Title: Who Knew
Chapter Five: The West Residence
Summary: When Tori Vega stopped talking to her long time best friend Jade West she never expected the heart break she felt, and now that she's found her again she wont let her go.
Rated: T for now, but possibly M later on. I'm not sure.
Disclaimer: I don't own Victorious, unfortunately.
Jade, true to her word, was waiting downstairs next to her white ford truck. She was just shoving the phone into her pocket when I pulled the door shut behind me, already having said my goodbyes to my mom and dad.
"Ready, Vega?" I nodded, walking over to the passenger door as she stepped up to the driver's door. We both hopped in, an awkward silence descending on the car. I chewed on my lip and tapped my fingers on my leg randomly, noticing how Jade's tapped in a pattern on the steering wheel at a red light.
Thumb, first finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky, ring finger, middle finger, first finger thumb. Over and over, if she double tapped her middle finger she'd double tap on her ring pinky, and backwards, tapping only once on the middle on her way back, and then switched back to one tap.
As she drove I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her other hand gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. She was so worked up, her eyes glared out the window angrily.
I wanted to say something, I really did, but I just had no clue what to say or do to start a conversation. I let out a long sigh and slouched against the seat as we turned into a McDonalds parking lot, "what do you want?" Jade mumbled.
"Double Cheese burger, large fry and a sweet tea." I mumbled, leaning down and reaching for my bag.
"I'll pay." Jade told me, placing our order soon after. Once we had the food in the car and paid for Jade sped up, racing toward what I knew was the richer part of town. As we moved on further the houses got bigger and bigger.
Before I knew it we were in front of a large mansion, three rather expensive looking cars were parked in the driveway, and Jade rolled right up into the garage, "my dad hates when my truck sits out front. He doesn't want our neighbors seeing it." She mumbled.
"He sounds charming as ever." I muttered, slipping out of the car and following her into the house. The garage led into a utility room that opened to a large kitchen full of steel silver appliances and gray marble counters, with dark wooden cuppoards.
Jade quickly walked out of the large kitchen, through the cathedral like entry way and up a long staircase that looked like the staircase from What A Girl Wants. I followed her up the stairs, worried that my shoes would get the clean white carpet dirty. Mean while Jade's boots were leaving dirt prints as she stomped up the stairs.
"Tyler!" she hollered, heading to her left and moving swiftly down a hallway to a solid red door with a sign declaring 'Tyler's Room' taped on it. Jade knocked twice and then shoved the door open.
Tyler was on his floor playing with legos, when the door open his head snapped up and his unruly brown hair flew around his head, his large green eyes widened as a smile erupted across his face and he launched himself at his sister.
"Jade!" he yelped, talking a mile a minute as his sister put him down, "hi Tori!" he managed to say with a wave before continuing on as we sat down at a small red table to eat our food.
After about an hour Tyler crawled into his bed and Jade dragged me away from his room, back across the house to the right side of the staircase and to a door with dark purple paint on it, "what your step. It's dark." She mumbled, pushing the door open.
It was dark, but I could see she was leading me down a staircase. It was a long winding one, longer then the one we walked up to get here, so I assumed we were going down to the basement or something or other.
Finally I felt myself step off the staircase and heard Jade fumbling around on the other side of the room, and then it was bathed in multicolored lights, "my bedroom light must've burnt out. This is the best I can do." She explained.
"It's fine."
"The bathrooms through that door." She pointed next to the staircase, "and there's a mini-fridge and a water cooler back there. I'm going to shower." She walked through a third door on the other side of her bed, coming out a few minutes later with some clothes, and then she disappeared into her bathroom.
I set my bag down near the foot of her unmade bed. Her comforter was half on half off of her bed, her pillows were tossed about and her sheets were rolled into a ball in the center of her bed.
Her headboard seemed to be painted black, bits were chipped and I could see light brown wood beneath it. The mirror I remembered being there was painted over with purple. There was a small jewelry box, and old water bottle, and three really old glass coke bottles in a row.
She had wallpaper on her left wall beside a large chair with her laptop on it. There were two shelves stacked with strange things. Preserved fish, other strange things I didn't recognize, something that looked like a small pig, and some things I just didn't want to look at. Beside that hanging on her wall were pinned butterflies, all sorts of different ones. Below that was her desk, covered with books, makeup, a small mirror, CD's and her pearpod.
The wall beneath the staircase, which was also lined with string lights, had three bookcases covering it, filled with books, pictures, figurines and other random knickknacks. My eyes drag across the pictures.
The only picture Jade has from the past is the one Beck was talking about. I glanced at the door. The shower was still running, so I gently picked up the frame. Everything else on the shelf, I noticed, had dust on it. So did the frame, but there was a hand print on the left side, where I was in the picture. It was completely clean over my face, where the small thumb of the hand would have been.
In the picture Jade and I were laying on our stomachs on my bed, our legs kicked up and tangled together, behind us while we hung half off the bed. I had my arms wrapped around Jade so I wouldn't fall and she had her arms wrapped around my middle, the pair of us were laughing like crazy.
I remembered that day vividly.
We had been stuck in the house all afternoon watching movies with my mom and then we were upstairs hanging out in my room with my mom talking about how we were going to decorate and Jade and I almost flipped off the bed, mom picked up my camera in a flash and took a picture.
The picture was taking the same day Jade and I first kissed.
August 31st.
Jade had kissed a boy 3 weeks before, Jeremy Stevens, and I flipped out. I wouldn't talk to her, until she finally chased after me, dragged me into a janitors closet and pinned me up against a wall, "what's your problem Tor?"
"N-nothing." I managed to stutter. The only other thing I could hear was the roaring sound of my heart hammering in my chest. Jade was watching me closely, her eyes scanning across my face, meanwhile all I could managed to do was watch the way her lips moved as she spoke.
"Tor, what's going on? Why won't you talk to me?" Jade demanded again, pushing hard on my shoulder, "is this about Jeremy? Do you like him too?"
"N-no." I replied, looking down at my shoes, but instead I found myself staring at the way her jeans clung to her long legs, hugging the curve of her hips so nicely.
"Then what's your problem?" she screamed.
"I like you!" I screamed back, my jaw dropped open and my heart skidded to a stop. Her eyes widened slightly and her mouth hung slightly open. I had no clue what she was thinking, and I had no clue what I was thinking.
And then she closed the distance between us, her body pressed close to mine, and then her lips pressed against mine. I was startled; I had no clue what to do. I couldn't process anything.
All my brain knew was that Jade's soft body was pressed against mine, her hand was on my hip and her soft, moist lips were pressed against mine. Slowly my eyes slid shut, Jade started to pull away, lingering inches from me, I moved and pressed my lips to hers, my arms winding around her neck.
"Vega?" I nearly jumped a mile when Jade called my name, from a few inches behind me. Her hand wrapped around my side and folded around the frame, her thumb landing over my face, brushing my thumb that was on her face. She was directly behind me, I could feel the heat from her rolling against my body.
She tugged the frame gently from my limp fingers and leaned forward, placing the frame back in its spot on the shelf, her front pressed against my back. "sorry…" I muttered uselessly.
"It's okay To-Vega." Jade quickly corrected, "I was just going to tell you that the showers all yours if you want it, but you were spaced out."
She didn't step back and her hot breath curled down my neck, I suddenly wished I'd left my hair down; the memory of Jade's teeth roughly biting my neck in the bathroom at school was still fresh in my mind. The hickey was still visible on my neck.
"Jade, I'm going to go change." I said suddenly, feeling an awkward twist in my stomach as I finally walked away from her, picking up my bag. Jade was standing there behind me, her hand raised near where my ponytail would have been. I could see her in the reflection of the mirror.
With a long sigh I closed the door, submerging myself in the steam filled bathroom, walking toward the toilet to sit, but instead my knees buckled and I fell to the floor, hot tears streaming down my face.
This just sucks. Being so close to Jade. Spending today with her felt like we were still in middle school, still best friends. Still us. There were so many times that I just wanted to turn around and kiss her, to shove her against the wall.
I knew that it would only end in her rejecting, hurting and or humiliating me and kill any chance of me being able to be any part of Jade's life again. I knew that it was logical to just stop thinking about Jade like this, it would be the right thing to do. But I just couldn't.
Jade was my first everything, my first best friend, my first kiss, my first love, my first betrayal, my first heart break. She was with me for my first roller coaster ride, she taught me to ice skate, sang with me during my first stage performance.
I just couldn't not love her.
I giant sob busted through my other wise silent lips and I bit my knee to keep from screaming in annoyance. I was so focused on choking back my tears that I didn't hear the door open, "Vega, what the hell are you doing?"
"I stubbed my toe." I answered instantly picking my head up to look at Jade. My eyes slowly traveled up her long pale legs, past the short shorts, over her the two inches of her flat stomach, up past the swell of her breasts and finally met her gaze.
"You're such a fucking liar." Jade replied, "hurry up and get dressed, I've got a movie on." She spun on her heel and marched back out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut forcefully behind her.
I was thankful all she did was call me out on lying. She'd kill me if she knew why I was upset. I wish I could be as detached about this as she could, she hardly even twitched when she saw me that first day, while I mentally shut down.
"Vega!" Jade screamed.
"I'm getting dressed, West!" I screamed back, getting to my feet I grabbed my bag, pulled out the pajama's I'd shoved into it and switched the clothes I was wearing. I pulled my hair out of the ponytail it was in and ran my fingers through it.
I scooped up my bag, pulled open the door and flicked the light off before stepping into Jade's room, "took you long enough. Pull that chair over." She gestured to the chair her laptop was in. I tossed my bag at the foot of her bed and slowly started dragging the heavy chair over to her bed.
"Gimme my laptop." She demanded, I did as she asked, she took it from me and set it on the other side of her bed, rolling back over and pushing my stomach so I flopped back into the chair, "we're watching Burlesque."
"Fine." I mumbled absently, happy for anything to pull my mind away from Jade. I pulled my legs up and curled up in the chair, watching as her whole wall turned blue. Her TV was a huge projector.
Slowly the screen came to life and I found myself absently watching Christina Aguilera move around on the screen. I wasn't really pay attention until she walked into the club, I'd seen the movie before, and this was always one of my favorite parts.
"Hunny, I should wash your mouth out with jagermeister. The only pole you'll find in here is Natasha the shot girl." The doorman, Jade, and I recited together. My eyes flicked to Jade after I said it, but she was watching the screen, waiting for Cher's appearance.
By the middle of the movie the pair of us were singing along and dancing together. Obviously the things that didn't change about us were our similar tastes in movies. After the movie ended Jade rolled out of her bed.
"I'm going to go check on Tyler I'll be right back." She told me, before she started up the stairs, "find us a movie to watch!" and then she was gone. I looked around until I spotted the DVD's. I rolled out of her bed and flipped through them until I found Step Up 3.
I found her DVD player and changed the DVD's out, I was flopping back down on her bed when she finally waltzed downstairs, a box of Famous Amos cookie's in her hand and a suggestive smirk on her face, "want a cookie?"
"I think I do." I replied, dropping down and bouncing off of her bed, meeting her at the foot of her steps, I stuck my hand in the box and popped a cookie into my mouth, spinning around and dropping into her chair as the movie started, "come on West. More dance movies! Let's go!"
The movie started and I watched it with rapt attention, "I wish I could do that dance." I mumbled, mostly to myself watching Luke and Natalie dancing at the party. Jade raised an eyebrow at me and then rolled off her bed, "what are you doing?"
"Teaching you the dance." She replied, holding out her hand, I took it and she jerked me up out of the chair, "follow my instructions." She demanded, I obeyed and she taught me the whole dance. Of course, that wasn't helping my feelings toward Jade decrease any, but I didn't care.
"Alright Vega, time for bed." Jade finally told me, stepping up on her bed to turn of the projector and DVD player. I was watching the way she moved, slinking around like a cat as she moved. And then she miss stepped, and tumbled off the edge of her bed.
I reached out and grabbed her around the waist, she fell back against me and we tumbled into the armchair, Jade fully in my lap, her head on my shoulder, "thanks." She whispered.
"Anytime." I replied, smirking at her. We stayed like that for a little bit longer before Jade finally got out of her chair and pulled me up with her, "what.."
"I'm not going to make you sleep in a chair." She replied, "I think we're mature enough to share abed for a few hours." She grabbed a pillow and tossed it to me before crawling into her bed. I sighed and crawled in behind her, curling up around the pillow she'd tossed at me.
I woke up early once again, this time to a noise I couldn't even begin to figure out. After a few more minutes of listening to the strange noise I got up, pulled on the pajama shorts I'd kicked off last night and then walked upstairs, checking my text messages.
As I opened Jade's door I heard another door open and almost walked right into a woman who I assumed was Jade's stepmother, "great, she's home and she brought one of those trouble making girls with her." The woman said as soon as she spotted me.
She was an angry looking woman with pin-straight blonde hair with a blunt cut that stopped just under her chin. Her eyes were icy blue and her gaze was something that might've made my skin crawl if I hadn't had this treatment before.
"Hey Tori!" a young voice called from downstairs, I peered over the banister, Tyler was grinning up at me, "can you come help me with breakfast?"
"Sure thing kiddo!" I called, brushing past the woman and walking quickly down the steps as fast as I could. He led me into the kitchen and told me he wanted to make eggs and bacon, but he couldn't reach everything.
I helped him get the things he'd need down and supervised his cooking, "David! You're trouble making little brat brought another girl home! You need to do something about her!" I heard the woman complaining. Her voice was getting closer, so she must've been coming toward the kitchen.
I rolled my eyes, was Jade really that bad?
Jade's father stepped into the kitchen a few seconds later. He was in a dark blue suit with a white button up shirt underneath and a plain black tie. His light hair was brushed back perfectly and he looked grumpy.
His eyes flicked over me and then a frown made it's onto his face, "Tyler, did you cook this?" he shrunk away.
"Sorry, I didn't know any better. I was really hungry when I woke up." I told her father; Tyler glanced up at me with a small smile on his face. Mister West gave me a look, glanced at Tyler and then sighed, walking out of the house with a brief case.
The new Miss West was still glaring at Tyler and me, her arms crossed over her flat chest, her ugly manicured nails digging into her arm. She reminded me a lot of Camille, Jade's first stepmother.
"That looks never going to work on anybody. You look like you just crapped your pants." I told her, spinning on my heel to watch Tyler fixing his eggs. The woman growled in annoyance.
"Your father doesn't like you cooking." The woman stormed around the counter toward Tyler, I stepped between them and took the spatula helping Tyler cook. I decided I really didn't like his new stepmother, and I actually was hungry.
She let with a huff, stamping her feet the whole way. "How old is she, five?" I muttered to myself. Tyler chuckled beside me as I scooped the eggs out onto three plates beside some bacon.
"Can we go eat down in Jade's room?" Tyler asked hopefully.
"Do you think she'd mind?" he shrugs and picks up two plates, heading straight for the stairs. I follow him with the third plate, silently pulling open the door to her room for him as he hopped down the stairs.
"Jade!" he called about half way down the steps.
"What?" she called back.
"Breakfast!" he replied, I watched him hit the last step and hand her a plate; dropping into the chair I'd been in last night. Jade was sitting on her bed beside the chair, so I sat on the other side of her bed while Tyler flipped on the TV to watch Adventure Time.
Half-way through breakfast Sikowitz did his check in and reminded us we needed to be dressed as each other the next day. Jade scowled at the phone as she hung up while Tyler and I were unable to keep in our laughter.
"Tori, you're going to pick Jade's outfit and Jade, you'll pick Tori's and such. The best pair gets extra credit." Jade's scowl depended and my mind instantly started to piece together Jade's outfit, laugh still tumbling out of me as I clutched my stomach trying to calm down.
"Don't kill each other. Bye!" Sikowitz said before hanging up. With a scowl Jade gave me a hard shove off of the edge of her bed. I slammed to the floor dead center on my tailbone. I bit back a swear word and pulled myself off the floor.
"Tyler!" I heard the stepmonster call upstairs. Tyler groaned, "great, she's dragging me to piano practice." He frowned as he stood up, hugging Jade and waving goodbye to me as he went upstairs.
"Time to figure out what you'll be wearing." I sighed and watched Jade get up off of her bed, "we're going to meet everyone at the mall to buy our outfits for the day, hurry up and get dressed." Then she disappeared into her closet.
I picked up my bag and locked myself in her bathroom, taking care of my business, changing, washing my face and pulling my hair back a little bit away from my face for lack of anything better to do with it.
When I stepped out Jade was shoving her foot into her boot, phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, she hadn't heard me open the door, "I know that, but you said until I was ready. I'm not ready." Jade was saying, she sounded terrified. Not wanting her to claim I was eaves dropping, I pulled the door shut behind me loudly, pretending to be busy looking in my bag for something.
"Ready to go?"
"Yep." I replied, swaying back and forth on my feet. She picked up her shoulder bag, dug around for her keys and pushed me up the stairs, down the hallway, down the other stairs, through the kitchen and out the garage, only stopping to lock the front door.
"Get in!" she growled, slamming the door open from inside the car. I winced when the door slammed into my kneecap, my eyes narrowing at her in anger as I hopped into the passenger seat, pulling my door shut as Jade sped backwards out of the garage.
"Good god Jade!" I squeaked when she spun the tires at the end of the driveway. For some reason she was right back to being the bitchy, rude, sarcastic Jade in a split second, tossing insults at me every time I started to say something.
Jade pulled up and parked two spaces down from Beck's truck where everyone was gathered, as soon as the car stopped I threw myself out and slammed her door shut as hard as I could, stalking across the space between me and everyone else, putting a big distance between Jade and I, hurt and anger swimming in my stomach.
"Tori?" Cat called, "are you okay?" I glanced Cat's way and gave her a short nod. Cat stepped over and gave me a short hug before backing away. Andre comes to stand beside me to tell me about Robbie's strangeness while Robbie was arguing with Rex for flirting with Cat(something she didn't like) and Beck was talking to Jade.
"So how was your weekend with Beck?" I asked Cat, she perked up and then bounced over next to me, babbling rapidly about her weekend with Beck and seeing some fish tank. Robbie and Rex both complained that she was standing beside me.
"Cat!" Beck suddenly called, she leaned forward to peer around me, I turned my head toward Beck as well, Jade was glaring angrily in our direction while Beck had his phone pressed to his ear. Cat gripped my hand and dragged me with her across the lot.
She took Beck's phone and pressed it to her ear, "Hi Sikowitz!" she chirped into the phone, cocking her head to the side at his reply, "yeah, but why not? So? I wear dresses all the time!" a pout pulled across her face, "fine. Sikowitz says I can't pick out a dress, or heels, for Beck."
She handed Beck his phone and frowned, Jade snorted and made a strange sound like a growl in the back of her throat, which was when I realized Cat still had my hand, and Jade was glaring at our intertwined fingers.
"Come on, let's get shopping quick. I have a feeling this is going to take a long time." Beck says, putting his arm around Jade's shoulder, Cat shrugs and spins, running toward the group, pulling me off with her.
"Cat, are you going to let go of my hand?" I asked, she glanced down at our hands and made a weird noise, gripping mine tighter, "Cat…"
"Shh, I have a plan. Just help me with it, please." She said vaguely. I had no clue what she meant, but with her vice like grip I wasn't getting my hand back anytime soon. We went into at least 6 stores before Cat released my hand to go try on her 'Beck' outfit.
The second she was back in her bright pink top and matching pink plaid skirt she twined her fingers through mine, I didn't really care by that point though, because Cat bounced ahead of the group and Jade and her grumpy attitude were at the back of the group.
After finding everyone's outfits for tomorrow we ate lunch and then split up, landing me back at Jade's mansion with the grumpy wench or Wenchotamia. We sat in dead silence until around 11:30 when I giggle at a text message from Andre.
"Would you quit being so fucking loud Vega?" Jade hissed, "your girlfriend cant be that funny."
"What the hell are you talking about?" I growled.
"You know what I'm talking about Vega." She snapped.
"No, West, I don't. I don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about!" I hollered back, getting to my feet, "so why don't you enlighten me?"
"You and your new girl friend, Cat. You've been all over each other all day. It's disgusting!" Jade yelled, tossing her phone across the room, I wasn't sure why or what purpose it served, but then she screamed in frustration.
"Like you and Beck aren't always all over each other everyday? Do I complain about it? What business of yours is it whose hand I'm holding or whose texts I'm laughing at!" I grab my bags off of the ground, push my phone in my pocket and narrow my eyes at her before spinning and running up the stairs. As I ran out I bumped into Mister West and tumbled to the ground.
"Damn it." I hissed under my breath, "I'm sorry Dave. Er I mean Mister West." I quickly amended, stuffing the few items that had tumbled out of my bag back into them.
"Tori?" he asked as I straightened, "I thought I recognized you this morning, are you alright?"
"Yeah, fine. I need to get home." I replied.
"Is your car outside?" he asks.
"No. I'm going to walk." And then I spin and throw myself down the stairs as fast as I can, bursting out the front door and into the middle of a huge thunderstorm. As the thunder claps through the air a scream rips from my throat, I start running toward my house, rain pouring down on my head. Anything to put me far away from Jade.
I didn't even begin to realize how long my run through the rain would last and it was nearly 12:40 by the time I got to my front door. I was soaked to the bone, tears were mingling with the rain drops on my face and I couldn't tell if my body was shaking from the cold or my crying, but I didn't care at that point because I was still mad.
Whether it was anger toward Cat or Jade I couldn't figure out, but when Trina came downstairs and bitched at me for coming home late and disrupting her beauty sleep I couldn't help but slap her across the face.