It's Saturday and all I do is sleep.

…

It's Sunday and I don't remember doing anything at all.

…

It's Monday and I'm sitting in my car in the school parking lot. I'm here. Is that enough?

The clock changes from 7:58 to 7:59 and I grab a hold of the door handle. I get out of the car, cross the parking lot, and walk into the school without making eye contact with a single person. Maybe if nobody talks to me today I'll be alright.

"Jade!" Great. "Jade, can I talk to you for a second?" Andre jogs up behind me and leans against Robbie's locker.

"No." I say quietly, concentrating on my lock.

"But it's important!" He exclaims. I don't say a word. I don't move. My hand is stuck to the lock and I suddenly don't remember my combination, or even how to breathe.

Andre waves his hand in front of my face.

"Is it really?" I ask coldly, having still not seen his face.

"Yeah, actually. Do you have a minute?"

11-34-19. My combination finally comes to me and I start spinning the lock.

"I don't know. I could die any second. Maybe I do, maybe I don't."

"Jade…" He whispers roughly as I yank my locker door open.

"You know what, Andre?" He looks surprised when I finally turn to him. "In the time it's taking you to convince me to listen to you, you probably could have already told me whatever it is that's so important. Twice."

"Right." He nods as I reach inside my locker. "Well, it's about what I said on Thursday." He stops, as if he expects me to say anything. "I umm…I was kind of out of line, I guess. And what I said wasn't completely true." He's silent for a moment. "You know, about you making Tori miserable?"

"Yes, Andre, I remember what you told me. I'm not retarded." He looks offended for a moment, but then he continues.

"Right, well…I mean… She would be so mad that I'm telling you this, but what's she gonna do, right?" He looks horrified that he said that. "Uhh, I mean … Well anyway, she did sometimes complain about you to me…that was true… but it wasn't really…like that. Tori actually…"

"God, Andre, do you have a speech impediment? Spit it out!"

"Right. Sorry. It's just Tori would murder me if she knew I was telling you this. She would literally kill me. I would be dead in a second. She told me she'd make me pay if I ever told anyone, especially you, but she really can't now, and she wouldn't want you to think she'd died believing you two had some sort of mutual hate relationship going on, you know-"

"I don't have time for this." Maybe this lack of speaking-ability thing is Andre's way of dealing, but it's getting seriously annoying.

"Shewasinlovewithyou." He spits out six words in one, loud enough for the whole hall to hear it. A couple people stare at us for a second, before the look on my face scares them away.

"She was what?"

"She-"

"No, I know what you said. I can hear. She was…" I lower my voice, even though the hall has emptied. "She was in love with me?…Why?"

"I don't know. I wondered the same thing." I smack him hard on the chest just because it seems like the right thing to do.

"Ow!" He frowns at me and continues speaking. "I asked her that question" He stresses the first half of his sentence while giving me a dirty look, "and she didn't know the answer either."

"Oh. Well…" I don't know what to say now. "I need to get to class." I excuse myself and walk off without closing my locker or taking anything with me. I hear a click as Andre softly closes my locker for me and goes to class.

I notice now all the posters up on the walls, with Tori's face plastered all over them. There's a huge banner on the wall above her locker - which has been covered in flowers – showing her smiling face on one side and a series of photos from her first showcase on the other side. "RIP TORI VEGA" it says in a massive font in the middle. Surrounding that is a huge amount of things students had to say about her, written – or for the most part, scribbled – in Sharpie.

This is how you can tell that she was special. Students at Hollywood Arts unfortunately die in car accidents a lot, but they get little plaques on the wall, and sometimes they get a stupid scholarship named after them. We have an incredibly boring memorial assembly at the end of nearly every year to honor a student – or students – who died during the school year. With Tori though, the whole school is mourning. There are posters and pictures everywhere. There's a pile of rotting roses and small framed photos of her on the floor below her locker like some sort of shrine. She had talent and a lot of potential, despite whatever I may have told her, and everybody can agree on one thing: We've suffered a big loss here.

I pull my eyes away from the wall and walk straight to the bathroom down the hall. I set my bag down on the floor beside one of the sinks and stand in front of the mirror.

"She loved me." When I say it out loud it sounds much better. "She was in love with me?" I stare into the mirror as I question why she would do a thing like that.

I'm not the most observant person in the world, but I'm no idiot. I knew Tori had a crush on me within seconds of her figuring it out herself. She had such an obvious need for my approval and affection, I'm sure everybody else knew too. At the time I hadn't thought much of it. I used it against her, no doubt about it. I taunted her all the time, without ever letting it slip officially that I knew just because it was fun. It wasn't that big of a deal. It was a game. I played with her feelings because it made me feel better. So she had a little girl crush. So what? Don't we all, to some extent, have one of those at some point in our lives?

I thought she'd gotten over it. I had never, ever imagined that it could be more than just a little crush. She loved me. She was in love with me. I can only imagine how agonizing that must have been for her. Poor girl.

I sit down on the floor, ignoring the voice in my head reminding me how dirty it is. I don't care about germs anymore, obviously. Maybe I'll get sick and I can go apologize to Tori in person for how much I tortured her.

I don't feel right. I haven't felt right in so long. I'm not me right now. I'm not supposed to feel this bad for this long. I should be over it. So she used to be my best friend and now she's dead. So what? People die all the time in the most boring ways. We move on.

Why

can't

I?

I feel my phone in my back pocket and yank it out, running my finger over the power button before pressing it. The voicemail I'd been unable to listen to the last time I was here has come to mind and now I'm curious. I want to know what she said, so I open my voicemail inbox, type in my password, and set the phone down on the floor a couple feet in front of me, pushing the speaker button before closing my eyes.

"Jade…" Her voice echoes through the bathroom. There's a long pause after that, but I can tell just from that one word that she was upset when she left me this message.

"I was hoping you'd answer your phone. I don't want to tell you this in a voicemail, but I guess I don't have a choice." She pauses again, and then she starts crying. "I'm sorry." She repeatedly apologizes for crying, her voice getting softer each time. "I just… I miss you a lot. And I…well… My heart is beating so fast right now. I'm so scared to tell you this. I'm afraid you'll be mad at me or disgusted or… I just… It's now or never, right? If something happens, I want you to know that…that I love you." There's another pause in the message, and just then the door of the handicap stall creaks open. My heart jumps into my throat and I launch myself at my phone, but before my finger can find the end button, Cat sits down next to me.

"You can keep listening." Her tiny little voice is distorted by the tears running down her face. She wipes her eyes and tries to smile, but it doesn't look right.

"And I don't mean that in a…a "you're my best friend and I love you" kind of way, although that's true too… That's still true." Cat rests her head on my shoulder and grabs a hold of my arm. She's like a sad little child and that slight maternal instinct inside me urges me to comfort her in some way, so I let go of my phone and grab her hand, awkwardly squeezing it.

"I just love you, Jade. I do. I love you so much, and it hurts sometimes. I don't know…why now? I guess maybe it's been a long time. A really long time, actually. I worked so hard to make you my friend and then I just...this happened. Something happened and I quit feeling the way that I used to feel...the way I always felt...and now I guess I screwed that up. Here I am, telling you through a voicemail message that I love you, like I really expect that to change anything…like you'd love me back or something. I just don't…I don't…"

Another moment of silence. Cat rubs my arm with the hand I'm not holding.

"I shouldn't have called you. This was stupid. I just messed up. I'm so sorry. I just really screwed things up, I… Just call me. No, actually, don't call me. I don't…" Her voice cracks and her desperation shows even in this recording. "No, please, call me. Call me. Please, please call me. Please." The message ends and my phone starts to move on to the next one in my inbox. I reach out and hit the end button before turning to Cat. She gives me a weak little smile and awkwardly pats me on the back.

"You knew." I accuse her. Something in her face suggests Andre wasn't the only one who knew that Tori was in love with me.

"Knew what?" She asks, avoiding eye contact.

"You knew how Tori felt about me!" She cringes at the sound of my shouting.

"You didn't?" Rather than look at her, I pull myself off the ground and stare into the mirror once again. I take my bag from its place on the floor and pull the strap over my shoulder before I say another word.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"She told me not to."

"Oh, and you could actually keep that secret?" I snap at her, suddenly reminded of all the times I told her to keep something to herself and she couldn't. She starts crying again and I feel bad for the three-hundredth time this week.

"I'm sorry." She whimpers, stands there for a second staring at me, waiting for me to say something, and then runs out of the bathroom when I don't.

What do I do now? I'm so conflicted. My brain hurts. My eyes hurt from trying to hold in tears. I know I would have cried if Cat hadn't been there. Somehow Tori's voicemail was less heartbreaking with somebody there with me.

What was that about anyway? I want to know so badly what would have prompted her to call me at 11:30 on a Thursday night like that. Why was she so upset? Why was she so afraid of me? Am I really that intimidating?

Okay, so I am that intimidating.

The timing of that phone call is the most painful. It's almost like she knew when she called me that she was going to get t-boned by a semi three hours later on her way back from Santa Barbara.

She dropped a bomb on me and then she died. She told me she loved me and she begged me to call her and I didn't, and I can't now.

Why did I listen to that message? What did I think I was going to get out of that? Now I'm even more miserable and I don't want to go to class, but I have to. I skipped a whole week. I have to go back. I have no reason to be so upset, so…traumatized. What was she to me? A friend? I suppose. Not that our friendship had really lasted. Why do I still care? Everybody else is moving on and I'm just here…not moving…not feeling any better whatsoever. I feel like crap. Absolute crap. Because I am crap, because I treated her like she was crap and now I regret it but it's too late.

What do I do now? What did I do before? I can hardly remember my life before Tori.

I don't remember life before I was angry and depressed. I've been unhappy for a very long time. It's just a lot worse now.