what periods and teachers I had along with their classroom locations in addition to my locker number which I eagerly wanted to check out. I wanted to see how the lockers around mine were decorated to be entirely honest because while I wasn't artistic I greatly enjoyed looking at art. I found art to be relaxing to look at even the dark and twisted kind because I could let my mind wander and attempt to interpret what the artist was trying to convey when they made the piece. I hummed softly as I looked around for my locker, having a little bit of trouble at first until I noticed a little section of lockers off to the side of the door I came in. The section didn't contain as many decorated lockers as the hallways did and I realized that the section of lockers must have been recently added for the growing student body of the school. About halfway down the hallway the lockers were no longer decorated and were clearly not being used, so I figured one of those must be mine and I discovered I was correct after finding the right locker number. It was right below an already decorated locker which I immediately found intriguing. The locker above mine was painted all black and had many scissors of different size, shape, and sharpness glued onto the sheet of metal. I found myself staring at it curiously, wondering what kind of person would decorate their locker in such a way when I felt a presence appear behind me, making me whip around to look slightly up at a tall goth girl whom was glaring at me.

"Who are you, and why the fuck are you in the way of my locker?" The taller girl practically growled out, continuing to glaring down at me.

"I-I... I-I'm Tori Vega! I-I was just admiring y-your locker was all..." I managed to squeak out, somehow feeling even smaller beneath the goth girl's critical glare. Nervously fidgeting with my hands as I refused to make eye contact with the taller girl, wondering how I was just SO lucky to get the locker beneath an angry goth girl.

"You can admire it all you want, from over there." She pointed to the other side of the hallway, looking at me still with an unamused and bored look. "I need to get my shit and you're in the way, so move midget." She growled at me, which only caused me to freeze up, tensing at the small insult.

She's going to hurt you like those other kids did...

First with words...

Then with fists...

Fight back...

I stood rooted to the spot, trying to ignore the irrational voice in my head, fighting with it as I froze up. I'm not sure how long I remained standing there before I won the power struggle against the voice, blinking a few times to find the goth girl standing with her arms crossed, staring at me with a slightly less agitated expression which only confused me more. Hadn't I just ended up standing there unresponsive like usual? Usually that upset people when they were talking to me, especially new people...

"You finally out of your own head weirdo?" I was shaken from my own thoughts at the sound of the girl's voice, tilting my head up slightly to look at her. We'd somehow managed to trade positions, her having opened her locker and instead of the annoyed expression she'd been wearing earlier, the goth now adorned a look of mild disinterest along with something else the younger girl couldn't quite place.

"Uhm... y-yah... sorry about that... uhm...?" I attempted to apologize, but realized I didn't know the girl's name, raising one of my eyebrows a bit and leaving the sentence open in an attempt to get her to tell me it.

"Jade. Jade West. You're definitely new here if you don't know who I am." Jade scoffed, furrowing her brows as she looked down at me, making me wonder why everyone knew the girl.

"Why does everyone know who you are?" I asked curiously, the mysterious and dangerous vibe the older girl was giving off was beginning to pull me in as I asked, surprising myself at being able to start a conversation with someone so quickly. I took my newfound ability to actually communicate with the goth girl to really look at her. She couldn't have been much older than me, maybe 18 or 19, and she was only about 2 inches taller than me. I still couldn't bring myself to make eye contact with her, instead choosing to look at her hair which was wavy and contained a mixture of green, teal, and black which rather suited the older girl. I found my eyes traveling over her body unintentionally, tracing the girl's curvy body being hugged by her black jeans along with a loose black shirt that contained some band I didn't know. I didn't realize how long I'd been just looking over her until I looked up a little to notice the other girl's expression, making me flush a little with embarrassment.

The older girl in front of me smirked at my question, I think it was because of my question, before she responded with, "I think you'll find out in time Vega." Grinning, she closed her locker, swaying her hips as she made her way down the hallway without glancing back at me, leaving me staring after goth with my mouth hanging open, wondering what the hell had just happened.