June 19th, 2010
"Добро пожаловать в дом Валентина!" (Welcome to the Valentine home!)
"Cat, you've got to be kidding me right now."
Sixteen year old (soon-to-be-Junior) Jade West found herself standing precedent a large entrance hall that appeared to have belonged to one of the richest families in all of Russia, where evidently, the two girls had traveled to for the remainder of their semester break. Truthfully, with the way her friend had blabbered on about the place, she was expecting some run down, rickety building with cows and sheep, and horses – not a luxurious mansion they had all to themselves. She was beginning to slowly regret not taking Beck along with her, and she was half tempted to call him a plane ride here this very moment.
"This is where you disappear to every summer? I thought –"
"My Uncle does hate my mom. But he's my dad's brother! He said Mouse and I could come here whenever we wanted." Cat explained, cutting her off with a false giggle and an odd gesture of her left hand.
"And we have this entire place to ourselves?" Jade questioned as she took a few steps inside of the voluminous residence, cargo boots slapping lightly against the elegantly designed tile beneath them. She bit the inside of her cheek enviously as she scrutinized her new surroundings; sharp gray eyes glancing all the way from the abundance of plants along the walkway, the elegant sitting room to the bookshelves, the fish aquarium (a large tank and nothing more) and to the stair well. Granted, her house was one of the largest within Los Angeles California, in regards and courtesy of her father's recent job, but she hadn't seen any house like it before – especially since it was well…foreign.
Upon stepping foot in Moscow Russia, where Cat was conceived, born and raised, Jade hadn't a clue how she was going to make out, and how she was going to survive a whole three months here, without a speck of knowledge of the Russian language, culture and most importantly, without Beck. With the small, red haired pixie as her only translator, she supposed she was going to have to live with tenanting in the place of a rightful American among a pit of Russians.
"Да, мы делаем то, что хотите! Стороны, фильмы, все!" The other girl whooped and shimmed lightly, as if she was dancing to music Jade couldn't hear.
The former blinked at her, face marred in confusion as well as a normally placed scowl and raised pierced eyebrow. Her signature look did not come alone, as soon she blurted "yeah, I have no idea what you're saying. Speak English, we're in –"
"Russia! Ha! So I should speak my native language!" Cat giggled and placed a hand over her mouth. "But I said, we can do anything that we want! Parties, watch movies, anything! You name it!"
"Why don't you just live here?" Jade inquired as she dropped her luggage to floor loudly, the handle clattering against the tile.
"What's that supposed to mean!"
"I mean, why do you choose to stay in California when you have a house like this you can live in?" She grumbled, an annoyed and chronic eye roll assisting her habitually afterward.
"Because I legally belong to my mom and my Uncle can't just take me or Mouse in." Cat shrugged and frowned lightly; wide doe brown eyes scoping about what she assumed was familiar territory. "Once you get all settled in whichever room you chose, we can go to the mall or something! They have some really nice stores here, and maybe we can get you something in color! Yeah! That sounds like so much fun!"
"Hey, I know something we can do." Jade's lips twisted mischievously into a sinister smirk down at the smaller girl.
"What?"
"You know those flowers you drew? Matching tattoos - the ones we said we wanted to get on our ankles? Well, let's do it."
…
Day Sixteen; Eleven Days Later
Jade was awakened by an enormous, prodigious clap of thunder, something unlike the storms she had encountered in New Jersey when visiting family. No, this detonation was magnified by a thousand, and she was sitting up from the blanketed floor in the first instant of that awful fulmination. The island leaped again with the titanic impact, and through the cracks of the tent the sky lit up in heterogeneous flashes. The immediate like of storms came naturally to her, whether good or bad, and she reeled back the curtain in which covered their tiny tent, watching the blue-white fire blaze expeditiously across the sky, searing it from horizon to horizon while peals of thunder rattled the earth like blasts from cannons, which she likewise, had never heard or seen.
She wasn't aware of how long the actual rainstorm had proceeded, but it had taken her interminable aghast seconds to realize that it was not even close to the rains she had experienced in her 16 years of living, sometimes misty-soft and sometimes pelting and cold; no, this was s if the seas of the ocean had been dropped upon them in a single, unannounced moment.
Pushing to her feet, the deluge slackening slightly but still coming down hard and fast, Jade scowled and stepped outside, her piercing gray eyes scanning the empty beach. She had been feeling quite lousy that morning, dizzy and nauseous, and had ceased the day and took an early night. However dark the sky might have been, it appeared she only got only exiguous hours of sleep before she had been abruptly awakened. Her companions (including Tori), had been huddled beneath the wing of the fallen plane and some even, sitting inside of it, as if the storm had just started moments ago and they were confined against their will to stay close to the sopping wet camp.
The experiences and the frequency of storms upon the island were not uncommon or entirely unprecedented; by now she was as used to just as she was used to the fact that there was no hope for the octet of them to getting back home. After all, it had been sixteen days since the unpredicted engine falter in which had landed the group stranded, without any source to keep themselves alive and a dead pilot who had succumbed before he was able to utter an ounce of help.
Without conscious volition and despite the abrupt light headedness, Jade allowed for herself, in the continuous explosions of lightening and the boisterous claps of thunder, to stand in the sheeting blood-warm rain, enraptured – letting herself do so without any reason at all, but in a full-bodied, clothed embrace of that liquid immersion.
"Get out from under there, you pansies." She called out to the bystanders huddled beneath and within the plane with a malevolent smirk praising her lips. And sure enough, shortly after her command Beck, in his handsome, insane haired glory, swaggered from his position and out into the down pour – a single hand outstretched to snatch one of her own. Satisfaction wringing at her insides, pleasantly twisting her stomach though with unwelcomed butterflies from his touch, she slid one hand to the back of his neck and brought his sweet lips to her own, in a familiar, hungry kiss no matter their surroundings.
A bittersweet kiss in the rain, romantically sappy like those in the love stories Cat always made her watch, was not Jade's intentions. She was a hormonal teenager with urges and endearment was something she just couldn't help nor resist. And she would have gotten her desired wish should her boyfriend of a pleasant two years had not pulled his forehead away from hers and replaced it with the back of one of his callous, tan hands.
"Jade, babe, you're boiling up." He murmured quietly with a slightly furrowed brow, arms encircling her waist. The rain washed down upon the duo, matting their hair against their heads and their clothes shoddily clutching their skin as the water soaked into the delicate fabric.
"What are you, my doctor?" She replied with a snort and a glower, blinking back the falling, warm liquid from her eyelashes and attempting to go in for a kiss once again, frustrated at his first endeavor to pull away.
"No," Beck chuckled as he removed himself from her grasp, standing a ways back and his eyebrows inconsiderably arched, "but I think you might be getting sick. Maybe you should go lay down again."
Truth be told, Jade admitted to herself begrudgingly, despite the lightheadedness she wasn't feeling well at all. The clashing thunder and the constantly flashing streaks of blue-white lightning was not doing anything to helping her throbbing headache and although the rain might have been considerably warm, Goosebumps had spread along her arms and legs like a wild fire. Her stomach was churning uneasily, nauseous to a degree where it almost made it disturbing to even stand, and the more she thought about it the more she had wanted to sink back to her bed.
"I really think it's best if you lie down, and get in something warm." He repeated when she had given him no answer, a tint of worry clearly shown within his smooth and quiet voice.
"Let me borrow your sweat shirt and sweats and I'll consider" Jade demanded, clenching her eyes shut and reopening them hastily, hoping that when she spoke she wouldn't see her boyfriend staring down at her with two sets of eyes and two mouths and noses – as cool and as interesting as it looked.
All he gave was a simple crooked grin and a nod.
For a quarter of an hour the downpour went on tenaciously; then, but by bit, it had slackened off, though the rain proceeded to fall with a steady meaningfulness very different from the evanescent showers they had experienced over the course of the sixteen days spent upon the wretched island. Moonlight begun to seep through the darkness, through the breaks in the dark, ominous gray clouds. Jade had spent the rest of her time huddled within her boyfriend's oversized crimson hoodie, beneath cover after cover, sweat matting her forehead and her hands pressed to her stomach. She couldn't help but wonder as she pressed her face into the pillow, attempting to get comfortable and rid the nauseous, disgusting sick feeling, if it had been some type of flu.
She had always made sure that her hygiene was well, and just as she had said to Vega that one day before their fateful trip to Venice Beach, getting sick was gross. So she didn't get sick. And she made sure, with all of her being, to do just that; which was evidently, partially the reason at which she had never missed more than one day at school during her entire time of being a student in Hollywood Arts. Now, she was sure that it had been the lack of proper living space and bacteria that made her feel the way she was feeling, and she was slightly envious to the others. Not that she would ever, openly admit that.
Cat, carrying a fresh water bottle, rag and a sliced up mango grouped together in her tiny arms, bumped into the tarp that covered the entrance of her and Beck's hut with her hip, slithering through with ease. "Hey, hey." She chirped silently, lacking the usual, annoying enthusiasm, as she knelt down beside the lump upon the floor that was Jade.
"What." She spat at her through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw, not daring opening her mouth in a quiet fear that she might vomit all over the place. She clenched her eyes shut again, willing for her to go away and strongly welcoming a much needed sleep.
"Beck left me in charge to make sure you were okay while he went to get some more water with Brent." The small redhead explained lightly, fingertips brushing the matted hair from Jade's damp brown away gently. "So, here I am!"
"Great, so now I need a babysitter." She snarled, the throbbing within her temples increasing drastically as she opened her eyes to glower darkly at her closest friend.
"We found a first aid kit in the plane just a little while ago. It has Tylenol if you'd like some…" Cat continued softly, frowning.
"I'd like you to leave, so I could get some sleep."
"Not until you eat or drink something Jadey! I'm worried, so is everyone else. At least give me that. Please?"
Begrudgingly unable to resist that stupid puppy-dog look the small girl was giving her, Jade slowly pushed herself up from her curled position, her hands snatching the sliced up produce and her abdomen flopping uneasily. She hesitated before bringing the fruit to her mouth, and once she had swallowed the tasteless (at least to her) food…
She threw up.
Yeah, this was definitely not the flu.
…
Blah, that one was kind of…meh. But it's late, and I wanted to post this before I headed off to bed. Anyhow, hope you liked it! Jade getting sick was a request from "I'm Right Here 13"
Review!