Caterina Valentine: My Life.

FlorMorada

I do NOT own Victorious, or any songs that may be used.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Well. I have a side thing in this story going on with Jade, which will basically make sense at the end. And it'll help my last chapter with Beck. Don't worry right now.

Just expect some Jade chapters sometimes so I can put stuff in there.

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NOTE:

" Real life ", " "Cat speaking" ", " Cat's flashback/past happenings ".

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Chapter Ten

Self I.

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/Jade./

"If we deserve the same, Jade…why do you deserve this? Why do you deserve to cut? Yet I don't?"

…

I'm not sure whether it's after Cat's said the words or during the run-up to them or somewhere in between, but as soon as the room goes silent and I can hear that everybody's heard, only two words come to mind: oh and shit.

My first instinct is to run.

I don't know why Cat would even say this. She could've explained what she wanted to say in such a different way, but now she's said everything and in front of them and they all know now and-

I have to get out.

I stand up but I see, already, Beck's stood right over me, and Tori's walking over, Robbie and André quickly following. I know that their a thousand questions are about to become the death of me, so before any of them can open their mouths, I tell them all to shut up.

Tori just stares at me. "Jade, I-"

"No." I don't even say it to just her - it's to all them. "This is about Cat," I say, "not me."

"Jade," Beck - of course, who else? - "no, Jade, what-"

"I don't have to talk about it!" My words are rushed and high-pitched and I curl my hands into fists, mentally kicking myself at my reaction.

They're all staring at me so intently so, I don't know; maybe it's the hurt in Tori's eyes that seems, as always, so genuine, or the look on Beck's face which I see so much of nowadays, that sadness towards me - I don't know, but I suddenly decide that talking to them probably won't do any more harm than not.

André and Robbie would stop asking. Those two won't.

I pull Beck and Tori towards the other side of the room. I drop my attention to the ground. "Two questions," I say to both of them. "One each. And that's it."

I see Tori's sandled feet shuffle on the floor, her eyes probably locked tight onto me. Quietly, she asks, "Are you still…doing it, Jade?"

I shake my head.

Which is the truth.

I'm not 'doing it', I 'do it' - occasionally. Difference.

Tori steps to the side. I suddenly feel Beck's hand on my shoulder and I'm not sure whether to embrace it or want to flinch away.

Him hugging me the day we first listened to Cat was only physical contact we'd had in months. This feels just as weird. If not weirder.

"I'm not going to just question you, Jade," he says. I bring my focus up to him. "Just…why didn't you ever tell me?"

I shrug. "I don't know." He moves his hand from my shoulder but his eyes are still on me. "How could I have? You'd have completely judged me-" Beck tries to protest "-no, you would have, Beck, if I'd told you at the time."

"And you couldn't have told me later on?"

I could have told him - but he'd still have thought differently about me, or got me sent off somewhere. Or left me.

Which he has already done, anyway.

I shrug again.

"I'm really sorry, Jade," he says, "not just for you, about me not knowing and-"

I cut him off again. "Cat's time, not mine."

He seems unsatisfied. Still, he turns, making his way back to André and Robbie…who seem, between themselves, to have calmed down too. Beck can say what he wants to them, I don't care, really.

If Cat doesn't say it on the other tape side anyway.

I turn to Tori, still stood there. "You, don't feel sorry for me," I say, already knowing by her expression.

She puts her hands up. "I don't, well I do, but not in that way, I…"

She trails off and chuckle at her speech clarity - her lack of it.

Honestly, it's sort of pleasant to know she must feel some sympathy - that all of them do.

I just don't want to spotlight myself in the time for focusing on Cat.

"Are you alright, Jade, though?"

I raise my eyebrows at the girl.

"When you went home from Beck's RV yesterday."

Oh, that. "Yeah, I just wasn't feeling great," I tell her.

"You still got the doctor's next Tuesday?"

I nod.

"Do you still want me to come?"

I don't nod this time, but Tori sees me smile. "Yeah," I reply to her. "Yeah, thanks."

She gestures back towards the three boys, each sitting on the other side of the room. "Do you want to..? "

I sigh. "Yeah, let's go."

I'm glad Beck wasn't here to hear that conversation.

He'd, being the still too caring, still too overprotective ex-boyfriend he is, have wanted know why I had a doctor's appointment because he knows I rarely have to. And of course I'm not telling him, but if I lied, I know he'd guess, and I have no idea what I'd do.

This is one of the things I'd ask Cat about. She watched loads of teen situation documentaries. I'd have told her things too - two things.

Not to kill herself…and, please, not tell anyone else about me.

…

"Hey, guys.

I think you've probably got the reason I only said sorry to you in that last tape, Jade.

For telling.

I hope you're not angry at me. Because please don't be. Or I might come back and haunt you - not that I'd really want be ghost or anything.

Seriously, no one would see me; it'd be no fun trying to talk to you guys. If you did hear me, you'd probably find me more annoying than this human me - you can't shove a ghost to shut her up.

Assuming I definitely…am gone, when you're listening to this, has, like, any of that actually happened? Am I sitting next to you in some sort of ghost form or something?

Oh my God, I'm asking you what I'm doing in the future, right now my present, regarding me killing myself later which will be in you guys' past.

Tape time machines!

I wonder what I'd look like as a ghost… Whether you'd see the red of my hair through the spirit-y grey-white, whether my clothes would look the same, my whole face.

And, wait, ghosts are only, like, a gas, right?

I wonder if I'd have finally been completely 'skinny'."

…

This trip to the salon feels like the only time I've actually been out since we started school. It's early, but I honestly felt like I needed a break.

Starting again after the summer is hard.

The worst thing about moving up to Hollywood Arts probably isn't that it's a middle school, not an elementary, meaning we're bigger and smarter and have lessons to prove so, or that we're the youngest now, irritatingly, or that it's further from home than our old school. Nope. The worst part is probably having to go through this all without the sister I love the most.

…What, Lilith? No. Jade.

Almost four months since that day, and still, the only things she says to me are 'good morning', 'goodnight' and 'do you know when this homework's due?'.

I don't understand. It's not like I told her dad she cuts or anything, and she hasn't told him I do - I just wanted to prove that point to her. That she has no right to tell me we should be able to do the same, yet cut her own self having said it's wrong for me.

But she's eternally mad at me now.

"Come on out, Cat."

I look out of the car window and see we're already back home - Jade's dad's by my door, waiting for me.

See, if it were Jade, I'd know we were home because she'd take her seatbelt off five minutes before and then she and her dad would banter about it for another five.

I open the door and step out of the car, Jade's dad locking it behind me. I walk over to the front door and press on the doorbell.

Like, Jade isn't even here.

I was going to ask her last week if she wanted to come - that her dad said she could - but she was in her room. I pushed her door but it was locked so I called four times and she just turned her music up. So I left it.

I see her head through the glass on the door and she and she slowly reaches to open it.

To say she looks shocked is an understatement.

"Cat…your hair is…red."

…

"Remember that, Jade? You saw my hair and then we came in, and you started shouting at your dad that you'd wanted to dye your hair black, and I told you you could have come but you weren't talking to me when I'd asked you, then you got all pissed and went up to your room and so did I and everything was messy?

Yeah, I remember too.

I wasn't over my 'be Lilith' stage yet. I'd kind of stopped adopting her clothing style but I did want her hair - and her skinny teachings were becoming an eating disorder of, now, my own.

But I wanted red hair, bright red - and not a streak like her's, my whole head. And I knew Jade's dad would say yes, so I decided to ask and he did, and drove me to the salon a week later. And as I said, I told Jade, but being the pissed, thirteen year old Goth-ish she was, and being the personal problemed, slightly depressed, irritating girl I was, she ignored me and I half knew she'd explode when she found out what she'd missed, so consequently stopped asking her.

Not a great act, on either of our parts."

…

Jade angrily pushes my door open. She walks in and opens my top left drawer - I don't have to even see inside to know she's staring at my money.

I let go of my bright curls I've been examining and jump from my bed, going over to her. I slam the drawer shut but she only pulls it open again.

My eyes widen. "What the hell are you doing?"

Jade picks up an envelope inside and prise it open, fishing out a twenty-dollar note. "I don't have money and I'm not asking my dad," she says. "I'm going to the salon after school on Monday. I'm getting black hair."

She reaches for a ten and, although increasingly fuming, I your stare at her. "Did you even ask your dad?"

"I told you, I'm not getting money from him!"

"No, ask if you could even dye your hair!"

Jade raises an eyebrow inside the drawer, before taking out one more ten and pushing the notes into her bra. I can't just reach in there, obviously, and even if I could, it's not like I'm big enough to have anywhere to consequently 'put into'.

"Of course I didn't ask Dad," she says. "We established this months ago, Cat. Yes to know, no to me - like, do you just enjoy rubbing that in my face or something?"

I shake my head. "No, of course not! Just-"

"Well, can I have this money then?"

Of course I don't want her to. The envelope she got it from says 'Cat's 12th birthday' - it's all mine. But…maybe it's not fair? She does want her black hair.

And Jade's so intimidating. Like Lilith, but worse, because she's only months older than me so she shouldn't even have this authority. I'm about to attempt to say no, but Jade evidently sees my facial expression and crosses her arms over her chest.

"Don't be a bitch."

I freeze at her words.

…'Bitch'.

My mom, memories. Her slapping me, I-

"And don't be a freaking baby about a stupid curse word either."

I frown at her. Money, bitch - baby? "Jade! I got that money when I was twelve, it's mine."

"Yeah, well we got this house when I was nine, but you live here, don't you?"

I stare at Jade, but her eyes only bore into mine.

"You know I'm right."

"Jade, no, I-"

Jade brings the notes from in her top again, and flings them at me, them fluttering to the ground. "No, take the stupid money." I immediately bend down to pick them all up. As I do so, I see Jade's feet begin to move. I look up to see her walking towards my door.

"Like, what's the point, Cat?" she says. "You're a selfish bitch anyway."

…

"Um.

Not to guilt-trip you or anything - not that you deserve that - but I think you know what you saying that to me made me do that night to myself, Jade.

And you did as well.

Calling me selfish was probably the worst a person could ever call me.

The last thing I ever wanted to be.

I told my mom she was bad so as not to lie - which would have been dishonestly selfish. I didn't go to juvie because I didn't even want to imagine what it'd cause for my sister, if I did - uncaring and selfish. I was cutting because so many things and people were making me feel but I didn't want to tell them and make them feel bad…so kept it to myself.

So I never thought I was selfish.

When Jade said that - along with the 'bitch' - it was like with my mom all over again. When someone you love tells you something, you kind of automatically think it's true.

The house was yours, let I lived in it. Hell, even your dad was yours but I was also a daughter to him, Jade.

And that's what I did - I believed you. When you called me selfish - a selfish bitch.

I still have the faintest lines of that word on my left thigh, Jade, because of you."

…

Long story or short story?

I'll give you the short story.

This chapter was originally 4000 words, but I split it into two because today I'm going to Spain, so that way, I can update without stressing as soon as I'm back next week. You're welcome (or, I apologise, if you'd have preferred the longer chapter). :)

*In Spain!*

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FlorMorada.