Jade's POV

~

"Soooooo, what was all that at lunch today?"

"Beck, don't even fucking start, just drive me home." I growled out at him, slamming the door to the car shut.

"Seatbelt..." He muttered in response, making the right decision to not push it because I was not in the mood to argue with him after the day I'd had.

"There," I said as I clicked the seatbelt into the holder, "Now drive me home."

"I'm going, I'm going!" He sighed out, putting his car into reverse before making his way out of the high school parking lot, and onto the road towards my home.

A couple minutes went by without us talking as I spent my time looking out the window, the sound of the radio filling the slightly tense silence of the car until Beck just had to go and ruin that silence.

"Wait... don't you have a therapy appointment today?" He asked me, shooting me a questioning glance before returning his attention back to the road.

I let out a groan as I rolled my eyes, turning my head away from the window where I'd been peacefully watching all the building speed by.

"No. I had it last Friday after school." I huffed out before turning back to lean on my arm, returning to my previous activity of watching the world speed by outside the window.

Beck nodded before we continued the drive in blissful quiet, the sound of some random alternative rock song playing that I surprisingly couldn't name.

It was only a couple more minutes until Beck was pulling into my driveway.

Now my dad is loaded, so of course the house we'd live in would reflect that hence the gargantuan mansion of house we occupy.

I glanced up at the likely very empty home before quickly unbuckling and grabbing my backpack to sling over my shoulder, opening the door and stepping out.

"Hey! No kiss?" Beck whined a little, leaning across his arm rest to give me that dorky smile of his that always made me smirk.

I playfully rolled my eyes before leaning back into the car to peck him really quickly.

"Bye babe, thanks for the ride."

"Anytime babe, you're going in early tomorrow, right? So I don't need to pick you up?"

"Yah, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, later."

I promptly closed the passenger door, and Beck proceeded to give me another one of those dorky grins before he backed out of my driveway and sped off towards his own home.

I let out a loud sigh as I turned around to face my house, looking at the excessively sized building for a few moments before heading towards the front door. I pulled the house key from my back pocket and quickly unlocked the front door, entering the house before slamming the door shut behind me to make sure my dad knew I was home, if he was even here for once.

There was no response to the slamming door, not to my surprise since my dad was always out of town for unspecified amounts of time, or he was staying late at the office and didn't come home until late at night, and by then I'm in my room in the basement and don't have any reason to come up to speak with him. Not that I have any reason to speak to him anyways.

I reached up to run a hand through my wild locks of hair before dropping my backpack onto the ground near the door.

I'll grab that later.

First things first was I needed some food. I made my way towards the kitchen, making a beeline for the fridge because I knew exactly what I wanted after today.

Opening the fridge I pushed a bunch of stuff around before letting out a triumphant grunt as I pulled out a couple little cheese squares. These little dairy masterpieces were my favorite snack as a kid and still are to this day. I sat down at the kitchen's island, popping the cheesey cubes in my mouth as I glanced at the clock.

3:00. My therapy appointment starts now. I grinned at that, don't get me wrong, therapy is helpful especially for me, but I was not in the mood to talk about my feelings today. I'll just have to reschedule it for sometime next week since I decided to dip today. I was a little worried about not having enough medicine to last till next week when I see my physiatrist too, but I don't think one day without it will kill me.

I frowned at that, how long had it been since I'd been in such a mood that I skipped a therapy appointment? At least 2 years if I remembered correctly. It was fucking Vega's fault that I didn't want to go! She screwed with my routine, and made today hard!

I audibly growled and accidentally squished my last cheese square out of anger, immediately huffing as I stood up to dispose of the mashed up cheese in the trash can.

I grabbed a glass of water before going to pick my backpack up from the door, taking both and heading down into my cavern in the basement.

Setting the glass down I flicked on the light switch, dimly illuminating the large expanse of the basement, aka my room. Instead of regular lightbulbs I had these little lights strung up around the roof that were a much softer blue tone. It matched better with my dark theme than the typical sunshine brightness bulbs.

I set my bag down by my desk before walking over to my shelf, softly humming as I picked up one of the various animal skulls I'd collected over the years. I'd always found death fascinating from a young age.

I ran my thumb over the nasal cavity of the first skull I'd ever collected, a rat skull. My dad had given it to me for my 12th birthday since I'd been begging for skulls and bones for the better part of a year. He'd finally caved in against my mother's wishes.

I tensed up a bit as I thought of my mother in passing. Quickly shaking the thoughts away as I put the rat skull down and turned towards my bed. Striding over to it before face planting onto it with a purr of delight at the softness.

I turned around to lay on my back, looking up at my ceiling as my brain started sorting through everything that had happened today.

The main thing was of course Vega.

That girl was causing so many different emotions to resurface that I hadn't felt in years. The girl was so timid and easy to scare, but I didn't really want to do that like I usually do and I don't understand why.

I can't even imagine what Vega probably thinks about me considering I made her have a panic attack, helping her through that panic attack, and then proceeded to accidentally injure her. Heck, she probably thinks I hurt her on purpose!

Wait- why the fuck do I care what Vega thinks of me? She's just the new kid! Trying to worm her way into my friend group, and I don't want her in it!

Right?

I groaned and grabbed one of my pillows, covering my face with it.

What the fuck was this girl doing to me? Not even Beck made me this confused!

"Fuck this! I'm going to sleep!" I growled out to nobody but myself, reaching over to my nightstand to turn the lights off in an attempt to sleep the confusing emotions away.

~

Next Morning

~

I don't ever wake up to the sound of alarms. Why? Because I have a very well functioning internal clock that wakes me up on time, so when the time turned to 5:00 AM I was slowly blinking myself awake in the pitch blackness of my room.

I wanted to just close my eyes and go back to sleep for another hour and just text Beck to come pick me up, but I knew I needed to vent today or else it was going to build up too much especially since I decided to skip therapy yesterday.

With a yawn I slowly sat up in bed, stretching my arms up which resulted in some lovely cracking sounds coming from my back. After sitting there for a few more moments, letting the blood get flowing through my body I stood up and began the process of getting ready.

Normally I'd take me about half an hour to get ready, but I didn't really feel like doing my hair today so that time was cut in half and I was dressed and ready to go in 15 minutes.

Sporting a pair of black jeans, a black graphic tee, and my leather jacket, I swung my bag knee my shoulder, grabbed a croissant, and made my way out the door. After making sure the door locked behind me, I made my way to the garage, grinning as I spotted a guilty pleasure of mine that I was going to indulge in today.

I sat down and slipped my skates on, making sure to grab my normal shoes and stuffing those in my bag before making my way towards the school in my skates.

I absolutely love skating. I don't do it a lot anymore because of what happened... just thinking about it makes me feel disgusting and uncomfortable, so I try to limit the amount of time I spend skating so I don't feel like that.

Skating to school is about all I can handle before that feeling overwhelms the good feelings I get from skating. I absolutely adore just speeding down a sidewalk in a pair of shoes with wheels, it's so much fun for me.

With my skates it doesn't take very long for me to reach school, quickly sitting down and removing them before my brain decides it's time to ruin my good vibes.

I switch them out for my usual black shoes, stuffing the skates into my bag before heading through the Hollywood Arts door.

As usual, there's nobody but a few janitors and lunch ladies here this early, so I head towards the little safe haven I'd created in the art room.

I hummed to myself as I strolled the empty hallways, wondering why the school couldn't always be as empty as this.

Once I reached the classroom, I reached into my leather jacket's pocket and fished out the copy of the art room key I had, unlocking the door and entering it.

I flipped the light switch on and raised an eyebrow at the new setup of the room. It was a good bit messier than the last art teacher's setup of the room had been, but it honestly felt more... welcoming in a way. I'm not sure if I like it or not to be honest, but that didn't really matter at the moment since I only had so much time to do what I'd came here to do.

Setting my bag down by the door I shrugged my leather jacket off and made my way towards the storage room, dragging out an easel and a large canvas to paint on.

I also grabbed some paint brushes along with some acrylic paint and a paint pallet. Before starting I slipped on my headphones, letting some dubstep play.

Once a week I'd come early or stay late to paint in the art room by myself. Nobody was aware I did this, besides the last art teacher, but he was dead now.

I used it as a way to help sort my thoughts, letting my hand paint whatever it wants to help me organize my feelings.

I didn't have to stand there for long before I started painting, dragging my brush across the canvas repeatedly with different tones of browns, tans, and blacks. I was humming and bopping along to the dubstep tracks playing in my ears as I painted.

I'm not exactly sure how long I spent painting, but when my hand finally finished and I stood back I was baffled by what I'd painted.

Vega.

It was a detailed portrait of Vega's face and hair.

It was stunning.

I could feel the blush dusting my cheeks as I gaped at what I'd painted.

Is this how I saw Vega?

Why is she on the top of my head?

Why did I paint her like this?

My brain was bombarded with hundreds of questions and emotions caused by what my own hand had painted, but those would all have to wait as I heard a voice that made my heart sink in my chest.

"Is that... me?" The timid voice of Vega asked curiously from out of thin air.

I immediately tensed up, slowly turning around to see a wide-eyed Vega looking at my PRIVATE painting.

"What are you... why are you here! Nobody is here this early!" I snarled out instinctively, pulling my headphones down to rest around my neck, quickly grabbing a tarp to put over the incriminating artwork.

"Well Vega? Why the hell are you here so early? And invading my privacy while you're at it?" I growled to the girl standing frozen in the doorway. I grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulder as I waited to the girl's response.

"I- I uhm- I had to turn in assignments and I didn't want to have to talk to the teachers so I just left them on their desks and well this is my mom's room so I was going to sit here until school started and I noticed the door was open so I was confused about who would be in here since my mom and I are the only ones with keys besides the janitors I didn't mean to see it oh god please don't kill me!" Vega said, making me wonder how the fuck she just said all that without taking a breath.

I wanted to be mad at the girl in front of me, I really did, but I couldn't find it in me to be mad when she was looking down and picking on her fingers. Anyone else I would've chewed their head off, but I just couldn't to the fragile girl in front of me for some reason.

"Calm down Vega. I'm not going to kill you, even though now when nobody is here would be a perfect time to do so. I have a key to the room from the previous art teacher, so I can come in here whenever I want before or after school." I explained to the nervous girl before me, shifting to grab the covered canvas from the easel.

"Oh. Okay."

I raised an eyebrow at her before I started picking the painting up.

"Wait!"

"What Vega!" I snapped at her, giving Vega an irritated look because I wanted nothing more than to hide this away from her.

"It... it was me... wasn't it..?" Vega asked me timidly, still fidgeting with her thumbs.

I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks, turning away from her I huffed and tried to play it off. I didn't want Vega to know she was on my mind! How humiliating would that be!

"It definitely wasn't you Vega. Don't flatter yourself." I lied to her, feeling a little guilty about doing so.

"S-Sorry. I must have been mistaken." She said shyly before looking down at the ground again.

"Definitely. Why would I be painting you?" I scoffed, continuing to play it off.

"I don't know... that's why I was confused."

"Well I wasn't painting you. Are we done here?" I said with slight annoyance, growing tired of having to continuously lie to the younger girl.

She gave me a nod, so I finally picked up the canvas and made my way into the storage room, hiding the piece in an little opening behind one of the shelves in the storage room. Once I exited I noticed Vega's face was a bright red color which was honestly kinda cute.

Cute?? No! Not cute, what the fuck brain!

"Hey tomato girl, not sure what's got you all red, but you tell a soul about the fact I paint and I'll stab you with a pair of my scissors, got it?" I threatened the girl, causing her to furiously nod at me. I still had a few minutes before I had to go to class, so I hummed for a moment before leaning back against the door, eyeing Vega, or more specifically the cut above her eye that I'd inflicted yesterday.

"So Vega, how's your cut?" I nonchalantly asked the shorter girl.

She blinked a few times, and looked at me like I'd just asked her to solve cancer or something. I raised an eyebrow and waited for a response, when I didn't get one after awhile I let out a cough which seemed to shock her back to the realm of the living.

"Vega? You get brain damage from the impact or something? I asked you a question." I somewhat rudely reminded her that I had in fact asked her a question before her brain left the atmosphere.

"Oh! Right! It's fine. A little sore, and tender but it's okay. Thanks for asking."

"Least I can do considering I'm the one who inflicted it."

As I finished my sentence Vega let out a very big yawn, making me smirk as her eyes watered up a bit from the yawn.

"Didn't sleep well Vega?"

"Uhm... no I was up almost the whole night doing the makeup work I came in early to turn in."

Not sure what sane person would do all the makeup work In one night to be honest, but it doesn't surprise me that Vega isn't sane.

I hummed and started stalking towards the door, watching curiously as Vega froze up in the doorway.

Curious.

I stopped a couple feet in front of Vega's face, studying it and noticing the awful bags under her eyes.

"Yah. You look like shit!" I say before laughing out loudly, reaching a hand up to over my mouth a bit.

God, when was the last time I laughed like that?

"Wow. Thanks Jade." Vega deadpanned halfheartedly at me, smiling shyly as she said it.

"No problem Vega." I responded, grinning at the smaller girl.

Damn this girl made me all kinds of soft that I don't understand.

That's when the first bell rang, and I sighed softly before realizing I couldn't really go anywhere unless Vega moved, so I looked at her expectantly since she needed to get going to her class too so she'd have to move, but she stood there kinda just looking at me which made me feel- strange to say the least.

"Yo Vega, move. I kinda need to get to class." I finally piped up, hoping to snap the girl out of whatever trance she seemed to be in again.

"Oh. Oh! Yah! Sorry!"

The small half Latina moved out of the doorway, and I reluctantly left her behind to go find Beck.

I'm not sure how or why, but I found myself desiring to stay with Vega rather than going to find Beck in that moment.

~

Hey y'all! Since it's Thanksgiving I figured I'd give y'all a little something to read! And tell all of you guys that I'm very thankful that you enjoy my content. I'm also always open for suggestions, but that doesn't mean I'll necessarily use them.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!