Day Three; Morning

She had learned from her (biological) mother that: patience, endurance and survival counted for far more than dominance, determination, power or wisdom. Yet she could not bring herself to follow her example to watch and catalog the countless aspects of the world around her (principally, the people around her, their behaviors and motivations, etc) or settle this awareness into herself without voicing it. If she did, this would lead many to underestimate her and how then, would she be able to become successful in the show business? Being brought down or thought littly of others was not her aim and nor her desire.

Jade West did have the endurance to survive, and now, being stranded on this island acted as a key point to prove herself worthy of doing so. But what she had even more was everything that her mother had said counted less and an even greater amount of impatience than she would like to credit herself for. She may have had all the contributing factors to keep herself alive and well until any source of rescue squad came, but she didn't have the motivation to be lazily sitting around and doing nothing, which is exactly what Vega had led the gang into doing.

Of course she truly believed that she had the determination and the correct amount of endurance to be the group leader rather than the perfectionist Latina that had only been in Hollywood Arts for a month, but she strongly doubted that she could hold the position for however long it took for a search party to come. She wasn't calm enough too deal with seven more people, let alone three people she could completely and entirely care less about. And when she thought about it, it all broke down to one key factor her mother had belittled and prodded her about before her parent's divorce.

Patience.

Evidently, something Jade did not have much of.

Looking now, out into the vast and deep blue ocean before her, ankle deep with the water and her feet buried in the sand, Jade wasn't sure what to think of the proposition her mother had taught her so long ago. She was stuck rooted in between counted more and what counted less, having some factors from each side somewhere deep within her. And she supposed that it was because of her father that she was far more dominant and had a knacking for power and superiority above all others, rather than what her mother had attempted to drill into her brain. Or perhaps it was because the last time she had seen her mother was when she was eleven years old and hasn't spoke to her once six years later.

But she did find, that she had enough patience for at least three people in her entire life time – the same three people that made her "Loved" list, rather than the "Tolerable" or "Hated" ones. There was no question that Beck was on that list; though she was never one for sappy love stories or romance, she loved him. Her jealousy toward him whenever he was with another girl or much less Vega, was only her way of showing that she was afraid to lose him to someone else he might deem better than her, and whenever the two have a heated argument and break up, she finds she can't live properly without him, and she's not the same Jade everyone knows. Cat's on that list too, right after her boyfriend of two years. She had known the little Russian ditz since she was little, and she had always felt that she was a lioness protecting her cub whenever it came down to bullying or family problems or whenever she was upset, though she herself did have her sarcastic moments around her.

Her step brother, Brent, was also on that list only for the fact that he was the closest thing she has ever had to family in so many years. Otherwise, she would have deemed him just a tolerable as the ones on her other list.

The gentle wind caressed her reddening skin as it passed and supplied her with a relieving, though temporary, temperature for just a moment in the hot spring, afternoon sun. Sand covered each foot as the ocean's salty and thoroughly disgusting (to her, rather. She wasn't a big fan of salt water, or any water with living things inside of it; in exception to sharks), water lapped at her ankles from the boisterous tide. Although it was sunny, anyone could plainly see that there was a storm coming – the waves were becoming bigger and more frequent, and seemingly miles away from the "not-so-deserted-island-anymore" was a large curtain of ashen gray clouds looming overhead. Jade scoffed at the inanimate tiffs of water, knowing fully well that another rain storm was in store for them very soon.

"You enjoying the oceanfront view?"

Jade did not have to look over to see who it was, but as if her brain was reaction upon instinct she had anyway. Standing to the right of her, Beck stood with his hands in his jean pockets and red plaid over shirt flapping lightly in the frequent breeze. "Aren't you supposed to be with Shapiro, looking for some more stupid fruit?" She asked him bluntly, letting her gaze linger on her boyfriends handsome face for another moment before averting it back to the clouds.

"He and Trina disappeared somewhere, so I came here to ask if you wanted to come with." He shrugged, unconsciously allowing for his hand to slip into her left back pocket as he moved so they were shoulder to shoulder. She did not protest.

"Mm, two untalented losers prancing off together. Why am I not surprised?" Jade retorted sarcastically, attempting to ignore those damned butterflies fluttering within her abdomen and the chills up her spine she got whenever Beck touched her or whenever she was even near him, no matter how romantic that sounded.

"Rob's not that untalented" Beck commented with a half grin and a light chuckle. "He's a ventriloquist...and he's not so bad at the guitar I guess."

"Yeah he's still a loser, he carries around whatever the hell Rex is all day long and he's sixteen." She snorted and rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest and consciously leaning into his side.

"So you want to come with? I was just about to leave, Dre says we're running out of bananas."

"Whatever."

There was never any major atrocities in Jade's life, no wow moments, no pity...nothing people cared for. Of course being eleven years old she was incredibly grateful for it, bur she couldn't ignore the fact that she wanted some type of attention from someone other than her own mother. Whether it be negative or positive, whatever the consequence, she wanted to be noticed. She wanted people to think that acting was her forte and support her, rather than hate her and degrade her like her father. She had her life ahead of her though, she was still so young, which meant that she had plenty of time to achieve her dream – and she was determined to make it happen.

Jade's dream was, when she was older, to become a talented actress, win grammy awards, star in movies, sing, all of it. But for now, as a young girl, her dream was to audition for the preforming arts school in her home town, called Hollywood Arts, when she graduated Intermediate school in three years. Her mother, who supported her every role in her elementary school plays, smiled at her and told her to reach for her desires. Her father? He told her her dreams were stupid, and when she was older she was to enroll in a private school that taught Law Enforcement as an elective and she was going to live up to the family name until she married and had children. She told him it was stupid and dumb once, and he struck her across the face.

Sighing, she lay beneath the comforters of her bed with her head stuck under two of her pillows, attempting to block out the sound of her parents screaming at one another. It happened often, so many times that she couldn't count on either of her fingers, but little Jade was steadily growing used to it. They would fight, ignore each other, and then make up. That was the way it always went, and she doubted that wasn't going to happen again this time.

"Dammit Ann!" Mr. West shouted, accompanied by a loud crash and splinter of wood, to which she automatically assumed was his fist against the table. "I can get another job wherever and whenever the hell I want to! You work at the pharmacy, you can hold us up until then!"

"The world doesn't work like that Michael! You have a family to take care of! You have a daughter!"

"She's NOT my daughter. No child of mine has an interest in writing plays or starring in movies when they have a perfectly good future ahead of them in law!"

This didn't affect Jade as much as it should have; she's heard it so many times before that it was beginning to sound like a broken record playing in her mind, degrading her whenever she did something right, or whenever something went the way she wanted it to go. She had, in the past, determinedly avoided thinking of something and with the help of Cat Valentine (whom she was planning on auditioning to Hollywood Arts with), her one and only friend since age 9, she kept slightly optimisitc thoughts. It had gotten harder and harder throughout the years however, when her father mentioned to a fellow employee that he never had a child, and with the mind of someone much older than what she really was she began to get almost as pessimistic as him. And that disgusted her.

But try as she might she did not have a single fiber in her being to change that. She was just a kid and hadn't even reached the age of twelve yet; shouldn't she be out with friends, having a wonderful time and enjoying life while it lasted? Yes. Should she be sitting in her room, listening to her parents argue because her dad lost his job again, wishing that she lived another life? No. Then why was she? Because she was Jadelyn West, and life never came easy for her since the day she told her dad "I wanna be an actress daddy! And a singer!"

Life ended that day for her. And she was only six years old.

Picking at the peeling black paint on her finger nail Jade walked alongside Beck to the woodland after slipping on a pair of converse sneakers she had packed just in case she would need it for Tahiti. The campsite was almost completely deserted – according to Andre and Vega, who were both sitting at the fire, Cat and Brent head off into the forest earlier and were due back soon, and like Beck had said Robbie and Vega senior were no where to be found, leaving just the other two by their lonesome. She smirked sinisterly as she passed by them but even after she had she remained unsure if they even saw it at all.

Her smirk quickly turned into a well placed and familiar scowl as she stepped into the groups of trees that made up the vast forest, quietly following into a nice step beside her boyfriend, unfamiliar with the path they were walking. Out of the three days she had been here (three days, two nights and six hours to be exact, but she wasn't counting) she had not once stepped from the beaches shelter – she didn't necessarily like the idea of walking around the forest like a monkey looking for bananas.

Apparently, now she was.

"Right down this path should be the trees me and Dre saw yesterday" Beck said some minutes after as he wiped his brow with his sleeve, pointing onward. "So stick with me so you don't get lost, 'kay?"

"I'm not a lost puppy, Beckett. I can take care of myself, and how hard is it to find my way back to the beach if I lose you? We're not even twenty minutes in." Jade snapped with a roll of her eyes, swatting violently at a branch caught before her.

"Look around you." He chuckled as he halted, making her slam right into his sweaty back. She grunted and stumbled back with a growl, nonetheless obediantely looking around herself. There was not a single speck of the ocean in sight anymore and instead surrounding her, were vines, trees and well...more trees. With a huff she tightly wrapped her arms around herself, determinedly avoiding his gaze and instead turning her back to him, giving him the cold shoulder.

"Well this scenery is disgusting and I'm hungry, so let's go. As in walk on." She growled through clenched teeth, her fingernails digging into her palms.

"Tell me which ways the shore first, and then we'll go." Beck asked her with that crooked grin he knew quite well she couldn't resist. She assumed he was using it to get through to her.

"That way."

"Nope."

"NO?"

"No, you pointed to the east. The way back is south, you were just a little bit off." He chuckled humorously, eyebrows raised.

Face contorted in anger, Jade scoffed and crossed her arms tightly over her chest, her fingers gripping the reddening skin of her upper arm tightly and digging her nails into it. "Are you correcting me?"

Her boyfriend of a steady two years and four months grabbed her hand and tugged her forward once again. "Yup."

Okay, so there's chapter five (day three) part one. The second part to it will be coming shortly, maybe later on today or tomorrow. I'll have at least two chapters up by the end of Saturday, hopefully, since my birthday is Sunday and I want o have a couple more chapters up before the second week of school. There's not much to this chapter...but I promise there is going to be something surprising (I mean, kind of surprising), in the next chapter.

Don't forget to review when you favorite(: